BLUF*: Unknown Clusters do NOT “fit” where known Clusters fit. Try using geography or ethnicity to find a fit.

Clusters form on a Common Ancestor (usually a couple). We can form Clusters by hand by grouping shared Matches who match each other. We can use automated programs at MyHeritage, GEDmatch, Genetic Affairs, DNAGedcom Client. These auto-programs generally Cluster all Matches within a given range of cMs – say all above 60cM. Important: they will produce Clusters across your Ancestors, whether you know those Ancestors or not. Clustering does not depend on genealogy. Matches without Trees are Clustered just as easily as Matches with full Trees.

So think about the implications…  say we did an auto-run at My Heritage and got 22 Clusters. The Cluster programs cannot give us a set of Clusters from just one generation – so we would expect to be a range. In a perfect world, 16 Cluster would align with our 16 2xG grandparents which show up as 16 3xG grandparent couples. This doesn’t happen… In my experience I’ve found that 22 Clusters would shake out over a range of generations – say roughly as 2 2xG grandparent couples; 12 3xG couples; 6 4xG couples ; and 2 5xG couples. The mix gets wider/wilder as we drop the cM threshold and the number of Clusters increases. The main point here is that there will be a distribution over several generations.

Another observation is that, in general, no two Clusters will form on the same ancestral couple. Also, we find some Matches may have a relationship to more than one Cluster (as usually shown with “gray” cells in the full Cluster diagram).

So, suppose I have 22 Clusters, and “know” which ancestor couple goes with 19 of them. What about the other 3 Clusters? Maybe the Matches don’t provide enough information for me to assign the Cluster to a Common Ancestor. Maybe the Matches provide a lot of Tree information, but none matches my Tree. I have to stop and think!

I don’t know the Common Ancestor couple (CA) for these 3 Clusters. However, almost certainly, I can rule out the 19 known CAs. Circle these in my Tree! Now look at the pattern and the “bare” spots. It’s highly likely that the 3 unknown Clusters will “fit” into the bare spots. Use judgment. Also use two other clues: geography and ethnicity. See if you can tease these clues out of the Matches in each Cluster. Compare to the best knowledge of your Ancestors in the bare spots of the likely generation in your Tree.   

Summary. Unknown Clusters point to one of your Ancestor couples, just as accurately as the “known” Clusters did; it’s just that there is not enough genealogy to “make the call”.  See if other information, like geography or ethnicity, can help.

Please post in the comments section if you’ve found other ways to link Clusters to CAs.

 *Bottom Line Up Front

[22DP] Segment-ology: Where Do Clusters Fit; by Jim Bartlett 20260828

This is about working with relatively distant Ancestors with a big generation gap back to their birth year. I’m talking about what I call my 567 Ancestors – 5XGreat grandparent; 6C level; 7 generations back. We each have 128 of these Ancestors. Because they are at the 6C level, they are fair game for ThruLines. But because of my age (83), most of my cousins are 6C1R or 6C2R or 6C3R – all “out of range” for ThruLines. The generation gap is too large for them…

Current case in point – my newly found 567 Ancestor: Ahnentafel 196 > James BROWN who wrote a Will in 1776 in Cumberland Co, VA naming 16 children. For some reason this Will was not well known until recently, and many folks had already found other “likely” Ancestors to build out their Tree . This makes it all the harder to find the correct links and “pry” those lines away from the wrong Ancestors. We estimate James was born c1720 – roughly 300 years ago – and, sure enough, almost all my Matches back to James are “removed” from 6C and out of reach for ThruLines. Living Matches are usually 8, 9 or 10 generations down from James.

In this case the “hack” of linking my DNA to my mother, or her father, does not work – it shortens my path, but does not shorten the path for my Matches.  Personally searching for my Ancestor; building back Trees for shared Matches; etc.; is labor intensive. AND I cannot “see” into Private (searchable) Trees like ThruLines can. And ThruLines has the patience to “build back” Match Trees and find the links – and quickly, too.

