• Only registered members can see all the forums - if you've received an invitation to join (it'll be on your My Summary page) please register NOW!

  • If you're looking for the LostCousins site please click the logo in the top left corner - these forums are for existing LostCousins members only.
  • This is the LostCousins Forum. If you were looking for the LostCousins website simply click the logo at the top left.
  • It's easier than ever before to check your entries from the 1881 Census - more details here

Which DNA Testing Company will give you the most matches?

I

IanL

LostCousins Superstar
Peter's DNA Masterclass recommends testing with Ancestry because it has the best tools (I agree with that) and because it has tested more people than the other companies, which should lead you to more matches.

However, that is not my experience. I currently have 20,844 matches on Ancestry and 22,114 with MyHeritage.
MyHeritage adverts say that they have tested about 8 million people, considerably fewer than Ancestry. I'm not sure how to explain these results. I didn't test with MyHeritage but uploaded my raw data from Ancestry. I don't know whether MyHeritage includes people like me in their total number of tests. I'm aware that Ancestry has tried to exclude non-familial matches with the timber algorithm and by excluding matches below 8Cm. I'm not sure whether those actions alone would explain the lower number of matches on Ancestry. I'm not sure whether I'm an outlier here. How do others compare with my figures?
 
I transferred my Ancestry results, but also tested with MyHeritage - the number of matches is 8088 and 8091 respectively, whereas I have 12,143 matches at Ancestry.
 
See the Autosomal DNA test comparison chart at the ISOGG site. My reading of the 8 million figure is that it includes transfers.

Perhaps the reason IanL has more matches overall, and especially at MyHeritage, is because he has more ancestors from endogamous populations? The TIMBER algorithm downgrades segments in pile-up areas quite drastically - by as much as two-thirds in my experience.
 
Looking at ISOGG's definition of endogamy, I don't think that's the explanation as none of the groups mentioned by ISOGG appear in my tree.
 
IanL said:
Looking at ISOGG's definition of endogamy, I don't think that's the explanation as none of the groups mentioned by ISOGG appear in my tree.
Click to expand...
Those are just examples - it's not intended to be a complete list (nor could it ever be). Geographical isolation doesn't only mean islands - many rural communities were quite insular. One LostCousins member with ancestors from Yorkshire has found many hundreds of cousin marriages in his tree - I think it was about 700 at the last count! The number of cousin marriages I've found is probably still in single figures.
 
On my direct lines I can only find 1 cousin marriage. On the collateral lines the number is higher than yours but probably in the low 10s rather than hundreds.
 
IanL said:
On my direct lines I can only find 1 cousin marriage. On the collateral lines the number is higher than yours but probably in the low 10s rather than hundreds.
Click to expand...
There has to be some reason why you have more matches than average. Perhaps a lot of your ancestors lived in the same area, leading to a restricted gene pool, or perhaps you have more living cousins than average because you are younger than most of us?
 
MyHeritage has a much larger international pool than Ancestry does, so if you have folks in your tree from mainland Europe, you'll see additional matches there. Ancestry has better coverage in the US, Canada, and the UK, so it just depends on where you happen to luck out.

I've got 20K at Ancestry and 10K at MyHeritage and curiously very little overlap - most people haven't transferred their test results there even though they run specials when its free!
 
cfbandit said:
MyHeritage has a much larger international pool than Ancestry does, so if you have folks in your tree from mainland Europe, you'll see additional matches there. Ancestry has better coverage in the US, Canada, and the UK, so it just depends on where you happen to luck out.
Click to expand...
Although Ancestry don't sell their test in every European country - for example, DNA tests are illegal in France - you're not necessarily going to get more matches with people who share your continental European ancestry by testing with MyHeritage because so many people migrated to the US during the 19th and 20th centuries. Around 6% of my ancestors came from Germany, but only 123 of my matches at MyHeritage live in Germany. My mother-in-law, who doesn't have any German ancestry that we know of, has nearly as many German matches as I do.
cfbandit said:
I've got 20K at Ancestry and 10K at MyHeritage and curiously very little overlap - most people haven't transferred their test results there even though they run specials when its free!
Click to expand...
I've spotted quite a few of my Ancestry DNA cousins at MyHeritage, but given that MyHeritage only have 8 million DNA results in their database there can't be more than a small fraction of Ancestry users who have transferred their results. FTDNA and GEDmatch have been offering free transfers far longer than MyHeritage has been doing DNA, but they both have fewer than 2 million users.
 
peter said:
Perhaps a lot of your ancestors lived in the same area, leading to a restricted gene pool, or perhaps you have more living cousins than average because you are younger than most of us?
Click to expand...
I'm in my late 60s so it's unlikely to be the latter. But I do have a lot of ancestors from the villages on the Dorset/Somerset/Wiltshire border.
 
Ancestry
Close matches 346
Distant Matches 17,017
All matches 17,363

MyHeritage 22,190

Why so many more on MyHeritage? Probably because of endogamy. The majority of my ancestors on both sides are from restricted areas of South Wales. My closest match is on MyHeritage - a known second cousin. Unfortunately she tested on MyHeritage whereas I tested with Ancestry and uploaded to MyHeritage.
 
My grandmother's results (with a European Jewish connection) is coming in at 54,080 at Ancestry; my mother's results (all England/Wales) is 25,535.

I would check on MyHeritage for my own results, which are the only ones uploaded, but it's not letting me sign in. *My ancestry results (with that Jewish connection) are 21,447.
 
My own results with Ancestry are: -
Close matches–4th cousin or closer(407) 20-3490 cm
Distant matches(20,018) 6-20 cm

My Heritage (via a Family Finder test)
16,816 DNA Matches
 
A reminder that it's not the number of DNA matches that matters, but the accuracy of the matching, and what you are able to do with your matches. On this count Ancestry wins every time.
brynjon said:
My Heritage (via a Family Finder test)
16,816 DNA Matches
Click to expand...
Transferred tests produce less accurate results - the number of matches will be different and they will be of lower quality, ie more likely to be spurious. This reflects the fact that whilst all autosomal tests for genealogists use the same technology, they sample different bases in the genome.

Having tested with all of the major companies, but also transferred some of the tests I can see the differences. However, although I know which companies I tested with, I won't usually know whether my DNA matches tested at the site, or transferred their results from another site.
 
Thanks for that Peter, I need to go through your works about DNA as it is all above my head. I have compared the trees supplied via the MH matches to try and make some sense and contact those more likely to respond (if they had taken the time to list on both).

A cousin contacted me via MH, she was the daughter of a maternal great-uncle, and I met up with her and her family, though soon afterwards I attended her funeral. I am still in touch with her family of course. I try and match up with those having hits on both platforms. I will keep digging.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top