Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Friday, June 2, 2017

Upload your other DNA tests to MyHeritage.com

For some time now, I have been writing about genealogy and DNA testing. My first test was with MyHeritage.com and I have been writing (and talking) about those results in past posts. After RootsTech 2017, I eventually submitted a second test to Ancestry.com. When the results came in from the Ancestry.com test, I compared the results to the MyHeritage.com test. I next updated the results of the MyHeritage.com test with their newly updated analysis program. That brings us to uploading the results from my Ancestry.com DNA test to MyHeritage.com.

MyHeritage.com has a standing offer allowing a few other DNA tests to be uploaded and added into the results from their own test. I decided to do just that and uploaded by test results.

Part of the issues that develop as a result of taking multiple DNA tests is that the tests do not seem to agree. In addition, it is apparent that as the data corpus increases and as the analysis programs become more refined the results of the tests are modified by the various companies. Genealogical DNA testing is definitely a work in progress.

There is a definite difference between the results of a DNA test that show individuals that may be related due to their tests with the same company and the generalized findings of ethnicity. In other words, you may find out who your close relatives are if they have taken the same DNA test but the results showing your percentages of various ethnic groups appears to border on speculation. In saying this, I am not criticizing any particular test. In my case, and I suppose in most cases, the ethnic conclusions are based on a range of possible statistical relationships. Over time, these results will likely become more predictable and reliable.

Generally speaking, results from both of my current DNA tests are not too surprising. In my case, as I have indicated previously, I do have an extensive amount of research genealogical data to compare to any of the conclusions developed by the DNA tests.

As soon as I see the results from uploading my Ancestry.com results to MyHeritage.com, I will begin the process of doing a more detailed analysis of the similarities and differences.

2 comments:

  1. Is only Ancestry accepted? What about 23andMe and LivingDNA, even FTDNA?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The companies they accept are listed on the MyHeritage.com website when you go to the upload a file tab. I won't list them here because they might change.

      Delete