👨‍🏫 Learn how to CUSTOMIZE Your Leeds Method Chart 👉🏼 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b9ehmJernMfdhHk.html

I think you all read my mind! I can’t wait for this video 🙂

Learning so much, thank you for all the fantastic videos!

This will be my 3rd time watching this video. I think I'm half-way there to fully getting it. I'll open an Excel sheet and go slow, step by step. I'm using Ancestry data and have a clearly defined list of matches from 400 - 90 cM, so that will help. Here goes!

I like this color coding our DNA matches even though my maternal grandparents were second cousins.

Thank you for this help, very informative

I really like the simple color coding, I tried it before in a more data intensive format, It was complicated by pedigree collapse, and I knew was going to be frustrating before I started .

Im.helping an adoptee so this is spot on

Thanks Andy🧬👀🧬🧬🧬

Mom and dad are 1C1R, mom's father and dad's grandmother are siblings. So many of the methods and software applications don't work for me because of this! I think also that many of my DNA match cMs are skewed somewhat because of this. I have a lot of kits that I manage, so I have been able to sort a lot of the matches out and have successfully placed them in my tree.

This is very helpful now that autoclustering is no longer available for Ancestry. Maybe now I can figure out who my father is.

I've figured out enough of my 4th cousin matches that I can go with 16 colors... which represent each of my great great grandparents.

Have Thruput on ancestry along with my tree. it lists my cousin's. Have uploaded one of my Ged match to family Tree. have now run big Y and got another match confirmed # do I have to upload the new GED # to Ged Match in in order to use it?

Thank you for helping: I am using myheritage. Okay, that’s what I understood: in your example you did start with Deborah. That means I would compare Deborah and Mike, looking at the list myheritage shows me. All the names I see will be coloured in my Leeds sheet , correct? Having done this, I pick the next name on my list and I repeat this….correct? I only have 10 matches with 90 to 400 cM, it’s a very small list. ….

Q: What do you do when you have to go to 10 columns to make it through all 2-3rd cousins?

I've not heard of this particular method. I have sorted my matches at Ancestry DNA via Shared Matches separating them from paternal and maternal and then gradually working "back" in my ancestry from that. It also helps when some of them actually have a pedigree attached and I have a full Ancestry account with my own pedigree to use to compare. This actually is the way that I narrowed down when my Non-Paternal Event (the Chandler in the wood pile so to speak) occurred or more properly when it did NOT occur. I am 99.99 % certain that it was either the father of my great-great grandfather or one or more generations before that but not after my great-great grandfather. It helps that I have documented research of all of the known children of my great-great grandfather and contact with several of those children's descendants. And if I match a number of them fairly closely I'm more certain that the NPE did not occur say with my great-grandmother having an extramarital thing that resulted in the birth of my grandfather. But I'll see about doing something like this. I know next to nothing about spreadsheets. I guess that's probably one more thing I should learn. I know they are used a lot by my colleagues. I shouldn't say that I don't know about them. I actually have used them in the distant past with the OS system of computers. They had actual fun tutorials to follow along with to help you create them. I kind of miss those. This PC DOES have Excel. So the capability is there. Any suggestions for easy to follow instructional videos on how to create a genealogy spreadsheet to get me started? Next I'm going to learn Latin. ;-) I find your videos always informative and entertaining.

How did you generate the shared match list in a spreadsheet?

The Leeds method is focusing on your great parents is that correct? I was getting confused as you mention grandparents. I’m a newbie still learning.

I have a brick wall with the family my paternal great grandfather. I do know he had at least one other family and I found them on Ancestry…a half 1C1R and 4 half 2C/3C. We have been working together with to solve this mystery. I was thinking of using the Leads method with the shared matches of my 1C1R as a starting point. My thinking is my shared matches with them would only be through my great grandfather, just as if you separated your parents sides. Maybe I’m wrong. Plus it meets the criteria with all of them under 400cm. Last, If Im looking for my 2nd GG parent should I expect at least 16 columns?

So what happens when there is Endogamy in the family? How would this work?

well that was quick. My mother has exactly 3 matches (except for me) that shares more than 90 cM on myheritage. Woop!

It was so clear to me until 6:14 minute but than you lost me! :-)) It would have been great to do the same routine with Jo as you did with Deborah… I am not sure I got it right…. But thank you anyway to offer those video tutorials. It’s great!

