A couple of years ago my mom bought me a 23andMe DNA kit for the sake of ancestry. I had already done the Ancestry.com test, but 23andMe had some different features, like health reports.
So, I thought, why not? I followed the procedures, spit in the vial, and sent it in. (Think about how much spit now gets shipped through USPS in a given year…) Fast forward to when my results showed up a couple of months later. I was finally able to explore the 23andMe website. I saw my health reports and my DNA matches. However, since the site was fairly new, there weren’t a lot of other features. I wound up kind of forgetting about it for a long time.
23andMe’s Impressive DNA Map
Once Covid-19 hit, I had more time at home and remembered I had a 23andMe profile I hadn’t checked out in a while. I logged on and found out the site has come a long way with its features and accuracy. Once while exploring the ancestry section, I found all of my DNA matches mapped out. Cool! With that tool, I quickly discovered I had DNA matches in Finland, of all places! There were a couple in Liverpool, Dublin, Paris, and scattered around Sweden. Even one in New Zealand! When you zoom in on an area of the map, it becomes easier to see where your matches are specifically located, so it pays to zoom in on the circles with the numbers. This map impressed me and got me excited for 23andMe’s other features…
23andMe’s Family Tree Feature
Today I finally decided to investigate the 23andMe family tree tool to see what kind of new features they’ve added. Taking a peek, I saw myself and my two biological children. My parents haven’t done the 23andMe DNA tests, so they weren’t there, but I did figure out how to enter them in manually. I went ahead and entered the rest of my family tree to the best of my knowledge. I hoped it would help me figure out who some of the people showing up as DNA matches were and link them up.
One Major Problem
Now – you must understand that my parents have worked on our family tree for years. They’ve identified thousands of relatives. Many of these relatives are entered into our large family tree on Ancestry.com. Because of this, I had a convenient place to cross-check what I found on 23andMe. A couple of the names I knew, so I was quickly able to place them in the tree where they belonged.
However, as I investigated the others, I began to cross-check names with the Ancestry file and found one major problem. The 23andMe DNA matches were showing up on the wrong sides of my family tree! Three people who are all relatives from a branch of my mother’s family were showing up on my father’s side of the tree. Other people who had last names matching my father’s family were placed on my mother’s side. Even people who I knew were related and where they fit in the tree weren’t placed exactly right.
For example, a third cousin was identified as a second cousin and I had to manually move her where she belonged. Hmm… What if I didn’t have a huge database to refer to? My family tree would be all messed up and I would have no idea! That could be embarrassing if I started trying to contact these distant relatives.
Why Is the Family Tree Problem Happening?
I’m guessing these problems happened for a couple of reasons.
- My parents haven’t submitted their DNA. As a result, there is no way to accurately split out what side of the family people are from. That would probably change if they did the DNA tests.
- Many people who complete a 23andMe DNA kit do the same thing that I did at first. They don’t enter any supplemental information on the website. This might be for privacy reasons, or just because they aren’t all that interested. But, it doesn’t really make for an accurate family tree. Even a few bits of information can help confirm how a person is related.
- 23andMe bases your family tree off of your DNA results. Since family members share different amounts of DNA, there is always an estimate as to how a person is related. For example, my third cousin mentioned earlier and I share more DNA than your average third cousins. That led 23andMe to assume we might be second cousins.
Editing Your 23andMe Family Tree Manually
The good news is, you can correct the 23andMe Family Tree manually. If you want to add a person, click on the little circle where they belong and you will see a window similar to this pop-up:
When you click on Add basic info, the window will expand to allow you to add the person’s name, birth and death dates. To add a relative who doesn’t have a circle, click on the Add a relative to this person link at the bottom. A window like this will appear:
Clicking Confirm will allow you to enter the same basic information for the new person.
If you find a DNA match placed in your family tree incorrectly, click on the person’s circle and click Edit next to their name. This window will pop up:
You can then follow the links to correct the person’s place in the tree or remove them from your tree.
Now that I know how to do this, I will probably keep closer tabs on my 23andMe DNA matches and how they fit into my family tree. It would be awesome if one of these could help solve a long-standing brick wall. I have to be sure, though, that a match fits where 23andMe says they do. And the only way to do that is good ol’ fashioned genealogy research! Yes, it takes time, but if you really want an accurate family tree, it’s what you have to do, high-tech DNA matches or not.
Photo Credit:
Header image by dandelion_tea from Pixabay
Screenshot #1: 23andMe DNA Map
Screenshot #2-#5: 23andMe Family Tree
