DNA Analysis

Wyldwood

Has anyone here been contacted by a match on any of the sites without you taking the first step? I'm just curious as I have over 50 2-4th cousin matches on FTDNA and not one has made contact with me. I have contacted 4 on Ancestry and one has replied and we've established the relationship, but not a whisper from the others.

It's a bit disheartening when there is no initial contact from any matches and you have to do all the leg (finger) work.

Mez1982

Wyldwood wrote: »

Has anyone here been contacted by a match on any of the sites without you taking the first step? I'm just curious as I have over 50 2-4th cousin matches on FTDNA and not one has made contact with me. I have contacted 4 on Ancestry and one has replied and we've established the relationship, but not a whisper from the others.

It's a bit disheartening when there is no initial contact from any matches and you have to do all the leg (finger) work.

This is my situation too. I have had to reach out to nearly everyone, with maybe one or two reaching out to me. The ones that do instigate, don't reply back after they realize that the connection we share, is very,very far back...The majority of the ones I do reach out to don't reply back, which is fair enough, some people just want to see their ethnicity and don't want anything after that or they honestly don't see you're email but IMO, If you DO see the email, give a few lines to say you're not interested, It's not that hard! I just think it's rude to ignore someone...

pinkypinky

I've had a few people contact me, usually from gedmatch, who don't email new results.

What's more disheartening are the people who never bother to reply to you when you do make contact? Why bother to do a DNA test if you don't want to find anything out!

Mez1982

pinkypinky wrote: »

I've had a few people contact me, usually from gedmatch, who don't email new results.

What's more disheartening are the people who never bother to reply to you when you do make contact? Why bother to do a DNA test if you don't want to find anything out!

I have stopped messaging or emailing any match now because of that very reason...Why am I going to bother wasting my energy writing one,when It's going to be ignored.

googled eyes

googled eyes wrote: »

Just got my results earlier. Kind of as I expected. Irish with a sprinkling on British and Viking. ( You'll grab that 1% viking from my cold dead hands!)

Europe 99%

Ireland 94%
Great Britain 2%
Finland/Northwest Russia 1%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Scandinavia 1%

West Asia < 1%
Low Confidence Region
Caucasus

Genetic Communities

Kerry
Ulster Irish

Ancestry has given me 84 4th cousins and 1 possible ancestor link

How long does Gedmatch take to complete?

Upload my raw DNA to My Heritage and came back as



Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 89.9%

Italian 5.6%

Baltic 4.5%

My Heritage has given me 5 dna matches all 3rd to 5th cousins with very small trees and no matching surnames

srmf5

Has anyone here been contacted by a match on any of the sites without you taking the first step? I'm just curious as I have over 50 2-4th cousin matches on FTDNA and not one has made contact with me. I have contacted 4 on Ancestry and one has replied and we've established the relationship, but not a whisper from the others.

It's a bit disheartening when there is no initial contact from any matches and you have to do all the leg (finger) work.

I've been contacted by the odd match but not many. I've contacted everyone on my first page of matches and I've only gotten a few replies. When I do get a reply, a lot of the time neither of us have common surnames or the other person has only gone back a few generations. It is nice to get a reply all the same because there are some that have loads of information but no tree online. I don't plan to contact anymore unless I get a new close match because the rest are probably all too far out anyway. Although one of my matches was a 5th to 8th cousin and she was actually a third cousin. I could recognise our common ancestors straight away whereas other closer matches I can't identify the connection just by looking at the tree.

I have stopped messaging or emailing any match now because of that very reason...Why am I going to bother wasting my energy writing one,when It's going to be ignored.

I just write a generic message now that I copy and paste. Of course I alter it a bit if I have an idea where the connection might be. I just list out the surnames on my dad and mum's side and give the area where most of my ancestors come from.

Free-2-Flow

So, after all the research on this thread.

What company provides the best service?

Hermy

The one that finds your elusive match!

srmf5

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

So, after all the research on this thread.

What company provides the best service?

