Ancestry's DNA Circles

Are the DNA Circles on Ancestry worth bothering with? I can't make use of this feature as my tree is private, and I don't feel inclined to make it public just for the sake of playing around. The alternative would be to create a new public version of my tree and link my DNA results to that. I'm just wondering if this fetaure offers any tangible benefits, so I'd be interested to hear from anyone who uses it.

 

I made my tree public for a while to try out the DNA Circles and although I did end up in two circles, I couldn’t see anything useful in being in them. So I made my tree private again.

My husband has had his tree public for ages and still isn’t in any circles.

I guess it’s probably one of those features that will be of more benefit to some than others, so maybe you will get some more positive feedback on this than mine.

 

I'm currently in 10 DNA Circles - the lowest circle has 7 members and the top circle has 11 members. A couple of the circles duplicate information I already know (i.e. people I have contacted or they have the same people in them) and all of my Circles are based on my paternal line (I unfortunately have no DNA circles for my maternal line).

The main area that the circles work is to add all those with the same ancestors in their public trees into a circle - it can add people to the circle who are linked to other members of the circle even if they don't share DNA with you - thus this can add information or confirm information about people you have in your tree if you need it.

For example, the DNA Circle for my 4x great grandfather has 11 members. Five of those members are from my own family - and it lists their position - i.e. for me it states that I am "4th great granddaughter". It then shows links to four other family groups, only three of which I/my family group has DNA links to, for each DNA match, it gives a position like the one it offers for me (2nd/3rd/4th grandchild) - it groups each of these links into family groups particularly if there are people who have more than one member of their family having had their DNA tested.

It also offers a compiled blurb on the individual to which you are all related - unfortunately this uses as many ancestry trees as the person is in across Ancestry and thus is rife with errors.

One of my other circles is for a different 4th Great grandfather, and I find his "blurb" amusing every time I read it - the information was compiled from 58 family trees:
When James Henry B-- was born in 1812, in Portsea, Hampshire, England, his father, Henry, was 24 and his mother, Mary, was 24. He married Sarah H-- (1) and they had four children together. He then married Sarah H-- (2) and they had 16 children together. He died in 1883, in South Australia, Australia, at the age of 71, and was buried in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. (and that is MUCH more accurate than the first time this DNA circle popped up. For a few of them it has them marrying and having children with five different people because the names aren't the same across every tree - in this case, his birth date & place, death date & place and parents names are correct)

The second marriage to the second "Sarah H" is completely incorrect; he had 12 children with his only wife (the first Sarah H listed), and the compiled information includes erroneous entries including census facts for 1851, 1861 and 1871 (the family were in Australia by 1840); an emigration for 1834 to another state in Australia (one of his children was born in Portsea in 1838 - I have their birth register); an arrival in 1849 in yet another state (he only lived in one state in Australia where he was considered a pioneer).

I find it useful for the collation of those people who share ancestors with me but at this point, considering the errors which it contains due to the nature of public trees it isn't particularly useful for much more. Plus, of course, it doesn't include anyone with a private tree. Most of the people in the Circles I already knew about because they will pop up with a "leaf" hint match - and I have more of those (18 hints) than I have DNA Circles - I think there has to be a certain number of people before a DNA Circle will be created.

My DNA Circles are for - 3 pairs of 4x great grandparents (1 circle for husband and 1 circle for the wife); a 2nd great grandfather (Grandson of one of the pairs of 4x great grandparents); a 5th great grandmother (mother to one of the 4th great grandparents in the pairs); 3rd great grandfather (descended from the 5th great grandmother), and an unrelated 3rd great grandmother. In total three branches of my paternal line are covered by a circle (or up to four different circles).

My mother did have a DNA Circle - added in for someone my mother had DNA links to, but wasn't in my tree - that was removed after Ancestry changed the way it added DNA Circles. My mother instead has 2 "New Ancestor Discoveries" (those were the people she originally was put into a Circle with) - people that she has DNA links to, who are not in my family tree. For one of them, there are 30 members of the circle and my mother has DNA links to three of the members and the other has 24 members and my mother has DNA matches to 5 of them. Unfortunately I have had no luck in adding either into my family tree as of yet - almost like a different version of a brick wall!

 

I'm afraid after reading all that, I am the one going round in circles (no offence Jorghes) and for the moment at least, have little care about being included in one.

 

Interesting that jorghes mentioned having 18 leaf hints, I've only got 4 so far...

 

They build up over time and it's hit and miss how many you get - most of my hints are from my paternal line (which is why all my DNA circles are on that side) and a good portion of them from my Ashkenazi Jewish line. If I remember correctly you only just received your results - the latest test I received was my paternal grandmother's and I received that at the start of the year - the last hint I got for her popped up in the last two weeks.

So of the DNA results I can access (and removing myself, my siblings and other immediate family members who also pop up as "shared ancestor hints")-
Mother - 5; Father - 25 ; paternal grandmother - 26; Brother 1 - 24 and brother 2 - 22.

However, some of the contacts I have made don't have hints as they don't have big enough trees (or no tree at all) or haven't even had their DNA tested as of yet. Some I've been able to figure out on my own!

 

Just a note for something that may be useful as a off shoot of the DNA Circle part.

