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Old 18-10-19, 16:17
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Default Ancestry Grouping Crisis?!!

So, I've created a few groups (4) and now I've got despondent/confused.

My 4th group has 11 people in it. Most of these individuals either have no tree or a tree of Americans who I don't recognise. However, two people in the group have a Common Ancestor leaf thing. I clicked one of these and then realised the owner is someone I used to email about FH about ten years ago so I know who he is related to (he is on my tree!) and his tree on Ancestry reflects this. Our common ancestors are my FMM's parents. He is my 3rd cousin once removed.

As I looked at this one first, I named the group after this branch of my tree.

I then looked at the tree of the other Common Ancestor match, only to find our common ancestor is in a completely different part of my tree, so I'm confused. Instead of being connected via my FM line, they are connected via my FF line in a different part of the country. This person is my 5th cousin once removed.

They both show up as potentially being 4th-6th cousins, so that part seams reasonable.

So, how is this DNA shared when one person is connected through my FM and the other through my FF? I feel like I now have no idea about the other people in the group and I the name of the group is now misleading.

Advice please
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Old 18-10-19, 17:12
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Also, I have looked at some other people who have matching trees but don't come up in shared matches. What's that all about?
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Old 18-10-19, 17:30
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Originally Posted by Merry View Post
Also, I have looked at some other people who have matching trees but don't come up in shared matches. What's that all about?
Are they on your DNA match list but with less than 20 cM's of shared DNA? Ancestry only lists someone as a shared match if they have 20 cM or more. I wish they would have another option to show those with less, because you can go through the lower matches checking each one to see who (of the > 20 cM matches) is shown as a shared match, but it is so time-consuming.

Or they share less than 20 cM with the other person.
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Old 18-10-19, 17:33
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Originally Posted by Merry View Post
So, I've created a few groups (4) and now I've got despondent/confused.

My 4th group has 11 people in it. Most of these individuals either have no tree or a tree of Americans who I don't recognise. However, two people in the group have a Common Ancestor leaf thing. I clicked one of these and then realised the owner is someone I used to email about FH about ten years ago so I know who he is related to (he is on my tree!) and his tree on Ancestry reflects this. Our common ancestors are my FMM's parents. He is my 3rd cousin once removed.

As I looked at this one first, I named the group after this branch of my tree.

I then looked at the tree of the other Common Ancestor match, only to find our common ancestor is in a completely different part of my tree, so I'm confused. Instead of being connected via my FM line, they are connected via my FF line in a different part of the country. This person is my 5th cousin once removed.

They both show up as potentially being 4th-6th cousins, so that part seams reasonable.

So, how is this DNA shared when one person is connected through my FM and the other through my FF? I feel like I now have no idea about the other people in the group and I the name of the group is now misleading.

Advice please
Well, the problem is that Ancestry doesn't have a chromosome browser like some other sites do, so you can't tell whether all the people in a shared match group share the same segment(s) of DNA with you and with each other. So some of them may be related to each other in a different way from how they are related to you. But in many cases (but not all!), the connection will be the same for all or most in the group.
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Old 18-10-19, 19:53
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Are they on your DNA match list but with less than 20 cM's of shared DNA? Ancestry only lists someone as a shared match if they have 20 cM or more. I wish they would have another option to show those with less, because you can go through the lower matches checking each one to see who (of the > 20 cM matches) is shown as a shared match, but it is so time-consuming.

Or they share less than 20 cM with the other person.
OK, so I think they must have less than 20 cM with the other person/people as they are around 30-50 with me.

So, would I add them to the group they look like they belong to? (of course that's the group that has these two conflicting people in it and I'm not sure which one perhaps shouldn't be in the group! So, which to put them with?!)

I suppose I could re-title the group to reflect the two branches and then bung 'everyone' in it?
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Old 18-10-19, 19:58
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Well, the problem is that Ancestry doesn't have a chromosome browser like some other sites do, so you can't tell whether all the people in a shared match group share the same segment(s) of DNA with you and with each other. So some of them may be related to each other in a different way from how they are related to you. But in many cases (but not all!), the connection will be the same for all or most in the group.
OK, so I need to think more flexibly. Thanks Kate.
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Old 18-10-19, 20:40
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Are you sure someone hasn't just dropped all my results on the floor and then mudded them up?

I have matches where one person has a tree full of my dad's ancestors and they apparently share DNA someone whose tree is all my mum's ancestors. One lot in Bristol and the other in London.

Then I have people with matching trees but no shared DNA.

Is the idea to put shared matches in all the groups they share matches with even when they make no sense at all? (even though I don't know if any of the matches are true?)
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Old 18-10-19, 22:38
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My dad, his nephew and three grand-daughters all have their DNA on Ancestry (mine is on FtDNA alas). They have dozens of matches on Dads FF side and distant MM side, but few on his MF side.

I deleted all the Ancestry groups I'd made, in Dads profile and called up the matches shared by Dad and his nephew and marked them with one group and did the same with each of his grand-daughters. This showed me that all Dad's second cousins on the FF side match with all 5 of them. 3rd cousins and further out match with some but rarely all. I have yet to work out if there are any patterns, but further down the tree (if you get my meaning) the matches are less (and maybe just Dad and one other).

I also did the same for my girls tests, which shows where their paternal and maternal matches are.

Then I picked one of Dad's known maternal matches and made a group of their common matches. I tried to do this with each different common ancestor. I still have no idea who some people are, and how they fit into the tree but they match with Dad and someone else. His MM family and further back have a great bunch of matches, but there are less than 10 on his MF lines.

One match matched a bunch of others on his MMFM line, and was in Canada but all the others are in Australia. This person had no tree. So I went back to my family tree and chased down the tree in 4gggf's brother, and lo, one of his gg grandsons went off to Canada. I had only built the family tree down to his g grandsons, thinking I was getting to far away from my main tree.

This method brought up some matches I had not already identified but still leaves a large pool of matches, even over 20cMs, who have no trees and I have no idea beyond they match with Dad and one other person.

Some of the matches with Dad who showed up when we first tested have now put up or updated their family tree, or match with someone else who has a tree, so it pays to re-check them occasionally.

Does this help at all, or just make you more confused? It did my head in for a time.

Di
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Old 18-10-19, 22:54
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Then I have people with matching trees but no shared DNA.
Either they didn't take a DNA test, or they are distant enough that they don't actually share DNA with you even though you have shared ancestors, or their trees (or yours!) are wrong.
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Old 18-10-19, 22:56
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Is the idea to put shared matches in all the groups they share matches with even when they make no sense at all? (even though I don't know if any of the matches are true?)
It's up to you, but I usually leave them out if they look likely to confuse the issue.
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