Deeper discoveries with new DNA Match tools | Ancestry®

[JMcB]

Courtesy of a post by Blaine T. Bettinger on his Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques Facebook page:

Yesterday at RootsTech Ancestry announced some pretty incredible improvements to DNA matching. The 13-minute video linked below highlights some of these improvements coming in the first half of 2024 …

[Mabrams]

I think some of the features are for everyone, some are only for those with an Ancestry or AncestryPlus subscription and some are only for those with the new ProTools, which is an additional $10 a month

My impression from the video, is that I would be likely to use all of these tools, at least on some occasions.
Good to Very Good Tools, but not a Browser or real data.

And TBH, I am not fond of the fact, that after I am already a subscriber, that I still have to pony up even more moolah for the ProTools.

I will probably try out the ProTools for a short period of time, but I doubt that I will be a permanent ProTooler.

[Riverman]

The best new feature is searching matches for ethnicities. I wonder whether that works for people which blocked non-shared regions. E.g., my family might have distant French ancestry, so distant, we never get it. However, I might like to search for people with French ancestry nevertheless, since they being more likely linked to a specific known family branch. Yet some only show shared ethnicities, I wonder whether it works for them as well.

The new shared matches is long due, great improvement. But here again I would like to get a lowered threshold, because so many matches in common being missed because of the threshold being too high. Even if the matches themselves are very closely related, like father and daughter etc.

The biggest improvement would have been a chromosome browser, but especially after the 23andMe issue, I doubt it will come anytime soon...

[rmstevens2]

I just let my Ancestry membership expire, i.e., I cancelled it. Yesterday was the last day.

I'm at the point now at which Ancestry doesn't do me that much good for what I want to do, which is to push my Y-DNA/surname line back further. I'm certain my immigrant Y-DNA ancestor came from Wales, but I don't know who he is. Since he came to North America sometime in the 17th century, records are somewhat scarce or lacking the detail that would enable me to pinpoint him.

[Loderingo]

The best new feature is searching matches for ethnicities. I wonder whether that works for people which blocked non-shared regions. E.g., my family might have distant French ancestry, so distant, we never get it. However, I might like to search for people with French ancestry nevertheless, since they being more likely linked to a specific known family branch. Yet some only show shared ethnicities, I wonder whether it works for them as well.

The new shared matches is long due, great improvement. But here again I would like to get a lowered threshold, because so many matches in common being missed because of the threshold being too high. Even if the matches themselves are very closely related, like father and daughter etc.

The biggest improvement would have been a chromosome browser, but especially after the 23andMe issue, I doubt it will come anytime soon...

The new tools look really useful particularly the new shared matches.

As Mabrams says it, irks me that it is an extra subscription.  I am currently a global subscriber, which costs around £200 (about USD250) so feel these tools should be included with that level of subscription.  i will probably get the new tools but cut back the subscription to UK and Ireland.

[Rufus191]

The best new feature is searching matches for ethnicities. I wonder whether that works for people which blocked non-shared regions. E.g., my family might have distant French ancestry, so distant, we never get it. However, I might like to search for people with French ancestry nevertheless, since they being more likely linked to a specific known family branch. Yet some only show shared ethnicities, I wonder whether it works for them as well.

The new shared matches is long due, great improvement. But here again I would like to get a lowered threshold, because so many matches in common being missed because of the threshold being too high. Even if the matches themselves are very closely related, like father and daughter etc.

The biggest improvement would have been a chromosome browser, but especially after the 23andMe issue, I doubt it will come anytime soon...

The new tools look really useful particularly the new shared matches.

As Mabrams says it, irks me that it is an extra subscription.  I am currently a global subscriber, which costs around £200 (about USD250) so feel these tools should be included with that level of subscription.  i will probably get the new tools but cut back the subscription to UK and Ireland.

As far as I know, the ProTools are currently only for US customers, not sure when that will change. I definitely like the look of some of these new ProTool features, such as the ability to see how much shared matches match each other (something that of course has been available on most other sites for eons!), and the near tripling of the number of groups from 24 to 64.

[geebee-1015]

The biggest improvement would have been a chromosome browser, but especially after the 23andMe issue, I doubt it will come anytime soon...

Yeah, on that last point you may be aware that even 23andMe isn't offering a chromosome browser right now.  I find that really sad, because with five tested full siblings, my father (who is now deceased), my daughter, her mother, and other family members in a joint account with me, I made a lot of really cool discoveries.

For example, it was only through 23andMe's chromosome browser that brother #1 and sister #1 had virtually identical copies of the X chromosome.  Based on their shared matches, it became clear that this chromosome consisted of DNA from our maternal grandfather only.  In addition, my X chromosome is identical to both of theirs -- but with one exception:  I don't match these two for a little over 20 cM surrounding the centromere.  This is the only part of my X chromosome that contains any DNA from my maternal grandmother.  Specifically, it's from my grandmother's mother only.

So for all three of us, the X chromosome (or in my sister's case, her maternal X chromosome) is traceable to a specific great grandmother.  Or for me, of course, great grandmothers.  For the siblings, it's our grandfather's mother; and for me it's mostly her, with that 20 cM portion from my grandmother's mother.

