DNA clusters basic question

[Skaife]

I have following with interest the various posts about Ancestry’s new tool around clustering. I know it’s going to take a while to roll out to all users  but am just wondering if it will be available to  all Ancestry subscribers or is it just for those who pay the extra for Pro Tools?

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Just those who pay for Pro Tools, the full rollout is due to be completed by December.

[PaulineJ]

I've just taken pro tools for a month and the clusters features are not worth it. It's clustered my 2nd cousins , plus the child of one of my 2nd cousins. NOTHING else.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

I've just taken pro tools for a month and the clusters features are not worth it. It's clustered my 2nd cousins , plus the child of one of my 2nd cousins. NOTHING else.

There's much more to learn by working with the enhanced matches feature than anything clusters can produce in the current format.

[Beavances]

Thank you for your answers- I now understand.
I do already have My Heritage clusters which I occasionally try to make sense of. One of my largest clusters on there is a collection of people I have not come across in my own research - though they are all fairly low  matches.
I might just get Pro tools for a month and see what I find on Ancestry. 

Just seen the last message about enhanced matches - will also look at that. I always feel I need to set aside a week to deal with any new features on Ancestry!

[Biggles50]

I've just taken pro tools for a month and the clusters features are not worth it. It's clustered my 2nd cousins , plus the child of one of my 2nd cousins. NOTHING else.

There's much more to learn by working with the enhanced matches feature than anything clusters can produce in the current format.

I echo Glen’s statement.

The feature showing the cM that each of the Shared Matches has with Selected DNA match does give a few hints at where on the Family Tree the Selected DNA match should fit and where each of the selected matches are likely to fit relative to the you and the selected match.

Not sure if that is the best way of describing it but that is how I work.

Nothing else in Pro Tools is useful for me.

The My Heritage cluster system seems vastly different to what is included compared to Ancestry’s current cluster tool which in reality does not look like it has reached the Beta stage.  For me the MyH cluster tool was useless, all the matches were very low cM, so low that they could be false matches.  I ignored them, then dumped the subscription.

[4b2]

What are the enhanced matches?

I do already have My Heritage clusters which I occasionally try to make sense of. One of my largest clusters on there is a collection of people I have not come across in my own research - though they are all fairly low  matches.

Two issues with MyHeritage:

1) ~70% of matches are false positives
2) cM does not correspond with cM on Ancestry (identical by descent) below ~100cM - lower cM matches need to be divided by 0.6 to get the approx. comparable amount to Ancestry

So if you have a cluster of 30 matches with the highest being 35cM, that's more like 20cM identical by descent and probably more likely to be a match in the window 1700. Or it could be a false positive.

There are too few matches, to few threads and too many false positives to make working with many MyHeritage matches worth the time.

[Biggles50]

What are the enhanced matches?

I do already have My Heritage clusters which I occasionally try to make sense of. One of my largest clusters on there is a collection of people I have not come across in my own research - though they are all fairly low  matches.

Two issues with MyHeritage:

1) ~70% of matches are false positives
2) cM does not correspond with cM on Ancestry (identical by descent) below ~100cM - lower cM matches need to be divided by 0.6 to get the approx. comparable amount to Ancestry

So if you have a cluster of 30 matches with the highest being 35cM, that's more like 20cM identical by descent and probably more likely to be a match in the window 1700. Or it could be a false positive.

There are too few matches, to few threads and too many false positives to make working with many MyHeritage matches worth the time.

What they said !

Spot on, & it is one of the reasons that I dumped My Heritage.

I just dealt with the highest matches then dumped the subscription.

[David Nicoll]

I wonder about the false positives, are they really.
Also the cM difference between Ancestry and MyHeritage.
They use very similar kit, so should not be that different.
Are we simply seeing the Ancestry Timber algorithm at work, artificially reducing the cM value.
I would agree that it is difficult to see the wood for the trees, or should that be the other way round!
With MyHeritage, but that may simply be what you can see even with the Ancestry data, if you go back 300 years in any semi rural area, everyone is related to everyone.
I have one match, pre 1700 as far as I can see, who I share 20 common surnames with.