I've been doing the color coding before I learned this was actually a method, and also before checking out AutoClusters on MyHeritage. Sometimes I feel like Ancestry's meant for people who's families have been here in the US for more than 2 generations and are from Western Europe (where surnames were recorded before 1750). All of my great-grandparents, and some in my grandparent's generation immigrated around 1890-1914 (save for one, but their parents may have been immigrants). My mom's grandparents are from Germany/Switzerland and North/South Italy - dad's side is from NE and SE Poland, and maybe Pomerania (Gdansk region) and possibly Belarus (Brest?). I've done the 2nd-3rd cousins for my dad's side, and only his maternal grandparents are within range on Ancestry, and maternal grandmother on MyHeritage (with one mystery 3rd cousin from Ukraine that doesn't match any known kits - possibly my grandfather's mother's side.). I've tried (out of desperation, heh) looking at the "distant cousin of a distant cousin"), but that starts connecting to other branches in odd ways. (Apparently, a distant cousin of my parents have a distant cousin that are related to both sets, probably someone who's parents came from each branch and are really more like 16th cousins - starting to look at 65k people there). I have to get down to 47 shared cM before even finding one cousin that may be on my paternal grandfather's side. The rest seem to be 5th-8th cousins (and only 4 according to Ancestry's shared matches). My grandparents were never tested (They've since passed away). There are 4 2nd-3rd and 4 4th-6th cousins on my dad's side that Ancestry says are on the Parental Side, but looking at the shared matches of their matches goes back to my dad's mother's paternal grandmother (Most of the closer matches are 80/15/5/~1 Eastern Europe/Baltic/Jewish/British or Irish) What seems to be my grandfather's side (and there may be endogamy?) has percentages of 75-90% Eastern Europe, 15-20% Baltic, 1-5% Jewish Peoples of Europe, 0-1% England and NW Europe (Ancestry's shared matches suggests Ireland). There does seem to be a bit more Belarussian/Ukrainian matches that could potentially be on my grandfather's side (they don't have any shared matches to my grandmother's side), which may be why Ancestry doesn't have their kits. Granted, there are a lot of Russians on my grandmother's side (many of whom seems like they're expats). I've also seen an odd case on MyHeritage where one of the ancestral names in a match is on my dad's maternal grandfather's side, but the matches are on my dad's maternal grandmother's side.

How do I know which grandparent each color represents?

I did my list, the first person in the list match everyone in the list so I didn't know how to continue coloring. I know that the rest don't match all.

So I'm trying Leeds on just my mothers maternal side. Suspect a NPE one or two generations back. But I only have two unknown matches over 90cM and about 36 matches below 90cM all the way to 8cM. How successful would Leeds be trying to find groups within just the one side of a tree?

I did this for my both sides...and sadly I can connect each name, there are no unknowns. Where do I go from here with this method...do I just choose those below 90 now?

I'm only finding 2 people in the range 90-400 cM on GEDMatch. In 23&Me I have lots of people listed as 2nd & 3rd cousins, but I can't tell what their cMs are on 23&Me. Basic question: Does GEDMatch offer any way to see which GEDMatch relations are on 23&Me? Some of my 23&Me cousins are probably on GEDMatch, but I don't know how to tell which ones.

2nd and 3rd cousins? Luxury - can only dream of that!

I love the abilities of excel but I am horrible at setting up the workbooks. Do you have a shared workbook?

Hello I made a list of my matches 90cms to 400cm I have got two colums worked out There are two people in my list of matches that when i run their matches with me the result is matches below 90cms. So i have only ended up with two colums with people in. Do i go below 90cms with them Thanks Pat Berry

So as I am doing this I pull up the share match list for my self and the first person Ray (we share 399 cm) and in the shared match list are every single person on my 2nd 3rd cousin list... so does that mean only that family from the that grandparent have taken tests? I have 40 people on my list of people who I share 90 to 400 cM with and every single one of them are on the shared match list between myself and Ray

My Great Grandpa is an NPE. I have posted in Facebook groups about trying to find my unknown 2nd Great Grandpa. Everybody tells me to do the Leeds method. Ive watched this video over and over and over. I just can't/don't understand this method. 😢😭😭😭.

Very interesting. Mine worked out 5 coloured columns. Two represent my mother's parents families. The other 3 represented my Dad's family. One of those represented his mother's family, however the other two columns represent his mother's mother's family, and the other represents his father's mother's family. There is no representation of my father's father's family. I guess, that is because my closest direct paternal line cousins, both third cousins have 23 & 19 cM shared with me!!

When going through the "lead" matches, what do you do if the lead has no matches with anyone else listed in the 90-400 range?

I have no second cousins that I can find on my fathers side of the family. I think this is because there are 150 years between my Great Grandfather and me. Can I still use this method? I do have identified 3rd and 4th cousins.

