No New Matches Lately

[Lincoln]

Paperblank, last year, in a thread here, there was an informal survey of matches. I did an average of 19 results. According to this, you were somewhat high on the number of matches. It is VERY unscientific though. The second figures I did are probably more representative, since I excluded the one person with a LOT of matches:

Averages of 19 examples in this thread (excluding posts where I wasn't sure of total matches):

3rd cousins: 4.42
Total Family Finder matches: 148.31
___________________
(Excluding the one example with the (15) 3rd cousins and (1037) Total FF matches -
3rd cousins: 3.83
Total Family Finder matches: 98.94)

http://forums.familytreedna.com/show...470#post338470

[Lincoln]

paperblank - that list of my matches is cumulative. I did not get 51 matches in one month. That is how many I got from Dec 2011- Apr 2013.

[Paperblank]

Thanks & thanks also for link. How common are 2nd cousins by the way?

[MFWare]

FT-DNA offers a 12-marker Y-DNA test for $49. I am not aware of another Y-DNA test for less. In my humble opinion, the test is nearly worthless. True, it does establish your paternal haplogroup for most customers. This can be significant. However, it does little to establish family relationships with other customers.

FT-DNA sees this as a starter test. It expects people who take the 12-marker test to return for upgrades to 25-, 37-, 67-, or even 111-marker tests. In the meantime, the rest of us get useless notifications of new 12-marker matches.

Even though FT-DNA's 12-marker Y-DNA test is probably the least expensive such commercial test available, FT-DNA does not do so well at higher marker levels. Its 37-marker test goes for $169. Ancestry offers a 46-marker test for $179. Although Ancestry's mtDNA test is grossly unreliable, its Y-DNA test duplicates FT-DNA where they overlap.

I have 22 46-marker matches at Ancestry, but only four (4) 37-marker matches at FT-DNA.

[1_mke]

Personally I value the 12 marker test highly since I don't have even a single 12 marker match. I understand why most don't though as on the mtDNA side of things I have hundreds of mtDNA HVR 1&2 matches. Getting notifications for those isn't interesting at all.

Still, there is value to the 12 marker Y DNA tests for those of us from under represented lines beyond just enticing people to test more.

Of course the possibility exists that I'm just the end of a line but I can hope.

[T E Peterman]

A 12 marker match is good at disproving a kinship, unless the two unrelated men happen to belong to the same haplogroup.

I think these could be useful for doing a sample of a group of European men with the same surname to see if they match. Once you find someone of interest, you would surely want to increase that to 37 or 67 markers.

I plan to do exactly this with men with the Petermann surname in Root, Switzerland, my great grandfather's home town. I would like to know how many are also R1b U152+ L20*

Timothy Peterman

[Lincoln]

I asked about the price of the Y-DNA tests as a possible answer for how there could be a lot of new customers here without what people think should be a commensurate amount of FF matches.

[Mike McG]

My FF results were completed on 2/22/2013 and I have 25 pages of distant matches with my last match is shown as 2/22/2013 so essentially no new matches since my test results came in. I have found one cousin who is listed as a 4th cousin or higher and with whom I share cM 46.55 and the longest block of 10.4. I believe we probably are distant cousins only because we share at least two surnames in common and he is from the same town in Ireland as my father. We have not yet found a direct family relationship as far back as the early 1800s, but both his and my father's ancestors lived in the same county in Ireland for 200 years and probably before then.

All the rest of my FF matches appear to be more distant even though some have higher shared cM and longer blocks.

I have an ID at GEDMATCH but with the problems in being able to download the FF raw data I missed the opportunity to upload to GEDMATCH so do not know if I have better matches there.

Mike

[Frederator]

May I ask whether your family is primarily from the northern counties?

My sense is that people from the north will get almost as many matches as people of colonial American descent--though maybe not so many predicted 3rd or closer. Just curious. I suspecte that most of my matches relate to my 2x great grandparents from Cavan, the least from my County Mayo ancestors, though I could be wrong.

I'm disturbed by FTDNA's lack of communication. They really need to demonstrate some proactive leadership here, especially since failing to meet the May Day deadline and in light of the build 37 fiasco.

