Your 23andMe DNA Relatives list now has a new algorithm that promises greater accuracy for identifying your relationships to close relatives. Read more about this new update and how it will affect your DNA research at 23andMe.

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of October 2023, 23andMe has temporarily disabled some features within the DNA Relatives tool due to unauthorized access to several million 23andMe accounts. We don’t know how long these features will be unavailable.

If you’ve looked at your list of DNA Relatives on 23andMe, you may have been confused about how they labeled your close relatives. That’s because people often share roughly the same amount of DNA with a half-sibling, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, grandparent or grandchild. 23andMe couldn’t tell the difference between those genetic relationships based only on the amount of shared DNA.

Now 23andMe has updated the way they analyze those relationships, with the result that they have improved the labeling of close relatives such as aunts, uncles, half-siblings, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and grandchildren.

23andMe DNA Relatives: Look at Ages and Generations

23andMe is one of only two companies (the other being MyHeritage) that now takes the self-reported ages of those tested into account when suggesting possible relationships between you and a DNA match. 23andMe has a fascinating bit of software they call Bonsai that helps determine when two people are on the same, or different generations:

• Same generation people will have an age difference of 0- 17.4 years
• One generation different will have an age difference of 17.5- 39.3 years
• Two generations different will have an age difference of 45.3- 67.7 years

Let’s be honest: that doesn’t always work. We all know families where there are exceptions to these age difference ranges. Where aunts or uncles were born just a few years before (or even after) children in the next generation. Where grandparents were either very young or old relative to their grandchildren. And so forth.

23andMe Update Goes Beyond Ages

Recently 23andMe announced an update to their Bonsai software called IDB011 that improves their ability to tell the difference between half siblings, avuncular (aunt/uncle), and grandparent relationships. The improvement comes from harnessing the power of fully-identical regions of DNA that are shared only between full siblings.

23andMe has written an excellent blog post (kudos to their science writer) about this development. I highly recommend you check it out. If you think you have any of these close relationships at 23andMe and you want to see if this algorithm improves their relationship predictions, you can request to have your data updated. Instructions for doing that are at the end of their article.

In October 2024, 23andMe released two new updates: a new algorithm that improves predictions for distant relatives and HybridIBD. The latter is a new method to determine DNA Relatives. These updates will help find even more distant connections.

HybridIBD is available to existing 23andMe+ Premium and Total Health members as well as all new 23andMe ancestry customers. Existing Ancestry and Health + Ancestry Service testers will need to upgrade to 23andMe+ Premium or Total Health.

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