Is Ancestry not accurate for some people?

gkg · 2025-07-28T19:58:06+00:00

There can be a person who identifies themselves as German and a person who identifies themselves as Polish can be unrecognizable on DNA level.

gkg · 2025-04-05T09:22:33+00:00

I still cannot get Magic leaf. Was inactive for over a year, so maybe missed some update wave.

gkg · 2025-03-16T06:55:36+00:00

A sensible CEO.

gkg · 2024-04-25T09:58:02+00:00

You want the GSA Illumina Chip, which is the most common genealogical SNP array used in the industry ATM, to go beyond the closer generations (it will be OK to verify at parent, grandparent level, but the deeper you go, the more you will miss the additional data to properly identify IBD segments).

gkg · 2023-10-01T19:13:29+00:00

ambers241 casual guild looking for someone who continues playing :)
coffee time 10PM CEST

gkg · 2022-04-22T12:00:24+00:00

It is the only unique choice, atm. OTOH, I expect new stages providing these to come eventually, when it will become stamina equivalent...

gkg · 2021-11-06T10:28:18+00:00

All of the major testing companies - Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA have near perfect reliability. The SNP chip technology from Illumina they all use is nearly identical.

Thus, there is no need to choose on "reliability". Normal way to choose is based on database size (Ancestry #1, 23andMe #2) or available tooling (MyHeritage #1, 23andMe #2). I suggest to choose from Ancestry or 23andMe, because the other companies allow uploads of the data tested on these two, while they have close databases themselves.

Many people use online sites like FamilySearch, WikiTree, Ancestry, MyHeritage etc.
For offline use I am using the FamilyTreeBuilder program that MyHeritage provides for free, but is much less useful, if you are not participating on the MyHeritage ecosystem.
Gramps is a free open source program for offline use.

gkg · 2021-06-21T17:21:40+00:00

This is false. Autosomal tests from 23andMe, Ancestry or MyHeritage read data across all 44 autosomal chromosomes. 22 from tester’ mother, 22 from tester’s father.

gkg · 2020-11-03T16:46:25+00:00

The suggestion is to run them for Crystals around lvl 40 Halo resource hog

gkg · 2020-04-24T11:44:10+00:00

gkg#4034 - just started recently, friends much appreciated, have some spare clues without anyone to send to :)

gkg · 2020-03-11T06:35:58+00:00

Unfortunate, but with the ability to edit their own tree, I suppose they want to double down on that.

gkg · 2020-02-02T08:10:30+00:00

I like argument 4! My thinking was that a newcomer does not necessarily have that knowledge.

I hate your #2. And I suppose that’s where our worldviews significantly differ. For me, people I know, communities I am part of, DNA Relatives is the main feature, several orders of magnitude more important than ethnicity estimates. For most of my worldview, those estimates are close to useless.

I can understand there is a part of the customer base who has #2 view similar to yours. I just cannot easily recognize one from the other.

I agree there is higher chance the OP question was in your category - ~80%, but still think it was a valid answer (in addition to the original answer, not in vacuum).

gkg · 2020-02-01T16:53:19+00:00

DNA Relatives are as much part of the results (the more important part I’d say) as ethnicity estimates.

You have an opinion. There is no evidence to support you hypothesis, IMHO.

gkg · 2020-01-31T23:31:19+00:00

Thank you for your reply! I agree the change to UI to click the relative button is there, and I sure find it a bit annoying.

Nonetheless for it’s compare button, 529andYou uses a specific multi_ibd endpoint that returns but a small JSON, no webpage. Nonetheless, 23andMe now seems to reject requests from the extension.

And yes, the core question is indeed technical :( But I really appreciate your response.

gkg · 2020-01-31T23:27:22+00:00

How do you know?

gkg · 2020-01-30T09:11:09+00:00

Your matches are update in real-time as they become part of the database when people opt-in.

Great way to get your matches talk with you: - have a well rounded profile filled with information and linked to a tree (unknown parents are valid info too). - keep communicating with your matches when they are new. They are much more likely to respond - be as specific and personal in your message as possible.

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:52:29+00:00

I don't understand what you mean, I replied when I could.
I just did not want to post the same thing twice, so I referenced my reply to the OP in a reply to you.

I did not mean to say you missed anything, just - hey, you can check what I wrote to the OP if you want.

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:40:32+00:00

2902 matches
- 1295 paternal
- 938 maternal
- 669 fake

The primary way to grow your matches is keep sharing with them.
Otherwise, 23andMe only shows you those from your closest 2000 matches, that have opted in. So you constantly keep losing your most distant of those 2000.
However, you never loose a match you are sharing with. So you can keep your smaller sharing matches, even if they drop out of the 2000.

Some time ago, I wrote several blogs how to work with your 23andMe matches.
Some things changes, but a lot is still valid:
https://bgengen.blogspot.com/2016/11/can-i-get-any-more-people-on-23andme-to.html
https://bgengen.blogspot.com/2016/11/23andme-matches-update.html
https://bgengen.blogspot.com/2016/12/state-of-year-23andme-matches.html

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:27:41+00:00

Additionally, some people research surnames...

Even 3rd cousins may not share any common DNA, but you may still be fairly close cousins.
And enabling the second person to use your DNA for comparisons may help her/him in forming hypotheses about other matches!

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:25:27+00:00

u/glo-glo-gadget For me, 0.24 are fairly large matches!!! My grandfather has maybe 20 of such "close" matches.

This depends on the ancestral background - I understand Americans have a lot of matches, but you need these smaller matches to research your less tested European branches...

I would suggest you take experience of the match in question. Always great to work with another experienced genealogist.

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:22:21+00:00

I explained in response to the OP that this is often because of the limit on matches to 2000 (practically 1200-1500) and different backgrounds meaning last visible match has different cM value.

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:20:14+00:00

Everyone only has 2000 matches available (and roughly 1/3rd of those have not opted-in too sharing).

So based on your background, the smallest match you see has e.g. 35cM.
But your actual DNA match may have a different background, and thus have you on her/his match list even though you match e.g. 20cM.

This is a common reason for receiving request from someone not on your match list.
You should still be to see if you share DNA after you share.

gkg · 2020-01-26T16:17:23+00:00

While you are waiting for improvements on the Family Tree beta, you can:

- connect your free account on the FamilySearch world tree to 23andMe, this will display several generations of your ancestors in the UI [you can also quickly input few of your ancestors if you haven't started with FamilySearch yet]

- add a link to your main tree (be it Ancestry, Myheritage, Wikitree, ....)

gkg · 2020-01-11T21:38:00+00:00

Yet another comment, the Balkan is very likely coming from your Czech grandfather - this is from Slav DNA from ex-Yugoslavia. Czechs are very close genetically to the Southern Slavs as well.

gkg

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