The existing limitations with DNA testing that I discussed in Part 3 of this blog series can cause frustration, to varying degrees, among genetic genealogists. However, those frustrations are generally caused by a combination of the limitations of the underlying testing technologies, and to a lesser degree, our expectations (which can sometimes be unrealistic) regarding the results we receive from the companies. There is some good news when it comes to these limitations: 1) testing companies and their industry partners are continuously researching ways to enhance the accuracy and precision of the testing technologies, so some of the limitations we experience today should be either mitigated or resolved in the future; and 2) a bit of self-education can help us manage our own expectations on the results packages we receive from the companies while enhancing our ability to use our test results more effectively.
The two frustrations I plan to discuss here in Part 4 of this blog series are a bit different in that we generally lack control over the outcomes and outlooks. Two of the most prominent frustrations expressed by genetic genealogists in various social media forums are 1) the lack of interaction and collaboration with our matches and 2) the quality of our matches’ family trees. These two frustrations are common and will not be unique to you alone if you do experience them. They are just part of the landscape that we have to navigate through as genetic genealogists.
Lack of interaction and collaboration with our DNA matches. An often-expressed complaint genetic genealogists tend to share on various forums is the lack of communication they have had with DNA matches. There are several reasons for this issue that I have discovered myself. First, many people conduct DNA testing only to obtain their ethnicity results…..they watch an AncestryDNA commercial, realize they have always been curious about their true ethnic roots, buy a test, receive their results, and never sign back into their account after reviewing the results. After all, hasn’t this been Ancestry’s emphasis in its marketing campaign over the last several years????
Another reason why some of our matches do not respond to our inquiries is that many people have conducted DNA testing to receive personalized health reports, such as the reports long offered by 23andMe and that other companies are just starting to roll out. When I ask about a match’s family tree on 23andMe, I am often told they have no desire to get involved in genealogy and only purchased the test for the health reports. Ugh.
Third, most of the major companies provide their customers the options to opt into and out of the DNA matching services. One day you may see a match and the next day, he or she has disappeared. They may have opted out of the matching program if this occurs.
Fourth, some people simply lack awareness that the testing sites even have messaging services available! I lost count how many times I received a response to a message I sent to a DNA match 6-18 months earlier! Usually, the person tells me they had no clue a messaging service even existed and they had a pile of messages they needed to wade through in addition to the one I had sent them.
Finally, some of the testing companies offer subscription-based services. Many times, DNA matches will let their subscriptions expire, mostly either due to a lack of personal time and or money to maintain the subscriptions. Thus, a match may not even realize you have sent them a message because they haven’t had a need to check a service they are no longer subscribed to. While some services have setting options that send an alert to a person’s email when a message has been sent by another user, many people either ignore the emails or do not have the settings in place to receive such alerts.
There are some possible solutions to these issues.
- One, patiently wait for a response to a message you may have already sent. Again, I have received responses 18 months after sending a message. Whether it was the response I wanted to read is another matter.
- Two, try to find and contact the match on Facebook, Linkedin, or other social network forums. This is a common practice for genealogists, so don’t think its “weird” to do so. Vast majority of people have seemed fine with me reaching out to them through social media. In fact, I have had some VERY positive reactions that made me thankful I took the chance to reach out to them.
- Three, sometimes a person’s username on a testing service is also the name they use for their email accounts….you just have to guess if they use Apple, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. as their email service provider.
- Four, and in line with third recommendation above, I will sometimes conduct an internet search using their username. While I have only tried this only a couple of times, it has resulted in gaining contact with my matches, one of which who helped break through my brick wall in my Cosgrove line.
- Fifth, try to find a physical mailing address for your match and mail a traditional letter to the person. Believe it or not, many genetic genealogists use this technique to reach out to possible relatives they found through their research efforts. Once contact is made, they will ask this person to take a DNA test to help confirm or add additional data to existing research findings. If we can send a letter to a possible relative, why couldn’t we send a letter to a DNA match? This technique is only successful if you know your match’s name and possible city or town of residence, information that may or may not be listed on their profile at the genealogy website or on a social media site.
The quality, or lack thereof, of some of our matches’ family trees. There are a variety of issues you may encounter when it comes to our DNA matches’ family trees that can cause significant frustration for genetic genealogists. After all, many genetic genealogists want to connect with DNA matches in order to share information contained in each other’s trees in hopes of breaking through brick walls and extending their family lines further back another generation or two. While this is one of our main goals with DNA testing, there are several problems that many genealogists encounter.
First, some matches do not build and or link their trees to their DNA accounts. For instance, you may have a predicted 3rd or 4th cousin match whose name you are not familiar with at all. Your knowledge of the shared amount of DNA between you and your match suggests you could share 2nd or 3rd great-grandparents, respectively. To verify your assumption, you could simply examine the match’s family tree to see if any of your 2nd or 3rd great-grandparents are listed among your match’s ancestors. Unfortunately, if the match doesn’t have a tree or hasn’t made it accessible for public viewing, it may be very difficult to determine how in fact each of you are related to one another.
