As the kits sold during the holidays have come online, my matches have continued to grow. As of 24 February 2018, I have 632 4th cousins or closer, 175 matches with Shared Ancestry Hints, and I’ve starred (favorited) 226 matches. I’ve gotten 558 new DNA matches over the last seven days, mostly 5th-8th cousins, but a handful of 4th-6th cousins, too.

All told I have 408 pages or 20,373 DNA matches.¹ In contrast I have 292 matches on Family Tree DNA² and 1,430 matches at MyHeritage. GEDmatch only shows you the closest 2,000 matches, but doesn’t tell you the total number of matches to you in their database.

Family Lines

With so many matches, it can be overwhelming. I’m trying to be strategic in what and who I research. I’m focusing on specific lines where I lack a paper trail, hoping the DNA will provide evidence of relationships.

Schneider-Nuss

I’m still working on the Jacob Schneider and Catharina [Nuss?] line, researching matches as they come up. The preponderance of evidence regarding Catharina’s maiden name being Nuss continues to grow.

One of my presumed Snyder cousins uploated to GEDmatch (yay!), so I believe our matching Snyder DNA can be found on chromosome 17. Just recently a new match at that location has cropped up, so another possible match to research.

Hoover-Thomas

In addition to working on my Schneider line, I’ve also been keeping track of the cousins who match me through Philip Hoover and Hannah Thomas.

Currently their DNA Circles have eight members. There have been a few additions as wells as some losses since I wrote A Beautiful Circle. They are all still descendants of either Christian Hoover, Margaret (Hoover) Pitt, or Sarah (Hoover) Blystone. There have been no matches from Jacob Hoover—the only other child who I’ve been able to trace.

To date, I’ve found 23 cousins who have tested, including two on Family Tree DNA, who I’ve traced back to Philip and Hannah Hoover. Twelve of these cousins are descendants of Christian, five descend from Margaret, and six from Sarah.

Based on the chromosome data from the FTDNA matches, the shared DNA from Philip and Hannah most likely comes from chromosome 16. Fortunately, one of these cousins also uploaded to GEDmatch and triangulates with five other people, giving me more cousins to research.

Force-Mulhollan

One of my most mysterious lines remains my 3G great grandfather Jefferson Force. I believe he was orphaned young and evidence of his parentage has not been forthcoming. However, I have a large number of matches who seem to match the Force-Mulhollan line.

Recently, I found one genetic cousin who descends from Jefferson’s presumed sister, Agnes (Force) Shope. I’m hoping to trace more of my matches to Centre County Force families.

Online Tools

I’ve also been looking for and working with other tools to try to aid my genetic genealogy.

MedBetterDNA

I’ve started using MedBetterDNA. It’s an extension for the Chrome internet browser. It allows me to set parameters on what will be displayed on an AncestryDNA page, including making the notes field always visible. This is very useful. I use the notes field to store things like known or presumed family line for the match, the size of the shared segment, location or relationship. Having it visible makes it easier to find what I’m looking for, especially if I can’t remember a match’s username.

I can also use tags (i.e. #Hocker) to showing only those matches for a particular family line. It’s not perfect—it only works on a page-by-page basis—but it does make it easier to find what I’m looking for.

GEDmatch

GEDmatch has been an awesome tool. Using the Tier 1 tools bumps it up a level. I’ve been able to find matches who tested at 23 and Me, Family Tree DNA, and Ancestry, widening the pool of matches. The overlap with Ancestry adds segment information that AncestryDNA doesn’t provide.

GEDmatch also has phasing tools. Because both my mother and I have tested, I’ve been able to phase my DNA. GEDmatch compared our DNA and gave me two files—each identifies exactly what I inherited from each parent. So, I can quickly run a “One to Many” tool to see who matches my mother’s DNA and who matches my father’s DNA. The only thing better would be having my father’s actual test results. That would provide genetic cousins who match the 50% of his DNA that I didn’t inherit.

The Tier 1 tools add triangulation of my matches. How does this help? It allows me to see which people not only match me on the same chromosome segment, but also match each other on that very same segment. This significantly increases the likelihood that we all inherited the DNA from the same common ancestor.

How is this different that Ancestry’s Shared Matches? I’ve indentified a number of cousins who descend from Conrad Nuss and his wife Margaretha Roeder. This points to Conrad and Margaretha as our most recent common genetic ancestors, right?

But if cousin A matches me on chromosome 2 and cousin B matches on chromosome 3 and they match each other on chromsome 4, we all share DNA with each other. However, our shared DNA must not come from this couple, even if we all descend from them. Therefore, while we apparently have a genealogical relationship—via the paper trail (assuming we’ve found it)—we do not have a genetic relationship and thus can’t use the AncestryDNA match as evidence of our relationship to Conrad and Margaretha Nuss.³ If we only relied on information provided by Ancestry’s Shared Matches, we might assume that our DNA match is to Conrad and Margaretha and we’d never know otherwise.

I’m also working with Genome Mate Pro and looking at DNA Painter. Hopefully, I can write more on these another time.

So, the genetic genealogy is ongoing and, I believe, yielding some new information. It’s not only supporting my existing genealogy research, but also helping to make connections where previously I only had theories—two prime examples: the relationships of  Christian Hoover to Philip and Hannah (Thomas) Hoover and Henry Schneider to Jacob and Catharina (Nuss) Schneider. Not bad for a $69 investment.