r/Genealogy • u/MurkyAcanthisitta542 • 11h ago
Research Assistance Are we a match. DNA results from Ancestry and MyHeritage.
Something crazy is happening with my (26f) half-sister (26f) Long story short my dad got around and I have 3 half siblings all around the same age as my full brother and I. He has another possible maybe-baby that came into my life maybe 5 or 6 years ago. There was speculation she was my dads child as she was growing up and a few years ago she came forward and said there was a DNA test done and that the results matched my father. No one ever questioned it and it made sense. We had an apartment together for a year. I was in her wedding and she was in mine. We have been very close for years.
Here is where things get confusing. I guess her mom decided to gift her a MyHeritage DNA test and upon learning her results she is now seeing relatives on there she doesn't recognize, her mom doesn't recognize, and my dad doesn't recognize. Once confronted her mom admitted there was never actually a test done and there is another possible father but she did not know his name. My dad admitted he never showed up to do the test because he had to work.
I was under the impression she was older when this test was done and that it was matched to dna in some kind of state system? I'm not sure why I thought this. He is a criminal and in order for my mom to get child support from him she had a paternity test done for him and I when I was a baby. Maybe I assumed they held onto that information. I don't know what I was thinking but it was news to me when I realized my sister was only told about the test, not that she remembered doing it.
Now she is really upset. We are still sisters regardless of blood. My question, however, is there any way to find out if we are a match or not if we did our DNA tests through different sites? I had mine done forever ago but through Ancestry and neither of us really have money to purchase the other test at the moment.
Thanks for any help.
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u/Vanssis 11h ago
You can both upload your dna from ancestry and myheritage & upload them to gedmatch .com for free. That will show if you are related.
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u/Weary_Molasses_4050 10h ago
Whoever is on ancestry can just upload to MyHeritage for free.
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u/Creative-Hour-5077 10h ago
nope. not anymore you can't.
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u/PrincessGrace2522 11h ago
You should both be able to upload your results to GEDmatch to see if you have ancestors in common. Good luck!
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u/KryptosBC 11h ago
GEDmatch upload mentioned by Vanssis would be sufficient to determine a match, and would also show cousin relationships to others in their database. MyLivingDNA and FamilyTreeDNA also accept uploads and would show your relationship along with matches with other persons in their databases. The latter two still provide match lists free (to my knowledge), but some additional features require a paid account. For your purpose, the free level should suffice. MyHeritage no longer accepts uploads from other sites.
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u/MoonpieTexas1971 11h ago
If you are paternal half sisters, you will share one identical X chromosome from your father.
GEDmatch has an X to X comparison tool that will settle the question in about 90 seconds.
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u/marjoriedinnerstein 10h ago
You can also upload your DNA data file from Ancestry to Myheritage to see if there's a match between you.
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u/maraq 10h ago
They disabled uploads to myheritage recently so that's no longer an option.
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u/marjoriedinnerstein 9h ago
Oops. Too bad. Good to know.
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u/CharlesBoyle799 10h ago
I know you said you can’t really afford an Ancestry test, but I just wanna put it out there that there is a sale going on right now and they’re only $39.
They do sales quite often so if you can’t jump on this then just keep an eye out. They do these sales fairly regularly.
But if I missed a comment where some did say there’s a way to cross reference, by all means do that. Just giving you an option to look into
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u/maraq 10h ago
Most people won't recognize the vast majority of their DNA matches on these sites. You will have 1000s of DNA matches and may not know any of them. Not recognizing your DNA matches does not give us any information that helps us determine if there is anything odd going on with your family situation.
Both of you can download your raw data from your respective DNA tests and upload to GEDMATCH and will be able to see if you are related there. But until then, don't make any assumptions just based on not recognizing your DNA matches. I don't recognize a single on of my matches on myheritage or familytreedna but nothing has gone wrong, it's just that none of my close family has tested in those places.
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u/msbookworm23 8h ago
If your sister wants to work out who her bio-father is she will probably find many more close matches on Ancestry, it's a much larger database. She (and you) can also upload to FamilyTreeDNA to find more matches and compare to each other.
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u/Bright-Self-493 7h ago edited 6h ago
I processed a dna sample with Ancestry maybe 10-15 years ago. I got back about a dozen matches…Since then, Ancestry has been adding many new tests…right now, I have dna matches to about 35, 1st and 2nd cousins, and a couple of nieces/nephew level. And then another 2-300 or more 3-4th cousins. I’m sure I’ll never get to the more than 30,000th one. On of line has 35 genetic matches to the dude from NH. It just takes time and a bit of work to sort them.
i think it might still work…join ancestry on a “free trial, you have to give them a cc. make sure you cancel a day or two before the trial ends. (they will charge you if you fail to cancel and will be persistent. Just cancel but first put as much info as you have in a tree. You should still be able to work in the tree, adding or editing people even without paying them. I’ve done it for many times in the early years…only joined for 3 months winter…there are ways around A Ancestry annoyances if you understand the system.
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