Thanks for your explanation, Ann. I appreciate your taking the time! By the way, I've enjoyed your book about DNA (at least I think you are the Ann Turner that was the co-author?) Have you written one about using autosomal DNA to trace one's roots? Thanks again for your help! LouDean In a message dated 10/16/2011 2:26:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: The confusing part about the Chromosome Browser is that it doesn't distinguish between the chromosome you inherited from your father and the one you inherited from your mother. That would actually be impossible, given the current state of the art. If the segment your sister shares with your match came from your mother, then you and your sister are sharing the segment you inherited from your father (or vice versa). Ann Turner

Yes, I was the co-author (with Megan Smolenyak) of "Trace Your Roots with DNA." It was published in 2004, but the basic principles of heredity haven't changed :) I think we're all on a learning curve with the autosomal stuff, though, so I have no plans to write anything extensive on that topic. Ann On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 4:33 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for your explanation, Ann. I appreciate your taking the time! > > By the way, I've enjoyed your book about DNA (at least I think you are the > Ann Turner that was the co-author?) Have you written one about using > autosomal DNA to trace one's roots? > > Thanks again for your help! > LouDean >

Hello, Both my sister and I have taken the Family Finder test at FTDNA. We share many, probably more than half of our matches, and most of the closest ones are on both our pages. But each of us does have many that the other does not have. I guess this is not particularly unusual. But what I don't understand is this: She has one match who is predicted to be 2nd-4th cousin; they have 57.85 shared centimeters and 27.40 is the longest block. This lady does not appear at all among my matches, not even as a distant match. I thought it would be because most of her matching areas with my sister were in those few parts where my sister and I do not match. But today I went to my sister's page and put myself and this other lady into the Chromosome Browser, and I find that my sister and I are matching in EVERY area where my sister matches this other lady. Every single little bit, including the long 27.40 block. So if I match this lady in all those same areas, why is she not on my page as a match? I am stunned by this, but I guess there must be a reason...I am hoping someone on this list can explain it in a way that a real novice like me can understand. Maybe my whole concept of what the Chromosome Browser is is wrong! :) Thanks for any help! LouDean

The confusing part about the Chromosome Browser is that it doesn't distinguish between the chromosome you inherited from your father and the one you inherited from your mother. That would actually be impossible, given the current state of the art. If the segment your sister shares with your match came from your mother, then you and your sister are sharing the segment you inherited from your father (or vice versa). Ann Turner On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 10:32 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > Both my sister and I have taken the Family Finder test at FTDNA. We share > many, probably more than half of our matches, and most of the closest ones > are on both our pages. But each of us does have many that the other does > not have. I guess this is not particularly unusual. > > But what I don't understand is this: She has one match who is predicted > to be 2nd-4th cousin; they have 57.85 shared centimeters and 27.40 is the > longest block. This lady does not appear at all among my matches, not even > as > a distant match. I thought it would be because most of her matching areas > with my sister were in those few parts where my sister and I do not match. > But today I went to my sister's page and put myself and this other lady > into the Chromosome Browser, and I find that my sister and I are matching > in > EVERY area where my sister matches this other lady. Every single little > bit, including the long 27.40 block. > So if I match this lady in all those same areas, why is she not on my page > as a match? > > I am stunned by this, but I guess there must be a reason...I am hoping > someone on this list can explain it in a way that a real novice like me can > understand. Maybe my whole concept of what the Chromosome Browser is is > wrong! :) > > Thanks for any help! > LouDean > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

I'm not a member of the LDS Church but I have access to the New Family Search website. Members of the Guild of One-Name Studies received invitations to participate in the beta-testing several months ago now though I've not really had much time to investigate it. It seems to operate along the lines of a Wiki. It is possible to edit records and merge duplicates. If you haven't contributed the record for a particular person you can't remove incorrect information but you can add your own alternate information and cite your sources. There are discussion boards so that people can reach a resolution for conflicting data. You can also "watch" pages for people in your tree or other people of interest. It is however a very slow clunky process. I certainly don't have the time or inclination to go through and correct all the incorrect information. It's not just the links in the pedigrees that are wrong but also information within the files such as place names and dates. I just had a quick look tonight and discovered that lots of burial dates had been incorrectly entered as death dates. In an ideal world I'd like to see our ancestral details and combined DNA data hosted on an independent non-commercial site with the functionality of Geni.com which has a really good easy-to-use Wiki-style interface. Debbie Kennett

