Relative Finder Now in Open Beta
I’ve been playing with 23andMe’s Relative Finder this week, since it’s now in open beta. It’s been interesting hearing from 6th to 10th cousins from around the world, and we’re working to find ancestors in common. I’m looking forward to identifying – for the first time – a piece of autosomal DNA that came from a specific ancestor.
While in the beta period, the number of relatives is limited to 1000 (I currently have 173 with only 5 in the 3rd to 7th cousin range), and you can only contact other people who have opted in for the beta test. So if you have a 23andMe account, please opt in to the beta test via the following instructions (kind provided by Ann Turner):
1. Open the page https://www.23andme.com/user/profile/ and check the checkbox near “Name:” and click on the blue “Save Changes” button.
2. Open the page https://www.23andme.com/user/edit/privacy/ and UNcheck the checkbox near “I do not want to receive sharing invitations from anyone.”
3. Open the page https://www.23andme.com/you/relfinder/ and check the checkbox near “Highlight my profile in Relative Finder to show that I’m interested in making connections with potential relatives.”
Extended Profiles
Ann also wisely suggested expanding your profile to include information that will help other users find a genealogical connection. Since the profiles are searchable by keyword, and she recommends including any special interests (regional/ethnic/etc) in the profile. Like Ann, I included information about my genealogy back to 6 generations in my profile. Hopefully it will help my genetic relatives find a match.
Success Stories
Lastly, if you have any success stories using Relative Finder, please leave a comment below or email me. I’m always looking to highlight success stories or learn more about how an autosomal matching service can help people in their research.
Posted via web from Blaine Bettinger’s Lifestream
November 7th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Hi,
I read your comments re: 23 and me “relative finder”. I have a question for you. We had my brother tested recently along with a man that we believe is a third cousin (surname is Detlor). We match 36 out of 37 markers on FTDNA Y testing and we are of the same relatively rare (I think) haplogroup: E1b1b1c1a and yet, this person does not show up as related in “relative finder” nor does he show any similarities on the family inheritance section…all chromosomes appear white or gray and white. We are confused. Does this really mean that we are not related after all??
Some additional info: My father’s father did not marry his birth mother. We had the FTDNA test and ONLY match this Detlor surname at the 12, 24 and 37 (all but one marker at the 37 allele level)markers….there are NO other matches in FTDNA, YSEARCH nor in Ancestry. We are very confused. We expected to see SOME similarity on the “family inheritance” section and certainly expected him to show up on the relative finder.
Would really like your opinion about this.
Thanks so much!
Linda Spanos
spanlin@verizon.net
November 10th, 2009 at 3:24 am
[...] recently received an interesting question from a reader (see this comment) about 23andMe’s Relative Finder, and thought it would be worth sharing the question and my [...]