Hi everybody, I would like to just stick up for Ancestry for a minute. I have learned far more from Ancestry than either FTDNA or 23andme. There is not any doubt that the "high confidence" (so called fourth cousin) matches are usually informative. For that matter, the "medium" ones often are, and I have also learned from some of the lower confidence matches. Yes, there are zillions of speculative matches, but no harm done (I also have 900 or so on 23andme)... Ancestry is very clear that these are speculative and we can easily ignore them as desired. At least the people on Ancestry are actually interested in ancestry, unlike 23andme (most of the time in my experience, a point of endless irritation on my part). I am inclined to think that the best of the bunch is FTDNA from a scientific point of view. I have just had limited success there, despite some good serious people "on the other end of the match". I guess it may have to do with my personal demographics and who is testing where. I am glad to hear from Tim that the Ancestry BP and cM criteria are strongly correlated. I would be interested in a quantitative proof that one criterion is uniformly superior to another. I would be surprised if this could be demonstrated. Ancestry could be improved in many ways, but my advice, as given to someone yesterday, is to take the Ancestry test. Of course the use of gedmatch is very important to map out the chromosomes, and add rigor to speculations. Until the testers automatically undertake the kind of work nicely described by Jim (for example), its going to be frustrating. One still gets the impression that we are very much of the beginning of this journey. Regards, Dave Drabold http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/~drabold

The major limitation of the AncestryDNA test, apart from the lack of segment matching information, is that it is only available in the US. As one of the few non-Americans in their database I have found their test to be essentially useless. I have pages and pages of matches with very distant cousins in America and no chance of ever finding a genealogical connection with any of them. Family trees do not respect country boundaries and it is a very short-sighted move on Ancestry's part to sell their test exclusively in the US market. Debbie

I am also one of the non-Americans in the database. There is very little that I can do with a bunch of fifth cousins who know nothing at that time depth. I have not received even one contact from somebody from AncestryDNA. The response rate is even lower than that for 23andMe. I still have a tree and a subscription to Ancestry, though. Psul Shenton. On 4 December 2013 07:34, Debbie Kennett <debbiekennett@aol.com> wrote: > The major limitation of the AncestryDNA test, apart from the lack of > segment > matching information, is that it is only available in the US. As one of the > few non-Americans in their database I have found their test to be > essentially useless. I have pages and pages of matches with very distant > cousins in America and no chance of ever finding a genealogical connection > with any of them. > > Family trees do not respect country boundaries and it is a very > short-sighted move on Ancestry's part to sell their test exclusively in the > US market. > > Debbie > >

If it's any comfort, most of my ancestors have been on this side of the big pond since 1700 +/- 50 years and most of my bazillion matches on AncestryDNA are the fifth-to-infinity cousin range... :) On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Paul <lpshenton@gmail.com> wrote: > I am also one of the non-Americans in the database. There is very little > that I can do with a bunch of fifth cousins who know nothing at that time > depth. I have not received even one contact from somebody from > AncestryDNA. The response rate is even lower than that for 23andMe. I > still have a tree and a subscription to Ancestry, though. > > Psul Shenton. > > > On 4 December 2013 07:34, Debbie Kennett <debbiekennett@aol.com> wrote: > > > The major limitation of the AncestryDNA test, apart from the lack of > > segment > > matching information, is that it is only available in the US. As one of > the > > few non-Americans in their database I have found their test to be > > essentially useless. I have pages and pages of matches with very distant > > cousins in America and no chance of ever finding a genealogical > connection > > with any of them. > > > > Family trees do not respect country boundaries and it is a very > > short-sighted move on Ancestry's part to sell their test exclusively in > the > > US market. > > > > Debbie > > > > > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > AUTOSOMAL-DNA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Dear Paul, My perception is that only about 1% or less of people who have tested at Ancestry.com, 23andMe, and FTDNA's Family Finder actively pursue contact with their matches in those databases. Perhaps a higher percentage than this are pursuing contact with their closest matches, but in all of the accounts that I monitor, I don't get very many people contacting me either, particularly from Ancestry.com. I haven't even contacted all of my family's Ancestry.com matches yet due to personal time constraints. In any case, I do plan to eventually contact my family's matches at Ancestry.com and encourage them to upload their raw data files to GEDmatch so that I can see the matching HIR data. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Paul Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 6:31 AM To: autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Ancestry vs the rest I am also one of the non-Americans in the database. There is very little that I can do with a bunch of fifth cousins who know nothing at that time depth. I have not received even one contact from somebody from AncestryDNA. The response rate is even lower than that for 23andMe. I still have a tree and a subscription to Ancestry, though. Psul Shenton.

