Sam What is the "big issue" about unphased data? As always, my reference is to genealogy. I can see where it would help, some, to know if a match was on my Dad or Mom's side, but SURNAMES and geography can help there, too. And even if I knew which parent my match was on, I still wouldn't know which grandparent. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On Jan 6, 2012, at 12:43 PM, Sam Eaton <[email protected]> wrote: > Larry hit the nail smack dab on the head. > > One thing to remember is that we are dealing with unphased data. From observing RAW DATA in my FF project, this is a big issue. > > ... > > Sam

Dear Jim, I agree that it pays to concentrate on your matches at either FF or 23andMe that are over 10 cMs. If you chose to contact people who are matching you at less than 8 cM or so you need to keep in mind that a significant percentage of these matches will be IBS unless one of your children also matches them on the same segment, in which case they will be IBD. Ideally, you would like to phase your data and then compare your phased data to that of your matches. The only way you can do that is to test two parent/one child trios and then use a phasing program like the one I wrote or David Pike's to compare your phased data with that of your matches. In order to do this, your matches would need to share their raw data file with you. I suspect that many people won't be willing to do that. Ideally everyone would be downloading their raw data files and uploading them GEDmatch where you could do comparisons using phased data. So far neither 23andMe or FTDNA have made a move to phase their data. I talked to Bennett Greenspan about doing this for Family Finder in November, but he was reluctant to spend the money on the programming needed to phase the data for the two parent/one child trios that he currently has in FF. As I have mentioned before, we all need to be mapping our chromosomes so we know as best as possible which ancestral line each DNA segment came from. In your particular case, you have quite a few matches who could be distant cousins (6th-10th cousins). What you need to do is test as many 2nd and 3rd cousins as feasible from the lines you think you match your other distant cousins on to see if the DNA segments you share with those distant cousins came through the ancestral lines you think they could have come from. Using phased data for doing the comparisons would also be of big help to you if you could get your matches to share their raw data file with you. You could then quickly tell which of your matches are simply IBS. Sincerely, Tim -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Bartlett Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 10:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] SUBJECT: How do you work a 5 way FF match with few clues ? Tim, Walden's table looks very similar to the percentages that FTDNA uses to indicate what percentage of your cousins will show up as a match with Family Finder... Are these the same? This would mean most of your cousins would be listed, but a percent would be IBS, and so not atDNA cousins. I don't think this is the case because I have a number of known cousins, with atDNA tests, who do not match me (FF or 23) So the other option is that FTDNA's percent eliminates some of your cousins from appearing on the match list, and Walden's table eliminates a percentage of these from being atDNA cousins. This is really whittling down the true matches. And worse yet, the unphased don't know which are which. If I do understand this, we can't rely on the list from, say, FTDNA. We need to manually?, or with some software, determine if the A in AG is from Mom or Dad, and do this for our whole raw data (how many ACTGs?). And then how do we compare this with the long segments of our matches? Is this part of the FTDNA and 23&me programs I haven't found yet? Or do I need 3rd party help. Now I'm just trying to see how I get this info, and then how I use it with my list of matches to capture the ones who are IBD. I guess one way is to cull out everyone below 10cM. Now I'm catching on. But this will eliminate most of my matches... It also covers a number of folks with whom I've already found common ancestry - the point here being that we might be cousins, but we probably don't share a large IBD segment... Jim -

Ann >From Larry's explanation, it seems our matches from long segments would rarely match a haplotype of one of our two parents. It would not even match the haplotype of one of the parents of our match. (I hope I'm using haplotype properly here) The matching process accepts any combination from either person (from either parent of either person), and then moves to the next location, looking for a match. I come back to what I thought I understood, which was that this could happen in short segments, but the 7.7cM cutoff was chosen because "usually" such a long segment of matches would only occur between folks who got that long segment from their Common Ancestor. This means to me that the entire long segment was from an Ancestor on the father's side or the mother's side. And therefor all the ACTGs in the matching segment were from one side. Otherwise I don't see the FF test as being much help to genealogists. Or we need to shift the cutoff? I believe some large segments survive somewhat longer than advertised by FTDNA, and our inability to find Common Ancestors stems from the fact that we don't know enough of our Ancestry. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On Jan 6, 2012, at 6:00 PM, Ann Turner <[email protected]> wrote: > It could be a sign that some of those segments are Identical by State. As > noted by others in this thread, we're looking at genotypes, where we don't > know which allele came from each parent. If you could split the genotypes > into their two haplotypes, this would clarify the picture. That generally > takes father/mother/child trio data, though. For the initial query in this > thread, pair-wise comparisons of everyone with everyone else is a > reasonable first pass at deciding whether the segment comes from a single > common ancestor. > > Ann Turner

