Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog

Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge for this week is:

I thought I’d do that, following Randy’s template:

A) On AncestryDNA, I have 149,270 matches. My Top 10 matches are:

* First cousin, mother’s side, 1,047 cM, in tree
* First cousin, mother’s side, 914 cM, in tree
* First cousin 1x removed, mother’s side, 411 cM, in tree
* Second cousin 1x removed, father’s side, 355 cM, in tree
* Second cousin, father’s side, 202 cM, in tree
* Second cousin, 1x removed, father’s side, 183 cM, in tree
* Second cousin, mother’s side, 162 cM, in tree
* Second cousin, mother’s side, 159 cM, in tree
* Unknown cousin, father’s side, 122 cM, not in tree
* Unknown cousin, father’s side, 117 cM, not in tree

I have 10 other relatives in my tree (total 18) who tested at Ancestry.
I have 149,252 matches who are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

B) On 23andMe, I have 1,501 matches. My Top 10 matches are:

* First cousin 1x removed, father’s side, 7.36% (548 cM), in tree
* First cousin 1x removed, father’s side, 3.67% (273 cM), in tree
* Second cousin, mother’s side, 3.13% (234 cM), in tree
* Second cousin, father’s side, 2.13% (159 cM), in tree
* Second cousin, father’s side, 2.00% (149 cM), in tree
* Second cousin, father’s side, 1.83% (136 cM), in tree
* Second cousin, father’s side, 1.69% (126 cM), in tree
* Unknown cousin, father’s side, 1.64% (122 cM), not in tree
* Unknown cousin, father’s side, 1.50% (112 cM), not in tree
* Unknown cousin, unknown side, 1.47% (110 cM), not in tree

I have 8 other relatives in my tree (total 15) who tested at 23andMe.
I have 1,486 matches who are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

C) On MyHeritageDNA, I have 18,020 matches. My top 2 matches are:

* Uncle, father’s side, 1,994 cM, in tree
* First cousin 1x removed, mother’s side, 466 cM, in tree

The next 8 matches are all unknown cousins not in my tree with cM:
141, 127, 124, 123, 119, 116, 112, 112.

I have 1 other relative in my tree (total 3) who tested at MyHeritage.
I have 18,017 matches who are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

D) On FamilyTreeDNA, I have 25,672 matches. My top 2 matches are:

* Uncle, father’s side, 1,861 cM, in tree
* First cousin 1x removed, mother’s side, 442 cM, in tree

The next 8 matches are all unknown cousins not in my tree with cM:
192, 172, 168, 164, 163, 163, 162, 161.

I have 1 other relative in my tree (total 3) who tested at FTDNA.
I have 25,669 matches who are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

E) On LivingDNA, I have 2,228 matches. My uncle shares 2,003 cM.
The next 9 matches share:  145, 131, 130, 129, 123, 121, 120, 118, 116.
I have 2,227 matches who are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

F) On GEDmatch, using Tier 1 One-to-Many, I have 59,415 matches that are 7 cM or larger. My top 3 matches are:

* Uncle, father’s side, 1,918 cM, in tree
* First cousin, mother’s side, 958 cM, in tree
* First cousin 1x removed, mother’s side, 433 cM

The next 7 matches are all unknown cousins who are not in my tree with cM: 104, 94, 92, 87, 87, 84, 84.
I know I have 1 other relative in my tree (total 4) who uploaded to GEDmatch,
but I have not thoroughly checked the other 59,405 matches to see if there are any others.

G) On Geneanet, I have 763 matches. My uncle shares 1,925 cM.
The next 9 matches share: 55, 54, 53, 51, 50, 49, 49, 47, 46.
I have 762 matches who are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

H) On Geni, I have 1,857 matches. My top 10 matches share:
164, 163, 152, 148, 147, 144, 138, 138, 135, 135.
All 1,867 matches are unknown cousins who are not in my tree.

I) At Borland Genetics, I have 862 matches. My top 3 matches are:

* my father, 1887 cM, in tree
* my mother, 1887 cM, in tree
* my uncle, 1805 cM, in tree

My next 7 matches are unknown cousins who are not in my tree with cM:
74, 61, 54, 48, 48, 47. 40. 38

Note that my father and mother’s DNA were partly assembled from my and my uncle’s DNA using the Borland Genetics tools.

What does this indicate?

* With endogamy, you get a lot of matches.
* I am unable to identify my relationship with matches as high as 122 cM at AncestryDNA and 23andMe, 141 cM at MyHeritage, and 192 cM at FTDNA.
* I have not yet found known relatives at LivingDNA, Geneanet, Geni, or Borland Genetics other than my uncle whose data I uploaded.
* I found this exercise very interesting. Compare my uncle at all sites to see how much the same person varies at different sites.
* I bet I’ve mentioned a few sites you didn’t realize you can upload your data to.

