Which is better - one long matching strand or several shorter?

[diplodicus]

This is one for my fellow DNA geeks...

In my Ancestry matches, I have a match to 'A' that total 59 cM spread over six segments. I seem to remember that ancestry's threshold for such things is 7cM?

I also have a match to 'B' that totals 42 cM but over only two segments.

In my Ancestry results 'A' is at the very top of my 4th to 6th cousins and 'B' appears as number eleven.

I hadn't appreciated the implications of this until I realised that A matched to B, P, Q R & S whilst B matches to A, W, X & Y.

In other words both A and B matched to P!!

Am I correct in thinking that either A & B might be related twice but more probably B is actually a stronger match than A?

Or should I get out more?

[davidft]

You should get out more  (Don't worry I am going away tomorrow  )

My understanding has always been that one long match is better than several shorter matches as this indicates a closer kinship to the person with the longer match and indeed several shorter matches could be the result of noise or coincidence especially if the short matches are very short (some say below 7cM but others say below 10CM).

Caveat: I am not an expert this is just my understanding FWIW