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DNA Analysis Summary 2018 - Sat, 29 Dec 2018

The layout of the DNA match summary by Nancy Jarman-Dunn in a Facebook post in the Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques group caught my eye.

I think I’ll summarize my results this year using Nancy’s layout and update it every year in the future to see my progress. I keep track of this information in a page for that purpose in OneNote. But I haven’t summarized it until now.

Not counting my uncle, who I had tested, these are my numbers:

Ancestry – I have figured out the exact connection to 8 people
Ancestry – I have communicated since the discovery with 3 of them.
Ancestry – I have 27 people who Ancestry says are 90 cM or closer.
Ancestry – Of the 27, I’ve connected 5 and the other 22 should be possible.

23andMe – I have figured out the exact connection to 5 people
23andMe – I have communicated since the discovery with 2 of them.
23andMe – I have 15 people who 23andMe says are 1.3% or closer.
23andMe – Of the 15, I’ve connected 4 and the other 11 should be possible.

FTDNA – I have figured out the exact connection to 1 person.
FTDNA – I have communicated since the discovery with him.
FTDNA – I have 43 people who FTDNA says are 140 cM or closer.
FTDNA – Of the 43, I’ve connected 0 and all 43 should be possible.

MyHeritage – I have figured out the exact connection to 0 people.
MyHeritage – I have 37 people who MyHeritage says are 90 cM or closer.
MyHeritage – Of the 37, I’ve connected 0 and all 37 should be possible.

LivingDNA – I have figured out the exact connection to 0 people.
LivingDNA – I have 3 people who LivingDNA says are 90 cM or closer.
LivingDNA – Of the 3, I’ve connected 0 and all 3 should be possible.

GEDmatch – I have figured out the exact connection to 2 people.
GEDmatch – I have communicated since the discovery with both of them.
GEDmatch – I have 155 people who GEDmatch says are 90 cM or closer.
GEDmatch – Of the 155, I’ve connected 1 and the other 154 should be possible.

I picked 90 cM which is 1.3% as the cutoff which has a 90% chance of being 3rd cousins once removed or closer. For FTDNA, I used 140 cM (2.0%) because they include small segments in their totals that the other companies don’t.

I expect that a year from now, the numbers of matches I have at these thresholds should go up because of new testers. But more importantly, a year from now, I hope/expect I’ll have figured out the exact connection to many more of my close DNA matches through research and using new tools that appear during the year (including Version 3.0 of Double Match Triangulator). When it comes down to it, these new connections are the important results you want from your DNA matches.



DNA Tools

There were many new DNA tools made available during 2018. The ones I found most interesting included:

The latter program, Genetic Affairs, among other things it does, gave my most interesting result of the year. It produced the following genetic network for my Ancestry DNA matches using a Leeds-type of methodology:

image

Despite my endogamy (all the grey squares), I was able to assign about 90 of my Ancestry DNA relatives to a particular ancestor in about 12 of the clusters. That was very useful information that will very much help me identify how those matches are exactly related to me.

I also tried and found some use out of the following DNA tools this year:

All these genetic genealogy programs and more are listed at GenSoftReviews, awaiting your review and rating of them.



Genetic Genealogy Facebook Groups

Prior to 2018, there really was no one place to go to discuss your genetic genealogy problems with others. But this year, that all changed, and many useful independently run Facebook groups came into being.

Other than the pages of the DNA companies themselves, in 2018 I joined and started participating in these Facebook groups:

These are all closed groups, but they’ll let anyone in who has an interest in what they discuss.

I also joined a number of groups related to my own genealogy research as well as some Facebook groups created for some of the DNA tools I use.

It seems with the impending closure of Google Plus next year and the problems at RootsWeb since it was taken over by Ancestry, that Facebook Groups have become the go-to place for your genealogical discussions.



Genealogy Questions and Answers

I should also mention that the Genealogy & Family History Q&A site is still the go-to place for your genealogy and genetic genealogy questions and answers. The site now has 260 excellent questions tagged DNA. I personally have participated in asking or answering 84 of those questions.

This site is a tremendous resource for genealogists but is not well advertised and much under-utilized.

2 Comments           comments Leave a Comment

1. jbissett (jbissett)
United States flag
Joined: Thu, 12 Jan 2017
14 blog comments, 0 forum posts
Posted: Sat, 29 Dec 2018  Permalink

Hi Louis,
I’m quite surprised that I don’t see Steven Fox’es terrific Visual Phasing Excel based tool in your listing.
Joe

2. Louis Kessler (lkessler)
Canada flag
Joined: Sun, 9 Mar 2003
287 blog comments, 245 forum posts
Posted: Sat, 29 Dec 2018  Permalink

Joe, that’s because I’ve never got into Visual Phasing as I have no sets of siblings that have tested with whom I’d be able to use the technique. But yes, for those who have 3 siblings or more, Visual Phasing is a great tool.

 

The Following 1 Site Has Linked Here

  1. Genetic Affairs - Blog posts and YouTube : Wed, 27 Sep 2023
    "Various blog posts and YouTube clips have been created concerning the usage of AutoCluster of Genetic Affairs."

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