I really think it is up to the testers to decide if the documentation is valid - just like we do now. I just REALLY like the idea of having direct access to the family tree and possibly an automatic matching system using the matches' Ancestry Trees. I guess that would serve Ancestry.com's purpose because more people would upload and share their trees. CeCe Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T -----Original Message----- From: Ann Turner <[email protected]> Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 18:36:15 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Ancestry.com AUTOSOMAL-DNA testing I don't think it's entirely fair to expect Ancestry.com to adjudicate the pedigree submissions. I can't find a specific example or even remember the name of the feature that merged pedigrees, but as I recall, it listed all contributors and highlighted any contradictory information. I do like the "leaf tips" that point you to original sources. But this brings up an intriguing question -- how would you (anybody, not you specifically) design a process to integrate pedigrees and DNA results? In the ideal/fantasy world, everyone who ever lived would have a unique ID, and we could link all historical sources and pedigrees to that ID. "The Ezra Kidder who died in the Civil War is the same person who is found on the 1860 Linn County, Iowa census and he is my great-great-grandfather. Two of his male line descendants are in Y-haplogroup xxx." etc. etc. The original LDS Ancestral File had a goal of assigning a unique ID for matching and merging pedigrees, but it turned out to be well-nigh impossible, even with a dedicated staff of expert genealogists. Is there something more practical that could be done now? What would be your vision? Are there other pedigree collections that have features you would like to emulate? Ann Turner On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Marleen Van Horne <[email protected]> wrote: > My experience with Ancestry has been that they do not care about the > accuracy of the pedigrees they publish.  From the beginning of > Ancestry's on-line genealogy effort any genealogical information that > came their way was immediately vacuumed up and merged with their giant > family tree, without any checks or balances. > > I always felt Ancestry's DNA effort was more interested in the pedigrees > submitted by the people tested, than it was by the science or the actual > matching. > > Marleen Van Horne > ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Ann, Pedigree Resource Files are history; we can't/don't use them anymore at the Family History Center where I work.... we now use new.familysearch.org as well as the modern www.familysearch.org . Mary Alice .......you wrote............. ""Pedigree Resource Files" are the current replacement for the LDS Ancestral File,.." ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com

Amen! One of my current problems is..... so many people tested at FTDNA are not capable of preparing or uploading GedCom, either because they don't have a program on their computer which will do it or they are over-whelmed with performing those steps. In my [famous] surname project, we have no contacts, communication or lineage information EXCEPT what FTDNA will show our close matches on our Personal Page at FTDNA! I have volunteered to create GedCom files to be uploaded from my computer to members' personal pages, and have successfully done that for many. In doing this, I have found that even people with programs to create GedCom, have problems doing it themselves... one had thousands of names on a file he was trying to get FTDNA to accept with no luck. Many are not sure of the paternal vs. maternal people - and other complications you would never think of. YES, there must be a better solution, other than GedCom!!!! Mary Alice .............Ann wrote.............. "I have actually had discussions about GEDCOMs with the technical staff at 23andMe. I told them that a minority of people at FTDNA contribute GEDCOMs (25/106 in my case). 23andMe has expended more effort in Google-izing free text information (my awkward term!), so that you can use Profile SmartSearch..." ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com

Ann My reading of the consent form was that Ancestry was planning to set up its own project: "The Ancestry DNA's Human Genetic Diversity Project ("The Project") will collect, preserve and analyze genetic information, genealogical pedigrees, historical records, surveys, and other information (collectively, "Information") from people all around the world in order to better understand human evolution and migration, population genetics, ethnographic diversity and boundaries, genealogy, and the history of our species. The full name of the academic HGDP is the Human *Genome* Diversity Project not the Human *Genetic* Diversity Project. I think Ancestry have deliberately chosen the name to cause confusion and make people think they are contributing to the more academic project. Debbie

