Pedigree collapse and endogamy are always gonna futz things up, for sure

You make a great point. When you have a cousin who is related to you in multiple ways, you often have to ignore them initially until you've fully researched everyone else.

Valorie... that's correct. I made a video about the topic here kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jdKhksRezMrKaZ8.html

I have a bunch of this. My parents also seemed to be 4th cousins:(

Read this and thought it was very much like my clustering. If you think this is bad you should try researching the DNA matches of a close relative (my 100+ year old grandfather) from a rural part of Ireland. Many of my matches are fine and just have one line (many who I think are from common ancestors who emigrated), but there are still quite a number who are in groups from both sides of his family tree (paternal and maternal), who I put down to those that remained in the region he was originally from longer and so closer back to the common ancestor. What is interesting now is Ancestry having recently added their paternal-material label to the matches. I'm not totally sure how accurate is or how Ancestry have calculated this new feature, but it is another thing to possibly use to verify a match that has say 10 matches in a paternal group but 1 in a material one. I think probability and caution are still needed to be used in assessing them though.

I'm glad I could offer some insights. Just remember, genealogy takes time. Pace yourself and it will be so much fun.

Any time. I hope you'll watch more videos that we have about AncestryDNA or genealogy research that my wife creates.

If you're asking whether a Superkit can be transferred off GEDMatch for use on other platforms, sadly, the answer is no.

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics That's unfortunate, but thanks for letting me know. I hope some day the system becomes sophisticated enough to allow the creation of kits for those deceased family members where a kit is desired.

This is a variation on Devon's method. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pLJ7mbWq0LeRd30.html

Chris, that is interesting ... I think I need to "draw" it first!

Great tip. I've been traveling and missed it. Thanks for sharing!

Devon briefly mentioned Mary Hill's color coding in this video. It's not DNA but it's related. to organizing. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oq54n5N92svddKs.html

You can place 3rd and 4th cousins in Group 2. To get the best results, try to add 2nd and 1st cousins as well.

What you've written makes sense. I'd love to tackle this in a live stream Q&A. Would you share some screen shots and further information with me? You can start the process by using our contact form www.familyhistoryfanatics.com/contact

Fair points. I did a video about labeling relationships which would explain how to do the Add Relationships you mentioned. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mq-fqqRjl8yuYYk.html

My wife constantly tells people to build their family tree using records so that I can focus on talking about the DNA side of things. So, I hope you don't mind me trying to focus on one thing per video. But I'll see what I can do about your video suggestion.

That is correct.

Endogamy and pedigree collapse do complicate things. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jdKhksRezMrKaZ8.html

While I understand the struggle, I know that Ancestry tried to use more colors in the past but the colors were too similar for people to differentiate between. So, perhaps they could use color and pattern combinations? We've offered that suggestion before, so send your feedback using their support link support.ancestry.com/s/article/Providing-Feedback-About-Ancestry?language=en_US They need to hear from customers and genealogy educators.

Why couldn’t ancestry set it up where an individual could import all kinds of colors and shapes,icons or multi striped colors?

Start with this video and follow along the recommended videos at the end of each. There's a whole process. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l9d0ZdRqmr-Yl40.html

Often after you consult your matches and their matches, you MAY find clues to help you figure out how the extended cluster is related. It's possible your matches' matches are related to you but you didn't inherit the strand of DNA. What you'll want to do is build their family trees to see if they intersect with yours.

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics Most of them are likely adopted and Chinese. I might be lucky to get info from maybe 5%.

Without several documented DNA and paper trails, there is no evidence that you inherited any DNA from any specific ancestor on that line. You inherited on average 12.5% from your great grandmother, but by the time you get back to the 1100s, you would have thousands of ancestors for your great grandmother and you (and she) probably only have DNA from a handful of them.

Do you know how at least a 1st cousin or 2nd cousin is related? Meaning, do you know if a 1st cousin is related through your mom or your dad?

@@FamilyHistoryFanatics yes for my dad side but not Mom side. There are only 2 people I know that is labeled mother side I know. Everyone else that has mother side I don't know.

Follow the steps to work through your father's side of the family until you can't. Those matches will begin your parental research questions. For your mother, make a LEEDS Chart to cluster your DNA matches. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y51kf62qz9fTaZc.html Using your father's known relatives, you can begin to group your DNA matches into clusters. With luck, you'll begin to see who is related to your father and who is likely related to your mother. You can then use the maternal matches to see who might have a family tree online. Look for overlapping ancestral couples. That's the general process. Here's another series of videos that might interest you. kzfaq.info/sun/PLcVx-GSCjcdmsw25mbI-wJin_9_9QQUzI

If you have a true blue aunt/uncle or first cousin, you can use their match to "separate" your family into maternal/paternal dot-wise. Better if you have more than one for each side to use. But they have to be full-first-cousin or full-aunt/uncle in order to start everything out on the right track for dna purposes. First cousins will separate stuff into grandparent groups (2 piles). 2nd cousins will separate stuff further into great-grandparent groups (4 piles). Only go down to 90 cM. The smaller down you go - the more people will be related to both sides of the tree due to relatives in the far past. This is a great channel. I also recommend Your DNA Guide channel for a different way of using the dots to separate out branches. Her vids are easy to figure out too.

