Question

Why does WikiTree DNA match labeling stop at the 3rd great grandparent (ggp) level?

Comments

Hi, GJR -- I just added a DNA tag for you as Linda suggested below. :-)

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Thanks!

Answer 1

Any profile where you mark a parent as DNA Confirmed should have a DNA confirmation statement in the Sources section of the profile.  If this is not done, you will be generting suggestions for those profiles.

Please review Help Page for DNA Confirmations.  There is a DNA Confirmation Citation Maker app that can help you with the required wording.

If you have recently selected the DNA Confirmed or added profiles of ancestors, it takes 24 hours 'possibly' for the connections to be identified as connected to the tree, as well as for the DNA to be identified and connected.

If you add a Tag of DNA to your question, you will probably get answers from others that are more familiar with DNA on wikitree.

Comments

Thank Linda,

I will follow up on your suggestion.

Answer 2

Descendants down to 6th great-grandchildren show as DNA connections on profiles. Not sure what it is you're asking.

Comments

Sorry to inform you but the question was relative to ancestors, not descendants. Hence the use of the words 'great grandparent' within the question.  

I was refering to the yellow-box medallions exhibiting "DNA" in yellow text with a green check mark next to my ancestors-mother, father, grandparents, great-grandparents (ggp), 2nd ggp and 3rd ggp that show up on my personal family tree.

Why isn't the DNA certainty option available as an option beyond 3rd ggp?

Thanks for trying.

Hopefully, my response provides more clarity.

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They don't as long as the connection is actually confirmed with DNA? It is possible to confirm further connections given a large enough triangulation group, or with Y-DNA or mtDNA on direct male or female lines. For instance, here is one of my 5th great-grandfathers, Thomas Dodd, whose relationship to his father William Dodd is confirmed by Y-DNA matches at 37/37 markers between several of his descendants and descendants of his brothers John Dodd and Jesse Dodd. In order to confirm those relationships with DNA you need descendants on two different lines from the common ancestor who've tested, OR you need a triangulation with at least 10cM between people who all descend from different children of the common ancestor. It sounds like the issue is with your not understanding how the DNA confirmation process works.

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Obviously, there is something missing in this exchange.

Thank you for the remedial lesson on something I have been doing successfully for some time now on my lines, including up to the 5th great-grandparents and beyond.

My entry point was the mechanics of the software that seems to stop providing the DNA labeling option beyond the 3rd great grand-parents, which is different from the process of finding DNA matches.

That question has yet to be answered.

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The answer to the question appears to be whether or not there are DNA matches identified by WikiTree, presumably based upon my DNA test from FTDNA that I referenced when I signed up to WikiTree. I just found the listing.

My entry point was based upon the matches from Ancestry, which may or may not be represented here on Wikitree.

It is a learning curve for people that are new to the site.

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Gjr, it looks like you have realized that the flag appears based on selecting the "confirmed with dna" option for each parent, but that should only be selected if 

1. you have tests that specifically show that (for example Y-DNA confirming JUST your paternal line and auDNA confirming matches to cousins, confirming only the connections between the testers)
2. There is a DNA confirmation statement added to the profile explaining what matches, between which testers and how (I highly suggest use of the DNA Confirmation Citation Maker app https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/clarke11007/DNAconf.php)

It is unusual to see someone with their entire family tree filled out with the dna confirmation, even Chris Whitten (founder of the site) does not show that level of confirmation.

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Thanks for responding Jonathan.

I'm not sure my entire tree below 5th ggp's is DNA matched on Ancestry, but pretty close.  That was my reference point leading to my ignorant response to the DNA confirmation option within WikiTree without fully understanding how the site works.

I figured out an approach on Ancestry for "Cousin Bait" as it is referred to here on WikiTree.  

That said, I need to go back and review each of these for compliance on WikiTree.  Beyond that I don't know.  At this point I am performing redundant record keeping which is exhausting.

