*SUCCESS* Autosomal DNA Test - my experience

[DudleyWinchurch]

Devon,

that's really helpful.

It looks like there is nothing unusual about the overall number of matches that Angela and I have got.

Unfortunately, I have no previous generation to compare with.

What is surprising is that I have rather more 2nd-4th matches and they all seem to be on lines that I haven't got enough data for.  I think that I will now go ahead and try contacting the rest with my list of GGgrandparent family names (only 2 missing).

I think that you may be right about the distant relatives being too much of a long shot.  I have tried to contact two who actually share a family name, but one bounced back as an unacceptable email address.  There is also one distant contact with a tree that indicates that they were definitely in the same place at the same time as my family in the 1840s-1850s, so probably worth a try too.  No direct names in common, but their tree does include at least one name that comes up on my godparents list.

[DudleyWinchurch]

Still struggling to make sense of all these matches.

I have made an attempt to begin partitioning the list of results.

As I have one recognised second cousin, we share only approximately 25% of DNA.  I used the triangulation tool to make a list of matches that we have in common.  I then used the same tool on each member of that list and added in any new names that popped up.  I went through and did this a third time with the new names.  This gave me a list of about 25% of the original matches.  I am assuming this means that we should be related through the pair of great-grandparents that I share with my second cousin.  Is this a reasonable assumption?

However, I have been through all the suggested third and fourth cousin matches on this list and tried to contact them, giving them a list of names known to be on these lines, including some either further back or known family names of some more recent generations.  Unfortunately, those who have responded still have not been able to make a connection.  Does this mean that none of these people are genuine matches?

[DudleyWinchurch]

Just another technical point here.  I have now had another 5 or 6 "matches" appear in  my list since the original set. 

There has been no email notification of these.  I only noticed that the list had got longer and, on checking through, these have appeared with "match" dates indicating that they were added one or two or three at a time.

Probably still a couple of weeks to wait for the original intended comparison match data to complete processing.

Also waiting as my brother has agreed to take the test and I am eager to see how similar our match lists will be.

[DevonCruwys]

Dudley

I believe you only receive notifications of close matches.

[DudleyWinchurch]

Dudley

I believe you only receive notifications of close matches.

Thanks, so I don't really need to worry about missing odd ones at this stage.

[DudleyWinchurch]

Logged on today and my contact from the family who emigrated is now listed as "third cousin".

     


Now just need to work out who all the other third cousins are!

[DudleyWinchurch]

Now have brother on my Family Finder matches list but more confused than ever.

Does anyone know how the "in common with" test works?  Is it people who are on both your lists, or is it people who matches on the same DNA string(s)?

Also, I now have 34 pages of results, so a little less than 340 matches, but although my tree is heavily populated back about five generations and even goes back further on some branches, not one of the names of my direct ancestors has occurred in my list, and very few even in the names lists of any of the people on my list.  Is that normal?

I'm beginning to think that many of these so-called matches, especially the closer ones, must be spurious?!

[DevonCruwys]

You might like to watch Maurice Gleeson's presentation from WDYTYA Live on analysing your autosomal DNA results. It's now available on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtpe6u2J5ps

You need to focus on your closer matches. Some of the matches with more distant cousins are false positives.

You can also read the autosomal DNA pages in Kelly Wheaton's guide to genetic genealogy:

https://sites.google.com/site/wheatonsurname/beginners-guide-to-genetic-genealogy

[DudleyWinchurch]

Thanks again DevonCruwys,

The Gleeson presentation was very useful as it explains further analysis aids available on FTDNA.  I may need to watch it several times to understand how to apply them all. 

However, given the high number of matches that I now have, I am still surprised at how few I seem to share with known relatives.