Larry Your explanation is excellent, and the light bulb came on - thanks for your brevity and clarity. Now - that explains one location. How many ACTGs are there in 7.7cM? I thought the point was that with a long segment we could rely on the fact that it was an exact match. I guess the point is, in a way, it is an exact match. So what's the probability of another segment of exactly the same long length being an exact match, just with a scrambled up/different arrangement of ACTGs? If in fact groups of 3, 4 or 5 matches turn out to not be related, then the odds must be high. Although I understand how the matching is done, and how it can create many different combinations from the same segment, it still seems ... unusual? ... that these will match several others from the relatively small community of folks who have taken this test. Jim - Sent from my iPhone - FaceTime! On Jan 6, 2012, at 5:14 PM, Larry Vick <[email protected]> wrote: > Jim, > > If you have AG at a location and you have two matches one of whom has AA and the other has GG, you will match both, but they will not match each other. FF has no way to know which of your parents you inherited the A from and which you inherited the G from. > > Regards, > > Larry

Dear Jim, The major issue with using unphased data for comparisons (in Relative Finder, Family Finder, or other programs such as Jim McMillan's that compare unphased data) is that a significant percentage of shorter matching segments will be identical by state rather than identical by descent. Relatively few segments over 12-15 cMs in length are likely to be identical by state, but as we get down into analysis of segments that are in the 7-8 cM range a significant percentage of such segments will be identical by state. John Walden did a recent analysis that suggested that about 50% of matching segments 8 cMs in length are identical by state. Here is a small table of results that he recently compiled: cM %IBD %IBS 10 99 1 9 80 20 8 50 50 7 30 70 6 20 80 5 5 95 Doing comparisons using phased gets around the issue of identical by state matches. Another simple method is what I have previously referred to as "poor man's phasing". This is where you compare a parent and a child to another person who has a matching segment with the parent. If the child matches on the same segment with this other person that the parent matches on, then you can be assured that the segment is highly likely to be IBD and not IBS. However, if the child doesn't match with the other person and if the matching segment is under 10 cMs or so then there is still a reasonable possibility that the segment is IBS. This is one reason why it is a good idea to have as many children as feasible do the 23andMe or FF test since you will better be able to determine which segments are IBD and which segments could be IBS. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Bartlett Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 8:19 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] SUBJECT: How do you work a 5 way FF match with few clues ? Sam What is the "big issue" about unphased data? As always, my reference is to genealogy. I can see where it would help, some, to know if a match was on my Dad or Mom's side, but SURNAMES and geography can help there, too. And even if I knew which parent my match was on, I still wouldn't know which grandparent. Jim

