Opening the Floodgates: WikiTree and the DNA Collaborative

Question

The quote attributed to Nobel Prize laureate Charles H. Townes, “The beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam: No, I didn’t build it myself, but it’s based on an idea of mine,” humorously underscores the principle that great accomplishments typically arise from collaboration and the sharing of ideas.  Similarly, WikiTree provides a vast reservoir of DNA information that can be used to confirm the accuracy of ancestral lines. However, much of this information is currently unusable because test takers have not added their autosomal DNA to GEDmatch.com or their Y-DNA or mtDNA to mitoYDNA.org, which are free databases.  By adding their DNA information to these databases, test takers can create a more comprehensive and accurate picture of our shared family history.

Here is how to add your autosomal DNA to GEDmatch, and how to add your Y-DNA and/or how to add your mtDNA to mitoYDNA.  Here are additional resources.

Answer 1

Please use black for your main text.  It currently appears as grey - which, on a white background, is definitely difficult for those of us with vision problems. Thanks.

Comments

Thanks Ros, Text is now black.

Answer 2

Gotta say - I love that drawing, and quote. The beavers are truly the engineers among the animal kingdom.

But the rabbit? I guess that just a representation of the non-engineer in the animal kingdom. Rabbits are the "sprinters" in that realm - so I guess it's an engineer talking to a "jock"? Perhaps there's a bit of rivalry between academics and athletes underlying that quote. Well, it's a cute bunny, anyway.

Answer 3

I don't want to take away from the point of this post (which I have "up-voted"), but maybe it should be said that WikiTree barely has ANY "DNA information", much less a "vast reservoir" thereof. All it really has is top-level conclusions based on the information contained in vast reservoirs that are ELSEWHERE. By that, I'm referring to whatever DNA confirmation that has been done by members - and that seems to impact only a tiny percentage of WikiTree profiles.

Aside from that, there are also references to DNA tests that members have done, and it automatically tells you what such members might be a match to the subject of a given profile. It doesn't even tell you if they actually match these people - and it CAN'T, precisely because it DOESN'T have the aforementioned "vast reservoir" (and isn't supposed to).

This is not to say that WikiTree isn't USEFUL, regarding DNA information. To the contrary, it's probably the ONLY resource there is where you can designate that certain family lines have DNA to back it up, and do so for all the world to see, forever. That's not a small thing, and I wish more people would get doing their DNA confirmations.

I just don't want people to get the wrong idea about WikiTree and DNA. As it is, we see questions on here all the time that tell us that many people DO get the wrong idea.

Comments

Concur.  I didn't really comprehend what WikiTree was doing with DNA until my brother "uploaded" his DNA test info that he took...ummm...almost 30 years ago. It was when I saw how he appeared on the various ancestor profiles, I had the "a-ha" moment.

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Thanks Frank,  If you click on a GEDmatch ID within WikiTree, you can can access that ID's One-to-Many matches.  By clicking on [compare] adjacent to two GEDmatch IDs, you can evaluate the adequacy of their autosomal DNA matching.  Likewise, selecting a mitoYDNA ID for Y-DNA then you see the Y-STRs (haplotype).  For mtDNA, selecting a mitoYDNA ID reveals the rCRS differences.  If you click on [compare] next to two or more mitoYDNA IDs, you can determine whether Y-DNA or mtDNA matches sufficiently.  

There are over 200,000 DNA test takers in WikiTree but less than 10% are in GEDmatch or mitoYDNA.

Adding a GEDmatch and/or mitoYDNA ID to WikiTree automatically integrates the test taker's relatives in WikiTree with those databases.

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Maybe this is a good time to talk about the very concept of "DNA confirmation". As I understand it, the "official" WikiTree way of looking at is that you need a solid "paper trail", plus DNA, and then the DNA "confirms" the paper trail. Basically, I think the idea is to show that no mistakes have been made in the research that assembled that paper trail.

Well, is that even much use at all?

In my own case, for example, there was always a pretty solid paper trail going back to my gt-gt-gt grandparents. There wasn't really much, if any, room for there to have been mistakes to find.

What my DNA information tells me, the way I see it, is that my legal "paper trail" ancestry happens to be identical to my BIOLOGICAL ancestry. It's basically a "paternity test", and beyond. That's where the VALUE is.

There was further value, for example, for certain family lines in the Johnson side of my tree. We might NEVER have discovered which "William Johnson" in the US was my gt-gt grandfather's brother, and I also found out about one of his sister's lines that way.

I found a previously-unknown sister of a gt-gt grandmother by looking closely at my DNA matches. That led to research that ultimately broke down some brick walls. Discovery that gt-gt-gt grandpa had an earlier wife. That he married my ancestor on THIS side of the "pond", in NYC. That he's on a passenger list. And, most importantly, it led to where he was from in Europe, and who his parents were. In this case, the "paper trail" confirmed what the DNA told us, not the other way around.

