Ancestry Grouping Crisis?!! - Page 4 - Genealogists' Forum

Merry · #31 20-10-19, 07:29

Marg. I will have a go at the Leeds method thing today and if I get somewhere I will post a thread for the 'truly not incredibly thick' which hopefully will be at infant school level whilst most others on here are at uni! I don't care, if it means we can learn something!!

Time to go and delete my Ancestry groups again, because I don't want them confusing me!

Merry · #32 20-10-19, 07:36

Quote:

The useful thing about Ancestry's groups is that you can let a match be associated with any number of groups.

Phoenix, this is the bit my brain can't deal with. Not the idea of people appearing in different groups, but the practical assignment of naming the groups. I just got so confused because I kept renaming the groups as the title would make sense for one person but not another. If I use a spreadsheet (bit worried about how big it will be lol) I won't have to name the groups at the start (I don't think?). I'm sure this seems a silly concern to you, but it's been a complete block to me!

Merry · #33 20-10-19, 07:56

lol I love the part at the top of the Leeds Method webpage that says this should take you about ten minutes! I opened a new Excel Spreadsheet 25 minutes ago, but I haven't put anything on it yet!!

Phoenix · #34 20-10-19, 08:05

Before I'd heard of the Leeds method, I started off with spreadsheets. This was for best mate.
I went through all the close cousins, and as notes, listed all their shared matches.
I exported that all into excel, did masses of editing, so that I had one line for each person, and then sorted by shared matches.
There are two problems:

there were a lot of close cousins. I did neatly group her cousins into four roughly equal groups for each side of the family. But this all took several days hard work. My DNA doesn't work out like that at all. Mum's family appear to have no interest, so nobody is showing up. Which means I am getting nothing meaningful from the results (perhaps I should be going to that Rootstech conference!)
Spreadsheets are not dynamic. If you leave them, there is so much to update.

Off to work at triaging. 5100 down, only 21,200 to work through. How I wish the matches were still on pages.

Merry · #35 20-10-19, 08:28

I agree about a spreadsheet not being dynamic, but I need something to make my head understand what I'm doing. Having ten groups with one or two people in each of them clearly is not the way to go so I don't really have any choice until I've done this (other than a brain transplant!). If I can understand the spreadsheet maybe I can then transfer the information to Ancestry's coloured dots?

I suppose part of my problem is that I'm not hugely interested in my tree when it gets back to the 1600s. I have found it pretty boring (sorry!), because I don't know enough to consider them real people.

I only really have a handful of brick walls more recently than that where I'm very interested in finding cousins in the hope of knocking down the walls. I have probably tried to short circuit all this grouping stuff in the hope of finding something helpful straight away, but this hasn't worked!

However, I manage a tree for someone who doesn't know who one of her grandfathers was, so I'm going through the motions on my own tree, hoping to understand things so that when I have a go at hers I will be able to work out if she has connections to her unknown branch.

Merry · #36 20-10-19, 08:30

Over an hour in on that ten minute slot and I've typed one name on my spreadsheet!

kiterunner · #37 20-10-19, 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merry

However, I manage a tree for someone who doesn't know who one of her grandfathers was, so I'm going through the motions on my own tree, hoping to understand things so that when I have a go at hers I will be able to work out if she has connections to her unknown branch.

Do you mean you manage her DNA test, Merry? If so, then maybe do her DNA matches first, because that motivation of finding out who her grandfather was will make you think up strategies to use for her particular situation and by the time you've (hopefully) solved that one, you will have a better understanding of how it all works.

Merry · #38 20-10-19, 10:10

lol Yes, I did mean that!!

I'm 100% sure you are right, but now I've started mine, I'm going to carry on with the initial stages, as I may be about to be on a roll, after another hour in!

I've added and deleted a load of people and am about to begin again as I've had a revelation that I misunderstood something in my adaptation of the Leeds instructions where I needed to incorporate 4-6th cousins as I only have four people closer than that.

I am also getting dressed (lol

11.10am) and going downstairs so I can type on my laptop whilst viewing Ancestry on my desktop screen.

If I can make some sense of mine, I will then move on to the other managed DNA person before I forget what I'm doing.

Your suggestion that I do hers will still work, as I will be feeling guilty whilst doing mine and that will make me get my act together!

#39 20-10-19, 11:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merry

Phoenix, this is the bit my brain can't deal with. Not the idea of people appearing in different groups, but the practical assignment of naming the groups. I just got so confused because I kept renaming the groups as the title would make sense for one person but not another. If I use a spreadsheet (bit worried about how big it will be lol) I won't have to name the groups at the start (I don't think?). I'm sure this seems a silly concern to you, but it's been a complete block to me!

You can just call them Group 1, 2, 3 etc because until you have worked out where they are connected it doesn't matter what they are named.

Merry · #40 20-10-19, 15:22

Good point Maggie!

I'm recuperating in Costa at the moment. Currently I have 240 names on my spreadsheet and I have done the grouping thing for 105 of those. There have been a few with no matches (when I started feeling pleased about those I knew it was probably time to stop!) and the most has 25 matches. Most with 2-8 or so. Ive got 40 groups so far (surely a lot more to come) which is more than the number of coloured dots on Ancestry. I've not thought about what happens if I reach the end of the grouping thing. Grouping groups?

The only think I did 'see' at the start when I'd just grouped the matches for the people who are more closely related (only four of those - that's the 10 minute job I guess?!), was that only three groups appeared and I could work oit there was nothing for my maternal grandfather's line. Don't know if this is helpful?!