*SUCCESS* Autosomal DNA Test - my experience

[DudleyWinchurch]

Thanks Devon,

the chromosome browser examples serve to highlight the problem.  At the 5cm+ setting, like in the examples, 5 of my 6 "third cousins", show only one match. 

My second cousin match is similar to the example in the way the matches are distributed.

I'm going to need to look further at the idea of "sticky" segments, although the 5 all have extended matches on completely different chromosomes.  The 6th is related to one of the five and has a couple of extra short matches that show up.

I'm trying to see how far I can group the other, suggested as more distant, relations with these using the triangulation tool.

[romak]

Hi

This is all a bit complicated for me but can I ask - does the DNA company put you in touch with people you are related to?  Also what company did you use?

Thanks
Robyn

[AngelaR]

Hello Robyn

I'm finding it a wee bit daunting too..... 

Dudley and I both used FamilyTreeDNA at about the same time. They show you the 'matches' grouped in order of relationship 'closeness' and you can contact each match by email if you so wish. The problem is sorting out the genuines from the duds!

Good luck

Angela

[jc26red]

I, well my husband, also tested with FamilyTreeDNA.  We have belonged to a family name group for years but its only recently that we have managed to obtain a very good administrator for the ftdna part of the group. Since then, my husband took the test, at their request, and we have had wonderful support from the administrator with explanations etc., and the group is now growing well. 
The matches that returned include 2 we were expecting (Same surname and accountable) and 2 with different surnames but as the haplogroup doesn't fall into one of the normal English/European mixes, we were able to trace back and work out that lifestyle and locations did cross which means an NPE (non paternal event) occured around 1760 

My husband has also joined another ftdna group,haplogroup C, and his dna test is now being used for further advanced tests as he is the only direct European descendant which has a strong paper trail back to early the. 1600's ...it doesn't mean alot to me (and not much use for recent fh research) as this is all about trying to find out how this group came to be in Europe and not in the East as they (Isogg) previously had thought. All quite exciting as they have been looking for someone to  confirm and test this new haplogroup C subgroup v20+ out.... the first ftdna advanced results came back confirmed on Friday! His results will eventually be written up in the science books, the website hasn't been updated yet   hopefully, we will be able to understand what it all means one day lol!

Jenny

[DudleyWinchurch]

Hi Robyn,

Yes the FTDNA company allow you access to the email address of anyone who matches, if they have permitted this, but like any other website some of the email addresses may not be still current.

Hi Angela,

Can I ask if you were also overwhelmed with large numbers of potential cousins?  I was expecting with luck to have maybe up to a dozen to sift through but got 26 "third" or "fourth" cousins and a couple of hundred more distant potential relationships.  The disconcerting thing is that except for the one that I recognise, even the nearer relationships don't seem to make sense. 

As my method of doing family history is to try to discover all the siblings of each direct ancestor I find, and find out who they married, and I have also been successful in tracing forward quite a few of these and have the names of who their daughters married, it doesn't make sense that six third cousins would pop up and not one would be linked to a name that I know, especially the ones who have supplied a long list of names.

Hi Jenny,

We're talking about autosomal DNA here, so haplogroups are irrelevant and only the past five or, at most six, generations should be at all relevant.  I have most of the fourth and nearly three-quarters of the fifth generations already mapped out in my tree, with many of their descendants (over one and a half thousand known connections) so it would extremely odd indeed if all the ones that I know of happen to be the only ones who don't take DNA tests.

[AngelaR]

Hi Dudley

My results came in with 2 in the 2nd - 4th cousin range, 16 in the 3rd-5th range and 200+ in the 4th - remote or 5th - remote. I don;t recognise anything at all about the first two sets and haven't looked at the others!

[DudleyWinchurch]

Thanks Angela,

That sounds very similar to mine, except that I have a genuine second cousin who came up as 2nd-3rd, 7 in the 2nd-4th range, 18 in 3rd-5th and again 200+ in 4th-remote or 5th-remote.

I wonder if that is a common pattern for this test.
Sheila

[AngelaR]

Unfortunately none of my family has tested, as far as I know, so I haven't any 'real' finds to test against.

I thought DevonCruwys links were very helpful but am none too sure where to go from here....

[DevonCruwys]

Can I ask if you were also overwhelmed with large numbers of potential cousins?  I was expecting with luck to have maybe up to a dozen to sift through but got 26 "third" or "fourth" cousins and a couple of hundred more distant potential relationships.  The disconcerting thing is that except for the one that I recognise, even the nearer relationships don't seem to make sense. 

Dudley, In case it's of interest here are my stats.

Me: 190 matches
2  second to fourth cousins
23 third to fifth cousins
Remainder fourth to distant cousins or fifth to distant cousins

My dad: 220 matches
2 second to fourth cousins
24 third to fifth cousins
Remainder fourth to distant cousins or fifth to distant cousins

My mum: 170 matches
14 third to fifth cousins

Some of my matches are clearly false positives. When I compared my matches with my parents' matches I found that 18% of matches appeared in my match list but did not match either of my parents. I've not yet found the connection with any of my genetic cousins, but a lot of them are in America and don't know where in the UK their lines are from so there's not much chance of ever finding the connection unless we have a shared surname in common.

I don't think it's worth bothering with the distant cousins unless you do have a surname or geographical location in common.