Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog

Today, I released a new version of Behold. This has been a long time coming as I’ve been working on it off and on for the past number of years. I gave my last status report in February that had some thoughts as to where I’m taking Behold.

I wasn’t planning on releasing Version 2.0 of Behold until it was ready, and I’m still at least a few months away from that. But yesterday, a new user downloaded and tried Behold and asked me if the links in Behold’s exported html and rtf files were supposed to work. Yes, of course they were, but that was a known bug to me in the most recent Version 1.2.7. I already had the fix in my development version. Rather than fixing the bugs and releasing Version 1.2.8, I thought:

I’ll never get it perfect so I might as well release it.

Perfectionism is a leading cause of procrastination.

They say software developers should release early and release often.

So what the heck. This developmental version has been running smoothly for me for the past few months. I have been fixing any bugs I find as I encounter them. And there are enough changes and improvements … even though it’s not “finished” … that I thought it might be best to release it. 

Below I go through some of what’s changed in the new 1.99 beta version.

New Internal Data Structures

This is something you won’t see. But internally in Behold, I’ve removed all my custom data structures (including my wonderful B* tree that was incredibly fast). I’ve replaced them all with standard lookup tables, and changed all the record keys from text strings to integers. I started this when I was still thinking that Behold would become a full fledged editor knowing that this would allow a relatively easy switch to using a database so that the data could be more efficiently saved to a file and retrieved again.

Now that editing is no longer in my future plans, this still was a good move as it  made my structures relational and simplified their use internally. Behold’s data structures now should be able to handle any and all genealogy data in a generalized way.

Updated Windows Styling

Windows 10 has updated its standard dialogs such as the “File Open” and “File Save” which are much more useful than before. Behold now uses new Windows dialogs whenever possible.

GEDCOM Validation

Behold has always included a lot of checks that the GEDCOM being input is correct. This version adds comprehensive syntax checking to match the GEDCOM 5.5.1 specifications exactly (except for a few known errors in the spec). This will help indicate how precise the GEDCOM is and tell you exactly what is wrong with it.

Selection of People to Include

Previous versions allowed you to select which people to build the families around and whether you wanted all their relatives through marriage and whether you wanted everyone else as well. In addition to that, you can now filter out all living people, and select the number of generations of ancestors and descendants to include from each starting person. The Index of Names, Place Details, Source Details and all other information will be shown if they refer any of the people included.

Menu and Toolbar Items Updated

New functionality such as the selection of people and finding the next or previous data problem are available via the menu or toolbar or shortcuts.

GEDCOM Export

In the 1.99 beta Version, this is a first version of GEDCOM export. There is still a bit of refinement needed and testing I need to do before trusting it completely, and it will be the next thing I work on in the next few weeks. It is being designed to either:

1. Export “verbatum” GEDCOM,  i.e. with custom tags and structures known only to the program that originally created that GEDCOM,
   or
2. Export to “standard” GEDCOM, i.e. GEDCOM 5.5.1 following the GEDCOM 5.5.5 recommendations so that all the data will be accepted by almost every GEDCOM reading program.

The GEDCOM that will be exported will correspond to what Behold displays. You can filter the people you want, select fact types to include, etc.

Once I’ve finalized the export procedure (likely in Version 1.99.1), I’ll write a full blog post all about exporting GEDCOM.

Relationships

Every person will have ALL their relationships to each of the selected family people displayed for you. The current beta includes this now, but it is nowhere near final. It will be the next thing worked on after GEDCOM Export is completed.

Ancestral Surnames and Places

You’ll see placeholders for two new sections:

1. Ancestors by Surnames
2. Ancestral Place Details

I’m creating these unique reports because I need them for my own research. I’m sure many of you will find them to be useful references as well.

Lots Of Improvements and Fixes

Small but important things, such as slightly increasing the font size of titles and using a bold font for all surnames. And lots of tweaks to the display the data better.

For a complete list, see: Behold Version History

To see what’s coming by Version 2.0, including some DNA features that no other program has, see: Behold Future Plans

Note that the Help file and website will not be updated to reflect the new features once all the functionality for Version 2.0 is included.

So give it a try if you want:  Behold Download Page (beholdgenealogy.com)

Will I break it now?

Today on Facebook, Alex Krakovsky posted:

  Alex Krakovsky  34m ·

Yes, it’s true. FamilySearch started publishing Jewish metrical records from the Odesa archive. Something that all of us were waiting for many many many years.

So far they have published 81 books. 69 of them were never ever available online. 12 books from inventory 5 we published before.

