Still waiting for Living DNA Family Networks

Living DNA has not been very forthcoming about when their Family Networks feature will be available for general viewing, but it did move a little closer this week - I was able to opt in to the Family Networks feature.

Family Networks promises to be a very useful,and unique, feature - by providing only your DNA sample, sex and birth date (which does not have to be exact), Living DNA plans to show your DNA matches in an ancestral tree.  The date of birth is required to help separate first cousins from aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.  The key seems to be having as many close relatives as possible, on both sides of your ancestry, provide DNA samples.  Details of Family Networks in action, can be found by clicking here.

Living DNA offers autosomal DNA testing, but they also (at least until 31 October 2018) accept raw DNA samples from people who have tested at Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA.  If a lot of people take advantage of this upload opportunity, Living DNA could quickly become a "go to" site for determining how you relate to other DNA testers.  Perhaps the hardest thing to figure out is how to upload your raw DNA sample to Living DNA, so I have provided a link to get to the right page quickly.

Click Here to Upload a raw DNA sample to Living DNA

Once you have created an account and uploaded your DNA sample, you need to opt-in to Family Networks.  To do this, click on "View Test" from the "My Tests" option on the home page.

Coming Soon - Living DNA User Matching

Back in November 2017 I uploaded our DNA test results to Living DNA.  The upload was free and came with a promise that by summer 2018, Living DNA would offer matching to other users on their site.

This was exciting, because Living DNA is based in the United Kingdom, and so so will hopefully have more users with UK ancestry.

I checked my Living DNA account yesterday and the message now reads -

Welcome to Living DNA.

Thank you for uploading your DNA file; we’re excited to process your results and provide insights into your DNA.

By uploading your DNA file to Living DNA, you will have the option to participate in our One Family, One World project, as well as Family Networks and your unique ethnicity results.

To say thank you for your support, each uploader from now until October 31st, 2018 will soon be able to choose to see how they match and connect to other Living DNA participants. This feature is rolling out to small groups of users at a time, starting August 8th, 2018.

We hope you enjoy finding, connecting with people all over the world.

David Nicholson & Hannah Morden

Co Founders - Living DNA

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I hope that we will be in one of the first groups to participate in this new service, but regardless, I will report back once I have tried it.

The other date to note in this announcement is that the opportunity for free upload of your DNA test result from another company could expire on 31 October 2018.  So if you have tested at another DNA testing company and have UK ancestry, time is running out to take advantage of this offer.  To participate in this offer -

• Download your raw DNA data from your account on your DNA testing company's website, and save it to your computer.
• Join the One Family, One World project on Living DNA, and follow the instructions to upload your raw DNA data.

Good luck!

A Myriad of New Cousins

It has been a busy few months trying to keep up with all of our new DNA matches at the various DNA testing companies.  My 20 confirmed matches have jumped to 35 since the beginning of the year, and Marlene’s 26 matches have jumped to 51 in the same period.  Admittedly some of these are the same people testing with more than one company, but still, a remarkable increase in new cousins found.

Some of the new matches have been quite straight forward, whereby we compared ancestral trees and the relationship was obvious, but for others the relationships were more complex –

•          Another previously unknown half-sibling for Marlene’s 3 LeBlanc 2^nd cousins once removed, who were all adopted at birth.
•         Two previously unknown illegitimate 2nd cousins on different lines.
•          A new first cousin once removed on Marlene’s LeBlanc / Wood lines, who is unaware of any LeBlancs or Woods in her ancestry.
•          A new third cousin once removed on my Brady line, who appears to have an unknown Brady great great grandfather – his great grandmother was illegitimate and raised by her mother, so this is the most likely source of his Brady DNA, and the geography fits.

None of these new cousins would have been found through researching in paper records, and probably would not have been revealed in conversations with older relatives.  So kudos to DNA testing!

DNA testing has now also confirmed the paper research back to the parents of 13 of our 16 great grandparents – i.e. we share significant amounts of DNA with identified descendants of siblings of 13 of our great grandparents, which proves that we have a common ancestor, but does not prove who that ancestor is.

Overall we have seen more than a 60% increase in DNA matches since the beginning of 2018, so if this trend continues we will more than double the number of matches by the end of the year.  Unfortunately we are still only able to confirm on paper the relationship with just over 0.1% of our DNA matches, but with each new match that we confirm, that percentage creeps slower higher.

