Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Yet more DNA

At the recent Rootstech Conference in Salt Lake City I did a cheek scrape in the Exhibit Hall under the watchful eye of Daniel Horowitz, Chief Genealogist for MyHeritage. Although I had tested with two other companies I was keen to share my genetic ancestry with another group. Thanks to MyHeritage for offering me the chance to test. I note on their DNA site that the current price for a MyHeritage DNA test is $AU103.

Yesterday when I opened my email box I found that my MyHeritage results were in but, as I had an urgent task to complete, I had to put the results aside .... however I did sneak a peek at my ethnicity results.

What is interesting is that they indicate that I am 1% Papuan (and my Ancestry results say 1% Pacific Islander). So perhaps the aboriginal, Biddy Sargeant (whom I am pretty sure is my 3x Great-Grandmother really is).I have always been fairly sure that Biddy was my 3x Great-Grandmother there is nothing on paper to document this. Perhaps DNA will give me an answer! When I shared this result on the Using DNA for Genealogy - Australia & NZ Facebook Group it resulted in quite a few comments and likes.

I didn't expect to find many matches on MyHeritage because it is a relatively newcomer in the DNA testing field but, when I logged in yesterday afternoon I found 27 matches, two of whom are from Australia, most from the USA and a few from the UK. One of these is a 4th cousin match on my Pusell line that I have confirmed on Gedmatch.

My genimate Pauleen had mentioned in the Facebook Group that she was uploading her results from another company to MyHeritage (I didn't know you could do it for free) so I decided to add Mum's DNA too....but to do this she needed to be in the MyHeritage database (more opportunities for matches!). No problem, I uploaded a gedcom of my direct ancestors and then, with Mum's name in the database, found adding her results a breeze. I am now waiting for her results to be processed - then I anticipate I'll have at least 28 matches. Mum's kit is listed on my profile.


Next task was to go through my matches. I went through them one by one looking at trees where available but only identified a connection with Michelle with whom I have been in communication for many years. The matches (which cn be sorted in a number of ways) are displayed 10 to a page (I think there's an option to change that). Take a look at my closest match - a man from the USA.


I need to examine the site further to see what other features are available. It's early days yet but, as I want to make as many connections as possible, I am pleased to have my data in another database.

Disclosure: I was given a complimentary DNA test by MyHeritage

3 comments:

Jennifer Jones said...

Very exciting to have these leads to chase up Jill.

Cassmob (Pauleen) said...

Thanks for the mention Jill. It reminds me that I should,upload the FTDNA results for my other half. Good luck with the search. "THey" say that My Heritage is more likely to be used in Europe...who knows it may turn up my German connections.

Fiona Tellesson said...

Looking forward to seeing the results...loving what #DNA brings to #genealogy.

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