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