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You cannot triangulate with Ancestry. Therefore Ancestry matches alone are insufficient for DNA confirmation beyond second great-grandparents (NOT third great-grandparents, as the requirement is "third cousin or closer" for confirmation based on an Ancestry match).

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Really?

Do you use Ancestry?

Have you used it in the last 2 years?

You can consider these two questions as rhetorical, or not, as you prefer.

Hint: I'm providing you an off ramp to this conversation.

From my perspective, I believe you just told me that I can't do something that I've done - inferring I either don't know what I'm talking about-stupid or ignorant, or that I am misrepresenting the situation, which is the next thing to lying.

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Gjr, I think there's a miscommunication. What C Handy is describing reflects the WikiTree policy for autosomal DNA triangulation (beyond the level of 3rd cousins and equivalent, i.e., both 2g-grandparents shared). This is based upon what is typically referred to as "segment triangulation," which requires access to and analysis of detail about the mutually shared chromosomal segment(s), usually including, at a minimum, the overlapping start and stop points and the calculation of the centiMorgan value for that overlapping segment.

This is often performed alongside chromosome mapping, the intent of which is to build a generationally successive model of what segments of autosomal DNA were inherited from which ancestors. This is done stepwise by generation, mapping as much of the inherited DNA as is identifiable from each parent, all four grandparents, the eight great-grandparents, and so on. Thus providing a basis for attempting to estimate the origin of a shared DNA segment.

Segment triangulation is the method described by most of the popular genetic genealogists such as Jim Bartlett, Kitty Cooper, and Roberta Estes, and is what will be assumed by most people when the word "triangulation" is used. At WikiTree, the discussion is almost always referring to segment triangulation, so we often don't note that there is a distinction. AncestryDNA has never provided the data necessary to perform segment triangulation.

"Tree triangulation" is different in that it is not based upon the chromosomal detail, although it might use DNA clustering tools such as the AutoCluster utility written by Evert-Jan Blom and adapted for use at GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA, and MyHeritage.

As the name implies, tree triangulation is foundationally dependent upon accurate pedigree charts of the test-takers involved. Rather than analyzing chromosomal detail, this process evaluates groupings of test-takers who show shared, or in-common-with, DNA matching, and then reviews the family trees and paper trails of the people involved to try to determine the ancestral source of the sharing.

What AncestryDNA does with ThruLines, and did previously with DNA Circles, is a variant of tree triangulation because we never see the chromosomal detail. And in fact, Ancestry themselves have written that six generations is the functional limit our inexpensive autosomal DNA tests can reach: "If we look beyond six generations of ancestors, we also find that while two individuals might share DNA and have a common ancestor in their trees, it's often not because they inherited their shared DNA from that ancestor."

There was a recent conversation that included autosomal triangulation here on G2G. To be clear, there have as yet been no formal, peer-reviewed, scientific studies that test the accuracy--or even validity--of either form of triangulation when applied to distant cousins. The biology and the math agree with Ancestry's statement about a functional ceiling at six generations. Inferentially, segment triangulation should be fairly easy and quite accurate to 2g-grandparents. Probable with care and attention to detail to 3g- or 4g-grandparents. It may be possible to 5g-grandparents, but in my 12 years of looking at autosomal DNA results (and 20 of working with genetic genealogy), I've never seen a segment triangulation using 6th cousins or beyond that could stand up to critical scrutiny.

In that vein, it's also important to note that WikiTree uses the phrase "Confirmed with DNA" not to mean that there has been unequivocal verification or substantiation of the DNA inheritance chain for any profile, but that the DNA evidence cited--as per the WikiTree guidelines--is not in conflict with the paper trail, and that it provides information that adds to or strengthens the paper trail genealogy.

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This seems to be a festival of miscommunication. It sounds like Gjr is going to read up on WikiTree DNA Confirmation, so the confusion here should be cleared up quickly.