​@@pinwheelgrl9304 Whilst I agree on the whole with your comment I don't agree with your comment about only going down to x cM, unless by this you are meaning to save time. I think it depends on the situation you are in (by which I mean how much research you've already done in the traditional records researching), but finding an ancestor that falls into a paternal and maternal group based on shared matches is fine, it just makes it more difficult to narrow down how they fit into your tree, so the other low hanging fruit I would address more. The annoying thing about Ancestry is that they don't tell you how much DNA the matches share with your shared matches, which might help prioritise groups which shared matches of unknown, ungrouped matches two over others, so say you knew this and your match has 10 shared matches, 8 which match a paternal grandparent, and 2 that match a maternal one. If you knew that those 2 had 150+ cM matches whereas the 8 were all in the 20-30cM range then you'd prefer them in the material. Without this knowledge you can't really know or might have to make assumptions that might be wrong (but kinda have to say some points, genetics in the end is a matter of probability, nothing is set in stone when you start to go back more and more generations, which is what most of us doing this are really after). Having said all of this sometimes you do get some small cM matches that only fall into one group, that have extensive family trees and that you recognise surnames that match the ones you have in your tree and with a bit of paper based research you can link them up, and by doing this, and messaging them, and hopefully getting a response, can find out the cM some of your shared matches with them share with your shared matches in common (I've been trying to help a match locate a common ancestor by doing this, though they have to be very interested in going further back on that branch of their tree, which they were very interested to do so in this case). Personally I think doing some record based research first is needed before starting on any clustering as above. By doing this I would say that creating groups for each parent shouldn't be necessary, and you start at the grandparent level. I think clustering is really only a tool needed when you hit brick walls and can't get any further (if you are adopted then maybe it's a different matter, you probably need this at the start, but that isn't the vast majority of people). In my experience I have 4 grandparent clusters, a handful of great grandparent clusters, and quite a lot of unknown clusters (some of which overlap with others, sometime both paternal and maternal ones). In the end there is no right or wrong ways of doing things (ok there are probably many wrong ways) but some approaches where you do need to be cautious as if you ancestors and their descendants didn't migrate that much then I think it's almost certain that in the majority of cases you'll have some matches that fall into multiple categories, but some that don't, and those that don't can be real gems imo.

Awesome.

Yep. You've encountered a large problem in family tree building. I hope you have clustered your DNA using the Leeds Method kzfaq.info/sun/PLcVx-GSCjcdmJ2ZbhDCBPugPMYveHkwxs Then, you can try to figure out who people are using what available information there is. Another thing you can try is descendancy research. This is where you will use your paper trail to find descendants of of each ancestral couple. (This will eventually involve researching living persons). Then, you would reach out to the living persons to see if they have taken a DNA test or would be willing to for you to establish the identify of your shared ancestors. It's not easy and many people who take DNA tests are only interested in ethnicity results. I don't think that's going to improve. But, there are ways to attack the problem. It just requires a little more learning. I hope I have given you some key topics to investigate.

People love to hang onto the family skeleton for some reason. If you are young, the people in question may still be alive; but if you are older, I see no reason why some information can't be given. Like Andy says, Leeds is the best, use the spreadsheet version. Dana Leeds just did a free vid on it over at Legacy Webinars, free until around Oct 20. She shows what to do with overlap groups and explains why they happen, which I found most helpful; then goes on to solve her problem. Also, don't forget (on no-tree matches) that you can look at the shared matches for trees for clues on surnames. Also, if you know an ancestor further back or married to the person in question, newspaper and funeral home obits are great for clues on who is who. FindAGrave is also nice, but not totally dependable if there is no actual grave (vs someone just uploaded a memorial because they couldn't find one anywhere). Use that to work your way back down, and don't forget using FamilySearch (the records part). Also, Diahan Southard has more ways you can use the dots to separate out branches from the others without any contact or trees. Her YT channel is Your DNA Guide.

Pedigree collapse does make the genetic and genealogical research more challenging.

With pedigree collapse I don't worry about sorting & dots so much -- I just put them in my tree if possible. Ancestry is probably never going to be able to tell us all the various ways we're connected to such people, but we can do it "by hand." It does take a lot of research tho! On the other hand, there are fewer ancestors to research.

It really depends on what you want them to do. They can help you segment from one line from another. But, they can also create other problems. So.. try it out and see what happens.

Half-relations mean the MRCA for them and you descended through a different spouse. So that match can be used to single out that one line, vs "the couple". In theory, yes, that person actually gets 'bumped up' a line, so they are very useful if you can't find a 2nd cousin for that spot. That's what I use mine for. But Andy is right if there are special situations.