General Chat

With ancestry I have over 6000 matches, with about a dozen being fairly close. Before they changed how they set things out they had some second cousins from same family spread across as 2nd or 3rd cousins.

On My heritage I have 12453 matches. First two I know and know of. Tehn I have a jump to 4th or 5th cousin. She has an odd name and I was able to work her out and she is actually a 5th cousin. So for me MH is pretty useless.

Added: I cant give you my matches from Living dna as it seems not to be loading, but last time I looked I only had one known match, who is actualy on both the other sites.

Added: just realised I look very clever, I didn’t trace the 5th cousin all the way back, she had a small tree on another site and I was able to link her into my tree.

I can't remember which company this was.

Dna testing is much more common in the US - and there are a lot more of them.

A second cousin is descended from your joint great grandparents, your first cousin from your joint grandparents. For example , my first cousin is my mothers niece. My second cousins are the grandchildren of my mothers uncles.

The second cousin may actually be further away than that. It is just a guess made due to the amount of cms.
Not all matches are true matches.

Experts say one should discount anything beyond a 4th cousin or 30-25 cms as the results cannot be relied on.

Added: don't get disheartend if they don't reply - it seems that many people that have their dna done are not interested in family history.

Florence, what those match numbers indicate is that more people in those countries have had their DNA tested...........

And the fact that you have no close matches means that no one closely related to you has had a test and uploaded it to that site.

You may find that the Australian has other rellies with DNA on there, so that might account for a few.

Of that huge number of matches, some of the most distant may be 'false'.

I too have a huge number of matches, I found a few who I had already contacted through tree matches, plus a few who I knew who they were from my tree.

If you haven't already done so, put up a family tree, even a small one, and list the surnames you have. Then every week or so (after you get bored of looking every day) check for any new matches, and check out anyone who has any of your surnames.

I've just checked, we don't match.....

Well I have my DNA results

77.8% English
19.1% Balkan
3.1% Scandivian

The biggest matches were a surprise!!

USA 3767
UK 2028
AUS 479
FRANCE 427
GERMANY 383
CANADA 247
NETHERLANDS 245

These are the biggest matches. But the most surprising thing of all is, it says i have 0 close matches?? So unless someone closely related to me has done a DNA test, it wont show any results?

It showed a 2nd cousin from Australia, so i emailed him to ask how we are connected as the only 1st cousin I had, sadly died age 45 back in 2004 .
But I dont understand how I can have more USA matches than UK?

In all I have over 11,000 matches. is that normal? What kind of numbers have others had?

Its a lot to process ;-)

Florence in the hebrides

No he worked for British Rail and then age 25 went in for the ministry. Not a train driver but in the office doing wages etc.

Mu mum and her brothers & sisters all had quite dark skin as did their dad and his sister. Rumour had it that the grandmother ran off with a Maltese sailor hence the sallow skin in the family. It will be interesting to see if I have any foreign DNA in me as no foreigners on dads side!

Ah, Florence - but he wasn't always a Baptist Minister :-D

Sister, nephew and I all had our DNA tested by MH, and they didn't say how we were related, just suggested it was a high probability - and got it right!

The person in question is a nephew of the first cousin once removed so def not grandads brother. A cousin of my father did our family tree several years ago and I have a full copy of that some 60 pages. It was made into an A4 book with the full history at the back and an index of all names associated with the family name.

Grandad was a Baptist Minister so no scandals there ;-)

If it is MH telling you it is a great uncle rather than a cousin once removed don’t worry - they can’t be exact, basically it a guess using the amount of cms. If is from someone else’s tree then there may be a mistake on the tree, or you weren’t old the whole story ;-)

Well my sample is in the lab and being analysed so should be completed 2. Think there are 2 more stages until completion so its quite exciting.

But on the my heritage site, it gave me 2 matches and one gave someone as a brother of my grandfather but actually the person was a cousin once removed and def not his brother?? So not sure how this info has come about?

Well my daughter's friend came for a visit today so took advantage and did the test and daughter went to local PO and it is now posted. Cost £3.39 so not too bad.

So now wait patiently for the results.

Florence in the hebrides

I use FamilyTreeDNA which is in the U.S., and I have to pay the postage to return it, too. On top of the terrible exchange rate right now...

Ancestry happens to have places of business, or at least postal addresses, in several countries, so it can offer postage paid, I guess.

A company in one country can't really offer postage paid from another country, is the thing.

And postage sure isn't the bargain it once was!

Ty for the suggestions. Im sure it wont cost a fortune so yes, I shall get it done as soon as I know someone who can post it for me.

Names, it does actually say in the instructions that the postage is paid by the sender.

Florence in the hebrides

You’ve bought the kit now Florence, you need to crack on with it. I don’t remember it being overly expensive to post, or taking quite as long as they said.

I don’t remember having to pay postage for the ancestry test. The adverts say it costs x and postage is an added sum. Those ones used to go to Ireland, I assume they still do.

Added: the Ancestry website refers to a prepaid envelope. My Heritage refers to an enclosed envelope but says the results take 3 -4 weeks. :-S

I received my DNA testing kit from My Heritage but.... It has to be sent back in the padded envelope provided to....USA!!! I'm thinking that will cost me a fortune?

I thought, it would be somewhere in the UK or is this why it was so cheap to buy but the money you save you spend on postage?

Anyone else have a different testing kit that is sent back to a UK address? Also it says results in 6-8 weeks and I thought it would be much quicker.

I'm not too sure what to do now.

Help or suggestions please

Florence in the hebrides

A deep breath and sit down comfortably ;-)

Florence - for when you get your results back or read it beforehand, this masterclass from Lost Cousins is very good.
https://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/latemar22news.htm#Masterclass

As long as you don't wait 5 years, or 5 months, you'll be safe. ;-)

I'm waiting on my test kit to come in the post. I was just curious about the time factor.
I shall do the test when my friend comes as she will be able to take me to the post office to send it away.

About time limits ...

I took my mum's swabs in 2019, I think. I brought the kit home and forgot about it. I can't do it over now...

I asked one of my DNA mentors whether it will still be usable. He said almost certainly not, as the bacteria in the swab -- for tests that use the "wet" method -- eat the DNA.

I'm going to send it off with fingers crossed very tightly.

But I've ordered an autosomal DNA test for myself too, and I'm having that test done on my mum's male family member's kit as well. Mostly to get comparisons with the family his Y-DNA (male line) matches with. You remember ... the name-shifting great-grandfather ... whose DNA says he is neither the M name he adopted nor the H name he was born with, but the name of a family from 10 miles away in Cornwall. Watch this space.............

Take a deep breath and check out this thread:

https://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1401588

An Autosomal DNA Thread

I wanted to make it separate so it didn't make off with this thread, or get tangled in the specifics here.

DNA results tell you about your DNA ... not about your genealogy.

If there is evidence of some origin in your DNA, then you have some ancestral connection there, but it may be far stronger or weaker than it seems from the DNA proportions.

If your DNA is 1/8 Italian, that does not mean that 1/8 of your ancestors (e.g. a great-grandparent, or two great-great-grandparents) were Italian.