>From my perspective, and that of those around me geographically who I know have also taken an atDNA test, I have to disagree. For two reasons. First, we're on the east coast and many of our lines have been here since the 1600s (southern US, but I'm sure the same is true for many north of us as well) so we know the chances are slim that we're going to find that 9th+ cousin in the UK who ties us to our immigrant ancestor. Second, at least for me, I have MANY female lines that I cannot identify. I am completely jealous of those who have had such great luck in ID'ing 17th and 18th century female lines. I'm hoping this testing will connect me to someone who either has the answers or that will allow me to make the connections on my own at some point in the future. Of those lines of mine that are more recent that are immigrants (say from the 1750s onwards) that are non-English, ie. German or Swiss, I have no desire to trace them any further back in Germany or Switzerland simply because I don't want to try to decipher 18th century Germany (I can read it) or try to translate whatever amalgamation of French, German, Italian or Latin was spoken in Switzerland in 1750. This leaves me with only two 5th great grandparents who were probably Irish immigrants in the early 1800s that I would be moderately interested in identifying. I'd be more inclined if their last name wasn't so common in Ireland: both were Camerons and neither was related to the other. On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 6:55 AM, Diana Gale Matthiesen <[email protected]>wrote: > I think you can't assume the autosomal databases are representative > samples of the U.S. population, much less the global population. My > impression is that the majority of people using DNA testing services > to aid their genealogy are Americans searching for their European > roots. > > Europeans still living in Europe don't need to search because they > already know where they're from, and recent immigrants don't need to > search because they still remember where they're from. We are mostly > sampling from limited populations of European emigrants, populations > that severely bottle-necked in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. > > I wish I could remember the quote, but I think it was from Gary Boyd > Roberts, to the effect that tens of millions of Americans can trace > their ancestry to a core group of about 600 early immigrants to New > England. I've no doubt there's are similar groups of key progenitors > in other colonial populations. In Roberts's book on the genealogy of > Princess Diana, he estimates that she has 20 million American cousins > through her American great-grandmother, Frances (WORK) BURKE-ROCHE. > > I think it's no surprise that we are finding more connections than you > would expect from a database that's a random sample of the global > population, or even the U.S. population, because it isn't a random > sample, much less a representative sample, it's a highly biased > sample. > > Diana > > > > > From: Ann Turner > > Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:49 PM > > > <snip> > > > > I have got to think more about the statistics here. Obviously we are > > going > > to hear a disproportionate number of success stories, just because > > they're > > so much fun. But it strikes me that we are hearing too many stories > > for the > > one-in-a-million number to hold true. I have a 2nd cousin once > > removed at > > 23andMe who tested because his daughter worked at Illumina and got a > > free > > kit. I tested a known cousin at FTDNA, and when she got her results > > back, > > she recognized the name of a 3rd cousin once removed from another > > side of > > her family. > <snip> > > > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Karen I've tried to calculate this based on about 3380cM which we share with a parent (others with parent matches can post their experience). But at the 4th cousin level it's no feasible to divide two numbers to get a segment length, because a 4th cousin will likely show up with a segment on several chromosomes; and you have to consider that at each generation you and the match will "drift apart" in the amount shared. However, based on my experience so far one segment from a fourth cousin would be about 30cM. Perhaps the best way to learn this number is from examples of others. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On May 16, 2012, at 5:07 AM, Karen Hodges <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Parents and 1st cousins - virtually 100 percent >>> 2nd cousins about 99 percent >>> 3rd cousins about 90 percent >>> 4th cousins about 50 percent >>> declining percentages beyond that >> > > Hi Ann > > Can you tell me what size segments are typical of a fourth cousin, 50% ? > > Karen > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I think you can't assume the autosomal databases are representative samples of the U.S. population, much less the global population. My impression is that the majority of people using DNA testing services to aid their genealogy are Americans searching for their European roots. Europeans still living in Europe don't need to search because they already know where they're from, and recent immigrants don't need to search because they still remember where they're from. We are mostly sampling from limited populations of European emigrants, populations that severely bottle-necked in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. I wish I could remember the quote, but I think it was from Gary Boyd Roberts, to the effect that tens of millions of Americans can trace their ancestry to a core group of about 600 early immigrants to New England. I've no doubt there's are similar groups of key progenitors in other colonial populations. In Roberts's book on the genealogy of Princess Diana, he estimates that she has 20 million American cousins through her American great-grandmother, Frances (WORK) BURKE-ROCHE. I think it's no surprise that we are finding more connections than you would expect from a database that's a random sample of the global population, or even the U.S. population, because it isn't a random sample, much less a representative sample, it's a highly biased sample. Diana > From: Ann Turner > Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 1:49 PM > <snip> > > I have got to think more about the statistics here. Obviously we are > going > to hear a disproportionate number of success stories, just because > they're > so much fun. But it strikes me that we are hearing too many stories > for the > one-in-a-million number to hold true. I have a 2nd cousin once > removed at > 23andMe who tested because his daughter worked at Illumina and got a > free > kit. I tested a known cousin at FTDNA, and when she got her results > back, > she recognized the name of a 3rd cousin once removed from another > side of > her family. <snip>