Subtitle for this blogpost – Make ThruLines Work for You.  

So, shorten the path for your 6C2R Matches. I created 3 dummy Ancestors to connect from my mother to a known *grandchild of James* (which grandchild would be 567 (ie 6C level) for my 6C2R Matches (even closer for my 6C1R and 6C Matches).  I disconnected my mother from her father and instead typed in Grand Father and used my grandfather’s birth year. Then for his father, I typed in Great Grandfather with realistic birth year. Then for the next generation, I typed in 2Great Grandfather and a birth year and then linked him as a child the grandson of James. Note: ThruLInes looks at “boxes” and “links”, not names.
This made it look like the *grandson of James* was my 3xG grandparent (4C level). Now, I and my 6C2R Matches were within the range of ThruLines. Wait about 4 hours and ThruLines gave me 58 Matches!! Like most of my ThruLines they turned out to be 90-95% correct. In 4 hours! Talk about drinking through a fire hose…

Once I had the Match names and paths, I could easily add them to my Common Ancestor Spreadsheet. Then call up each Match and do some “housekeeping” 1. do genealogy diligence checking; 2. Use ProTools to find other close shared Matches ThruLines didn’t pick up; 3. Check for close Matches with UnLinked Trees which ThruLines ignores (some are good, some not) – my current cutoff in a shared Match list is about 90cM to the Match.

My request is that if you use this method, please give the dummy Ancestors names that won’t mislead others looking at your Tree. Maybe for names use GP, GGP, GGGP as first names and DONOTCOPY as last names. And, of course, as soon as you’ve recorded the info you want, restore the true Ancestor link on your side; and remove the link at the top end. This will leave these three “dummy” Ancestors as a floater, which can then be easily used elsewhere between your parent and the child or grandchild of a Match. This could also be used for your 678 Ancestors (7C level)…

Adding a rough picture showing the 6C2R problem and the 4C2R fix that ThruLines can work with:

If you try this, please feel free to report back here in the comments. Improvements in method or description are desired. Or a reinforcing: “it works”….

[22DO] Segment-ology: Mind The Gap; by Jim Bartlett 20260820

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

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) – you may already know this: The average cMs of all your Matches in a Floating Branch back to the Common Ancestor (CA) is a strong clue to about your relationship (use judgment to pick the CA and cull out outliers); and the highest average among the children of that generation would often point to the child you descend from.  

This is an insight based on collected data. First, we’ll set up the situation:

A Floating Branch is a group of your Matches who all descend from a CA who is not one of your known Ancestors. Typically, a Floating Branch can contain a lot of Matches (I’ve seen 20, 50, over 100). It’s frustrating – their CA is almost certainly your CA, but the link eludes you. It’s probably one of your Brick Walls, or beyond.

Brick Walls – to me, there are at least two types of Brick Walls – Ancestors in “plain view” and Ancestors “hiding under a rock” (or abducted by aliens). The “in plain view” Brick Walls are out there, with records, but we just haven’t made the genealogy connection. But, in my opinion, most of our hard Brick Walls persist for a reason: there is little to no information about them. My favorite example is a tic mark on the 1840 census (perhaps a young man who impregnated a young woman; and went “west” in 1849 and died along the way). The parents of the tic mark are known, but no other info on the son. There are many other reasons why a person may not be in the records. If they had left records, they probably wouldn’t wind up as Brick Walls.

Think about these two concepts (Floating Branch & Brick Wall)… To my thinking, they should “link up”. But how?

Well… After we’ve done an exhaustive review of the Floating Branch (fill out the descendants of the CA; ethnicity; geography; records, etc.), we probably have at least two things we can do with the collected DNA data. One is to average the cMs of all the Matches (except obvious outliers) and use the Shared cM Project to make an educated guess at the probable relationship (and generation) of our connection to the Branch. Ask: what Brick Walls do we have at that generation? Yes, it gets harder and harder as we go back in time.

