What Ancestry DNA doesn't get quite right

Six months after testing myself, my daughter and my great Aunt on Ancestry, well, we have some mixed bag results. I have my first (yes first) ancestry hint. My great Aunt has one as well, and my daughter now has two. Funny because all my other kits have several, I guess I have more of a complete tree and that's why, but to be honest, not sure at all.

Almost all of my circles only include ones where my daughter falls. So no one that I match alone but match many in the circle seem to appear. Oh, and then there are the two funny circles. Funny because for both my daughter and I there are two circles not to an ancestor, but to an ancestor's brother. Thus I have a circle for one of the brothers to Martin D. J. Collins and to Sterling Alexander Hager (listed as Sr, and NOT the father of Sterling Alexander Hager who lived in Arkansas and Texas). This Sterling was the brother of Steeley Hager who died in Lauderdale county, Tennessee in 1848.

So while the ancestry DNA has helped confirm my tree, well, I don't know that it's any better than 23andme. And since Ancestry changed their file format, I can't upload to familytree DNA just yet either. So I am waiting. I feel like I do that a lot. Because despite the fact that all the other bloggers say that the testers on ancestry and familytree DNA are more into testing for genealogy, you really don't get more responses from either.

In the time since I tested with ancestry compared with the same time as 23andme, I got better responses to my inquiries actually on 23andme. And I could compare the DNA segments. Frankly though, I find the 23andme price too  high, and well, you have the same kind of looky loo mentality in testers now on both Ancestry and 23andme. A plethora of testers who are testing for curiosity sake for ancestry make up on Ancestry, and for health on 23andme.

I haven't given up though. Still love Gedmatch and the capability of comparing across all the companies. And still have great hopes that I will solve those mysteries, and eventually find one or both of my  Mom's half brothers.

My advice hasn't changed. Educate yourself. Learn about DNA. Correspond with as many as you can get to answer and have a robust tree to start. Don't give up on DNA, it's valuable, but just don't think it will provide all the answers yet either.