Dr Turner, I once constructed a spreadsheet specifically for atDNA. Empirically I found the number to be closer to 10,000 than 1,000,000. I got into a discussion with someone(Tim Jansen?) about a related subject. The thing that we both agreed on was that the order of magnitude of the number should be around 10,000. I abandoned the effort as trying to keep the trees synchronized required more effort than the small, 10,000 tree benefit. So, if both parties have all 10,000 ancestors and descendants of those ancestors in both of their trees with no errors, the chances of find 3rd or even 4th cousin matches should be quite good. My main tree is 40,000 plus names and includes numerous tree fragments attached to various DNA and other potential matches. A periodic "janitorial" that resolves duplicate entries finds most of my matches. Sam ------------------------------------------------ "5. Even if I go back 4 generations, am I likely to randomly match any true 3rd cousins? NO!! because you need a database of over a million to find that one in a million 3rd cousin. Even if you have more than 300 3rd cousins alive today, there are over 300 million people living in the U.S. Does FTDNA test that many people? No."

Jim, are these probabilities cumulative in the sense that the percentage given is for some relationship more distant than the one cited or less distant or exactly the one cited?  I actually want to know why my wife has far more proven relatives of her father on 23&Me than the total number of relatives he has on FTDNA. John L Jim B wrote TDNA has posted the probabilities of a specific relative passing theirfilter and showing up as a match with us.Parents and 1st cousins - virtually 100 percent2nd cousins about 99 percent3rd cousins about 90 percent4th cousins about 50 percentdeclining percentages beyond that On

Ann I think the figures need to be turned on their head. It's not the current population that's important but the historic population. I only have access to figures for Britain and Ireland. There are stats on this page: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/pop.html At 30 years a generation, 10 generations takes us back to 1700. Of that population of just over six and a half million presumably quite a large number would already be genetically related so the effective pool of ancestors might be in the region of perhaps half a million. And of course we're looking for matches not just on one line but on all our lines. At ten generations we have 1024 direct ancestors. My impression is that all the confirmed cousins are found in colonial American lines as these people tend to be related not just on one line but on multiple lines. I've got about 500 matches at 23andMe and my mum and dad between them have about 150 matches at FTDNA, but I still haven't been able to identify a single shared common ancestor. It doesn't help from my point of view that most of my matches, and especially those at 23andMe, are with people in America who don't know where in the UK their ancestors are from. Even with my few matches with Brits and Australians I've still not been able to find a link. Debbie Kennett http://cruwys.blogspot.com

My post was limited in scope -- what are the chances of finding a *random* match that turns out to be close as a 3rd cousin or so? I'm still thinking about why we hear anecdotal reports as often as we do. Kimberly Powell found a close cousin in all three of the databases: FTDNA, 23andMe, and AncestryDNA. Ann Turner On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:40 PM, Debbie Kennett <[email protected]>wrote: > Ann > > I think the figures need to be turned on their head. It's not the current > population that's important but the historic population. I only have access > to figures for Britain and Ireland. There are stats on this page: > > http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/pop.html > > At 30 years a generation, 10 generations takes us back to 1700. Of that > population of just over six and a half million presumably quite a large > number would already be genetically related so the effective pool of > ancestors might be in the region of perhaps half a million. And of course > we're looking for matches not just on one line but on all our lines. At ten > generations we have 1024 direct ancestors. > > My impression is that all the confirmed cousins are found in colonial > American lines as these people tend to be related not just on one line but > on multiple lines. I've got about 500 matches at 23andMe and my mum and dad > between them have about 150 matches at FTDNA, but I still haven't been able > to identify a single shared common ancestor. It doesn't help from my point > of view that most of my matches, and especially those at 23andMe, are with > people in America who don't know where in the UK their ancestors are from. > Even with my few matches with Brits and Australians I've still not been > able > to find a link. > > Debbie Kennett > http://cruwys.blogspot.com >

