How reliable is MyHeritage?

[unisphere]

Someone in my family did it and the results are very general. How reliable is it?

[aghadowey]

Someone in my family did it and the results are very general. How reliable is it?

What results? DNA matches should be very precise and details will be listed with each match so you can compare a variety of things.
Do you mean they had no close matches? Well, if close relatives haven't tested then you won't have close matches in the results.
Or do you mean ethnicity results were 'very general' in which case they are just estimates based on a variety of things- there have been numerous topics about this on this board.

[phil57]

You don't say what you mean by results. If you are referring to ethnicity, it is an inexact science. Whichever testing company gives you ethnicity results, they are estimated ranges of probability, not facts set in stone. The regions they allocate are of their own creation, so similar regions often differ geographically between different companies. Each company also use their own reference populations to determine their results, and again they differ between companies.

Ethnicity estimates are generally considered to be  fairly accurate at broad regional levels (continental, sub-continental) and less so as the regions become more specific, particularly if the estimates probability percentage allocated to a region is low.

Relationship matches are much more reliable above 16 to 20 cM, and pretty much indisputable. At lower match lengths than that, there are increased possibilities that the match may be identical by chance rather than by descent, due partly to the way in which autosomal testing is carried out, and because the chances of two unrelated individuals randomly sharing an apparently identical length of DNA increase when the lengths involved are small.

Think of a situation where 10,000 people are asked to write down a string of two numbers and also a string of 200 numbers. Many of the two-digit strings will appear more than once in the list of numbers written down, but it is far less likely that there will be two identical 200-digit numbers written down.

[HughC]

MyHeritage is most unreliable, in my opinion.

I submitted my results file (from Ancestry).  MyHeritage came up with many supposed matches,
none of them known relatives.  Where they duplicated Ancestry matches, the number of centimorgans was noticeably greater.

I was struck by the number of names that look Jewish.  I know MyHeritage is an Israeli company, but I have no reason to suspect I have any Jewish relatives.

All in all, I would recommend you to forget MyHeritage and use a rather more professional outfit.

[unisphere]

You don't say what you mean by results.

Ethnical indeed, which was scattered and I couldn't really recognize my ancestry. (It was mostly countries that I never came across when doing genealogical research on my ancestors). That's why it seemed a bit random, but that might just be me.

[aghadowey]

As I mentioned earlier, ethnicity results are just estimates- no matter what company (My Heritage, Ancestry, etc.).
I manage 3 DNA kits and with all three My Heritage has been extremely helpful in different ways to find and link relatives. All three originally tested with FTDNA and it had some different, but also useful, features but I do see a lot of unlikely matches with Russian names (often in Cyrillic alphabet) and Scandinavian ones with family trees showing no connections to the family background of the 3 kits.

[Biggles50]

The only thing going with a My Heritage DNA test is the Genealogy side and even then it is limited.

Ethnicity, sorry the MH Ethnicity Estimate is rubbish.

I have taken Ancestry and My Heritage DNA tests and based on the Ethnicities shown by each Company they are for two different people.

Ancestry is closer to reality, MH is a work of fiction probably aided by quite a low database quantity.

MH DNA match’s have resulted in 4 “Cousins”, that is all, the vast majority have zero effective trees and their search system is dire.

The only thing good about MH is their DNA tools and even they are limited.

People see DNA test for £40 and I presume that they think “its great, it will tell me everything”!

Well you get what you pay for?

[aghadowey]

It perhaps just depends how many close matches you have but on My Heritage I do a few close/known matches but they have allowed my to make contact with a very close, previously unknown relative and other known cousins. My ethnicity results aren't available at the moment but from memory I have a very, very small percentage of German ancestry- even though 3 of my mothers grandparents were German.
Ancestry's estimates are also a bit puzzling on the face of it. I show 4% Germanic Europe but my mother's sister shows 44%, a 1st cousin 33% (her Danish father may explain the high percentage), another cousin 15% and her brother 14% (their father was Polish). My mother's sister also shows 5% Ireland (no known ancestors in Ireland for last 200 years) & 1% Sardinian!

[aghadowey]

Just to update my last post about strange ethnicity results from My Heritage-
Last week I downloaded my Ancestry results to My Heritage (free offer, my FTDNA kits already uploaded). So, this morning I get ethnicity results for both kits, expecting them to be nearly the same but no-
FTDNA kit- 43.6% English, 23.4% Irish/Scottish/Welsh, 19% Scandinavian, 14% Iberian
Ancestry kit- 42.4% English, 21.1% Irish/Scottish/Welsh, 21% Scandinavian, 12.8% Iberian, 2.7% Italian
Note: of my 4 grandparents- 1 grandfather Irish/Scottish ancestry, 1 grandmother German, 1 grandfather half German & half English, 1 grandmother mixture of English, Dutch, Scottish, French with a pinch of Norwegian & Welsh (both back in early 1600s)
I also notice quite a difference in matching chromosomes between myself and second highest match (a 2nd cousin)- 21 cM more on Ancestry test.