On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 10:52:27 AM UTC-7, Andrew Lancaster wrote: > On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 7:36:20 PM UTC+2, Paulo Canedo wrote: > > > The problem of autosomal DNA is that it becomes unreliable after some generations. > > To be honest I think that step by step the technology will allow analyses further back. Right now I think back to 1800 or so is not uncommon. It is a question of parsing the data, and also of having tests which will give more data. But for now... I think you're giving atDNA the short shrift. I have many cases where I'm matching sixth cousins, back to 1750, with 50cm matching. If I can just get other matches to load to gedmatch, that could be extended to seventh cousins. Personally I'm surprised to have such large segments survive two hundred years. DNA is spiky like that. It doesn't also half itself in every generation exactly cleanly. You can have sticky pieces that survive intact

On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 8:00:12 PM UTC+2, wjhonson wrote: > I have many cases where I'm matching sixth cousins, back to 1750, with 50cm matching. I said 1800. You say as much as 1750. That could be, and it might be possible to push it a bit further. What will make a bigger difference is full sequencing, which means seeing a real phylogeny with mutations. IE, like we could more or less do with Y DNA many years earlier.