My husband has had good luck with his Family Finder results. His ancestry is early colonial but with lines going back to France, The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, England and Scotland as well as a few other countries in continental Europe. Principally he is about 25% French, about 25% German, about 25% Dutch and the other 25% includes about 10% English. He has at least 20 matches that go back to his loyalist ancestors who left from New York City in 1783 and came to New Brunswick. They are all in his Parlee, Folkins, Burt, Allen and Crouse lines. He has corresponded with them through FT DNA contact. For myself I do not have any concrete matches other than my brother. I come from a smallish family with my father being an only child and my mother's only sibling did not have children. Back the next generation my maternal grandfather was basically an only child as none of his siblings survived to adulthood, my maternal grandmother had four siblings with only two of them with children and they are all American and not yet into testing, my paternal grandmother had only half-siblings and no one has tested (they all live in England still), my paternal grandfather had eleven siblings but my line and the line of his youngest brother is the only one with whom I am in contact (they live in England and have not yet tested, his other siblings did have children but they did not and have died except for one brother also in Canada but I haven't been able to get in contact with his descendants). I can go back another generation with almost a similar story as my family lines are small going back. My three grandparents were born in England and lived there to adulthood and beyond for my father's parents as he too was born in England and came here as a child of nine years in 1913. In Family Finder most of my matches are colonial America although a few of my surnames do pop up and I am able to give possible hints to people researching their line. One was able to go back to his Ellis line in Dorset which rather thrilled him! He is still working on the direct connection between my Ellis and his (my Sarah Ellis was baptized 5 Aug 1756 at Winterborne Stickland the daughter of Ellis Ellis and Sarah Wellspring who were themselves married 7 Mar 1738 at Winterborne Stickland). Ellis (baptized 22 Jul 1719 at Winterborne Stickland)'s father was Thomas Ellis and his mother Mary Bound and they married 27 Dec 1703 at Winterborne Stickland. Success stories are occurring and mostly for Americans I suspect. Until more people in England test and they do need a reason to test linking lines is not going to happen any to quickly. For instance, I know my ancestry well back into the 1600s and earlier for almost all of my lines (all English; some Scot). I tested because of the National Genographic Project producing a world wide migration map but I became thoroughly drawn into the idea of testing to understand my deep ancestry and that of my Blake family. yDNA testing my Blake line produced a new twist actually. My Blake lines goes back to a Mr. Blake married to Jone Blake who left a will in 1527 naming their children of which one was Nicholas Blake who also left a will in 1547 and so it continues. My only even close "match" is 9/12 and the individual with I2a2b traces back to Ireland. One is left to wonder why my ancestor came from Ireland to England in the 1400s or was it that someone in my line went to Ireland. Since it is not a perfect match and we are separated by a thousand years give or take more people testing would certainly illuminate this line. To go with that are all the Blake genealogies which make use of my Nicholas in an absolutely incorrect way (thanks to the writings of Horatio Somerby a noted fraud writing genealogies for Americans in the 1800s). More people testing their Blake yDNA would be absolutely wonderful. Elizabeth (Blake) Kipp, BA, PLCGS BLAKE-one-name-study, PINCOMBE-one-name-study Guild of one-name studies #4600 Webpage: http://www.kipp-blake-families.ca/ Blog: http://kippeeb.blogspot.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Debbie Kennett" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:40 PM Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Kimberly Powell blog post on AncestryDNA > My impression is that all the confirmed cousins are found in colonial > American lines as these people tend to be related not just on one line but > on multiple lines. I've got about 500 matches at 23andMe and my mum and > dad > between them have about 150 matches at FTDNA, but I still haven't been > able > to identify a single shared common ancestor. It doesn't help from my point > of view that most of my matches, and especially those at 23andMe, are with > people in America who don't know where in the UK their ancestors are from. > Even with my few matches with Brits and Australians I've still not been > able > to find a link.

