{"id":7538,"date":"2018-09-13T16:58:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T16:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=7538"},"modified":"2018-09-13T18:12:10","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:12:10","slug":"picking-low-hanging-fruit-on-gedmatch-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=7538","title":{"rendered":"Picking Low Hanging Fruit on GedMatch Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I submitted my father-in-law&#8217;s DNA test data to GedMatch (http:\/\/www.gedmatch.com). It&#8217;s going to be a while before I can really analyze the matches and results there, but that did not stop me from looking at them.<\/p>\n<p>The closest match turned out to be a DNA submission for someone who is a known second cousin of my father-in-law. They are both descendants of George [1859 Mercer County, Illinois-1935 Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois] and Jennie (Kile Smith) Trask [1877 Mercer County, Illinois-1955 Peoria County, Illinois]. This match shared 267.5cM with the submission. This is within typical range for a second cousin relationship (<a href=\"https:\/\/thegeneticgenealogist.com\/2017\/08\/26\/august-2017-update-to-the-shared-cm-project\/\">using the August 2017 &#8220;Shared Centimorgan Project&#8221; statistics<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-7539\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gedmatch-sample-300x291.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"291\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gedmatch-sample-300x291.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/gedmatch-sample.jpg 671w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>However, when viewing this second cousin match in particular it&#8217;s possible that the DNA test I submitted and this match have small amounts of shared DNA outside the Trask relationship. The great-grandfather of testee I submitted and the grandmother of the match were both of Swedish heritage&#8211;Swedes who settled in Galesburg, Illinois. The Swedish community in Galesburg was fairly large, but since I&#8217;ve not compared these Swedish heritages it&#8217;s possible that there&#8217;s a link lurking in that background as well.<\/p>\n<p>I then decided to look at the first few matches that had a GEDCOM file attached to them. It&#8217;s a very selective procedure, not exhaustive, and certain to overlook leads. I am aware of its limits. But it&#8217;s fast and I was hoping that there might be some sort of &#8220;breakthrough&#8221; or lead in these files. I&#8217;ve done this approach with the other two DNA samples I&#8217;ve submitted to GedMatch and had no immediate luck.\u00a0 I was going to look at the trees generated on GedMatch from the GEDCOM files and see if any names stuck out. It&#8217;s not an efficient process. It&#8217;s not recommended as the only way to go through your matches. But it is fast.<\/p>\n<p>A match with 49.8 shared cM had a tree and that tree had several ancestors with the last name of Ramsey. No other name stuck out. In viewing that tree, I saw that it contained a reference to a Lucinda Ramsey (1821-1861 Mercer County, Illinois). She was the mother of George Trask and the file contained the name of her father. A shared cM amount of 49.8 is <a href=\"https:\/\/thegeneticgenealogist.com\/2017\/08\/26\/august-2017-update-to-the-shared-cm-project\/\">consistent with a third cousin relationship<\/a> (which would be the correct &#8220;paper pedigree&#8221; relationship). Looking at the pedigree of the match, no other names stuck out as being in my father-in-law&#8217;s background. It&#8217;s always advised to consider the possibility of another relationship&#8211;not just the one that &#8220;jumps out&#8221; at you immediately.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s more yet to do.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Check out <a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?page_id=4975\">Michael&#8217;s list of DNA webinars<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I submitted my father-in-law&#8217;s DNA test data to GedMatch (http:\/\/www.gedmatch.com). It&#8217;s going to be a while before I can really analyze the matches and results there, but that did not stop me from looking at them. The closest match turned out to be a DNA submission for someone who is a known second cousin of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}