tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1979873143763627178.post3038559527743367297..comments2023-09-24T08:11:15.643-04:00Comments on The Occasional Genealogist: Confused by Your Shared Matches?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1979873143763627178.post-43667014554925584992021-02-22T15:59:51.800-05:002021-02-22T15:59:51.800-05:00I'm glad you found this helpful! I've actu...I'm glad you found this helpful! I've actually had lots of people tell me they have this issue with groups from all over the world. So far southerners are the largest group I've seen it it, it's often small groups that for whatever reason didn't get all the way to "endogamy." BTW, I think you probably are "clustering" with what you're doing, it's just not formalized. I came up with the 4 Buckets Technique because I got sick of flipping back and forth between AncestryDNA shared matches and trying to track what I was seeing! I worry there is too much emphasis on auto-clustering because it is problematic for groups like southerners and often newbies don't know they have these issues so they could just be spinning their wheels trying to follow conventional advice using auto-clustering. Thanks for your comment!Jennifer Donderohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12302995363908225713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1979873143763627178.post-54163593941712326282021-02-22T10:45:14.139-05:002021-02-22T10:45:14.139-05:00Was searching for someone else dealing with these ...Was searching for someone else dealing with these problems, So glad you are posting. I think that we (Southerner's) have a more obvious problem, but I also am seeing pockets of the same issues with other lines outside the south, mostly from small communities who came to America and a group of families intermarried a lot. How I am seeing this is unusually "large" matches for the distance, generally being represented as a large segment on one chromosome. My mother for example, has a "pile up" of matches from one family group on her 11th chromosome. The majority match either the front or back half of this 74 cM segment, but two people match the entire segment. Building trees out, I was able to find it was in common with my mother's family and another they "traveled with". Researching this family, I find four or five families literally spent a lot of time together for about 100 years. I don't know why this happens, but I see the same thing for my great Aunt's DNA (early colonial and an immigrant ancestor). The line here actually comes from England, but again, a lot of intermarriages in the small village, so that one abnormally large match (107 cM) led me to the village in the first place (they are 3c1r 18% chance on dna painter). Normally these matches are the "outliers" on the dna painter spectrum, not the majority of matches. Long story short, I have never done your method on "paper", probably because 1. it wasn't around and I learned triangulation 2. I already had a full tree for the most part when I started, so there are just a few ancestor's I have focused on to use DNA to help me find (multiple kits a plus here). I always (since ancestry is where most of the kits are) use shared matches to find the in common, and flip back and forth between them to see how many are in common and with who that I already identified as being from my line. Then I look for surnames in common, if I find matches with a surname (2 or more) I will build out a tree. (odd how it's always the last or next to last line I work on is the key), and then do good genealogy to look at how we may relate (same county (Bulloch for me a lot)) and keep on. There seems to be a lot of emphasis into clustering for everyone these days when I look at the advice given on FB groups. I worry that it may only complicate things for newer folks who haven't tried to learn DNA or do a tree before they started. One advantage I had is I have always tried to do the siblings down as far as I can for every generation (aside from those early colonial folks), and that makes it easier sometimes to hit on a line. Genealogy Addicthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02274498891387645896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1979873143763627178.post-76937658751895774612020-02-05T08:16:58.247-05:002020-02-05T08:16:58.247-05:00Glad you found this, Kim! I'm really excited t...Glad you found this, Kim! I'm really excited the MyHeritage is making the webinar available for free so people can watch and rewatch it as it covers a lot.Jennifer Donderohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12302995363908225713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1979873143763627178.post-42775262291698617992020-02-05T00:06:51.912-05:002020-02-05T00:06:51.912-05:00I just ran across your webinar at Legacy and will ...I just ran across your webinar at Legacy and will watch it I have been at the DNA since 2014 when I tested myself and my grandmother and clearly everyone from Barnwell County, South Carolina are related in multiple ways which is why I can't even figure out 2nd cousins to my grandmother!!! I have tested well over 20 relatives. I will spend some time with your information hope it helps me! Thank youKim Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13200319944668408144noreply@blogger.com