Courtesy of Pixabay Mystery Match - What To Do Next You've checked your DNA results, possibly at a new test company, and you find an unfamiliar match sharing a large segment of DNA. While some of the companies assign a relationship, "1C,2R", that may not be accurate due to variables such as "half" siblings or cousins.  There are several tools available to help calculate relationships; one we have seen in presentations and online is the Shared cM Project 4.0 Tool v4.  https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4 You can locate yourself in the white square marked "Self" just off the center.  Relationships that share, or are descendants of one or both of your parents are in light or blue gray.  Relationships with which the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) is one or both grandparents are in green, great-grandparents are in orange. The numbers in the squares represent the average shared cMs for that relationship as well as the low and high range.  Notice that ...

 I came across a useful feature of Wikitree yesterday; I was updating the Biography of my first cousin Pat, who died yesterday. Rest in peace, dear cousin. New DNA Clue Before I left her page I noticed a new name on the right, where DNA Connections are found. I've blurred the name of my new-found relative, but this is what I saw:  Search for a Match My first step was to search for him on 23andMe -- not found. Then, a one-to-one comparison on Gedmatch -- no shared segments. Nor with my sister, or another first cousin either.  How about with my uncle? Yes!  35.1 cM , quite a healthy segment for a third cousin. One to One Gedmatch comparison between my uncle and his Baysinger match Find Common Ancestors Next step: check the match's tree. His parents were private, but his grandfather's name was familiar, and in my own Ancestry.com tree. As I examined our two ancestral paths back to our common ancestor, an important aspect became clear: we share only a single ancestor, no...

 This update is pretty great! FTDNA blogged about it here:  https://blog.familytreedna.com/new-feature-myorigins-chromosome-painter-for-family-finder/  and have produced three short videos  explaining how to make use of their work in your own research, how they produced the 90 population groups, and how they made the chromosome painter as accurate as possible. About 20 minutes each, these are well-worth your time if you have a Family Finder kit on Family Tree DNA, and you care at all about admixture, which is looking at possible origins of your ancestral DNA. Example - father At first look, my father's kit is completely boring: 92.5% Western Europe. However, 21 of the 22 chromosomes on top are 100% Western Europe; on chromosome 1, there is a small segment on both chromatids that is identified as Finnish.  Ted Cowan's Chromosome 1 FTDNA ChromoPainter Since my grandfather is 100% Scottish and my grandmother about 100% Swedish (on paper, at least) t...

  Peter Calver of LostCousins has a new edition of his DNA Masterclass . If you don't use LostCousins, you are missing out! And you don't even need DNA results for that. If you have UK or Canadian ancestry, you really do need to add as many ancestors and cousins to LostCousins as possible, if you want to connect with British cousins. Distant Cousins are Gold In this Masterclass, Mr. Calver points out how important distant cousins will be to you. He published a chart I've not seen before: Based on Table 2 from: Henn BM, Hon L, Macpherson JM, Eriksson N, Saxonov S, Pe'er I, et al. (2012) Cryptic Distant Relatives Are Common in Both Isolated and Cosmopolitan Genetic Samples. PLoS ONE 7(4): e34267. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0034267 Revised using Ancestry DNA estimates for the chances of detecting cousins and the expected number of 1st to 6th cousins for those of British ancestry; the numbers for 7th to 10th cousins are my own guesstimates Calver leaves out steps that I do on...

Why Use Multiple Sites? The most effective research advice is to focus your efforts by asking a question, and creating a plan to find the information you need to answer that question. No one site has all the sources, information, matches, or cousins. I'm going to quote here from Wikipedia : The Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) is a guideline for establishing the reliability ("proof") of a genealogical conclusion with reasonable certainty. It is important within the genealogical community for clearly communicating the quality of research performed, such as by a professional genealogist. It is also useful for helping new genealogists understand what is needed to do high-quality research. It has five elements: reasonably exhaustive research; complete and accurate source citations; analysis and correlation of the collected information; resolution of any conflicting evidence; and a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.    - summarizing Board for Cert...

Some very cool new features of genealogy websites and mobile apps were introduced at RootsTech.  FamilySearch Isabella Rogers, ready to add to tree FamilySearch Unfinished Attachments  is available both on the FamilySearch Family Tree and on the FamilySearch mobile app. Read more about it at  https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/familysearch-unfinished-attachments/ . Try it out and maybe this will happen for you: I made a great discovery when I found a census record in an unfinished attachment for my great-grandmother. Once I opened the record, I saw her sister’s name on the census and added her to the family tree. No one in the family had known she existed. Now she is on the family tree and with the right family. Map My Ancestors   Map My Ancestors for the mobile app:  https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/whats-map-ancestors/ This is pure joy and only available for your phone or tablet. It is thrilling to see all the work you and...

If you have recent immigrant ancestors, especially from France, perhaps you have used Geneanet . The free resources are quite good. So it was with some excitement that I saw: Geneanet now launches Geneanet DNA, a new beta test service which allows you to upload the raw data of a DNA test kit taken with any company, to compare it to other Geneanet members' DNA data. Click here to discover Geneanet DNA The FamilySearch Wiki describes Geneanet:  Geneanet was launched in 1996 by genealogy enthusiasts to help family history researchers sharing their data. They wanted their users to pay only if they want and that’s why they created the Premium service. Most of the website pages and features are available for free but you can take advantage of Ad-Free browsing, more effective search engine and access to additional records by subscribing to the Premium. The site can be viewed in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. They add: Geneanet is especially u...