Jim's explanation gives a nice clear summary for those who are just starting to grapple with identifying segments and ancestors connected with them. Many of our matches really don't yet understand much about how any of this works--they are new to DNA, or haven't yet been pointed in helpful directions such as this list, and it's important for us to give them easy pointers when there is email or message contact. I'm sure everyone on this list has received at least one message like the one I got last night from a 23andMe match who hadn't even yet "shared" genomes but wanted to know how closely we were related. Of course, at that point all I could say was that the relationship was 4th cousin or farther and that it could involve one of at least three nationalities. While I don't give lessons to every single DNA match, I do feel it's important to help matches who ask or who obviously aren't clear on the concepts, and would encourage everyone here to do the same in small, easily digestible chunks, with URLs for further info, etc. Little bits of education from a lot of us will ultimately make a big difference. Karla On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Jim Bartlett <jim4bartletts@verizon.net>wrote: > > Eric, > > Yours is the same aha moment that everyone interested in segments or > mapping > needs to understand. >