View Full Version : Latest DNA update
Because I manage several samples, I can now see when the parent split was put in place, and that new updates are starting to happen.
Yesterday sib's child had under 3000 matches on our mutual side. Today it's 3218 (and the system says 3 added!)
So keep your eyes open, folks!
I had hoped to check everything before the update, but the new stuff is sticking out like a sore thumb.
maggie_4_7
30-12-22, 12:22
How do you get to the new ones added?
Don't worry I found the route to see the new ones.
How did you do it, Maggie? I've looked at all the 10cM + matches, so I know anything appeaaring there now must be newly assigned, but there are still some 2k that I ave yet to investigate.
It's a good job my children have done a DNA test and show as potential children of mine on my DNA matches, because otherwise I would swear my test had been swapped with some other random person!!
On the other hand, when I was a child my mother used to tell me when she went to the hospital to get a baby (!) she was shown into the nursery, where there was only one baby without a name tag on it's ankle, so that was the one she had to choose. She wrote the name on my tag herself (I still have it), because I never had one the whole seven days I was in the hospital. Maybe that's the issue with me not finding anything useful in my DNA results?!!
maggie_4_7
30-12-22, 17:09
How did you do it, Maggie? I've looked at all the 10cM + matches, so I know anything appeaaring there now must be newly assigned, but there are still some 2k that I ave yet to investigate.
Display view all DNA Matches by parent, click on view matches on either one of the parents, over on the right hand side is sort, sort by newest to oldest, the new ones should appear at top with the name of the parent in bold.
Thanks, Maggie. That does leave the additional 300 matches that they are not talking about.
Merry, are you saying you are a foundling??
Merry, are you saying you are a foundling??
lol Well, I do look a lot like both my parents, but my DNA matches are totally unhelpful!
kiterunner
30-12-22, 21:40
What are you hoping to find out from your DNA matches, Merry?
For starters, I have numerous relations who have tested but no sign of any of them in my matches. They are anything between 2nd and 8th cousins and both sides of my tree.
I probably haven't looked at my DNA matches for at least a year (probably two!), as I totally lost interest. However, my OH does look at both our results and he often finds stuff useful to his side of the tree and has made contact with a few cousins and swapped info (or I should say, has given them info!).
Of the people I have matched with, I have no idea who any of them are!
Hmm. I don't suppose you ever persuaded your Mum to do a test?
I always felt bad at persuading Audrey, as she hardly gave informed consent, but there were nursing home staff with her at the time, so it wasn't underhand. Nobody could ever doubt I am my father's daughter. We once did a - match the committee member to family - quiz. I chose a photo of the battiest of his great aunts, and was unerringly matched by everyone.
ElizabethHerts
31-12-22, 08:49
Of the people I have matched with, I have no idea who any of them are!
That's not unusual.
I have lots of "quick and dirty" trees on Ancestry trying to establish a link.
I always look at Shared Matches as that can quite often solve the problem of which ancestral branch they fit into.
Hmm. I don't suppose you ever persuaded your Mum to do a test?
No. During the period she might have still been considered ok to give consent (pretty questionable really) she would probably have said No, because she wouldn't have properly understood and most of that time was the period where she 'hated' me anyway and wouldn't have wanted to do anything that I wanted. After that I could easily have got a sample because she dribbled a lot and we were often alone, but it felt wrong. Now I wish I had just done it anyway.
That's not unusual.
I have lots of "quick and dirty" trees on Ancestry trying to establish a link.
I always look at Shared Matches as that can quite often solve the problem of which ancestral branch they fit into.
My main problem is most people I match with either have no tree at all or have a tree of US people going back to the Pilgrim Fathers, but I have no one on my tree I'm aware of who was on the Mayflower!! Or they say their roots are in Ireland and I have no Irish heritage either through my research or via my ethnicity.