As to AncestryDNA talking about a "functional limit" of six generations, it looks like some misunderstanding is going on there, too. That's specifically talking about DNA Circles (which don't exist anymore). It's a problem unique to DNA Circles, which contain only a few descendants of a specified ancestor.

Not only does this not apply to something like triangulation, but that article itself does NOT present six generations as some sort of fundamentally unbreakable limit. Near the end, in a section called "Looking to the Future" it explicitly says "as the AncestryDNA database grows, and we learn more about DNA matching across large groups of people, we may one day be able to push DNA Circles past the current limit of six generations."

Of course that won't happen, since they dropped the DNA Circle concept, but obviously if it's POSSIBLE to go past DNA Circles with DNA Circles, by using more information, than it's certainly possible to go further back with triangulation.

I have a match with a half-6C (common ancestor is a 6gt grandfather) that's over 30cM long, and matches 3rd, 4th, and 5th cousins on that same segment, on that side of my family. There's a cluster in my AncestryDNA matches with dozens of distant cousins, of known and unknown relation, that is undoubtedly due to that segment.

I have a cluster of matches going back to a pair of 6gt grandparents that I might be able to triangulate to, if I got a little cooperation (if they put their AncestryDNA results someplace useful). I don't know why you're so down on this stuff.

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Good word, miscommunication.  And miscommunication is usually diminished to insignificant levels with dialectic conversations between knowledgeable people.

Thank you for your cogent presentation on the subject of triangulation. It is too bad this is not the forum for an extensive conversational dialectic on the matter. But I would enjoy it.

Sometimes I think we forget the forest focusing on the trees, or even worse, the root system of an individual tree.

That said, I offer a simple outline of points regarding genealogy and DNA below.

1. First, there is a family tree. Otherwise, the subject is beyond the scope of genealogy. 

2. The most important thing is having an accurate (hence the need for WikiTree) and, if possible, comprehensive family tree. Otherwise, what is the point? 

3. In the absence of accurately developed family trees, the viability of DNA Genealogy is diminished.

4. Y-DNA, mtDNA and auDNA are all important and useful tools in genealogy, for different reasons, but only if one establishes an accurate family tree.  

From a genealogy perspective, Y-DNA & mtDNA have limited, but useful, value. 

The value of Y-DNA is limited to the unbroken length of the paternal male line-short or long. And, it is limited to one paternal male line.

The value of mtDNA in the maternal female line is that unbroken lines are not an issue from a DNA perspective. However, in patriarchal societies, finding mothers may be more difficult as there is no singular surname to focus on. 

For the remaining 14 lines within a family tree at the 2nd ggp level, auDNA is the only means of validating DNA relationships within those lines. The question becomes how to identify auDNA matches within that group, and the other two lines as well.

Ignoring multi-generation tests within the family tree, the limit is generally to the 5th great-grandparent level. That may be achieved by capturing as many descendants of those 5th ggp's within the family tree as possible. 

At that point the law of large numbers comes into place.  However, it certainly makes it easier if DNA matches have accurate family trees as well.  At a minimum, most people can identify their siblings, parents, grandparents, etc. as applicable. 

While auDNA accuracy may be in question at the higher ggp levels, if one has an accurate and exhaustive tree - then identifying common ancestors is much easier. Then the accuracy of auDNA testing at that level is not necessary. (the caveat is that one cannot ensure a DNA relationship exists at that level. However, a genealogical and familial relationship did exist. Again, the law of large numbers and parentage probabilities would suggest a fairly high confidence level of biological relationships in the  overall tree.)

While auDNA is not necessarily accurate at the 100% level, what are the odds that a common ancestor is not the common ancestor from a biological perspective? 

Take those odds against 20-110+ collective DNA matches for a 5th ggp common ancestor and one has a pretty good case for saying they have validated that line in their family tree.  

Besides, with current DNA technology, who is to say differently?

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Thank you for sharing your experience.  My experience is similar to yours.