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Anyone looking to build a tree from DNA testing has a certain type of need.
23andMe can help with ancestry and a family tree. You just have to talk to people.
I have to agree with PA2UK.
People on 23AndMe are not very responsive, often not replying at all for requests for contact. DH's top match will not do so. I wish she had never shown up in his match list.
I have recently been looking at my own matches at Family Tree DNA and have been able to determine relationships for most of the closest ones, because they have family trees or give enough information for me to find their relatives on ancestry.com.
People on 23AndMe are not very responsive, often not replying at all for requests for contact. DH's top match will not do so. I wish she had never shown up in his match list.
I have recently been looking at my own matches at Family Tree DNA and have been able to determine relationships for most of the closest ones, because they have family trees or give enough information for me to find their relatives on ancestry.com.
I simply don't find this to be true. And outside of research on Gedmatch where I may send an email and shoot off a WTH to someone, I don't know that it is true that people doing DNA testing simply aren't interested in sharing from 23andMe. I share with EVERYONE from 23andMe, sometimes even people who aren't necessarily related to me at 23andMe but there is a common kinship.
One story that I can share is a male that I discovered some time ago. I was related to his wife and sent a request to her. He was the admin for the tests and responded to me. Turns out he is actually related to my half-nieces on my maternal line via their dad's side. His wife IS my direct ancestor. He knew my nieces' prominent paternal grandfather and we were able to share.
All in one swoop we all connected and are Facebook friends today. His wife passed from breast cancer at the top of the year. Him paying attention to his wife's family as well as location helped us. My half-niece tested a couple years ago. This is real.
People are not DNA Grinches. I do believe people take issues with incorrect tree matches, especially at Ancestry. If I have never tested at Ancestry then there is no reason for anyone to be connecting to my tree out of the clear blue sky. There is NO DNA evidence to connect to. And when it is certainly made up, I have a reason to take issue with it. My uncle up tree did not leave his wife and children to move to PA as a descendant of slaves, married a white woman, and had lily white children. It just didn't happen when we KNOW he was still in MS with his family. These people simply had the wrong line and was matching on name alone. And to this day, I believe all of that is STILL wrong.
And btw, don't act like Ancestry has been around with DNA testing for years. At the point that I tested with 23andMe they had no test at.all.at.Ancestry.
I have 25 unresponsive DNA 'cousins' on 23andme. That's 1/4 of the contact attempts I've made. I can count on one hand the number of contact requests I've gotten initiated by someone else. Two responses were negative...odd, I thought, since people can opt out the lists. The 'open sharing' option is helpful up to a point but mutual sharing is better. Apart from my daughter, my closest DNA relative is a 2nd cousin, once removed. Beyond that, I have only a vague idea of how I might be connected to maybe three or four other close matches. No idea on most of the rest of my 1200+ matches. As a male, I have the benefit of knowing that 'X' chromosome matches are through my mother and that is available with open sharing.
I have 25 unresponsive DNA 'cousins' on 23andme. That's 1/4 of the contact attempts I've made. I can count on one hand the number of contact requests I've gotten initiated by someone else. Two responses were negative...odd, I thought, since people can opt out the lists. The 'open sharing' option is helpful up to a point but mutual sharing is better. Apart from my daughter, my closest DNA relative is a 2nd cousin, once removed. Beyond that, I have only a vague idea of how I might be connected to maybe three or four other close matches. No idea on most of the rest of my 1200+ matches. As a male, I have the benefit of knowing that 'X' chromosome matches are through my mother and that is available with open sharing.
I sincerely don't know what to tell you guys.
I don't feel that I am ignored on 23andMe like that. My best matches are from there and we grow to other tests to help understand the match. Many times even private conversations.
I am seriously thinking of asking my DNA relative to share here. He is the match to my sister's children on their dad's side, and his wife is my real ancestor. It truly wasn't a painful process. His wife was my DNA ancestor.
I think that he would actually participate here. We never argued nor bickered. I even shared with him when my nieces' grandmother passed.
I don't feel that I am ignored on 23andMe like that. My best matches are from there and we grow to other tests to help understand the match. Many times even private conversations.
I am seriously thinking of asking my DNA relative to share here. He is the match to my sister's children on their dad's side, and his wife is my real ancestor. It truly wasn't a painful process. His wife was my DNA ancestor.
I think that he would actually participate here. We never argued nor bickered. I even shared with him when my nieces' grandmother passed.
All I can say is that my experience does not mirror yours. DH and I tested at 23AndMe when you could get health reports. He was more interested in that than the genealogy. His sister and a niece are at the top of his list. Other than that, no one has been very helpful. He has a single second cousin there and she does not want to be contacted. Part of the difficulty is that his ancestors had small families and their descendants do not appear to be much into genealogy. There are few online trees with any of his family in them.
My top matches are relatives whose names I already knew. I sent a bunch of requests this weekend and got two responses, one of which resulted in identifying a common ancestor. In contrast, at FTDNA I have been able to identify common ancestors, even distant ones, from the info at the website, without even having to contact the matching person himself. If it is a distant connection I just move on unless I think I can help the match extend his tree. I moved my raw data from 23AndMe to FTDNA and I am very happy I did.
Your "DNA relative" is a close relative. That is a far different story than finding out where you intersect with fourth and more distant cousins. Both parties have to have worked the paper trail. A lot at 23AndMe have not done that. They do not even bother to list surnames - or only list two or four.
