My First MyHeritage Theory of Family Relativity - Wed, 29 Jun 2022

I’ve opened my MyHeritage account in 2014 and I’ve been a subscriber to their Complete Plan since February 2018. It was then that I started using MyHeritage as my primary site for storing my family tree information.

I took a MyHeritage DNA test in 2007 and uploaded my uncle’s test from FTDNA in 2018. I linked both my and my uncle’s tests to my tree.

By the end of 2019, I likely had 1000 genetic relatives in my tree. Today that number is probably close to 1500.

But I did not have any Theories of Family Relativity.  Why not?

Over at Ancestry, I have only a small version of my tree, maybe 200 people. I DNA tested there as well. Ancestry has its Thru Lines which are similar to MyHeritage’s Theories. I have about 20 Thru Lines over at Ancestry and about 5 of them helped me connect to new relatives.

So again, why do I not have any Theories at MyHeritage?

In February 2021, I submitted a support request to MyHeritage asking that question. A member of their DNA Support Team replied back that it didn’t make sense to him either. The final answer was that the Research and Development team did not have a solution yet for me. They said they’ll be giving priority to resolve this and said that they are injecting new Theories of Family Relativity soon and hopefully I will have some Theories.

The next Theory release in the summer of 2021 did not have any theories for me.

This morning, I saw this June 29, 2022 blog post from MyHeritage: New Update to Theory of Family Relativity. In it they state 25 million new Theories were added.  328 thousand kits that didn’t have any Theories now have at least one. And 233 thousand users will have at least one theory following this update.

I didn’t get my hopes up, but when I logged into MyHeritage, I saw this:

So I am one of the new Theorists!

I wrote the above before I looked to see what the Theory/ies might be. How many do I have? Are they accurate? Might they connect me to a new relative I have not yet found?

My Theories

Now for the reveal:  It turns out that I have my first 2 ever Theories of Family Relativity:

Theory 1

The first Theory for L.R. is very interesting to me. (Click on graphic for a larger image)

I do know from records that the father of my great-grandfather Haim Herzanu was Leib, so the connection with the first web site from Israel evaluated at 75% makes sense.

The same website also makes the 3rd connection between Moscu Hertzman and Leonard Hertzman evaluated at 100%. This Moscu in the tree from Israel is said to have been born in Dorohoi or Hertza in Romania, which is where my Herzanu ancestors are from.

It’s that middle private family site that seems to have something wrong. It has Leiba Hertzeanu as a brother of Leib Hertzeanu which wouldn’t happen, and the former was born in 1796 and the latter born in 1848 and it’s unlikely brothers would be 52 years apart. It is possible that the latter Leib was a grandson of the Leibu.

But I’m not complaining. This information from this Israeli site may have a set of relatives that I do not know about, and I may be able to ultimately connect to the L.R. who is my DNA match. So there’s some enjoyable research work that will come out of this. I’m definitely going to have to contact the owner of that site from Israel.

My Uncle is on this side of my family, and he has this same Theory.

Theory 2 with 4 Paths

The 2nd Theory for D. Z. is equally interesting: It actually has 4 different paths.

Path 1, 71% confidence:

Path 2, 75% confidence:

Path 3, 67% confidence:

Path 4:, 20% confidence:

These are great. That’s two different Israeli web sites, the Geni site, as well as a Private site are involved in those 4 paths.

My Uncle’s DNA does not have this Theory. I’m not sure why not. I would think it should since it is along the same line as the 1st Theory. This could be something I can get MyHeritage to check into.

Conclusion

None of these theories are anything close to proof, but they certainly are good suppositions that will allow me to explore and contact the other site owners to share information and any documents we have. If these ancestors are truly from Dorohoi/Hertza, I know where records are obtainable from there that may be able to validly connect my family with those in these other trees.

I can finally see what the excitement is with this Theory of Family Relativity technology, which matches trees to records to DNA. It provides plenty of avenues for you to explore.