Organising analysis

[Phoenix]

To date, I have 21,002 DNA matches. Most of my researches these days are in the pre-census period, so that vast mass of 5-8th cousins.

Triaging Best Mate's DNA took four months. This will take rather longer, as the results are MINE!

Do you: put EVERYONE into your analysis, even if you cannot ascertain the link?

With BM, I discarded all those with no trees/all US trees and no common matches. Is that sensible?

I may have a lifetime of research ahead, but I suspect that some samples relate to dead people (well, I was told so in one instance) so I want to reach people while they are still interested.

[Kit]

That figure is astounding. I would ignore those with no tree unless you can determine they match to a branch you are actively researching but you really need to determine what you want from any contact first.

I suspect the response rate wont be too high so you can mass contact a certain number of people each week and talk to those who do respond.

I don't know how you would analyse that number of people, I'd start with the closest matches and go from there. If they also link to lesser cousins maybe include those in your mail outs.

[Phoenix]

With BM, I worked upwards from the bottom, and was pretty ruthless in discarding those I thought no-hopers, but I wonder whether it would be more sensible to analyse everyone first, and then discard them in a second process.

Because the database is continually growing, I am conscious that one new 4th cousin may illuminate a whole branch.

[Kit]

How do you discard them?

It would also be easier if you could somehow assign them to a folder so you could come back to them later if required.

[Phoenix]

If you "remove matches" you are effectively discarding them, but you can recover them subsequently. You can favourite them, or resolutely not look at new matches, but the options are limited.

[kiterunner]

I haven't discarded any matches yet, because there is definitely at least one point in my tree where a biological parent isn't the same person as the official parent (otherwise I would not have the 9 - 12% Jewish DNA!) So any match could be a clue to those. Also, anyone in the match list who doesn't have a tree at the moment could add one at a later date.

There is someone quite high up in my match list on My Heritage who has no tree and a fairly common surname (let's say Foster, though that isn't it) , and once I had (at last) figured out the connection between some of my Jewish matches on ancestry, I realised that the My Heritage match was related to them too as her first name is more unusual and came up when tracing those Jewish lines - then I found her marriage to a Mr "Foster" to confirm it.