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Dave Dalton

How to find all connections to a common ancestor

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The ongoing controversy about a prominent American claiming to be a Native American and revelations through a recent private DNA test that she might be 1/64 to 1/1024 American Indian reignited my interest in doing some research on just what my Native American makeup is. My mother's side is mostly French Acadian and I have accurate records dating back to the early 1600s in Acadia. I quickly found my five Mi'kmaq Indian g-grandmothers and determined that I am 9/2048 Indian on my mother's side. But the problem is that this number comes from a single run from my mother up the tree to each g-grandmother, and she is related to many of the same Acadian ancestors through more than one connection. 

My question is whether TMG has support to easily find multiple connections to a single ancestor. For example, if a certain 12th generation Mi'kmaq g-grandmother is related through a single line, then I am 1/2048 Indian through that single line. But if another line also finds this same ancestor 12th generation up, the fraction now becomes 1/1024. Any ideas about how to get to this information quickly and easily? It doesn't appear that any of the TMG report formats support this. Are there any outside programs that I could, for example, dump a GEDCOM file into and get to this?

Thanks, Dave

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If autosomal DNA were passed by splitting in half from each ancestor, you could make such a calculation. But, because of DNA recombination, it isn't so an attempt at such calculations is meaningless. You can't say, having a 12th generation Mi'kmaq g-grandmother who is related through a single line, that you are 1/2048 Indian. Autosomal DNA isn't passed down over the generations like that.

What can be determined is whether or not you have "markers" indicative of Native American ancestry and an estimate can be made for approximately how many generations back the person from whom you inherited the DNA lived (and that is assuming that there is only one such ancestor). How much DNA you have is not precisely related to the number of generations. And if there is more than one ancestor (including unknown ancestors), things get much more complicated.

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Dave, a Descendant Report will show all the descendants of a particular ancestor. If you're looking to find all DNA matches to one or more relatives you have identified as DNA relatives to this Native ancestor, you might try RootsFinder, a remarkable genealogy program with amazing DNA features. Check it out.

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Perhaps I wasn't clear on this request, and my apologies for that. My records have nothing to do with DNA, but are the result of finding my ancestors the traditional way.

Doris, on your suggestion I did generate a descendant indented chart on an ancestor that I know is related through multiple connections and did find my maternal grandfather in three places in that MS Word report, connected by three different ancestors. But both my mother and I were listed under him only once. I did not limit the number of generations, so I would think that I would be below my grandfather in that chart in each case. (I had run that report in the past and had looked only for replications of my name, with no success.) If someone has an explanation for this, please let me know. I will investigate it otherwise. 

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Well, that should have been easy, but wasn't. Showing all occurrences of a person within the Descendant Indented Report is enabled simply by checking the "Repeat Duplicate Lines" in the Miscellaneous tab in Report Options. So that report does indeed allow me to quickly get to all of the connections from me to a particular ancestor. 

I found six different connections to one of my Mi'kmaq g-grandmothers!  Still to find additional connections to four others.

Thanks again. Dave Dalton

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