* Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

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E Wilcock
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by E Wilcock »

Jane. I am coming back to you on this. To ask about links to place records.
I have become interested in the place search offered by ancestry DNA. Looking at the villages from which my ancestors came in the 19th century one comes up with some interesting matches but no common surname.
Is it possible to link the Fact to a Place record?
Or should I just type it in?
You mentioned clusters of DNA from small villages in Ireland so maybe you have a method for this?
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Jane
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by Jane »

Not looked at that yet, you can't add Facts to places, there are a few ways off the top of my head, as there is nothing to stop you putting private notes against places or adding another Labelled text to the notes against the DNA Marker.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by Coolgarra »

trevorrix wrote:I am taking a completely different approach to identify in Family Historian (1) which people have taken a DNA test (2) marking the paths of proven DNA matches back to the common ancestors.

(1) I have a flag "DNA" which in diagrams switches on a DNA helix logo beneath the boxes of people that have taken a DNA test.

(2) As I prove each DNA match (researching and sourcing with images both upwards and downwards) I mark the path back to the common ancestral couple using a flag "DNA proven relative" which in diagrams switches on an orange border for each person in that path..
Thanks for describing your method Trevor. I like it and will try it out.
Cheers
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by jimlad68 »

I am also starting to look at recording DNA connections data. I may implement Jane's ideas but first a few queries and possible alternatives/ suggestions/ queries.

[1] I've looked around at other family tree programs and can't seem to find any consensus on how to record DNA connections, there are odd individuals with their own methods but nothing from the software developers. Strange, as I thought this could be a new selling point with the increased interest in DNA.
- has anyone any good "food for thought" links in this area?
- has anyone any idea if any of the software developers have anything in the pipeline?

It would be nice to find some sort of standard approach.

[2] Going back to Gedcom basics, I would have thought as there are at least 2 individuals involved (3 or more if including "shared Ancestor(s)/ connecting point"), a starting point would be a SOURce, the 2 individuals DNA facts + Shared Ancestor(s) could then be linked via the Source. Then if some strictish nomenclature was applied to the source name + text, it should be possible to report connections. I have no idea how easy that would be! Possibly a fact query including something like "Add if %FACT.SOUR>% contains 'DNA etc etc'+ coluns and sort accordingly.

[3] Not sure if it would be an extra unnecessary step, but in addition to the above, perhaps ASSOciations be used with the facts (as with Ancestral Sources marriage witnesses). But although ASSO is standard Gedcom, it is not well catered for elsewhere.

[4a] I might have misunderstood this and its context, but I am intrigued re Mike's suggestion "Clone an existing Family item such as Marriage". Possibly to include the 2 DNA linked individuals? Would there be any other implications re extra families etc showing on diagrams.
[4b] I am also confused re Jane's "Shared Couple:" in the note; is that a family (if so what family), or the couple with matching DNA!

[5] Jane's method: Am I right in understanding that notating the IDs is required, If so they can change and may not be very portable.

I would be grateful of any comments, especially where I have "got the wrong end of the stick".
Jim Orrell - researching: see - but probably out of date https://gw.geneanet.org/jimlad68
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Jane
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by Jane »

4/5 The shared couple is the first shared Ancestral couple. You can find this easily using the How related diagram with spouses and children turned off. I record it to make it quick when looking at known and unknown relations on Gedmatch or Ancestry to see how a new match might tie in. It's used in sites sites such as DNA Painter.

I did experiment with Witnesses, but found it easier to record it just in the person being linked to as otherwise the "Roots" end up with lots and lots of DNA witness events. If I get around to building a plug in to record using my method, I'll put the couple names and dates in the note as well. I think the source method you suggest could work, but I find I mostly find matches on GedMatch or Ancestry and then enter them into the tree so other than using diagrams and the "relatedness" query to check the numbers most of the work is done before it hits FH.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by mjashby »

Jim,

Not a method of working within FH, but a couple of links that might be of some general reading interest if you're not already aware of them:

- https://progenygenealogy.com/Products/F ... NA-Matches
- http://www.doublematchtriangulator.com

Both of the products referred to can use the existing FH Gedcom File and can also be run on MacOS/Linux under WINE/Crossover etc. if you want to test the trial versions to see how they work.

