The one thing I would do differently in analyzing my AncestryDNA results:
keep track from the very start of all those people I “figured out.”
Approximately twenty descendants of my great-great-grandparents have tested. Quite a few more are descendants of various ggg-grandparents. I’m not currently using the AncestryDNA results on problems on all of their lines, but I’m constantly seeing the same usernames in shared matches.
Keeping track from the start of the ones I had figured out would have saved me a great deal of time–even for those descended from people I’m not currently working on.
3 Responses
I’m using AncestryDNA. What are the “problems on all of their lines”? I am also using 23andMe. Why is it that I am 6% Italian on Ancestry and 0% Italian on 23andMe?
Happy Sunday!
Christine
The percentages of ethnicity are based on assumptions about migration patterns, how the companies define different ethnicities, and other statistical assumptions. Since the companies use different assumptions, the results will vary. Mine are significantly different. My personal view is that the “ancient” ethnicities are for entertainment only (especially when a person has no recent immigrant ancestors and has a relatively homogenuous ancestry)–largely for these reasons.
Having worked with both my DNA and my father’s DNA at AncestryDNA, I was able to implement something I *wished* I had done with the other two, when working on my son-in-law’s DNA.
My son-in-law knew nothing of his father’s line (his father was adopted). So I gathered info on his mother’s line, and built that half of the tree. When his DNA came back, I was fortunate to be able to recognize some very close matches who were from his mother’s line. I marked them (and ALL of their shared matches) with the gold star. I immediately was able to see who the ‘mystery’ people were, from his father’s line!
I just wish AncestryDNA had at least four colors of stars!