I published all the references on Wikisource pages so you can now instantly access them with a blink of an eye.

I’m glad we came this far.

Here’s the list for your delight.

Fond 39

Inventory 2

https://uk.wikisource.org/…/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D1…/39/2

No. Name Year Pages FamilySearch DGS number

1 . Birth 1875 174 115149335

1a . Birth 1846 29 115149391

1b. Marriage 1854 32 115149339

1v. Divorce 1854 15 115148873

1g. Death 1854 89 115149357

1d . Birth 1847 15 115149367

2 . Birth 1875 179 115148874

3 . Marriage 1875 68 115149358

4 . Divorce 1875 34 115149365

5 . Death 1875 149 115149379

6 . Death 1875 147 115148881

7. Birth 1876 217 115148882

8 . Birth 1876 236 115149369

9 . Marriage 1876 87 115148880

10 . Marriage 1876 87 115149397

11 . Divorce 1876 29 115149427

12 . Divorce 1876 28 115149429

13 . Death 1876 201 115148888

14 . Death 1876 201 115148878

15 . Birth 1877 205 115148879

16 . Birth 1877 204 115149395

17 . Marriage 1877 68 115149371

18 . Marriage 1877 68 115149363

19 . Divorce 1877 27 115149362

20 . Divorce 1877 27 115148886

21 . Death 1877 160 115148875

22 . Birth 1878 232 115149327

23 . Birth 1878 205 115148877

24 . Marriage 1878 112 115149337

25 . Divorce 1878 36 115149373

26 . Death 1878 185 115149361.

Inventory 3

https://uk.wikisource.org/…/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D1…/39/3

No. Name Year Pages FamilySearch DGS number

1 . Death 1877 160 115149401

2 . Death 1878 172 115149405

3 . Death 1879 137 115149411

Inventory 4

https://uk.wikisource.org/…/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D1…/39/4

No. Name Year Pages FamilySearch DGS number

1 . Birth 1879 226 115149409

2 . Born 1879 28 115149415

3 . Birth 1879 244 115148890

4 . Marriage 1879 134 115149417

5 . Divorce 1879 36 115148904

6 . Death 1879 168 115148891

7. Birth 1880 235 115149414

8 . Birth 1880 224 115148906

9 . Marriage 1880 110 115148894

10 . Marriage 1880 109 115149435

11 . Divorce 1880 33 115149437

12 . Birth 1880 33 115149453

14 . Death 1880 202 115148895

15 . Birth 1881 236 115149423

16 . Born 1881 27 115149322

17 . Birth 1881 236 115148897

19 . Marriage 1881 95 115148898

20 . Divorce 1881 28 115148901

21 . Death 1881 182 115149449

22 . Death 1881 182 115148893

23 . Born in 1882 235 115148899

24 . Born 1882 19 115148900

25 . Born 1882 17 115149451

26 . Marriage 1882 133 115149444

27 . Divorce 1882 29 115148902

28 . Divorce 1882 29 115148903

29 . Death 1882 177 115149446

30 . Birth 1883 226 115148896

31 . Birth 1883 226 115148889

32 . Born 1883 21 115149406

33 . Born 1883 21 115149431

34 . Marriage 1883 93 115149433

36 . Divorce 1883 23 115149421

37 . Divorce 1883 24 115148905

38 . Death 1883 180 115149440

Inventory 5

https://uk.wikisource.org/…/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D1…/39/5

No. Name Year Pages FamilySearch DGS number

3 . Birth 1884 237 115148907

9. Death 1884 193 115149351

10. Death 1884 193 115148864

11. Birth 1885 232 115149466

13. Birth 1885 246 115148908

14. Divorce 1885 22 115149326

15. Divorce 1885 23 115149345

16. Marriage 1885 95 115148911

19. Death 1885 214 115149458

25. Death 1886 199 115149464

26. Birth 1886 249 115148910

27. Birth 1887 278 115149461

My father’s stepfather, Louis Kessler and his first wife Sarah Katkow is my one research line that is my biggest brick wall.  Louis’ father was Tsvi Joseph and Sarah’s maiden name was in one document written as Katkow and her parents’ names were Jidel (Yehudah) and Chana Rivka.

They emigrated from the Russian Empire to Saskatchewan, Canada in the early 1900s and I presume were already married when they came since I cannot find any Saskatchewan marriage record for them.

They had no children and I don’t know of any living relatives they might have had, so there is no one to DNA test.