Ann, FTDNA has posted the probabilities of a specific relative passing their filter and showing up as a match with us. Parents and 1st cousins - virtually 100 percent 2nd cousins about 99 percent 3rd cousins about 90 percent 4th cousins about 50 percent declining percentages beyond that And so some people literally throw in the towel at 5th cousin and beyond. But that's wrong! These are percentages of a specific person that we might select for testing. And it's true that if we get a 5th cousin to test, he/she probably won't show up as a match. BUT, we have many, many 5th cousins; and when you multiply the large number of 5th cousins times the small percentage that a specific one will match, the odds are higher that you'll get a match with a 5th cousin that with a 4th cousin. You'll actually get more 6th cousins than 5th - I think it probably levels off at about 7th or 8th cousins. Think about how many matches you have, and the fact that you and your match would probably recognize a 3rd cousinship. So those matches must be more distant. Look at it another way. Look at the number of shared cM for a close match that you do have. How many of your matches share that amount of atDNA with you - very few. Most of our matches are in the 8-12cM range. Well at that range they are probably 7th cousins or so. If you believe the 1-in-a-million type of statement, then you must be thinking that virtually none of the matches reported to your are related - that's silly. Most of them are related, we just can find the relationship. IMO Jim Bartlett On 05/15/12, Ann Turner<[email protected]> wrote: [1]http://genealogy.about.com/b/2012/05/15/autosomal-dna-testing.htm?nl=1 I want to post something sometime in that very interesting long thread about GEDCOM files, but this article mentions finding close connections at all three autosomal testing services. Quoting Kathy Johnston from that thread "5. Even if I go back 4 generations, am I likely to randomly match any true 3rd cousins? NO!! because you need a database of over a million to find that one in a million 3rd cousin. Even if you have more than 300 3rd cousins alive today, there are over 300 million people living in the U.S. Does FTDNA test that many people? No." I have got to think more about the statistics here. Obviously we are going to hear a disproportionate number of success stories, just because they're so much fun. But it strikes me that we are hearing too many stories for the one-in-a-million number to hold true. I have a 2nd cousin once removed at 23andMe who tested because his daughter worked at Illumina and got a free kit. I tested a known cousin at FTDNA, and when she got her results back, she recognized the name of a 3rd cousin once removed from another side of her family. I do think FTDNA overcalls the 3rd cousin bin, relying too much on the length of the longest segments. Confirmed 3rd cousins tend to have multiple segments over 5 cM in length. But why are we seeing so many stories about confirmed close cousins? Just thinking out loud here -- maybe this is related to the "birthday paradox": [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem Ann Turner References 1. http://genealogy.about.com/b/2012/05/15/autosomal-dna-testing.htm?nl=1 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

