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I have written an easy-to-understand web page describing the use of FTDNA's Family Finder in genealogy. This test is an example of a massive autosomal DNA test.
Please take a look and then add any additional suggestions to this thread.
Your web site is an excellent explanation of the genealogical use of the Family Finder test. I was also in on the beta test and now have over 50 matches, some genealogy help but no connections yet. I have run into the situation you mention about the number of possible paths from a distant ancestor. Trying to trace forward quickly becomes impossible.
One suggestion, you can take your autosomal results and run them against the files of DNA medical studies at the Promethease web site. I got very interesting information from there.
Your suggestion about the Promethease tool is an intersting one for medical purposes. But are you sure that could be done with Family Finder data? I thought the medically informative SNLPs were stripped out and not included in the results.
My problem:
when I set my tree to show all ancestral related there are 10,624 people
when set to Ancestors, with 5 generations of descendants, including spouses and parents, there are still 2838 people.
That's a lot of picking and sorting for this "only child" to do!
Its my understanding FTDNA tried to avoid medical SNPs, but they missed some. Actually some of the ones I got were not serious medical conditions.
For instance, light-skinned, blue-eyed Caucasian, and ability to taste bitterness.
To use Promethease, you have to download your results using the link on your personal page. That comes out as a gzip file, then use the free program to unzip the data. That gives you a .csv format. Much larger than the gzip one. Then you download the Promethease program and run it against your csv file and that produces a detailed report. Mine came out with 1624 snps. Kinda complicated, but I'm not too smart and managed to get thru it.
Its my understanding FTDNA tried to avoid medical SNPs, but they missed some. Actually some of the ones I got were not serious medical conditions.
For instance, light-skinned, blue-eyed Caucasian, and ability to taste bitterness.
To use Promethease, you have to download your results using the link on your personal page. That comes out as a gzip file, then use the free program to unzip the data. That gives you a .csv format. Much larger than the gzip one. Then you download the Promethease program and run it against your csv file and that produces a detailed report. Mine came out with 1624 snps. Kinda complicated, but I'm not too smart and managed to get thru it.
I have tested at FTDNA for the Family Finder Test a where I have about 40 matches and at 23andme where I have 349. I am very happy with both companies. My proplem is that so many of my matches, including close matces of 3rd cousin won't respond to e-mails. Also, it is hard to know how you match others especially at 5th to distant cousin level especially if you are a females. I even have one match one my X chromosome which I can't find how I match with the person. It has been frustrating to me especially when my e-mails are ignored. I am trying to keep track of all my matching surnames to see if a pattern developes. Any other sugestions?
SSowards
You wright "Count out five generations to your great-great-great grandparents." If you count out five generation from yourself you will reach only your GG grandparents not your GGG Grandparents.
You wright "Count out five generations to your great-great-great grandparents." If you count out five generation from yourself you will reach only your GG grandparents not your GGG Grandparents.
You're trying to account for the make-up of your autosomal DNA when you test with Family Finder or a similar test. Don't include yourself in the count of generations, since your genome is the result of the previous generations' recombination of DNA.
1 generation ago - parents
2 generations ago - grandparents
3 generations ago - great-grandparents
4 generations ago - gg-grandparents
5 generations ago - ggg-grandparents
If you count the "G"s you get the cousin relationship.
when two people have the same:
(g)randparents = 1 g = they are 1st cousins
(g)reat (g)randparents = 2 gs = they are 2nd cousins
(g)reat (g)reat (g)randparents = 3 gs = they are 3rd cousins
etc.
of course this is assuming we are just talking cousinship, not siblingship or something else.. but I'm sure you know this is just a little mini-reference type of thing.
Last edited by mkdexter; 26th July 2010, 11:27 AM.
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