I did have a shared match pop up for one person where the connection seemed to be a girl who died aged 6 and who is one of my brickwalls! I have yet to work out how this child managed to marry and have a family when she was no longer living? It could be perhaps that the vicar wrote the wrong name in the burial register, but I feel very uncomfortable suggesting that and then claiming the additional ancestors that would give me .
One ancestry tree (which has been copied) has my bf dying aged 6 in the US -needless to say that tree is wrong.
Could it be Merry that no-one who is a close relative has done a DNA test
One ancestry tree (which has been copied) has my bf dying aged 6 in the US -needless to say that tree is wrong.
Could it be Merry that no-one who is a close relative has done a DNA test
Well, people I would have expected to come up in my matches say they have tested and have trees on Ancestry.
I suppose I should look again, but knowing I'm going to be confronted by masses and masses of info frightens me off!
I think I'm not good at learning new skills!
maggie_4_7
31-12-22, 16:14
Well, people I would have expected to come up in my matches say they have tested and have trees on Ancestry.
I suppose I should look again, but knowing I'm going to be confronted by masses and masses of info frightens me off!
I think I'm not good at learning new skills!
Yes you are, you are brilliant at family history research and that takes a lot of patience and concentration. Go and have a look at your DNA matches.
lol Maggie! The skills I have picked up for FH were learned years ago and I've only had to tag on a few extra bits here and there over the decades.
Part of the trouble is, I don't really know what I want from it (I think I did suggest something up thread, but can't have meant it as I don't remember what I said!), and I don't really understand why I would care if I share a tiny bit of DNA with someone when I read on here it can be accidental?? I think I know I couldn't really care less about discovering I am related to someone I don't know. Most contacts I've had in the last ten years haven't brought me any joy really, they just take my research and vanish!! lol
I don't really research my own tree any more, so it would be good if looking at DNA matches galvanised me to do more research. <<<< Maybe this is what I want from it??
I was a bit shocked to discover last week I'd forgotten how to work my offline tree program, it's been so long since I've added anything!
Olde Crone
31-12-22, 17:37
I share Merry's feelings about both DNA and my own tree research. Any progress made on my tree in the last few years has been made by Merry, lol, not by me and although I am thrilled she has knocked down two of my biggest brick walls, only she and I care in the end. My family are not interested and my few contacts seem to only want the nice side of family history. The last distasteful fact I posted on an open tree on geni resulted in me being blocked - an illegitimacy in 1861 apparently not acknowledged as worthy of inclusion in "a full family history" despite the fact that the illegitimate one went on to modestly great things and has many living descendants. I lose patience with this kind of silly attitude, apart from anything else, how hurtful for those descendants if they ever try to make contact in the interests of family history.
There are more mysteries in my tree which might be solved by DNA but when my brother tested we had only four close matches, three of whom we already had contact with. The fourth had a tree of 22,000 people, only one common surname, no common areas and was full of 100 year old mothers and 6 year old grandfathers. I lost interest at that point and banished DNA into the too hard cupboard. Of course I can't even access that anymore since my brother died and I somehow lost the link I had to the DNA results.
OC
only she and I care in the end.
lol OC! I agree, no one I know is interested in my tree any more. The people who were have all passed away now. They were all people who had done slow laborious research that took years to get anywhere. I think it's too easy now - people don't appreciate anything when it's easy.
I'm so sorry - I didn't know your brother had died - at least, I don't remember.
Margaret in Burton
31-12-22, 19:35
lol Maggie! The skills I have picked up for FH were learned years ago and I've only had to tag on a few extra bits here and there over the decades.
Part of the trouble is, I don't really know what I want from it (I think I did suggest something up thread, but can't have meant it as I don't remember what I said!), and I don't really understand why I would care if I share a tiny bit of DNA with someone when I read on here it can be accidental?? I think I know I couldn't really care less about discovering I am related to someone I don't know. Most contacts I've had in the last ten years haven't brought me any joy really, they just take my research and vanish!! lol
I don't really research my own tree any more, so it would be good if looking at DNA matches galvanised me to do more research. <<<< Maybe this is what I want from it??
