Diane - you requested a survey: For Family Finder I have 249 matches (probably due to deep Colonial VA roots); suggested relationships are 18 are up to 3rd cousins, and 49 are 4th cousins. But I can tell from my experience all are somewhat greater. I know all of my 16 2G-grandparents; and 30 of my 32 3G-grandparents (4th cousins); and very few of my matches are from those generaitons. 51 of my atMatches and I have confirmed paper trials to Common Ancestors (7 of them from the old Affy chip). I have an additional 38 atMatches at 23&Me with confirmed paper trails to Common Ancestors (from 1133 atMatches - most still Anonymous, despites various tries to make contact). These 89 Confirmed Ancestors have resulted in several conclusions: 1. Some represtent different ancestors (from one of my parents) on the same segment, proof that at least one of these Common Ancestors is NOT the one provviding the matching atDNA segment. 2. Almost all of these matches are 2-3 generations farther than the (conservative) suggested relationships. Yes, it could be that most of these aren't really matches on the shared segments, but with the number of matches I have and the full Trees both me and some of my atMatches have, I would expect to find a higher percentage (higher than almost zero). Why would so many matches be behind brick walls? 3. We need to pay attention to the segments. I am now mapping the FF and RF segments in one spreadsheet (sorted by Chr and start location, so the segments are in roughly the right order and I can inspect them along each chromosome). Two ancestors from the same parent CANNOT occupy the same place on a Chromosome! Although you CAN have one ancestor from each parent at the same place on a Chromosome - in fact you will have maternal ancestors covering all the Chromosomes AND you will have paternal ancestors also covering all the Chromosomes. Side-by-side smaller segments will usually be from different ancestors. When I talk about segments, I am referring only to large segments. 7.7cM or higher for FF, and 5.0cM or higher for RF (23&Me) - these are the cutoffs the two companies use and every one of your atMatches will have at least one segment of this size. I think the take-away from this is that it's important to carefully look over your atMatches' Trees for multiple Common Ancestors - this is not uncommon with Colonial America roots. Learning a little more every day... Jim Bartlett On 05/14/12, Diana Gale Matthiesen<[email protected]> wrote: I guess it all depends on what you call "a lot," and whether finding "a lot" was your goal. I'll consider the money well spent and the effort worth while if it helps me break through even *one* brick wall. Perhaps we should do a survey... I have a total of 186 matches, over 50 of which are 4th cousin or better, and 10 of which have been confirmed on paper (i.e., a check of their GEDCOM shows our paper pedigrees intersect). Is that a success or a failure? The impediment here is that the majority of subjects have not uploaded a GEDCOM. In fact, I just checked... only 61 out of the 186 have uploaded a GEDCOM. The other hindrance is the number of people who do not include locations in their GEDCOM. For common surnames, I'm simply not going to pursue a lead where I don't know the family is in geographic proximity to mine. Diana

On my mother's side, I have deep New England colonial ancestry, with dozens of couples in my ancestry who arrived during the "Great Migration" of the 1630s. What probably depresses the number of matches I have is that my father's paternal grandparents were Danish immigrants, from a small family with few descendants (in Denmark or the U.S.). In fact, I just realized... Except for the known cousins I deliberately tested, all of my confirmed FF matches have been with people who also share these well known, prolific New England progenitors. I'm getting just the result one would expect, that is, the most matches where I need them the least. How discouraging. Diana > From: Jim Bartlett > Sent: Monday, May 14, 2012 1:35 PM > > Diane - you requested a survey: > > For Family Finder I have 249 matches (probably due to deep > Colonial VA > roots); suggested relationships are 18 are up to 3rd cousins, and > 49 are 4th > cousins. But I can tell from my experience all are somewhat > greater. I know > all of my 16 2G-grandparents; and 30 of my 32 3G-grandparents > (4th cousins); > and very few of my matches are from those generaitons. <snip>