It wasn’t until 3 years ago during the WikiTree Challenge, that I was able to determine that they were from Odessa.

The 1911 Canada Census indicates that Louis may have been born in May 1878 and Sarah in April 1876. The records from the above include those years!!

So now it’s time for a bit of elbow grease and to manually start going through those records and put my Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) course on Researching Russian Genealogy Records to good use.

I’ll be going through the birth records in and around the years 1876 and 1878 looking for the handwritten version of these names:

Wish me luck.

I took my first MyHeritage DNA test at RootsTech 2017 in Salt Lake City.

At RootsTech 2024 last March, MyHeritage announced Ethnicity Estimation 2.0 which is to be released this June. There are many good reasons to get their new estimates. The estimates will be a free update for all users who tested on MyHeritage’s Illumina GSA (Global Screening Array) chip (mid 2019 onwards).

Unfortunately, my test was from 2017 and used the Illumina OmniExpress Microarray Chip. So I would not get the new ethnicity estimates, and that got me  thinking that there might be other updates in the future that my old test might miss out on.

So I made the decision to take another MyHeritage DNA test with their new chip and compare my results with my test from 2017 on their old chip.

From Ordering to Results

I ordered my new kit online on Sunday March 17, at what seems to be their perpetual sales price of $49 CAD (for Canadians).

The kit was shipped the next day (Monday March 18) from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and arrived in my mailbox on Friday March 22. I tested myself, activated the test online, and mailed the kit the next day (Saturday March 23) to their lab in Houston, Texas, which is actually the Family Tree DNA lab who do the processing for MyHeritage.

Online at MyHeritage, they let you track the progress of the test.

• Tuesday April 2, the kit arrived at the lab. They said from that point to expect the results on MyHeritage in 3 to 4 weeks.
• Wednesday April 3, DNA extraction was in progress.
• Friday April 12, Microarray process was in progress.
• Monday April 15, the raw data was produced
• Friday April 19, the results were ready and available.

So that only took 26 days which is less than 4 weeks from the time I ordered the test to when my results became available.

My first MyHeritage test which I took at RootsTech in 2017 took just over a month for the results to become available, so their delivery time has remained about the same.

Ethnicity Estimates

The new test still uses their older ethnicity estimates, the version 2.0 estimates as I stated above won’t be available until June.

I (and many other people) have always considered MyHeritage to have the least accurate ethnicity estimates of the major DNA testing companies.  In my case, I have 4 Ashkenazi Jewish grandparents, 8 Ashkenazi Jewish great-grandparents and 16 Ashkenazi Jewish great-great-grandparents. If that’s not 100% Ashkenazi Jewish, then I don’t know what is.

My original estimates from my first MyHeritage DNA test gave me just 83.8% Ashkenazi. They did an update in 2020 which increased that to 85.5%, and another update last August that increased it again to 90.3%.

By comparison, my latest estimates of Ashkenazi at the other companies are:

• Family Tree DNA:  94%
• 23andMe:  98.8%
• Ancestry: 99%

All are much closer to 100% than MyHeritage’s 90.3%.

My new MyHeritage DNA test’’s ethnicity results is a tiny bit better at 90.8% and shows me this:

I have to disagree as I’m absolutely sure that I have zero Scandinavian, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Greek or Italian in me.

In June, I’ll be able to see what the Ethnicity Estimates 2.0 give.

Comparing My Matches

MyHeritage’s setup with multiple tests is nice. I can compare the DNA matches in my two kits easily in two browser windows. Here’s the comparison:

My new test has fewer matches than my old test, but has more closer matches (extended family) than my old test. The 1 “Close family” is my uncle.

The 2017 test shows 1 Theory of Family Relativity, but that Theory is wrong. The new test does not show any Theories, but I likely have to wait until MyHeritage recalculates everyone’s Theories which they do from time to time, before I can see if any show up in my new test.

The 2017 test tells me 219 of my DNA matches’ trees have smart matches with my tree. The new test gives me 200. I can’t determine my relationship with any of those people.

Among my matches, I only know how 3 of them are related to me. My two closes matches are my uncle and a first cousin once removed. The only other is a 2C2R sharing 79.4 cM with me.

Here is a comparison of my top 10 matches.

The first 10 people are my 10 closest matches in my 2024 test. The first 5 are my top 5 in both tests, but then the order starts to diverge.

The next 4 people are from the top 10 in 2017 that did not make the top 10 in 2024.

You can see slight differences in the numbers between the two tests. I wouldn’t consider them to be significant. Although #10 has 3 more matching segments in 2024 than in 2017.

