Cousin statistics

Company statistics

I have been unable to locate, by any means I've tried, the data for AncestryDNA shown in the table under "Company statistics." The source ref states: "The AncestryDNA data is from Table 1 in the AncestryDNA help topic menu 'Should other family members get tested?' (available only to AncestryDNA test takers)." There is no menu topic similar to that under https://support.ancestry.com/s/ancestrydna or any of its child items, and while logged-in no search has located information that's the same or similar to what's displayed in the ISOGG "Company statistics" table. Under the Help topic "Testing Family Members with AncestryDNA," cousins aren't mentioned.

There was an Ancestry Message Board post from 14 Mar 2016 (https://www.ancestry.com/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=246&p=topics.dnaresearch.gedmatch) that described how to locate that Help article:

To access the White Paper on DNA circles:

1. On DNA Summary Page click on View All DNA Matches
2. Up in right hand corner click on the "?"
3. Click on "Should other Family Members Get Tested?"
4. Scroll to the bottom of that article (that article contains very useful info BTW) and there is a link to the DNA Circles White Paper.

I assume that information was removed at least by the time that DNA Circles were retired by Ancestry; there is no longer even the referenced "?" in the page display, only the "Help" option in the top menu. Current Help topics from Ancestry seem much more muted regarding confidence of matching levels between distant cousins. For example, see https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/AncestryDNA-Match-Categories which states: "Percentages of DNA shared between relatives at the 4th cousin level and beyond may signify any number of distant relationships, but the genealogical relationships are unlikely to be closer than six degrees from the test taker."

Considering that the data seem no longer to be available, and that the likelihood percentages are in disagreement with other sources, I wonder if the AncestryDNA column of our table should be amended or deleted? Ed Williams (talk) 10:29, 29 January 2020 (EST)

Thanks Ed for bringing this to our attention. The chart came from one of the items in the DNA Circles help menu. I have a PDF of the page which I will send you. However, Ancestry don't provide any information about how they derived the data but then again neither do FamilyTreeDNA. The chart is not included in the DNA Circles White Paper. The AncestryDNA figures are very close those of Donnelly in the subsequent table except of course that AncestryDNA have looked at the chances of matching and Donnelly has looked at the possibility of not matching. I think I'm inclined to keep it in the table for now but have a look at the PDF file and let me know what you think.DebbieKennett (talk) 15:46, 30 January 2020 (EST)

I've just had a brainwave and was able to locate a copy of the chart. Check out the Ancestry Academy presentation by Ross Curtis of AncestryDNA. The chart is in the section on how you get your DNA Part I. It appears towards the end at about 4.26.DebbieKennett (talk) 15:58, 30 January 2020 (EST)

Many thanks, Debbie. But how did you ever find that one specific slide in the Ancestry Academy presentation library?! I agree it does no harm to leave the AncestryDNA column in the table. But would it make any sense to modify the ref citation since that specific AncestryDNA Help topic no longer exists? Maybe we should simply change it to cite the Academy presentation you somehow found. I'll be happy to edit that, if you like. Ed Williams (talk) 15:01, 31 January 2020 (EST)

I found the AncestryDNA presentation very helpful when it first came out as it explained so many useful concepts and I've frequently referred to it. After discovering that the DNA Circles content was no longer available on the Ancestry website I thought I'd check out the video as I knew it was released shortly after DNA Circles was introduced and I'd vaguely remembered seeing the chart in the presentation. It would indeed be a good idea to change the reference to cite the Ancestry presentation.DebbieKennett (talk) 12:31, 1 February 2020 (EST)

Ed, I've now discovered that the methodology for Ancestry's estimations of the number of matching cousins was included in their original Matching White Paper published in 2014. I have a copy of the paper on my PC but I can no longer find the link online. I will send you a copy of the white paper by e-mail. I'm wondering if we ought to include that as a source for the Ancestry cousin figures. Frustratingly the Ross Curtis Ancestry Academy presentation I mentioned above has now been taken. DebbieKennett (talk) 11:20, 26 August 2020 (UTC)