Exploring my DNA matches on the MyHeritage website

 

With over 12,800 of my own MyHeritage.com DNA matches, I am overwhelmed with the possibilities for my genealogical research. However, a significant number of these matches are with people who do not have a connecting family tree on the MyHeritage website making it very difficult or nearly impossible to identify the ancestral connection despite the extensive analytical tools available. It is unfortunate that so many people have treated the availability of DNA testing and nothing more than a brief curiosity. It is also a tragedy that so many people have not take advantage of the sophisticated DNA tools on the website.

On the MyHeritage website, the first tool you encounter is the DNA Matches. Here is a screenshot of my own matches. 

I can identify both of the close matches, but many of the extended family matches have no family trees and I can only guess as to our relationship. However, even when the potential relative has a very limited family tree, MyHeritage can offer a solution to the relationship with its Theory of Family Relativity™, Here is part of the theory for a supposed 1st cousin twice removed - 3rd cousin once removed.

Of course, I could try to contact some or all of these potential relatives, but I have extensive documentation back to my Great-great-grandfather Sidney Tanner and I have no real reason to contact them. However, if I did not have all that information, the information provided by this match could open up an entirely new family line. This illustrates the interdependence between doing the "paper" research and supplementing that research with DNA testing. If we focus on the person who does not have an extensive family tree on the MyHeritage website, that person has an opportunity to begin an extensive family tree without too much effort. For example, one of the relatives shown by this Theory of Family Relativity™ is Nettie Mae Theobald who appears in over 10,000 MyHeritage family trees. 

In this case, DNA testing supplements and confirms my documented relationship to this person. However, if I did not have the existing documentation, this match would be helpful in adding a substantial amount of information to my own family tree. 

Taking a DNA test, such as the one from MyHeritage, can provide some surprises. If extended family matches begin showing surname connections that do not appear at all in your own research, you may have discovered an unknown relationship. In some cases, those tested with even find unknown parental relationships. One of my friends is presently facing the issue of whether or not to connect with a birth family found by both paper and DNA research. 

One thing that is intriguing is the Ethnicity Estimate. 

None of my previous research gives me any information about possible connections to Italian or Baltic connections and West Asian connections are also a complete mystery. My connections in the United States are obviously supported by my own research as are those in the British Isles and Scandinavia. The only research that I have found outside of the British Isles and Scandinavia is in the Netherlands where I have a Jewish family that eventually moved to London, England in the 1700s. It is true that anomalies are usually more interesting than finding all of your own research confirmed by the DNA testing.