Ancestry DNA

[Jenny M Benson]

Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having a
Common Ancestor. Several of these I know quite well and know exactly
how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked at the
person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none of the
people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.

I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can it
say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other" when A
N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?

I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know of
the connection.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Post by Jenny M Benson
Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having a
Common Ancestor.  Several of these I know quite well and know exactly
how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked at the
person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none of the
people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.
I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can it
say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other" when A
N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?
I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know of
the connection.

Couldn't someone get the Ancestry DNA kit and have their DNA analyzed
without having a tree on Ancestry.com? Someone could be have an Ancestry
account for research purposes but only read information and never post any.

Perce

[John]

On Sat, 14 Mar 2020 16:02:32 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"

Post by Percival P. Cassidy

Post by Jenny M Benson
Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having a
Common Ancestor.  Several of these I know quite well and know exactly
how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked at the
person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none of the
people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.
I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can it
say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other" when A
N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?
I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know of
the connection.

Couldn't someone get the Ancestry DNA kit and have their DNA analyzed
without having a tree on Ancestry.com? Someone could be have an Ancestry
account for research purposes but only read information and never post any.

Or, to put it into a slightly more tinhatty and paranoid context: the
Great *THEY* know far, *far* more about all of us than we think they
do or could.

Through things like Farceboke, Twatter, Gaggle and your electricity
supply company's billing department, not to forget the N.H.S.
databases so generously supplied to Amazon and Gaggle by our caring,
sharing government, corporations can buy immense databases containing
vast amounts of linkies to just about everyone from just about
everyone else and their pet iguanas. Merging and sorting these is
easy, though weeding out the crud, cruft, corruptions and deliberate
false data inserted by arseholes like me who have seventy-seven
thousand "mother's maiden names" [I rarely answer "security" questions
with anything like a truth] [because once a database is compromised a
lie can be easily changed, a truth less so] can be a little difficult.

It is possible that Ancestry.com might be able to supply the linkages
to Ms. Benson's phantom relatives even if the relatives themselves can
not. Whether the company should or would are good questions. How much
it would cost is another.

It may be that privacy policies prevent this, or that sheer
commercial interest does or even that it would entail a vast amount of
scut-work by database monkeys who, though poorly paid, *are* paid to
do that sort of scouring. Are or could be.

It is the sort of thing "The Machine" [bless her heart] from the TV
serial "Person Of Interest" does. Whether a human search engine could
do it efficiently is a really good question.

And whether we would like anyone to have the ability to do it is
another.

Though that is yet another of those little tin-hatty issues.

J.

Post by Percival P. Cassidy
Perce

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On Sat, 14 Mar 2020 at 16:02:32, Percival P. Cassidy

Post by Percival P. Cassidy

Post by Jenny M Benson
Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having
a Common Ancestor.  Several of these I know quite well and know
exactly how they are related to me, but in several cases I have
looked at the person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only
are none of the people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.

There seem to be two sorts of tree: a rudimentary one, often with about
ten people in it, that's shown on the DNA pages, and a "proper" tree, if
the person either has uploaded one or uses Ancestry to store their main
research.

I'm not sure where the rudimentary one comes from.

Post by Percival P. Cassidy

Post by Jenny M Benson
I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can
it say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other"
when A N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?

Ancestry's DNA matching does have - and use - access to "private trees".
You'd have to message the other member and ask for access to it.

Post by Percival P. Cassidy

Post by Jenny M Benson
I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know
of the connection.

Couldn't someone get the Ancestry DNA kit and have their DNA analyzed
without having a tree on Ancestry.com? Someone could be have an
Ancestry account for research purposes but only read information and
never post any.

If they do that, Ancestry will tell them (and their matches) a match
level based purely on the DNA overlap; it's a fairly coarse estimate,
such as "fourth to seventh cousins" or (I think this is the bottom one)
"fifth to eighth cousins". It won't tell you "you share ancestor X with
this person", though, as it doesn't have that person's tree. (I _think_
it _might_ be able to do so if that person's DNA does very closely match
that of someone else who _has_ uploaded a tree, but I'm not sure.)