Well I think I understand what Ann, Dwight and Larry are trying to pour into my head. I guess an analogy of two superimposed pictures (xrays) works for me - and then a match would come up with any combination. But I thought that was the whole point of insisting on long segments. What I'm understanding is that the matching algorithm can scoot along and match with either one of two at each point along the whole string. I can see where this would be kind of murky in the short haul, but over a long segment, it still seems pretty amazing to get matches with folks that then don't match each other. I guess I could mark it up to statistics - like flipping heads 10 times in a row, or something. I had thought the explanation would be more like an anomoly, or lack of preciseness, in the read of the data... In other words, if I got 2 FFI tests would they be identical? I compared my FFA segments to the FFI segments and many weren't even close. So I came to the conclusion that the "picture" the FFI test takes is a little fuzzy, and not a real precise observation. But it appears to be roughly right - as a genealogist, I'm still working with my matches and finding Common Ancestors. I'm not sure if we do in fact share the large atDNA segment with each other, but I am sure that we've come to the same conclusions on the paper trails. I'm hopeful that as more and more folks take this test, and maybe as the 23&me results are added in, we will begin to build a body of info that will help us sort it all out. Thanks again for 'splaining this to an engineer;>j Jim Bartlett On 01/06/12, Ann Turner<[email protected]> wrote: It could be a sign that some of those segments are Identical by State. As noted by others in this thread, we're looking at genotypes, where we don't know which allele came from each parent. If you could split the genotypes into their two haplotypes, this would clarify the picture. That generally takes father/mother/child trio data, though. For the initial query in this thread, pair-wise comparisons of everyone with everyone else is a reasonable first pass at deciding whether the segment comes from a single common ancestor. Ann Turner On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Jim Bartlett <[email protected]>wrote: > And yes, when I emailed this info to each group, some did confirm that > although they matched me as noted, they didn't match one or more of the > others in the same way. I find this very puzzling - that two folks can > have > the same long segment of DNA that is an exact match with me, and yet they > don't see such a match when they look at each other. Can anyone explain > to > my engineer brain why this is so? [to me this is like two lines each > being > parallel with a third line but not being parallel with each other... > QEnot] > ______________________________ 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

Jim, my explanation is not that of an engineer, let alone a geneticist; simply a stumbling, fumbling amateur trying to climb up the learning curve. I believe this can be - and I love your analogy of lines parallel to a 3rd line not being parallel to each other! - because the technology + the structure of our chromosomes is that our instruments are half blind. The computer says this little point on the chromosome is A,G but it may in fact be G, A for all we know. It's like reading two x-rays one on top of the other and not knowing which thing you're seeing is in the right arm and which is in the left - to force an odd and ungraceful analogy. Before I tread further, I think I'll just cry for help and hope someone steps in here to save me - and us! ;-) On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Jim Bartlett <[email protected]> wrote: > >   Linda, > >   re: track where the matches are on the 22Ch... I've tried various systems >   and found that for the smaller segments, I often had matching small segments >   from two different lines - clearly a non-starter (either the two lines >   descended from cousins - they had a Common Ancestor - or the segments were >   IBS not IBD, and therefore junk as a genealogy tool. > >   So I downloaded the FFI file to Excel, then sorted on segment size, then >   deleted  all  the lines that were segments shorter than 7.7cM (FTDNA's >   cutoff). Of 172 matches, one a few had more than one large segment left.  I >   then  sorted this group by Ch and then by starting location. This sort >   grouped all my matches by Chromosome #, and it was fairly easy to scan down >   the list and pick out the handful that had equal segments or significant >   overlaps. I then went to the Ch Browser and looked at these folks as a group >   - to confirm and to see if any smaller segments also match (although I'm not >   sure what difference that would make). > >   And yes, when I emailed this info to each group, some did confirm that >   although they matched me as noted, they didn't match one or more of the >   others in the same way. I find this very puzzling - that two folks can have >   the same long segment of DNA that is an exact match with me, and yet they >   don't see such a match when they look at each other. Can anyone explain to >   my engineer brain why this is so? [to me this is like two lines each being >   parallel with a third line but not being parallel with each other... QEnot] > >   Anyway, I found the above process a fairly quick and efficient way to find >   the groups with shared?? atDNA. > > >   Jim Bartlett > >   On 01/06/12, Linda<[email protected]> wrote: > >   Thanks to all of you for your really helpful responses. I am in Great >   Company! >   I feel much better knowing I am in the same boat as all of you rather >   than on a sinking rowboat. I have renewed inspiration. >   Since reading the replies as they have been posted. I have sent out an >   email to the four individually asking if willing to accept a group mail >   effort and for confirmation of "Distant Cousin" so I might further check >   out the "In Common with" feature. Hopefully, good response will lead to >   asking their also checking the "In Common With" feature. >   Having tried a number of different ideas: >   1. first contact emails; >   2. an index card setup to keep track of and cross check 198 matches for >   Doug (Leon) and near 170 for my own FF matches; >   3. a four foot long butcher paper setup to try and keep track of where >   the matches are on the 22 chromosomes for all those contacts for quick >   visual reference; >   4. trying printouts of the various excel matching reports one to the >   other; >   5. copious notes; >   6. posts on the various surname forums; >   I was looking for an easier, better, more efficient, productive, >   ............... when you guys find it, please let me know. >   Thanks for all the great posts. Linda McKee >   ______________________________ >   For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: >   [1]http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html >   ------------------------------- >   To   unsubscribe   from   the   list,   please   send   an   email  to >   A[2][email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without >   the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > References > >   1. http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html >   2. mailto:[email protected] > > > ______________________________ > 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

