I have incorporated all of my AncestryDNA ThruLines and MyHeritage Theory of Family Relativity Matches into my Common Ancestor spreadsheet (see Chapter 7 of the free book, Segmentology Fundamentals, at ISOGG). Here is a tabulation of Matches with Common Ancestors (CAs) at all companies:
23andMe 167
Ancestry 10,435
FTDNA 239
GEDmatch 170 [I’ve not been able to find these at the other companies]
MyHeritage 261 [this includes 113 from Theory of Family Relativity]
Total 11,272
Clearly AncestryDNA leads the pack; but note that at the other companies, all the Matches have known shared DNA segments in specific Triangulated Groups (TGs).
Here is a breakdown of Ancestry by category:
ThruLines 8,516 [includes 144 wrong but fixed; plus 104 which are now gone]
No Tree 175 [determined by Pro Tools]
Private Tree 27 [determined by Pro Tools]
Unlisted Tree 531 [Note the large number of Matches; not found by ThruLInes]
Found in Tree 1,186 [Just searching]
Total 10,435
Of the above 10,435 Matches at Ancestry
- There are 1,078 (roughly 10%) that I have tagged as incorrect – and I move those out of the active part of the spreadsheet
- There are 741 Matches with known shared DNA segment in TGs [plus 328 additional Matches for whom I don’t know the CA]
- There are 6,885 from 5xG grandparents or closer (nominal 6Cs) – this reflects the power of ThruLines to find them.
- There are 2,077 Matches from 6xG grandparents; 1,232 Matches from 7xG grandparents; and 181 Matches from more distant Ancestors.
Note – some of the Matches are listed more than once when they are related to me multiple ways; some because they tested at multiple companies.
So what’s the point here?
#1 is that I’m drinking through a fire hose! Granted that I’m retired and can spend time on genetic genealogy…
#2 is that the data is out there – or rather, the data is here, within the reach of the major DNA companies…
My morning routine includes seeing if there are any new ThruLines at Ancestry or any new Matches at GEDmatch (particularly Ancestry ones). Often I cannot get through that chore before I have to break for other responsibilities.
If I have time, my next task is working down my Ancestry Matches in my Common Ancestor spreadsheet and evaluating their shared Matches with Pro Tools. I didn’t have Pro Tools when I first developed the CA spreadsheet, so there is a lot of catching up to do.
It’s a two pronged approach – enter the Match in my Tree [tagging them: “DNA Match” AND using a special Dot in their profile when I do so] and entering their path to our CA [tagging each person: “DNA Connection”] in my Tree; and then evaluating the shared DNA Matches using Pro Tools [sorted on the Match’s relationship]. I’ve done this through my 4xG grandparents and now have 3,368 Tagged Matches. Still thousands to go, plus all of the new Matches with CAs I find with Pro Tools. Drinking through a fire hose.
The point is that I’m building a large family of DNA-linked descendants for each Ancestor – easy to review in the CA spreadsheet and in my Tree. AND, as I find more and more Matches with segment information, the consensus builds for Chromosome Mapping info.
[22DK] Segment-ology: Drinking Through a Fire Hose; by Jim Bartlett 20260616
Free: Segmentology Fundamentals eBook available for download at ISOGG/Wiki
segment-ology 
Two quick questions — by “unlisted tree” are you referring to unlinked trees? And how do you handle what Blaine Bettinger calls the “unlinked family cluster”– more specifically, when do you believe it’s legit if you have some of those yourself? E.g. My mother’s matches include about 125 Hemphill-Mackie descendants (thru 9 different children) that points to an upstream link with one of her 3G great-grandmothers (ahnentafel 61). For my own tracking purposes, in Ancestry, I use a dot and notation as if they are a CA. (In addition, matches descending from this “CA” show up on the other DNA sites, and she also has matches for whom the “CA” would be Hemphill’s parents or Mackie’s parents.)
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Cathy,
You are right – ULT is UnLinked Tree – my typo. A critical takeaway is that Ancestry never looks at those Trees – some are 1-person duds; but some are goldmines… I don’t know until I open them.
I call Blain’es UFCs a Floating Branch, and I have several – some with over 100 Matches all descending from a CA. I put them at the bottom of my CA spreadsheet (and assign a FG name instead of an Ahnentafel #, but they look the same as each of my Ancestor Groups (like Family Group Sheets). I’m convinced that each one is probably an NPE, often a missing spouse line. I study the geography of the CA, and try to pair it with my Brick Walls… Next step will be to see if some of the Matches will appear in known Clusters (or on a Shared Match list)…
Your idea of a special DOT is an excellent one. Another chore: backtrack on several hundreds of these Matches and Dot them.
Brick Walls are hard for a reason – usually: virtually no info about that ancestor. I have one that is a tic mark in an 1840 census – so I know the parents, but have never found a name (and he had to have my Y-DNA!). So a blank box in my Tree, but his line goes back for several more, known, generations.
Let’s keep talking about how to tie in these FG/UFCs – geography, ethnicity, religion, migration, 1790-1840 census tics …
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Good gathering of thoughts on this one Jim … “Drinking Through a Firehose” is correct. I have pulled together (at the individual segment level) a single spreadsheet of chromosome segments by company as well …. an amazing dataset but one that is so “firehose like” that I have to return and re-return to it just to grasp portions of the story that it is “trying to tell me” …. I sometimes awaken with numbers and segments and color-coding and vendors “stuck in my head while visions of sugar … ” …. oops that’s yet another story line. 🙂
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John, Yes both CAs and TGs make for similar, but different, spreadsheets – both of mine over 10,000 rows of firehoses. In my eBook: Segmentology Fundamentals, I devote a full chapter to each one. About 5 years ago I was caught up with all of my Shared DNA segments from FTDNA, 23andMe, MyHeritage and GEDmatch included – each one was in one of my 372 TGs. I then shifted my attention to the genealogy side of this hobby, and focused on Shared DNA Matches (and Clusters) – I’d pretty much caught up with that when Pro Tools came along – so it’s now back to “drinking” from each Shared Match to find our how *their* closest Matches fit in. It does keep me busy. I’m looking at the efficacy of putting all of the “DNA Connections” into a spreadsheet (many different names and generations) as a lookup for new Matches. If a Match had an ancestral “hit” with anyone on such a list, I’d have a CA *BINGO*.
As a side note on the shared DNA segment spreadsheet – your TG segments are based on your DNA segments from Ancestors and your crossover points. This should be mirrored by each of the “segment” companies (FTDNA, MH, 23, GEDmatch). So I have them all in the same spreadsheet, but with a column for company so I can focus on one company at a time when adding/Triangulating new shared segments. But most of the time that spreadsheet is sorted by TGs, so I can focus on a CA consensus for each TG.
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Ciao. Si Jim ricevo ancora corrispondenze dna su mhyeritage che si aggiungono a quel gruppo che ti ho parlato molto alcuni sono rom alcuni sono misti rom e alcuni balcani. Loro sono 6kosovati 4 bosniaci 2 ungheresi 1polacca lituana rumeno greco e bulgaro.la triangolazione va sempre tra 7,1cM poi cambia io e due di loro ha 8,7fino ha 9cM.
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Kevin – this is good news and shows you are on the right track. The additions from MyHeritage are compatible with what you had before. Hopefully, some of the new Matches will have good Trees that go back far enough to build a branch of your Tree. Good luck. Jim
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