MyHeritage

DNA By the Numbers

Kris Hocker on 4 Jan 2019

We all saw the holiday sales on DNA tests from the major testing companies. Ancestry especially seemed to be advertising everywhere. So, before all the newly taken tests start delivering results, I thought I’d take a snapshot of where I stand results-wise.

I started tracking results last March. It’s a bit difficult to compare the companies to each other, except by total number of matches. And even then it’s not exactly a fair comparison. So, let’s look at each company across the tracking period.

Ancestry

At the beginning of March 2018, I had a total of 21,120 matches at Ancestry. 644 of those were 4th cousin or closer. By the end of the year, those numbers had grown to 30,037 and 921.

AncestryDNA Shared Ancestry Hints (Mar to Dec 2018)

AncestryDNA Cousin Matches – 4th or Closer (Mar to Dec 2018)

As you can see, there was fairly steady growth after an initial quick uptick.

I uploaded my AncestryDNA results to MyHeritage early last year. While the numbers are not as great as at Ancestry, the growth has been steady all year and I have a number of relative matches at the company that I don’t have at Ancestry. I started out in March with 1,508 matches and had 2,608 at the end of December. The number of close relatives (close & extended family) grew from one (only my Mom) to three (Mom, a 1st cousin, and a 3rd cousin).

MyHeritage also has their equivalent of Shared Ancestry Hints—Smart Matches. I only have three of those as well.

Family Tree DNA

I also uploaded my results to Family Tree DNA. At the beginning of the year, they were the 2nd most well-known company. But I have to say the growth in the number of matches has not been impressive. Take a look.

Over the course of nine months the number of matches grew from 296 to 358. Granted I would have more matches at FTDNA if I’d tested through the company, but I don’t know if the growth would have been any greater.

The Others

I’ve also uploaded to GEDmatch, 23 and Me, and LivingDNA. GEDmatch only lists your closest 2,000 matches. 23 and Me doesn’t provide your matches unless you buy a kit, but I apparently have a respectable 1,010 matches at the company. Based on the information provided I’m not sure if that’s the total total or the total of 4th cousins or closer.

LivingDNA hasn’t apparently found any relatives for me, but I only got access to the Family Networks in November, so that’s not a great surprise. With any luck that will change in the coming months.

Conclusions

Based solely on the total number of matches, if you’re looking to identify relatives or to build your family tree, Ancestry is the place to test. If you’re looking for international matches, I’ve found more of them on MyHeritage—though if I spent the money to test at 23 and Me or LivingDNA, I think I might find them there, too.

It will be interesting to see how the numbers change once all the holiday purchase results are added online. If I recall correctly, I had a lot of new matches to work with in early 2018. With the significant drop in DNA kit pricing during the holiday sales, I wonder if there are going to be even more to work with in the next few weeks or months.

Majority of MyHeritage and Ancestry DNA Accounts Include Family Trees

Kris Hocker on 25 Oct 2018

The DNA Geek, Leah Larkin, posted her updated research into the prevalence of accounts at the DNA testing companies and GEDmatch having family trees. She examined 500 matches for ten accounts at each of the following: MyHeritageDNA, AncestryDNA, Family Tree DNA, GEDmatch, and 23 and Me.

She found that for MyHeritage and Ancestry far more accounts had family trees than didn’t, averaging 88% at MyHeritage and 75% at Ancestry. The other sites were all less—significantly less in some cases—than 50%.

For the full account, please read her blog post (below).

The Glass Is More Than Half Full—2018 Version

She only checked for the availability of a family tree and “did not consider tree size, quality, accessibility, or documentation. Some of the sites allow a tree with a single person, and some trees contain only living people who are privatized. In this study, only presence/absence of a tree was tallied.”

My Results

I ran my own little experiment, but I changed it a little bit. I looked at the matches for two accounts on Ancestry, MyHeritage and GEDmatch. I have significantly fewer matches at FTDNA so I did not use those accounts.

I also used slightly different parameters for each. I looked at 500 matches for each, but used criteria that were specific for each tool.

On AncestryDNA, I found that between 42-46% of matches had trees linked to their DNA. An additional 29% had unlinked trees. So, 71-75% of these matches had a family tree of some sort—consistent with Leah’s average. Of those who had trees about 7% (for me) and 4.6% (for mom) had shared ancestors identified in their trees (shaky leaves) and a little over 7% had private trees.