Probably the most important results from my DNA have been ones that are completely INCONSISTENT with the paper trail, or where there was no trail. There was a 3C1R in my matches who didn't know who her father was (mom had a "one night stand" with a guy she didn't even remember the name of later), but I helped her figure it out from her DNA. There was ZERO paper trail. I also had someone who turned out to be a biological 2C1R - the biological daughter of a 2C, whose biological father I was able to identify by looking at her DNA matches (she was adopted).

Seems to me that the places where DNA is the most useful are where the "paper trail" FAILS to tell us what the biological truth is, or where the paper trail confirms the what the DNA says, and that seems inconsistent with the "party line" (for lack of a better term) on WikiTree.

I just saying that maybe we should re-think how we look at "DNA confirmation" around here.

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About 3% of people in the U.S. and Europe don’t have the father they believe is their father (i.e. the father on their birth certificate is incorrect). Apply that for each generation in an ancestral tree.  DNA can provide supporting evidence (confirmation) the relationships in WikiTree are accurate.

If the DNA is not in GEDmatch and/or mitoYDNA (and those IDs are not in WikiTree) then it is exceeding difficult to independently verify that the DNA sufficiently matches.

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Echoing some of Frank's points, I support everything big-time that Peter posted...but I'm not certain "floodgates" is a reasonable metaphor. Just level-setting here.

At a conservative estimate as of early 2023, about 34 million DNA tests had been sold by the Big 4: AncestryDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage, and FTDNA.

GEDmatch participation, unfortunately, sort of flat-lined as of the news about the Golden State Killer case in 2018. Its homepage has shown 1.4 million as the total number of global members for a long time now. While there are likely to be more than a few duplicates--people who have taken tests at more than one company--by the known numbers GEDmatch represents only about 4.1% of the autosomal DNA tests taken.

MitoYDNA.org needs some love, too. It's been live for almost five years now, but its current totals are 5,461 users and 9,928 kits, some of those entered by the MitoYDNA team and reflecting studies of ancient and/or exhumed DNA. The stats show 5,564 of those are yDNA tests, and 4,364 are mtDNA kits in the database. Those numbers need to grow.

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I agree with Frank and Edison.  & I haven't taken any Dna tests, and most likely never will.  Because I don't think that the genetics of myself or my family members need to be online, or stored in any company that can just do whatever they want with these infos, including but not limited to...looking for potential criminals by authorities, without proper evidence to start with, that leads to search warrants first and foremost.  

On the side of Genealogy...maybe I just don't belong in this era, because I have a firm standing belief that your paper trail is your documented & legally documented proof of who you or your relatives are, adopted, or not.    shoving ppl together based on just genetics, doesn't make it all reality.  There are plenty of situations in this last couple decades alone, that prove that just by looking at "absent parent statistics"...  just because someone biologically created a child, either thru willing relations, or thru a "lab-donor situation" or thru possibly something not so pleasant...it does not mean that all families out there want to see these kinds of infos all over online because some genealogist who may have been some distant relative or even close relative decided to post their genetics online for all to see..then poof... "hey.. thats my family, thats my dad, my mom, my sister occurs" and what has that done, to those who knew nothing about it or knew..but didn't want that info out in the public.. what makes it right for any of us to determine DNA determines parents and families.

I have a very generational set of blended families...blood doesn't make us family..our lives that we live together do.  Blood and genetics don't make parents...people make parents thru their longterm actions.  Paperwork, documents, images, family photos, family stories.. make up family histories..not some spit on a swab.  

As for the pic above, I like the pic, agree with some of it..and I watch for new dna mtdna & ydna results and I post those infos in different places online...but I do it to confirm things I and others already knew, either thru documents or family stories passed down.  

But I still think, Genetics of an individual should only be owned by their "person"...not held onto, kept or shared by companies, and not given to any agencies, law enforced etc...NOT without written consent of the person, whose dna it is, unless (in the US constitutional law prevails in the decision, and enough probable cause is given and warrant is issued.  (btw..no, noone in my family that i know of is guilty of any crimes, but I've seen too many cases in my life, of...blame the easiest mark and close the case without any probable cause, or actual evidence).  DNA is not proof of Familiar Relationships, its biological only.  Anyone can donate the necessities to make a baby these days, and get paid for it...  IT Does NOT make them Parents.  jmho

Answer 4

I work on DNA all the time, recently found my aunt a half sister her father had with a married woman, but even though I am not a dummy I find the system for doing "proofs" on wiki tree TOO HARD. I gave it up.

Comments

What system are you referring to for doing "proofs"?

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I agree. I use DNA networks in my proofs, along with documentary evidence, of course. I've only written one proof using triangulation.

That is partly because Ancestry does not have a chromosome browser and I have a very low success rate in convincing people to upload their results to Gedmatch. However, it is also because I believe a solid DNA network, where all other relationships are carefully considered and disproven, provides better evidence than triangulation.