My DNA Statistics from Ancestry.com Updated

On 14 Sep 2017 I posted some statistics from my AncestryDNA. Now 3 months later I'm sharing more statistics.

	March 2017	9 August 2017	6 September 2017	15 December   2017
Shared Ancestor Hints	139	152	158	161
Starred matches	50	60	61	85
4th Cousins or Closer	835	1209	1260	1414
DNA Circles	22	25	26	27

The starred matches are marked by me, so that is my own doing. I mark those who I believe I know how they are related to me.

The others are calculated by Ancestry. Both Shared Ancestor Hints and DNA Circles require that my DNA matches also have a tree that matches mine and they have linked their DNA results to their tree. You can see that those numbers are not increasing all that rapidly.

The 4th Cousins or Closer numbers are strictly from the amount of DNA that we match. These numbers do continue to go up. From Christmas sales they will probably continue to keep going up.

My major goal for working with DNA matches is to make cousin connections so we can share and compare information, sometimes including photos. Having over 150 shared ancestor hints gives me lots of opportunities to try to connect with cousins, so it is now up to me to do that.

Knowing Cousins You Did Not Know Were Cousins

This past weekend I attended a seminar for area churches and one of the attendees said, "Hi, Cousin." She is one of my 3rd cousins. I had known her for many years before I discovered that we were related.

How did I find the relationship? It was a few years ago through DNA. We both had tested at Family Tree DNA. When I looked at my results, I saw her name near the top of my matches, marked as 2nd to 4th cousin. Could it possibly be the person I already knew? How would I find out?

While I was at our local genealogical library which has a large collection of local newspaper, I was looking for something else and I happened to see a notice of her marriage. There it gave the name of her parents. So then I used the public family trees on Ancestry.com to see if anyone had submitted that father. There I found her parents and her mother's maiden name was the same as my gt-grandmother's maiden name. When I checked the tree farther, I found that we shared 2nd gt-grandparents, so we were 3rd cousins.

I wanted to tell her what I had discovered, so I sent an e-mail. No answer came. I later discovered they did not have a working computer at the time. I knew her brother-in-law and he was able to give me her telephone number, so I called her and related the news that we were related. It took her awhile to understand how, but now she did know that we were cousins.

It does pay to check those DNA matches because you may find local relatives.

My DNA Statistics from Ancestry.com

Yesterday I presented a talk at our local genealogical society, Cottage Grove Genealogical Society, about Working with Ancestry DNA Results. As part of that presentation, I showed how my number of matches had increased over the past 6 months.

	March 2017	9 August 2017	6 September 2017
Shared Ancestor Hints	139	152	158
Starred matches	50	60	61
4th Cousins or Closer	835	1209	1260
DNA Circles	22	25	26

The starred matches are marked by me, so that is my own doing. I mark those who I believe I know how they are related to me.

The others are calculated by Ancestry. Both Shared Ancestor Hints and DNA Circles require that my DNA matches also have a tree that matches mine and they have linked their DNA results to their tree. You can see that those numbers are not increasing all that rapidly.

The 4th Cousins or Closer numbers are strictly from the amount of DNA that we match. These numbers do continue to go up. As of today, that number is 1277. My total matches including more distant cousins are a little over 37,000. That is way too many to try to work with.

My major goal for working with DNA matches is to make cousin connections so we can share and compare information, sometimes including photos. Having over 100 shared ancestor hints gives me lots of opportunities to try to connect with cousins, so it is now up to me to do that.

Time -- Sometimes it just takes time for results to happen

I provided a DNA kit from FTDNA for my friend who was an adoptee. She took the test a little over 2 years ago. Her nearest matches were in the 3rd to 4th cousin level and it was hard to find where any connection might be.

I also tried to do genealogical research for her with the limited information that we had, a copy of the original birth certificate. We thought we had found the birth father's family and had quite a lot of information gathered. We had a probable half-sister test her DNA a year ago and there was no match. Apparently a false name for the father was given on the certificate.

We were also doing research about the birth mother and had a good idea about her parents and grandparents. But we had not found any living relatives, that is, until yesterday. I read my e-mail that had come in the past few days and found a notice from FTDNA that my friend had a new match at Family Finder. So I looked at it and it was a match of 2nd cousin level. I did a Google search for that surname and found some individuals, living in the Marquette Michigan area. That was where we believed my friend's birth mother had been born. Then I got another e-mail from the match herself, wanting to try to make the connection since it was her highest match. It was also my friend's highest match, so with her permission I wrote back to the new match with a summary of what we had gathered about that family. It was wonderful this morning to receive the e-mail from the new match. Yes, they are 2nd cousins and the new match has pictures and information to share.

So, after 2 years from the time she tested, my friend does have a living biological 2nd cousin. It was good to have time to do genealogical research so we could supply the needed information to show the connection.

DNA testing can give us bad news and good news. We were sad when the supposed half-sister did not match. But now a 2nd cousin has been found.

1000 Matches and Counting

1000

Almost 2 weeks ago, 15 May 2017, I wrote about my DNA circles on Ancestry.com. I noted that I had over 950 matches of 4th cousins or closer. As of 2 days ago, 26 May 2017, I had 1000 matches and right now on 28 May 2017 I have 1006. So it seems new matches are being added every day.

Some of these are people that I already know are related to me. However, many of them are not. And most of them don't have their DNA results linked to a family tree so I can't be sure just how we are related.

Ancestry does give another number which they call "shared ancestor hints." Yesterday I decided to check how many of that number were part of the 4th cousin or closer group. The number given by Ancestry was 153. So I just looked at that group and found that 2 were marked as 2nd cousin, 6 were marked as 3rd cousin and 36 were marked as 4th cousin. That totals 44. Of those 44, 5 had private trees so I wasn't able to check our relationship, leaving 39 matches. So 39 out of 1000 would be 3.9%. That's not a very large percentage, still that gives me 39 cousins where I should compare and share information. As I wrote on the 15th, I need to get busy and send some messages.

Going in Circles 24 Times

Because so many have tested on Ancestry DNA, Ancestry tells me that now (15 May 2017) I have over 950 4th cousins or closer in their database. They also inform me that I have 24 DNA Circles. Circles require that we each have a family tree posted at Ancestry, so I can see how each match is related to me, at least according to our respective trees.

So with 24 Circles, I began wondering just how many matches that included. A circle must have at least 3 people, so that requires at a minimum 2 matches per circle. It wasn't too hard to determine the number of matches that they had calculated, since at each circle it displays the number of members (not all member match me, but match people who do match me) and the number of matches. So all I had to do was add up those 24 numbers and it came to 144.

The ancestor who showed the most matches was on my paternal side: Stephen Hoggatt with 15, his wife Margaret Thornburg had 12. Stephen's grandson Francis Hockett (the name changed after they moved north) had 14 and his wife Rebecca Hartley also had 14. The ancestors with the smallest number were also on the paternal side: Timothy Chase and his wife Lucy Irene Howe each had 2 matches.

Then I wondered how many individuals were in that 144 since some people are in more than one of my circles, especially since often there is a circle for each one of a couple. This took a little more work, but I found it interesting to list who the individuals were and while I was at it, which circles they were in. I had already determined that my circles are divided half and half between paternal and maternal ancestors, 12 in each one. So it shouldn't have surprised me that my 1st cousin once removed on my maternal side is in all 12 circles for that side of the family. If I counted correctly, the number of different individuals totaled 63. Think of that, 63 cousins that I need to contact and then we can compare and share information. It looks like I need to get busy and send some messages.