Larry, has done an excellent explanation. This is at the heart of phasing. I do suggest that people use either Excel 2007 or newer or the latest version of OpenOffice/LibreOffice to at least glance at the results of at least three closely related persons test results from the same company. Pay particular to matching segments. Warning OpenOffice/LibreOffice become excruciatingly slow with the number of rows involved. Excel is tolerable. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim, If you have AG at a location and you have two matches one of whom has AA and the other has GG, you will ?match both, but they will not match each other. ?FF has no way to know which of your parents you inherited the A from and which you inherited the G from. Regards, Larry

Linda, re: track where the matches are on the 22Ch... I've tried various systems and found that for the smaller segments, I often had matching small segments from two different lines - clearly a non-starter (either the two lines descended from cousins - they had a Common Ancestor - or the segments were IBS not IBD, and therefore junk as a genealogy tool. So I downloaded the FFI file to Excel, then sorted on segment size, then deleted all the lines that were segments shorter than 7.7cM (FTDNA's cutoff). Of 172 matches, one a few had more than one large segment left. I then sorted this group by Ch and then by starting location. This sort grouped all my matches by Chromosome #, and it was fairly easy to scan down the list and pick out the handful that had equal segments or significant overlaps. I then went to the Ch Browser and looked at these folks as a group - to confirm and to see if any smaller segments also match (although I'm not sure what difference that would make). And yes, when I emailed this info to each group, some did confirm that although they matched me as noted, they didn't match one or more of the others in the same way. I find this very puzzling - that two folks can have the same long segment of DNA that is an exact match with me, and yet they don't see such a match when they look at each other. Can anyone explain to my engineer brain why this is so? [to me this is like two lines each being parallel with a third line but not being parallel with each other... QEnot] Anyway, I found the above process a fairly quick and efficient way to find the groups with shared?? atDNA. Jim Bartlett On 01/06/12, Linda<[email protected]> wrote: Thanks to all of you for your really helpful responses. I am in Great Company! I feel much better knowing I am in the same boat as all of you rather than on a sinking rowboat. I have renewed inspiration. Since reading the replies as they have been posted. I have sent out an email to the four individually asking if willing to accept a group mail effort and for confirmation of "Distant Cousin" so I might further check out the "In Common with" feature. Hopefully, good response will lead to asking their also checking the "In Common With" feature. Having tried a number of different ideas: 1. first contact emails; 2. an index card setup to keep track of and cross check 198 matches for Doug (Leon) and near 170 for my own FF matches; 3. a four foot long butcher paper setup to try and keep track of where the matches are on the 22 chromosomes for all those contacts for quick visual reference; 4. trying printouts of the various excel matching reports one to the other; 5. copious notes; 6. posts on the various surname forums; I was looking for an easier, better, more efficient, productive, ............... when you guys find it, please let me know. Thanks for all the great posts. Linda McKee ______________________________ For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about mailing lists, please see: [1]http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to A[2][email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message References 1. http://dgmweb.net/MailingListFAQs.html 2. mailto:[email protected]