Mervyn
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by jimlad68 »

Jane:

[] thanks for clearing up the "family" situation. I suspect that while a "how related" shows the male as the connection in a report, the diagram shows both male and female. I would imagine statistically it is safer to use the female, especially regarding DNA. To "prove" the male, one would need to go back a further generation on his side. As an aside, as I have already discovered, the further back you go, the "proof" gets muddied when both DNA tests "relationship" is connected 2 or more times.

So, I suspect it is better to have the "female" as the shared/connecting ancestor, although I note you do both.

[] Yes, my Source method would create many DNA facts for the "main FH database persons". I tried to exclude them from the property box, but could not find a way. The simple option is to make the facts "post death" and possibly give them a fictitious date such as 2999 to ensure they are last.

[] As well as GEDmatch, I have uploaded my Ancestry DNA to FTDNA and MyHeritage, so the "text" could get rather large.

[] So, now to the empirical testing. My current thoughts are still using a source as in my original post, especially as I think is would be more Gedcom Portable. I will report back, hopefully with a fact template and query. Might be a few weeks.

P.S. Your Relatedness Report (Genetic) and DNA Lists Helper Plugins are very helpful, automating some websites I have been looking at.

Mervyn:

thanks for those links which reinforce a couple of links (below) I found useful.

I had not looked into the statistics of DNA much before and was surprised at the variability of "how much gets passed on", I just assumed "with there being so much of it" that it was nearly proportional, far from it!
This was a good introduction, especially the comments
https://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2015/ ... genealogy/
also
https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4 (each box shows a range making it easy to see probabilities vs possibilities)
Jim Orrell - researching: see - but probably out of date https://gw.geneanet.org/jimlad68
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by LizzieA »

trevorrix wrote:I am taking a completely different approach to identify in Family Historian (1) which people have taken a DNA test (2) marking the paths of proven DNA matches back to the common ancestors.

(1) I have a flag "DNA" which in diagrams switches on a DNA helix logo beneath the boxes of people that have taken a DNA test.

(2) As I prove each DNA match (researching and sourcing with images both upwards and downwards) I mark the path back to the common ancestral couple using a flag "DNA proven relative" which in diagrams switches on an orange border for each person in that path.

This is a quick and easy method of keeping some sort of track of how far I have got, showing in diagrams the ancestral couples who have been proved to be so both by conventional research and by DNA matching. And marking the people in the paths from the ancestral couples back down to the people that have tested. As I work though my DNA matches (my raw autosomal data is in all six of the major databases) I may amend this method if needs be. The goal is to eventually give everyone in my extended tree an orange border. Somewhat similar to trying to achieve 100% coverage in DNA Painter. I am well aware of the need to prove all of this through triangulation.
Trevor

I really like the sound of your method but I'm struggling to create a suitable DNA helix icon. I tried downloading a free image from the internet and saved it as a .bmp file but it looked enormous when I added it to a FH diagram. Did you edit one of the .bmp files supplied in FH or create your own from scratch?

I would be grateful for any help or advice you could give!

Many thanks

LIzzie
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E Wilcock
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by E Wilcock »

Jane, I may have missed something here. However what happens if an individual with whom one has one match also has a second match to another person on one's tree.
As set up, I think your query shows each match only once. Can the query be adapted so one sees every instance and one gets that person listed twice?
This has happened to me only today when I was given access to a private tree on ancestry. And a shared link to that family
was already present in my project but linked to another family from the same area.
It may be that with fh Version 7 on the horizon bringing improved DNA tools, it is not worth spending time on this.
However I will mention with gratitude how useful your system and its query has been highlighting multiple matches on complex trees of families till now unknown to me.
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Jane
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by Jane »

If you create multiple GedMatch facts for that person they should all be listed on the query as it is fact based , not record based.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by RS3100 »

Jane, thank you for this. I have just started down the road of investigating the DNA aspect of my tree, and this seems to be the best solution to recording information within FH that I have found.

Whilst I have decided to resist utilising tables and rich text formatting in FH7 in general, to retain compatibility with the previous entries in my project, I do find the new features very useful for research notes, and it occurs to me that a table format could also be useful in the auto-created note for your Gedmatch fact, making the recorded information more easily readable, particularly when it comes to recording cM matches within the note as illustrated on your personal website.