I second Tom's perception. I sent messages to over 100 AncestryDNA Matches in the first year. I stopped sending messages this past year; and have received only 2. The same is the case at FTDNA and 23andMe, but I usually send emails and messages to them as soon as the Matches are posted, so there is little opportunity for them to contact me first. And at both of these, the response rate is somewhat higher - and persistence pays off. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On Dec 4, 2013, at 12:50 PM, "Tim Janzen" <tjanzen@comcast.net> wrote: > Dear Paul, > My perception is that only about 1% or less of people who have tested at > Ancestry.com, 23andMe, and FTDNA's Family Finder actively pursue contact > with their matches in those databases. Perhaps a higher percentage than > this are pursuing contact with their closest matches, but in all of the > accounts that I monitor, I don't get very many people contacting me either, > particularly from Ancestry.com. I haven't even contacted all of my family's > Ancestry.com matches yet due to personal time constraints. In any case, I > do plan to eventually contact my family's matches at Ancestry.com and > encourage them to upload their raw data files to GEDmatch so that I can see > the matching HIR data. > Sincerely, > Tim Janzen

My sentiments exactly, Debbie. Not only do family trees ignore country boundaries but I would have thought a crucial part of DNA interest in the US would be for the descendants of immigrants to trace their origins BEYOND the borders and back to where their family hailed from. What better way to do this than compare with a database full of people from OUTSIDE the Americas? What am I talking about? There IS no other way! I've been very much hoping to add my autosomal DNA to the Ancestry database, as well as those of FTDNA and 23andMe, but no go for the foreseeable future, for reasons best known to Ancestry. I saw recently that Mundia seem to be interested in our willingness to test, so I thought maybe Ancestry are going to set up testing based in Europe, through Mundia, to add to their American database. Sounded interesting and I hoped it was coming closer. However.... after hearing how little use it has been to you, I'll maybe not be so keen any more. Thanks for your input. Katie de Haan Born UK resident in The Netherlands -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com] Namens Debbie Kennett Verzonden: woensdag 4 december 2013 13:34 Aan: autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com Onderwerp: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Ancestry vs the rest The major limitation of the AncestryDNA test, apart from the lack of segment matching information, is that it is only available in the US. As one of the few non-Americans in their database I have found their test to be essentially useless. I have pages and pages of matches with very distant cousins in America and no chance of ever finding a genealogical connection with any of them. Family trees do not respect country boundaries and it is a very short-sighted move on Ancestry's part to sell their test exclusively in the US market. Debbie ______________________________ For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUTOSOMAL-DNA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Katie I couldn't agree more which is why Ancestry's stance is so puzzling. They've now dug a deep hole for themselves. If they want to enter any other markets people will be so overwhelmed with all the American matches that they are likely to very discouraged by the whole process. However, there's nothing to stop you testing with 23andMe and Family Tree DNA. FTDNA have the advantage on the international market because their test works out much cheaper. 23andMe send all their kits out by courier which effectively almost doubles the cost of the test. Testing multiple family members through 23andMe is therefore out of the question, but is a viable proposition with FTDNA. FTDNA also have the advantage because of all the international geographical projects that they host: http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Geographical_DNA_projects There is a project for the Netherlands: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Netherlands I don't know how many of these projects accept Family Finder results. Debbie