I thought it worthwhile to do my Uncle as well. He is my father’s brother, so he doesn’t share my maternal matches. Since he is a generation above me, he should average double the DNA that I do with my paternal matches, but of course he got different DNA than my father did, so that ratio should vary quite a bit for each individual match.

A) AncestryDNA – Was not tested

B) 23andMe – Was not tested

C) On MyHeritageDNA, My uncle has 21,131 matches (17% more than me). 
His top 10 matches are:

* Me, nephew, 1,994 cM, in tree
* #2 to #8 are all unknown cousins not in my tree with cM:
177, 172, 136, 133, 132, 131, 130
* #9 – Second cousin, 1x removed, 129 cM, in tree
who is my second cousin, 2x removed, 79 cM with me, not in my top 10.
* #10 – Third cousin, 121 cM, in tree
who is my third cousin, 1x removed, is not in my matchlist at MyHeritage.

D) On FamilyTreeDNA, My uncle has 30,284 matches (18% more than me).
His top match is:
* Me, nephew, 1,861 cM, in tree

His next 9 matches are all unknown cousins not in my tree with cM: 
180, 176, 173, 172, 170, 169, 167, 166, 166 

E) On LivingDNA, I logged in as my uncle, and it gave me a screen saying this: 

This was strange because long ago I uploaded his DNA, and in fact, my highest match is with my Uncle. So they do have him. The above screen would not let me go any further, so I could not check his results.

F) On GEDmatch, using Tier 1 One-to-Many, my uncle has 59,821 matches that are 7 cM or larger (0.7% more than me). His top match is:
* Me, nephew, 1,918 cM, in tree

His next 9 matches are all unknown cousins who are not in my tree with cM:
165, 136, 134, 132, 132, 130, 129, 129, 128.


G) On Geneanet, my uncle has 738 matches (3% fewer than me). His top match is me with 1,925 cM.  His next 9 matches are all unknown cousins with cM:
74, 57, 55, 54, 48, 46, 46, 46, 46

H) On Geni, I did not upload my Uncle’s DNA there.


I) At Borland Genetics, my uncle has 257 matches (70% less than me).
His top 5 matches are:

* his brother (my father), 1890 cM, in tree
* his nephew (me), 1805 cM, in tree
* his father (my grandfather), 1278 cM, in tree
* his mother (my grandmother), 99 cM, in tree
* his grandfather (my great-grandfather), 71 cM, in tree

The next 5 matches are unknown cousins who are not in my tree with cM:
64, 63, 54, 45, 45

Note that my father, grandfather, grandmother and great-grandfather’s DNA were partly assembled from my and my uncle’s DNA using the Borland Genetics tools.

It’s been a while since I’ve put my full effort into getting Behold to that next level that would include GEDCOM export and editing. In fact, I have to admit that I really haven’t made a lot of changes to Behold except for bug fixes and a 64-bit executable since 2017.

What I did start doing in February 2018 is working on my own family tree again after maybe a 15 year hiatus. I chose MyHeritage as my primary online platform and I add my information through both their online system and through MyHeritage’s Family Tree Builder software that stores its database locally on my computer. The two fully sync to each other very nicely with private data about living people only stored on my computer. I keep up with all the Record Matches and Smart Matches that MyHeritage generously provides from its huge record collection and its millions of family trees. There’s very little need for me anymore  to manually search for Census records, vital records or cemetery stones. Most are sent to me without any effort on my part.

MyHeritage also automatically searches the main one-world collaborative trees  to help me locate my relatives in those trees. These include FamilySearch, Geni, and WikiTree.

The one difficulty in using MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Geni, WikiTree (and also Ancestry), or using desktop programs like Family Tree Builder, RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, etc., is seeing what data you have. All these program let you enter your data on forms that contain some of the data in fields. But for extra details and to see more of the data, you need to press buttons to open additional windows. Some programs don’t let you open more than window form at a time. Your data is compartmentalized and you never can see everything at once.

Maybe the programs have reports you can run, but each report is usually for a specific purpose, and rarely is there an “everything” report for you. I’ve never been satisfied by this, and that’s one of the reasons why I built Behold.

Dear Myrtle and WikiTree

A few weeks ago, Pat Richley Erickson aka Dear Myrtle, was a genealogy guest star for the WikiTree Challenge. Pat writes in her blog post: Thank-you WikiTree Volunteers:

Pat concludes that post by saying:

Now perhaps you understand what a great deal of work I have to do correlating new findings with my current genealogy database.

