Pro Tools Part 7

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What Is Your Plan of Action?

The Pro Tools feature that lets us see the amount of DNA (in cMs) between our Shared Matches is a significant tool. It allows us to “stitch together” families, to include Matches with skimpy, or even no, Trees. This could potentially impact all my 96,000+ Matches. That’s a lot of ground to cover…

So what’s the game plan – how do we most efficiently use this new cM data? What is the Plan of Action (POA)?

I see four different POAs – and I’m seeking your input on any insights you’ve found so far.

1. Work down our Match list. Start at the top, and methodically work on each Match that we haven’t placed in our Tree. The advantage here is that the top Matches (most shared cM) are usually the easiest to figure out. With Pro Tools we can see their top Matches, potentially ones with good Trees, and often tease out their place in our Tree. At the least, even if we cannot find the exact relationship, we can figure out which sub-branch of our Tree they are on (which is all we really need to know for them to be helpful forming a tight group).

2. Confirm each MRCA couple group. I’ve been working on this method for a while, using my Common Ancestor Spreadsheet. The focus is on all the Matches who have the same MRCA couple – does each one share an appropriate amount of cMs with the others. I must take care when some Matches have multiple relationships with me (colonial Virginia ancestry) and/or multiple segments – these could throw off a one-to-one analysis. But the main point here is: does each Match “fit”? I’ve found 2 so far (out of hundreds), who really don’t “fit” within all the shared cMs – indicating incorrect genealogy or an NPE. Bottom line: it is very comforting to see a large list of Matches under an MRCA that all “fit” each other (well within the Shared cM Project ranges). Each such MRCA couple at one generation, then is a strong foundation when working on the next generation – many Matches will be related to each other across two (or more) generations. More “comfort”…

3. Focus on specific problems.  Work on an unknown bio-Ancestor/NPE/Brick Wall. Build an appropriate group, and then re-review the Shared Match list for highest-cM Matches that may be helpful – and then look at their Shared Matches for more clues. This POA may foster a lot of “rabbit holes” and “blind alleys”. But the main point here is: build a group of interlocking Matches – they will often lead to insights.

4. Hit-n-Miss. Have fun chasing random leads. These sometimes result in a floating branch of your Tree. I have two of these – many Matches which apparently form a large (several hundred) list of Matches from one person – probably an Ancestor of mine, but no known paper trail link. Pro Tools will confirm, or not, if this is an “interlocking” group. If so, then I will look for Matches in that huge group, who have shared Matches with some other, known, MRCA group(s) of mine – hopefully there will be a strong consensus – there should be…

[Side bar: early in my Navy career (1971), I needed a system to track a lot of projects (before PCs) – we had a table of milestones. I called it: the Hectic Input and Tabulation of Numerous Milestones in our Sacred System (HITNMISS) – my boss was not impressed; so I changed the name to the Simplified Work Input and Follow Through (SWIFT) – I got promoted:>j]

I think the unifying theme above is to form interlocking Matches into a family group based on shared cM – it’s right up our alley as genealogists. And each such group is a very valuable foundation, with important links in different generations (up and down our Tree).

Are you using any of the above POAs? Have you developed a different POA that you’ve found to be particularly effective and efficient, or not? What’s the best way to incorporate all this new data? Please share.

[22CO] Segment-ology: Pro Tools Part 7 What Is Your Plan of Action; by Jim Bartlett 20240717

21 thoughts on “Pro Tools Part 7”

  1. Pingback: Enhanced Shared Matches at AncestryDNA Part 2 – Hartley DNA & Genealogy

  2. I am using the brick wall method with smatterings of follow your nose and start at the top. I started with the only cousin descended from the brick wall ancestor. With her as my anchor, I established a group of Aussie Gibsons and a group of Irish Browns, adding more members to the matrix as “internal” relationships above 70 cM appeared. Then I used WATO to determine probable relationship(s) to me. I also used WATO to try to establish how the top match in the Aussie Gibsons might be related to the Irish Browns. Now I am separating the next level into (largely) distinct groups: Gibson but not Brown and Brown but not Gibson.