I am looking forward to August, when Living DNAs matching service is scheduled to be unveiled.  Hopefully their database will contain more people from the United Kingdom and Ireland, providing more opportunity to find new cousins.

Why Family History is Like Fishing

I enjoy a day of fishing every so often.  Even if I don't catch any fish, I can have a little peace and quiet, alone with my thoughts, in the beauty of nature.

Family history is very similar.  Genealogists all enjoy "catching" that vital piece of information that has eluded them for years, but even if we don't make a major breakthrough, we still enjoy exploring the various tangents, blind alleys and other diversions that we encounter in our searches.  Exploring a cemetery is still fun (in the beauty of nature) even if we don't find the headstone of that elusive ancestor.

But the similarity doesn't end there....  A fisherman has to choose a likely spot to catch fish, and most importantly, he needs the best bait and to use as many hooks as possible (or allowed by law).  In the early days of my family history search, the best bait available was to publish your research interests in a genealogical directory, in the hope that someone else researching the same family would buy the directory & make contact - the more directories you were listed in, covering the appropriate area of the world, the more likely you were to find that distant cousin.  Today, we can post our family tree online, either on our own website, on free public websites such as Wikitree or Family Search, or the subscription services such as Ancestry or MyHeritage.  The more of these options that we embrace, the more "hooks" we are putting out there, and the more likely that our "bait" will be seen and will be attractive to a distant cousin.

In the past few years a new type of fishing has become popular with genealogists - autosomal DNA testing.  But many of those who take an autosomal DNA test, don't bother baiting their hooks, so are cluttering up the pool for other fishermen, and only catching the "hungriest" of relatives.  The following steps will greatly increase your chance of hearing from your DNA matches and determining the relationship -

1. Put more hooks in the water - My Heritage, Living DNA, Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch all accept uploads of autosomal DNA results from other testing companies, which increases your likelihood of finding a DNA match, at little or no cost.
2. Improve the bait - If you have details of any of your direct line ancestors, create a tree or upload a GEDCOM file containing your known ancestors (not your entire family history database) to each site that you have uploaded your autosomal DNA result to.  Some sites allow filtering of DNA matches by the surnames in your associated tree / GEDCOM, which helps your DNA matches to narrow down which line you might connect on (especially on Ancestry which only allows you to view a match's tree if you have a paid subscription to their site).
3. Once hooked, don't let them get away - If a DNA match makes contact with you, respond!  Even if only to say that you are crazy busy and will not be able to investigate the match for some time.  Your response sets the hook, telling your new relative that you are interested in determining how you are related.

Good fishing!

DNA Testing is Changing Face of Family History

One of the first forays of family history into an electronic world was the introduction of computer software which allowed the user to enter details of their ancestry and produce charts and reports. 

Over time the GEDCOM format was introduced to facilitate the export / import of family tree data between computers, and more recently several companies began offering the ability to create a family tree online and share it with others.

Genealogists have an unquenchable thirst for data (names, dates, places), and Ancestry was quick to capitalize on this, providing access to historical records and the ability to link those records to a family tree.  They have certainly been the market leaders, especially in the North American market.

But recently the big game changer has been the introduction of autosomal DNA testing, introduced by 23andMe in 2007.  But 23andMe is not run by genealogists, focussing instead on ethnicity and health indicators, while providing some family history assistance.

Family Tree DNA is run by a genealogist and in 2010 added autosomal DNA testing to their existing suite of Y-DNA and Mitochondrial-DNA tests, providing the opportunity to have additional testing undertaken without having to submit a new DNA sample.

Ancestry saw the opportunity to add DNA to their product offering in 2012, and in 2016 they were joined by My Heritage and Living DNA.

The current offerings of the major players in the Family History / DNA testing arena is shown in the chart below -

Comparison of DNA / Family History Companies

It boggles my mind that Family Tree DNA offers the best tools for use with family history DNA tests, offers the greatest variety of tests, is often the cheapest test available, and yet after 8 years has the smallest database of autosomal tests of the 4 largest DNA test companies. 

On the other hand, Ancestry has the least useful tools (without an ongoing subscription to other Ancestry services), is one of the more expensive tests, yet after only 6 years has the largest database of autosomal DNA tests.

As indicated in a previous post, I think that My Heritage is the company to watch going forward.  My Heritage is led by a genealogist, they are the only major player to still offer family tree software for the home computer, and their database of autosomal DNA tests has gone from 0 to 1.2 million in just 2 years.  They are also not resting on their laurels, but rapidly introducing features that genealogists want, something lacking from the other leading DNA testing companies over the past 12 months.

