Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Gedmatch GEDCOMS

Gedmatch is a genetic genealogist's delight.  You can find DNA matches that have uploaded their raw data from the Big 3 (FTDNA, 23andme and AncestryDNA) and create cool spreadsheets from Gedmatch's various analytics tools.  I highly suggest forking over the additional $10 to use the Tier 1 tools as you will eventually need them.

One of my new favorites, is the GEDCOM + DNA Matches tool.  Gedmatch allows users to upload a Gedcom (a text file that contains genealogical information about individuals that can be downloaded and uploaded to sites and/or software that accepts such files.) to be linked to your Gedmatch Kit number.  The GEDCOM + DNA Matches tool ( I will refer to the tool as GDM moving forward) takes a list of your matches that have uploaded a Gedcom file to the system and produces a lists of those individuals.  You can click onto the match's Gedcom file and look for matching relatives or clues for the MRCA (most recent common ancestor) between you and the match.  Now the caveat is that this tool will only display DNA matches that share at least 10 cM's of autosomal DNA, so this will not included matches that are considered a match within in a genealogical timeframe at 7cM's of autosomal DNA and this will not included matches in which you share X-DNA only (no autosomal).
If you've tested with the Big 3, I strongly suggest that you upload your raw data to Gedmatch along with your Gedcom.  In conjunction with segment triangulation, this tool will assist with opening doors and tearing those genealogical brick walls that so many of us experience.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Join the conversation!