They all provide a similar service. I have a preference for Ancestry though. It has the largest database and allows you to see shared matches. For comparison on MyHeritage I have 4 matches in total, on FTDNA I have 201 matches in total and on Ancestry I have 163 4th cousins or closer. On Ancestry I have 227 pages with 50 matches per page. For me the size of the database is really important since it increases your chances of getting good matches. Also FTDNA and MyHeritage allow you to transfer your DNA data from another company. I don't have experience with 23andme so I can't really comment on it.

Ancestry also has Genetic Communities for people that may not know where exactly in a country their ancestors comes from. You can also search through matches based on surname and location. That's how I found a third cousin that was listed as a 5th to 8th cousin.

However, it was the first company that I tested with so I'm probably a bit biased since I've had a longer experience with it. I haven't contacted any of my matches on FTDNA yet. The main disadvantage with Ancestry is that in order to initiate contact with matches you need to at least be paying for the essentials subscription. I'd recommend testing with Ancestry or 23andme and then transferring the data to the other databases.

pinkypinky

srmf5 wrote: »

The main disadvantage with Ancestry is that in order to initiate contact with matches you need to at least be paying for the essentials subscription. I'd recommend testing with Ancestry or 23andme and then transferring the data to the other databases.

I don't think you're right here. I don't have a current sub but have been able to send and receive messages with matches this week.

srmf5

pinkypinky wrote: »

I don't think you're right here. I don't have a current sub but have been able to send and receive messages with matches this week.

Really? How long have you had your results? I've only gotten my current subscription for the summer months and bought it around the 24th May so that I could contact people. I know in the past that I couldn't contact people unless I had a subscription. It must be new. I know when I bought the subscription that I definitely couldn't see the family trees of matches anyway. I'll have to cancel my subscription before the 23rd June and see if I can contact people. I know that I was talking to my aunt who recently got her results but she couldn't contact matches. Maybe I just bought the subscription to view the family trees so. Either way I'll cancel the subscription and see if it works.

srmf5

I just checked it out. Yes you can contact matches without a subscription but you can't view their public trees. I find the trees useful since there are certain people that I wouldn't have contacted except for that I could see their tree.

The only other exclusive features to a subscription are new ancestor discoveries (never happened for me), DNA circles (have none), shared ancestor hints (2/3 aren't correct), list of surnames in matches' trees and list of birth locations in matches' trees. The only useful features in my case are the public trees, surnames and birth locations.

Lia_lia

Uploaded my DNA to MyHeritage. No matches..yet! Ethnicity Estimate looks similar-ish to Ancestry. Bit different though. Still have my Middle East in there anyway :pac:



vs

th283

Wyldwood wrote: »

Has anyone here been contacted by a match on any of the sites without you taking the first step? I'm just curious as I have over 50 2-4th cousin matches on FTDNA and not one has made contact with me. I have contacted 4 on Ancestry and one has replied and we've established the relationship, but not a whisper from the others.

It's a bit disheartening when there is no initial contact from any matches and you have to do all the leg (finger) work.

I'm finding it the same, I've had no matches contact me, I've contacted a few second cousins which proved interesting, one in particular was a lady in the US who had been adopted and had no idea of her fathers identity and we've been able to narrow down the options from my family tree

spurious

Just discovered a 2nd to 4th cousin match who matches me on both paternal and maternal lines, which is kind of interesting. Here's hoping he replies to the contact.

Free-2-Flow

I had a look on MyHeritage, doing a special delivered for 91 euro

RGM

I'm confused why anyone would do MyHeritage over one of the others. I'm surprised to see so much talk about it.

Free-2-Flow

RGM wrote:

I'm confused why anyone would do MyHeritage over one of the others. I'm surprised to see so much talk about it.

Biggest database?

RGM

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

Biggest database?

Biggest database of what? Not anything related to DNA, which is all that would matter.

Free-2-Flow

RGM wrote:

Biggest database of what? Not anything related to DNA, which is all that would matter.

Biggest Database as in the most users which will increase your chances of a match?

RGM

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

Biggest Database as in the most users which will increase your chances of a match?

They have the smallest database and it's not close. They are the newest. They also don't offer anything particularly unique (unlike Living DNA). Hence my confusion.

