MODULE 2: Grouping your AncestryDNA matches - Dotting by generations and advanced dotting!

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.

Depending on your level of experience and what you know about your pedigree, you might group to grandparents (4 ancestral lines) or great-grandparents (8 ancestral lines).  

The grouping schema that I use is shown in the next diagram. This is covered HERE. In the second diagram, I've shown the number of ancestral lines a range of relationships would be grouped to if you are using grandparent, great-grandparents or 2nd great-grandparent ancestral lines.

Here are a couple of examples-

• If your AncestryDNA match is a first cousin, the match will be in 2 groups if you're grouping to grandparents, 4 groups if you're grouping to great-grandparents and 8 groups if you're grouping to 2nd great-grandparents.
• If your AncestryDNA match is a third cousin, the match will be in 1 group if you're grouping to grandparents, 1 group if you're grouping to great-grandparents and 2 groups if you're grouping to 2nd great-grandparents. 

Please note that I now recommend using P0 and M0 rather than P1/8 and M1/8.

Advanced dotting beyond 2nd great-grandparents

I'd like to thank Megan for showing us how she's grouping her matches where their most recent common ancestors is beyond her 2nd great-grandparents. Here's how I've done this-

• 16 groups for each of my 2nd great-grandparent ancestral lines,
• 1 group for matches where the MRCA are my 3rd great-grandparents,
• 1 group for matches where the MRCA are my 4th great-grandparents and 
• 1 group for matches where the MRCA are my 5th great-grandparents and beyond.

So when I have a 4th cousin match, I'd tag the match to two groups-

• 1 of the 16 2nd great-grandparents ancestral lines and
• MRCA are my 3rd great-grandparents.

I can then filter by two groups to find the matches that I share beyond the 2nd great-grandparents. Here's an example where you can see that I've filtered by the M1 Lutge and _MRCA 3XGGP groups.  

M1 is the ancestral line of my maternal 2nd great-grandfather, Peter Benson Lutge. From the 1855 Denmark Census and Danish Church Records, I've found that Peter Benson was the oldest of the eight children of Johann Friedrich Lutge and Maria Cathrina Jensen. Peter Benson and his family lived in one of these houses in a small town in Denmark before he came to Sydney in the 1860s and died about a kilometre from my home 130 years ago!  

Had any of Peter Benson's siblings come to Australia, had they stayed in Denmark or gone elsewhere? Well my matches with Leonard, Kathleen, Michelle and Jenn at AncestryDNA have given me some answers. They are descended from two of Peter Benson's siblings who migrated to the United States. Our most recent common ancestors are my 3rd great grand-parents on the Lutge ancestral line, Johann Friedrich Lutge and Maria Cathrina Jensen. And Megan's suggestions for grouping allows me to find them very easily in my AncestryDNA matches!