Time out for an update on small segments. I have a little over 100,000 Matches at AncestryDNA; and 9441 rows in my spreadsheet of Ancestry Matches with Common Ancestors – it’s roughly 9%, so far. Of the 9441, 4281 are in the 6cM to 10cM range; and another 2,434 are in the 11cM to15cM range. So… depending on how you characterize “small” segments, from 45% to 71% of my “success” has been with cousins in the small segment range.

These cousins have been “proved” by me using traditional genealogical methods – not, necessarily GPS standards, but my 50 years of genealogy experience. It matters NOT to me that the small segments may be real or poison – in each case, they led me to a cousin. And in my spreadsheet, I also note most are closely related to other Matches per Pro Tools.

If your hair is on fire about this, just pretend that I found and linked these folks (Matches) to my Tree without any DNA evidence… It’s OK, I did that for 36 years before atDNA came along.

I am *still* drinking through a firehose at Ancestry and MyHeritage with Matches of Shared Matches showing relationships to known cousins. And I am more convinced than ever that a large share of our DNA Matches (at all the companies) are true genealogy cousins within a genealogy time frame, say back into the early 1700s in Colonial America. The limiting factor is not the DNA, it is the genealogy records. Pro Tools is demonstrating that many of our Matches are closely related – they are NOT 10 to 20 (or more) generations away. Focus on the positive viewpoint, and dig in on the genealogy research!

That’s my take.,,,

[06I] Segment-ology: Success With Small Segments; by Jim Bartlett 20270719

Genealogy, and Genetic Genealogy, are largely lonely, individual hobbies/projects. I think about the many thousands of messages and emails I’ve sent out over the years, and the few hundred responses. And that’s further reduced to a few tens of folks who really want to trade info – or work together to solve a problem. Maybe it’s just me… or maybe most of us are in the same boat. This applies to both our ancestral families as well as our DNA relationships.

Recently I posted about a collaboration concept that involved each of us contributing to a world family Tree. Some of us do that on a genealogy level, but very few do it on a genetic level. There is a lot of power in knowing the cM relationship with a Match AND between our Matches (I am *still* drinking through that firehose at Ancestry and MyHeritage). But I can only dream of collaboration with Matches, including with folks who, gasp, have tested but don’t Match! As I’ve said before, the vast majority of our true cousins will not share enough DNA with us to wind up as a Match. But all those cousins who have tested can stitch together their Trees just as we build our own – and, particularly on a true genealogy level, our overlapping families should be exactly the same… Think about that.

But I don’t harbor illusions that we are going to start writing/calling/Zooming each other.  Perhaps the easiest way to stay in isolation, but help each other is contributing our researched information to the several “world Trees”.

However, another thought came to mind…. I call it The 1810 Census Project. I looked it up. The 1810 US Census counted 7,239,881 individuals (1,101,362 were enslaved). This was for 587 counties in 17 states and 6 territories (and of course, some info has been lost). It is estimated there were about 1.2 million households – that’s roughly 2,000 families per county. Many counties have genealogy societies…  Suppose many of these genealogy societies took this on as a project. Document each family and, somehow, list and link DNA test takers to each family. Of course, each of us would probably go back to a number of counties extant in 1810; and the membership of the local county societies would not necessarily have roots in their own county. However, in this digital age, each of us, individually, could connect; and the societies could, nevertheless, build and track the genealogy (and genetic) data…  For example, I still have a Tree: “Northern Neck of Virginia Families”, with over 100 Editors who have entered 13,000 people rooted in the Northern Neck.

The US has almost entirely been a country of immigrants – people came into the US; few moved out. So the 7 million in 1810 were a combination of descendants of earlier immigrants, and some new immigrants. AND virtually all of their descendants were in succeeding census records (plus some new immigrants). For the most part, your Ancestors go back to the 1810 census or to a more recent immigrant. For me, the focus has been to push back in America to the original immigrants (while each genealogist has their own objectives.)

And, with an 1810 Census Project, think of the possibilities for identifying and sharing DNA relationships. Think of the Y-DNA and mtDNA threads…  I’m thinking of that right now!! I’m working on a family that has three of my lines intertwined: Benjamin WELCH born c1775 VA married 1797 VA to Mary BARTLETT born c1778 (they were 1C, on my WELCH, CARROLL and BARTLETT lines). The 1810, 1820, and 1830 census indicates they had 5 daughters; the on-line genealogies have a dozen different given names, with very little circumstantial proof for most of them. So far we have 4 Test Takers with J2a1a1 mtDNA from probable intersecting lines. What we need are female lines from each of the wannabe daughter lines down to someone we can test. That *should* weed out a few wannabes. I’m sure many of you have gone through this drill of tracking down families and begging them to take a free mtDNA test.  

Well, anyway… I’m still thinking of ways to stimulate collaboration among the active genetic genealogists… I dream of documenting the interconnecting DNA of our roots. We are each documenting little pieces – we need a way to build a bigger picture.

[22DN] Segment-ology: Collaboration; by Jim Bartlett 20260717