How can GEDmatch help you to accurately identify DNA matches? We recently sat down with GEDmatch's Tom Osypian to understand how individuals can best use the GEDmatch tools to organize DNA matches and reach out to their relatives to create the most accurate family tree possible.
How has GEDmatch evolved since its inception?
Tom:
GEDmatch started around 2010 as a Gedcom comparison site. As DNA testing took off, we started developing algorithms to compare DNA test results, and it's grown from there.
What are some of the tools unique to GEDmatch?
Tom:
- If you start to dig into your DNA, trace specific family lines, and examine chromosome segment-level data, we have the tools to let you do that.
- We also have automated tools that give you answers in five minutes, which would take hours with a spreadsheet.
- GEDmatch has tools for specific populations, such as end populations.
- Our new tool lets you cluster your matches into smaller clusters to find a common ancestor.
- We have some unique tools built to let genealogists go deeper into the data and start figuring out how you're related.
The vision for GEDmatch is to create a workflow with all these tools that prompt the user to apply their data to the appropriate tool to make sense of their match lists. We have tools that do some of that workflow. One tool is called auto kinship. It's a tier-one tool (paid membership), and it will look at your DNA matches and do some triangulation and segment analysis to figure out the most likely family tree in which your matches would fit.
We have 2 million profiles on our site right now, and it's growing every day. You'll find people from all the different testing companies. You can just take one test and come to GEDmatch, and then you can be matched with people from all the other testing sites.
Which of these tools are available with a GEDmatch Tier-One Membership?
Tom:
Tier One includes the auto cluster tool and the auto kinship tool. It also includes many tools that let you dig deep into your DNA, which can get very technical and be overwhelming if you're new. We provide tutorial videos that the GEDmatch community has put together to explain how the tools work and how to use them.
Tier One is excellent for those who want to go deeper and who are managing multiple DNA test kits for people.
Can I load more than one test kit into a single GEDmatch account?
Tom:
As a free user, you can upload five profiles into your account. For 95% of our users, that's plenty. If you are a paid Tier One user, you get unlimited uploads. If, in the future, you decide to cancel that Tier One account, the kits you've uploaded will not be deleted and will stay in your account.
How does GEDmatch and genealogy research align?
Tom:
In my mind, genealogists like Legacy Tree Genealogists have the resources to help people who need it. If a person is stuck in their research or doesn't have time, they can come to Legacy Tree to get help researching their family line.
Let's discuss the challenges of data and security in the DNA industry. What has your team had to do to protect your users' data and privacy?
Tom:
Data protection, security, and privacy are paramount for us at GEDmatch. They are top-of-mind considerations anytime we consider adding new features or code changes. We've got several things in place to keep data secure. One is our environment. Everything is cloud-based, including Amazon Web services at the enterprise level. We work with third-party consultants who've helped us securely design the system. Whenever a client uploads their raw DNA data file, we convert it to a tokenized format.
It's our encryption, and then we delete that raw data file. We never save those. We don't have access to it; no one can get it. It stays on our server for a brief period, just enough to ensure file quality, and then it's deleted after seven days. This should reassure our customers that their raw DNA data will not be stored on our site for any longer than necessary. Then, we also eliminate any health-related snips that might be uploaded to the DNA data file. We only keep the snips that relate to how you could be related to someone else. We don't have any health DNA data information in GEDmatch at all.
No one can download the data. If you have a kit on a DNA profile on GEDmatch, you can't download it. You can download information but can't download the DNA data file you uploaded. So that's another excellent security feature.
We take security seriously and are always looking for ways to improve the security and privacy of our users. Regarding data in general, we monitor how data flows in and out of the system and ensure it's done in a compliant way.
What are the vision and future goals for GEDmatch?
Tom:
The vision for GEDmatch is ultimately to help people find their family and relatives using DNA and family tree information. The tools built over the years for GEDmatch are very powerful, but there's a learning curve associated with them.
How do we make GEDmatch easier for people new to genealogy to log into the site and upload their DNA file on their family tree file? The DNA and family tree files are critical to have on the site. That's how you can unlock many family mysteries.
Imagine the journey. You start with a DNA file, construct your family tree file based on the DNA data, and then GEDmatch comes into play. It's here that the magic happens. GEDmatch can reveal your connections, showing you who you are related to and who you might be related to from our extensive database. The potential for discovery and connection is genuinely exhilarating.
Our goal is to improve automation because our tools often require someone to use one tool and then bring the data over into another tool or have some things outside of GEDmatch where they're recording the data. We're trying to automate the steps people take to determine where a person could be in their family tree, give them hints, and use data from outside sources to provide them with more insight.
Will the automation still allow users to access the tools individually?
Tom:
We will always keep the tools available individually, but we want to make them more accessible for people who are new to our site, especially the younger generation. We want to attract them to this, and if they've done a DNA test and want to dig into it more and find people who aren't on their testing site but could be on GEDmatch, our goal is to make it easy for them to jump in.
Tell us a bit about the GEDmatch partnership with FamilySearch.
Tom:
We recently added an integration with FamilySearch to import family trees. If a person has a family tree on FamilySearch, they can go into GEDMatch, log in with their FamilySearch account, and import eight generations of ancestors. For each generation of ancestors, they can bring in one generation of descendants, so that's a good-sized tree.
As we work with FamilySearch more, we will start to add more functions and the ability to match DNA results to the imported trees to validate and prove the tree's accuracy. It's exciting, and this first step in the collaboration will really help our clients with their research.
Genetic genealogy is an exciting field and at Legacy Tree Genealogists we work hard for our clients to use the latest tools and resources to help them to make sense of their DNA test results. If you need help deciphering your DNA test results, or are searching for biological family members and need to hire a professional to assist, Legacy Tree can help. Reach out for a free quote today.
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