Marleen I agree with all your points except the last one - I believe Ancestry's objective is to make a LOT of profit. The means to this end are some pretty good tools that suck folks into subscriptions to easily work on their own trees (often by copying) - Ancestry doesn't care what the trees are like, just that folks pay to work on them (I guess that is what you said). I'm a subscriber and love to be able to look at census and other images (I used to scroll microfilms at the National Archives on my lunch hours in the 1980s) - I, too, give them an A plus for access to records; but it's an F for the trees and the DNA projects. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On Oct 7, 2011, at 3:38 PM, Marleen Van Horne <[email protected]> wrote: > Mary Alice and Ann, > > I have been an Ancestry subscriber since the company took over RootsWeb > and gave me a years free subscription for being a financial supporter of > RootsWeb. I maintain the subscription for only one reason--access to > the original documents, census records, WWI draft registration etc., > that Ancestry has indexed and digitized. For that I give the company an > A. The rest of the site, I give it an F. > > As to the accuracy of the pedigrees, speaking of World Connect on > RootsWeb, which is vacuumed into the Ancestry database probably every > day, the company has little interest in correcting errors. > > In 2005, I attended a RootsWeb lunch time meeting at the NGS Conference > in Nashville. The attendees to this meeting were concerned about the > quality of the WC pedigrees. As you may know, if you have a comment > about a specific pedigree, you can attach a yellow post-it to the page. > We asked to have the ability to attach a red post-it in situations > when the information was being challanged. RootsWeb refused because > they thought it might prevent people from posting pedigrees if the > information could be obviously challanged. This brings me back to my > original statement, the quality of the pedigrees is not of importance to > Ancestry, their primary interest is the number of individuals they can > suck into their database. > > Marleen > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Ann, the staff at the FHC where I work has received different instructional information about Sorenson's objectives and the Church's support. I don't doubt the Salt Lake Library was not interested or involved; I do believe Sorenson had support, tho. Mary Alice ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com

CeCe Thanks for sharing this interesting link. I might be being somewhat cynical but the proposed Human Genetic Diversity Project sounds to me more like a marketing gimmick in an attempt to give the new test more credibility. Unless Ancestry go out and get samples from indigenous populations from around the world they cannot possibly hope to discover the "genetic diversity" of the human population as their subscribers are predominantly from English-speaking countries with disproportionate numbers from America. They do however have over around 1.7 million subscribers and hence a very large potential pool of customers: http://tinyurl.com/5uttyg9 If Ancestry are going to use the family trees submitted by their subscribers then they will need to find some way of curating the data as there are an awful lot of dubious trees out there. It looks like 2012 will be another interesting year in the world of genetic genealogy. Debbie

I was actually thinking about the Mennonite database when I wrote my message -- but as a model almost impossible to emulate! It is a phenomenal undertaking, with such dedicated experts. I have actually had discussions about GEDCOMs with the technical staff at 23andMe. I told them that a minority of people at FTDNA contribute GEDCOMs (25/106 in my case). 23andMe has expended more effort in Google-izing free text information (my awkward term!), so that you can use Profile SmartSearch or search the entire website for keywords (like Mennonite) and combinations of keywords. I was instrumental in suggesting a discrete category for locations, which I use a lot in the new Relative Finder. I may not know my ggg-grandmother's maiden name, but I know her location :) Ann On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Tim Janzen <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Ann and others, > I am cautiously optimistic about what Ancestry.com can bring to the > autosomal DNA arena. 23andMe is currently not making any attempt to use > autosomal data in conjunction with pedigree charts since 23andMe offers no > mechanism for people to link a pedigree chart with their autosomal data. > FTDNA at least allows people to display a pedigree chart with Family > Finder, > but FTDNA makes no attempt to link autosomal data with specific ancestors. > The SMGF has collected over 100,000 DNA samples as well as pedigree charts > for most of those people, but it hasn't released any autosomal data up to > this point in time. I have heard that the LDS Church is coming out with an > updated version of the Ancestral File. It is currently in beta testing > with > dedicated members of the LDS Church but supposedly will be available to the > general public in the near future. > I think that what we really want to do over the long term is to > build a comprehensive genealogical database in which phased autosomal data > is linked to specific ancestors. I hope that Ancestry.com does that. If > it > doesn't do that it may be up to the genetic genealogy community to do that > independently of any commercial company using volunteers, much in the way > that the vast majority of Y surname projects and mtDNA projects are > currently organized. All that is really needed is for people to be willing > to submit their autosomal DNA data and their pedigree charts to a trusted > organization. > I think that the Mennonite Grandma database is certainly a > collection of genealogical data that is worth emulating. We have 1.2 > million people in the database at this time. Duplicates are merged > whenever > they are found. Only about 10 highly trusted individuals are allowed to > add > data or make changes to the master database. All other data is added via > submitted gedcom files and/or suggested changes sent via e-mail. As a > result the quality of the data in general is very good. See > http://www.calmenno.org/grandma/index.htm and > http://www.timjanzen.com/pdf/grandma.pdf. > Sincerely, > Tim Janzen >

I don't know that James LeVoy Sorenson's goal had anything to do with fixing the Ancestral File. In fact, the LDS church hierarchy displayed very little interest in the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. It was only after several years of existence that SMGF staff was invited to conduct seminars in the Family History Library. Ann On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 10:32 AM, M. A. Farrell <[email protected]>wrote: > Ann, your 'vision' (or anyone's) on what would have developed had Dr. > Sorenson lived long enough to use current technology with his SMGF goal of > 'fixing' the LDS Ancestral File? > Mary Alice >

