DNA survey - please respond

[Kate]

Thanks I will give it a go.

 

[Kate]

Well, I am sending another attempt.

 

[peter]

Thanks, Kate - please note that the rows should be sorted according to the Result column (column E).

Also I couldn't work out why some of the counties are shaded even though you don't appear to have ancestors from those counties. The idea of the shading is to provide a quick visual check of how effectively the spreadsheet algorithm is.

 

[Kate]

Sorry I think Essex was already shaded on the spreadsheet I modified. I should have started with a blank one.
Also I was looking at post 263 which I thought said sort column F. I will try again.

 

[peter]

Sorry I think Essex was already shaded on the spreadsheet I modified. I should have started with a blank one.
Also I was looking at post 263 which I thought said sort column F.

You can use the Format Painter tool to unshade the boxes.

I should have noticed the in post 263 and corrected it earlier - apologies.

 

[Kate]

Hoping I have got it right this time. As you have probably guessed, I have not used Excel before, other than for straightforward inputting data.

 

[jcw3]

Hello, only just joined the forum, so early days. I think I've got the hang of the spreadsheet, found what looks like Peter's latest version, sorted it into alphabetical order for Counties and making a start on number of pages of matches for each. The instructions on what to do were not very obvious for a beginner.

 

[peter]

Hello, only just joined the forum, so early days. I think I've got the hang of the spreadsheet, found what looks like Peter's latest version, sorted it into alphabetical order for Counties and making a start on number of pages of matches for each. The instructions on what to do were not very obvious for a beginner.

If it is the latest version it will include Welsh counties. No need to sort it into alphabetical order unless you want to, but when you've entered your data please sort according to the result column (low to high).

 

[jcw3]

Will do, it just seemed easier looking for counties in alphabetical order. Will post (do you prefer as a spreadsheet or PDF, I see people have sent both?) in next day or so.

 

[peter]

Will do, it just seemed easier looking for counties in alphabetical order. Will post (do you prefer as a spreadsheet or PDF, I see people have sent both?) in next day or so.

PDFs are no use to me - I need the information in a spreadsheet so that I can experiment with changes to the formulae.

 

[jcw3]

Thank you.

 

[jcw3]

I think I've got this right, but can only show birthplaces for 12 of the 32 3G ancestors. Half of the 32 are Scottish, with perhaps a few undiscovered ancestors from Ireland. I have identified 4 Lanarkshire, 3 Stirlingshire and 1 Clackmannanshire from those. Might you be thinking of adding Scottish counties to your investigations in the future? The other half of the Scots/Irish ancestors are either unknown before about 1840s or completely lost due to a brick wall around my biological great grandfather, who is a total mystery (apart from a name?). From my English ancestors, I am not spotting much correlation between counties of birth and the Results column, except perhaps Cornwall. Not sure if it helps the study, but I have 637 pages of matches (today), but I suspect this figure may change quite frequently?

It looks an interesting study you are carrying out, will you be reporting what conclusions you are reaching at some point? It's almost like crowdfunding, the way we are all contributing to this study?

 

[peter]

Thanks for uploading your spreadsheet.

I hope to add Scotland, but the first challenge is to get England & Wales working reliably. Middlesex is always under-represented in the results because Ancestry don't count London as part of Middlesex. At the other end of the spectrum Wiltshire often comes near the top for no apparent reason.

It's interesting that Yorkshire comes ahead of Lancashire in your results - did your Lancashire ancestors live close to the border, I wonder?

 

[jcw3]

Interesting thought about East Lancashire locations. For example, I have
John Higginbottom, 1765–1829, BIRTH 1765 • Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire
Others may be Manchester and outskirts. So almost Yorkshire? Easy links between Manchester and Leeds/Sheffield area, even in those days?

 

[jcw3]

Am I understanding the Ancestry search right? In my case, I have 637 pages of matches, so about 31,800 DNA matches. A good number of these do not have a tree attached at the moment. I can't quite see what people achieve not having a family tree to relate to their DNA, but perhaps it is lots of people looking for their ethnicity? If I put a county in, starting with Anglesey (paranoidly working alphabetically), I get one page for Anglesey, Wales, actually 29 records. All of these have Family Trees associated with them.

