Have you tested Family Finder at Family Tree DNA? Check your email!

FTDNA has provided a discount certificate to everyone who has already had the Family Finder test at FTDNA. Check your FTDNA email now to see if you have a certificate. You MUST USE it by the 10th of June to get the Family Finder test at a discount of $110 from the regular $289 price. You should have as many certificates as tests you have paid for.

Remember that this is an autosomal DNA test and can be used by both males and females to find your relatives from the past 5 generations.

This is a great opportunity to test more family members.

Identified matches at FTDNA, Family Finder, and at 23andme, Relative Finder

I have 330 matches in Family Finder at FTDNA and have identified 13 relationships.

I have 1440 matches at 23andMe and am Sharing Genomes with 402. I have identified 15 relationships with those 402.

The success ratio at both services is comparable at about 4%.

I also have matches at GEDMATCH, but I have not been successful in identifying the relationship with any one there who is not already identified in Family Finder or Relative Finder.

If you are in the 23andMe database, a new feature of Ancestry Finder allows you to compare all of your matches and their matches to see if there are clusters at common locations. See this post for details on a method to download all your AF matches and their matches and use a spreadsheet for triangulation of the results:
https://www.23andme.com/you/community/thread/13225/

Analysing 23andMe Relative Finder results: Always take a second look.

See corrected text below: NOT my Father's mtDNA haplotype.

Several months ago I got a a 22cM 23andMe Relative Finder match with A. Her surname was one in my paternal grandmother's ancestry. She was a predicted 4th cousin with a range of 3rd to 7th. We compared ancestry charts and determined we shared two lines on her Father's side. We were both half 5th cousins once removed and half 6th cousins on that surname. I was descended from a husband and one wife and she was descended from the other wife on two lines.

This week I noticed her father's results had arrived and I did not have a match with him. Since a 22cM match seemed too large to be Identical by State and/or fit into those situations where one has a match with a child but not a parent, I looked at the link to her updated Ancestry tree and found that she and I had a 5th cousin relationship on her Mother's side also through my paternal grandmother.

In this case she was a direct female line descendant of my Father's direct female line ancestor, so her mtDNA was the same as my paternal grandmother and my Father. This filled in one of my missing mtDNA haplogroups and indicated that the first relationships found probably were not the ones that passed on the genetic match.

We do share some other surnames but can't find a relationship yet on those other lines. Even if there are relationships on the other lines they would be further back than the closest one we now have.

Please let me know of any problems with my analysis.

New 23andMe Relative Finder match connection identified

Last night I was able to identify the possible pedigree connection between my self and a predicted 5th cousin. She and I are actually 6th cousins, once removed. The connection is in my maternal line but her paternal line with William Kidd and his unknown wife. We have a match on chromosome 17.

I have a 3rd cousin, once removed, who matches me at 4 locations. We share four GG Grandparents, Jesse D. Swain and Mary Elizabeth Ball, and John Kidd and Maliza Stephens. None of our matches are on chromosome 17. She and her daughter have matches on chromosome 6 with my female multi-1st cousin which I do not have, and I have matches with her and her daughter on the X which my female multi-1st cousin does not have.

So the question still remains whether the first match on chromosome 17 is from William Kidd or from his unknown wife. I'm tending toward the unknown wife.