Up until recently I’ve done all my genealogical research as well as my
DNA analysis using Ancestry.com. However, I recently heard that one could take
the raw DNA data from Ancestry and upload it to some of the other genealogy
sites and get some of the benefits of that other site – and most importantly to
me, without paying for another DNA analysis or a membership fee in that other
site. I thought, why not? After checking out the various advantages of several
of these other sites, I chose to do so with MyHeritage.com. The process was
fairly easy, and it only took a day or so to get the results back.
I first looked at their DNA analysis. They have far fewer regions in
their analysis, so I was not as pleased with their results here. So, I’ll not
spend any further time on that part. But what was more interesting to me was
how they match you to others in their database and how many results they can
find.
In ancestry, I have perhaps 9000 possible matches. Most of these are
quite distant cousins, and I have not bothered to check them out. I started looking
at the beginning of the list and have tried to make contact with those at the 4th
cousin or less, especially those who have family trees where ancestry will show
you exactly how you are connected. Most of the people in their database are
from the US, but that’s where most of my relatives are anyway.
MyHeritage has a slightly different ranking scheme where the ranking is
first determined by the number of DNA segments where you match another person
and within that the total length of the matching segments. A person who shares
three shorter segments is ranked ahead of someone who shares two longer
segments. I’m still getting used to their ranking and working within those
constraints (some of which I have because I am not a member). Also, since I
have not replicated my tree there, I can’t get any tree matching so instead I
can only look at the other person’s tree, if they have one, which many do not,
and find matching names somewhat manually.
But what was most interesting to me was that they identified over 7000
possible cousins (7124 to be exact). There are two things within this that were
especially noteworthy.
First, while the 2nd-4th person in their list
were cousins that I already knew, the first one was someone whom I had not heard
of before. This person turned out to be the first match that I’ve gotten where
our common ancestor is part of my Jewish heritage (*1). I actually did have her
father in my extended family tree. I quickly got in touch with her, found that
she lives only a few miles from my sister in CA, and have put the two of them
in touch with each other to share genealogy stories.
One of the great things about DNA matching is that this is scientific
confirmation that the family tree that you have built using paper records is
correct – that there are no cases of getting two individuals with the same name
confused, or children born of affairs, etc. While getting your ethnicity
results (see *2 for the results of my wife) does this to a certain extent,
getting names associated with these matches is even better. By having this
particular match, I have confirmed my entire Jewish family line all the way
back to their immigration into the US in 1851.
Secondly, I was surprised to find a number of matches to people who are
not in the US – so far I’ve found individuals in Germany (several), Israel
(several), Russia, England, Netherlands, and Denmark. I have not yet contacted
any of these individuals, and for those who have family trees, I have not found
how we are possibly connected. But this will be the focus of some of my
research over the coming weeks. Are these new cousins ones who have gone from
the US to other countries so that our common ancestors are in the US, or are
they more distant cousins where our connection is from far back in my family
tree? It will be interesting to find out.
Notes:
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