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    • Morgan, Great feedback – thanks. This is POA3, and it looks like you are having success with it. Like in most things DNA, we find it’s an iterative process. Once I make a pass through the Shared Match list, linking together obvious Matches under the MRCA, I then go back and look at less obvious Matches with Trees (including unlinked Trees). Then I go back and look at the Shared Matches of the Shared Matches, and often pick up some more. And, then I dig into the remaining topmost Matches – first checking to see that they do indeed have several Shared Matches back to the main group – and then I build their Trees back until I find the link (or, infrequently, a dead end). It seems to me, the next step would be to then look at the smaller remaining Matches and start jotting down their surnames to try and find *their* Common Ancestor, who would probably be at or just beyond the brick wall. I realize a lot of my under-10cM Matches are probably beyond my genealogy horizon, but I’m find a lot of them (down to saved 6cM Matches) tie in as close relatives to Matches in my groups. It leads to my conclusion that a LOT of the small-cM Matches are within a genealogy time frame – and Pro Tools is leading us to them. I now have about 7 thousand Matches with MRCAs and 96 thousand total Matches – about 7%, and I’ve barely reviewed 5% of the 7K….
      I’ll bet you find a GIBSON/BROWN couple… Thanks again for your feedback. Jim

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  3. I’ve tried all that and some. One factor to consider is time.. If I’m just cooling down after a long day of work and decide to spend 30-60 min, I will just clear up annotations, any work is good work if you’re just winding down. I’ll just pick something and go. Focus for that kind of work isn’t required – it’s just hop in, do some stuff and hop out.

    Down the road – once DGC scans are reliable, I’ll use shared clustering – pick a single cluster of interest that is medium sized and expand it down to 6cM (which will hopefully give me around 100 matches to examine in detail). Then I’ll methodically work through the whole cluster basically trying to put everyone on a tree – just as an experiment. Something big enough to be meaningful so I’ll learn the pattern from it and small enough that I can make a large dent in it with less than 20 hours of work. That’s a project you want to dedicate a weekend to with focus.

    Right now I’ve mostly analyzing all the matches that I’ve identified coming through a 2nd great grandmother and systematically seeing if I can better categorize the matches. There are at least 3 main clusters (triangulation groups) coming through her. I’ve also picked a cluster on a 2nd cousin I suspect may also be coming through that same gg grandmother – but I’m not sure – that one is interesting because I’m finding it jumping the pond to Ireland which means it’s a really old MCRA.

    If I was starting from a brand new kit, I would approach it just like I do now, bucketing my matches into 8 groups for the great grandparents. Pro Tools would help but isn’t a game changer for that work close work. Call it Collins-Leeds or Walking Back the Clusters – the goal is to get the matches into reasonable buckets so when you decide to work a specific ancestor you have a better idea if you have all the relevant information in front of you. After the initial bucketing, I would cluster everything above 20cM and annotate. Then I’d work the clusters of interest in detail.

    At the moment – it’s actually overwhelming the amount of work that could be done with this tool on multiple kits. It will save oodles of time on the next new kit I attack, but I can so dive deeper- so it’s actually more work to really analyze a kit.

    Cheers – Brian

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    • Brian, Thanks for the summary. I agree the point is to group Matches and link them to a small part of our Tree – using TGs, WTCB, Clusters, Shared Matches, ethnicity, etc. Pro Tools is allowing us to significantly add Matches to our groups. And as we get down to smaller Matches we can link groups of different generations going back. It really simplifies our task when we have a solid group – because going back another generation there are only two options. Jim

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  4. Hello Jim – I’m pretty much doing all of your 4. It’s been wonderful, but whilst I have ‘fitted’ a lot more people into my MRCA groups I haven’t cracked any of my big issues yet. I only have 35,000 matches to work which is not uncommon for Australians. I think my order is also pretty much the same as yours!

    1. I started with my big nut, my Mums great grandfather George Courtney. I only have 57 in my key group for him. There are two sub groups that should connect to give me the ‘answer’ but alas no clues in either of them! Connected a few more into family groups – always a bonus, George is a long term research goal…
    2. Next I’ve started working through all the larger unknowns and had some success in connecting up people – so satisfying to see father, son etc on some long time problem matches. The small matches have been interesting. Glad I preserved so many when Ancestry did the purge several years back. Many of these have trees and are proving invaluable. The side view feature is also helping here, we need to be careful about separating a genealogical connection vs a genetic one and often we still need to find the ‘right’ genetic connection. I’m finding sideview particularly accurate and whilst I wouldn’t say its infallible I would lean on the side of it being right more often than not. I’m also taking the opportunity to re-write to many of these asking them to upload to GEDmatch so some of my brick wall ancestors.
    3. My next plan of attack is to work through all my identified MRCA matches to firstly assess they all ‘fit’ as you say, but hopefully find more connections and possible branches of the family.
    4. I’m finding I’m going down rabbit holes all the time, as I drill down into shared matches, ending up somewhere unknown – then ask myself ‘what was I doing’? But all good fun!

