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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: MickD67 on Saturday 18 March 17 22:27 GMT (UK)
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Hi all, be gentle I'm a newbie. ;)
Does anyone know why your linked tree on Ancestry has to be public in order to get the DNA circles? Is it not possible just to have a linked private tree with an opt in?
TIA
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From reading this
https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/ka215000000TzL6AAK/Exploring-Your-DNA-Circles-1460088593698
I would say the reason is that DNA circles are not just about DNA but the data entered in other peoples trees. It would be a tad unfair to expect Ancestry to tell you about the matches you may have in other peoples trees without them being able to be informed of the matches they have to your tree.
Others may have a better explanation ........
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Just be aware making your tree public does not automatically put you into DNA circles, I don't have a single circle from any of my 3 DNA tests, despite my tree being quite detailed and public.
However, like davidft says, you can't expect the benefits of sharing other peoples research without sharing your own data. I know people have privacy concerns, but you can always create a second striped down tree that you link your results to, to gain the benefits of circles and the matches.
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When I first obtained my DNA matches, I had no circles. After analysing a number of my close matches, I deduced that Evan Jones of Cellan, Carmarthenshire, was the connection, so I placed him in my tree as an "orphan".
The Evan Jones circle appeared and has 13 members.
It probably helped that he was an elder of the Mormon church and lived in Utah😀
Still can't find the connection. Cellan is Jones city🤔
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I find it confusing that when I look at my results I find someone with whom I am supposed to have a close link but their family tree isn't public and so I can't have a loo to see where we might connect. So I send them a message asking them to have a look at my tree and would they be kind enough to allow me to see theirs. I wait and I wait and they don't even bother to reply.
I am not a part of any circles yet even though I would like to be. I'm just so amazed by the fact that so many of the people who have come up in my results seem to live in America. I was not even aware that anyone in my family had emigrated so this must be a whole new line for me to explore if I only knew where to start.
Towdlass
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I wait and I wait and they don't even bother to reply.
Not just Ancestry.
Sadly there are a number of people who have no interest in collaboration. They've seen our trees and have worked out where the link is. It doesn't cross their minds that we might want to know the same thing.
Jane :-)
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Don't give up Towdlass,
At first, we are all disappointed to learn that so few people respond to messages but it's better to accept that this is so and enjoy those moments when a positive response is forthcoming, especially when it leads to a breakthrough or a new branch in the tree.
I am not a part of any circles yet even though I would like to be
For a circle to form two things need to happen:
- You need to have a match with someone.
- Both you and this "someone" have to have the same individual in you trees.
If you suspect that they have someone in their tree who is also likely to be your ancestor too, then add this ancestor to your tree as an "orphan" (i.e. without any connections to other people in your tree).
I'm just so amazed by the fact that so many of the people who have come up in my results seem to live in America
That's simply a matter of the number of people who have taken the test in The United States and Ancestry's origins in the Mormon faith. As more people in the UK and Ireland submit DNA, the proportion of US to non-US matches will reduce.
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For a circle to form two things need to happen:
- You need to have a match with someone.
- Both you and this "someone" have to have the same individual in you trees.
If you suspect that they have someone in their tree who is also likely to be your ancestor too, then add this ancestor to your tree as an "orphan" (i.e. without any connections to other people in your tree).
Even if you have a match in your tree, and a match to a descendent of that individual you may still not get a Circle.....I have a match to a 2nd cousin, and her mother, with both me and my father, and they show up as hints with the correct couple showing as our common ancestor, my fathers test has a match with another known ancestor back another 3 generations, again showing up as a hint. But no circle exists for that common ancestor across 5 DNA test results. Ancestry's response about why not, is that its still beta (and that was only a few weeks ago, when it stopped saying beta on the web pages !!!!)
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Hi rsel, I am in the same situation as you. I have a known 3rd cousin and one 3rd cousin once removed, but no DNA circle.
Cheers, Ade.
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Hi rsel, I am in the same situation as you. I have a known 3rd cousin and one 3rd cousin once removed, but no DNA circle.
Cheers, Ade.
Glad its not just me :-)
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I do have a DNA circle. It seems to be me and one other that have the same 5th great grandfather plus a group of 9 others that all have the same 3rd great grandmother (the grand-daughter of our 5th great grandfather).
I do have my full tree linked.