One potential strategy would have several of us "gang up" on a surname and see if we have similar matches.   I have DISMUKES directly as at least one match in our FTDNA files.    Maybe others do as well.    IF we figure out DISMUKES by extension we MAY make progress figuring out the origins of Chromosome 9 for the all of the others in your "In Common" collection.   I also have several MOORE connections but no ULOTH or WALTERS that I can presently detect.   So ... one potential solution would flow from a collective group solution looking at one seemingly "doable" surname.    John Colorado  > Hello List, > > What is the chosen method to search for the common ancestor on an "in > common with" match between 5 people about whom you know nothing to > connect them? > > Only one of the 4 gives GEDCOM and surnames and I cannot relate my McKee > husband to those surnames although several "could be related".  (A 5th > name turned up on the in-common-with list but showed zero match on the > chromosome bar with anyone.  I assume that is not meaningful ---?---) > > The match they all share is on the 9th chromosome as follows: > > McKee-Walters........2155758--8555148----13.9 cM--2795 snp > McKee-Dismukes.......1950788--9337789----16.38----3295 > McKee-Moore..........2155758--7810080----12.42----2395 > McKee-Uloth..........2155758--8387775----13.73----2695 > > Other small hits: > Moore, Dismukes, McKee on the 2nd chromosome > Moore, Uloth, McKee on the 3rd > Dismukes, Moore, McKee on the 5th > Dismukes, Moore, McKee on the 6th > Walters, Uloth, McKee on the 10th > Moore, Walters, McKee on the 16th > > Perhaps this could be my first Family Finder success story with the List > helping out..........Please. > > Any suggestions, comments appreciated.  I have had very little luck in > attempting to communicate with matches to find the common grandparent as > it seems they all have less info than I do. > > Linda McKee > > > > > On 1/5/2012 2:00 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > > Today's Topics: > > > >     1. Back to 'Fundamental Autosomal DNA Question' (Amy Martin) > >     2. Re: Back to 'Fundamental Autosomal DNA Question' (Ann Turner) > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > Message: 1 > > Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:57:48 -0500 > > From: Amy Martin<[email protected]> > > Subject: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Back to 'Fundamental Autosomal DNA Question' > > To: [email protected] > > Message-ID:<[email protected]> > > Content-Type: text/plain;     charset=us-ascii > > > > In posting my original question:  "If both my mother and myself have > tested, can I match with someone from a known ancestral line of hers while > she does NOT? OR, would the match mean that I MUST be related to this > person through my paternal line?"  I generated some disagreement from the > experts and much discussion.  Unfortunately, I'm still confused.  Recently, > I've gotten a 'strong' cousin match with a 'cousin' who does NOT match with > my mother.  In this case, we have a cM chain of 23.88 and 4575 matching > SNP, for an estimated 3rd cousin match.  When examining his family tree, > everything overwhelmingly points to a MATERNAL connection so far (but no > real smoking gun, so to speak).  It IS possible I'm missing a paternal > surname, however.  I'm having this situation turn up occasionally with > other cousins as well.  Does this mean that Mom and Dad have cousins in > common?  OR, am I to understand, as you all have tried to explain, that it > is NOT possible that genes 'skip' a gene! >  ra! > >   tion, so I must be missing the paternal connection?   Since we are a > strong match, the whole IBS issue is moot, right? > > > > ------------------------------ > > > > Message: 2 > > Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 07:39:15 -0800 > > From: Ann Turner<[email protected]> > > Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Back to 'Fundamental Autosomal DNA > >       Question' > > To: [email protected] > > Message-ID: > >       < > [email protected]om> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > > > That is a very robust segment, and I would infer that the connection is > > through the paternal side. > > > > Ann > > > > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 6:57 AM, Amy Martin<[email protected]>  wrote: > > > >> In posting my original question:  "If both my mother and myself have > >> tested, can I match with someone from a known ancestral line of hers > while > >> she does NOT? OR, would the match mean that I MUST be related to this > >> person through my paternal line?"  I generated some disagreement from > the > >> experts and much discussion.  Unfortunately, I'm still confused. >  Recently, > >> I've gotten a 'strong' cousin match with a 'cousin' who does NOT match > with > >> my mother.  In this case, we have a cM chain of 23.88 and 4575 matching > >> SNP, for an estimated 3rd cousin match.  When examining his family tree, > >> everything overwhelmingly points to a MATERNAL connection so far (but no > >> real smoking gun, so to speak).  It IS possible I'm missing a paternal > >> surname, however.  I'm having this situation turn up occasionally with > >> other cousins as well.  Does this mean that Mom and Dad have cousins in > >> common?  OR, am I to understand, as you all have tried to explain, that > it > >> is NOT possible that genes 'skip' a genera! > >>   tion, so I must be missing the paternal connection?   Since we are a > >> strong match, the whole IBS issue is moot, right? > >> > >> > >> ______________________________ > >> 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 > >> > > > > ------------------------------ > > > > > > > > End of AUTOSOMAL-DNA Digest, Vol 2, Issue 1 > > ******************************************* > > > ______________________________ > 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 > ______________________________ 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

