Jump to content

DNA WEBSITES


rover1949

Recommended Posts

My brother and I were given DNA subscriptions as gifts last year but from different websites.  Same idea, you send in a sample of spit to extract the DNA and the results are entered into a database for analysis.

We were both surprised that neither of us appeared in the others report, - no connection between siblings?  My own reports give lots of fourth and fifth cousins in the USA and other locations.

We assumed that there was a global database that compared all the inputs but now realise that our DNA is only matched with other subscribers to the same website.

So far I feel like it was a waste of money.  Anyone else had a positive experience?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was contacted by someone who had the test done and it showed me as related to her, but she just wanted to correct a family that I linked to with a name that I got from the census. Pointing out the same woman was still at home with her parents in a later census when she should have been married at that point. The ancestor was an illegitimate and actually was in a workhouse! I couldn't really argue the case as she was DNA related to me! So that did solve that issue. 

I think also that as it is expensive to have these DNA tests done, which will limit the results and the results will also depend on your racial grouping, since it sadly is still the case that none white people are still paid less than white counterparts, even in the UK.

Still it's interesting to here that they do only link to the place you are subscribed to, but that could be due to confidentially issues that stops them linking with other databases. But I didn't know that is what they did, so thanks for that information.

I have always wondered if there is any link with hereditary illness (tests) when you do these tests? Even if there is not I suspect some people might think there are and therefore wouldn't have tests done. Thus limiting the databases again. There are other reasons more sinister that people might not have tests done, but we won't go down that road.  

I only really think that a DNA test on Ancestry would be useful if some of the people wanted to prove that they were related to some famous person or Royal or noble, just because they have cobbled a family tree together using the link to other people's trees. Even though these trees can be wrong. For example I came upon the Benton line, which has strong links to the USA. However some people confused Birmingham UK with the same place in the USA. Thus had a person having a man travelling between the UK and USA to found two families, one in the UK and one in the USA, all in the 18th Century!!!  What of course was missing were the records of the UK man, probably because the records had not been uploaded to Ancestry. So people jumped on to the USA man instead.    

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DNA might prove a certificate is wrong but it won't always show who the daddy is. As with a lot of family history there are those who think they can get everything laid out in one go for free and those who know that it takes a bit of research, that other trees are to be treated with caution and lots of assumptions can be made. 
I feel a lot think it is the portal to a huge tree where they will find their entire ancestry back to Adam and Eve laid out for free but as soon as the annual sub comes around or they find they have to join a site to message someone they vanish quicker than snow in the Sahara. 

I link to a few trees on Ancestry which are all based on one seriously flawed tree, one tree owner has entered everything onto Wikitree and made a real mess of it. A female is married to her great grandson, she was having children well after she turned 100 and years before her "hubby" was born, this glaring and obvious error is for his direct line and the great grandson is in fact the grandfather of the tree owner. suffice to say wen it's so wrong so close to the present day I steer well clear. I have offered details but he refuses to edit anything and I really can't bothered to go through the 100+ names that are in the wrong places. I'm creating my tree not correcting dozens of others I stumble across online. 
Our "link" is a household including two boys born in the 1840's, I know both died as infants as I have birth and death certs, baptism and burial details but the other trees have them both married by the age of 10 to wealthy families in the area. Another brother is given up as lost but easily found in census returns with his married sister.  DNA would be no use other than confirming the link to these flawed trees.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you tried putting your DNA on gedmatch ? Thats a site where DNA from all sites can be addedd so a large database.You can download the DNA file you need from ancestry for example & upload to gedmatch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Johnm, I have uploaded the DNA, to GEDmatch, - lets see what happens next.

Has anyone else had positive results from this website?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its also worth saying that if you have been researching your family history for a long time then its unlikely that you will find any near relatives through DNA you didn't know about , only 4th cousins & more distant. I have found one 3rd cousin & rest 4th cousins from my 2 DNA tests.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My experience is the same as yours. I'm signed up with 23andMe and they regularly send me emails with dozens of 4th and 5th cousins. These people are so distantly related they are worth bothering with and I would say this applies to 3rd cousins.  They can only tell you about people signed up with them so in that respect they're not much use. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, johnm said:

Its also worth saying that if you have been researching your family history for a long time then its unlikely that you will find any near relatives through DNA you didn't know about , only 4th cousins & more distant. I have found one 3rd cousin & rest 4th cousins from my 2 DNA tests.

Thanks Johnm, I'm sure you are right.

I started genealogy mid 80s before the interweb was invented.  (Register Office, St Catherine's House and Grenoside LDS church records etc).  So I am pretty confident that I have my family history since 1837 with one exception.  My gg grandfather disappeared without trace in Sheffield mid 1860s so I still would like to track him down.  The DNA route is probably my last chance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GEDmatch returned 3000 x 4th and fifth cousins which means a lot of Christmas cards this year...................

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, rover1949 said:

Thanks Johnm, I'm sure you are right.

I started genealogy mid 80s before the interweb was invented.  (Register Office, St Catherine's House and Grenoside LDS church records etc).  So I am pretty confident that I have my family history since 1837 with one exception.  My gg grandfather disappeared without trace in Sheffield mid 1860s so I still would like to track him down.  The DNA route is probably my last chance.

That sounds like a challenge, why not post the details and give us a chance to help!!!!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks.  For the sleuths out there, we are looking for Richard Vernon.

Richard Vernon was registered as the father of four children;- Agnes, Eliza and Richard born in Liverpool, and Thomas born in Sheffield.  The first three children were baptised on 14th October 1860 in St Mary’s C of E Church in Edge Hill, Lancashire.  The Birth Certificate of Richard (senior) has not been found.  On the children’s birth certificates, his profession is stated as ‘Journeyman Tailor’.  At the time, a journeyman was defined as a worker paid by the day, suggesting that he would take work as he could find it, rather than regular employment in a factory or shop.  This may explain why he appears to have moved with his family from Liverpool to Sheffield in the 1860s.

According to the 1861 Census, the family were living in Mount Vernon Road in West Derby, Liverpool.  Richard is shown as 30 years old and coming from “Camebridge” (sic).  There are two Cambridges in England, the lesser known one being a village near Bristol, however no earlier record of Richard has been found.

When the youngest child Thomas was born, the family were living at the Old Crown Inn on London Road in Sheffield.  The last record of Richard is on the Death Certificate of Eliza, his youngest daughter, who died in Sheffield in 1862, and he is registered as being present at the death.  By the 1871 Census, his wife is listed as a widow, so he may have died between these two dates, although no record has been found of his death.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As St Mary's is the closest churchyard, I looked at the burials, whilst Eliza appears to be there, no Richard.

On Sheffieldindexers site there is a record of a Richard Jnrs marriage with father Richard (Cutler though not Tailor) as deceased in 1878,

Other than that he does appear to be somewhat of an enigma.

 

Oddly on the 1911 census Richard Snr's wife is listed as married for 55 years, not widowed like on previous census.

 

I'm sure some of the sleuths on here will find something concrete.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks RichardS, I suspect the cutler Richard may be a red herring. Having long exhausted all the usual references I was following a different tack. 

Sometimes an abandoned wife referred to herself as "widow " when her husband had simply left her.  So our Richard may have gone to who knows where to start a new life, hence the DNA search.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...