As far as "stealing" ancestors is concerned, I think we have to accept that some people are just not very good at research. They may be inexperienced, lazy, or just not very smart. If they end up with a tree that is 99% fiction, there is nothing we can do about it.
If they are actually your relatives, then adding the common relatives to their tree is not really stealing. My tree would be pitiful without the help of several third cousins who gave me an enormous amount of material, including pictures. I am forever grateful for their generosity and try to pay it forward.
I simply don't find this to be true. And outside of research on Gedmatch where I may send an email and shoot off a WTH to someone, I don't know that it is true that people doing DNA testing simply aren't interested in sharing from 23andMe. I share with EVERYONE from 23andMe, sometimes even people who aren't necessarily related to me at 23andMe but there is a common kinship.
One story that I can share is a male that I discovered some time ago. I was related to his wife and sent a request to her. He was the admin for the tests and responded to me. Turns out he is actually related to my half-nieces on my maternal line via their dad's side. His wife IS my direct ancestor. He knew my nieces' prominent paternal grandfather and we were able to share.
All in one swoop we all connected and are Facebook friends today. His wife passed from breast cancer at the top of the year. Him paying attention to his wife's family as well as location helped us. My half-niece tested a couple years ago. This is real.
People are not DNA Grinches. I do believe people take issues with incorrect tree matches, especially at Ancestry. If I have never tested at Ancestry then there is no reason for anyone to be connecting to my tree out of the clear blue sky. There is NO DNA evidence to connect to. And when it is certainly made up, I have a reason to take issue with it. My uncle up tree did not leave his wife and children to move to PA as a descendant of slaves, married a white woman, and had lily white children. It just didn't happen when we KNOW he was still in MS with his family. These people simply had the wrong line and was matching on name alone. And to this day, I believe all of that is STILL wrong.
And btw, don't act like Ancestry has been around with DNA testing for years. At the point that I tested with 23andMe they had no test at.all.at.Ancestry.
If someone makes a mistake like that all you can do is advise them of the error.
Where did you get the idea that I am acting "like Ancestry has been around with DNA testing for years"? I do not believe I have said anything about Ancestry DNA testing at all.
The vast majority of your relatives will not have a DNA match with you - anywhere. Are you only interested in sharing with DNA matches? I had an email conversation today with a man that I already knew was a third cousin from internet research. I just recently found him in my DNA matches, too. Another cousin and I both tested at 23AndMe at about the same time because we are interested in breaking down the same brick wall. We did show up in each other's match list but the segment we share is pretty small. We could have ended up not matching DNA, but we are still surely related. We had collaborated on our shared lines for several years before we did the DNA. I initially found her tree at Ancestry. She uses her real name as part of her user name there, and I used that and her location to find her telephone number. I called her one Sunday afternoon and we had a long conversation. She really helped me build a big chunk of my paternal grandmother's tree. We have visited in each other's homes and gone on a road trip together - all before the DNA match.
If you do not want people to take information from your tree, either do not put it on the internet at all or if it is at Ancestry.com make it private.
<snip> And when it is certainly made up, I have a reason to take issue with it. My uncle up tree did not leave his wife and children to move to PA as a descendant of slaves, married a white woman, and had lily white children. It just didn't happen when we KNOW he was still in MS with his family. These people simply had the wrong line and was matching on name alone. And to this day, I believe all of that is STILL wrong. <snip>.
I have family who did, in fact, move to PA, were descendants of slaves, married whites and had "lily white children". I get your point but you may want to brush up on your understanding of race.
What really blows my mind is that someone actually left a note on a genealogical site, "correcting" the census record to reflect white, not black. Even if the census record was wrong (which it wasn't), who the hell does that?!
It is rare that I get met with dead air. Very rare. I have tested with 23andMe, FTDNA, Genes For Good, MyHeritage, WeGene... Many. Uploaded to Gedmatch. Even served as a beta tester to a calculator at Gedmatch. Ask John... I never found Ancestry all that useful outside of creating a family tree.
If you haven't tested with AncestryDNA then you can't comment on whether it is better for adoptees than 23andMe or not.
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I especially take time to respond to adoptees because I cannot imagine having an entire line unknown to me. And that is why I advocate for 23andMe testing. I'd rather know my genetic predisposition than my admixture. SMH.
Responding to an adoptee is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actually identifying an unknown bio parent. Have you ever done that? If not, then you don't know what it requires. I have. I found my grandfather's bio father. I know what is involved and I know that trees are a big necessity so to test at a company that don't even support them is a disadvantage for people looking for a bio parent. As someone who has first hand experience with this and tested at both 23andMe and AncestryDNA, my advice is coming from more experience than yours.
As for health reports - one can test with AncestryDNA get a health report for only $5 from Promethease, I found it more comprehensive and detailed than the current one from 23andMe.
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And mods, delete this as you find this necessary but really, it should not be. I am sorry this user finds unresponsive DNA relatives. I know that has to hurt.
It doesn't "hurt" - it's just not helpful when people don't respond and you won't get very far when they don't.
I have family who did, in fact, move to PA, were descendants of slaves, married whites and had "lily white children". I get your point but you may want to brush up on your understanding of race.
What really blows my mind is that someone actually left a note on a genealogical site, "correcting" the census record to reflect white, not black. Even if the census record was wrong (which it wasn't), who the hell does that?!
The ancestors of people who know who their relatives are TODAY.
It wasn't a census correction. We used the CENSUS info to show where that person was wrong.
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