I did mention in my earlier post that in earlier creations of Ancestry's DNA Circles feature that my mother's DNA did place her into two DNA Circles - but as they refined their use of the tool, and it became linked to the people you have in your public tree, my mother was removed from those two circles and instead these two individuals were added below the standard dashboard of the DNA page (with the three sections, Ethnic, DNA Members and Circles) as "New Ancestor Discoveries - Beta". Once you click onto these two possible ancestors (more likely to be cousins rather than ancestors considering both were born in the USA between 1820 and 1860 and my mother's direct line was in the UK until she herself emigrated in the 1940s) they appear like a standard DNA circle, but my mother's addition is outside the actual circle itself. From what I presume, there must be a set threshold of both DNA links and shared DNA in order for this to appear, and further details of my mothers links, in order for people to assess the possible applications/implications are below. The basic premise also includes that all members of the circle share DNA - either within the family group or across the circle, and all members of the Circle have a public tree with the same individual in it.

Please note, none of my other DNA results - namely myself, or either of my brothers have this type of Circle appear, though it does not discount us sharing DNA with any of the people below that my mother shares DNA with.

However, to help my more experienced DNA researchers to understand this element and the possible help/clue/hindrance this sort of addition to the DNA Circles tool is, I offer the following further information.

Of the two Circles my mother possibly belongs to (Ancestry offers no guarantees), the actual links are as follows:
Circle 1: 29 members of the circle broken up into 9 family groups with between 1 and any number of members - for example my own "family group" can have between 4 and 5 members depending on the circle (either grandmother, father, myself and 2 brothers or father/myself/2 brothers); my mother is not a part of a family group as she is shown as outside of the circle.
My mother shares links with three family groups as follows:
- a link of 6.4 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment (with one member of 3 person family group)
- a link of 7.5 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment (single member not group)
- a link of 6.6 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment (single member)

Circle 2: 24 members of the circle (broken up into 9 family groups/separate parts of the circle)
My mother shares links with five of the different family groups as follows:
- a link of 9.2 centimorgans across 2 DNA segments (single member)
- a link of 6.1 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment (single member)
- a link of 10.2 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment (with one member of a two person family group)
- a link of 6.9 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment AND a link of 7.2 centimorgans across 1 DNA segment with two members of a 7 member family group.

Ancestry places the likelihood of being related to these DNA Circles as 70%. I am not sure of the minimum number of centimorgans needed for suggested "cousin-ship" nor whether or not the numbers are able to be believed.

If this was true, it would be an interesting line of investigation in order to attempt to attach this massive branch to my tree, and thus accumulate between 24-29 possible cousins in one go.

 

Perhaps - I think they're more a combination of you share DNA with A and A has the same person in their tree as you; A also shares DNA with B, and B also has the same person in their tree - you just happen to share DNA with B's relation, B2 and they're on the same tree; then there's C - they have the same person on their tree and shares DNA with A and B2...

Or at least I think that's how it is attempting to work. As people with private trees don't appear in DNA Circles, and the information which appears for the people usually is tagged with "collated from x number of trees", there has to be an element of addition of "X" in each person's tree along with the DNA match.
**suggestion then that perhaps someone who has that person on their tree but does not have a DNA link to any member of the Circle should therefore not appear in a circle... and then you can have the scenario of my mother -where she shares DNA with these people but does not have "X" on her tree.
(another edit, sorry, keep thinking of things)
- There are people in the DNA list who should be in X's DNA circle, as I have figured out that they are descended from X - however, because they do not have X in their tree, they are not added to the Circle (though they may have a "new Ancestor discovery" in their tree).


That may explain why some of my DNA circles are double-ups - i.e. separate circles for a son where you also have Circles for both parents.

 

Not completely sure - collation of relatives? Possible confirmation/breaking of brick walls (i.e. if you got one of the "possible ancestors" and it was an actual ancestor?).

To help for those who haven't seen a DNA Circle page before, here are a couple of examples - first two are a page for a confirmed link, the last is one of my mother's "possible ancestors".

This particular ancestor has another 5-6 people I know of who have had their DNA tested that do not appear in this Circle. You can see the clearly dodgy collated information in the spiel about him... (first Sarah is incorrect, second Sarah correct, but wrong number of children - name, birth, death and names of parents correct. Further dodgy data available when clicking the "More about" button - I believe his information was collated from approximately 51 trees.)




And for the potential ancestor it's much the same (except the DNA link is outside of the circle) - the faded ones are the ones who share DNA with each other (you can see the links between them, click on one and it lights up their links in orange)

 

I don't think it is "solving a puzzle" but an attempt at increasing confidence. However, the requirements are purely:
1. at least three people (A, B and C) have the same person as a direct ancestor in their tree
2. Each member shares a segment (but not necessarily the same one) with all other members eg. A + B share a segment on chr. P, B + C share a segment on chr. Q and A + C share a segment on chr. R; P, Q and R can all be different.

Phil

 

Just re-read the page, in full this time (and more carefully), and it only requires a "one person match" so adds little to the standard DNA match for small groups. However, for larger groups you get a "confidence level" based upon the number of DNA matches you have with other members of the circle, but that's all.

I think your quote says it all.

Phil

 

I just received my results late Friday and have no circles. Currently, I have eight "shared ancestor hints" but can only access two of them, one maternal and one paternal. I already had all the maternal information but it is good to have it confirmed. And good to have what I thought was paternal confirmed as well but there are still questions there.

ETA: I am pretty sure that my tree is public; is there a way to make sure?