RootsChat.Com
General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Ruskie on Tuesday 03 October 23 12:21 BST (UK)
-
I received this email today and thought some of you may be interested in taking up the offer:
Taken a DNA test with another service?
We have great news — for a limited time only, you can upload your DNA data* to MyHeritage and enjoy all advanced DNA features for free, forever! We support DNA data files from Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA (Family Finder), and 23andMe.
For each NEW DNA file that you upload this week, you’ll receive free access to all advanced DNA features, saving you the usual AU $43 (GST included) unlock fee per kit. This rare offer is valid for the next few days only, until October 8, 2023 at 11:59 p.m.
(Prices are in AUD - I hope the offer works wherever you are in the world).
-
Thanks Ruskie, it's worldwide I think!
https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/10/upload-your-dna-data-to-myheritage-and-enjoy-free-access-to-all-dna-features/
-
Glad it is worldwide, thanks Melba.
As it is free, it is well worth taking up the offer, even if you’re not sure how useful you may find it, or how many unfavourable things you’ve heard about My Heritage. They have some quite useful tools and it is very user friendly.
I think My Heritage is quite popular in Europe so worth a try especially for anyone with European/Eastern European ancestry.
It’s given me some very good matches with people from all over.
-
I have been a subscriber to MH for over a year, but will not be renewing.
The DNA tools are OK, the matches are another matter, with very few of mine having any trees of significance but contact have been made with only two matches and another one going into my tree.
Personally I would not suggest that a MH DNA test is taken, far better results taking an Ancestry DNA test then uploading the DNA data to MH, you get the best of both worlds then.
-
Uploading raw data from Ancestry and taking advantage of the tools you usually have to pay for, saving a few dollars/poinds is what I am suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anyone pay for a My Heritage DNA test.
But since you mentioned it, for me, Ancestry has been disappointing - very few of my matches have trees, a few have only two or three names, and virtually no one responds to my messages.
Unless the infomation is hidden away or I’ve missed it (likely), on Ancestry you can’t even see what country your match lives in or their approximate age, which might at least have given a starting point to do your own research to try to find where your connection is.
I’m probably just unlucky match wise. :)
-
Uploading raw data from Ancestry and taking advantage of the tools you usually have to pay for, saving a few is what I am suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anyone pay for a My Heritage DNA test.
But since you mentioned it, for me, Ancestry has been disappointing - very few of my matches have trees, a few have only two or three names, and virtually no one responds to my messages.
Unless the infomation is hidden away or I’ve missed it (likely), you can’t even see what country your match lives in or their approximate age, which might at least have given a starting point to do your own research to try to find where your connection is.
I’m probably just unlucky match wise. :)
It's frustrating, isn't it? I just check for each match identified by Ancestry to see if there are any further shared matches. I just concentrate on these groupings
The one bonus with the My Heritage matching is that you can see what the relationship might be between two of your matches, which you can't with Ancestry (or I've just not worked out how to do it!). So it is worth loading your ancestry test onto My Heritage when they have these offers. I expect they want to grow their reference group by importing Ancestry test results.
JULIAN
-
Uploading raw data from Ancestry and taking advantage of the tools you usually have to pay for, saving a few is what I am suggesting. I wasn’t suggesting anyone pay for a My Heritage DNA test.
But since you mentioned it, for me, Ancestry has been disappointing - very few of my matches have trees, a few have only two or three names, and virtually no one responds to my messages.
Unless the infomation is hidden away or I’ve missed it (likely), you can’t even see what country your match lives in or their approximate age, which might at least have given a starting point to do your own research to try to find where your connection is.
I’m probably just unlucky match wise. :)
I did not think that you were suggesting that anyone buys a MH DNA test, it does have one saving grace though, its cost v Ancestry’s.
I have found a lot of matches on MH that seem to originate in Europe, something that is not as prominent on Ancestry since most of my matches to Italy on Ancestry are either in the UK or USA.
DNA works best when you make use of multiple sites.
The lack of trees and response to messages does seem to be a common annoyance, irrespective of the website from which the message is sent.
One thing I cannot get my head around is people uploading to Gedmatch and then not responding, it to me goes against what Gedmatch is for, putting relatives in contact with each other.
-
I have found a lot of matches on MH that seem to originate in Europe, something that is not as prominent on Ancestry since most of my matches to Italy on Ancestry are either in the UK or USA.
DNA works best when you make use of multiple sites.
The lack of trees and response to messages does seem to be a common annoyance, irrespective of the website from which the message is sent.
