On beyond AncestryDNA
NOTE: This blog’s recommendation of GEDmatch has been withdrawn due to privacy issues. See “Withdrawing a recommendation,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 15 May 2019).
Reader Ida French is having trouble figuring out how third-party utilities like Gedmatch.com can help in using autosomal test results, and particularly those from AncestryDNA. She writes:
I am still having a hard time understanding how exactly this will help. I have uploaded my raw data from Ancestry to Gedmatch and played around with the tools but don’t understand how this can direct me any better to a match than what Ancestry has given us with our DNA matches. One of my matches is on Chromosome 4, 8.5cm and 1,592 snp. We also match on other chromosomes. My question is where do I go from here?
The bottom line here is that what Gedmatch provides, and Ancestry doesn’t, is the ability to see exactly where in your DNA you and another person match.
Let me give you an example. I can look at my own DNA and that of a cousin of mine who has also tested. At Gedmatch, we show this match-up on chromosomes 11 and 12 (among others):
I happen to know exactly in our family lines this cousin and I match, and that he and I have no lines in common other than one set of third great grandparents.
That much, you may say, you can get from AncestryDNA and its shaky-leaf hint system.
But by knowing exactly where in our DNA this cousin and I match, where I can go from here is to look for others who match me and my cousin in the same place in our DNA.
This process of adding others into your match-list mix allows you to share genealogical information with more people who are likely descended from the same common ancestors.
Once you and any DNA cousin have identified a segment as having come from one set of common ancestors, then you know that anyone else in the future who matches you in that same place is also likely to be a cousin in that line.
The problem with Ancestry, of course, is that the tree of the person you match there may be just plain flat out wrong. There is no other information given there except the tree to see if it’s likely to be true or not.
Let me give you an example. One of my own shaky-leaf hints on AncestryDNA is with a woman whose tree says she is a descendant of my Baker family through a fourth great granduncle Henry Baker and then through Henry’s daughter Nancy who, her tree says, married one Jesse Smith and lived and died in Tennessee.
One hitch here. Henry Baker’s daughter Nancy married Robert Wakefield in North Carolina, and she and Robert remained there, married to each other and recorded in census and court records, until they died and were buried there in NC. No Smith and no Tennessee even remotely in Nancy’s history.
If that match and I had both uploaded our information to Gedmatch, or if we had both tested with a company that provides analytical tools, we could see where in our DNA we match — rather than where in faulty online trees. And if either of us had mapped that segment to a particular line, we’d be able to avoid the time wasted in chasing that non-Baker rabbit down into a genealogical black hole.
Alternatively, had I mapped that shared segment to my Baker ancestors, we’d know to spend more time seeing where in the Baker family that match really belongs, since her descent isn’t in any supposed Smith-Baker marriage.
The downside of Gedmatch, or any third party utility, of course, is that not all those who test uploads their DNA data to the utility site. That means you can only compare your results to those who have uploaded there. But at least when you do compare it, you’re comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges, rather than one possibly faulty tree to another possibly faulty tree.
You wrote: “Once you and any DNA cousin have identified a segment as having come from one set of common ancestors, then you know that anyone else in the future who matches you in that same place is also likely to be a cousin in that line.”
I think this is what you meant, but “who matches you in that same place” should probably be “who matches BOTH OF you in that same place.”
Right as usual, Ruy!
Thanks for posting this scenario as it reminds me to transfer my AncestryDNA!
We’re still waiting, I think, for Family Tree DNA to open up for transfers from AncestryDNA… but Gedmatch should be available!
You’re very clear, as always. But this subject is way complicated and I have yet to master it. I’ve got to set aside some DNA study time, specifically. I think I can do it later this summer. It’s incredible that we have all this information available to us.
It absolutely is complicated, Mariann. Both YDNA and mtDNA are much easier to understand. But autosomal is worth the effort — and the patience it takes as you wait to work out just how you connect to your DNA cousins!
I don’t have the results yet, but I sent in the Ancestry autosomal kit and Family Tree DNA’s Comprehensive Genome kit several weeks ago. Once I get the results from both companies, can I submit them both to Gedmatch? If not, which would be the better one to submit, or does it matter? I am also trying to find a female relative willing to take a test. So far, her concerns are privacy issues and the potential for government abuse down the road.
You CAN submit them both, but there’s no real reason to: the parts of your DNA sampled by the two autosomal tests are basically the same. I’d simply upload one of the two autosomal test results (Family Finder from FTDNA or your AncestryDNA results). And while I understand some of your female relative’s concerns, remind her that you can submit her sample using YOUR email address and a pseudonym. I have a male cousin who agreed to be tested only under the name John Doe [Surname] with my email address as the contact.
Thank you Judy. I wasn’t aware of the pseudonym option. That may help sway her.
Good luck! Hope she agrees to test.
Would you please give us some good references for learning about DNA and genealogy?
Good idea, Terry. Watch for next Sunday’s blog!
Can’t wait.
The key for me is that I can’t figure out which segments I can attribute to the common ancestor! Any suggestions for figuring that out?
A future blog post, for sure!
If I want to compare my dna results from Ancestry with a relative who has yet to take the test, should he order a test from another company or Ancestry? I want to be able to see if we are blood relatives or not. If another, which one do you recommend?
He can test with Ancestry, but you’ll need to take both of your raw data results and use a third-party utility to get a lot of detail. Gedmatch can accept results for both of you from Ancestry and give you good tools to see whether and how you match.