I didn't notice anything amiss about going a couple months withouta match myself because of my background, but when Ashkenazi and colonial types do, there is something not right in Dodge.

My FF results were completed on 2/22/2013 and I have 25 pages of distant matches with my last match is shown as 2/22/2013 so essentially no new matches since my test results came in. I have found one cousin who is listed as a 4th cousin or higher and with whom I share cM 46.55 and the longest block of 10.4. I believe we probably are distant cousins only because we share at least two surnames in common and he is from the same town in Ireland as my father. We have not yet found a direct family relationship as far back as the early 1800s, but both his and my father's ancestors lived in the same county in Ireland for 200 years and probably before then.

All the rest of my FF matches appear to be more distant even though some have higher shared cM and longer blocks.

I have an ID at GEDMATCH but with the problems in being able to download the FF raw data I missed the opportunity to upload to GEDMATCH so do not know if I have better matches there.

Mike

[Mike McG]

May I ask whether your family is primarily from the northern counties?

Frederator

My father and his known ancestors were born in southern Ireland, Co Tipperary; my mother and all her known ancestors were born in England, London; and PF says I am 100.00% Orcadian ± 0.01%. My FF match results are predominately British (although most are multiple generations in the US) as might be expected.

Since February was around the time FTDNA was having problems with their FF software I originally was not sure if the FF matches they were predicting were valid especially since I could not download my raw data until mid April. I would hope by now the problems are fixed and the matches from mid February are valid.

Mike

[SCinGB]

I'm another person with colonial ancestry who has noticed a dramatic decrease in matches. 2/22 was the last time I received a considerable amount (2 pages). Since that time, I've had 5. Which is pretty far off from the 10+ per month I averaged every month last year.

I'm starting to wonder if there are still problems with the upgrade to build 37 or maybe FTDna's recent issues are starting to catch up with them, and people are buying less.

[KATM]

I transferred my father's 23andMe results to FTDNA on 2 March.

Got some FF results for my father around mid-March, seemingly unofficially (available, but only through the top "FF" menu - not a separate FF section under the Y-DNA and mtDNA areas). There were 64 matches.

Later, the "real" results showed up, on 18 April - 123 matches. Some, but not all, names from the earlier list were on this list. No new matches since.

There are 2 matches with suggested relationship of 3rd cousin (2nd to 4th range): one with 87.75 shared cM, 32.32 longest block; the other with 53.10 shared, 25.37 longest. There are 5 shown suggested 4th cousin (3rd to 5th range). The rest are remote cousins.

[NYMark]

For the most part, I've been a fan of FTDNA (with some quibbles), as it's been the most valuable of the big three for me. Still, I have my suspicions about the upgrade. The results swung so wildly, due to a purported glitch that has supposedly been resolved. Yet the Build 37 raw data remain unavailable for download. I'd really like some transparency and a comprehensive (and comprehensible) explanation of what has transpired. It's very disappointing.

I appear to have gotten a new match (somehow I missed it) on April 16, but the last big batch was a month ago, on April 2nd. I simply can't trust that they're actually using Build 37 when they've been promising the raw data would be available soon for a so long. If they're actually using Build 37 to designate matches, what's the problem with making the raw data available? It makes no sense.

I'm another person with colonial ancestry who has noticed a dramatic decrease in matches. 2/22 was the last time I received a considerable amount (2 pages). Since that time, I've had 5. Which is pretty far off from the 10+ per month I averaged every month last year.

I'm starting to wonder if there are still problems with the upgrade to build 37 or maybe FTDna's recent issues are starting to catch up with them, and people are buying less.

[Lklundin]

the Build 37 raw data remain unavailable for download.

As I wrote in a different thread:

The raw data that is currently available for download is bit for bit identical with the Build 37 data that was briefly offered for download - and different from the original Build 36 download.

So it is untrue when FTDNA on the download page writes:
"Please note that the raw data download is Build 36".

[NYMark]

I totally misread your post on that thread, sorry.

Seems like an explanation is still in order. . .

As I wrote in a different thread:

The raw data that is currently available for download is bit for bit identical with the Build 37 data that was briefly offered for download - and different from the original Build 36 download.

So it is untrue when FTDNA on the download page writes:
"Please note that the raw data download is Build 36".