Could you be rehashing very ancient history? "Pedigree Resource Files" are the current replacement for the LDS Ancestral File, but I suspect you're thinking of the old Family Tree Maker CDs (not RootsWeb). Family Tree Maker accepted voluntary submissions from users and packaged them into CDs for sale, but that was long before Ancestry acquired FTM. AFAIK, Ancestry has never charged for RootsWeb data. And of course, they are hosting this very mailing list. Ann On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 8:36 AM, M. A. Farrell <[email protected]> wrote: > Marlene, this interest Ancestry.com had/has in unsourced lineage goes way > back, many years, to the time everything posted to rootsweb, free, was > 'sucked up' into CDs sold as 'pedigree resource files' and other > commercially valuable ventures, perhaps before the "Ancestry" brand was > created. I do not know the exact year Ancestry.com became > owner/controller/godfather of rootsweb system; but it is all tied together > with the success of Ancestry.com. I finally subscribed, myself, just for > access to the census images when Heritage Quest did no further expansion of > their product. Now, it seems I cannot do without all the digitized > documents on Ancestry, at the same time throwing rocks at their public > family trees' errors; great marketing of the bad stuff, and I've become one > of their addicts to the good stuff. > Mary Alice >

There are a lot of people trying things. No one seems to have solved the problem of the people who want to post a bunch of rubbish, or the wholesale hijacking of ancestries that seem attractive. A lot of people that are interested in their ancestry do not have what it takes to make critical judgements and evaluate evidence. Some web sites make it hard to do adjustments and corrections when new information requires a change. There are a few collaborative tree places. onegreatfamily.com has a really big problem of inviting users to merge people without being able to see nearly enough detail to evaluate, let alone see the sources. wikitree.com seems to be doing better, but still has lots of redundant trees go up that no one is trying to merge, and goes so far to protect privacy that you can't see lots of stuff. Geni.com seems to have destroyed itself with its own success, and had to ban GEDCOM uploads. As far as I know, only Ancestry.com lets you put in DNA results and then has them propagate through the inheritance lines in the tree. But they only allow this for one entry. Then what about family SNPs? No one does anything with those. On 10/7/2011 1:36 PM, Ann Turner wrote: > I don't think it's entirely fair to expect Ancestry.com to adjudicate the > pedigree submissions. I can't find a specific example or even remember the > name of the feature that merged pedigrees, but as I recall, it listed all > contributors and highlighted any contradictory information. I do like the > "leaf tips" that point you to original sources. > > But this brings up an intriguing question -- how would you (anybody, not you > specifically) design a process to integrate pedigrees and DNA results? In > the ideal/fantasy world, everyone who ever lived would have a unique ID, and > we could link all historical sources and pedigrees to that ID. "The Ezra > Kidder who died in the Civil War is the same person who is found on the 1860 > Linn County, Iowa census and he is my great-great-grandfather. Two of his > male line descendants are in Y-haplogroup xxx." etc. etc. The original LDS > Ancestral File had a goal of assigning a unique ID for matching and merging > pedigrees, but it turned out to be well-nigh impossible, even with a > dedicated staff of expert genealogists. > > Is there something more practical that could be done now? What would be your > vision? Are there other pedigree collections that have features you would > like to emulate? > > Ann Turner > > On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Marleen Van Horne<[email protected]> wrote: > >> My experience with Ancestry has been that they do not care about the >> accuracy of the pedigrees they publish. From the beginning of >> Ancestry's on-line genealogy effort any genealogical information that >> came their way was immediately vacuumed up and merged with their giant >> family tree, without any checks or balances. >> >> I always felt Ancestry's DNA effort was more interested in the pedigrees >> submitted by the people tested, than it was by the science or the actual >> matching. >> >> Marleen Van Horne >> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Ann, your 'vision' (or anyone's) on what would have developed had Dr. Sorenson lived long enough to use current technology with his SMGF goal of 'fixing' the LDS Ancestral File? Mary Alice .......you wrote............... ".... The original LDS Ancestral File had a goal of assigning a unique ID for matching and merging pedigrees, but it turned out to be well-nigh impossible, even with a dedicated staff of expert genealogists....." ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com