One thing I cannot get my head around is people uploading to Gedmatch and then not responding, it to me goes against what Gedmatch is for, putting relatives in contact with each other.
Yes MyHeritage may be better for some ethnicities and countries as it is often sold in supermarkets in Europe, even in France where DNA testing (or at least, the direct marketing of it) is against the law. I have actual matches within France fairly close, representing my French ancestry, which I do not have on Ancestry - the only hint there is Quebecois matches. It obviously does help as Ruskie says that on MyHeritage you can filter by matches' country although you do sometimes get Brit ex pats especially in France or Spain.
-
Lots of matches on MH for me (roughly on a par with ancestry), but only three above 100cM in my case, two I already knew (a father and son) though the relationship predictions are out by two generations in both cases, rather disappointing given the strength of the match. I really can't tell if any others are more accurate as they are too distant to work out the link. Whilst some matches do have trees few if any of the UK trees go back very far, grandparents seem to be the norm with my matches and I generally struggle to find bmd records to support the claims in the trees.
I did pay for tools but as to how useful they are is largely dependant on the quality of matches and whether they have ticked the boxes to allow their results to be used in the chromosome browser and auto clustering. If they are free for new uploads then it's a no brainer really, even if they are not much use today a new match can pop up that makes a marked impact on where research can lead.
Having said all that my matches on Ancestry for the last month have been terrible, only one above 20cM (one of the MH tests mentioned above). Low cM 'no shared matches' and 'no tree' seems to be the order of the day right now. Yesterday I had an Ancestry match at 11cM who has 100% Northern India ethnicity, no idea how or why that one has come up as it has to be false match.
-
Whilst some matches do have trees few if any of the UK trees go back very far, grandparents seem to be the norm with my matches and I generally struggle to find bmd records to support the claims in the trees.
If they have minimal trees on MY I will search for the dead-end in Ancestry trees, which is very quick and easy to work with in going back more generations. Most people born before 1900 occur in a tree, and many up to the 1940s.
I've been able to identify far more links with matches from quickly piecing together trees. Typically takes no more than 10 minutes per match. Even some where the link goes back to the 1700s and they just listed their grandparents in their tree.
On Ancestry, there is a search button at the top right of profiles:
(https://i.ibb.co/x15C0qn/jones.jpg)
Next to the clock and help icon.
If they have a short tree (on Ancestry) pull up all the dead end ancestor profiles, press the search button and look for continuations of the line in public trees.
For MyHeritage, you'll need to type them in.
Using this, I have been able to identify the link for about 80% of my matches over 40cM where I can identify the test taker.
When I can't find the link I assume it's due to a birth out of wedlock or infidelity. The historic infidelity rate was 1.35% or 1% according to two studies, throw in births out of wedlock and we're at about 3 if not 4% for the period in which autosomal tests are useful. Going back to 5th cousins, that's 11 pairings, so somewhere in the region of 1/3 chance of a non-paternal event.
-
Rather than making things fit by picking a 'right name/right place' event from bmd, census etc I try to eliminate things. I've disproved several of these three generation trees already. Any link to other trees that I could find (guessing at the blank generations in the process), would be nothing more than trying to hammer a puzzle piece showing a cloud into the middle of a flower bed in the hope it fits.
It's a two way thing but until these matches show any inclination to put some effort into their trees and work with me there is little more I can do and I have other matches elsewhere to work on.
-
You make it sound very easy 4b2, and maybe you’ve been lucky. I’ve found not many trees exist that relate to my family lines and some of them are copied from other online trees which have errors, so those errors are then copied.
When I look at my DNA matches, any which have trees with names and dates, I firstly attempt to find them in bmd records, then work back from there in the hope of coming across a familiar name which also appears in my tree. I’ve managed to do that in a couple of cases only.
It would help to know age range and locations of Ancestry matches to give a time frame and place to start searching. MH give these details.
The search can vary wildly if your DNA match is 20 years old and lives in the USA, even if grandparents are named, compared to an 80 year old DNA match who lives in the UK and gives names of grandparents …. Common names and no dates lr places can result in hundreds of possibilities, which can turn an often tricky search, into an impossible one.
-
My Heritage screwed up my Wife’s DNA and the family tree of hers that we had there. The tree had spurious additions made to it as though someone else had access when there should have been only me, we had taken out a years sub to unlock the features.
I kept getting hints that were supposedly for my own family but the hints were actually hers.
Then somehow they lost her DNA results (a MH DNA test) and were adamant that we had deleted them, as it was their own test I asked if they could re-instate them from their records, the NO was almost deafening.
