HOW DO MY MATCHES MATCH?

DEAR KAREN

I’ve been using DNA Painter for only three months and I’m learning as I go with equal amounts of delight and frustration. Today I reviewed the notes in one of my group’s profile and I had written that ‘match A’ shares 179cm with ‘match B’. Then I thought ‘That’s useful’, but when I came to look at the matches again, I couldn’t find out how I had got data about two third parties’ shared cm. They are both Myheritage matches, so they must have been suggested as a triangulation.

My thinking is that it must be useful to know how closely two third parties are related to each other. Can you tell me which, if any, of the websites will give me this kind of data?

KAREN REPLIES:

Tom

You are correct that Myheritage would have suggested a matching of DNA via triangulation. Myheritage, 23andme, Familytreedna and Gedmatch all have a chromosome browser which allows you to ‘see’ the DNA you share with a match. The great thing about DNA Painter is that it allows you to use the chromosome browsers from different sites to show matches who share DNA.

Myheritage and 23andme allow you to see how much DNA two (or more) shared matches to you share with each other, which is so helpful. Gedmatch also allows you to see how matches ‘match’ with each other - if you click on the match’s name on your list, you will see their list and the amount of DNA they share with their matches. Ancestry don’t offer a chromosome browser or how matches match with each other, so if I am in contact with a match on Ancestry I will see if they will upload to Myheritage, Familytreedna or Gedmatch so we can compare on a chromosome browser.

Karen