Can 12 marker matches be significant?

[royfarnol]

Presently I have 282 12/0 markers which is of course a lot of long agos no doubt. But there are two commonly recurring names, one 13 times and one 12 times, which seems a fairly high proportion. They do seem to be individual results and not a set relating to one tester.
How much significance lurks herein? Are these two ancestral names that I should pay special attention to?
An interesting point is that one tester has bracketed these two names in their Y Search data.

[1798]

If you have 12 marker matches with the same SNPs then they are relations of some kind. The only way that you can tell how close will be how close they still are at 67. I had a cousin tested and we match at 37 markers and exact same SNPs.I didnt need to go with further tests for him.

[MMaddi]

You can't judge how closely two men or surnames are related by 12 marker matches. You need to make the comparison at 37 markers. So, if one of you only has 12 markers, he would have to upgrade to 37 markers to get the true picture.

In the case you're talking about, have any men from the two groups of recurring surnames tested to 25 or 37 markers? (Your match list will indicate, in parentheses, how many markers your matches have tested.) If so, and they don't appear in your list of 25 or 37 marker matches, then you can forget that match and possibly even the recurring surname he has as a close match to you.

To put it simply, it may be that the two recurring surnames are distant matches to you, 1,000 years or more, and all the men from those two surnames you're seeing as matches haven't mutated much from the ancestral marker values. The only way to know for sure is to compare one or more matches from each recurring surname at 37 markers.

[1798]

The modal for your group is 9DWWZ. Your closest matches at 57/67 have Scottish Gaelic names.

Presently I have 282 12/0 markers which is of course a lot of long agos no doubt. But there are two commonly recurring names, one 13 times and one 12 times, which seems a fairly high proportion. They do seem to be individual results and not a set relating to one tester.
How much significance lurks herein? Are these two ancestral names that I should pay special attention to?
An interesting point is that one tester has bracketed these two names in their Y Search data.

[AlisonT]

I'm a little bit jealous. My grandfather only has thirteen 12-marker matches, and only four of those are at zero steps. Three of those four have the same surname, but of course that means almost nothing right now... luckily they've all tested to 37 or 67 markers, so I'm just waiting to see if anything pans out when the rest of his results come it.

[Brunetmj]

I'm a little bit jealous. My grandfather only has thirteen 12-marker matches, and only four of those are at zero steps.

I know I say this quite a bit on this forum but I had to add that I have 0
12 marker matches. A handful of 1 step 12 marker matches and nothing at all after that. I would be jealous of 13.

[AlisonT]

I know I say this quite a bit on this forum but I had to add that I have 0
12 marker matches. A handful of 1 step 12 marker matches and nothing at all after that. I would be jealous of 13.

I do feel your pain, because all of the thirteen matches have panned out to absolutely nothing, zero matches at 25 and 37 markers. It's frustrating, isn't it? But I guess this is the nature of genetic genealogy. Some people are lucky, others not so much. For now, anyway.

[Lookin2]

12 Marker range

I look after four accounts for family. Testing males for Y and all for Family Finder.One Y-37 have had no 12 markers since opening account period since 10-19-09. (In fact none of the four accounts have had matched surnames listed). One test for Y-37 was given the Y=HAP Backbone test given the elusive "F". Tested two males, two females. One brother, one son, one sister and one niece. Brother is Uncle to other male. One female is Aunt to other female. None have produced a surname match.

Could someone tell me what relevance a name has that is listed in branches. 23&Me now lists surnames but so far no surname matches some unknown surnames names listed in branches. A little confused as to what that would mean. Thank you, Lookin2

[1798]

If you are R1b-DF13 then you have a lot of genetic cousins. I dont know the age estimate though. The first 12 markers are AMH so you must have a few of modal values in your first 12.If you have 67 markers tested then check your matches at 57/67. They could be your most recent clan.

I know I say this quite a bit on this forum but I had to add that I have 0
12 marker matches. A handful of 1 step 12 marker matches and nothing at all after that. I would be jealous of 13.

[royfarnol]

The modal for your group is 9DWWZ. Your closest matches at 57/67 have Scottish Gaelic names.

Much obliged 1798 for that information. I'll look into that modal. I hope these will be Gallicised Norse clans.

[Bartot]

I am a bit confused...

I have done a 37 marker test and have many matches with people who have mostly only done 12 marker tests.

I of these tests ( the only one), appears in FF as a 5th cousin.........I contacted this person and his reply was that his ancestors where from Scotland.

Questions
1 - should we ignore all 12 marker tested people whose results matches yours.

2- what length does it mean by 1st cousin , 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin etc etc.
I understand genrations to mean 25 years........although i was told in FTDNA it equals 100 years.

[MMaddi]

I am a bit confused...

I have done a 37 marker test and have many matches with people who have mostly only done 12 marker tests.

I of these tests ( the only one), appears in FF as a 5th cousin.........I contacted this person and his reply was that his ancestors where from Scotland.

Questions
1 - should we ignore all 12 marker tested people whose results matches yours.

2- what length does it mean by 1st cousin , 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin etc etc.
I understand genrations to mean 25 years........although i was told in FTDNA it equals 100 years.