Thanks to all of you for your really helpful responses. I am in Great Company! I feel much better knowing I am in the same boat as all of you rather than on a sinking rowboat. I have renewed inspiration. Since reading the replies as they have been posted. I have sent out an email to the four individually asking if willing to accept a group mail effort and for confirmation of "Distant Cousin" so I might further check out the "In Common with" feature. Hopefully, good response will lead to asking their also checking the "In Common With" feature. Having tried a number of different ideas: 1. first contact emails; 2. an index card setup to keep track of and cross check 198 matches for Doug (Leon) and near 170 for my own FF matches; 3. a four foot long butcher paper setup to try and keep track of where the matches are on the 22 chromosomes for all those contacts for quick visual reference; 4. trying printouts of the various excel matching reports one to the other; 5. copious notes; 6. posts on the various surname forums; I was looking for an easier, better, more efficient, productive, ............... when you guys find it, please let me know. Thanks for all the great posts. Linda McKee

I don't see nulls (no-calls) as being a big barrier. They're scattered over the whole genome, and the adjacent alleles are likely to be in "linkage disequilibrium" -- that is, if you know the allele for the two adjacent SNPs, you can often predict what the allele would be for the no-call. That's the whole basis for the HapMap approach of using tag SNPs: we don't have to test every single base. But... I'd certainly be interested if you come up with any counter-examples. Ann Turner On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 9:43 AM, Sam Eaton <[email protected]> wrote: > Larry hit the nail smack dab on the head. > > One thing to remember is that we are dealing with unphased data. From > observing RAW DATA in my FF project, this is a big issue. > > It is also important to note that there can be thousands, I counted over > 5,000 in my FTDNA v2 RAW DATA, nulls in the atDNA results. Note, these seem > to be mostly false nulls. I have compared my atDNA results from 23andMe, > FTDNA v1 and FTDNA v2 and at least 90% of my nulls show up on only one > test. Nulls are typically ignored. Getting actual values for Nulls could > impact these "matches" as well. > > I expect to have some Excel 2007 and higher functions and macros written > in order to deal with some of these issues. I've been trying to write them > but my dimly remembered 10+ year old Lotus 123 for DOS and dDase IV for DOS > don't seem up to the job. > > Sam > > --------------------------------------- > > > From: Larry Vick <[email protected]> > > Linda, > > Have you asked the others if in fact they do match each other? ?Are each > of you on the others' match lists in those approximate positions on Family > Finder? > > Regards, > > Larry > > > ______________________________ > 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 >

It could be a sign that some of those segments are Identical by State. As noted by others in this thread, we're looking at genotypes, where we don't know which allele came from each parent. If you could split the genotypes into their two haplotypes, this would clarify the picture. That generally takes father/mother/child trio data, though. For the initial query in this thread, pair-wise comparisons of everyone with everyone else is a reasonable first pass at deciding whether the segment comes from a single common ancestor. Ann Turner On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 1:46 PM, Jim Bartlett <[email protected]>wrote: > And yes, when I emailed this info to each group, some did confirm that > although they matched me as noted, they didn't match one or more of the > others in the same way. I find this very puzzling - that two folks can > have > the same long segment of DNA that is an exact match with me, and yet they > don't see such a match when they look at each other. Can anyone explain > to > my engineer brain why this is so? [to me this is like two lines each > being > parallel with a third line but not being parallel with each other... > QEnot] >

