In other words, if they announce your amazing match with some Viking on a 6.9 cM segment of 60 SNPs, realistically this could be a fudge of several very short cM segments....

YEAH. 60 SNPs ain't a lot. To put it in perspective, even GEDmatch would need at least 200 and probably more like 600 SNPs to call that same segment a match.

Yes, this is a possible explanation.

The companies would have to tell us what they are using to make their determinations. There is not enough data available otherwise to suss it out.

That gap doesn't have any tested SNPs (probably because there are few if any in that region). As such, different companies may indicate that you have two segments (separated by a non-tested region) or they may assume that the non tested region belongs with the two segments. Since there are no SNPs in that region, there is no way to tell whether a recombination or two happened in that region.

Full genome testing is available already. However, there is no platform to do any kind of matching for it. The amount of computing power (assuming you are just looking at the 3 million SNPs) would be 5-20 times what is currently used for any of the companies matching algorithms. The result would only be moderately more accurate, so a large cost for not much improvement.

No one should haggle over the end points. It makes little difference for the vast majority of matches.

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics So, does the number of centiMorgans indicate the level of the match? And is there a kind of formula for that? Like I said I usually just go by the personal contact (if I get one) and the exchange of information and/or subsequent research (particularly in reference to source documents). I don't really pay that much attention to the "numbers" and I pay practically NO attention to the ethnicity part of it. I am fascinated by history and well aware of the numerous migrations and refugee populations, conquered territory or even mixing of noble lineages that make nailing down somebody's "ethnicity" really practically impossible to verify with any degree of accuracy. However, all of these things concern my mother and when she sees her matches and the numbers and ethnicity associated with them she gets very confused and asks me for some kind of explanation. The last time she asked me I did compare her match with the same person on FTDNA and Ancestry DNA and why did she match at a closer cousin level on one than the other and I did look at the numbers and they were different and the formulas that created them were different and I told her that was probably the reason. This is a person whom my mother has NO clue how they are related, BUT, there seems to be a fairly close (second or third cousin) relationship which we SHOULD be able to find some common ancestor, but, there seems to be none that I can confirm (based on the pedigree the other person has provided at FTDNA). And all attempts to contact the person in question have had no response. What is more interesting is that this person contacted my mother first and all excited about the "closeness" of their match. So incidents like that WILL induce me to check out the "numbers" to try to figure something out to explain it to my mother. I did just think of this. Maybe I could revisit that pedigree and do a little more sleuthing on who those families are and who they are related to and maybe another shared match's pedigree might make it clearer where a possible common ancestor may be. Just another item on the growing list of genealogy projects. Oh well, it's like I keep saying, at least I'm NEVER bored! lol My new Yamaha keyboard gives me something to fall back on when I need to take a breather. ;-)

You bet!

I'm back from a summer break. I am discussing this during my upcoming video. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bNxjirCktMq-XZs.html

Never mind, I found it! It is when I am comparing my kit to another in the One-to-One Autosomal DNA comparison option. I'll leave my comment here in case anyone else wondered how to view that same feature.

I'm glad you figured it out.

Because DNA is random. Also, because some chromosomes have pile up regions and others don't. Also, because it is not a random sample but a representation of those people who have tested (for instance, if there was a family that had 8 kids and they all matched you on Chromosome 20, it might look like you have more matches on that Chromosome than on a single person matching you on Chromosome 1). More about pile-up regions kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iZanp61qnMi2aaM.html

That is a good assumption to start with. Matching trees can help show whether you have a common ancestor that can be identified. Check out this playlist kzfaq.info/sun/PLcVx-GSCjcdmsw25mbI-wJin_9_9QQUzI