Sideview Technology

[@saraschneider6781]

When is the Grandparent Sideview coming?

[@YourDNAGuide]

This is a great question and one that I can't answer. Hopefully soon though.

[@fyreflye100]

Thank you, this is very helpful! Do you think Sideview is always accurate? I'm asking because it seems very inconsistent when it comes to smaller matches, say 20 CMs and lower. Also, I manage my sister's test -- we share over 2,800 CMs and we both have plenty of strong matches from known relatives on both our maternal and paternal lines. So she is 100% my full sister, but Sideview is convinced she is only related to me on our mother's side. It has put a red exclamation point next to where I labeled my sister "both sides" and won't allow me to dismiss it. ETA: I should mention that my sisters and I each have a much lower-than-average number of DNA matches on Ancestry. As of now, we each have around 350 4th cousins or closer, and I've heard that the average person has over 1,000. So maybe Sideview would be less accurate for us, since we have a smaller pool of matches for it to draw from.

[@YourDNAGuide]

I don't typically answer this kind of question about sisters (or close relatives) online, just because of the sensitive nature. I do think it's fair to say that Sideview is a beta tool, and tools give us hints but should be evaluated. This sounds like a great question for a coaching session with one of our Your DNA Guide coaches, though. You can learn more about our expert coaching sessions here. www.yourdnaguide.com/coach

[@fyreflye100]

​@@YourDNAGuide Thank you for the response! I'll consider the coaching session. Just to be clear, I'm not questioning that my sister is my full sister. I know she is, based on the shared CMs and our shared matches. It just seems like a weird glitch in Sideview -- but as you point out, it's still in beta.

[@JasonTHutchinson]

I have found SideView to be very helpful. Of course we are all related going backwards in time, but most of us are not closely related enough to where SideView would not be accurate. However, it does have a category for Both, as well as Unassigned. It will only label a match as one parent or another if it meets certain criteria.

[@JasonTHutchinson]

Just a note about both sides is that does not mean a person is inbred. That is not what that means at all. It could just mean you have a paternal relative that has a relationship with a maternal one such as your father's cousin marry your mother's cousin and they had children. That does not necessarily mean your parents are related.

[@TheDanEdwards]

Would it not be better to emphasize that "related" means _closely related_ ? Everyone is related to each other, the only question is how far back one has to go to find the most recent common ancestor. My mother has all colonial American ancestry and I've found several of her matches that are likely related to her via both parents. And for those people whose ancestors came from lower population regions, it is likely that ancestors are likely to be shared by both parents in historical times.