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

[Ruskie]

Thanks very much Sinnan. That helps a lot.

I suppose if you have a DNA match with someone and can only see a preview of their tree, you would simply contact them to ask if they will share their tree.

(I wouldn’t want to be forever locked into having a subscription in order to view my DNA results).

[ikas]

Ruskie - Originally I only had a DNA sub on Ancestry but took a note of match trees I thought might be interesting to view. I took a month sub to view them all once or twice a year. It is one way around their rather mean approach to restrict tree viewing for DNA members. Have to say though that I found Ancestry were so far ahead of the rest of the companies in working a match list to produce leads that I eventually took out a full sub.

[Sinann]

I don't bother asking to view trees, I guess the difference for me is my research is in Ireland and as everyone knows you can't get back too far in Ireland so there usually isn't anything or much to see beyond the preview, I just send a message and if they don't respond do the research myself, you usually end up doing that anyway to check for errors and see if you can glean any other info from the records.

[Ruskie]

Thanks ikas and Sinann.

Apologies if I have overtaken your thread Zaph but I hope my questions are relevant.

[Rosinish]

How is essential is it that I subscribe to one of these to get the most from my test ?

Zaph

What other sites do you have subscriptions to?

What info. are you hoping to find?

Ancestry has the largest 'Trees' database with/without DNA members.

The offer you've had is more than worth taking up as there will be both DNA members' trees & non DNA members' trees you could match to with info. on your own tree.

It's for 1 year as I pointed out at a cost of less than £2 per week.

I've been with Ancestry for many yrs, only a small tree there, basic direct lines but since doing DNA I'm wishing I'd added far more but at the time it was too time consuming.

I knew very little about DNA & matches prior to doing my own test (with Ancestry) but I've managed (with a lot of research & effort) to work out some pretty hard matches & find it all very exciting.

I'm now considering a 2nd DNA test with another company although I haven't decided which yet.

How many DNA tests have you done & which companies have you used?

I have access to my brother's DNA on 23&me but trees aren't available to view & I've found many depend on DNA matching without going to the trouble of building trees i.e. a lot of those I've been in touch with can't tell me who their ancestors are beyond their g/parents 

Annie

[phil57]

Annie, apologies if you already know this and have other reasons for wanting to take a second test, but are you aware that you can download a copy of your raw DNA data file from Ancestry, and many other testing companies will let you upload it (transfer in) to their databases for matching? Ancestry are one of the few that don't allow transfers in from other companies, but nearly, if not all of the companies who allow transfers in will accept Ancestry DNA files.

I have transferred my Ancestry test to My Heritage, LivingDNA/FindMyPast, FTDNA and Gedmatch.

[Biggles50]

Having an Ancestry account is ESSENTIAL to get the best out of a DNA test.

Whilst we have had a worldwide subscription with them for many years before we actually took the DNA test we spent a lot of time going sideways and populating out tree as much as possible and we worked back generation by generation, double checking and validating everything along the way.

The DNA side is still a work in progress getting ones old grey matter around the potential issues one can face, but once the matches come in then the fun and frustration begins.

The easiest way is link your matches is to use the Common Ancestor filter, this display will then only show DNA matches where a link between you has been proposed by the Ancestry software.  The presented route is often cobbled together from multiple Trees that there are on Ancestry and hence care and validation of each person is really a good idea rather than blindly accepting what is presented as fully accurate.  We have found many errors and missing generations on said presented routes.

It took us about three months of work to get through all the Common Ancestors on my Wife’s and my own tree and once this was complete we started on the highest cM match and worked through all that we could.

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.

Then you get a high cM match with a lot of other matches being shared with them and you struggle to find the link.

Don’t get me wrong frustrations aside DNA has opened up our trees extensively and for me I have over sixty 3C to 6C family in my tree and my Wife 74 and many of the closer ones are in contact via social media.

For only yesterday a Cousin with a 95 cM match to me has responded to contact, so things are ever changing.

So yes subscribe to Ancestry and make the most of the DNA test for as a side issue it has linked both my Wife and I back via linked DNA matches to our Gateway’s.

Once you have created the tree and linked as much as you can to the matches then you could replicate what we have done and sync’d our Ancestry Trees to Roots Magic so now we are not reliant on Ancestry per say.

As suggested uploading your Raw DNA data to the various sites can kead to other matches.

For problems DNA Painter can help and its WATO tool is useful in give a number of relationship hypothesis.

Good luck.

[Rosinish]

Annie, apologies if you already know this and have other reasons for wanting to take a second test, but are you aware that you can download a copy of your raw DNA data file from Ancestry, and many other testing companies will let you upload it (transfer in) to their databases for matching?

I have transferred my Ancestry test to My Heritage, LivingDNA/FindMyPast, FTDNA and Gedmatch.

Hi Phil,

Yes, I've uploaded to MH & Gedmatch.

I'm considering mtDNA although I'm unsure how helpful it would be.

Annie

[Zaphod99]

I'm going to try a one year when I get my results.  I can't take the money with me!

Zaph