Why Do People Pay For An Ancestry DNA Test But Fail To Respond To Messages ?

[IgorStrav]

Which of course is utter rubbish. Which rag did he read that in? Assuming he can read

Sorry, Roger, do you mean the book written by someone whose DNA test demonstrated he wasn't the son of his father?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Griffeth

His memoir is called "The Stranger in my genes"

I've read it, including the conversation he had with his mother.  And the further research he did to discover who his father was.

[guest189040]

Well just been onto Ancestry and yet again they have updated their analysis.

The result is that my breakdown is totally different.

[jillruss]

I've just checked mine again. Now 100% England, Wales & NW Europe (though their map shows my NW Europe to include only very small bits of Belgium and N France!!).

I have a quite important, not very far back Scottish branch which doesn't warrant a mention. I have no known ancestors from Wales (though a main line in Shropshire, which is 'nearly Wales' Sorry, all you Welsh RCers!).

I just look at it for fun these days and feel a bit (but not very) sorry for those who took the test merely to find out their ethnicity. To these suckers, I say: make the most of the money spent and for goodness sake put your tree onto Ancestry. It doesn't have to be huge: a couple of generations will do, preferably with dates and place names.

You know it makes sense!! 

[guest189040]

Since my last post I have been on Ancestry looking at the so called matches.

I went down the list until it showed .... Common Ancestor..... then looked at there trees, so far the only common ancestor being in Surname only.

This is the case with two with so called Common Ancestors.

There is one, a first or second Cousin, with no tree and no recollection by me of any distant Cousin with their forename.

[jillruss]

I find Ancestry's Common Ancestors to be really good. I've had the odd one that doesn't pan out but in the main they're usually correct, though sometimes you have to really look for the connection.

One thing that is puzzling me at the moment is that I have a couple of common ancestor links (on the same branch) where Ancestry are naming the right names but - for some reason - listing them as 'half brother/sister' etc when the lead ancestor (the common denominator) didn't remarry. I can't understand why they're down as half brothers/sisters when I'm convinced they're full siblings.

[Sinann]

I find Ancestry's Common Ancestors to be really good. I've had the odd one that doesn't pan out but in the main they're usually correct, though sometimes you have to really look for the connection.

One thing that is puzzling me at the moment is that I have a couple of common ancestor links (on the same branch) where Ancestry are naming the right names but - for some reason - listing them as 'half brother/sister' etc when the lead ancestor (the common denominator) didn't remarry. I can't understand why they're down as half brothers/sisters when I'm convinced they're full siblings.

Likely because of how persons are named in both trees, if the way the names are written doesn't match exactly they can show as half.

[Redroger]

Which of course is utter rubbish. Which rag did he read that in? Assuming he can read

On rereading it seems I had completely misunderstood the posting. I apologize. Please put it down to a "senior moment"!

Sorry, Roger, do you mean the book written by someone whose DNA test demonstrated he wasn't the son of his father?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Griffeth

His memoir is called "The Stranger in my genes"

I've read it, including the conversation he had with his mother.  And the further research he did to discover who his father was.

[Janethepain]

I agree with Sinann regarding the listing by ancestry of a match as a 'half' brother/cousin or 4th cousin once removed, for example.

I have a branch where the Surname has been given as :- McTaig/McTague/McTaigue/Montague.  Common ancestors where the first common ancestors are a marriage/couple  where one of them is from this family, are often given as half relatives. In these situations the family trees of the 2 matches will have one partner with identical naming, while the other partner has the surname in two of the alternative forms.

Similarly, there are times when you wonder why someone isn't a common ancestor. Again with the family group mentioned above, in my tree there is an example where I didn't have the name of the partner (they emigrated and married in the US, which I am unaware of), so if ancestry found the connection, it would be listed as a 'half' relative. But this is not the case, because the 2 trees have the Mctaig partner, spelled in alternate ways. and so the match is not listed as a common ancestor at all! 

This sort of problem is quite common, especially if the family were illiterate (which was for a long time the norm), and wouldnt know the 'right' or wrong spelling for their name, and would not have been able to indicate it was wrong when written on a document that a century later becomes the source of names in all our family trees!

Surnames are not likely to be the only source of this problem.  I'm sure the same thing will happen with First names that can be written in many alternative versions!

Jane

[jillruss]

Hi Jane,

I think that might explain my quandary.  The surname in question is that of my maternal grandmother and, in our family, it has always been Patchett.

However, most people seem to have the same family roots as either Padgett or Paget.

Thank you!