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    • Veronica – great feedback thanks. I just had a Match at 16cM who appeared to be in my 38P (3xG grandparent couple with mystery wife Elizabeth UNK). I had just finished a 34cM Match who went back to a PRATT line, and this new line went back to everyone’s brick wall at Blanche married VINEY. Finally a Death Cert gave her maiden name as PRATT, but still no leads. I had to look at 1870 and 1880 census to finally find her – both of these had the same PRATT ancestor one step back who married the daughter of a son of 38P!! A rabbit hole that finally found the light of day… They shared 35cM and their relationship was 3C1R to each other – in the range! And the new Match has a dozen Shared Matches who are in the group from this one son of 38P – AND, AND, I just saw a 92cM share with a Match surnamed PRATT – gotta go…. Jim

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  5. Ciao jim kevin.allora quei due tg sono sul mio test perche ha mia madre non corrisponde su myherirage.ho 12match sul chr 16 e triangolano uno contro 2 e ha volte 7-5cM 8,7Cm 9cM poi quando metto 7match il tg triangolato e un 7,1cM tutto condiviso con me.poi sempre sul chr 16stessa posizione del primo gruppo ho 3match che formano altro tg.alcuni match dei 12 hanno stesse inizio e fine pis con me e con I 3 match dell altro tg ma sono 2 TG separati ma hanno stessi inizio e fine.e questi 2 TG stessa direzione stessa posizione allineati ho un altro match che e tallone punta con questi 2 TG ma sono tutti separati sia nelle liste di corrispondenze che nei TG che vuol dire?adesso e piu facile vedere perche mia madre non sono usciti adesso e rimasto il mio test .grazie jim sto imparando tante cose leggendo I tuoi post verament.

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      • Kevin.jim quei 2 tg che ti ho parlato altra volta su myheritage adesso che ho fatto il test ha mia madre e non corrispondono ha lei .allora ecrimasto solo il mio test forse e paterno?ho 2 TG sul chr 16 un gruppi di 12 persone e triangolano con me.quando faccio uno contro due come hai detto altra volta il segmento e ha volte 7,5Cm poi 8,7 cM poi 9cM .poi ho un 3 persone sempre sul chro 16 stessa posizione e allineamenti del tg di 12 e ho anche un altro TG.insomma ho 2 TG sul lato destro chr 16 stessa posizione e stessi numeri iniziali e finali sia con me che con il tg dei 12 e del tg dei 3match.ma ognuno ha un tg srparato sia nelle liste dei match sia nel browser cromosomi.e poi sotto ha questi due TG ho un match che e punta tallone con tutti e due I tv separati .che vuol dire grazie.

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      • Kevin.no jim il primo tg hanno stessi numeri inizio e fine con me e con l altro tg ma quando li metto insieme non triangolano sono 2 tg separati sempre nella stessa posizione.adesso e rimasto solo il mio test.

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      • Kevin – please give each of these Matches a letter – A, B, C, D, etc and tell me which ones Triangulate with which others – like A TGs with B, but not C; C TGs with D but not B. etc.

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      • Kevin.allora nel primo TG chr 16 A con B ecc tutti tg.tra loro con me.qualcuno tra loro nella lista diciamo manca uno ma tutti sono daccordo con me sul chr 16 stessa segmento.poi sempre sul chr 16 ho questo altro gruppo che tra loro e con me ce un Tg sempre sul canale 16 stessa direzione con il primo tg ma loro non triangolano il primo tg con questa altro tg.ognuno e nelle sue liste di corrispondenze su myheritage anche se hanno alcuni del primo tg diciamo A hanno stessi numeri iniziali finali sia con me ma con questi 3 del altro gruppo tg.mai.sieme si sovrappongono ma non ce tg ognuno ha il.suo tg separato con me evtra loro.capito.grazie