Post by Percival P. Cassidy
Perce

John

[Jenny M Benson]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
Ancestry's DNA matching does have - and use - access to "private trees".
You'd have to message the other member and ask for access to it.

But when the DNA test is linked to a Private Tree, Ancestry tells you
it's a Private Tree. In the cases where Ancestry is telling me someone
has shared descendancy with me from a particular couple, it shows the
name of the tree to which the DNA test is linked, and often that tree
just has very few entries.

[MB]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
There seem to be two sorts of tree: a rudimentary one, often with about
ten people in it, that's shown on the DNA pages, and a "proper" tree, if
the person either has uploaded one or uses Ancestry to store their main
research.

A rudimentary tree is better than nothing.

I used to compare locations but they have dropped that now, it was more
useful than the crude ethnicity map because you could quickly see if
they had links to similar places as yourself.

[knuttle]

Post by MB

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
There seem to be two sorts of tree: a rudimentary one, often with
about ten people in it, that's shown on the DNA pages, and a "proper"
tree, if the person either has uploaded one or uses Ancestry to store
their main research.

A rudimentary tree is better than nothing.
I used to compare locations but they have dropped that now, it was more
useful than the crude ethnicity map because you could quickly see if
they had links to similar places as yourself.

If they have enough people in that were living at the time of the
ancestor that is you dead end.

[MB]

Post by knuttle
If they have enough people in that were living at the time of the
ancestor that is you dead end.

Don't understand that?

[knuttle]

Post by MB

Post by knuttle
If they have enough people in that were living at the time of the
ancestor that is you dead end.

Don't understand that?

What I was trying to say that if the match is a 5th to 8th cousin, and
the oldest generation in the matches tree is their grandparent, the
chances of you being able to document the connection are small.

If you have traced every decendant from your 5th to 6th great
grandparent you would not be in a dead end situation.

The usually situation I find is thier grandparents is the oldest
generation in their tree. Looking at my tree there is about a 4
generation gap between my tree and thier grandparent. To make the
connection I would have to research 4 generation from thier tree to make
the documented connnection

[john]

Post by Jenny M Benson
Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having a
Common Ancestor.  Several of these I know quite well and know exactly
how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked at the
person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none of the
people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.
I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can it
say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other" when A
N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?
I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know of
the connection.

I think a lot of people who weren't at all interested in genealogy saw
the DNA testing kit advertisements on television which said they could
determine ethnicity. So many kits were given as Christmas presents as a
fun gift. Some of those then just added a minimal tree often with hidden
names, but many did nothing.

I have a huge number of potential cousins witha minimal or no tree
including one or two which would help me resolve long-standing problems.
And they are no longer interested and don't answer messages when you try
to contact them.

I assume you subscribe to the Lost Cousins newsletter? The recent
newsletter https://tinyurl.com/vm7z6j7 has an updated article on
interpreting DNA results. Once you get to 4-7th cousins the number of
detectable cousins is about 1115/5536/19140/32000.

[knuttle]

Post by john

Post by Jenny M Benson
Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having
a Common Ancestor.  Several of these I know quite well and know
exactly how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked
at the person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none
of the people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.
I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can
it say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other"
when A N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?
I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know
of the connection.

I think a lot of people who weren't at all interested in genealogy saw
the DNA testing kit advertisements on television which said they could
determine ethnicity. So many kits were given as Christmas presents as a
fun gift. Some of those then just added a minimal tree often with hidden
names, but many did nothing.
I have a huge number of potential cousins witha minimal or no tree
including one or two which would help me resolve long-standing problems.
And they are no longer interested and don't answer messages when you try
to contact them.
I assume you subscribe to the Lost Cousins newsletter? The recent
newsletter https://tinyurl.com/vm7z6j7 has an updated article on
interpreting DNA results. Once you get to 4-7th cousins the number of
detectable cousins is about 1115/5536/19140/32000.