On MyHeritage, 87% had trees. Again, this is consistent with Leah’s data. However, I also looked to see how many of those with had fewer than seven members—the minimum number of people required in a three generation tree¹—and how many had only one person in their tree. About 30% of matches had fewer than 7 people in their trees; this was true for both accounts. Somewhere between 10.8% and 12.6% had only one person.

For GEDmatch, I performed a ‘One-to-Many’ search for each account and copied the first 500 matches into a spreadsheet. For both accounts, there were about 70 matches that had uploaded a GEDCOM to their account and about 10 who had linked to a Wiki. So, about 16% had a family tree of some type attached to their account. This is slightly higher than the average Leah found in her research.

Conclusion

I’ll admit, given my impressions on using Ancestry, MyHeritage and GEDmatch to determine the ancestry Mom and I share with our matches, I was expecting my numbers to be lower than Leah’s. A lot lower. Instead, they pretty much confirm her findings.

The discrepancy between my impression and the real numbers, I believe, can be found in the difference between having a tree and having a useful tree. The quality of the information provided in a tree has an impact on the overall impression of whether or not users “have trees.”

A tree that includes only one person, not much help. A tree that has multiple generations, but all are “private”? Again, no help. A tree in which I can’t find a common thread? Well, that feels like it’s a lack on my part, not the tree’s, and definitely leaves a different impression after the fact.

I can and do build trees for my matches—sometimes starting with very little. That’s how I’ve made most of my discoveries using my DNA matches. But I do need something to start with. A username may or may not lead to a name. A name may or may not lead to other names. But names, dates, and places provide a much better starting point.²

So, while it’s heartening to see that the overwhelming majority of test takers do, in fact, add trees to their accounts, I’d be able to better appreciate that if more of them included information I could reliably build on. I’ll keep hoping that with time and continued discussion, more of them will.

Genetic Genealogy Update

Kris Hocker on 1 May 2018

The AncestryDNA growth trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. As of the beginning of the end of April, Ancestry had nine million DNA testers in the database. If my match list is anything to go by that number is growing fast.

Autosomal Testing Growth, courtesy of The DNA Geek

In February I reported that I had 408 pages or 20,373 DNA matches. That number has gone up to 24,177 matches (484 pages). 409 were added in the last seven days alone, including another of my Dad’s cousins (YAY!). While the numbers at other vendors aren’t quite so large, the growth trend is consistent there, too.

DNA test match numbers

It’s both overwhelming and exciting. On the one hand, there’s just no way to keep up with the additions. Most of the cousins added are in the 5th-8th cousin range—a whopping 97%. The likelihood of finding a common ancestor there is small—especially when there are no family trees to compare. On the other hand, each new cousin who tests could be the one to help me break through to a whole new generation or surname to research. Having a research strategy is crucial.

By the way, if you’ve been thinking of testing, now is a great time to buy. All the vendors are celebrating Mother’s Day with a DNA sale. Here’s a list of vendors and sale prices.

Adding to the Mix

As I’ve mentioned, I uploaded my Ancestry raw DNA file to MyHeritage. They not only offer ethnicity results and relative matching, but also a chromosome browser—so you can see exactly where you and your relative match, triangulation—previously only available through 23 and me and GEDmatch, and the ability to download individual matches or all your matches.

23 and Me recently—for one day—allowed AncestryDNA testers to upload their results. In return, the user gets to see their ethnicity summary and the results to four of their health reports. To be honest, I’m not exceptionally interested in either, but I took it as an opportunity to see what the company has to offer.

The ethnicity composition at each was pretty consistent with what I know and what Ancestry and Family Tree DNA reported. MyHeritage reported that I’m European: 75.1% North & West European (France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and parts of Italy, Austria, Czech Republic and Poland) and 24.9% Irish, Scottish and Welsh. 23 and Me reported that I’m 99% European with trace amounts from Western Asia & North Africa and East Asia & Native American. The latter percentages are so small that they likely represent ancient DNA.

(Click to enlarge)

Although the percentages vary, you can see that most of the results across the four testing companies are not that far off each other. The consensus is that I’m primarily of northwest European descent with a few ancestors from adjoining areas of Europe, as well.

