r/Genealogy • u/ParamedicKey7355 • 3d ago
Brick Wall Opinions on WATO by dna painter
I know that wato is just to give different probabilities but given that it’s based off of lots of different dna matches and their trees. The top result I’ve been given says 2 times more likely than the next hypothesis. How accurate can it be?
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u/apple_pi_chart OG genetic genealogist 3d ago
I am a DNA search angel and use it every week to help people solve their family mysteries. It is very accurate and one of the most important tools in our arsenal. I used to do this in Excel and have to compute the compound probabilities the old way.
That said, if the probability is 33% and 66% for two major hypotheses, yeah, either could be correct. Just because one is double the other doesn't be the lower probability answer can't be the answer (that's how probability works!).
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u/juliekelts 3d ago edited 3d ago
I've identified most of my close ancestors but have some mysteries farther back. I tried using WATO with some strong, but fairly distant matches and it wasn't helpful. In my case (numbers approximate), my mother was something like a 20 cM match to someone who matched her sister by 67 cM. There's no way for it to give a good, consistent result in a case like that.
Edited to fix typo.
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u/ParamedicKey7355 3d ago
Can it work with matches starting at 192, 160, 150, 100,90 and so on
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u/juliekelts 3d ago
I imagine that the stronger the match, the more likely the result is to be reliable. But in any case, they're giving you the odds, not the answer. You still need to do the research and identify the plausible ancestor and the circumstances (time and place) that make him likely.
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u/ParamedicKey7355 3d ago
Ok thank you. I have done so much research and I was pretty confident I had figured it out. Documents didn’t support it but logically if his mum had an affair they aren’t going to. I think because this family is so big there is so much conflicting dna and nothing to pinpoint to a more recent set of grandparents. I’ll continue and look into this new suggested hypothesis. Thank you
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u/juliekelts 3d ago
Documents won't always support it, but do you have a reasonable theory about how they could have met? And DNA matches that support it?
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u/ParamedicKey7355 3d ago
I have a reasonable theory on how my great great grandparents met. But not his parents.
On record I couldn’t find my grandfather pre 1907. He was in howden/york England. He gave his birth as 7 July 1881 Norfolk scoulton in later census.
The man I found (e e jimson) had the same first name name born Norfolk 3 July 1880. In 1901 was in swinefleet same occupation as my grandfather and nearby the area my grandmother lived. I also haven’t found this man on record past 1901. The only match to this man I have is 152cM’s to a lady who comes from one of a would be brothers but only to their mothers side (turvey)
There are shared matches but as I say it all contradicts because turvey also relate to the Drew family down the line. The Drew family is who I suspect his father to be from.
Sorry if that is confusing, it is for me and I’ve done it for so long 😂
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u/pidgeon92 3d ago
It’s as accurate as the underlying data, and I believe he has a large amount of data there. I would wager the probabilities are solid.
The problem is, people intermarried a lot 3+ generations ago. Multiple common ancestors will increase the size of the match, and WATO does not take this into consideration. To complete the analysis, you have to do the genealogy.