New App: DNAngulator

Question

Announcing DNAngulator, a new WT app for identifying common ancestors and generating DNA confirmation texts:

https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/guillory1078/dnangulator/

It was inspired by DNAconf, but aims to overcome some limitations of that app:

https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/clarke11007/DNAconf.php

For example, DNAngulator lists ALL common ancestors, sorted by generational distance, plus ALL possible mini-trees to any selected common ancestor.

DNAngulator also tries to be more user-friendly.

Additionally, the URL is updated upon clicking "DNAngulate" to a shareable link, which auto-fills WT IDs for convenience. 

Answer 1

Great to see another app from a fellow developer!  Very nice!

I really like your design, (a lot more streamlined than most of mine!) - makes it easy to jump in.  It's nice that you can go DOWN to just 2 profiles to test things out (which takes less time to return results while you're playing).  Others have noted a few "opening day" hiccups, I won't repeat those - they happen! (and not just day one ... they pop up and surprise you all the time, silly bugs!)

I do have a suggestion that you show some type of indication that something is happening while the app retrieves the data .. perhaps the waving Tree GIF that other apps use, or a status bar to give intermittent updates.

I like how you can view different Common Ancestors, and that it's so easy to jump from one to another.  Showing also the number of generations, and number of Trees (i.e. - unique pathways to that Common Ancestor) - also a very nice touch!

I like how this has basically the same data as the Relationship to Me page, but much more user-friendly and easy to manipulate, and quicker to flip from one ancestor to the next.

One thing I noticed about the Common Ancestors is that you don't limit it to just Most Recent Common Ancestors.  For instance, I used a second cousin, and the app found our great-grandparents in common ... but also in the drop down were their parents and grandparents ... and the paths in both cases are identical above the common great-grands.  

That is nice to see, especially if you happen to have multiple relationships to those ancestors further back.  However, if you are also going to use this app for a DNA confirmation, those can ONLY be made on the closest common ancestor.  

There are some other provisos about creating DNA confirmations, most importantly that they can only be formed properly if there is a UNIQUE pathway between DNA testers and ancestors.  That's one area my current app does not handle properly when there are multiple relationships, but that I am fixing now.  I'll work with you so you don't fall into the same trap that I did, if you'd like. (See my latest G2G post for details)

Once you've loaded the initial profiles, I really like how quick and responsive your app is to add one more profile to the mix ... and how that can narrow down the list of common ancestors.  I think this could be a very useful way to explore family trees and inter-relationships - and - if we can get it right, also investigate some complex triangulations!

Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

 - Greg

Answer 2

So I logged in and it shows GedMatxh but no data filled in..  I have lots of DNA matches at Fed Match, Ancestry, and FTDNA   so not sure why every thing is blank for me...  I am WTid  Pennie-22

Answer 3

I've noodled with it for about 30 minutes and I think I need some help understanding what I'm meant to do.

From the name and the three sets of boxes, I infer that this tool might be solely for making DNA confirmation statements, specifically for triangulation when beyond 3rd cousin. The absence of Ancestry as an option backs this up. Am I on the right track?

I filled in the boxes except the WT IDs for the other two folks (because they're living and WT members so they don't have one), then clicked the button "DNAngulate." Nothing happened and I didn't get an error.

I added in my father's WT ID for all three just to see if I could get it to load. The button stayed greyed out. I refreshed, re-entered the WT IDs, and it loaded.

I suppose one thing I don't understand is how I'm supposed to use the tool if my matches aren't both WT members?

Comments

I infer that this tool might be solely for making DNA confirmation statements, specifically for triangulation when beyond 3rd cousin. 

Correct. It was written with DNAconf users in mind, as an alternative to the triangulation feature of DNAconf.

The lack of an AncestryDNA option is only because of it being a bit more complicated to add than the others, and me not having an Ancestry account to test it out myself. I could probably add it by request though, by simply following DNAconf's example.

The button stayed greyed out. I refreshed, re-entered the WT IDs, and it loaded.

This is a bug I will fix (clicking "DNAngulate" without filling every WT ID box disables the button then crashes the program, instead of just saying "You can't do that").

I suppose one thing I don't understand is how I'm supposed to use the tool if my matches aren't both WT members?

Support for non-WT members has not been added, but DNAconf does allow this.

Answer 4

My understanding is that this app will allow triangulations for relationships beyond 3rd cousin.  So it could be used for 5th cousins or 7th cousins, for example?  We have some profiles where it was used for these further relationships that seem controversial.

Comments

I tested many confirmations for the DNAngulator developed by Anonymous Guillory Dupre. I was the guinea pig so to speak. It does only allow for WT users who have a GedMatch kit number to be able to triangulate. I find it to be an extremely helpful and valuable tool for triangulation that offers features that the original WT tool does not offer.

The only controversy is how the endogamy in our Louisiana families affects the WT DNA Confirmation tool which at times selected an ancestor for triangulation when there were others equally qualified. We of Acadian ancestry whose descendants lived in Louisiana have an extremely large pool of common ancestors due to endogamy. Hence, a problem in triangulations to some extent. That is why Anonymous Guillory Dupre developed his app to help overcome this issue.

The church records by Stephen A. White and Father Hebert among others have documented our Acadian ancestors and their Louisiana descendants very well. The DNA confirmations are just an extra bonus but the ancestors are actually already proven by primary records.

When I use the DNAngulator, I follow the guidelines of Greg Clarke's tool which only allows confirmations up to the 8th great grandparent. I think this is a good rule to follow. Remember, like Anonymous Guillory Dupre said the other tool is still up and running on WT so one can choose one or the other to use for confirmations.

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Correction: The DNA confirmation tool that I used on Landry-22 was the tool by Greg Clarke. I just now did the test with all three testers at different locations on the WT DNA Confirmation tool and got a different set of ancestors each time. These are the ancestors that the tool picked for Landry-22 and ignored Claude Dugas when the order of testers was changed. In another order the tool selected our mutual Pierre Sonnier and Louise Bastineau ancestors. Greg had advised me to change the order to see who else I could confirm and it worked.

So this confirmation was not done by the DNAngulator but by the WT tool by Greg Clarke. Sorry for the initial confusion as to which app was used.