NON-Ancestry DNA

[doorwedges]

I would like to find 3rd cousins via DNA who may have used an alt service to Ancestry…

My ancestors are Britain based so I get that Ancestry is best. I have that - and I now want the others now too!

Is 23&me the best way to go? £79 sounded expensive!

Anyone have any thoughts?

Have you uploaded to GEDmatch? It’s free. Despite having a British grandparent I don’t have any UK matches on 23andme, except for my own children and a few US military personnel temporarily posted here.

You could also upload to MyHeritage, I have more European/British matches on there (although not very close, around 20 cm or lower).

I haven’t got on well with 23andme, My Heritage has been better. I would upload your Ancestry data there and also GEDmatch.

Living DNA let's you upload your Ancestry results. It's not as big a site as Ancestry or 23andme but is more UK focused.

Anyone else a bit fearful of handing over your genetical information to these companies? 👀

What/who do you want to find via DNA testing and what are you afraid might happen?

I’ll do GEDmatch. I’d forgotten it existed!

I did try uploading my Ancestry results to it a few years ago but it was a bit of a faff and I gave up. I’ll go back and look thanks.

Interesting about the other sites!

The only potential problem I suppose with uploading DNA might be that your DNA could be used to identify a relative criminal…? In the future insurance companies might try to buy data to identify hereditary illnesses and reject applicants on the basis of health? I think that’s too far fetched and too far in the future to worry about (I hope!)

It is a bit of a faff isn’t it, but once it was up I enjoyed doing the admixture (heritage) tools to see how they compared with the main commercial sites. It goes much further back than the four or five generations that ancestry and 23andme focus on. You have to actively opt in to the law enforcement stuff on GEDmatch.

The only potential problem I suppose with uploading DNA might be that your DNA could be used to identify a relative criminal…?

Only in the US and only GEDmatch.

In the UK the police can only look at matches on the police databases, not from commercially available sites.

It'd be no use in my family anyway as despite my dad having dozens and dozens of cousins and second cousins, my best match is about 120cM and a second cousin, once removed. Testing is not a thing in many families.

I’m uploading to GEDmatch. Thanks for the encouragement!

How’s it going?

@Ylfa think I have to wait until this evening or tomorrow to access the 1-many matches. Very excited!

I can already see that my parents are in no way related and more interesting - ancient DNA links to prehistoric bones in various places throughout the world. Pretty cool stuff!

Great! I love archaic dna too, sounds like you might enjoy mytrueancestry dot com? Some of it is a bit coincidental, don’t fully understand it but sometimes the matches are really strong and then you get a free upgrade for that sample. It’s all just a bit of fun really.

@Ylfa I’ll try this service too… thank you. I hadn’t heard of it.

how much is the upgrade and I’d it worth the cost? It doesn’t seem to be in their FAQ!

I have looked at the matches on GEDmatch and there are lots of new ones I hadnt come across. The ancestral dna was interesting but confusing!

I can’t remember, it was almost as long ago as the age of some of their samples 😅 it was something along the lines of £20 for this and £10 for that. Probably not terrific value for money but those were more affluent times for me. I’m at Caesar level now on their scale, would rather not remember how much it cost to get there

You can transfer Ancestry DNA to MyHeritage for free also. Also Family Tree DNA though I’ve found mostly Canadian / American cousins on there.

Bookmarking as I was wondering about this too? Interesting to hear that there are free sites I can do this to.

I've found lots of matches on maternal side but paternal side is not so good, this may be a way to clear up some mysteries on that side.