Mossie's Musings

Update on Ancestry subscriptions- Most of your AncestryDNA matches will not have a subscription and will have very little information to work with.  If you don't have an Ancestry membership, you should consider "AncestryDNA Plus" which costs $39.99 each six months. You can read about the features included  HERE. Ancestry Pro Tools allows you to see how much DNA your matches share and their relationship to each other. The cost is variable but I pay $10US a month. You can read more HERE  and use the link to subscribe.  Below at are notes for those who attended the Society of Australian Genealogists' webinar First Look at AncestryDNA .  Others are welcome to use these notes for their personal research.  Please contact me at chrisw9953[at]gmail[dot]com for  other uses.  I'll strive to update the notes as there are further developments or my understanding of the area grows. "Setting the scene" You can read about the "4 types of DNA"  HERE. AncestryD

These notes are for participants in the Society of Australian Genealogists' program, Analysing your AncestryDNA results . Others are welcome to use these notes for their personal research. Please contact me at  chrisw9953[at]gmail[dot]com for other uses.  I'll strive to update the notes as there are further developments or my understanding of the area grows. Introduction to the Leeds Method Click  HERE  to watch a twenty five minute video I've recorded on the Leeds Method and my "twisted" Leeds Method. Remember that many of us have two predigrees we research - our social/known family and our biological/genetic family. In 2018, a US study estimated that one in four people who take a DNA test discover an unexpected parentage event between themselves and their great grandparents ie 25% between you and your closest fourteen ancestors. Genetic genealogy is an important tool for every family historian and cannot be ignored. Knowing your tree and knowing your matches is

In this activity, you're placing yourself (the target/tester) into a well known tree - your own well researched tree!  Chose one of your great-great-grandparent couples where you have a group of known AncestryDNA matches who have that couple as your MRCA. Build a WATO tree from the great-great-grandparent couple out to each of the matches where your shared DNA is less than 400cM and enter the cM you share with these matches. Select "switch to beta probabilities" - do this whenever you're using AncestryDNA matches, Use the "Suggest Hypothesis" function at WATO and delete any hypotheses that don't meet the "time and place" criteria. Which hypothesis are you? Is it the strongest hypothesis? Now include any matches where your shared DNA is between 400cM and 1500cM and enter the cM you share with these matches.  Use the "Regenerate Hypothesis" function at WATO and delete any hypotheses that don't meet the "time and place" cri