How essential is an Ancestry subscription for getting the most in my DNA test?

[sallyyorks]

Great Post and info Biggles

[Biggles50]

Great Post and info Biggles

Many thanks

[Sloe Gin]

A slightly different question, if I may.
I do have an Ancestry subscription, but I do not keep my tree on Ancestry and I don't wish to.
Is an Ancestry tree essential to getting the most out of a DNA test?

[phil57]

Yes. Thrulines work by comparing your tree against similar branches of the trees of other users that you have a DNA match with. It isn't essential to have a tree, but Thrulines hints can save you a lot of work in trying to establish how some of your matches are related.

Don't take Thrulines as 100% accurate though. They are only as good as the information in your and other people's trees, and there are quite a few dubious trees on Ancestry. If you havea Thrulines hint to a shared ancestor, it is always worth researching the lineage in the matching tree to satisfy yourself that it is correct, or otherwise.

My Ancestry tree is just a bare Gedcom export from my Family Historian project, uploaded to find record hints and Thrulines matches, nothing more

[Rosinish]

Biggles, I enjoy reading your posts as they're very informative but I think you should start your own thread with the frustrations as this is perfect & I'm sure you could add a few more & head it...
'10 Frustrations of DNA Matches' as it's so true & I've experienced them all! 

FRUSTRATIONS caused by DNA matches
They have no tree
They have a tree of few people all are still alive and hence seen as Private
They have not linked themselves in their tree to their DNA results
They do not answer messages (8 years is our record for a response to occur)
Their user name bears no hint ie clown1234 to their name
Ladies often use their married name as a user name which leads to problems identifying them especially if she has had multiple marriages
The big one is that they have a very extensive tree but you cannot find where the link between you is

A separate frustration is the Ethnicity results, ours now bears zero relationship to what it originally showed and now with the way it is split between how ones DNA is split between parents the results can result in anxiety for in my own case it looks like my Father was not of the origins I have always believed him to be.

Annie

[Sloe Gin]

Yes. Thrulines work by comparing your tree against similar branches of the trees of other users that you have a DNA match with. It isn't essential to have a tree, but Thrulines hints can save you a lot of work in trying to establish how some of your matches are related.

Don't take Thrulines as 100% accurate though. They are only as good as the information in your and other people's trees, and there are quite a few dubious trees on Ancestry. If you havea Thrulines hint to a shared ancestor, it is always worth researching the lineage in the matching tree to satisfy yourself that it is correct, or otherwise.

My Ancestry tree is just a bare Gedcom export from my Family Historian project, uploaded to find record hints and Thrulines matches, nothing more

Ancestry isn't the only option though, is it?

[phil57]

Ancestry isn't the only option though, is it?

Of course it isn't, but you referred to Ancestry in your question. I assume you have tested with Ancestry, or you wouldn't have asked the question that you did. You can transfer your test data to several other providers such as My heritage, LivingDNA/FindMyPast, Family Tree DNA, GEDmatch etc. to obtain matches with their databases, but if you haven't tested with Ancestry you can't transfer in to them.

But you asked whether it was necessary to have a tree on Ancestry. If you haven't tested with Ancestry and you aren't in their DNA database, uploading or creating a tree is of no value whatsoever for DNA purposes. If you have tested with Ancestry, which your previous question intimated, a tree is still not essential; but without it you will not get any Thrulines suggestions to your DNA Matches, which could save you many hours of investigative research in establishing how you and some of your matches may be related.

My Heritage have a similar feature. Again, it's not necessary to have a tree on My Heritage, but their smart matches won't give you hints without one.

GEDmatch strongly suggest that you upload a Gedcom if you transfer in to them. Again, it's not necessary, but in each of these examples you are not taking full advantage of the resources available to you if you don't.

Personally, if I'm looking for or investigating DNA Matches, I want to be able to take advantage of every tool available to me that might help my research. I see no point it making things harder or more difficult than necessary.

As I said, my Ancestry tree (and those on other sites such as My heritage and FindMyPast) are bare Gedcoms, and private. No one else can see them unless they ask me for permission, but they work for hints and Thrulines/Smart Matching, which is why I have them there.

[Sloe Gin]

Ancestry isn't the only option though, is it?

Of course it isn't, but you referred to Ancestry in your question. I assume you have tested with Ancestry, or you wouldn't have asked the question that you did. You can transfer your test data to several other providers such as My heritage, LivingDNA/FindMyPast, Family Tree DNA, GEDmatch etc. to obtain matches with their databases, but if you haven't tested with Ancestry you can't transfer in to them.

But you asked whether it was necessary to have a tree on Ancestry. If you haven't tested with Ancestry and you aren't in their DNA database, uploading or creating a tree is of no value whatsoever for DNA purposes. If you have tested with Ancestry, which your previous question intimated, a tree is still not essential; but without it you will not get any Thrulines suggestions to your DNA Matches, which could save you many hours of investigative research in establishing how you and some of your matches may be related.

My Heritage have a similar feature. Again, it's not necessary to have a tree on My Heritage, but their smart matches won't give you hints without one.

GEDmatch strongly suggest that you upload a Gedcom if you transfer in to them. Again, it's not necessary, but in each of these examples you are not taking full advantage of the resources available to you if you don't.

Personally, if I'm looking for or investigating DNA Matches, I want to be able to take advantage of every tool available to me that might help my research. I see no point it making things harder or more difficult than necessary.

As I said, my Ancestry tree (and those on other sites such as My heritage and FindMyPast) are bare Gedcoms, and private. No one else can see them unless they ask me for permission, but they work for hints and Thrulines/Smart Matching, which is why I have them there.

I haven't tested at all. 
I asked about Ancestry as everywhere I searched about using DNA seems to talk about having a tree on Ancestry.

[Deirdre784]

I have been an ancestry member for 10 years and did my DNA earlier this year, but it's been rather disappointing. My closest match is a young cousin who lives 2 streets away and only has himself in his tree. The other 'close' ones don't have trees on Ancestry; most of the others don't have any matching surnames, nor do most even appear to be in the UK. I did have one match which looked interesting as it was on my troublesome Irish line - but his tree has no sources, has my great grandfather married to his sister (same first name), and one ancestor has 135 siblings