Disappointed

[A.H.]

This is my first post. I apologize that it is regarding my disappointment. I purchased an autosomal test through Ancestry back in December. Besides the Admixture/ethnicity results, it gave me one 3rd cousin match and several 4-6th cousin matches. I did this in hopes of finding my birth father, or at least discover his ethnicity and hopefully some relatives.

I also uploaded the data to GENmatch, and although the data has been processed for admixture results, it has not been batch processed for matches yet--still waiting. With some expected variations, the admixture/oracle results pretty much match with Ancestry's results.

Reading as much as I can on DNA, I followed many suggestions to have more than one company run the data, so I transferred my data to Family Tree. The results came in today. I have no (zero, 0) matches, and essentially half of the Population Finder estimation disagrees with Ancestry and GENmatches 4 admixture/oracle population finder programs. FT indicates 52% Europe/French, Orcadian, and 48% Jewish. Ancestry, et. al., indicate +/- 1/3 Med/Italy, 1/3 NE Europe, 1/3 Jewish and no Orcadian/British isles and pretty much no French. My understanding was that FT has the largest database and thus a greater probability of both accuracy and matches. Alas, it is apparently not so for me. Now I'm worried that the money I just spent for the FT Y-DNA37 will simply be money thrown away.

Does anyone have any insight?

Thanks!

[madman]

If you just got your population finder today it will be acouple days to a week before your matches come in.

a Y-DNA37 is a totally different test.

This is my first post. I apologize that it is regarding my disappointment. I purchased an autosomal test through Ancestry back in December. Besides the Admixture/ethnicity results, it gave me one 3rd cousin match and several 4-6th cousin matches. I did this in hopes of finding my birth father, or at least discover his ethnicity and hopefully some relatives.

I also uploaded the data to GENmatch, and although the data has been processed for admixture results, it has not been batch processed for matches yet--still waiting. With some expected variations, the admixture/oracle results pretty much match with Ancestry's results.

Reading as much as I can on DNA, I followed many suggestions to have more than one company run the data, so I transferred my data to Family Tree. The results came in today. I have no (zero, 0) matches, and essentially half of the Population Finder estimation disagrees with Ancestry and GENmatches 4 admixture/oracle population finder programs. FT indicates 52% Europe/French, Orcadian, and 48% Jewish. Ancestry, et. al., indicate +/- 1/3 Med/Italy, 1/3 NE Europe, 1/3 Jewish and no Orcadian/British isles and pretty much no French. My understanding was that FT has the largest database and thus a greater probability of both accuracy and matches. Alas, it is apparently not so for me. Now I'm worried that the money I just spent for the FT Y-DNA37 will simply be money thrown away.

Does anyone have any insight?

Thanks!

[hansonrf]

What you will find is that you will get a LOT of interested and skilled support on this Forum. People may test elsewhere but this is where they come to help out and post...

Having your as-data here and at GedMatch will be of most benefit (IMHO); you are just getting started. Your Y-data can prove helpful, but maybe not at first. The biggest bang for your $ is the as-test here (FF) or elsewhere (such as Ancestry.com).

Join a project. Your Y-test will tell you which y-project to join. Also join an adoptee project. Find a Search Angel, or at least a DNA guru/mentor. Try https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/DNAAdoption/info

Unless you get ridiculously lucky, you will need to build a paper trail of whatever you can find out; most states will give you something about your natural parents and having that can often help steer away from dead ends or towards some new avenue.

Have you read Richard Hill's book, Finding Family ? I think it is an outstanding read, and informative in the process.

Welcome... And good luck.

[gtc]

Reading as much as I can on DNA, I followed many suggestions to have more than one company run the data, so I transferred my data to Family Tree. The results came in today. I have no (zero, 0) matches, and essentially half of the Population Finder estimation disagrees with Ancestry and GENmatches 4 admixture/oracle population finder programs. FT indicates 52% Europe/French, Orcadian, and 48% Jewish. Ancestry, et. al., indicate +/- 1/3 Med/Italy, 1/3 NE Europe, 1/3 Jewish and no Orcadian/British isles and pretty much no French.

The Population Finder part of the Family Finder test is still deemed to be in "beta" mode. (This may be the longest beta test in the history of IT!). That said, FTDNA has announced that it is revising PF in the near future to take account of more reference data, which ought to give better granularity to its ancestry estimates, so standby for that.

My understanding was that FT has the largest database and thus a greater probability of both accuracy and matches. Alas, it is apparently not so for me. Now I'm worried that the money I just spent for the FT Y-DNA37 will simply be money thrown away.

FTDNA's Y haplotype (i.e. STR) database is very large as it's been going for a long time. However, in contrast, its Family Finder database is nowhere as large as 23andMe's because FTDNA got into autosomal DNA testing late in the game. As a consequence I have thousands of cousin matches at 23andMe and only around 300 at FTDNA and I found my closest cousin match at 23andMe.

Another point: FTDNA's databases, because of the demographics of the testers, are very US-centric and within that is a large proportion of Americans with British Isles ancestry, so if you are looking for European connections then they probably won't show up there.

Regarding your Y-37 test, what has been given as your haplogroup?

[gtc]

Also, you might like to enter your Y-37 results into the Ysearch database which contains haplotypes of testers from other companies, not just FTDNA.

http://www.ysearch.org/

[KATM]

Another point: FTDNA's databases, because of the demographics of the testers, are very US-centric and within that is a large proportion of Americans with British Isles ancestry, so if you are looking for European connections then they probably won't show up there.

I would agree about the current FTDNA testers, and thus the database, being very US-centric; and yes, probably most seem to have at least some British Isles ancestry. But, then again, the U.S. has a mixed population (that old "melting pot" thing), and as more people test in the U.S., I hope more varied ancestry would eventually be represented.

At the same time, FTDNA is currently the less expensive choice for those doing autosomal testing outside of the U.S. 23andMe has more expensive shipping overseas, and Ancestry.com does not test outside of the U.S. at this time, so FTDNA should have a better chance of getting testers from other countries, based on cost. I would like to see FTDNA emphasize this cost benefit to non-U.S. potential customers, and especially to do some type of outreach mission, to advertise/do presentations in many more regions outside of the U.S., to increase the diversity of their testers.

gtc, would you say that databases at 23andMe or Ancestry.com have any more European or other non Britsh Isles connections than FTDNA, percentage-wise?

[gtc]

gtc, would you say that databases at 23andMe or Ancestry.com have any more European or other non Britsh Isles connections than FTDNA, percentage-wise?

Good question. I'm not familiar with Ancestry as regards DNA testing, but I think it would be a fair guess that, given its origin, 23andMe would also be US-centric to a large degree.

When it comes to movement of genes around the globe, I like to think of source and destination countries/regions, where Europe could be considered a large source region and America a large destination.

Unfortunately, it seems that the need for genealogical knowledge at present is far stronger in destinations that it is in sources, hence the apparent skew in numbers testing from each category.

My own roots are Irish and some English as far back as documents allow, so I am not surprised that I match thousands of Americans and Brits at the distant cousin level. However, my forebears weren't always in Ireland or Britain, so I'm keen to see back further into Europe and Scandinavia when and if more people in those areas get genetic genealogy "bug".