Dear Ann and others, I am cautiously optimistic about what Ancestry.com can bring to the autosomal DNA arena. 23andMe is currently not making any attempt to use autosomal data in conjunction with pedigree charts since 23andMe offers no mechanism for people to link a pedigree chart with their autosomal data. FTDNA at least allows people to display a pedigree chart with Family Finder, but FTDNA makes no attempt to link autosomal data with specific ancestors. The SMGF has collected over 100,000 DNA samples as well as pedigree charts for most of those people, but it hasn't released any autosomal data up to this point in time. I have heard that the LDS Church is coming out with an updated version of the Ancestral File. It is currently in beta testing with dedicated members of the LDS Church but supposedly will be available to the general public in the near future. I think that what we really want to do over the long term is to build a comprehensive genealogical database in which phased autosomal data is linked to specific ancestors. I hope that Ancestry.com does that. If it doesn't do that it may be up to the genetic genealogy community to do that independently of any commercial company using volunteers, much in the way that the vast majority of Y surname projects and mtDNA projects are currently organized. All that is really needed is for people to be willing to submit their autosomal DNA data and their pedigree charts to a trusted organization. I think that the Mennonite Grandma database is certainly a collection of genealogical data that is worth emulating. We have 1.2 million people in the database at this time. Duplicates are merged whenever they are found. Only about 10 highly trusted individuals are allowed to add data or make changes to the master database. All other data is added via submitted gedcom files and/or suggested changes sent via e-mail. As a result the quality of the data in general is very good. See http://www.calmenno.org/grandma/index.htm and http://www.timjanzen.com/pdf/grandma.pdf. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ann Turner Sent: Friday, October 07, 2011 11:36 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Ancestry.com AUTOSOMAL-DNA testing But this brings up an intriguing question -- how would you (anybody, not you specifically) design a process to integrate pedigrees and DNA results? In the ideal/fantasy world, everyone who ever lived would have a unique ID, and we could link all historical sources and pedigrees to that ID. The original LDS Ancestral File had a goal of assigning a unique ID for matching and merging pedigrees, but it turned out to be well-nigh impossible, even with a dedicated staff of expert genealogists. Is there something more practical that could be done now? What would be your vision? Are there other pedigree collections that have features you would like to emulate? Ann Turner

Mary Alice and Ann, I have been an Ancestry subscriber since the company took over RootsWeb and gave me a years free subscription for being a financial supporter of RootsWeb. I maintain the subscription for only one reason--access to the original documents, census records, WWI draft registration etc., that Ancestry has indexed and digitized. For that I give the company an A. The rest of the site, I give it an F. As to the accuracy of the pedigrees, speaking of World Connect on RootsWeb, which is vacuumed into the Ancestry database probably every day, the company has little interest in correcting errors. In 2005, I attended a RootsWeb lunch time meeting at the NGS Conference in Nashville. The attendees to this meeting were concerned about the quality of the WC pedigrees. As you may know, if you have a comment about a specific pedigree, you can attach a yellow post-it to the page. We asked to have the ability to attach a red post-it in situations when the information was being challanged. RootsWeb refused because they thought it might prevent people from posting pedigrees if the information could be obviously challanged. This brings me back to my original statement, the quality of the pedigrees is not of importance to Ancestry, their primary interest is the number of individuals they can suck into their database. Marleen

I don't think it's entirely fair to expect Ancestry.com to adjudicate the pedigree submissions. I can't find a specific example or even remember the name of the feature that merged pedigrees, but as I recall, it listed all contributors and highlighted any contradictory information. I do like the "leaf tips" that point you to original sources. But this brings up an intriguing question -- how would you (anybody, not you specifically) design a process to integrate pedigrees and DNA results? In the ideal/fantasy world, everyone who ever lived would have a unique ID, and we could link all historical sources and pedigrees to that ID. "The Ezra Kidder who died in the Civil War is the same person who is found on the 1860 Linn County, Iowa census and he is my great-great-grandfather. Two of his male line descendants are in Y-haplogroup xxx." etc. etc. The original LDS Ancestral File had a goal of assigning a unique ID for matching and merging pedigrees, but it turned out to be well-nigh impossible, even with a dedicated staff of expert genealogists. Is there something more practical that could be done now? What would be your vision? Are there other pedigree collections that have features you would like to emulate? Ann Turner On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Marleen Van Horne <[email protected]> wrote: > My experience with Ancestry has been that they do not care about the > accuracy of the pedigrees they publish. From the beginning of > Ancestry's on-line genealogy effort any genealogical information that > came their way was immediately vacuumed up and merged with their giant > family tree, without any checks or balances. > > I always felt Ancestry's DNA effort was more interested in the pedigrees > submitted by the people tested, than it was by the science or the actual > matching. > > Marleen Van Horne >