Family Tree DNA
provides an account service that automatically generates a list of
matches with other people in the FTDNA database that show the
Ancestral country of origin each user reported when they created
their account.
Each list of
matches is
broken down into three section using marker groups. In
these section, matches showing the same country of origin
are summed and the number of people in that origin is displayed
as a total.
FTDNA's grouped
origin list
matches people who have tested 12, 25 and 37-markers.
With each marker count section, it also splits the listing to
show people who were a perfect match, a genetic distance of 0, a
match where only 1-marker didn't match, a genetic distance of
-1, etc. In the 12-marker listing, it only shows matches
up to a genetic distance of -2. In the 25-marker section
it shows matches for a genetic distance from 0 to -3 and in the
37-marker section it shows matches from 0 to a genetic distance
of -4. There will soon be a section for people who match
on 67-markers and that will be added to the information when it
appears.
By
separating the listing by the number of markers used in the
comparison, it is possible to get a feel for the general scope
of the paths of the common ancestor's off-spring from a more
distant time to a more current time frame. For example,
there are a lot of matches in the 12-marker comparison, but
unless the person has the same surname as you do, then it should
be considered the common ancestor you shared was a real long
time ago. Maybe even a thousand plus years ago. As
the number of markers tested increases and the genetic distance
to another person drops to -1 or 0, that information can be a good
predictor of when you shared a common ancestor and will probably
be less than a 1,000 years. While the genetic
distance on the larger marker matches are more than 0, the
results by origin can only be a general predictor of where your
ancestors were before coming to where you are now.
This last
perspective is how I've used the information. In the table
shown below, I've grouped origin locations like, London,
England, Wales, Shetland, Scotland, British Isles into a region
named England. I didn't include Ireland in that grouping
because the number of matches for Ireland were significant.
Scotland almost met that requirement, but for this pass I
included it in England because Scotland doesn't show up in the
37-marker matches.
With country
of origin grouped into sections, it can be seen that the number
of matches that were generated show a definite concentration
around the area of England, and Ireland, with lesser matches in
Europe and Scandinavia. Regions where the number of
matches were insignificant, were excluded for clarity.
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