Jim, If you have AG at a location and you have two matches one of whom has AA and the other has GG, you will  match both, but they will not match each other.  FF has no way to know which of your parents you inherited the A from and which you inherited the G from. Regards, Larry ________________________________ From: Jim Bartlett <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, January 6, 2012 4:46 PM Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Subject: How do you work a 5 way FF match with few clues ?   And yes, when I emailed this info to each group, some did confirm that   although they matched me as noted, they didn't match one or more of the   others in the same way. I find this very puzzling - that two folks can have   the same long segment of DNA that is an exact match with me, and yet they   don't see such a match when they look at each other. Can anyone explain to   my engineer brain why this is so? [to me this is like two lines each being   parallel with a third line but not being parallel with each other... QEnot]   Jim Bartlett

Linda, I have a similar group of five, three of them are mother (adopted), daughter and cousin, and no certain knowledge of the mother's origins. The other two matches are unrelated. Luckily one of them gives a family name that is unusual and matches one of mine, and points to Dutch/Huguenot origins in New York State. The other person's families all came from New York State and he has at least one Dutch surname among his ancestors. A sixth match shares the Dutch name but does not share the same large segment, but has a segment nearby, and shares some smaller segments with some of the others. So slowly I'm beginning to build a case for this common Dutch ancestor. Look for anything that these people might have in common, I think that the places of origin, and cultural groups including church groups, is very helpful. Fred

Marleen - Can you clarify on one aspect of this; I think it's crucially important. As I see it, there are two basic kinds of these "matches-in-common" phenonema: 1) 3 or more of us match each other, but when I look at all of us in my chromosome browser, I don't match the others on the same segments (maybe a few partial-looking matches at or below 3cM, but nothing above 5cM). versus 2) we match each other AND we at least apparently share a meaningful (>7cM if not >10 cM) segment in common. When you say you had a similar set of matches, what exactly do you mean? Is it as I described in #1? Thanks. On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Marleen Van Horne <[email protected]> wrote: > Early on, I had a set of similar matches. I wrote to the members of the > match group. In most cases none of them matched one another. > > I later tested my half brother, we share the same father. It turned out > that some of the people in my match group are common with my brother and > some are not, so in spite of what looked looked like common ancestry, > some of the matches were paternal, and some maternal. > > In many cases, I can now determine which side of my ancestry the match > is on, because they also match my half-brother. I still have not been > able to identify a common ancestor with these people. > > The fault does not seem to be what I know about my ancestors, as I have > a very mature pedigree. The fault seems to be that my matches know very > little about their ancestors. > > In the last two and one-half years, one common ancestor was identified, > out of over one thousand matches. In that case, using my surname list, > my match did further research, and found an ancestress whose surname she > had not identified who also descends from my fourth great-grandfather. > So, there is hope. > > I think I have close to one hundred surnames on my list. These are my > direct ancestors, not married out surnames. > > Marleen Van Horne > >

Dwight, There were 10 matches including me. The matches were on Chromosome 4, and were all in the same general area, ranging from 1.82 cM to 17.53 cM. I only looked at this one location. These people matched me to greater or lesser degree on other chromosomes, but this was one place where we all match one another. Unfortunately, if I remember correctly none of the other nine people matched one another, it was a while ago. In retrospect, I would probably say matches of less than 7-10 cM, in one place are probably not worth following up. If you do not have a match that is at least 7-10 cM long in the same place on the same chromosome, it would be almost impossible to find a common ancestor. Of the nine, one is 17.53 cM, another is 12.45 cM and the third is 8.21 cM. We have matches on other chromosomes, too. We have not been able to identify a common ancestor. Two of the people also match my half-brother on Chromosome 4 and the third one does not. Of the other six, none shows up on my half-brother's Family Finder match list. Marleen Van Horne

