Today the new DNA site – DNA.land – did a major update which vastly improved the display page for matching relatives and also got rid of the false matches that we all initially saw.
Personally, I love the concept of crowd sourcing DNA science. This new site, created by a team at Columbia University, promises on its about page that you will “learn more about your dna and contribute to important scientific research.” It is also “in partnership with the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) to better understand the genetic risks of breast cancer.” So of course I had to try it out. I uploaded the raw DNA data for my Dad, myself, and one aunt in the first day of its operation.
On the day after I uploaded, I was able to look at the matches page. My matches to my Dad and a maternal aunt are shown above. I like the compact display of the chromosomes on the right and was fascinated by the “ancient DNA” concept. An improvement today is to show the longest segment. I find having at least one large segment, more than 20cM, to be an important indicator of a close relative especially when combined with total cM or even better “Total Recent cM.”
As of today you can click under the image to get a table of the actual matching segments. This table was easy to cut and paste to a spreadsheet. Aternatively the whole page can be cut and pasted (Control-A to select, Control-C to copy)
You are shown only top 50 matches in their database. Initially it was 20 so I did not upload the 20 or so kits I control. In the first week there were many false matches, but now those are gone and my only matches are my known relatives. The database is now at about 6000 and it seems to grow by just under a thousand each day.
According to their FAQ “DNA.Land imputes your genome, which opens the possibility of seeing genetic variations that were not part of the original file. It is similar to getting whole genome sequencing data (albeit we still miss some rare variations) without investing thousands of dollars.”
My initial impression is that the site is very attractive but is not very useful yet. I am impressed by how quickly they improved the relative matching, so I look forward to their future features and improvements.
My ancestry composition gave much less of a breakdown than my 23andme or GEDmatch displays. Here is the comparison:
Kitty’s Ancestry Composition at DNA.land
Kitty’s 23andme Ancestry Composition
Addendum: I forgot to mention my suggestion to put your GEDmatch id as a middle name (part of your first name) so that your matches can cross check the match over at that site.
Other blog posts about DNA.land:
Cece Moore announced it, she helped advise them:
http://www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com/2015/10/dnaland-launches.html
Judy Russell analyzed the privacy statement:
http://legalgenealogist.com/blog/2015/10/11/the-rules-of-dna-land/
Randy Seaver described how to upload your DNA data:
http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/dnaland-launches-new-3rd-party-dna.html
And here is a good descriptive article about the site published in the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/crowdsourcing-site-dnaland-attracts-a-genome-a-minute-on-opening-day/410533/
How Timely……For the past couple of days I have been thinking about uploading to DNA.land but wanted to know more before doing so…..
Will be reading the info on the links that you provided and make up my mind.
It appears that even though there may not initially be a lot of direct benefit to my family research, that the data will be used for a valid scientific purpose. Who knows what benefit we all may reap from that.
Thanks for your insight on DNA.land, Kitty. I’m sure in time its value will be recognized more. I love that we have a community who thinks outside the box and develops tools that further the knowledge of our genome.
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It’s very exciting to see another grass-roots DNA project. Personally, I like Gedmatch more. It’s a little disheartening to see “other” listed as close to 15 percent. Do you know what “other” typically means Kitty? They don’t break down the origins so I have no clue what North/Central Europe, South West Europe, and other means to them. I guess that isn’t their primary study as of now.
Emily
DNA.land it at the early stages and the ancestry composition is not very advanced yet, so yes use the GEDmatch admix calculators for your ancestry.
My GEDmatch presentation slides has some suggestions:
http://slides.com/kittycooper/gedmatch#/6
I did ancestry DNA while back and my results were 97% European 3% western Asia results 37%GB 27% Italy/Greece 15%E/Europe 9% West E trace regions 4% Ireland 2%scandinavia >1 European Jewish 3% Iberian peninsula 3% Caucasus . then uploaded to Dna.land and results 46%southern European 18%north Slavic 9.4% Finnish 8.6 Mediterranean islander 3.8 Dravidian 3.2 north west European 5.1%Mende/Akan 3.1% east Africa 1.1% south east Asian 1.1 unknown. OK first Dravidian no idea were it came from . the 5.1 Mende seems high not saying I don’t have it since I live in southern state but more than my western European ? and East Africa have no idea or south east asain point my results are so different which one is more accurate .sorry typo in hurry
Amy…I had similar results to you in DNALand…within 1% of your percentages on Dravidian, Mende/Akan, and East African. Nowhere else does it show those…not on Ancestry, FTDna, or GEDMatch. I do not believe they are accurate at all. I’m hoping mine change later like yours…it seems weird that they are so similar in the percentages…
I am going use DNA company in England it has over 80 regions plus 28 in great Britain alone . not sure name will post when I find out .don’t remember of top of my head .
