Autosomal test/Family Finder

[Leslie Thomas]

So far I have 30 - 5th cousins and of those there are 3 that I can identify which lines we connect on.
There are 12 - 4th cousins and I can't connect with any of them to any of my known lines.
There are 2 - 3rd cousins and neither of those seem to be obvious either.

I'd sure like to hear form those who have positively identified their matches and confirmed relationships. 

At this point I'm a bit disappointed with the results.

Leslie

[Norwich]

So far I have 30 - 5th cousins and of those there are 3 that I can identify which lines we connect on.
There are 12 - 4th cousins and I can't connect with any of them to any of my known lines.
There are 2 - 3rd cousins and neither of those seem to be obvious either.

I'd sure like to hear form those who have positively identified their matches and confirmed relationships. 

At this point I'm a bit disappointed with the results.

Leslie

What many (most?) people don't seem to realize is that particularly with Family Finder, due to their "liberal" criteria as to what consitutes a match, you hare going to have many many more false positives than identical by descent matches.  Even those where you have an ancestor in common, if it is beyond 4th cousin, there is every likelyhood that it is also a false positive match. 

I have many Colonial American ancestors and simplly matching an unknown "cousin" does not confirm that this segment came from the identified ancestor - it is just as likely to be a coincidence - a point I have been making over and over becaue people are putting a lot of faith on small matches and seeing them as "meaningful".  It would be nice, but it is just not that straightforward.

As a scientist, I only trust those matches that have been predicted by a known genealogiy beforehand - we are simply looking for confirmation that the genetic tree and the genealogical tree coincide (or not - particularly in 4th cousins and beyond).  Beyond the level of third cousins, unless there are cousin marriages to up the ante (increase the probability of a match) , matches on short segments are in the "iffy" category.

Norwich.

[Terry Barton]

I am intrigued where there are multiple matches with the identical block - or where they all share the same start or end point.   Haven't had time to pursue this for a while - but that seems to offer the most hope - as it allows putting multiple pedigrees to the same MRCA.  But it takes some work to compile. 

There are also cases where there are overlapping matches that appear to show what could be different fragments of a larger block - but as Norwich notes - these could be false positives.

Terry

[Kiwi]

Have been holding off on this test as, haven't had much luck with results on YDNA or MtDna 3 full matches with full MTDna no paper trails beyond 1805, and no matches over 25 with Ydna FTNA site, so not sure if I will be any better of with this test?
How many people so far have tested on the Database?

[TomGull]

Have been holding off on this test as, haven't had much luck with results on YDNA or MtDna 3 full matches with full MTDna no paper trails beyond 1805, and no matches over 25 with Ydna FTNA site, so not sure if I will be any better of with this test?
How many people so far have tested on the Database?

One person posted a number of samples on DNA Forums attributed to an FTDNA support person (I think - someone from FTDNA in any case). That number was between 8,000-10,000 and I think the post was 2-4 weeks ago.

[Rachel R Johnson]

I found a 4th cousin by the Family Finder Test at familytreedna.com.  I confirmed it with my paper tree.  I think you need both a strong family tree and the dna part.  Rachel Buland Johnson

[Rachel R Johnson]

I also neglected to say that the 4th cousin I found on familyfinder.com was on my paternal side.  I am thrilled to be able to do the test since I have no male members of my family that are willing to do a ydna test.   And it did prove that you can find the paternal side of your relatives in female dna.  That in itself was worth the price.    Rachel Burland Johnson

[Ruth Youngquist]

I am new to the Family Finder DNA test.  I have done yDNA testing.
Would it be worthwhile to do the Family Finder test on 2 male 4th cousins?  I am trying to prove an illegitimate birth of the great grandfather in one of the lines.  On paper, the relationship looks probable.