What does this result mean? Is it meant to be at least one person in each tree who was born (or lived, or died?) in Anglesey? If so, I've selected the smallest tree (12 people, with three living), use View Full Tree, then Find Person and finally List of all people. Would I expect to find someone born in Anglesey, Wales? Because there isn't, the nearest is Annesley Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, England. Surely Ancestry is not mixing Annesley and Anglesey? Next smallest tree is 200 people, 'List of all people' is 148 long. There is no sign of anyone who was born or died on Anglesey, unless it is one of the living people. What exactly is Ancestry testing to give pages of matches which relate to a specific county being searched for?

Have I been doing something wrong or is the search criteria not doing what we expect?

 

[peter]

Have I been doing something wrong or is the search criteria not doing what we expect?

When I originally searched for matches with ancestors born in 'Anglesey, Wales' I got zero results. Now I get 12. There's only one with a small tree
(34 people) and the very first person I checked in that tree was born in 'Anglesey, Wales' so the Ancestry search is clearly working for me.

As it happens, when viewing that tree I spotted one of my rarer ancestral surnames (Shuttleworth) and the ancestor concerned was born in Essex (like mine). This tree didn't show up the last time I searched for matches with Shuttleworth ancestors so either the person has tested recently, or they've only uploaded their tree recently.

Give the large number of tests sold over the Black Friday weekend I shall re-run the searches for my nearly 100 ancestral surnames, and hopefully that will lead to even more interesting discoveries.....

 

[jcw3]

I've looked for Anglesey on my wife's DNA matches, for a couple of smallish trees. One definitely had someone born on Anglesey. The other did not obviously show anyone, so I assume it searches living people too. I'm pretty sure my matches are increasing at the rate of about two pages a day, so reviews of these frequently sounds logical.

 

[KC4]

Although I cannot upload a chart, I am interested in this survey, its outcomes and points to be drawn from the charts.

In my chart Lancashire, Yorkshire and Warwickshire hit the 40-page ceiling.

Lancashire (12th on my sorted Column E list) is no surprise, having eleven out of 28 known G x3 GP and known descendants in the decades after and before 1800. I can see these linking with Cheshire (2nd on the sorted Column E list) with 15 pages where some Lancashire ancestors migrated from (others stayed in Cheshire).

Yorkshire (7th on the sorted Column E list) has only one G x3 GP for me but I know many more ancestors were born and lived there in the years since that person recorded. For me this links with County Durham (42th on the sorted Column E list) where some known Yorkshire ancestors moved from (others stayed in County Durham).

Warwickshire is the 40-page odd one for me. It is also top of the list sorted by Column E.

With a tree of nearly 4000 people with most lines going back to the early 1700s, I have no births, no marriages, no deaths and no “livings in ” regarding Warwickshire yet it “equals” Lancashire in the chart. Similarly for a county the discussion has mentioned, Wiltshire (3rd on the sorted Column E list) has 15 pages, yet I have found no ancestors there in the last 350 years.

As an aside, the total of matches included on my chart are at least 5000 short of matches total presented by Ancestry. Would that be explained by:

(a) the 40-page ceiling;
(b) immigration from outside England and Wales;
(c) false matches;
(d) some other reason?
KC

 

[peter]

Warwickshire is the 40-page odd one for me. It is also top of the list sorted by Column E.

With a tree of nearly 4000 people with most lines going back to the early 1700s, I have no births, no marriages, no deaths and no “livings in ” regarding Warwickshire yet it “equals” Lancashire in the chart.

I wonder whether it could be hinting at a non-paternal event? Let me know if this turns out to be the case!

As an aside, the total of matches included on my chart are at least 5000 short of matches total presented by Ancestry. Would that be explained by:

(a) the 40-page ceiling;
(b) immigration from outside England and Wales;
(c) false matches;
(d) some other reason?

You can't add up the matches because many of your cousins will have matched on more than one county, and others won't have matched at all, either because birthplaces aren't given in their trees or because they're not in a format that Ancestry understands.

 

[Dahlia]

I've completed the spreadsheet, sorted and coloured as requested but don't see an attached file button. I did try posting five times in the sandbox but to no avail.