LivingDNA is the company and an exciting new addition to the field with very fine resolution for the British isles
what confused me was my results uploaded from ancestry gave me one result and the 23andme upload gave me different results . No African and no Dravidian / maybe the algorithm was better
See my article on this topic http://blog.kittycooper.com/2016/04/ancestry-composition-comparisons-a-case-study/
ancestry shows no African or native American . nor does 23andme . nor does family tree. Ged match k13 showed 0 sub African but shows 1.00 east African . but another shows less. . Dna land says it doesn’t matter which you upload. to me it should not make any difference . ancestry gave me one result and 23andme another which was more accurate . If you have not get 23andme get results than upload to DNALAND .for some reason they give false results with ancestry with some customers.
point what is more accurate Ancestry Dna or dna.land
Amy –
Ancestry composition is far from an exact science. Read this post by Judy Russell about that http://www.legalgenealogist.com/2016/05/01/those-percentages-revisited/
DNA.land is breaking out your Northern European in more detail. Anything less than 2% can be noise at any of these companies. In general, I prefer the DNA.land results
For an example of how different companies predict different ancestries see my brother at all of them in these slides starting here http://slides.com/kittycooper/jewishdna-12#/16
you might also upload to GEDmatch and try the calculators there
Now its changed completely the African and Dravidians with Asian has disappeared.
thanks so much:)
DNA.land and Gedmatch were way more accurate than my 23andme results. I was so upset after seeing my results on 23andme, so glad that gedmatch and DNAland are available.
23andme didn’t mention my Spanish ancestry, Southwest Asian, Russian or Middle Eastern at all, but the other two did.
Ancestry composition is in the early stages of development as a science. You might enjoy this article comparing the ancestry composition at all of the sites for my brother http://blog.kittycooper.com/2016/04/ancestry-composition-comparisons-a-case-study/
Have you tried the speculative view at 23andme?
strange Finland and Dravidian and African show up on DNA LAND but not on ancestry DNA , national geo project ,family tree or 23andme . seems weird because DNA LAND data base is much smaller. so I am skeptical of them
Their ancestry predictions are not based on the self reports of the members but on more scientific studies … read this blog post from one of their team members on how they determine it:
https://medium.com/@dl1dl1/the-new-ancestry-report-f2844384259b#.92m0arvju
I just uploaded to DNA Land yesterday. Got my results. No big surprise. Not so different than others. Two questions: 1). Still no relatives at all. Does it simply take time to compare matches? Or it’s just a very small database so far? 2) I want to upload my parents and children’s files and read here that others have done so. How can I do that? Very simple on Gedcom, but don’t see how to do here.
I should mention. In total, I have 4 other immediate family members, my step mother and her brother and an uncle. 7 in total that I would love to upload but don’t want to create a seperate account for each one. Too big of a hassle.
William,
Each person needs a separate account. The workaround is to get a gmail address and add a plus to it for each person then they all come to the same place so tidwellgenealogy+john@gmail.com will go to tidwellgenealogy@gmail.com – additionally that address can forward to your real address.
Thank you for the information and fast reply 🙂
How long does it take for Find Relatives to reflect relationships? My parents and children were registered yesterday (thank you for advice). Ancestry report all available after only a few hours but nothing in Find Relative Report for any of us still. About how long does it take? Thanks again!
Usually about 24 hours but occasionally longer
Hi Kitty I noticed DNA land converts raw ancestry data to 23 and me data format. Do you think I could use this data to upload to ftdna since the ancestry option isn’t there due to chip differences for the newer ancestry tests?
Actually a fellow genealogist tried this and there were too many breaks, but the really good news is ftDNA is fixing the final kinks and should be accepting uploads rrom the new chips by Christmas!
Hi Kitty, I am actually looking for info about Genes for Good.I did this test and I know I can upload to GedMatch but I I think it might have been you that said eaither Geni or Legacy would accept their raw data for matching? If it was not you would you happen to be aware of where I can find this info? Thank you so much in advance for helping.
Sorry, not me and ask Google. Yes gedmatch can take them which is great!
every test told me what i thought I already knew .French ,German ,Italian Scottish ,trace Scandinavian Iberian ,though that showed on some test others no.. but the east European kept showing on all test . baffling me .. until i found out i have ancestors from Poland . i have family from eastern Germany .wonder if the changes of borders .are if a polish person married one of my German ancestors . its insane
There is no German DNA. Eastern Germany looks Eastern European, South Germany looks Italian, Western Germany looks French, and North Germany looks Scandinavian in the DNA …
That being said, determining ethnicity from DNA is in it’s infancy and has a long way to go before being truly accurate