Hi everyone, having a hard time grasping the following about what this actually means in regards to Ancestry DNA’s shared matches. I’m helping someone find her BF and she has the following situation on her Ancestry DNA results: Let’s call her VW. She has one match, let’s name her Judy, who on her profile page shows 3 shared matches (with VW). But at the same time, Judy is on 103 other matches (of VW) profile page shared matches. This is what I don’t get. From Ancestry’s help page: “ What are Shared Matches? The shared matches list shows DNA matches that you and one of your DNA matches have in common. This might help you determine which family line you share or give you more evidence that you’re related to a specific person or match. For example, if you and your brother share DNA with a cousin, that cousin will show up as a shared match for both of you. Similarly, if you have a DNA match and your 2nd cousin has the same DNA match, this person would be a shared match to you and your 2nd cousin—and may help you determine how you’re related to this 2nd cousin." The difference between ICW and triangulation is clear to me, unfortunately without getting access to the raw DNA data there is no telling which of these shared matches turn into valid triangulated groups. But how do I interpret these 102 other shared matches groups? Is Judy a very important match for VW as she has such a large group of shared matches with other matches of VW? I’m trying to make sense out of this how we can use this information for her purpose. Unfortunately Ancestry won’t tell us if all of these people in the shared matches group match each other (to form a triangulated group). Hope someone can share some light on this. Thanks in advance, Andreas Andreas West Meine Vorfahren / my ancestors (8 generations): http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Basso-23/5 <http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Basso-23/5> Author of https://www.dnagenealogy.tools <http://dnagenealogy.tools/>

Hello Andreas, The difference in who is showing where is probably to do with the level of relationship, as Ancestry only show the shared matches who are fourth cousins or closer. If a fourth cousin or closer is a shared match with someone who is more distant than that, the fourth cousin will show as a shared match on the more distant match's profile page, but the more distant one will not show as a shared match on the fourth cousin's page. Here's some examples which might help to describe it - I have three matches, P, T and V. They are all on my fourth cousins list and they all match each other so, when I look at the shared matches on any of their profile pages, the other two show. However, I have a distant match, G, who is a shared match with P. G does not show as a shared match when I look on P's page (since G is more distant to me than a 4th cousin). But, when I look on G's profile page, P does show there, as P is a 4th cousin to me. Another match, B, is also a distant cousin to me - when I look at B's profile page, I can see P and V, as they are shared matches with me and B, and are fourth cousins to me. But B doesn't show on either of P and V's pages, as B is a more distant match to me. So it's basically giving you some information towards ICW - but only for the closer matches. The easiest way to find the distant shared matches who match a fourth cousin seems to be to use the DNAGedcom Client app. It is possible to make some sense out of the shared matches, by looking at the networks of who matches who - I've written a bit on my blog at http://notjusttheparrys.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/ancestry-shared-matches-and-new.html to show my initial attempts at this, but still need to try more with the NodeXL program that other people have recommended. Having identified a shared ancestor with one person in a group, it does seem probable that the others in the group will connect through that same ancestral line (at some level.) In my view, the more 'important' ones are likely to be those who only connect to a small group of people - so far, they seem to be the ones that are genuinely more closely related to me. (But it's probably a bit like the issue of size of triangulating groups - much could depend on the backgrounds of the matches, etc.) And, as you say, without actually being able to compare the DNA data, there's no way to tell if the groups of matches form triangulating groups, they are just ICW. Best wishes Barbara Griffiths On 27 September 2017 at 14:56, Andreas West <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > > having a hard time grasping the following about what this actually means in regards to Ancestry DNA’s shared matches. I’m helping someone find her BF and she has the following situation on her Ancestry DNA results: > > Let’s call her VW. She has one match, let’s name her Judy, who on her profile page shows 3 shared matches (with VW). But at the same time, Judy is on 103 other matches (of VW) profile page shared matches. This is what I don’t get. > > From Ancestry’s help page: > > “ > What are Shared Matches? > > The shared matches list shows DNA matches that you and one of your DNA matches have in common. This might help you determine which family line you share or give you more evidence that you’re related to a specific person or match. For example, if you and your brother share DNA with a cousin, that cousin will show up as a shared match for both of you. Similarly, if you have a DNA match and your 2nd cousin has the same DNA match, this person would be a shared match to you and your 2nd cousin—and may help you determine how you’re related to this 2nd cousin." > > > The difference between ICW and triangulation is clear to me, unfortunately without getting access to the raw DNA data there is no telling which of these shared matches turn into valid triangulated groups. > > But how do I interpret these 102 other shared matches groups? Is Judy a very important match for VW as she has such a large group of shared matches with other matches of VW? I’m trying to make sense out of this how we can use this information for her purpose. > > Unfortunately Ancestry won’t tell us if all of these people in the shared matches group match each other (to form a triangulated group). > > Hope someone can share some light on this. Thanks in advance, > > Andreas > > Andreas West > Meine Vorfahren / my ancestors (8 generations): http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Basso-23/5 <http://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Basso-23/5> > Author of https://www.dnagenealogy.tools <http://dnagenealogy.tools/>

Dear Andreas, I have been working hard over the past year or so to put my family's Ancestry.com matches into triangulated groups. I look for clusters of 3 or more matches who all share DNA with each other, preferably people who only share one segment with my family member. The matching segments are generally between 20 cM and 30 cMs since Ancestry.com doesn't provide the shared matches for your matches who share less than 20 cMs with each other. In most cases, all of the members of such clusters will be members of a triangulated group. If I can get even one person from this cluster to upload to GEDmatch, I can then get the basic matching segment data for everyone else in that cluster. I haven't been able to get a member from every one of these clusters to upload to GEDmatch yet, but as Ancestry.com's database gets bigger and bigger I am find that it is becoming easier to get at least one member of each cluster to upload to GEDmatch. If you have matches who share more than one segment with you, then it is harder to put them into triangulated groups and to figure out the matching segment data for such matches, but I have been having some success with that as well. The bottom line is that all of us should be strongly encouraging all of our Ancestry.com matches to upload to GEDmatch. We all benefit from having as many of our Ancestry.com matches in GEDmatch as possible. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: GENEALOGY-DNA [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andreas West Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 6:56 AM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: [DNA] Difficulty understand Ancestry's shared matches Hi everyone, having a hard time grasping the following about what this actually means in regards to Ancestry DNA’s shared matches. I’m helping someone find her BF and she has the following situation on her Ancestry DNA results: The difference between ICW and triangulation is clear to me, unfortunately without getting access to the raw DNA data there is no telling which of these shared matches turn into valid triangulated groups. But how do I interpret these 102 other shared matches groups? Is Judy a very important match for VW as she has such a large group of shared matches with other matches of VW? I’m trying to make sense out of this how we can use this information for her purpose. Unfortunately Ancestry won’t tell us if all of these people in the shared matches group match each other (to form a triangulated group). Andreas