Error? DNA Test on person dead before the tests were available Help

+7 votes
328 views
If I understand the DNA connections on WikiTree correctly, this man who died in 1880 needs to log in and remove his erroneous DNA Connection information!

I presume that there is some other more practical workaround and hope that highlighting the anomaly in G2G may be the solution.
WikiTree profile: Thomas Rutledge
in WikiTree Help by Paddy Waldron G2G6 Mach 8 (80.3k points)

2 Answers

+6 votes
 
Best answer

What's posted on Thomas Rutledge's profile is, based on the account name shown, the AncestryDNA test taken by the profile manager; the info was added to the profile in April 2020. These incorrectly dated DNA tests do kick out a suggestion report. You can view this one at https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTWeb/Suggestions.htm?UserID=5010861.

The test details need to be removed from Rutledge-562's profile. Unfortunately, even for profiles with Open privacy status, no one can make that change in this instance but the profile manager or WT admin. The profile manager made a few contributions just before last Christmas, so should still be active.

by Edison Williams G2G6 Pilot (505k points)
selected by Paddy Waldron
Is the profile manager automatically notified when a profile is mentioned in G2G or is further action required to draw the error to her attention?

Thanks for the best answer star, Paddy. That the G2G question was asked about Thomas Rutledge's profile will place that fact on Rutledge-562, and it and the answers will appear listed individually on the change log. But I don't believe there will be an automatic email notification to the profile manager.

I took a quick look at WikiTree+ and there are currently 626 suggestions (Error 151) for DNA test information being entered on a profile for a person who died before the DTC tests were available. I expected to find some, but not that many.

Since the test information isn't something that a DNA Project volunteer can edit directly, I think (but don't hold me to it: I can't speak for WikiTree procedures) the only recourse is to first attempt to contact the profile manager and explain why the test info has to be removed; if that fails, I believe it would be a "problem with members" an "Unresponsive Profile Manager" report; and then the last recourse would be for someone with admin rights to remove the erroneous test from the profile.

Edited to add: Glancing through several of the profiles reporting the Error 151, all so far show one of the Big 5 commercial DNA testing companies as having performed the work. None of them do exhumation testing--that requires specialized clean-rooms and rigorous contaminant screening measures--so I believe someone with admin rights could manually correct the majority of those 626 suggestions in a day or two.

Aleš could probably do it programmatically by checking if the testing company listed was 23andMe, AncestryDNA, FTDNA, etc., before removing the test information. For those very rare instances where a profile is actually using results from ancient DNA testing, that would validly only show as being an "other" type of test, not from one of the major DTC players.

Just mentioning it here in case someone on The Team wants to consider an efficient way to clear the majority of those suggestions.

Edited again: Oops.

if that fails, I believe it would be a "problem with members" report; 

-

Unresponsive Profile Manager, not problems with member. They're not having a ding-dong (row/argument).

Ah hah! Good point! Thanks for that. Told ya I couldn't speak to WikiTree procedures. On the plus side, though, if you don't ask me something about genetics, you usually don't get a 2,000-word response. So at least there's that.
laugh

Having surfed through a number of the profiles bearing the Error 151 suggestion, I read through several of the current WT DNA Help pages...finding that none of them specifically addressed the problem. I decided this deserved to be brought up here on G2G as a Question tagged with "improvements," "DNA," and "data_doctors."

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1546995/recommended-change-to-help-how-to-get-started-with-dna

Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Paddy!

+3 votes
This may take a private message to the profile manager. It looks like maybe the manager added the DNA badge to the profile. I am surprised the system did not catch this error, must have been tricky input.

Of course, since DNA can be extracted from ancient remains, the manager may have gone to the expense of having that done.
by Kristina Adams G2G6 Pilot (438k points)
She may indeed, but AncestryDNA still accepts DNA data only if submitted using its own spit kits, so the attribution of ancient DNA to AncestryDNA is certainly an error.

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