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      • Kevin – please review this post: https://segmentology.org/2020/04/15/are-overlapping-segments-triangulated/ and pretend that the examples start and end at the same location, like yours. In your body, your DNA, you have two Chromosome 16s. So every true (Identical By Descent) shared segment with you (including on the same area of Chr 16) *must* be on one of your Chr 16s – on your paternal Chr 16 OR on your maternal Chr 16. The shared segments on your paternal Chr 16 will not Triangulate with the shared segments on your maternal Chr 16 – unless there is some endogamy. You can check this by using the GEDmatch tool called: Are your parents related – this will show if you have a Chr 16 segment that is the same on your paternal and maternal sides. Jim

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      • Kevin.allora mi spiego meglio.io ho fatto test ha mia madre su myheritage e quei tg che ti parlo non sono usciti ha lei.io ho il mio test sempre myheritage e escono ha me questi triangolazioni dei due Tg.e sono sul chr 16ho diciamo il Tg A e triangolano tra loro e con me uno contro uno cintro due.ha volte uno contro due il Tg ha volte e 9cM ha volte 8,7,ecc poi quando aggiungo du piu fino ha sette il segmento triangolato duventa 7,1cM 7,5cM,.poi sempre sul chr 16 ho un altro Tg di 3 4 persone e triangolano con me.isomma I 2 Tg sul chr 16 hanno stessa posizione ma sono 2 Tg per conto loro.anche se alcuni match del Tg A hanno.stessi numeri iniziali e finali sia con me e con I 3 match del Tg diciamo B.ma insieme non triangolano.ho 2 Tg ognuno per fatti loro su myheritage.il primo Tg A sono persone dell est mentre il Tg B sono miste italiani e stranieri.non so da quale nonno proviene il Tg B per vedere capito.ho 2 Tg sul chr 16 ma sono due Tg distinti anche se hanno sstessi numeri con qualcuno di loro e hanno stessa posizione diciamo lato destro quasi angolo.

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      • Kevin.jim quel gruppo dei Tg sono certi match che hanno relazioni piu vicine tra lorocome mezzo cugini di 1 grado tra loro 2 cugini e terzo tra loro con me questi match dice myeritage sono figli di cugini di 4 grado.questi sono I 12 del tg che triangolano con me.poi hi quel altro tg cge triangola con me e ha stessa pisizione del tg dei 12 stesdi numeri ma sono 2 tg separati sullo stessochro 16 stessa pozione allineamenti ma due tg separati .adesso che e rimasto solo il test mio devo lavorare sul lato paterno per vedere se corrispondono perche ha mia madre che lo testato non sono usciti tu che pensi grazie.

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  6. Jim – I’m surely an outlier but here’s my plan for ProTools

    1  WORK ON MY TOP UNKNOWN MATCHES. I have a spreadsheet with over 1000 interesting unknown matches to me, my siblings and all the cousins that have shared their DNA with me. Think of it is every match over 30 cM. For each triangulation group represented in the top 1000, I have a new spreadsheet where I list each interesting match and all the MRCAs I can find – and this new tool has been an enormous help with this. If I have a tree but no MRCAs I use the wonderful 12Tree tool ($8/year) to compile all their listed ancestors – and look for MRCAs that way.

    2  FIND OTHER COUSINS TO SHARE ANCESTRY RESULTS. I’ll reach out to third or fourth cousins, particularly if (a)  they’re in an interesting part of my tree and (b) an older generation and ask them to share their Ancestry results with me.  I have about 50 now.  This is a wonderful way to find new DNA cousins and ultimately new ancestors, especially with this new tool. 

    3  PUSH ANCESTRY TO SHARE SEGMENT DATA (ie which chromosome) THE WAY EVERY OTHER DNA TESTING SITE DOES. ProTools would be the perfect avenue for this important data.

    – Rich

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    • Rich, Thanks for your input – your #1 looks like my PT POA 1 – adding in TG info. I, too, have a column for TGs – bolded and color highlighted if it’s from real browser data; other wise I put a little “c” after it, indicating it’s imputed from Cluster info (may or may not be correct). NB: at the 4C level we have 32 MRCA couples. In my case, this equates to 372TGs/32 = about 12 different TG segments coming through them (probably no more than 1TG per 2 children; but all 12 have to come to me through the one child I descend from… ) – so we should expect there to be multiple TG segments (spread throughout the Chromosomes) for each group.
      Jim

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  7. I purchased Pro Tools a few days before it became available to everyone in the US and have been spending an hour or two working down my match list every day since. I have almost 100,000 matches but had already identified most of the closer ones and many of the distant ones. It’s incredibly helpful. Just got below 50 cM yesterday.

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