Hi I need help with mine. I’ve uploaded my raw DNA from ancestry to my heritage, gedmatch, geneanet, ftdna, My living dna!! There’s too many on Ancestry the highest cM on my fathers side is 148 but I can’t figure out whose whose grandparents some trees are private some haven’t made one some have like 3 people or a few

I set up my Leeds Chart with 8 colors. I went through entire list for the first 2 "leads". I marked the rest of the leads in the other 6 columns. I began to work on the 3rd "lead" when I noticed the first shared match happens to be the lead in the previous column, so sits in the cell above ... is that unusual?

What do you do when some of your cousin’s are from both sides of the family?

LOL @ "list 2nd & 3rd cousins"...for me, that's a total of 16, all of which I've identified and placed on the tree. I only have one match higher than 400 and that's my half-brother that I've never [yet] met. The result of my Mum being an only child and my Dad having only 1 brother. Also, I believe, a result of DNA testing being somewhat less 'popular' in the UK compared tho the USA.

I am trying to do chart for my uncle and I got through most of the chart and I got to my last color which was green. I went through kind of assuming the rest of my matches would be green but there were 5 or 6 that were left blank. I went back to them and they match with some of the greens but not others. But they don't match with anyone in the other colors either. I'm really confused as to how some of the greens are matched but some aren't. Like Person A is matched with B and C but person D is matched with B and C but not A.

I don't know which list to use to make the chart. I made it using the DNA Match list in 23andMe. Later I downloaded the aggregate data. I used that list in hope that I wouldn't need to type all the names in. Again I made a Leeds chart, but the results were different. The names were in a different order. Any advice?

I am creating my first Leeds chart and I have one color that has a large number of matches. My other colors only have a few matches. There are 74 in total and only 18 fall under other colors. Would this support a possible instance of incest in the predominant color group (this is suspected), or does it just mean that fewer people have tested from the other color groups?

Will this help when you're trying to find your Father & have nothing to go off of but a 6% match from Ancestry??

How would an adopted person utilize this method? She knows maternal grandparents, but has no information on the paternal side. Can this help her identify her birth father?

What I you don't have enough 2nd and 3rd cousins. Can you use 3rd thur 4th??

I have a question about the shared matches list with your match, so on the original matches list, I have it going down to 70CM which covers all my mum's known 2nd cousin and 2nd 1 removed. When I click on shared matches for her top match who is

What do I do if I only have 4 2nd-3rd cousins showing up between 90 and 400??

I am confused . I have 3 / 4 DNA matches which are second to fifth cousin matches. These go back to the same two people in each of their tree’s. They are not siblings. This set of parents who they go back to I do not match up to in my paper tree. None of my families were in the same area of the UK at the time this pair was there. This pair emigrated to New Zealand in 1850 on one of the first four ships carrying the first settlers. The family who I suspect to be my great grandparents relations emigrated on one of the other four ships. How do I find out how and if these two families are step parents.

I am creating a Leeds Chart for my late Aunt but am finding she has very few relatives above 90 cm (most are either much closer relatives who I know or fall under the 90 cm mark) . How much below 90 cm is it wise to go?

I joined FHF today after watching two videos about Ledes charts. I just created a chart for myself using data from Ancestry. My list of matches in the 90-400 cM range included 67 people, with the highest match being 293 cM. I had to create TEN columns/colors before everyone on the list had at least one color. Is that okay? Or did I do something wrong? I checked and double-checked the matches. I don't want to go any farther until I'm sure I did it correctly.

Husband doesnt have any 2-3 rd cousin matches, only 4-6th

I only have 6 people under 400cM/over 90cM. Is that enough to work with?

I am trying to help my friend, K, find her biological family. I’m building a chart for the Leeds Method, and she has hundreds of matches in the 2nd-3rd cousin range. Columns 1 and 2 seem to have some differences, but column 3 is almost identical to column 1. I can’t find a blank line to start column 4, and I have worked on 280 matches so far. What in the world is going on here?

23andme only gives me two people with correct cm's to do a Leeds chart with....not enough.....what are my options?

I need some help. I've created a list of 34 names using cms 90-400. I've only come up with 3 colours. Also, I based my colour red on "Thom". Several names match Thom's matches but show Thom as a match. Is this because of cousins marrying each other?

I have another question about Leeds Method. I watched the video a couple of times and still don't quite get it. Here's the steps I understand... I list my Ancestry DNA matches in Excel spreadsheet 1st column; then I choose one color say Red and make the first cell Red of a cousin (that would be Jack) between 400 cM - 90 cM; then I go to that cousin's shared matches to me and make all the person cells Red that are shared matches with my DNA. I know I go to the 2nd column. I know I go back to my Excel DNA match list and click on the cousin after Jack that does not have a Red cell. That would be Jill. So I click on Jill's cell 2nd column and make it Blue. But what is my next step? Here's where I don't understand what to do... Do I return to my original Ancestry DNA matches page and now click on Jill's shared matches with me? Then make all those shared matches Blue? I hope this makes sense.