I was a bit shocked to discover last week I'd forgotten how to work my offline tree program, it's been so long since I've added anything!
I totally agree. I only look at potential matches for Peter Henry Harrison. Not really found any yet. I’ve always only had people in the past take my research and not give anything back. Not interested
Mary from Italy
31-12-22, 19:44
DNA has confirmed one hypothesis that I thought I'd never be able to prove, and knocked down one major brick wall.
In the second case the DNA evidence of who my 2xG-grandmother was is overwhelming, yet I still don't have a rock-solid paper trail. I'll perhaps try starting a thread about it one of these days.
In that case I decided to make an all-out attempt on knocking down the brick wall during lockdown: I went through the trees of all the matches likely to be connected to it with a finetooth comb, and sure enough, found errors in 3 of them. Once I'd fixed the errors, about 15 trees all fitted together nicely, with each other's and with mine!
I still have some annoying brick walls (especially on my two Irish lines), and loads of closeish matches where I can't work out how we're connected, but every so often I have another go at one line or another, and quite often something new turns up.
So I've been delighted with it on the whole.
DNA found my grandmother's birth family within minutes of me loading my results! So it solved that mystery rather quickly!
I do have matches that must be related to my illegitimate great-grandmother's birth father, but they are all rather remote, looking at their trees, I think I have found one couple that he must be related to in some way, but I cannot get closer. Maybe one day!
Not mine, but someone who I have been working with over many years to try and sort out her big family mystery, I finally worked out what I thought was her family tree, and with access to her DNA results, found a distant match with a good family tree, that finally proved it!
My experience has been useful, and I live in hope of finding something else exciting, but to be honest, useful close matches are getting few and far between.
I asked both my parents (in their 80s) to do DNA tests to try and break down some brickwalls. Dad asked why? And I said because I want to know if my research is correct, or if I am totally on the wrong trail.
Two and a half of three of Dad's brickwalls fell down with several DNA matches proving his 2xgreat grandfather DID in fact have parents (they were not recorded in the baptism register), and that they were who my research predicted, with DNA matches reaching even further back.
The half remaining is difficult as the pool of matches is very small, - research did not pin-point a baptism or death/burial for William Martin, and it seems that only one of his sons (Robert) had children - just two, Dad's grandmother Laura and her brother Harry, who married his grandfather, and his sister Elizabeth. As far as I can tell none of Harry and Elizabeth's descendants have done DNA tests, or even have a tree on Ancestry.
I have DNA matches in the families of Robert's wife (Susan) and his mother Elizabeth, but none that I can say - yes, that is one of William's family.
Over this Christmas period, I have been chasing down some of the closer matches who do not have family trees. I was really lucky with a man with an unusual name - I looked at his facebook profile and his friends - and found one with a name similar to one of my DNA matches' nickname (who manages several tests who are also matches). A bit of research built a small family tree, and searching more of their facebook friends, and friends of friends discovered a name I already had in my tree, cousin-ship solved!
My daughters are amazed that I have been cyber-stalking - it wasn't just facebook, but also the access many other online archives including on-line memorials for recent deaths which meant I could do this - and I don't intend to do anything with the information, except add it to my family tree.
From time to time I pursue distant DNA matches who have trees, but only solve about 1 out of 5.
maggie_4_7
01-01-23, 10:23
DNA has been very helpful in some areas of my tree, confirming my paper research and broken down one brick wall.
I did help a DNA connection to my first cousin who contacted me to trace her great great grandmother, who was a Irish brick wall, I managed to find her parents and siblings born in Ireland. She came to England in 1860 and promptly had an illegitimate daughter who was in my cousin's tree on her father's side who lied her way through all the census, birth location, marriage certificates etc. It was very satisfying, not through DNA really but only contacted me because of this woman popping up in my tree because coincidently was in my tree as a married in and my cousin as an ancestor.
vBulletin® v3.8.7 PL3, Copyright ©2000-2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.