DNA Matching Now Live
September, 2016 from the MyHeritage Blog
In mid-May, we gave MyHeritage users who have taken a DNA test the ability to upload DNA data to benefit from
free DNA Matching, once we complete developing it. We’re happy to announce that our DNA Matching
technology is now ready and live!and it is Free
In mid-May, we gave MyHeritage users who have taken a DNA test the ability to upload DNA data to benefit from
free DNA Matching, once we complete developing it. We’re happy to announce that our DNA Matching
technology is now ready and live!and it is Free
DNA Matching can open up exciting new research directions, and allow you to find and connect with
relatives you may not have known about.
relatives you may not have known about.
As promised, our DNA Matching is completely free and will remain free for those who have already uploaded their DNA test results. If you have taken a DNA test (with test providers like Family Tree DNA, 23andMe or Ancestry), or have DNA test results from other family members, and have not uploaded them to MyHeritage yet, we recommend that you hurry up and upload the DNA data now. If you do, you will still enjoy free DNA Matching on MyHeritage forever. Follow these simple instructions to export your raw DNA data from the service you tested with and import this data to MyHeritage.
New DNA Matching on MyHeritage
Here is an overview of the new DNA Matching feature on MyHeritage and some information on how it works. In this overview we use some DNA terminology, which can get a bit technical, but we'll simplify this as much as possible.
All people share about 99.5% of their DNA sequence in common, and only within the remaining 0.5% are the genetic differences that make people different from one another. These differences are expressed in the order of genetic information called base pairs along a strand of DNA. Current DNA technologies utilized for genealogy are not a full sequence of the entire genome, which contains more than 3 billion base pairs, but a smaller sample that reads about 700,000 specific locations (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) in the genome, that are known to be highly variable and part of the differentiating 0.5%. This is true for current autosomal DNA tests which are the main tests available on the market today. Different vendors of autosomal DNA tests for genealogy have developed different chips that each read a slightly different set of about 700,000 SNPs. MyHeritage has created and refined the capability to read the DNA data files that you can export from all main vendors and bring them to the same common ground, a process that is called imputation. Thanks to this capability — which is accomplished with very high accuracy —MyHeritage can, for example, successfully match the DNA of an Ancestry customer (utilizing the recent version 2 chip) with the DNA of a 23andMe customer utilizing 23andMe's current chip, which is their version 4. We can also match either one of them to any Family Tree DNA customer, or match any customers who have used earlier versions of those chips. This gives MyHeritage's DNA Matching a unique edge: it allows anyone who tested on these other services to upload the DNA data to MyHeritage for free, and get unique matches that they would not receive with the service they tested with, or potentially anywhere else. This doesn't mean that MyHeritage will have more matches or better matches than other services — but it ensures that users will get value from the free matching service on MyHeritage, because they will receive matches they cannot get elsewhere, at no cost. About 61% of the 190 million DNA matches already available on MyHeritage right now are cross-vendor matches, so there are already many interesting unique matches to review, and many more will be found once our new service grows in popularity.
DNA Matching compares the DNA data of all individuals uploaded to MyHeritage to each other. Its goal is to find matches based on shared DNA. Your DNA matches are people who are highly likely to be your relatives (close or distant) because there are significant similarities between their DNA and yours. If two people have the same ancestor, they may have some identical DNA that they inherited from that ancestor and that DNA is shared between them and can reveal the relationship between them. As an example, if you and your match share 50% of your DNA, then you probably have a parent/child relationship, or you might be full siblings. That might come as no surprise if you deliberately tested yourself and your parent, but may be a life-changing positive experience if you were adopted and are searching for a biological parent, and you suddenly get a 50% match. Similarly, DNA can find your cousins, 2nd cousins, and even your 4th cousins or further, and the characteristics of the DNA that you have in common can shed light on the nature of the family connection.
New DNA Matching on MyHeritage
Here is an overview of the new DNA Matching feature on MyHeritage and some information on how it works. In this overview we use some DNA terminology, which can get a bit technical, but we'll simplify this as much as possible.
All people share about 99.5% of their DNA sequence in common, and only within the remaining 0.5% are the genetic differences that make people different from one another. These differences are expressed in the order of genetic information called base pairs along a strand of DNA. Current DNA technologies utilized for genealogy are not a full sequence of the entire genome, which contains more than 3 billion base pairs, but a smaller sample that reads about 700,000 specific locations (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) in the genome, that are known to be highly variable and part of the differentiating 0.5%. This is true for current autosomal DNA tests which are the main tests available on the market today. Different vendors of autosomal DNA tests for genealogy have developed different chips that each read a slightly different set of about 700,000 SNPs. MyHeritage has created and refined the capability to read the DNA data files that you can export from all main vendors and bring them to the same common ground, a process that is called imputation. Thanks to this capability — which is accomplished with very high accuracy —MyHeritage can, for example, successfully match the DNA of an Ancestry customer (utilizing the recent version 2 chip) with the DNA of a 23andMe customer utilizing 23andMe's current chip, which is their version 4. We can also match either one of them to any Family Tree DNA customer, or match any customers who have used earlier versions of those chips. This gives MyHeritage's DNA Matching a unique edge: it allows anyone who tested on these other services to upload the DNA data to MyHeritage for free, and get unique matches that they would not receive with the service they tested with, or potentially anywhere else. This doesn't mean that MyHeritage will have more matches or better matches than other services — but it ensures that users will get value from the free matching service on MyHeritage, because they will receive matches they cannot get elsewhere, at no cost. About 61% of the 190 million DNA matches already available on MyHeritage right now are cross-vendor matches, so there are already many interesting unique matches to review, and many more will be found once our new service grows in popularity.
DNA Matching compares the DNA data of all individuals uploaded to MyHeritage to each other. Its goal is to find matches based on shared DNA. Your DNA matches are people who are highly likely to be your relatives (close or distant) because there are significant similarities between their DNA and yours. If two people have the same ancestor, they may have some identical DNA that they inherited from that ancestor and that DNA is shared between them and can reveal the relationship between them. As an example, if you and your match share 50% of your DNA, then you probably have a parent/child relationship, or you might be full siblings. That might come as no surprise if you deliberately tested yourself and your parent, but may be a life-changing positive experience if you were adopted and are searching for a biological parent, and you suddenly get a 50% match. Similarly, DNA can find your cousins, 2nd cousins, and even your 4th cousins or further, and the characteristics of the DNA that you have in common can shed light on the nature of the family connection.