Dear Sam, Ancestry.com may well be helping us by reporting shared surnames and shared geography, but all of the "technical stuff" (specifically chromosome mapping) is just as important as it ever was. The only way you can be certain that you truly have a true genealogical relationship with a genetic match who may be a 6th to 10th cousin to you based on Ancestry.com's discovery of shared surnames or geography is to accurately map as much of your genome as possible with results from as many 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cousins as possible. You can be more comfortable with linking a specific segment to a specific ancestor 6 to 8 generations back in time if you have already linked that specific segment to a specific ancestor 3 to 5 generations back in time. This is particularly important for endogamous populations. The genetic genealogical community needs to continue to strongly push Ancestry.com to release the matching segment data and to allow downloads of the raw data files. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sam Eaton Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 1:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Ancestry atDNA Just got my first look at my cousin's results. I have a kit waiting for me in the US. I don't know how I'm going to arrange to do the test from here in Asia. I just missed the test arrival by a couple of days. Impressions, The technical stuff that we love is gone and the sample size reminds me of 23and me in 2009. That said, the technical stuff that we spend weeks and months trying to fit together and educate others about, just became a lot less important. Ancestry.com searches through the trees of those who match and repors both shared surnames names and shared geography in a very clickable form. What I have spent weeks and even months working on for a single match now requires a few simple mouse clicks for 80-90% of the work.