However, I'm not sure if that is possible? There seems to be no way to create tables directly into the auto-create note field in the fact definition advanced features window, and the ability to expand that field into a normal note editor window seems to be lacking.

I've tried creating a formatted template in an ordinary FH7 note editor window, as was quite pleased with the result, but attempting to copy and paste it into the auto-create note field for the fact loses the tables and formatting.

Do you know if there is a way to accomplish this in FH7?
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Jane
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by Jane »

I don't think you can do rich text directly, but you can easily set up a rich text, AutoText for the table and just add it in using the insert Autotext in the Note Editor.

However if you are making use of the Query, this will not work with a rich text table, as GetLabelledText will not be able to pull out the fields.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by RS3100 »

Thanks Jane. I did wonder whether having the text in a table would affect the operation of the query. Probably best left as it is then, although I might investigate inserting an AutoText table for any cM match information.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by BevSmallwood »

Jane wrote: 04 Mar 2019 09:38 Having just received Stephen and My DNA results on Ancestry and loading them into GedMatch, I wanted to record the information on my FH database.

What I have come up with is a custom fact with a note field to contain the information I need and a Query to cross reference the records.

The custom event has a note as follows

[[
Tested with:
Test Site Name:
GedMatch Details
Kit Id:
GedMatch Name:

Links
Shared Ancestor:
Shared Couple:
Primary Link:

<match>
</match>
]]

My idea is to fill in the above and use a Query to quickly pull up confirmed matches, I have attached the Fact set and the Query to this post. The match section will contain the Chromosome matching information from Gedmatch if available, for future use if I can work out the plugin.

The links will be the record ID's for the Family Record or Individual records.

If I need to add extra Primary links I can simply add additional Events for them.

I know some of you have been using DNA for a while I wondered what you thought of this method.
Jane - I must be doing something wrong. I downloaded on the fact and query attached to this message and it said they were installed, but I don't see them.

I'm currently matching several test kits.
In rootsmagic I created three fact types:
1. DNA Test taker - here I recorded which site(s) they tested with and which test kit they matched to (me, mom, dad, etc.) and nbr cM or pcnt of match
2. MRCA or MRCA couple - here I placed the test taker and the test kit I manage in as witnesses.
3. DNA connection - the people between the testers and the MRCA(s) "John Doe and Jane Smith DNA match"

I hadn't really run reports as such but did often query for some or all of these elements.

I'm trying to translate this into FH. How do your attached files get installed?

Thanks
Bev
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by tatewise »

Bev, if you have just downloaded the files to the Downloads folder then double-click them to install into FH.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by BevSmallwood »

tatewise wrote: 31 Jul 2022 21:18 Bev, if you have just downloaded the files to the Downloads folder then double-click them to install into FH.
Did that and it said it was good but there is no new fact or query that I can see. When I did it a 2nd time it told me there was already one there.

I closed the project and reopened it twice. Now it shows. Thanks.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by BevSmallwood »

Jane wrote: 04 Mar 2019 09:38
Tested with:
Test Site Name:
GedMatch Details
Kit Id:
GedMatch Name:

Links
Shared Ancestor:
Shared Couple:
Primary Link:

<match>
</match>
Hi Jane
your post and images were a great help
https://www.taubman.org.uk/family/wp/20 ... historian/

I have a couple of questions. First - what is meant to go between <match> and </match> and where does that appear?

What do you do if there is more than one common ancestor. I have a LOT of intermarriage in certain areas of Sweden which result in multiple lines in common. I'm not able to say which couple contributed the DNA in question.

Lastly, what do you do when you have a DNA match but you haven't figured out yet how you are related? Those are the ones I especially want to track.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by RS3100 »

BevSmallwood wrote: 01 Aug 2022 01:01 I have a couple of questions. First - what is meant to go between <match> and </match> and where does that appear?

What do you do if there is more than one common ancestor. I have a LOT of intermarriage in certain areas of Sweden which result in multiple lines in common. I'm not able to say which couple contributed the DNA in question.