What I found really interesting was 23 and me’s “Ancestry Composition Chromosome Painting.” This “predicts the ancestral origin of different parts of your DNA by comparing them to reference populations.” The granularity of sub-continent identification looks a bit different a varying confidence levels.

I’ve been mapping ancestors to DNA segments and painting my chromosomes using Genome Mate Pro and DNA painter. I wonder if I map this chart to the same chromosome map will it match what I know of those ancestors? What, if anything, might it tell me about the ancestry of some of those ancestors whose parentage has not yet been identified? For instance, who did I inherit the Iberian DNA from on my x-chromosome? What about that Eastern European on chromosome 6? Or the British & Irish I apparently inherited on both sides of chromosome 22?

Fascinating.

Clusters

I’ve been looking at clusters of Shared Matches lately on AncestryDNA, especially those who match my known Hocker relatives. I’ve been trying to find groups that may help me identify some of the unidentified ancestors of my great great grandmother Lillian Ainsley (Leedy) Hocker.

Sometimes in reviewing your matches you run into groups of cousins who all seem to appear in each other’s Shared Match lists. Without triangulation tools, it’s impossible to know whether the DNA you share all comes from the same common ancestor, but you can still use these Shared Matches to gain valuable insight.

If you recall, I used the matches I shared with several Snyder cousins to determine the maiden name of Henry Snyder’s mother Catharine is most likely Nuss. In researching the Shared Matches, I found I could trace a large number of them back to Conrad Nuss and Anna Margaretha Roeder. Further research into this couple revealed that not only did they have a daughter named Catharine of the correct age to be Henry’s mother, but the husbands of several of her sisters were named in the papertrail associated with Jacob and Catharine Snyder’s family.

I’m using this same technique to look at those individuals who match the descendants I’ve identified of Anthony Parsons and Catharine Bowerman. Catharine’s parentage is unproven—though I may have found candidates. I also have not proven the ancestry of Anthony’s mother. Like Catharine’s I’ve seen online family trees with family named, but, as is common, I have not seen evidence to support these identifications. Sorry, for me, other family trees do not count as evidence—clues, yes, evidence, no. So, I’m using the DNA matches to direct my research in the records. So far, it’s been minimally successful.

That’s the latest update on my genetic genealogy research. How’s yours going?

It’s the Little Things that Count MyHeritage Keeps Improving

Kris Hocker on 28 Mar 2018

MyHeritage has recently added several improvements to MyHeritage DNA above and beyond those I wrote about in Stepping Up the DNA Game. They’ve gone from an afterthought in my genetic genealogy work to an “I’ll have to check them out” and now to “I am really liking this site.”

Navigation

Working through a long list of matches can be time consuming and challenging, especially if you can’t easily pick up where you left off. MyHeritage has added two new features that users have requested to help.

Page navigation

Page Navigation

The first is to add page navigation so that you can jump to a specific page (see right). This means if you leave off reviewing your matches at page 125, you can quickly jump back to that page when you come back to the site.¹ It also shows you just how many pages of results you have. You don’t have to guess.

Results Per Page

Results per page

The second allows you to choose how many results you want to see on each page. Don’t have a fast connection or maybe limited screen space and don’t want a long list to scroll through, set it to the minimum (10). Want to see more, bump it up all the way up (50). You choose.

Distant Cousin Labeling

They’ve also changed how distant matches—those with relatively little shared DNA—are labelled. Initially, they were labelled “3rd cousin to 5th cousin.” While some of these matches may have fit into this category, not all did. They may have been more distantly related or even false matches.

Now, those matches with low shared DNA with Medium or Low confidence are now labelled “3rd cousin to distant cousin.” This will help you to better identify how closely you are related to your matches.

Triangulation

I talked about MyHeritage’s triangulation in my previous posts—Stepping Up the DNA Game and Triangulation Hiccups. MyHeritage added a new method of identifying which matches triangulate with each other.
MyHeritage Triangulated Segments

Now when you view a match, if a shared match is triangulated—all three of you match in the same DNA location—a triangulation symbol (see right) will appear in the shared match’s row.

Clicking on the symbol will take you to the Chromosome Browser where you can see exactly how the three of you match. Now you don’t have to go to the Chromosome Browser, search for the specific people, and add them to the browser to determine if you, your cousin and a shared match all triangulate or not. MyHeritage has done that work for you.