Over the next week, Pat went to work. She downloaded a GEDCOM of her WikiTree relatives and loaded it into RootsMagic 7. She wanted to compare side by side what was in WikiTree’s version of her tree, and what she had already compiled in RootsMagic. Pat had a Mini-Myrt session to describe what she had done:

I was very interested in seeing how Pat was going to do this, and she ran into problems. She could not see all the data from WikiTree all together as she hoped it would be. Pat saw I was in attendance and asked me if I use software that does show all the data. And I said yes, my own software Behold.

So Pat arranged that I return for her next MiniMyrt session and demo how Behold displays her WikiTree data. I did and Pat wrote up about this in her blog post: MiniMyrt - Behold Software and Myrt’s WikiTree GEDCOM File

This is what Pat’s GEDCOM from WikiTree looked like when loaded into Behold:

Each of her earliest ancestors was shown in the treeview on the left. Pat could easily see her brick walls broken by looking through that list for ancestors she did not recognize. Thomas Player was one of those ancestors.

The GEDCOM includes a link to Thomas Player on WikiTree. Behold displays this as a hyperlink that will open that page in your browser. Also included as a hyperlink is an image on WikiTree which is a picture of Parish Banns and that as well can be opened from Behold with a single click.

Most importantly, the WikiTree user profile is included as a Note. You can read what the WikiTreers added as Thomas Player’s profile and that includes the sources they used. They will allow Pat to check the sources and verify for herself that this Thomas Player indeed does (or does not) belong as a new ancestor at the top of her tree.

When trying earlier to load the GEDCOM into her RootsMagic program, this is what Pat could see for Thomas Player

Very little information is shown on the person page itself. The “Note” button can be clicked to bring up the WikiTree note which is good, but that is an extra step. However that Note window is modal, meaning you can’t do anything else in RootsMagic or look at anything else until you close it again.

RootsMagic does import the link to Thomas Player on WikiTree. It does so as an address and you have to click the “Address” button (opening another modal window) to see it: And the link is not a hyperlink, but you can click on the “Visit website” button to open it in a browser.

The Parish Banns object is included in RootsMagic as a Media item. You have to click on the “Media” button to bring it up in another modal window. And the url in this case is not clickable. You’ll have to copy and paste it into your browser.

RootsMagic also shows 3 unidentified reference numbers that puzzled Pat:

RootsMagic does not show the value of the GEDCOM TYPE tag, whereas looking at them in Behold shows them for what they are:

Once you know what they are and realize they are pretty useless, you can hide them in Behold.

A week later (on April 14), Pat had another Mini-Myrt session where she showed how she’s using Behold to help her with her find the new ancestor information that was added to WikiTree so that she could verify it.

Pat may continue to discuss this work on future Mini-Myrt sessions each Wednesday. Here’s the Mini-Myrt registration form if you would like to attend.

Thoughts and Ideas

My goal from Behold’s Everything Report is to make all your data available to you in the most useful way possible. I add relevant family events to each person’s information, include helpful checks and extras such a list of living and deceased relatives at death for verifying with obituaries.

What I’ve noticed though is that the GEDCOMs from the online family trees, specifically MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch, WikiTree and Geni, have a lot data included with their owne tags and embedded formatting that don’t follow the GEDCOM standard. As a result, many programs will not read, interpret or display a lot of that data correctly.

A program that does understand the data can present it much better, and a program like Behold is designed to display all the data, more conveniently and all together. Behold can allow a WikiTreer to see all their data, rather than just one page or one person at a time. I personally find Behold’s data display very useful whenever I work with my WikiTree data, and I expect others would as well.

As part of my development of Version 1.3 of Behold, I’ll be putting in a bit of effort to make WikiTree’s notes look better. WikiTree does not have formally specified sources, but includes them in their notes as “ref” values or as bulleted free-form text in a sources section. I should be able to extract these to allow the sources to be included in the Sources section that Behold displays.

For Version 1.3, I’ll also be working on including customizations to make Behold better display customized data from MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch and Geni as well. It should be fun.

• Wed Apr 28:  Hilary Gadsby shows how the WikiTree GEDCOM looks when it is loaded into Family Historian.
• Wed May 5:  “Do we need more than 1 additional meetup about WikiTree?”
• Wed May 12:  Sheri Snodgrass shows how the WikiTree GEDCOM looks when it is loaded into Family Tree Maker.