However, the gist of this post is to figure out where we tie into the Floating Branch.  It’s where the highest cMs are! Probably obvious to Segmentologists…   

Take a known Ancestor with, say, 8 children; we would usually see Matches from most of the children having one average cM amount, while the Matches descending from the child who is our Ancestor will have a higher cM average. Again, easier to detect with close relationships.  In theory, the difference is a factor of 4. If most of the Matches are 2C averaging about 229cM, we find the 1C Matches with the child who is our Ancestor to be about 866cM. See this table for different generations:  

Matches with most of the children vs Matches with just your Ancestor child:

Great grandparents                   229cM for 2C vs 866cM for 1C – pretty close to 1:4

2xG grandparents                       73cM for 3C vs 229cM for 2C – a little more that 1:2

3xG grandparents                       35cM for 4C vs 73cM for 3C – about 1:2

4xG grandparents                       25cM for 5C vs 35cM for 4C – still more, on average

5xG grandparents                       18cM for 6C vs 25cM for 5C – still more, on average

In other words, the floating branch should have an array of Match cMs just like any of your known CAs has any array of descendant cousins – roughly like the Shared cM table shows.

The point is that if you had a Floating Branch, and didn’t know where you tied in, averaging the cMs for each child at the same generational level, might provide a clue.  I have two cases where the probable link sticks out like a sore thumb; and 2 others where the averages are not as clear as I thought they should be…

I’ve had this thought before – see here; and here. The more data (Matches), the better.

I’d be grateful for feedback from anyone who works with Floating Branches and has enough data to indicate whether one path sticks out like a sore thumb… And/or if you have any thoughts, pro or con, about this kind of analysis to squeeze a little more out of a Floating Branch…

[22DM] Segment-ology: Where Is Your Ancestor in a Floating Branch? By Jim Bartlett 20260629

As I noted in my last post (Drinking Through A Fire Hose), I have over 10,000 DNA Matches with pretty solid genealogy paths back to our Common Ancestors. I’m about 1/3 of the way through entering and Tagging these Matches and their paths back to our CAs in my main Tree at Ancestor.

Let’s look at an example. My Ancestor [A0856] John HIGGINBOTHAM b 1695; married 1713 in Amherst Co, VA to Frances RILEY. I have identified 827 DNA Match/cousins who descend from them.

Note 1: most of my Matches do not have a Tree back to John – I and ThruLines determined most of the paths.

Note 2: search Public Member Trees for John [drumroll….]: 10,323 Trees! WOW! Take a guess at how many Ancestry members actually descend from John and Francis, but don’t have Trees that reach 9 generations back…  – 100 thousand? A million?

Note 3: take a guess at how many DNA test takers there are in addition to the 827 folks I have already documented back to John and Francis. I’m sure it’s a LOT!!

Suppose we were all working within one Tree…

Over the years there have been several attempts to establish one family tree: OneWorldTree (Ancestry); World Family Tree (Geni); World Connect (RootsTech); WikiTree; FamilySearch Family Tree. IMO, there are a lot of issues within these attempts, as individuals interpret records differently, or worse, enter names and relationships without any documentation, etc, etc. Many NPEs are never discovered…

Concept: suppose we started Tagging ourselves, our DNA Matches, the DNA Connections, and the DNA Common Ancestors in WikiTree or FamilySearch.

As I wrote about in “Advanced Genetic Genealogy, Techniques and Case Studies”, I had identified three separate Triangulated Groups from John HIGGINBOTHAM and Frances RILEY [my 7XG grandparents – Ahnentafel 856].  In other words there were three finite segments in my maternal DNA that were in each of my Ancestors going back to John or Frances; and a shared/overlapping  DNA segment [part of my segment] in each of my 827 Matches, and in their Ancestors in a path of descendants from John or Frances down to and including each Match. [Remember each Match overlapped some of my DNA segment in the full Triangulated Group.]