Jim, I think you (and Debbie, too) are expanding the scope of my message beyond what I intended. It was specifically limited to 3rd cousins and Kathy Johnston's statement that the odds of finding a *random* match as close as a 3rd cousin were one-in-a-million. My response was that it seems like we are seeing too many anecdotal reports of success for that number to make sense, but I need to think more about the statistics. I don't disagree with you about the large number of distant cousins, but we need to be extremely cautious about attributing the matching segment to a specific common ancestor. Remember how you and my nephew had a matching segment based on genotype data? It triggered my search through your genealogy file at RootsWeb, where your paper trail broke through a brick wall for me. Later I realized that the segment was not present in my sister or her husband, a red flag for Identity by State. In fact, it turned out to be a pseudo-segment when I looked at haplotype data. Ann On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 3:45 PM, Jim Bartlett <[email protected]>wrote: > > Ann, > > FTDNA has posted the probabilities of a specific relative passing their > filter and showing up as a match with us. > > Parents and 1st cousins - virtually 100 percent > 2nd cousins about 99 percent > 3rd cousins about 90 percent > 4th cousins about 50 percent > declining percentages beyond that > > And so some people literally throw in the towel at 5th cousin and beyond. > But that's wrong! These are percentages of a specific person that we > might > select for testing. And it's true that if we get a 5th cousin to test, > he/she probably won't show up as a match. > > BUT, we have many, many 5th cousins; and when you multiply the large > number > of 5th cousins times the small percentage that a specific one will match, > the odds are higher that you'll get a match with a 5th cousin that with a > 4th cousin. You'll actually get more 6th cousins than 5th - I think it > probably levels off at about 7th or 8th cousins. > > Think about how many matches you have, and the fact that you and your > match > would probably recognize a 3rd cousinship. So those matches must be more > distant. > > Look at it another way. Look at the number of shared cM for a close match > that you do have. How many of your matches share that amount of atDNA > with > you - very few. Most of our matches are in the 8-12cM range. Well at that > range they are probably 7th cousins or so. > > If you believe the 1-in-a-million type of statement, then you must be > thinking that virtually none of the matches reported to your are related > - > that's silly. Most of them are related, we just can find the > relationship. > > IMO > > Jim Bartlett > > On 05/15/12, Ann Turner<[email protected]> wrote: > > [1] > http://genealogy.about.com/b/2012/05/15/autosomal-dna-testing.htm?nl=1 > I want to post something sometime in that very interesting long thread > about GEDCOM files, but this article mentions finding close connections > at > all three autosomal testing services. Quoting Kathy Johnston from that > thread > "5. Even if I go back 4 generations, am I likely to randomly match any > true > 3rd cousins? NO!! because you need a database of over a million to find > that one in a million 3rd cousin. Even if you have more than 300 3rd > cousins alive today, there are over 300 million people living in the U.S. > Does FTDNA test that many people? No." > I have got to think more about the statistics here. Obviously we are > going > to hear a disproportionate number of success stories, just because > they're > so much fun. But it strikes me that we are hearing too many stories for > the > one-in-a-million number to hold true. I have a 2nd cousin once removed at > 23andMe who tested because his daughter worked at Illumina and got a free > kit. I tested a known cousin at FTDNA, and when she got her results back, > she recognized the name of a 3rd cousin once removed from another side of > her family. > I do think FTDNA overcalls the 3rd cousin bin, relying too much on the > length of the longest segments. Confirmed 3rd cousins tend to have > multiple > segments over 5 cM in length. But why are we seeing so many stories about > confirmed close cousins? Just thinking out loud here -- maybe this is > related to the "birthday paradox": > [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem > Ann Turner > > References > > 1. > http://genealogy.about.com/b/2012/05/15/autosomal-dna-testing.htm?nl=1 > 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Perhaps I didn't explain well enough. It hasn't been that long since many American genealogists (especially men) focused on their surname and direct male lineage, ignoring even siblings. Females appeared as wives and mothers. Alex Haley's _Roots_ helped shift the emphasis. Not having a fixed surname is still today a strong disincentive for genealogy DNA testing. I agree that it should be a strong incentive to test, but that is not how it is working out. This attitude about surnames affects autosomal testing, as well as Y testing. Too nebulous. Genealogy DNA is mostly an American and Canadian thing. People in the Old World "know" where they're from. Likewise many descendants of recent immigrants feel that way. Perhaps the two current TV programs will affect this attitude. I wish the emphasis on DNA were stronger in the programs. Most of the match inquiries I'm getting on 23andMe are from people who have not gone far enough back on the paper trail to see where we match. A genealogy program worth its salt permits unlimited length of names and an unlimited number of variant and also-known-as names, sorted chronologically. That includes GEDCOM utilities. Let me know when GEDCOM does that. Meanwhile, prospective contacts can look at my long list of names and places on 23andMe. A JPEG ancestor box chart for each of my parents is available. --Ida Skarson McCormick, [email protected] ---------------- From: [email protected] Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 4:40 AM There are other reasons not yet mentioned for avoiding GEDCOMs. GEDCOM needs to go the way of the dodo. GEDCOMs are inadequate for names from other cultures, that is, ones which did not have fixed surnames and ones which require a good deal more space than the standard American name to identify a person. The GEDCOMs get very messy. <snip>

http://genealogy.about.com/b/2012/05/15/autosomal-dna-testing.htm?nl=1 I want to post something sometime in that very interesting long thread about GEDCOM files, but this article mentions finding close connections at all three autosomal testing services. Quoting Kathy Johnston from that thread "5. Even if I go back 4 generations, am I likely to randomly match any true 3rd cousins? NO!! because you need a database of over a million to find that one in a million 3rd cousin. Even if you have more than 300 3rd cousins alive today, there are over 300 million people living in the U.S. Does FTDNA test that many people? No." I have got to think more about the statistics here. Obviously we are going to hear a disproportionate number of success stories, just because they're so much fun. But it strikes me that we are hearing too many stories for the one-in-a-million number to hold true. I have a 2nd cousin once removed at 23andMe who tested because his daughter worked at Illumina and got a free kit. I tested a known cousin at FTDNA, and when she got her results back, she recognized the name of a 3rd cousin once removed from another side of her family. I do think FTDNA overcalls the 3rd cousin bin, relying too much on the length of the longest segments. Confirmed 3rd cousins tend to have multiple segments over 5 cM in length. But why are we seeing so many stories about confirmed close cousins? Just thinking out loud here -- maybe this is related to the "birthday paradox": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem Ann Turner

