100+ users under Ancestry's "Shared Matches" tab

[guest189040]

Fascinating thread.

I have Zero starred matches

One second cousin called say Maureen who has no tree nor do I have any person called Maureen in my tree

362 fourth Cousins or closer of which I have one of them on my tree and we are in occasional contact whenever we have mutual data to share and cross check.

I have spent hours looking at those with a high cM who have an accessible tree but without success.

It is the throughlines which for me are just a rehash of the potential ancestor pop ups that Ancestry gives you which many are based on unsubstantiated people that someone has included in their tree and then the Lemmings have copied.

To give an example I have a hint of a potential ancestor called Private, they are only called private because that is what someone called the unknown father of an illegitimate ancestor.

[Ayashi]

Starred matches are like bookmarks- you make them starred. I usually star matches where I've identified the shared ancestors.

I always thought "Private" was where someone had indicated, sometimes in error, that the person concerned was still alive.

[guest189040]

Starred matches are like bookmarks- you make them starred. I usually star matches where I've identified the shared ancestors.

I always thought "Private" was where someone had indicated, sometimes in error, that the person concerned was still alive.

Private can be used for living people.

That said there are many uses of Private in family trees that relate to an unknown individual, there are very many uses of the term in a lot of the Ancestry Trees that I have had as a hint

I cannot see any logic at all in calling a long deceased unknown person Private.

[DavidG02]

While I also wonder at long dead being kept private I also understand if it can identify those still living

[ikas]

I cannot see any logic at all in calling a long deceased unknown person Private.

I believe some people make deceased persons private if they are not sure of the relationship. It is to prevent potential errors spreading to other trees.

[Craclyn]

A large number of shared matches with a specific match is usually indicative of large families and many descendants sufficiently interested in genealogy to have taken a test. Since the cut-off for reporting shared matches is at 20 cM is not likely to be background noise.

[rlw254]

I have a couple groups like this. Not quite as many as some people in this thread, however these show up very obviously when autoclustering results. I've been able to identify some shared ancestors within the groups and they are often many generations back, to a person born in the early 1700s or late 1600s. Genetically I think this comes from DNA segments that share statistically lower recombination rates. I think if you spend enough time and look hard enough at trees for each match you'll find that there are shared lines in there, however it can be very time consuming.

One example I'll give is a group of matches we have to nearly 60+ people now, the majority have traceable Scottish ancestry. Among this group I have identified several people that share ancestors in a MacBeth family, and others with the name MacBeth but no ties to the former for several generations. I suspect if I were to look back far enough, all of these folks, myself included, would match each other through this line, whether the name is MacBeth or a maternal surname related to the shared ancestor I've already identified.

[Seesure]

With my daughter I share 72 common ancestors on the 20cm or above criteria...

Another person who I match 398cms we only have 16 shared matches despite a common ancestor of ours (my great grandfather) having at least 13 children...

Somebody else with who I share 78cms has 38 shared matches....

And finally another person who I share 23cms has 35 shared matches with me...

All I can conclude from this is that is dependent upon who in your wider extended family has bothered to take a DNA test and share the results...

For me personally the folks down in the 20-30cms area with a reasonable (20+) shared matches "generally" seem to be US based - originating from a few ancestors who rocked up in Salt Lake City in the 1840s....

[brigidmac]

Fascinating topic

I've not counted my shared matches with each person
# I will give it a go now to play the statistics game

I had a lot of shared matches with a Jewish American 3rd cousin we.d worked out our connection and anyone with 100 percent Jewish ethnicity was connected to my by grandparents but with so many closed trees I couldn't. Work out how

Handy hint if you put the known surnames or locations into search bar when searching for shared matches . Even the ones with closed trees will show up

For instance if I put JONES or Birkenhead in my mother but not my paternal aunt will show up in shared matches as will mum's cousins and half second cousins with closed trees
You can then colour code

My Scottish side I have lots of matches to my grandfather but he was 9th child of 12 and most of his uncles and aunts emigrated
If I put new Zealand or south Africa into shared matches I can tell which sibling they descended from
USA throws up a lot so then I cross check with the sisters married surnames ...

I. suppose my mum will have more matches than me because there are more generations for her to have connections to