In February 2019, about 6 months after I introduced the Leeds Method, AncestryDNA introduced their Custom Groups or “Colored Dot” system. These colorful dots worked wonderfully with the Leeds Method! Over the years, I’ve used them in various ways. Earlier this month I presented at CeCe Moore’s i4GG (Institute for Genetic Genealogy). And one of my new methods uses these dots in a slightly different way. But I was frustrated that, despite trying to create a “beautiful” and useful dot labeling system, the dots were getting scrambled! What was happening? Messy Dots Here’s an example of my mom’s DNA results...
Sadly, Ancestry.com has announced they will soon be removing all our DNA matches who share less than 8 cM of DNA with us. We are told that about half of our 7 cM matches are false. But, that also means that about half of them are true! And, though some of these matches will be distant relatives, others are closer and easier to work with. Sometimes, these very small matches provide valuable clues that lead to wonderful discoveries. They can even help us break through our brick walls. My friend, John, was working with his paternal matches last weekend and...
In response to Ancestry’s announcement of DNA changes – including the removal of our matches who share less than 8 cM – Roberta Estes wrote a post titled “Plea to Ancestry – Rethink Match Purge Due to Deleterious Effect on African American Genealogists.” Elizabeth Shown Mills shared this post on Facebook stating that “Culling Ancestry’s gargantuan DNA database certainly will increase its efficiency—but the cost is one our field cannot afford.” She went on to say, “The stance that ‘small’ segments are too ancient and too problematic is a short-sighted stance in a field that is rapidly developing new methodology, new strategies,...
Earlier this week, Ancestry.com announced on a conference call that they were making several big changes in regards to DNA matches. I was not on that call, but I read about the changes on Debbie Kennett’s Cruwys news website. And, last night I saw an announcement on my own Ancestry account. These changes will be taking place starting “in the beginning of August,” so you don’t have much time to save matches…if you want to save any! The Changes Screenshot of Ancestry Updates header Screenshot of Ancestry updates According to the updates, the new changes will affect the following: More Accurate...
Just over 2 years ago, I developed the Leeds Method, which easily organizes your DNA matches into visual clusters usually based on shared ancestral lines. Using that method as a basis, several programmers created automated tools that could cluster our matches faster than my manual method. AutoCluster by Genetic Affairs Of these tools, the one I’ve used and talked about the most about was AutoCluster by Genetic Affairs. Also, more than 95% of the time I ran AutoCluster it was on Ancestry.com – whether I was working on my own brick walls or helping others identify biological parents. But, sadly,...
A common complaint from AncestryDNA users is that matches don’t have trees or have very small trees. But, we can often work with both of these situations and still successfully identify our DNA match and how they’re connected to us. Today’s example is from a small tree. Small Tree This is an example of one of my matches’ actual small tree, though all names have been changed. When you click on the three grandparent names, it also gives a place of death. So, what can I do with this small tree? I can search for other trees that have these...
Jonny Perl of DNA Painter just announced a new tool: Cluster Auto Painter or CAP. Basically, this tool lets you use clusters to “paint” the segments of your DNA matches! Unfortunately, this tool does not work with Ancestry.com since it does not include a chromosome browser. You can find Jonny’s instructions in a blog post here. Example: 23andMe AutoCluster To try this new tool, I used Genetic Affairs and ran a Default AutoCluster with my 23andMe matches. With a range of 250 to 50 cM, the AutoCluster created 6 clusters. (NOTE: I have removed the names from the top and...
Thaddeus and Katharina (Kern) Koechle were my 3x great grandparents who immigrated to America in 1851. They had 6 children who lived to adulthood and had children: Anna, Theresia, Reinhard (my direct ancestor), Gertrude, Louise, and Lena. ThruLines Ignoring a few close family matches, my uncle’s ThruLines suggests DNA matches for 16 descendants of this couple. Adding the shared matches for these 16 matches makes a total of 46 possible DNA match descendants from this couple. AutoCluster clustered 44 of these matches into 10 clusters. Identifying Matches with Traditional Genealogy Using traditional genealogy, I traced half of these matches back...
Who is in a cluster? And how are they related to you? I recently wrote about “Who Is in a Cluster?” and introduced the concept of Mountains and Valleys. I think a better term is the Venn Diagram Effect. This post continues to explain and illustrate that concept. As I mentioned in my last post, when we cluster our DNA matches using either the Leeds Method or an automated adaptation, we usually expect all of the matches in a cluster to be descended from one couple or individual and we expect all of the matches to be related to each other....
We often think that everyone in a cluster is related to each through a common ancestor. Our expectation is something like this: And, we do often see results like this. In this case, the three matches are 2nd cousins (and a 2nd cousin once removed) of the test taker. Mountains and Valleys But, what if your cluster includes both 2nd and 3rd cousins? And, what if there were 3rd cousins from your great grandparents’ paternal and maternal sides? You would have a situation similar to this: In this case, your 2nd cousin would be the “key person” who started the cluster...