Congrats Roberta! That is a really a great success! (I wish that would happen with my Stoalabarger brickwall!) Diana, How lucky are you?! That is amazing! You are so right about TV increasing the visibility of DNA testing and genealogy and, in turn, our databases. Unfortunately, both of the genealogy shows will end next week. Let's hope that someone else comes out with another one quickly! It seems to take Skip Gates about two years to come out with a new series and with WDYTYA cancelled, where will we get our new recruits from? :-( Enjoy those letters! (I know you will!!) CeCe www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com www.studiointv.com > Congratulations! For me, these are the moments that make all the > testing worthwhile. > > Whenever I get discouraged, I remind myself that genealogy is becoming > ever more popularized on TV. Surely that has to translate to an ever > increasing DNA database and an ever increasing hope that there are > there are more of these moments to come... > > In fact, yesterday I got an email from the Ohio Genealogical Society > informing me that have scans of letters written to my GG-grandmother > by one of her sons. They wouldn't have know to email me, except a > member of my Y-DNA surname project suggested they contact me. Not an > expected way for DNA testing to have helped my genealogy, but welcome > nonetheless! (Can't wait to see the scans... she's one of my brick > walls.) > > Diana > > > > From: Roberta Estes > > Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 11:24 PM (SNIP) > > I got a refreshing "gift". One of my matches who lives > > in Poland e-mailed me and he has found one of his Polish > > ancestors was from Germany and shares a rather unusual > > German surname with me.

Diana, I have been told that some are already doing that over at 23andMe, so a number of people have joined here who do not subscribe to the other lists. I think it is a great idea! CeCe www.yourgeneticgenealogist.com www.studiointv.com > From: [email protected] > Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 07:49:06 -0400 > I was just emailing some of my FF matches, ones who haven't uploaded > GEDCOMs, and it occurred to me to suggest to them that they subscribe > to this list. The hope is that perhaps subscribing to the list will > stimulate them to become more involved in making use of their test > results. I would like to recommend that you do the same. This is the > text I'm adding to the end of my messages: > > You might find subscribing to this mailing list at RootsWeb helpful, I > know I do: > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/DNA/AUTOSOMAL-DNA.html > > As long as you're emailing them, anyway... > > Diana >

You still have to manually edit your surname list if you want locations and dates to appear beside the names. I don't understand why they won't let you upload a csv file for those. I've had to manually edit the same 5 pages of names for me, my father and an uncle. Very boring. On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:24 AM, Jim Bartlett <[email protected]erizon.net>wrote: > I loaded my GEDcom at FTDNA today and the software asked me which name > went with the DNA - so I highlighted my name (number 1 on the list) and it > correctly loaded my 12 generations. I the used the same GEDcom for my > father's account, and this time highlighted his name, and the software > selected the correct 12 generations that go with him. Amazing! I had been > dreading spending the whole evening deleting half my GEDcom for his upload > - what a treat for that to be done for me by one click. > > Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! > > On May 14, 2012, at 12:08 PM, Walter J Freeman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 5/14/2012 4:40 AM, [email protected] wrote: > >> I would need separate GEDCOMs for my parents who were from 2 different > >> parts of the world. Their ancestral paths didn't cross. Therefore, it is > >> necessary to concentrate heavily on the geography. > >> > >> > >> --Ida Skarson McCormick, [email protected] > >> > >> In the begining, FTDNA required separate GEDCOMs for the maternal and > the paternal line. This is no longer the case. In fact, it is much easier > for all, if one just uploads an Ancestor tree GEDCOM so that both maternal > and paternal lines are displayed. > > Like you, Ida, my maternal and paternal ancestral lines did not cross > > and could not be more different in origin, but that is no reason not to > > upload both in a single GEDCOM. > > > > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