I, too, would still like to see a chromosome browser.  But in lieu of that, I wish Ancestry would stop limiting themselves to only the autosomes.  If they simply reported whether (and how many) segments were shared on the X chromosome, that would be useful at least for some of us.  I virtually always not only tell which parent's side someone is on, but which grandparent.  This is particularly true for my mother's side, but my paternal grandmother is the only child of both her parents together.  She's also her mother's only child, so she doesn't have a huge number of close cousins on that side.  Her father, by contrast, had ten children with his wife.  (Actually, his second wife.  He only had one child by his first wife, and he was never married to my mother's mother -- their relationship followed wife #1 and preceded wife #2.)

Most of the matches on my father's side who share 90.0 cM or more with me are descended from my father's maternal grandfather, or from my father's maternal grandfather's parents.

A final point -- if Ancestry really wants to roll out these features in the first half of the year, they'd better get a move on.  There are only five weeks left before we enter the second half of the year.

[Mitchell-Atkins]

The ability to see shared matches cM shared with other matches will be most helpful. I only solved my patrilineal mystery because someone I messaged about how much ancestry they shared with a common match. If they hadn't responded, the mystery would have stayed unsolved...at least until this new tool comes out.

[ArmandoR1b]

The bricks walls I have are due to people not sharing their tree and not putting known ancestors in their tree. They don't want to investigate much. They just want to upload a small tree or get a DNA test or both, but never investigate further. Others have fairly extensive trees but it is impossible to find documents further back in time to prove a common ancestor. Not much for me to gain from AncestryDNA until I get my close relatives to test there so I can triangulate matches based which side of my grandparents my matches are from. For that to happen I have to pay for the test and visit them in person to convince them. Some people like to be visited and even prefer it. Others won't respond until you visit them. I don't even have to buy them lunch or dinner. Sometimes they invite me to eat. So the experiences are shared. Sometimes it takes a common relative to able to visit.

[Rufus191]

The bricks walls I have are due to people not sharing their tree and not putting known ancestors in their tree. They don't want to investigate much. They just want to upload a small tree or get a DNA test or both, but never investigate further. Others have fairly extensive trees but it is impossible to find documents further back in time to prove a common ancestor. Not much for me to gain from AncestryDNA until I get my close relatives to test there so I can triangulate matches based which side of my grandparents my matches are from. For that to happen I have to pay for the test and visit them in person to convince them. Some people like to be visited and even prefer it. Others won't respond until you visit them. I don't even have to buy them lunch or dinner. Sometimes they invite me to eat. So the experiences are shared. Sometimes it takes a common relative to able to visit.

You are correct! Doing one but not the other can often result in tests forever unused and the person changing their mind. Perhaps bringing additional gifts, bottle of wine/case of beer/box of chocolates based on preference may also be useful (to be consumed after the test of course) .

[muttgenes]

The best new feature is searching matches for ethnicities. I wonder whether that works for people which blocked non-shared regions. E.g., my family might have distant French ancestry, so distant, we never get it. However, I might like to search for people with French ancestry nevertheless, since they being more likely linked to a specific known family branch. Yet some only show shared ethnicities, I wonder whether it works for them as well.

The new shared matches is long due, great improvement. But here again I would like to get a lowered threshold, because so many matches in common being missed because of the threshold being too high. Even if the matches themselves are very closely related, like father and daughter etc.

The biggest improvement would have been a chromosome browser, but especially after the 23andMe issue, I doubt it will come anytime soon...

I've been waiting for this feature, especially since so few people seem to have Romani.

[geebee-1015]

The best new feature is searching matches for ethnicities. I wonder whether that works for people which blocked non-shared regions. E.g., my family might have distant French ancestry, so distant, we never get it. However, I might like to search for people with French ancestry nevertheless, since they being more likely linked to a specific known family branch. Yet some only show shared ethnicities, I wonder whether it works for them as well.

The new shared matches is long due, great improvement. But here again I would like to get a lowered threshold, because so many matches in common being missed because of the threshold being too high. Even if the matches themselves are very closely related, like father and daughter etc.

The biggest improvement would have been a chromosome browser, but especially after the 23andMe issue, I doubt it will come anytime soon...

I've been waiting for this feature, especially since so few people seem to have Romani.

I do, reportedly.  But only a teensy amount -- 1%.  In Ancestry's Chromosome Painter it appears in the form of two segments, both of which I believe came from my maternal grandmother's maternal grandfather, who immigrated to the U.S. from the island of Menorca.  23andMe labels virtually the whole of the first of these segments as "Greek & Balkan", but the second one simply as part of a large "British & Irish" segment.  

Ancestry previously split the first of the segments between "England & Northwestern Europe" and "Northern India".  The second segment was part of a larger "England & Northwestern Europe" segment, but immediately adjacent to one of my "Indigenous Americas - North" segments.  Given that the 2nd great grandfather I mentioned married a woman whose ancestry included Indigenous American -- as well as French, Irish, and Swiss -- would make sense.

[Loderingo]

They have started advertising the enhanced shared matches as part of the ProTools package. Annoyingly I have now paid for the Pro Tools and haven't got the enhanced matches yet. Apparently, they are still rolling them out.

[sirdan]

I have read somewhere Pro Tools are for US citizens. Check out therms of service to make sure.

[Loderingo]

Someone in Canada contacted their support and get a roll out date of 19th June