PLUNK – An Ancestry DNA game for Christmas (and beyond?)

My close matches (442): P = 18, L = 208, U = 87, N =129, K = 21, giving a score of 9.3

I have 3 illegitimate ancestors - a great grandfather and grandmother (maternal) and a great grandmother (paternal), so I think 100% may be difficult as you say John! But I'm working on it.

 

I have at least two illegitimate ancestors - my paternal grandfather and my paternal 4x great-grandfather.

 

I think my post above is incorrect; my illegitimate ancestors are my father and my 3x great-grandfather.

 

Tim,
Are you one of our younger lost cousins ? you currently have the lowest level of close matches. And this almost certainly explains why your number of close matches with distant relatives is higher.

So far we have 3,337 close cousins of whom 18% have been allocated common ancestors by Ancestry and 53.8% have linked trees.
Unlinked trees seem quite often to have few, if any, names in them and could quite easily not be the family tree of the person who had done the test anyway.

 

Hi Tim, Thanks for your lengthy response.

True that age doesn't matter, but your place on the family tree does - Given that the amount of DNA decreases per generation those from previous generations (parents, grandparents etc) are likely to match with more of your fourth/fifth etc cousins than you as they will have a larger sample to match the DNA from. 'Jorghes', above has a grandmother with 985 close matches, almost certainly because her DNA sample is larger to start with and matches further down some of her tree branches.

And yes, the number of "K" will increase as you build your family tree, if your branch then extends to the tree of a DNA cousin who has a 'brick wall' on their side of the branch.

My wife had two DNA close cousins whose trees 'ended' at "Henry Cassell" and his wife"Elizabeth Dickerson" - My wife's tree does not have either of these. Research showed that "Henry Cassell" was actually "Henry Cattle" and the son of my wife's 2nd Gt Uncle. He had married bigamously (using the same names and occupations for himself and his father, and signing with the same handwriting). Having contacted the descendants of Henry Cassell they changed their trees and my wife's number of Common Ancestors increased. We have also identified a significant number of her DNA relatives who would be linked with her as Common Ancestors if they put more people in their trees, linked their unlinked trees, or even had a tree at all. So yes you can increase K with effort rather than more cousins taking tests. Slightly more than half of Tricia's close cousins with common ancestors were gained through changes to her tree, the biggest when she discovered that her grandfather was born Benjamin Hubbard, not Benjamin Herbert (changed his name on joining the army at 18).

I note that you added your 'more close cousins' to the Private Linked tree" value. Was this for a reason? but yes, I agree with your figures

 

Close matches 266: P = 18, L = 125, U = 48, N = 75, K = 12, giving a score of 8.39
53.75% have trees

 

The same would happen with me. I've identified my relationship to far more cousins than Ancestry has identified as having 'Common Ancestors', through BMD searches and contacting those with no or minimal trees. Same for my husband's matches, including two previously unknown 2nd cousins who had no trees, which of course means Ancestry can't show the relationship.

 

Surely it's not getting more of your known close cousins to do DNA tests that would increase K, it's getting more of your "close cousin" DNA matches to put reasonably-sized trees on Ancestry.

 

Yes it will, Ancestry looks at all the Private person's direct relatives to see if any match yours, the more direct relatives in either their or your trees the more chance of a match, and Ancestry working identifying a chain.

There is another thread where I have covered this, but if you go to the "View Relationship" and the cousin who is private shows up as mostly locked cells (when Ancestry only has their tree as a reference) you can unlock them by adding the children comprising the locked generations to your own tree. Ancestry will show your tree members first, whichever branch they are on. I know because I have done it.

I think my initial comments were because I was trying to work out why your number of close cousins were low, but I agree it is almost certainly due to the number of your cousins who have tested. One of Tricia's cousins (through the illegitimate line already mentioned) is only 17% European, most of her Ethnicity being Asian, and she has few close cousins, but it means that almost all her European cousins are either descendants of the bigamist or his wife. It is helping us to break a rather persistent brick wall in that we now know cousins on the other side.

And on Jorghes grandmother - The amount of DNA reduces generation by generation, and children/grandchildren can get a completely different sequence of DNA from her. By her grandchildren or great grandchildren they could quite well not even match, or the match fall below the 8cm required for Ancestry to be interested. You would be bound to have less close cousins than your grandmother simply because you have less DNA to match.

 

I agree with John. Ancestry use information in both public and private trees to connect to your tree, so it does matter how many people are in the private trees of your matches. If they only have themselves and their parents - and there are no other trees available to fill the gap - then Ancestry won't be able to make the connection.

I'm not sure what you mean here. By 'DNA tree' do you mean the tree linked to your DNA results on Ancestry, and that your DNA matches are included in your tree? If the DNA match has a linked tree (however small) Ancestry should be able to find the common ancestor from your tree if you have the cousin in your tree.

My (public) DNA-linked tree only includes my direct ancestors. I suppose I could increase K if I were to include all branches down to living cousins, but I don't really want to do that, to protect cousins' privacy (yes, I know living people are 'hidden' but it's easy to identify people if their parents are shown).

 

Reference your last paragraph. Whilst I understand your reasoning, I am not certain why your cousins would have had their DNA tested if they did not want to find relatives (close or distant, there can be different reasons for it) To a certain extent their DNA test has stopped them being 'private'.
I have a growing list of messages from cousins who thanked me for helping them. The latest wanted to know why her grandfather was in my tree, her father, she knew, was illegitimate. We worked out that her father and his brother were both my second cousins, although illegitimate, and she has spent lockdown making friends with closer cousins she didn't know she had.

 

There can be many reasons for someone getting their DNA tested - it may have been a gift, or they may have agreed to be tested to help a relative out, and they may not be interested in finding relatives at all. Re the privacy issue, I've found quite a few trees containing my parents (and me, as their only child, though I'm 'hidden' of course). Fair enough if they are DNA matches and/or clearly related to me. However, in some cases the connection (if any) is so distant that it seems the people are just collecting names (copying from other trees), and they often don't respond to messages. I wouldn't want to grow my public tree to such an extent.

 

and it is the ones who just copy that can give errors credibility. Earlier this week I had three 'Hint' ancestor's trees linked to a cousin. They had a different maiden name for his wife and a marriage nine years later than the real one. They also missed the four children (one 'unnamed') born before their listed marriage,

 

Merry Christmas Tim,

We seem to have got a bit confused somewhere - I am not certain what you mean by a "DNA Tree", all my references have been to the public and private trees available on Ancestry, including mine, and Ancestry uses these. In your paragraph

"Ancestry does not use my DNA tree in determining the connection from them to me, it uses other peoples public and private trees to do this. If it can't find another tree with a link then it can't display it."

I am not certain why you think Ancestry wouldn't use your tree to make a link? As I have said, I have the evidence it does.

Pleased to have a meaningful discussion.
Stay Safe
John