Note that, on average, each of my Matches probably also had about 3 segments that went back to John and Frances. And I am not the center of the universe – all the other DNA test takers have their own, independent, experience. Certainly, there were many other descendants of John and Frances who had different DNA segments.

So what benefits would accrue to this concept…

1. Our accumulated Tags would provide a consensus that the paths we shared back to an Ancestor, passed through true genetic genealogy paths. This would be evidence that was independent of the genealogy analysis.

2. Perhaps a TG segment was actually from a different Ancestor. In the grand scheme of DNA, there would be certain distinct DNA segments that would be passed down from each Ancestor to various living test takers. It seems to me that, in general, these would wind up in multiple descendants. Note: we know that a given DNA segment could possibly be from a range of Ancestors, but when a number of DNA test takers all have the same [overlapping] DNA segment, it must surely be from one Common Ancestor.

3. So, this concept would help weed out which DNA segments came from which Ancestors.

4. Also, we’d start to accumulate specific DNA segments that came from specific Ancestors. We’d have the accumulated data to “paint” some of the Ancestor’s DNA.

I’m looking for feedback on this post. Pros and cons… Additional ideas… Is this already being tried? Shouldn’t we Segmentologists be working on a way to share and combine our DNA data to benefit each other? I’m looking for better language to articulate the possibilities and/or drawbacks of this concept.

[22DL] Segment-ology: A Concept Project for Segmentologists; by Jim Bartlett 20260622

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

Recently, I was called out for abandoning Segment Triangulation.  Let me set the record straight. I like, and use, both Clustering and Triangulation – virtually every day! Each one has some unique strengths and some drawbacks. A (very) short review….

Triangulation. When I started Segmentology, in 2015, I was the Johnny Appleseed of Segment Triangulation. I don’t claim to have invented it, but I was definitely a fan, and, I think, took it to new levels. It has been called the “Gold Standard” in genetic genealogy. Your DNA is composed of specific DNA segments from specific Ancestors – Triangulation helps you to determine these segments, group your Matches by shared segments (and therefore ancestral lines), and develop (or “paint”) a Chromosome Map of segments. However, the critical step of determining the ancestral line is often hard (at least for me) because the companies providing segment data, in general, don’t have any/many good Trees.

Clustering. In late 2018, auto-Clustering was introduced, and we could easily get many Clusters depending on the range of cMs we used. With this tool, you could determine these families of cousins, group your Matches by shared Matches, and try to determine the Common Ancestor. This was a tool we could use with AncestryDNA (either auto- or manual Clustering), where there tended to be many more Trees and genealogy tools. It worked for me… However, at AncestryDNA we cannot get the segment data to tie Matches to DNA segments.

By 2020 I had finished my Triangulation and had 372 Triangulated Group (TG) Segments. I was growing frustrated because I wasn’t getting very far finding Common Ancestors. On the other hand, I was finding a lot of Clusters with pretty solid Common Ancestors. So, I shifted my focus and have mainly been using Clusters, ever since. I still look for close Matches with larger segments for Triangulation. But my focus is on confirming more distant Ancestors and working on Brick Walls – mostly with Shared Match Clustering.

Bottom Lines:

1. Comprehensive Triangulation is a lot of hard work; but it can be a good tool for specific segments that appear to come from/through a Brick Wall.

2. Clustering is somewhat easier and focuses more directly on the genealogy. I think it’s more fun; and a better tool for many hobby genealogists. A spreadsheet is not required (but it is helpful to track everything).

3. Again: I use both, every day!

[22DL] Segment-ology: Clustering vs Triangulation; by Jim Bartlett 20260407

In genetic genealogy, DNA is a tool. It helps us, in many different ways, to determine Ancestors and confirm cousins. My point in this blogpost, is that we don’t need to know precisely how we are related to each cousin – a calculated guess is fine. In fact, I encourage it.

