What next after Ancestry?

[Helen7]

I’m amazed at how people get so angry about having their cousins downgraded. I’m glad that for me that it’s more of an interesting hobby than a crusade.

I agree. I'm all for Ancestry 'downgrading' cousins in the interest of eliminating false matches. My matches at GEDmatch all have higher cM numbers than the same people at Ancestry. Also the GEDmatch list is extremely long and must contain a lot of false positives. Like you, I've just uploaded my Ancestry DNA results to MyHeritage, so it will be interesting to see how that compares.

Incidentally, I'm sorry you found one of my posts yesterday to be 'misleading'. I was merely asking for clarification of differences in parent-child matches in response to a comment jorghes had made (in the 'ethnicity testing' forum), and which Peter explained very well in reply. May have been off-topic for that forum - but that's not unusual!

 

[palfamily]

Incidentally, I'm sorry you found one of my posts yesterday to be 'misleading'. I was merely asking for clarification of differences in parent-child matches in response to a comment jorghes had made (in the 'ethnicity testing' forum), and which Peter explained very well in reply. May have been off-topic for that forum - but that's not unusual!

I don’t remember that one. Was it me?

 

[peter]

Was it me?

Yes it was - you'll find all your ratings in your profile.

 

[palfamily]

Yes it was - you'll find all your ratings in your profile.

So it was. I haven’t a clue where that came from. Sorry. I’ve deleted my rating.

 

[canadianbeth]

I finally figured out how to do a GEDCom and uploaded my tree to MyHeritage. I already had a smaller one there but now my husband's info is there as well. But I am seeing my cousins, siblings and their families as well as my children and grandchildren - can others see those or would they be hidden? Do I need to go in and delete those specific people?

I also downloaded the trial version of Family Historian; it looks ok so far but I am not sure if I will pay for it in 30 days.

 

[Bob Spiers]

I finally figured out how to do a GEDCom and uploaded my tree to MyHeritage. I already had a smaller one there but now my husband's info is there as well. But I am seeing my cousins, siblings and their families as well as my children and grandchildren - can others see those or would they be hidden? Do I need to go in and delete those specific people?

I am concerned, in fact very concerned knowing how I feel about MyHeritage MH (the Web Site) yet - despite my long held grudge against MH (with reasons known to many, particularly Peter), I decided -after reading the Newsletter and previously in the Forum in which he praised their new 'security' measures- there could be no great harm in just uploading my Ancestry DNA Tree even if only to get another perspective on my DNA results. It was also a free process for now at least.

But after reading canadianbeth's comments, and more particularly after receiving a MH email acknowledgement :

"Thank you for creating your family tree on MyHeritage! A new, free family site was created just for you. Go to [URL for MyHeritage] and log on, to visit it."

I have a dreadful feeling of deja vu!.

I had a Tree on MH years ago, and spent an absolute age (as did others) extracting myself from its clutches and removing my Tree and the many clones of my Tree. I never will subscribe again that is for sure, but neither do I want a Tree, free or otherwise, on MH .

So my question: are others aware that by uploading a DNA Tree they become (a free) MH member and their Tree will go the rounds on the full MH Site.

Is my fear justified or am I reading more into it than it warrants. I shall be interested to read what others have to say, particularly Peter.

 

[Helen7]

after receiving a MH email acknowledgement :
"Thank you for creating your family tree on MyHeritage! A new, free family site was created just for you. Go to [URL for MyHeritage] and log on, to visit it." I have a dreadful feeling of deja vu!

I got a similar message when I uploaded DNA results of myself and my husband (with his permission of course!) over the weekend. When I went to the relevant page, I found my 'tree' consists of myself (with my married name) and my husband, and there was the bold question "Do you have any children?" I have ignored this, and I certainly will not be putting a tree up there (or any details other than those they insisted on me supplying as part of the DNA upload, i.e. name and year of birth). Hopefully they won't continue pestering me by e-mail, other than to inform me my DNA results have been processed.

 

[palfamily]

I never will subscribe again that is for sure, but neither do I want a Tree, free or otherwise, on MH ..

I haven’t been on the forum long enough to know about your battles with MH but I am interested to hear why you are OK with Ancestry Public Trees but not MH.