@WikiTree #WikiTreeChallenge

Wikitree with over 25 million profiles, is the 3rd largest collaborative family tree, after FamilySearch Family Tree and Geni. As the name suggests, the site is designed like a wiki, giving all users ability to contribute and change (preferably with sources) and collaborate about the contents of any page.

The goals of the site is to strive for accuracy through collaboration.

But I’m not here to tell you about the site. You can go to WikiTree and find out that for yourself.

What I wanted to tell you about is one absolutely amazing activity that the WikiTreers thought up and are taking on.in 2021, their Year of Accuracy. This don’t-miss event is their WikiTree Challenge.

Each week, they focus on one guest star who is very well known in the genealogical world. Previous to appearing, this special guest has his/her ancestors entered onto WikiTree. The guest appears Wednesday evening in a live kick-off event where Sarah Callis acts as host and is joined by Eowyn Langholf, Mindy Silva and the team captain for the week who do the work to coordinate the event. They review the guest’s family tree together asking the guest about his/her challenges and brick walls.

Then dozens of volunteer WikiTreers work all week on the guest’s tree. They collaborate with each other to find new sources, make the tree more accurate and even break down a few brick walls finding new ancestors and relatives that the guest didn’t know about.

The next Wednesday, Sarah and gang are back with the guest to review what was done, what information was uncovered and to get the guest’s reactions to all this new research.

It is impressive how much the diligent WikiTeam uncovers. They summarize each week with a scoresheet that lists all the researchers involved and how much each has added to the guest’s tree. That’s the “Challenge” part.

This event will be taking place all year, with a new guest almost every week.

WikiTree Challenge deserves your attention and publicity!

Think of it. Where else can you find your genealogy super-stars talking about their own genealogy? Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is noted for presenting the genealogies of his special guests on Finding Your Roots on PBS. It was so much fun to hear Dr. Gates talk about his own ancestry, and then a week later in the big reveal, was provided with information about his own family that was new to him. At one point he had to call his wife over to show her what was discovered.

All the shows are taped. You can go back and watch them if you missed them. But it is so much more fun to go there while its live and join the chat.

Here’s a list of the challenges they’ve had already, and a link to the videos so you can watch:

Week 1: January 6
      - AJ Jacobs (Journalist & everyone’s cousin): Kickoff, January 6

Week 2: January 13
      - AJ Jacobs (Journalist & everyone’s cousin): Reveal
      - CeCe Moore (The Genetic Detective): Kickoff

Week 3: January 20
      - CeCe Moore (The Genetic Detective): Reveal
      - Jonny Perl (DNA Painter): Kickoff

Week 4: January 27
      - Jonny Perl (DNA Painter): Reveal
      - Jen Baldwin (Ancestral Journeys): Kickoff 

Week 6: February 3
      - Jen Baldwin (Ancestral Journeys): Reveal
      - Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Finding Your Roots): Kickoff

Week 7: February 10
      - Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Finding Your Roots): Reveal
      - Judy Russell (The Legal Genealogist): Kickoff

Week 8: February 17
      - Judy Russell (The Legal Genealogist): Reveal
      - a break for all the WikiTreers

Week 9: February 24
      - Thomas MacEntee (High-Definition Genealogy): Kickoff

Week 10: March 3
      - Thomas MacEntee (High-Definition Genealogy): Reveal
      - Katherine Willson (Social Media Genealogy): Kickoff

Katherine will have her reveal next week on March 10. Look who is also scheduled for March:

- Pat Richley-Erickson (Dear Myrtle)
- Rob Warthen (DNAGedcom)
- Dallan Quass (RootsFinder)
- Ellen Thompson Jennings (Family History Hound)

And following that, April has been announced:

- Tim Janzen (Genetic Genealogy expert)
- Cheri Hudson Passey (Carolina Girl Genealogy)
- Connie Knox (GenealogyTV.org)

Do make sure you check out this WikiTree LiveCast recorded Feb 27 as a RootsTech Special, recapping the first 7 weeks of the Challenge.

The Challenge is going to be continuing all 2021, so expect many more great guest stars to be revealed.

In addition to the Wednesday LiveCasts, they also have a weekly recap every Saturday, discussing how research is progressing for the guest of the week. For all of their past LiveCasts, see the WikiTree Video list on YouTube.

For information on upcoming LiveCasts, follow @WikiTreers on Twitter or go to the WikiTree page on Facebook.

If you want the challenge of working with others to break through the brick walls of your genealogy heroes, then join WikiTree (it’s free) and sign up for some future challenges.

Here’s a great presentation prepared for WikiTreers who want to take on the WikiTree challenge and work to improve the profiles of the guest stars.

This is fantastic stuff. It’s so much fun to join in the live chat every Wednesday night. Hope to see you there.