Here is an example. I have determined that XYZ is a 7C. This is based on genealogy. We share my Ancestor couple METZGER/KEIFFER (aka Ahnentafel 352). This Ancestor couple’s full names, dates, places, life story are not important to Segmentology. Match XYZ happens to share 15cM, also not too important, but well within Shared cM range. XYZ is on my Paternal side, as is our MRCA. XYZ and I have over 30 other Matches on our Shared Match list – the top 20 Shared Matches share over 100cM with XYZ. I can tell you that this will show up as a strong, solid Cluster. You get the picture; this is pretty solid…

So now I notice on my Shared Match list with XYZ that, per ProTools, ABC is a 1C to XYZ, sharing 852cM. ABC has NO Tree. However, ABC has a long Shared Match list with over 30 Matches who are known cousins to me through Ahnentafel 352. #A0352P is the first thing in many of my Shared Match Notes, which is all I need to know…

There is no Tree for ABC, but as a 1C to XYZ, I don’t need a Tree. I know XYZ’s grandparents, must also be ABC’s grandparents for them to be 1C. So, I confidently add ABC to my Common Ancestor spreadsheet and copy the line of descent I already have for XYZ, and change ABC’s parent to UNK. Done!

I’ve now added ABC to the Shared Match spreadsheet, and can enter a Note for ABC which starts #A0352P. Which Note is now visible to all other Shared Match lists (and Clusters) that include Match ABC. This helps me find even more Matches to evaluate and add.

Emboldened by this logic, I am sure I can also add a proposed 2C to my spreadsheet (with  UNK for both parent and grandparent). This will “tuck” many more Matches into my spreadsheet of known cousins, even though I don’t know their parents or grandparents. And those Matches will often highlight other Matches who can be added. For A0352P, I now have 151 confirmed Matches!

Note: It’s important that these potential additional Matches be vetted (as above). They should also be part of an appropriate Cluster of Shared Matches. Even the parent of a known Match can be on the wrong side. That is to say, for instance, my line from XYZ goes through her mother – so her tested father could well show up as a close match to XYZ, and to me, but his path to a CA would be different (ie NOT through his wife to A0352P!).

In conclusion, there are two options:

1. Leave this “Match with no Tree” out of my Tree – disavow them as a cousin because *I* don’t know their parent’s name.

2. Accept this Match as a 7C to me; just as much as I accepted XYZ as my 7C.

To me, as a lifelong genealogist, I’d choose Option 2 in a heartbeat. I’d hug this new Match just as strongly at a family reunion. I’d probably ask their parents’ names… But the rest of their line would already be in my spreadsheet. The UNK parent/grandparent wouldn’t make any difference. And, that Match will now help me document other Matches!

AND, often this new cousin Match doesn’t know much of their Ancestry – be a helpful genealogist, and send them a message about the ancestry you are sure they have… Add their line to your Tree, and ask if they’d like you to add names in place of the UNKs!

This is also a plug for the Common Ancestor spreadsheet – a valuable tool for recording found cousins, and for easily seeing how other Matches fit in. Hard work, but it sure highlights strong branches of my family Tree (as well a weak branches).

[35BCa] Segment-ology: A Calculated Guess Is Great; by Jim Bartlett 20260403

This is an analogy about your DNA.

Recently, a Kona low flooded a lot of Oahu, HI – particularly the North Shore. I watched many videos of torrential rains and swollen waterfalls (one after another); and videos of flooded areas as all that water made its way to the sea.

Close your eyes and think of each waterfall as one of your Ancestors and then imagine each waterfall representing part of your DNA. The water flows in branches to rivers and finally into the Pacific Ocean. Each waterfall is like your DNA, flowing from a distant Ancestor and combining with DNA “flows” from other Ancestors to your parent, and then to you (you are the Pacific Ocean in this analogy).  Many different paths over time and geography winding up with you. And the same is happening on the other side of the mountain, also flowing to the Pacific – representing the DNA from your other parent…

I think it’s a good visual analogy – many Ancestor sources of parts of your DNA flowing and combining until it finally reaches you.

[22DK] Segment-ology: From Waterfalls to the Sea by Jim Bartlett 20260329