 

[peter]

There's no need to upload a tree to MyHeritage just because you're uploading your DNA results - I haven't. But you can have a completely private tree.

At Ancestry having a private tree along with your DNA results is a very workable solution, but I don't know whether that applies at MyHeritage - does anyone else have relevant experience?

 

[Bob Spiers]

I haven’t been on the forum long enough to know about your battles with MH but I am interested to hear why you are OK with Ancestry Public Trees but not MH.

Take far too long and my original comments were a posted a year or more ago, but as a quick round up(for me at any rate) and somewhat tongue in cheek, (but not overly so) here are my thoughts on MH for the benefit of those who have had no dealing with them apart from their latest DNA involvements.

Trees posted on MH are (or were at that time, and likely still are) public in the broadest sense of the word (like Public Toilets, Public Notice boards etc). Open territory for others to see and beg, borrow or steal whatever they fancy. (I will come back to Ancestry in a moment). I came across (particular American owned but not limited to) Trees with outlandish claims to be related to (say) Charlemagne, or medieval Kings, Queens, Princes and Popes et al. I received messages welcoming me as a long lost cousin, without a shred of believable evidence to back it up, except you have someone of the same (if lucky) or almost the same (if not), name, but on examination from a totally different place, background and perhaps even a different continent. It is fantasy land which MH did nothing to hinder or control, and they even evolved what (from memory) I believe they called 'Smart Matches', which were anything but... and that is the précis version.

Ancestry Public Trees are not without their faults, and certainly not without their detractors, but compared to MH, Ancestry qualify to sing in the 'heavenly choir', which as their founders were of the LDS church, is not inappropriate. But under no circumstance can any comparison be made with MH.

 

[Bob Spiers]

There's no need to upload a tree to MyHeritage just because you're uploading your DNA results - I haven't. But you can have a completely private tree.

I accept the former now having tested what Helen posts as they invite you to complete your Tree beyond yourself and spouse (a complete no no as far as I am concerned ), but, for those who do upload a Tree, I would like to see where and how MH guarantee such a Tree would be private. I just hope it was not just along the lines of not ticking a box to 'share' (Facebook fashion) with others, because that did not work then, and likely not now. So how is it different this time round?

 

[canadianbeth]

Is there a way that someone can go and look at my tree to see just how much you can see? If I just post the url here will that work or will it appear that it is me and not someone else?

And I was wondering - is there a topic somewhere that I have missed regarding the pros and cons of all the different family tree software out there? I would like to know others' opinions of FTM, Family Historian, MyHeritage, etc., insofar as how good they are, privacy issues aside.

 

[peter]

Is there a way that someone can go and look at my tree to see just how much you can see? If I just post the url here will that work or will it appear that it is me and not someone else?

There are plenty of my genetic cousins who have private trees at MyHeritage, and I can't see them, so the system must work. What I don't know is whether entries in those trees will show up in searches (as is usual at Ancestry).

And I was wondering - is there a topic somewhere that I have missed regarding the pros and cons of all the different family tree software out there? I would like to know others' opinions of FTM, Family Historian, MyHeritage, etc., insofar as how good they are, privacy issues aside.

These forums are certainly a good place to discuss the pros and cons of different tree programs because there is such a wealth of experience here (and many members want to use Family Tree Analyzer in conjunction with their main tree program).

There is a Family tree programs forum - it's a bit sparse at the moment, but I'm that will soon change.

 

[palfamily]

There are plenty of my genetic cousins who have private trees at MyHeritage, and I can't see them, so the system must work. What I don't know is whether entries in those trees will show up in searches (as is usual at Ancestry)..

I have a free MH account and I am given Smart Matches based on my tree. These are linked to other people’s trees. Sometimes I get told that I can’t see the tree because it is private. I think this means that the answer to your question is yes.

 

[Helen7]

Has anyone tried the new AutoClusters feature on MyHeritage? According to the blurb this 'organizes your DNA Matches into shared match clusters, that likely descended from common ancestors.'