In my opinion, this is a big improvement on Ancestry’s shared matches. Triangulation allows you to determine that you share a common ancestor. Without it a shared match could match your cousin on a different line that doesn’t match you and you wouldn’t know it.

Kudos to MyHeritage for listening to their users and building a DNA tool that we can not only use to take our genealogy to the next level, but better meets our user experience requirements as well.

Triangulation Hiccups Not Quite Perfect Yet

Kris Hocker on 16 Mar 2018

As great as this MyHeritage upgrade sounds, it’s likely going to have some hiccups to overcome. MyHeritage initially had some issues with its matching system¹ that were greatly improved with a major update to the system in January.² It appears there are still some kinks to iron out in the triangulation process, too.

Currently, some users are reporting issues with matches who should triangulate—as shown on other platforms like GEDmatch—but are not triangulating on MyHeritage. Limiting the number compared at one time can apparently impact whether specific matches triangulate, even when they do not triangulate as a group.

I examined two of my mother’s matches (match A & B) whose DNA overlaps on chromosome 17. They triangulate—Mom matches A; Mom matches B; and A matches B. When I compare my Mom, match A, and myself, we also triangulate. However, if I add match B to the mix…no triangulation.

MyHeritage Chromosome Browser Triangulation

Match B does not show up on my match list, even though based on my comparison to Mom and match A, they should. (This is not the sole example of a person who should also match me and doesn’t.)

And it’s not an inconsequential piece of DNA. The triangulating segment is nearly 20 centimorgans. It’s not an incidental segment. A lot of the DNA matches I’ve identified sit at this end of the scale, including most of my Schneider-Nuss cousins.

MyHeritageDNA has come a long way in a short time. Once they’ve worked out the issues some users have been experiencing, I think their tools are going to uniquely position them in the marketplace. Add a marketing drive in Europe to attract more European testers and their value proposition will improve even more. I’m going to be keeping an eye on them. I may even find their site becoming the first I turn to for my genetic genealogy.

Stepping Up The DNA Game

Kris Hocker on 12 Mar 2018

When MyHeritage started accepting uploads of DNA results from Ancestry, I uploaded right away. I didn’t initially have a lot of matches, but I figured that would change over time. I still don’t have anywhere close to the number of matches that I have on Ancestry. But that’s okay. Because MyHeritage has something just as good—useful tools.

Like Ancestry, MyHeritage list the matches you share with a particular person. Unlike Ancestry, they also show the match’s estimated relationship to both you and that person, and how much DNA you each share with that person.

MyHeritage also displays your match’s ethnicities. But MyHeritage shows how your ethnicites compare to your match and highlight which you have in common.

Best of all? MyHeritage has a chromosome browser! You can see exactly where you share DNA—which chromosome, which genomic position, and how large a segment—right on the match’s page. You can also download this information—so that you can use it in a program like Genome Mate Pro or DNAPainter for further analysis.

And with MyHeritage’s announcement during RootsTech, it’s gotten even better!

Upgrade

Not only does MyHeritage have the Chromosome Browser on each matches’ page for a one-to-one comparison, you can now compare up to seven individuals in their new One-to-Many Chromosome Browser.¹ This allows you to discover where your shared matches actually match. Furthermore, it will show you triangulated segments.

“If a match is shown as triangulated, it means that you, A, and B all match each other precisely on that segment, and therefore all of you are probably related, and you probably got that triangulated segment from the same common ancestor.”

Since this is the point of testing—verifiable relationships—this is awesome and MyHeritage is the only vendor offering it for free.

Furthermore, not only can you export the segment information for each match individually, you can now download all your matches and the shared DNA segment information for all your matches at once or download the shared DNA information for the matches you compare in the One-to-Many Chromosome Browser.

Wait! There’s more planned for the future.²

The company has created one big family tree based on everyone who has tested with them or uploaded DNA to be processed by them. They use this to determine your estimated relationship with your DNA matches.

The next step—and this is the future talking, the near future—is to combine your DNA matches, their trees, and their collected documentation to construct a family tree for you and your matches. They call this the “Theory of Family Relativity.” It would still need to be verified via research, of course, but would provide at minimum a starting point for that research.³

Cool, huh? For some of my matches, this would be invaluable.

For the details of this and other announcements, please visit the MyHeritage Blog (https://blog.myheritage.com).

Tag: MyHeritage