Thursday, March 23, 2017

Updating my AncestryDNA Status

I last reported on my AncestryDNA results in Where Oh Where Have My AncestryDNA NADs Gone? (posted 14 October 2016).  At that time, I had:

*  148 Shared Matches
*  305 4th Cousins or Closer
*  7 DNA Circles
*  0 New Ancestor Discoveries

Today, when I checked my AncestryDNA results, I found that I have:

*  The same ethnicity estimates
*  175 Shared Matches
*  391 4th cousins or closer
*  10 DNA Circles
*  8 New Ancestor Discoveries



In the past five months, I have:

*  Made a note on each Shared Match (except for the ones with a private tree or those without a tree), and several other cousins that are not Shared Matches.  My notes are along the lines of:

"24.7 cM in 2 segments - 3rd cousin 1x removed, common ancestors are 3rd great-grandparents John Rich and Rebecca Hill"

*  Created a spreadsheet for the Shared Matches entries including the above note information.

*  Clicked on the "Shared Matches" button on the Shared Matches screen to see which other testers match me and the person who is my Shared Match.  

The 10 DNA Circles are for:



*  John Rich (1798-1863, my third great-grandfather) - 11 members, 4 groups, I match all 11 members
*  Rebecca Hill (1790-1862, my third great-grandmother) - 11 members, 4 groups, I match all 11 members
*  James Richman (1821-1912, my second great-grandmother) - 9 members, 3 groups, I match all 9 members
*  Hannah Rich (1824-1911, my second great-grandmother) - 9 members, 3 groups, I match all 9 members
*  Zachariah Hildreth (1754-1828, my 4th great-grandfather) - 4 members, 3 groups. I match only 1 member
*  Elizabeth Keyes (1759-1793, my 4th great-grandmother) - 4 members, 3 groups, I match only 1 member
*  Aaron Smith (`1765-1841, my 4th great-grandfather) - 4 members, 4 groups, I match only 1 member
*  James Abram Kemp (1831-1902, my 2nd great-grandfather) - 3 members, 3 groups, I match only 1 member
*  Zachariah Hildreth (1793-1857, my 3rd great-grandfather) - 7 members, 4 groups, I match only 2 member
*  Hannah Sawtell (1768-1857, my 3rd great-grandmother) - 7 members, 4 groups, I match only 2 member

I now have six New Ancestor Discoveries for:

*  Alonzo Howland Cook (1855-1933) of Utah, I match 5 of 17 members in his DNA Circle
*  Mary Elizabeth Thomley (1866-1910), of Alabama,  I match 3 of 8 members in her DNA Circle
*  Milton Arthur Hartley (1854-1932), of Alabama, I match 3 of 8 members in his DNA Circle
*  John Gabriel Deal (1833-1908), of Ohio, I match 4 of 14 members in his DNA Circle
*  Almeda Gregory (1833-1910), of Ohio, I match 4 of 14 members in her DNA Circle
*  Margaret Van Petten (1805-1873), of New York, I match 4 of 11 members in his DNA Circle.

However, I do not have these persons in my pedigree chart.  They may be descended from some of my known ancestors, but the connections seem to be 3 to 8 generations back from them.

Blaine Bettinger has a Shared cM Project ongoing, so I thought I would make a table for my known cousins from the DNA Circles and some of the Shared Matches list:

ANCESTRYDNA SHARED MATCHES TABLE (23 Mar 2017)

Most Recent
Common Ancestor
My Shared cM
Match Name
Match Relationship
John Rich (1790-1868)

108 cM, 6 segments L.R. 3rd cousin 1x removed
John Rich (1790-1868)

108 cM, 5 segments Chris Rawlings 4th cousin
John Rich (1790-1868)

46 cM, 2 segments Munslows 4th cousin 1x removed
-John Rich (1790-1868)

13.2 cM, 1 segment J.S. 4th cousin 1x removed
Thomas Richman (1848-1917) 266 cM, 11 segments S.S. 2nd cousin
Thomas Richman (1848-1917) 112 cM, 6 segments J.S. 2nd cousin 1x removed
Thomas Richman (1848-1917) 33 cM, 2 segments M.H. 2nd cousin 2x removed
Thomas Richman (1848-1917) 61 cM, 4 segments J.S. 2nd cousin 2x removed
Thomas Richman (1848-1917) 63 cM, 4 segments A.S. 2nd cousin 2x removed
Thomas Richman (1848-1917) 6.7 cM, 1 segment S.J. 2nd cousin 2x removed
James Richman (1821-1912)

50 cM, 4 segments B.R. 3rd cousin
Zachariah Hildreth (1754-1828) 13.7 cM, 1 segment Kennethhildreth22 4th cousin 1x removed
Aaron Smith (1765-1841)

9.4 cM, 1 segment L.T. 5th cousin
James Abram Kemp (1831-1902) 77 cM, 6 segments whimsy47 3rd cousin
Zachariah Hildreth (1783-1857) 24.2 cM, 3 segments Leslie wing 4th cousin
Zachariah Hildreth (1783-1857) 23.4 cM, 1 segment M.A. 4th cousin 1x removed
John Daniel Spangler (1791-1852) 73 cM, 4 segments C.G. 4th cousin

John Daniel Spangler (1791-1852) 59 cM, 2 segments Wayne Carringer 4th cousin 1x removed


NOTE:  I blanked out the names of the Shared Matches

As you can see, there is a significant variation in cM for a given relationship.  I have four 4th cousins, and the shared cM ranges from 24.2 to 108 cM.  The average expected cM for a 4th cousin is 14 cM.

The great advantage that AncestryDNA has over the other testing sites is that most of the testers have an Ancestry Member Tree with enough entries that a common ancestor can be found, and therefore a relationship can be determined.  

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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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