DNA Monday: Cousin Motherload?

Still playing around with my DNA results from 23andMe and wandered into what I had been looking for all the time: cousins! Right now I'll just share an overview because I'm that excited and later as I figure out more stuff I'll share that too:)

The main thing is how to navigate to this information. You need to set up your profile with surnames and locations but that will take only a few minutes. Then off to the cousin races! Here are the two pertinent screens that will guide you to the goods.

First look at the drop down menu under Friends and Family at the very top to find "DNA Relatives".  It takes a moment to generate the report. It looks like this and below I've blocked out names.

See Drop Down Menu to Select DNA Relatives under Friends and Family Tab.

DNA Relatives Main Page

These are your closest matches, You can see here that my closest are not that close and fall into the category of 3rd and more degree cousins. At the very top of that page, and too bad you can't see it in this screen shot, is a blue "?" with three choices to the right: List View, Map View, and Surname View. List View is the above image. Surname View is the image below.

 



DNA Relatives Surname View

As you can see this is way cool! I clicked on Williams and came to a page that lists all my Williams surname connections. I'm not showing that here because it would just have too many blocked out areas to be useful to you. The list is organized similar to the DNA Relatives Main Page, above.

Now my task is to think through how to approach these Williams people and how to word an introduction email. My best result would be to find the family of Daniel Williams, my GGF, after they came to America some time after 1870. That would be DNA heaven for me!


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/dna-monday-cousin-motherload.html