Just curious as to which spreadsheet program you're using, as I tried Google Spreadsheet and Excel, and neither of them give the option of placing colors in any of the cells. I also cannot customize colors to be placed in the cells.

Ok so confused I did this and I only had two columns of colors. One side maroon other light blue

Each of my four grandparents can't be related any other way? I think that's true . ..then we start getting into the great grandparents. . . what do you do about double cousins? My first cousins are also double thirds or . . .let's see. .my two grandmothers (one step, one natural) were double first cousins. So. . .my dad's half brothers and sisters are double first cousins once removed? Making me and my first cousins also seconds? *bangs head into desk* I seriously just need to focus on my straight tree. . . .

Help!!! I exported my matches. I have columns. However, how are you matching??? First you match Deborah - based on what? (I am trying to find biological father for my great grandmother) Thanks for making these videos, and I appreciate if you can clarify!

I have known 3rd cousins coming in at only 51 cMs. Will Leeds not work properly if I go this low?

Will the Leeds method help me separate great grandparents? I have a mystery set of paternal greats.

I was adopted and am working on finding my birth family through DNA. Where do you get the shared matches from when you don't really know any of your DNA matches? My DNA test was through Ancestry.

8:26ish: Considering trying this with our family, but in my case, there's a grandmother who's a genetically identical twin (i.e. she and her twin had daughters, who had daughters. Of that group the two daughters test out as half siblings and as aunts to the generation beneath, but our generation correctly test out as 2nd cousins). Have we any hope of this working for us? What should we expect? Also, could this be the reason it hasn't worked on attempts up to now?

I 'm 65 and just found my biological fathers family on ANCESTRY , unfortantly my father passed away 25 years ago, I have a match that shows 26% DNA 1829cM. I know this is not a grandparent /child but can' figure out if its a half sibling or Aunt /Nephew .this match is on my paternal side and none of my biological fathers family know who he is. No one knew my father had any children until I matched on Ancestry. Is it possible to figure ?

I thought the trick was to not include anyone 400 or above? Wouldn't that mean that those you've highlighted in red should not be included at all? I've noticed when I do this, I have to go way down to about 50cm because many of the people I am coming across are on my mom's side which I already know. I am trying to find my biological father, so I'm trying to narrow down my paternal grandparents. I also have some that are unknown and are typically fourth cousins and less.

How do i add the asterisk in the cell?

I am just a little confused... I have 20 matches in my chart. But where I am confused is why we don't have 20 different colors? I have Match 1 listed and all of the shared matches that I have with Match 1 and that is one color. Then in the next column is Match 2 and that is a different color and then I have marked all of the shared matches on that match. Then Match 3 is a different color. Then it goes on and on with different colors. Thanks so much.

What if your closest match is less than 70?

Hi, I really enjoy your videos. Just a little note on your 'typo'. Leeds with 2 'e's is a place in England only. You are actually creating a Leads chart. The idea that it leads you to group your matches. Like the idea of a sales lead to get more business. I hope you take this constructively. Again, keep up the great videos, they are really appreciated.

Lost me right off the bat...how do I KNOW if "Michael" and Debra" share DNA with someone else in the first place? I think that step showing how to check if they match is missing. It's really basic, but isn't this supposed to be basic instructions?

What if you have parents who didn't know they are related

Works great unless you have crazy endogamy.

Do not feel bad Stacey Coates, I found out at 52 that my dad who raised me on his own, isn’t even my biological dad. My relatives for his side, there are only 3 left and will not help. My biological father passed away, 2 years before i learned the truth.

I have a 24 cM match on Ancestry named "Deena" but 23andMe shows us as a 46 cM match and she matches several of my maternal 1st cousins. She was adopted and I found both her bio parents for her last year, and found that she had 3 living full brothers she didn't know she had, and they have been united. Such a gift - but now, 2 years later I still can't figure out how she and I are related. Shared matches show it's on my maternal great grandfather's line, but so many of them were adopted. So far no surnames on my tree are in hers. How can I get this figured out and solve the mystery? - it's exhausting and keeping me up at night. Does the fact that it was probably the result of an affair and not reflected in official records for anyone mean it's impossible to determine?

I'm guessing endogamy wouldn't be to helpful in putting together a Leeds chart.

But I only have FIVE people between 400 and 90 Cm

So...I have 10 rows. What's even more interesting is that there are one person from my mother's maternal side (not many people sampled). Is that normal?

First step for me should have been how to set up the chart. I see the tabs, but no explanation on how to use them. Is this truly a table or just columns and rows? Maybe I'm just anal and just like to see the process from the beginning, however simple the beginning may be.

This does not make sense. I'm adopted, I have my matches, this does not help. Watched it twice