A Segment-ology TIDBIT
The old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We can, and should, apply this advice to Triangulated Groups and Chromosome Mapping. Take it a TG/segment at a time.
These days, the Matches are pouring in, and it’s easy to get overloaded with data. So I’m setting two goals:
- Form one new TG every day
- Communicate with the Matches in a TG each day
Each person’s objectives and available time are different, so set the timeframe to suit your own situation (every other day, each week or whatever). The point is to put a goal and plan in place.
There are about 400 TGs spread over my 45 chromosomes. So at one-a-day, it would be March 2018 before I could form every TG for my Dad (I’m just getting started on his chromosome map). But by then this long ignored project would be done; and his map would provide extremely valuable information for my chromosome map.
And if I send out a small group email (average 10 Matches) to the most significant Matches in a TG every day, it will be March 2018 before I focus on every TG. But two good things will happen: 1) I will have focused on every TG, and worked on the Common Ancestor; and 2) For about every 10-20 emails/messages I send out, I determine a new Common Ancestor. So by March 2018 I’ll have another 200 or so Common Ancestors. [NB: Each CA is not necessarily the correct genetic link for the TG, but they are all genealogy cousins and provide important clues in our quest to “walk the ancestor back” and/or obtain multiple agreements on the TG CA.]
In other words, we reap what we sow – we get a percentage return on the communications we send to Matches – the more we send, the more we get in return.
Again, everyone’s situation is different. All I’m suggesting is to set a goal, and schedule some time for TGs and chromosome mapping. Take a periodic bite out of the atDNA elephant!
[22H] Segment-ology: One Segment at a Time TIDBIT by Jim Bartlett 20170218
segment-ology 