I've found that some are merged. For those you can choose either the male or female line and you get the same view. If they merge them again then they'll have all names duplicated and I've seen that as well because it happened to mine early last year. On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Diana Gale Matthiesen <[email protected]>wrote: > I just sent this message to the FTDNA HelpDesk ( [email protected] ): > > I'd swear it used to say on our member pages that you were going to > *merge*, not *purge*, the separate Paternal and Maternal GEDCOMs > attached to our accounts by the end of the year. I'm distressed to > see this change because it means deceased members without living > contacts will then lack GEDCOMs, entirely. This is a dreadful loss of > valuable information. Test results without lineages are virtually > useless. > > I urge you to *merge* the existing GEDCOMs, not purge any that are > still existing on the cut off date. I fully realize how much more > work that is for you, but what you are proposing is a bad move for > your clientele. At the very least, if the subject is male, save the > Paternal GEDCOM; likewise, if the subject is female, save the Maternal > GEDCOM. > > Or, you could just leave well enough alone. > > Diana > > > > ______________________________ > For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: > http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

There is now a place to enter a Beneficiary. We should be filling in that one because, otherwise, an heir is going to have to prove they inherited the client's estate to gain access to the account. Diana > From: Jim Bartlett > Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 7:17 AM > > Diana > > I only loaded one GEDcom for my account, and used the same GEDcom to > upload to a different account. So now each account has one correct > GEDcom. And as you previously stated, it automatically populated the > surname list in the account that didn't have such a list. Thanks for > that info. > > For deceased donors, it's important to get a living persons email > address entered as the primary email for that account, so updates > can be made in the future. Each person should think about this for > accounts for their elders.

I was just emailing some of my FF matches, ones who haven't uploaded GEDCOMs, and it occurred to me to suggest to them that they subscribe to this list. The hope is that perhaps subscribing to the list will stimulate them to become more involved in making use of their test results. I would like to recommend that you do the same. This is the text I'm adding to the end of my messages: You might find subscribing to this mailing list at RootsWeb helpful, I know I do: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/DNA/AUTOSOMAL-DNA.html As long as you're emailing them, anyway... Diana

Congratulations! For me, these are the moments that make all the testing worthwhile. Whenever I get discouraged, I remind myself that genealogy is becoming ever more popularized on TV. Surely that has to translate to an ever increasing DNA database and an ever increasing hope that there are there are more of these moments to come... In fact, yesterday I got an email from the Ohio Genealogical Society informing me that have scans of letters written to my GG-grandmother by one of her sons. They wouldn't have know to email me, except a member of my Y-DNA surname project suggested they contact me. Not an expected way for DNA testing to have helped my genealogy, but welcome nonetheless! (Can't wait to see the scans... she's one of my brick walls.) Diana > From: Roberta Estes > Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 11:24 PM > > Like everyone else, I have the full complement of matches > who don't answer, matches that seem to be more than > unlikely and matches that are tantalizingly close, but > no cigar. And yes, it is discouraging, but tonight > I got a refreshing "gift". One of my matches who lives > in Poland e-mailed me and he has found one of his Polish > ancestors was from Germany and shares a rather unusual > German surname with me. > > Now not only was this a surprise from a man living in a > country I have no ancestors from, but also a surprise > that I didn't have to do all or the majority of the > footwork. However, I think this is only the second > time anything like this has happened.

Diana I only loaded one GEDcom for my account, and used the same GEDcom to upload to a different account. So now each account has one correct GEDcom. And as you previously stated, it automatically populated the surname list in the account that didn't have such a list. Thanks for that info. For deceased donors, it's important to get a living persons email address entered as the primary email for that account, so updates can be made in the future. Each person should think about this for accounts for their elders. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On May 15, 2012, at 6:42 AM, "Diana Gale Matthiesen" <[email protected]> wrote: > Sounds like they've fixed what was wrong with the upload mechanism > because that's what I wasn't able to do, before: that is, just change > the "root" person in the file and have it work. > > By the way, if you still have two GEDCOMs uploaded, note that by the > end of the year, these files will be purged from your account. You > need to upload a combined GEDCOM by that time. > > I rather wish they wouldn't purge these old GEDCOMs because there are > deceased individuals who will then have no GEDCOM, at all. The note > on our member page used to say they would *merge* the files by the end > of 2012, not purge them. I think we ought to pressure FTDNA to go > back to merging them. I can see why they don't want to merge them - > it's much more work for them. But it's their bad planning that they > created this situation, so I think they should bite the bullet and > take the harder, but better solution. > > Diana >