Mike I agree with you and Eric. AncestryDNA is a good tool as long as the Match uploads to FTDNA and GEDmatch. A high proportion of the GEDmatch uploads are from AncestryDNA tests. Ancestry has a high percentage of Trees, coupled with a high percentage of copied and garbage Trees. However, it's no worse than asking a Match at FTDNA or 23andMe about their ancestry - those Matches are also humans who have a wide variety of genealogy skills (from zero to expert). There are two points here: 1. Any Match's version of their ancestry can be anywhere on the quality/correctness scale. 2. Even if the Common Ancestors are rock solid, we still need to reach consensus with other Matches on the same segments to determine the correct CA for that segment. Jim - www.segmentology.org > On Dec 2, 2015, at 7:19 AM, Michael Fisher via <genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com> wrote: > > Hi All > > I tend to agree with Eric S Johnson > > I live in the UK & have been researching my family tree since the late > 1980's, all ancestor lines and all descendant lines. > But with a lot of common surnames have not been able to find out who the > descendants, particularly female descendants married. > > Late 2014 I started down the DNA path, having FTDNA Y-DNA 67 & mtDNA > test. Having found no matches that made any sense AncestryDNA came up > with an introductory offer in the UK. I asked on this list if it was > worth doing and some people said it was rubbish but some explained it > was an atDNA test which I had never heard of and also how you could > upload the "raw data" to FTDNA for a small fee and GEDMatch for free. > > I did all that and they all came up with matches but I have still, half > a year later, not found a new march with a common ancestor on Family > Finder or GEDMatch. (I have proved some AncestryDNA matches with people > prepared to use GEDMatch) > > The matches I have are all through AncestryDNA, and they track on paper, > and are cousins that are descendants of my ancestors who moved to other > parts of the UK or left for foreign parts (USA, Canada, Australia & New > Zealand so far) > > It has revitalised my family research and I am still adding paper > cousins on Ancestry in the hope of even more "shared matches" > > I check all the links myself and have had to suggest corrections to a > number of my "cousins" online Ancestry Trees. > > But AncestryDNA has found the primary paper connection. > > Mike Fisher in Droitwich >