My point was that whenever we make a conclusion about a particular ancestor or ancestral couple based on segments of DNA shared with a relative, we absolutely must address whether we do, or could, share other ancestors with that relative.įor example, when I’m reviewing someone’s conclusion, I need to know whether they’ve at least considered the possibility that they could share DNA from another line instead of or in addition to the line on which they’ve focused. Or, alternatively, addressing known overlap. “No atDNA paper or proof argument should EVER make a conclusion based on shared segments without at least a sentence or two about the lack of known overlap in other family lines. I recently stated the following in a thread in the ISOGG Facebook group: Having a chart like this for your own family tree, or at least some knowledge of the information in such a chart, is a vital consideration in one’s determination of confidence in a conclusion made using DNA. The Importance of Knowing Your Family Tree
So this is an interesting exercise, but is a table like this at all applicable to genetic genealogy? And while I feel very confident for the first 6 or 7 generations after that I’m much less confident with my family tree. At 10 generations, with 2046 total ancestors in all generations, I only know a quarter of them. For instance, between the 7th and 8th generations, I drop from knowing 71% of all of my ancestors to knowing just 51% of my ancestors. There are many interesting data points in the table. Out of curiosity, I generated a similar table with my own data: It listed a handful of generations along with the number of possible ancestors in each generation, and the individual’s known ancestors for that generation. Today, I saw an interesting table posted to Facebook, summarizing a genealogist’s family tree.
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