There is perhaps some opportunity for consolidation in the industry.  One obvious alignment would be Living DNA and Brightsolid - both are UK companies, they have complementary product offerings, but over time will not able to compete, unless they each broaden their product offering.

Perhaps My Heritage will absorb Family Tree DNA, adding FTDNA's tools to their autosomal offering, but also bringing Y-DNA and Mt-DNA into the mainstream.

By 2020 I see a very different family history / DNA industry than we have in 2018, and as I have pointed out, the early entrants will not necessarily be the survivors.

MyHeritage DNA is Showing Promise

In past posts I have been somewhat critical of MyHeritage DNA, but by the end of 2018 they could well become the supplier of choice for autosomal DNA tests.

My Heritage was a late entrant into the world of autosomal DNA testing, and their initial offering was very basic - they did not identify which segments of DNA were shared by matches, there were no tools to filter or analyse your DNA matches, and being new, the database of testers was very small.  Their big draw card was that you could upload a DNA test result from other testing companies to My Heritage for free.

Over the past 12 months MyHeritage has greatly increased the size of their database (their database is already larger than the FamilyTreeDNA autosomal database), they have added a chromosome browser, improved their matching algorithm, and generally made the process of reviewing DNA matches a more user-friendly experience.  So what is next?

I watched a presentation by MyHeritage CEO Gilad Japhet, given at Roots Tech 2018, describing new features they have planned for 2018, and a general outlook on the future of family history and DNA testing, and I was left with the impression that this guy really get it.

Later in 2018, MyHeritage plans to release the first tool utilizing their Big Tree.  The Big Tree is a huge graph with billions of data points taken from family trees, historical records and DNA results on MyHeritage.  The first feature, which is referred to as The Theory of Family Relativity, will analyze your DNA matches, and within milliseconds will create a theoretical paper trail between two DNA testers, to explain how they are related - assuming of course that there are datapoints in the Big Tree to explain the connection.

All I can say is Wow! 

My only question is whether this tool will be available to those of us who took advantage of the free upload of our DNA result from another testing company, or will it be limited to those who have tested with MyHeritage directly, or perhaps limited to only those who have a paid subscription to MyHeritage?

DNA Matches by Testing Company (updated)

The Black Friday to New Year sales on autosomal DNA testing kits certainly resulted in a large increase in the sale of DNA tests and a corresponding increase in the number of DNA matches reported, but at least in my case, this did not result in the hoped for increase in the number of matches which can be confirmed by paper research.

The two charts below show the quantity of matches for my wife and I by testing company in November 2017 and then in March 2018 - approximately 4 months.

2017-11-07 DNA Matches by Testing Company

2018-03-10 DNA Matches by Testing Company

 My matches on AncestryDNA and FamilyTreeDNA increased by 34% and 18% respectively, while Marlene's matches increased by only 21% and 12% respectively.  As my ancestry in non-North American and Marlene's ancestry is initially North American, this may indicate that the North American market for DNA tests is maturing while the foreign market continues to grow.

23andMe only shows the top 1200 or so matches for each kit, so their quantity of identified matches has not increased (it actually decreased) despite an increase in the number of people tested.

MyHeritageDNA shows a phenomenal increase in the quantity of matches, but this has more to do with changes in how MyHeritage identifies matches and a reduced threshold in the amount of shared DNA required to become a match, rather than a huge increase in the number of people tested.

Despite the large increase in the number of matches, the quantity of matches verifiable through paper research has only increased by 13% for me and 4% for Marlene - a disappointing result!  The  primary reasons for this are -

• Lack of response to messages to new matches
• Absence of online family trees by new matches

AncestryDNA identifies a suggested relationship for each match, and overall I have only been able to confirm (through paper research) less than 0.1% of our identified matches. 

2018-03-10 AncestryDNA Matches by Relationship

I have had no problem confirming 100% of my 2nd and 3rd cousin matches, but beyond 3rd cousins it is much more difficult to confirm the matches.  For me, this is likely due to our common ancestor being born prior to 1800 which is beyond the timeframe of Irish parish records, making it more difficult to confirm. 

Marlene has only been 50% successful in confirming her 2nd and 3rd cousin matches.  Perhaps this indicates an adoption, or perhaps a non-paternal event.  Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, I will continue my weekly ritual of checking new matches on all of the testing company sites, and continue trying to get unconfirmed matches to respond to my messages.