I just tried it and now have two maps - one for my DNA and one for my husband's, mine showing 99 DNA matches organised in 26 clusters, and his with 110 DNA matches in 30 clusters. Our clusters range from 3 to 9 people. It only includes matches between 25 cM and 350 cM shared DNA, and excludes those with no shared matches or who are in singleton clusters. Details of the people in the clusters are listed along with links to their trees. There is no indication of who the 'common ancestor' might be - which I wouldn't expect in my case as I don't have trees on MyHeritage - but there seems to be no facility to offer that information.

The map looks pretty but I haven't found anything much on a quick look at the trees of the DNA matches. Though one or two surnames of interest have popped up, many of the trees are limited, so it is difficult to deduce much from them without further research and/or contacting the individuals involved. Clearly it won't be as useful as Ancestry's new Beta features (ThruLines and New and improved DNA Matches) but might be an alternative way of organising DNA matches on the MyHeritage site.

 

[hibnit]

Has anyone tried the new AutoClusters feature on MyHeritage? According to the blurb this 'organizes your DNA Matches into shared match clusters, that likely descended from common ancestors.'

I just tried it and now have two maps - one for my DNA and one for my husband's, mine showing 99 DNA matches organised in 26 clusters, and his with 110 DNA matches in 30 clusters. Our clusters range from 3 to 9 people. It only includes matches between 25 cM and 350 cM shared DNA, and excludes those with no shared matches or who are in singleton clusters. Details of the people in the clusters are listed along with links to their trees. There is no indication of who the 'common ancestor' might be - which I wouldn't expect in my case as I don't have trees on MyHeritage - but there seems to be no facility to offer that information.

The map looks pretty but I haven't found anything much on a quick look at the trees of the DNA matches. Though one or two surnames of interest have popped up, many of the trees are limited, so it is difficult to deduce much from them without further research and/or contacting the individuals involved. Clearly it won't be as useful as Ancestry's new Beta features (ThruLines and New and improved DNA Matches) but might be an alternative way of organising DNA matches on the MyHeritage site.

Yes I gave the AutoClusters feature a try. This is something that has been around for a while, just not at MyHeritage as it was built by a 3rd party developer. As you say it gives a pretty picture but I am not sure how useful it is. I guess it is useful for people who don't like staring at an exported spreadsheet with just numbers and text.

MyHeritage also added "Theory of Family Relativity™" at the end of Feb which looks similar to Ancestry's Thrulines feature (formerly FamilyGroups during the beta phase) but I am not sure it as advanced.

I currently only have one "Theory" as they call it from MyHeritage so far which I already knew about but my tree on MyHeritage is smaller that my ancestry tree as I did not want to pay to add more people and hit the free limit a long time ago. The person it links me with is a 2nd cousin once removed and they have a public tree whereas mine is private so I can see exactly how I am related but I would assume they get something similar to ancestry where it would mark all my ancestors as private. I can't make contact with them without handing over my credit card details and they are not on Ancestry, Gedmatch, FTDNA or LostCousins as far as I know.

It looks like the MyHeritage blog has more info on how their new features work.

I think this is what LivingDNA were also trying to do with their "Family Networks" feature but unfortunately they have been working on it for about a year and still not gotten this working.​

 

[Helen7]

I can't make contact with them without handing over my credit card details

Can't you message them for free? I have contacted a few of my DNA matches on MyHeritage from my free account without having to pay (or give my credit card details).

 

[peter]

I can't make contact with them without handing over my credit card details

Confusingly MyHeritage ask you to subscribe when you try to make contact by clicking on some links, but not when you click on others.

 

[hibnit]

Confusingly MyHeritage ask you to subscribe when you try to make contact by clicking on some links, but not when you click on others.

I know I've been able to reply to others who have contacted me but have not been able to initiate contact.

Can't you message them for free? I have contacted a few of my DNA matches on MyHeritage from my free account without having to pay (or give my credit card details).

You are both correct, i was able to message them without any issues through the DNA match contact form although I could have sworn I tried that before a couple of months ago and was unable.​

 

[jorghes]

I've plugged in the "Auto Cluster" feature - though to be honest I don't do a lot with MyHeritage, and I'm a bit weirded out with it suggesting that I have over 10,000 DNA matches...

So it will be interesting to see what comes of this!