How Accurate is Geni?

Diane Hamilton I think the dna has been useful. For one thing, I can find people who share dna with me and then contact them, to learn we share the same (known) relatives. At that point, someone may know more than I do about where they came from. Then, I can compare that info. with my dna ethnicity estimate. In my case, my dna estimate does look correct.

Diane Hamilton humans came out of Africa in several waves, migrating North and East over thousands of years. So yes we are all related, there is evidence that at one point there were a few as 5000 humans alive. Whether there was an original pair of humans really depends on how you define original but personally i think that it is an over simplification. This is anthropology rather than genealogy.

As for DNA proving your links to dead people your friend is sort of right, without a sample of the dead person's DNA you cannot prove a link. There are two ways that DNA studies work, one is to look at density groupings so if your DNA is XYZ and testing has only ever found XYZ in say Mongolia then you must have a Mongolian ancestor.

The way to link you to specific ancestors is to follow paper trails, if you and your cousin both have a DNA test they can look at your results and compared the similarities, knowing who your shared grandparents are experts can deduce "this bit has come from that side of your family". With long enough proven documented ancestries this type of study can push way back, the DNA studies of the Rurikid are attempting to prove the ethnicity of a man (known to us as Rurik) who lived in the mid 800s.

That's a _very_ basic explanation but should be good enough for a chat at work :)

In regards to race, the concept of race is a social construct because there is no basis to divide humans along racial lines other than because we want to.

Diane Hamilton - If the money you spent on DNA Testing was solely being spent in the desire for an accurate statement of your ethnicity - then yes, it probably was wasting your money

I basically ignore the ethnicity esitmates. That is not why I spend the money.
So far, I have managed to convince a number of my relatives on multiple branches to test, as well as a number of suspected relatives,thus confirming
a) many of the people "family info" said were siblings of great-grandparents were in fact a sibling of that great-grandparent (despite, in many instances, no paper trail "proving" or supporting the family knowledge; still a few waiting to find folks willing to test in order to confirm)
b) someone I had deduced - from circumstantial evidence I had found - was a sibling of a grandparent was in fact a sibling of that grandparent
c) two other siblings of (two different) great-grandparents - one we had deduced from the paper trail and family info, one discovered from a name mentioned in a Will and corresponding info in a Social Security Application
-- I also have had the experience Elizabeth reports - of contacting someone among my DNA matches - in my case, because of a corresponding surname, even tho not a strong DNA Match to me (but more to another kit I managed) -- and getting info that let me, at least tentatively, push my ancestry back at another couple of generations.
So - I do not feel DNA testing was a waste of my money.

If you are just looking at the ethnicity estimate - you are not getting as much "bang for your buck" as you could be getting.
Where have you done DNA Testing?

I have a question. Not sure if it should go here, but....I have a dna 4th cousin match. I will call her "Jane". Jane was adopted and does not know much about her birth family, but she would like to know. Jane and I have other common dna matches, and a certain surname pops up in all of them. One of our shared matches is "Barb." However, Barb is a first cousin dna match to Jane, and a 4th cousin dna match to me.

Question: Since Jane and Barb are first cousins, they must share grand parents and Barb's dad has several siblings. Is one of them Jane's biological parent? Or, do we need to look at the children from Barb's other set of grandparents, too? The reason I did not think we needed to look at the maternal grandparents was the fact that Jane and I are 4th cousins, and it is the paternal line that connects us.

Mind boggling, I tell ya! Lol!

Elizabeth Ann Jesse -- I know of no testing site which can or does definitively tell you "you two are a 4th cousin match" or "you two are first cousins".
So - to start with, you are either mis-understanding or mis-stating what the site is saying.

Which site have you three tested at, and what does the site actually say?
At FamilyTreeDNA, they give a Relationship Range, shared cM, and longest segment - so if you tested at FTDNA, give all of those, please.
Ancestry gives both a Suggested Relationship, a Possible Range, the amount of shared DNA (in cM) and number of segments shared.

If the relationship truly is first cousin, then yes, they have a pair of parents who are siblings, a pair of grandparents in common - but if it might also be 1st cousin once removed, or half-first cousin, or etc. - then the possibilities increase

Are Barb's Dad and his siblings still alive?

PS - thread we probably should be in is: https://www.geni.com/discussions/157595

My earlier post may have seemed overly critical of using DNa testing for genealogical purposes so I'd like to say that the process Lois described regarding her own experiences is exactly the perfect way to use DNA in my opinion.

Thanks Alex.

And, a bit belatedly, want to mention - I thought the answer you gave to "How Accurate is Geni" - back in the 3rd paragraph of your 1/19/2019 comment in this thread - was totally correct and well said!

ack, now i have to scroll back!!
Actually it was amusing to read the start of this thread from back in 2012.

Thanks for your feedback. A person on our facebook ancestry page also answered my question in that if we have 125 grandparents, each from different DNA from intermarriage and migration, the place is only an "estimate" of where they came from based on the period of time they lived in that place and that one grandparent, not all of them! It is based on the original people who lived there early on, not throughout the centuries. So, you're right, the country of origin is only an "Estimate" but a DNA match is pretty close to correct if you are looking to find siblings or relatives who are living who had their DNA done.

This discussion is super old, but yeah I sorta encountered the same thing.. I traced my genealogy back to William the conqueror too, the problem im having when trying to legitimize it is, if Robert Curthose's illegitimate son "Richard" actually had a son named henry or not.. Sir Richard the Niger (illegitimate) link to Curthose's son Richard... Robert Curthose has a lot of people monitoring his page, dunno if they're monitoring his decendants or not and if they're accurate... im asking around to see where the posters got their sources and information... doubt they'll respond.. Is this just wishful thinking? lol

Update if anyone cares: so after asking around, the illegitimate son Richard's profile has been updated.. still wondering why somebody put "henry" has Richards son, and where they got that information from.. maybe they just made it up?

I don't know how Accurate Geni is, but I read on about people getting royalty in their family tree that may not be true, well Geni shows that the 5th, 4th, & 3rd Lords of Lovat (Fraser's of Clan Fraser in Scotland) are my 10th,11th &12th Great Grand Fathers and there is a very, very high chance that this is so because I knew for a long time that my Family is from Clan Fraser in Scotland because my cousin's son did research into the Frazier family (not with Geni mine you) and traced us all the way back to Scotland to Clan Fraser.

I wonder this too, how do I know the site is accurate?

Joseph Raymond Burke - for any specific piece of information (or relationship) on a profile, you need to look at the documentation provided on the profile. If there is no supporting information on the profile, then there is no reason to believe it is accurate unless and until you find supporting information elsewhere.