Linda - a very good question. This may be one of the better ways to find Common Ancestors when they are beyond brick walls. Here's some points: 1. I would only focus on the large segments (the small segments could mean anything and will only cloud your search, at this point) 2. Since all 5 of you share the same large segment (about 12cM or so, starting at 2155758), there is a high probability that you all got that segment from the same Ancestor. This is a very important clue, and starting point. 3. You may want to start a group email (among the 5 of you) to share your Ancestral info. In particular you want to know if any 2 of you has a Common Ancestor. A. In general two folks with an atDNA match, will only share one Common Ancestor - actually all they really determine is the husband/wife pair from whom they descend. B. If any 2 can work out the Common Ancestor, the other 3 should look very carefully at the place/time, and compare that with their own Ancestry. 4. As mentioned before, I think the best way to recognize Common Ancestors (other than GedMatch), is to share Ancestries: A. Ahnentafels are hard to wade through; GEDCOMs and Trees usually have a LOT of non-ancestral data (compounding the problem of searching) B. Prepare an alphabetical list of your SURNAMES, as far back as you can reasonably go (I've found 4 atDNA matches that are 10th cousins) C. For each SURNAME, list the Patriarch (or Matriarch) with dates and places, or any other recognizable info - the objective is to have your match easily pick out his/her Ancestor from your list D. For the purpose of finding Common Ancestors with atDNA matches, I recommend including in your list every alternate or possible Ancestor you've ever run across (even on-line stuff). For this last point, you can focus on the validity and documentation, if two (or more) of you agree it's the match. I know this isn't good genealogy, but we're trying to make connections with atDNA that may well be beyond our documented trees. Let's say your collective match is to a Common Ancestor that is your 7G-grandparent (you five would be 8th cousins) - how many of us know all of the 512 ancestors we have at that level? Your atDNA match could be any one of them. The atDNA doesn't know what you have documented, or that the records were burned, etc. Your Common Ancestor is equally likely to be one ancestor as another, whether you know them all or not. And in the process of finding Common Ancestors, BOTH parties have to know of the Ancestor in order to determine a match. [For about half of my new atDNA cousins, I have researched and extended their trees for them - usually based on a Common SURNAME or a probable place/time that fit both our trees]. Although this approach is a little rocky, it may give you a starting point, a clue, something specific to attack with all of your genealogy skills to then prove or disprove with documentation. I hope this helps - you are on the right track to work in groups that share the same large segments. Jim Bartlett On 01/06/12, Linda<[email protected]> wrote: Hello List, What is the chosen method to search for the common ancestor on an "in common with" match between 5 people about whom you know nothing to connect them? Only one of the 4 gives GEDCOM and surnames and I cannot relate my McKee husband to those surnames although several "could be related". (A 5th name turned up on the in-common-with list but showed zero match on the chromosome bar with anyone. I assume that is not meaningful ---?---) The match they all share is on the 9th chromosome as follows: McKee-Walters........2155758--8555148----13.9 cM--2795 snp McKee-Dismukes.......1950788--9337789----16.38----3295 McKee-Moore..........2155758--7810080----12.42----2395 McKee-Uloth..........2155758--8387775----13.73----2695 Other small hits: Moore, Dismukes, McKee on the 2nd chromosome Moore, Uloth, McKee on the 3rd Dismukes, Moore, McKee on the 5th Dismukes, Moore, McKee on the 6th Walters, Uloth, McKee on the 10th Moore, Walters, McKee on the 16th Perhaps this could be my first Family Finder success story with the List helping out..........Please. Any suggestions, comments appreciated. I have had very little luck in attempting to communicate with matches to find the common grandparent as it seems they all have less info than I do. Linda McKee

I'd be happy to participate in a group effort if a surname comes up that is prevalent in mine (the ones listed are not). One thing I have been looking at in my own data is migration paths and the clusters of people that tended to move together along those paths. I'm not sure that doesn't give me tunnel vision, though, especially where Colonial American ancestry is concerned. I'll be watching this discussion with interest! Nan Harvey On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:15 AM, John F Smeltzer <[email protected]>wrote: > > > One potential strategy would have several of us "gang up" on a surname and > see if we have similar matches. I have DISMUKES directly as at least one > match in our FTDNA files. Maybe others do as well. IF we figure out > DISMUKES by extension we MAY make progress figuring out the origins of > Chromosome 9 for the all of the others in your "In Common" collection. I > also have several MOORE connections but no ULOTH or WALTERS that I can > presently detect. So ... one potential solution would flow from a > collective group solution looking at one seemingly "doable" surname. > > > > John > > Colorado > > > >

I am interested, also, because a woman and her 4 children all match 3 of my family members in the same chromo 10 segment (21.14 total cM, 4682 SNPs), and we cannot find the connection even tho we both have extensive paper trails. Mary Alice ________________________________________ PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com