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I think I cracked the code on getting Ancestry DNA circles created. This is from the Ancestry website:
A DNA Circle will form around an ancestor in your family tree if your tree is public and linked to your DNA test, and if two or more of your DNA matches...
1. are DNA matches to you and to each other at a 2nd cousin level or further out
2. have public family trees attached to their DNA tests; and
3. share a common ancestor (according to their trees).
That means there must be 3 or more people that have the same common ancestor in their tree along with the DNA matches to that ancestor. They must have at least three people with DNA profiles in their trees. When I have been successful in getting DNA cousins to add the branch that contains me and my cousins to their tree, and I add those DNA cousins to my tree, a circle is created. Once in a great while, Ancestry has created a circle when 2 people with DNA profiles are in the tree and the third branch is partially complete. It is rare but it has happened.
By the way, even when the circles are created, it has been limited help. It's a nice idea that I hope gets better.
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This is from the Ancestry website:
A DNA Circle will form around an ancestor in your family tree if your tree is public and linked to your DNA test, and if two or more of your DNA matches...
1. are DNA matches to you and to each other at a 2nd cousin level or further out
2. have public family trees attached to their DNA tests; and
3. share a common ancestor (according to their trees).
That means there must be 3 or more people that have the same common ancestor in their tree along with the DNA matches to that ancestor.
I appreciate this information comes from Ancestry, and it is certainly how I understood DNA Circles worked, but recently I had a new shaky leaf hint appear who turned out to be a 4C1R. The next day two new DNA Circles appeared, one for each of the two common ancestors. There are 4 members of each Circle - but the other two people are not DNA matches to me. They are a pair of siblings who are 4C1R to me but neither of them is a DNA match to me. I assume they must match the person who does match me. I have asked the admin of my match if the other two match her, but I don't think he gets the question.
I have had other people tell me in the past they had Circles where some of the members were not a DNA match to them but did not think that was right until it happened to me.
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I thought one of the points of the circle was to pick up those relatives that aren't necessarily a DNA match to you but do match people that you match. They are still relatives but don't share your DNA.
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Hi Towdlass,
I empathise when you say:
I find it confusing that when I look at my results I find someone with whom I am supposed to have a close link but their family tree isn't public ... I send them a message asking them to have a look at my tree and would they be kind enough to allow me to see theirs. I wait and I wait and they don't even bother to reply.
I'm totally in sympathy, I've experienced the same thing. Yet find myself acting the same way. No problem showing my DNA results, but I get antsy showing my family tree. Doubts about its accuracy, or something else, I don't know. I suppose I feel I just don't know enough yet.
Regards,
Conlin
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but I get antsy showing my family tree. Doubts about its accuracy, or something else, I don't know. I suppose I feel I just don't know enough yet.
Hi Conlin,
But that's one of the benefits of sharing your tree. if you are worried about the accuracy, sharing it will help validate it :-) Yes, you will get some people with incorrect or plain right stupid trees linking to you. I had one person from the US linking to my great grandmother despite having a photo attached showing she was white and was in the UK to there tree that had there relative in the US with all the records listing her as coloured (race was included on early US census), but I have also found a few 3rd/4th cousins that have been a great help pulling together a solid picture on our shared family lines, through the different knowledge we have.
Richard
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I am confused as I have a private tree and both my parents have tested, yet both have had DNA circles emerge. My father's DNA circle just disappeared after a while ??? My mother now has a DNA circle. I don't have the people in either parents' DNA circle on my tree. Completely baffled.
Have had some luck with shared matching, but wouldn't come up as a DNA circle as some of the public tree information seems wrong, otherwise I would not be able to link us all together.
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Hi rsel,
Thanks for the encouragement. You really do state it bottomline:
But that's one of the benefits of sharing your tree. if you are worried about the accuracy, sharing it will help validate it :-) rsel
I must agree, but:
Yes, you will get some people with incorrect or plain right stupid trees linking to you. rsel
So I want a bit more certaintly before I share. To some extent I've plugged in potenial ancestors to see if they themselves pull out confirmations. I know which they are but they could be misleading to other people if hey think the link is confirmed.
Cheers,
Conlin
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I must agree, but:
Yes, you will get some people with incorrect or plain right stupid trees linking to you. rsel
So I want a bit more certaintly before I share. To some extent I've plugged in potenial ancestors to see if they themselves pull out confirmations. I know which they are but they could be misleading to other people if hey think the link is confirmed.
True, but I would hope people would talk to you when they link up, but you know how rare that is :-)
Richard