Regarding your first question, read my post in this thread (#3) on page 1. In general, you should ignore all matches unless they are at the 37 marker level. You might make an exception for a 25 marker match that differs with you on 0 or 1 marker. But in that case, you should try to get that match to upgrade to 37 markers.

Regarding your second question, "1st cousin , 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin etc etc." are straightforward. 1st cousin means you share grandparents, 2nd cousin means you share great-grandparents and 3rd cousin means you share gg-grandparents.

I'm guessing you're seeing these as estimated relationships on your match list. If so, these are only estimates, not exact predictions. Due to random recombination of DNA, there's no exact amount of shared DNA that all 1st cousins share and the same for 2nd and 3rd cousins. However, FTDNA will probably be correct in its estimate for 1st cousins and correct many times for its estimate for 2nd or 3rd cousins, although an estimated 3rd cousin may actually turn out to be a 2nd cousin, once removed.

You don't need to worry too much about how long a generation is when you're dealing with relatively close relationships like estimated 1st or 2nd cousins, since that's so close. Some people prefer to count a generation as 25 years, but others, including myself, prefer 30 years. Most people will find, if they go through their family tree, that the average generation age is closer to 30, not 25. Only if most ancestors in a lineage were first children of first children of first children, etc will you find an average generation age of 25.

[Bartot]

Regarding your first question, read my post in this thread (#3) on page 1. In general, you should ignore all matches unless they are at the 37 marker level. You might make an exception for a 25 marker match that differs with you on 0 or 1 marker. But in that case, you should try to get that match to upgrade to 37 markers.

Regarding your second question, "1st cousin , 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin etc etc." are straightforward. 1st cousin means you share grandparents, 2nd cousin means you share great-grandparents and 3rd cousin means you share gg-grandparents.

I'm guessing you're seeing these as estimated relationships on your match list. If so, these are only estimates, not exact predictions. Due to random recombination of DNA, there's no exact amount of shared DNA that all 1st cousins share and the same for 2nd and 3rd cousins. However, FTDNA will probably be correct in its estimate for 1st cousins and correct many times for its estimate for 2nd or 3rd cousins, although an estimated 3rd cousin may actually turn out to be a 2nd cousin, once removed.

You don't need to worry too much about how long a generation is when you're dealing with relatively close relationships like estimated 1st or 2nd cousins, since that's so close. Some people prefer to count a generation as 25 years, but others, including myself, prefer 30 years. Most people will find, if they go through their family tree, that the average generation age is closer to 30, not 25. Only if most ancestors in a lineage were first children of first children of first children, etc will you find an average generation age of 25.

estimated relationships? ......the match sits under matches, advance matches and chromosone in Family Finder

shared cm is 26.31 and longest block is 8.27.

to me it neither here or there in regards to 25 years or 30 years, but I will mentally conform to 30 years from now on.

thanks for information

[Yaffa]

Mike,

average in my family is 14-21 years on my mother and father's female side of the family. Males 18-21. This is very common in Southern US. Just thought I would add that in just in case some is researching southern US and has their second great grandparents less than 100 years from the living which I do and in cousin lines too.

[MMaddi]

Mike,

average in my family is 14-21 years on my mother and father's female side of the family. Males 18-21. This is very common in Southern US. Just thought I would add that in just in case some is researching southern US and has their second great grandparents less than 100 years from the living which I do and in cousin lines too.

What I was referring to is the average generation in years for men. It would be different for female lines, since husbands are usually slightly older than the women they marry.

The other factor is that I was talking about all children in a family. You may be referring to the age of the parents when the first child was born. Let's take an example of what I mean by generation length. To make it (relatively) simple, I'll just deal with 3 generations of children.

The great-grandparents in this example have 6 children. The first child is born when the father was 24 and the mother 21. The last child was born when the father was 37 and the mother was 34.

Next generation, let's take the first child in the previous generation and the last child. The first child, a boy, had his first child when he was 22 and his last child when he was 34. The last child from the previous paragraph, also a man, had his first child at 24 and his last child at 32.

Next generation is your father and one of his 1st cousins. Your father is the first child born to the man 1 paragraph ago who had his first child at 22 and was the first child of the man 2 paragraphs ago. Your father's 1st cousin is the last child born to the man in the previous paragraph, who was 32 at the time of that birth. This man in the previous paragraph was the last child of the man in the first paragraph.

Now the final generation, yours. You are the first child of the father in the previous paragraph and your father was 23 when you were born. Your 2nd cousin is the son of your father's 1st cousin in the previous paragraph and he is the last child of his father, born when the father was 36.

Now compute the average generational age for you and your 2nd cousin. Your numbers are 22 (your father), 22 (your grandfather) and 24 (great-grandfather). Your average generational age is 22.67. Your 2nd cousin's numbers are 36 (his father), 32 (grandfather) and 34 (great-grandfather, same as yours). His average generational age is 34.

If you average his generational age and yours, the average is 28.33, closer to 30 than 25. If I had done this tedious exercise for all great-grandchildren of the great-grandfather, the average generational age would probably also have been closer to 30 than 25. This is not a big deal when you're only going back 3 generations. However, when you're going back even 7 or 8 generations and don't know all the details we have above, in most cases you'd be underestimating when an ancestor might have been born if you use a 25 year generational age, as most children are not either first child of first child of first child, etc. or last child of last child of last child, etc.