Free-2-Flow

RGM wrote:

They have the smallest database and it's not close. They are the newest. They also don't offer anything particularly unique (unlike Living DNA). Hence my confusion.

What is your opinion then? Ancestry?

Free-2-Flow

Ancestry are doing a fathers day discount for 69 pound

RGM

Free-2-Flow wrote: »

What is your opinion then? Ancestry?

It can depend on what exactly you're after and your heritage, but for most Irish people I'd think Ancestry is an easy choice. Largest database by miles. They announced a couple months back that they've topped four million tests sold. Nobody else is in the picture when it comes to that. The value and accuracy of the ethnicity percentages stuff is up for debate, but for better or worse, Ancestry is also the only one of the big three that currently has an Irish category.

I would like to see more people get involved in Y-DNA testing at Family Tree DNA, but that's something else altogether.

spurious

FTDNA have a 69 USD offer at the moment.

Regardless of company, most can be uploaded to GEDMatch to compare with others.

RGM

spurious wrote: »

FTDNA have a 69 USD offer at the moment.

Regardless of company, most can be uploaded to GEDMatch to compare with others.

True, but database size remains a massive factor because most people do not do that.

dubhthach

spurious wrote: »

FTDNA have a 69 USD offer at the moment.

Regardless of company, most can be uploaded to GEDMatch to compare with others.

There's also fact that you can for example order with AncestryDNA and then transfer the sample into FTDNA, the advantage of this of course is you end up been in both databases without having to pay full cost of two autosomal tests

https://www.familytreedna.com/autosomal-transfer

Of course if you want to do Y-DNA testing in FTDNA (if you are a dude or have a sample from a male relative) you do need to provide a sample in that case.

dubhthach

On related notes, for Ramadan FTDNA have following sales codes:

New member order of Y-DNA 111 STR's: RAMY2017111 ($60 off -- $299 instead of $359)

BigY order: $150 off: RAMBigY2017 ($425 instead of $575)

In combination with McManus project I've helped sponsor a Connor (american so no O') for BigY. Between donations from McManus BigY testers and the sale we got price down to $225



The cluster of 4 kits on left of that image all share a documented MDKA in late 18th century Georgia in SE USA. The individual was a "patriot" during US revolution. They appear to share two unique mutations new to science that so far are only seen in the descendants of this man who have done BigY.

some of time estimates on this is that the spilt between McManus kits and Connelly kit is on order of 1,000 years before present.

The Connor kit is interesting as he has a genetic distance of 4 at 67 markers with a kit associated with the O'Conor Don lineage. so it will be interesting to see how he fits in this. Within the context of medieval genealogies the McManus family of Connacht are a cadet branch of the O'Connor's of Connacht.

The O'Conor Don lineage been descended from Cathal Crobhdearg Ua Conchobair (King of Connacht), whereas the McManus lineage are suppose to descend from his brother Maghnus Ua Conchobair both sons of Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair (d. 1156) High-King of Ireland.

dubhthach

My own interest is more from deep history point of view, but I do note that on AncestryDNA that I have a match who is in the range of probable 1st-2nd cousin, they don't have any tree etc. I sent a message but user hasn't been logged in over last couple of weeks. My parents samples were just received by Ancestry so when they are analysed it will be possible to see which matches come from which side of my family.

srmf5

dubhthach wrote: »

On related notes, for Ramadan FTDNA have following sales codes:

New member order of Y-DNA 111 STR's: RAMY2017111 ($60 off -- $299 instead of $359)

BigY order: $150 off: RAMBigY2017 ($425 instead of $575)

I would love to get a Y-DNA test done but I find it hard to justify spending such large amounts of money. I wish it was cheaper. Would you recommend getting the Y-DNA 111 rather than the others? Would the other tests not give good enough information and be a waste of money. What I'm saying is you'd be better off saving for the Y-DNA 111 rather than buying the Y-67 or earlier.

I'm a bit confused about the BigY. On the website it says that it's more useful for science than genealogical or ancestry purposes. However, you have shown it to be useful in that regard. Would you recommend the BigY over Y-DNA 111 or would both be recommended? I also can't seem to find BigY on the website. I can only find it in FAQs.