Green Dot obsession

[John Dancy]

Some time last year (or even before) Ancestry introduced the ability to link your DNA cousins to the corresponding person in your family tree, making it easier to go to the various branches and when you succeeded, providing a bright green dot on your DNA matches profile.
I had ignored this until the start of Peter's competition, when I decided that I would extend my tree branches to all those Ancestry showed as having Common Ancestors. Being a pernickety individual each branch member had to have their full census record (where possible) full sibling count, by way of the GRO, and each sibling recorded in Lost Cousins in the various censuses (which has more than doubled my Lost Cousins entries) . By 31st January I only had four left to do, although just by extending the branches, the number of cousins with Common Ancestors had grown. I had taken three or four of my trails backwards several generations and helped a number of cousins correct their trees.
I have just passed the 'milestone' of 250 tree linked DNA cousins, and masses of green dots - of these 183 are shown by Ancestry as having Common Ancestors. (some links are to cousins with unlinked trees or no trees, whose relationship is obvious) There were only seven CAs whose links were invalid, including one where the Ancestry connection was to the opposite side of the family. Am I Obsessed? The daunting (?) thing is that there are still 22,000 to go!

 

[peter]

I had ignored this until the start of Peter's competition, when I decided that I would extend my tree branches to all those Ancestry showed as having Common Ancestors

What a good idea!

 

[Bob Spiers]

Am I Obsessed?

Absolutely, and..."Being a pernickety individual" the last time I encountered the combination of obsession and 'pernickety' was years ago when walking the dog on a sunny day. I passed a little old lady kneeling on a cushion snipping her front (pocket handkerchief sized) lawn edge with a pair of household scissors. When I asked if she had no shears, she smiled and said that she couldn't do the same job with shears and besides they were too heavy for her. She told me her son came over to cut the lawn and strim the edge with his 'mechanical machines' but didn't get the finish she wanted, so after he had gone, she came out (weather permitting) and used her scissors. She was as happy as the day was long despite complaining about her rheumatism...so all I can say is be careful with your scissors.