Wednesday 3 May 2017

Pet Peeves with DNA Matching

With the exception of those who test with 23andMe for health related information, the vast majority of people take autosomal DNA tests to identify familial connections.   But many people severely limit their opportunities to identify connections with others by not maximising the functionality of the testing service. 

My pet peeves related to DNA testing for family history are -
  1. People who do not reply to messages related to a DNA match - Communication with others who share portions of your DNA is the best way to establish how you may be related, or to get help with achieving your objectives of taking a DNA test.  If someone contacts you, have the courtesy to reply.
  2. No associated family tree - All of the major testing companies (and GEDmatch) provide a facility for publicising your ancestral family tree, and all provide protections for hiding information on living people.  Publish the information that you know, to make it easier for DNA matches to see how you might be related.
  3. Associated family tree is not public - Why hide your research from others?  You may have identified an ancestor that others have not, or you may have made a mistake in identifying an ancestor.  If your online tree is private, you will miss the opportunity to help others and correct errors.
  4. Anonymous people on 23andMe - I am still on "the old experience" so I get to see that I have a DNA match, and how much DNA we share, but I cannot contact people who have chosen to be anonymous.  Why did they bother taking the test?
  5. DNA result not uploaded to GEDmatch - If you have tested with one of the major DNA testing companies, you can avoid a lot of the drawbacks of the individual companies' capabilities by uploading your DNA test result to GEDmatch, which facilitates matching between people who tested with different companies.
  6. Not accepting genome sharing requests on 23andMe - 23andMe (the old experience) does not automatically show you which segments of which chromosome you share with another customer, so you have to send a genome sharing request to each potential match, to identify which segments you have in common.  If you do not accept genome sharing requests you can only identify that you share DNA with a person, but have no idea of which line you may be related on.
  7. Ancestry and MyHeritage do not provide information on which segments of which chromosomes are shared - These two testing companies know exactly which segments of which chromosomes you share with every other person in their database, but they choose to not provide you with the information.  At least 23andMe lets the user decide to share or not share, but Ancestry and MyHeritage severely limit their DNA test capability by not allowing users to ever see this information.
Please, take a few minutes to -
  1. Check the privacy settings on your DNA test account
  2. Upload a GEDCOM file of your ancestors or manually add your ancestors to the family tree associated with your DNA test account, and make sure that viewing the tree is not restricted
  3. Upload your DNA test results to GEDmatch, and include a GEDCOM file
  4. Check for new matches every week or two
  5. Communicate, communicate, communicate!



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