I then deleted everything related to her and it took two months for My Heritage to actually remove the remnants of her tree and for me to stop getting her tree hints for my family.
All in all not a happy experience, but I’ll give MH another chance.
So I used the link and created a new account just in my Wife’s name that took advantage of the offer, and then uploaded her raw DNA from Ancestry.
Created a Family Tree for her of just three people, her and her parents.
Now its a waiting game to see what happens.
-
I took advantage of this offer and feel that it was certainly worth doing. It has generated a number of useful matches including one where I had not matched with a 3rd cousin who had tested with Ancestry but matched with her brother who had tested on My Heritage. However a couple of issues have now cropped up which I am struggling to get my head around. ( There is probably a perfectly sensible explanation but I simply cannot see it!).
i now have two kits on My Heritage as, because it was half price, I decided to do the My Heritage DNA test as well. So I have the uploaded Ancestry kit as well as the My Heritage kit. I have now received the My Heritage results. While I appreciate the differences in testing methods and in the chips they use what has surprised me is that while the uploaded Ancestry kit generated close on 17,000 matches the My Heritage kit has produced about 13,250 matches. As a result some of my useful matches produced by the Ancestry upload ( i.e for once I can actually see the connection) have not appeared as matches with the My Heritage kit. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!
William
-
I took advantage of this offer and feel that it was certainly worth doing. It has generated a number of useful matches including one where I had not matched with a 3rd cousin who had tested with Ancestry but matched with her brother who had tested on My Heritage. However a couple of issues have now cropped up which I am struggling to get my head around. ( There is probably a perfectly sensible explanation but I simply cannot see it!).
i now have two kits on My Heritage as, because it was half price, I decided to do the My Heritage DNA test as well. So I have the uploaded Ancestry kit as well as the My Heritage kit. I have now received the My Heritage results. While I appreciate the differences in testing methods and in the chips they use what has surprised me is that while the uploaded Ancestry kit generated close on 17,000 matches the My Heritage kit has produced about 13,250 matches. As a result some of my useful matches produced by the Ancestry upload ( i.e for once I can actually see the connection) have not appeared as matches with the My Heritage kit. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!
William
Good that you have so many.
For me MH has resulted in about half the DNA matches that Ancestry has given me.
Alas most of the MH matches only have small trees, its as though they have uploaded Ancestry raw data and not paid resulting in limited tree sizes.
Not that Ancestry is much better with large numbers of no trees or very small sizes, not to mention user names that offer no clue to the match, although I just linked to a user “Pauline and Dave 32675”
-
i now have two kits on My Heritage as, because it was half price, I decided to do the My Heritage DNA test as well. So I have the uploaded Ancestry kit as well as the My Heritage kit. I have now received the My Heritage results. While I appreciate the differences in testing methods and in the chips they use what has surprised me is that while the uploaded Ancestry kit generated close on 17,000 matches the My Heritage kit has produced about 13,250 matches. As a result some of my useful matches produced by the Ancestry upload ( i.e for once I can actually see the connection) have not appeared as matches with the My Heritage kit. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!
William
Doubtless the variables in testing methods and interpretation account for the difference and it's well documented that MH matches at 50cM (and up to about 70cM in some cases), have often been shown to be false matches.
Given the option, rather than duplicate my own Ancestry test with an MH test I would personally pay the extra to target test a family member via Ancestry and add the raw data to MH. I feel it is better to have two testers and one set of variables than one tester and introduce additional variables to the results.
-
Thank you both for your comments. To give a specific example of what I have found hard to understand. I now know that GK tested on Ancestry. We do not match there but from his tree I can see that he is a 3C2xR , Using my Ancestry kit on MH we do match (24.8cM which DNA painter has as a 16% chance of being 3C2xR). While I understand the point made about MH and false positives do I just put the lack of a match on Ancestry down to the differences in the algorithms etc which the companies use?
William
-
do I just put the lack of a match on Ancestry down to the differences in the algorithms etc which the companies use?
William
That's the same as asking 'Do I put the match on MH down to the differences in the algorithms etc which the companies use?'
The fundamental question though isn't why are there two completely opposing results it's which one is correct. Either it's a match or it isn't, it can't be both and it's difficult to avoid confirmation bias. For example the trees and DNA Painter favour the MH result but the argument for the Ancestry result is that trees can be wrong and DNA Painter says 84% unlikely.
Relationships at that distance are pushing the limits of mtDNA testing and uptake of testing is still quite low. That's a positive and a negative for both sides of the debate but not a definitive argument for either side.