Lastly, what do you do when you have a DNA match but you haven't figured out yet how you are related? Those are the ones I especially want to track.
I can't reply for Jane, but I use the Gedmatch fact in my projects, and this is my take on your questions:

Jane has added the chromosome matching information between <match> and </match>. You can see it in one of the images in the article. You will only have that information if the match has tested with or transferred their test to a company that provides it, e.g. GedMatch or MyHeritage. Ancestry doesn't. In Jane's article, the image shows that she has entered the chromosome information as text. I created a chart to hold that information and saved it as autotext, so I can insert it into the fact note as and when required, and enter the relevant numbers.

DNA match grid.JPG
DNA match grid.JPG (14.73 KiB) Viewed 3465 times

If there appears to be more than one common ancestor, and more often you will have a pair of MRCAs unless your match is only half related to you, but I realise you probably mean situations where you have more than one route linking you to your match, then I create a separate Gedmatch fact for each of them and add a note that there are multiple relationship possibilities. I have added a "Relationship:" label to the fact note below the "Primary Link:" label, to which I add the relationship between the primary tester (Me, or another family member) and the match, e.g. 3C1R, half 2C, etc. I also added the relationship to the query so that I can see it in the query results, and two or more matches to the same individual, but with different MRCAs are displayed consecutively.

The image shows the query results for two possible relationships to the same individual, who is a match to both me and my brother, so he has four Gedmatch facts in total, two for me and two for my brother, each showing the specific match information and possible MRCAs for the relationship.

You may notice two numbers for the amount of shared cM, the second in brackets. Because Ancestry use their Timber algorithm to strip out lengths of DNA that they believe are not identical by descent, you will often find they give two figures for the match length, the second larger figure referred to as unweighted. Because the unweighted figure aligns more closely with match lengths given by other testing companies, that is the primary figure I enter, with the lower, Timber weighted, figure in brackets.

Gedmatch query.JPG
Gedmatch query.JPG (101.99 KiB) Viewed 3465 times

If you have sufficient match information at the chromosome level, i.e. for you, your match and other matches that you have to the MRCAs' families, it may be possible to work out who the MRCA is from the particular chromosomes and start and end positions that you match on. Having enough of that information available do be able to do that is as rare as hens teeth in my experience, unless you can persuade sufficient numbers of relatives to test with the right companies.

Finally, for matches where I don't know how we are related, it is a judgement call. If I feel that the route of our relationship is going to be fairly easy to discover or confirm, I add them to my main project and enter the linking ancestors as I confirm them. If it is something that may take a lot more work, I often start a separate project to research the ancestry of the match, and later merge it, all or in part, into my main project once I have established the link. That way I don't clutter up my main project with individuals on the sides of the match's family that I later determine as irrelevant to my research.
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by sbell95 »

I am testing out this fact and query since the discussion in the other thread about MRCAs.

I've noticed that the query result set sorts 'alphabetically', which is a problem if I want to sort on the Overlap column from largest to smallest match (or vice versa) based on cM.

Is there a way to have FH sort this column correctly?

Screenshot 2023-03-28 172748.png
Screenshot 2023-03-28 172748.png (4.37 KiB) Viewed 2356 times
Sarah Bell – Australia
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by jelv »

My query isn't the same, but this will show you how to do it. Wrap the code in bold red round the existing expression to do the conversion:

=TextToNumber(Section(GetLabelledText(%FACT.NOTE2%,"Shared DNA:"),1," "))

You'd probably want to change the heading to Overlap (cM)

Edit: Just realised this doesn't like the comma - working on it!
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by jelv »

This works with the commas:

Code: Select all

=TextToNumber(Text(TextPart(GetLabelledText(%FACT.NOTE2%,"Shared DNA:"),1,1,STD) . TextPart(GetLabelledText(%FACT.NOTE2%,"Shared DNA:"),2,1,STD)))
Replace GetLabelledText(%FACT.NOTE2%,"Shared DNA:") with your existing expression (twice).
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Re: Recording DNA matches in Family Historian

Post by sbell95 »

Thanks, John - that works perfectly. I've now added an additional custom column to Jane's query to be able to sort my matches from most to least shared DNA.
Sarah Bell – Australia
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