SMGF - Info for contacting participants in their database

[Yaffa]

GeneTree

Went on to Gene Tree. They predict my Haplogroup as B2. When I search for exact matches it gives me 3 people that are B4b and one that is U4. How can I match 2 different haplogroups when I request and exact match????? All these people were uploaded to Gene Tree from SMGF.

Jodi

[MMaddi]

I would wonder how a sample and family tree donated to a foundation came to be lodged in a for-profit database? Did you agree to the sharing of your information with Genetree?

Here's a quote from the SMGF press release that Pleroma posted in the previous page in this thread:

"In SMGF's eight years of operation, one of our main goals has been to provide useful tools for genetic genealogists. Many participants have expressed a desire for personalized DNA analysis or to communicate with their DNA cousins around the world. We are excited to finally be able to point you to GeneTree as the right place to do just that."

So the main motivation in sharing SMGF results with GeneTree is that, as a research foundation, SMGF can not give out personal information about their test subjects. So they have provided the anonymous results to GeneTree for their database. The database is free to join, if you have results from another company, such as FTDNA. And then you can search for matches. I wouldn't have joined their database if I had been required to order a test from them.

I believe that as of this week every release form signed by those who test with SMGF asks if they are willing to allow contact information to be public. If they check off yes, then when SMGF provides their results to GeneTree, it will include contact information. If they check off no, then there will be no contact information with their results in the GeneTree database.

I have no problem with SMGF giving my results to GeneTree to put in their database, since they didn't make contact information available. What I didn't like is them providing my results to another database, when they don't have it in their public database yet. It was only by coincidence that I discovered my SMGF results in the GeneTree database.

[Ann Turner]

Ancestry.co.uk

Ancestry.co.uk have just announced that for £74, which is about $150, they will check your cheek swab against a DNA database of 20 million people around the world, and they'll send you an email to let you know of any matches, whom you can then contact yourself if you so wish.

Harry

I'm also skeptical about the 20 million number for a DNA database. Could you give us a URL? I wonder if the number comes from something else, perhaps the number of records of all types (census, etc.).

[Ann Turner]

SMGF database update

Yet my results have not shown up in SMGF's database. So it seems that SMGF has at least mtDNA results from my sample, which have been placed in GeneTree's database, but not yet in SMGF's. I wonder how long it will be before my mtDNA results show up in SMGF's publicly searchable database.

Not too long, I hope. The next update to the SMGF database requires some additional work in other respects, e.g. updating the Y-STR results to conform with the latest nomenclature changes.

[Ann Turner]

SMGF GEDCOMs and FamilySearch

When I signed on and did a search I found 1 new match that was not yet included in SMGF's database. Also the Gedcom provided has not yet appeared at familysearch.org. I'm expecting that this information should show up soon at these sites.

I love the DNAvigator! It's a great feature.

Pleroma, the GEDCOM you submit to SMGF won't appear at FamilySearch. The Ancestral File has been frozen for several years. If you want to submit your pedigree to FamilySearch, you'll need to do it separately. It will go in the newer Pedigree Resource File.

SMGF does link into Ancestral File records where possible. The original goal of the AF was to have a unique record for each individual, no matter how many submitters included the person in their pedigrees. This soon became an impossible goal, what with all the inconsistencies and contradictions, but it's still the only place that even attempted that feat. SMGF can collect all the descendants of all the ancestors in the AF to look for unknown connections between participants. Eventually those pedigrees may be cross-referenced with DNA results, but that's probably quite a ways down the road.

[Pleroma]

Ann, thanks for explaining how it works.