Hello, I am wondering if there is any advantage to not deleting the short segments and small SNPs from your spreadsheet and instead hiding them so they are not visible. Ann G.

Dear Ann, I presume that you are referring to FTDNA Family Finder data in your message below since FTDNA provides matching HIR data for HIRs as short as 1 cM. What I have done in my master spreadsheets is to delete all HIRs less than 3.5 cMs from the spreadsheets. I keep the other data (the HIR data for HIRs between 1 and 3.5 cMs) in the original file I downloaded from DNAGEDCOM for reference if I need it. I think that 3.5 cMs is a reasonable "sweet spot" in this regard. A relatively low percentage of HIRs less than 3.5 cMs in length will be IBD. There will still be quite a few HIRs that are longer than 3.5 cMs that are IBS, but I prefer to err on the side of keeping some HIRs in my master spreadsheet that are IBS rather than deleting some HIRs that are IBD. In any case, I definitely wouldn't set your threshold any higher than 7 cMs for Family Finder data. I use the same threshold for GEDmatch data, which is primarily a reflection of Ancestry.com data that I don't already have from Family Finder or 23andMe. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of AGilchrest@aol.com Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 3:36 PM To: autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Short segments, Small SNP Hello, I am wondering if there is any advantage to not deleting the short segments and small SNPs from your spreadsheet and instead hiding them so they are not visible. Ann G.