The number of people with no trees of minimal trees to determine the
connection out number the ligament Researcher by many times. At time it
seem it may be 10 or 20 to 1.

Even if you find a populated tree, it is unlikely there will respond to
a contact.


As for potential matches with common ancestors. It is my understand
that multiple trees are analyzed to develop the connection. When you
find a common 5 to 8th ancestor and the match only has a couple of
people if you look at the tree with the matches and then click on
someone in the matches tree, a window will pop up that appear to be the
trees analyzed to create the common ancestor.

[Jenny M Benson]

Post by knuttle
The number of people with no trees of minimal trees to determine the
connection out number the ligament Researcher by many times.  At time it
seem it may be 10 or 20 to 1.
Even if you find a populated tree, it is unlikely there will respond to
a contact.

That has been my experience:-(

Post by knuttle
As for potential matches with common ancestors.   It is my understand
that multiple trees are analyzed to develop the connection.   When you
find a common 5 to 8th ancestor and the match only has a couple of
people if you look at the tree with the matches and then click on
someone in the matches tree, a window will pop up that appear to be the
trees analyzed to create the common ancestor.

Ah! I think I get it now, thanks!

It turned out that someone descended, on their father's side, from 4th
Gt Grandparents of mine. On their mother's side they descended from X
and Y who were also the nxGreat Grandparents of Ancestry Member. From
that, Ancestry determined that Ancestry Member and I shared my 4th Great
Grandparents as common ancestors.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

[]

Post by john

Post by Jenny M Benson
I have so far only contacted one of these people to ask if they know
of the connection.

I think a lot of people who weren't at all interested in genealogy saw
the DNA testing kit advertisements on television which said they could
determine ethnicity. So many kits were given as Christmas presents as a
fun gift. Some of those then just added a minimal tree often with
hidden names, but many did nothing.

Indeed. Given by people who thought the person was more interested in
genealogy than they really were, or where they were but found it a lot
harder than they were expecting.

Post by john
I have a huge number of potential cousins witha minimal or no tree
including one or two which would help me resolve long-standing
problems. And they are no longer interested and don't answer messages
when you try to contact them.

Before DNA, I got very few replies when I contacted someone (say because
I saw something in a tree of theirs). Since DNA (though I think I could
have done it before), I look at "member since" and "last logged in"; if
the person last logged in over about three months ago, I generally
assume they're not interested in the hobby, and don't usually bother
even trying. (Yes, I know, some people only work on it in the winter
months, but very few IME. YMMV.) Similarly, if the tree linked to their
DNA profile only has 1 to 3 or 4 people in it, _unless_ their "member
since" date is very new, I assume they're not interested.

Post by john
I assume you subscribe to the Lost Cousins newsletter? The recent
newsletter https://tinyurl.com/vm7z6j7 has an updated article on
interpreting DNA results. Once you get to 4-7th cousins the number of
detectable cousins is about 1115/5536/19140/32000.

Yes, PC seems very keen on DNA - sometimes to an annoying level. But
it's a good newsletter - often getting news of offers or newly-scanned
archive sets.

[Jenny M Benson]

Post by john
I assume you subscribe to the Lost Cousins newsletter?

I do, and with my latest batch of "entries" I matched with 2 people
connected to the same branch of my family. So far, only one of them has
responded to messages but Peter is attempting to prompt the other one.

There may be a lot fewer "hits" with LC, but on the whole I think there
is a better chance of a response.

[Peter Johnson]

On Sat, 14 Mar 2020 18:46:39 +0000, Jenny M Benson

Post by Jenny M Benson
Looking at my Ancestry DNA, I see quite a few people listed as having a
Common Ancestor. Several of these I know quite well and know exactly
how they are related to me, but in several cases I have looked at the
person has quite a small tree on Ancestry and not only are none of the
people on my tree, but none of the surnames match either.
I know Ancestry can compare my DNA with another's and say, with some
degree of accuracy, "You are 4th - 7th cousins" but how on earth can it
say "you share ancestors Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe with A N Other" when A
N Other doesn't have a tree including these people?

Sometimes people get things wrong.