I am surprised that my 8th closest match of my 2024 test does not appear in my 2017 test results. Could it be a brand new tester who has not yet been updated in my older test? Not sure I have an explanation if that’s not the reason.

My Raw Data

In my Comparing Raw Data from 5 DNA Testing Companies, I gave a summary table of the raw data files which I’ll update here adding my new test at the right: (click on the any table for a larger version):

The new raw data file includes fewer SNPs (609,346) than any of my previous tests. Let’s see which chromosomes are tested:

Interestingly, despite testing fewer SNPs overall, the raw data includes more SNPs from the X chromosome than any other company, and includes more SNPs from the Y chromosome than any company except 23andMe. The raw data does not include any mt (mitochondrial) SNPs.

On the Autosomal chromosomes 1 to 22, these are the Allele values supplied:

There are only 701 no calls which is only 0.1% and that is much less than any of the other tests. Like the other companies except 23andMe, insertions and deletions are not included.

It is odd that FTDNA, MyHer v1 and AncestryDNA tests have about twice the number of heterozygous values than the 23andMe, LivingDNA and MyHer v2 tests have. Those are SNPs with different reads from the two chromosomes, i.e: AC, AG, AT, CG, CT and GT. The first three tests used the OmniExpress chip and the latter three used the GSA chip, so maybe something about the difference between these two chips caused this. But I don’t know the reason why.

Here are the values for the X chromosome:

For the X, the new MyHeritage test has included insertions and deletions. Like autosomal, the X also has a much lower percentage of no calls (0.5%) than the other tests. The shaded area are read errors because I am male, so I only have one X chromosome and cannot have two different values. This new test has a similar read error rate (0.3%) to what the other tests did.

Here’s the Y chromosome:

Again, a low no call rate compared to the other tests and only 7 erroneous reads.

Combining These Results With My Others

In my  Creating a Raw Data File from a WGS BAM file article, I ended up combining my 5 chip tests with my WGS test to end up with a raw data file with 1,601,497 SNPs with only 13,546 no calls (0.85%). I refer to that as my All-6 raw data file.

This new MyHeritage test has 609,317 SNPs.

It includes 15,215 new SNPs that were not included in any of my previous tests. Of those 15,095 had values and 120 were no calls.

It disagreed on 247 SNPs, so those need to be changed to no calls.

And it gave values to 3,483 SNPs that from the previous tests were only no calls.

So my All-7 combined file should therefore end up with:

• 1,601,497 + 15,215 = 1,616,719 SNPs
• 13,546 + 120 + 247 – 3,483 = 10,430 no calls
• 10,430 / 1,616,592 = 0.65%

and I will have reduced my percentage no calls from 0.85% to 0.65%.

Raw Data Accuracy

In my 2021 article: Your DNA Raw Data May Have Changed, I noted that the various testing company’s SNPs gave incorrect values for 0.2% to 0.5% of the SNPs which is pretty good. MyHeritage’s test originally was 0.2% (1 error every 603 SNPs) and one of the best. But then, after they changed my raw DNA data, the error rate increased to 0.8% (1 error every 119 SNPs) and it became one of the worst.

This isn’t really anything to worry about for matching relatives, because their matching algorithms allow for a few mismatches every 100 SNPs and still will say the two segments match. This is to take into account the occasional read error and the rare mutation. (No calls are ignored.)

But for analysis of a single SNP for medical purposes, the error rate is important. For that purpose, it is worthwhile knowing if the MyHeritage SNP error rate improved from 0.8%.

For this, I’ll Determine the Accuracy of my new MyHeritage DNA test by the way I describe in the section “The Accuracy of Standard Microarray DNA Tests” from my 2020 article: Determining the Accuracy of DNA Tests.

It seems that this new MyHeritage Test on the newer GSA chip is quite accurate with only 247 readings that differ out from the consensus of 588,234 SNPs of my other tests. That’s just a 0.04% error rate, or 1 error every 2,382 SNPs.

The next best error rate in my Accuracy article was 1 error every 1,391 SNPs for my short read WGS test and 1 out of 612 SNPs for my Family Tree DNA test.

Conclusion

Is it necessary to upgrade your MyHeritage DNA test if yours if your was done with the old Illumina OmniExpress chip up to 2019? For matching purposes, probably not.

But MyHeritage is not supporting the older results for their new ethnicity estimates that will come out in June. When the June results are released and people start reporting how their results changes, we’ll have a better idea whether it might be worthwhile to retest.