Another source of frustration with matches’ trees is one I often experience quite a bit myself. While a fair share of my matches do not have any trees constructed, I have an equal amount of matches whose trees only contain a very small handful of people (i.e, the match and their parents are the extent of people I find in matches’ trees) or they have it set to private to prevent others from viewing the tree’s contents. In many cases, matches tell me they are hesitant to share their tree with their DNA matches mostly because they are concerned with either relatives’ privacy or with the accuracy of their research. The first response makes pause and wonder why they did not have any privacy concerns with providing A DNA SAMPLE to a commercial testing company, but won’t give a DNA match (i.e., a likely relative) access to their family tree. The second response makes you wonder why they wouldn’t want another person to review their tree and help validate their research findings!!!!!!
Third, many of the trees I and others have reviewed tend to contain a plethora of errors because they are poorly researched, if researched at all. It is common to see trees in which their owners have added random families to their trees simply because they share the same surnames in each other’s trees. I have been told by some of these very people that since they both have a distant ancestor named “Bob Cosgrove” or they simply have a Cosgrove line in their families, they must be related and will simply copy their information over to one another’s trees. They never consider the facts that 1) numerous Bob Cosgroves have existed over time and 2) not all Cosgrove families are related to one another. They simply make an assumption and ill-informed decision without conducting any research on how they may (or may not) be related to a DNA match and merge their trees together. Rarely, if ever, do their assumptions and guesses turn out to be correct.
Most of the time I can identify these errors by looking at the records or other trees they have linked to their ancestors’ profile. Some common discrepancies I find are: 1) names found in actual records do not match the ancestor’s name on his or her profile; 2) parents were married at the age of 8 and had their first born at the age of 9 (I have seen this obvious error way too many times); 3) countries or years of birth listed on the records were much different than those listed on the ancestor’s profile; 4) residential locations as wildly off from confirmed locations where ancestors actually resided; 5) the ancestors’ parents’, spouses’, and or children’s names found in the trees differed greatly from those listed in the records; and 6) you may find that the same “John Cosgrove” is listed in eight family trees owned by eight different people, but each person lists a different Irish county of birth, a year of birth, or different parents’ names for the same “John Cosgrove” who died in 1890 in the same small town in New York (a recent example I found earlier this month on Ancestry).
There are a handful of recommendations to overcome challenges with matches’ trees:
- If you are lucky enough to gain contact with a match whose tree is not publicly available or not linked to their account, ask them kindly if it would be possible for them to share their tree or some of their research with you. It goes a long way if you are willing to reciprocate yourself.
- Be willing to help a match if needed. Some matches struggle navigating websites. As much as I love Ancestry.com, there are a ton of features on the site that can overwhelm inexperienced users very quickly; a fact that experienced users tend to forget. When I have to write out a 10-step process for a match to change a setting on his or her account, a reasonable person has to ask if the testing companies are making their sites a bit too complicated.
- When confronted with what appears to be obvious errors in a match’s tree, be kind and courteous how you approach the issue. I myself have made plenty of unintentional errors in my own research, which have required me to go back and make changes to my own tree. We are all human and are bound to have an error or two in our own trees. Try not to come across as insulting to the person and think through a proper and polite way of addressing the issue.
- Offer to help a match fix their tree. Some people are very gracious in accepting help from other genealogists, especially people who have little time or have run out of ideas in overcoming problems and challenges in their research.
- If you cannot gain contact with a match, but they have a limited tree linked to his or her DNA profile, you may want to try to do your own research on the person’s tree using the limited information available.
- If you have shared DNA matches with a particular DNA match and know either how you are related to the shared matches or know the family line they connect to, these clues in themselves may be enough for you to conduct the research needed to determine how you and your match may be related, even if the match does not participate in the research with you. I have had a lot of luck with connecting matches to specific family branches within certain family lines using the knowledge about our shared DNA matches. It can be quite time consuming and challenging, but it can yield great benefits with some patience.
Keep a positive perspective on the situation
We don’t have any control over whether our DNA matches choose to collaborate in shared research with us; respond to our messages; or post and make available accurate family trees. The best we can do is reach out to them, be cordial, and hope for the best in return. While I have experienced each of these issues numerous times, I have also had some truly awesome experiences with the matches who I have been able to gain connect with over the years. They have been absolutely instrumental in helping me break thru various brick walls that have existed for generations in various family lines. Based on my personal successes and experiences, as well as those of others, I am willing to deal with some of the frustrations discussed above in exchange for the successes I have had and for the great people I have been able to meet. Ten – twenty set backs are well worth the euphoria for every one of the positive experiences I have had.