Organising my DNA data

It's been twelve months since I first received my DNA results from Ancestry. Since then five more members of my immediate family have tested. Many close results have been people I have met or corresponded with over the years. Another has provided me with evidence that we may have found a descendants from a sibling missing in the late 1800s. However, there are some close matches who we can't accurately place in our family.

After a couple of months I decided I needed to work out a system to visualise these results for myself. (I can't remember if I got this idea from someone or not). I decided to enter details in a spreadsheet with columns headed Match Name, Relationship, MCRA, My ancestor in the next generation, Match's ancestor next generation, Shared CM, Segments and a contact address if I had one. I then had pages for each of my grandparents and their ancestors. As further members of my family tested I also started pages for them. It got very messy! I needed another solution.

I was sent a spreadsheet by a relative and decided to try that.

I made a template and then set up an individual page for each of the six trees I manage. Matches were placed underneath the most distant sibling of one of our ancestors. I add the name of the match (removed here), their ancestor's name, our relationship and the match.

Illustrating some of my Agnew and Mylan matches

I can now see that I have matches with John, Margaret, James and Ellen, all siblings of Bridget Mylan. One day I may get matches with Thomas, Annie, Matilda, Esther and Mary, the other siblings. The ? indicate matches who we know are related to this family but can't identify the link at this stage.

This method seems to be working much better and I feel as though it is more under control. However, I can see that in the not so distant future I will run out of space on the spreadsheet in some branches. The problem is finding time to go though all matches and then just being able to catch up with new matches.

Even while writing this I've just thought of a further refinement. I could link each name to their match on Ancestry or GEDmatch. That could be a job for my next holidays!

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Caroline Chisholm

I am currently in England visiting my daughter who is working in London. Naturally I decided I would have to spend some time on genealogical pursuits. The problem was where would I choose for a few day's retreat from London? In the end I decided to go to Northampton to visit the grave of Caroline Chisholm. Caroline is known as the immigrant's friend. She was a well known social reformer of her day. Why is Caroline significant to me and my family? You may recall that Caroline Chisholm was on the original $5 note in Australia. As well as her image there was a picture of a ship. That ship was the Waverley . Caroline agitated at the Home Office to reunite the wives and families of convicts with their husbands and fathers. On 22 June 1847 she wrote that she ‘had just left the Home Office and had obtained a passage per Waverley for forty-nine souls.’ SMH 9 August 1847, extract from letter 30 March 1847. My great great grandmother Matilda Agnew, her older siblings James, Joh

My WW1 soldiers (2) - Ernest Lee Dawson

Ernest Lee Dawson (500) (1885 - 1968) This is the second post in a series of posts over the next few years to remember all the men in my extended family who enlisted in World War 1. So far I have identified 26 soldiers who enlisted between 20 August 1914 and 2 November 1918 and I feel sure I have missed some. Of the twenty six, five were killed overseas or died here in Australia. My aim is to publish these posts on the 100th anniversary of their enlistment. Ernest Lee Dawson (my great uncle) was the eldest child of William Henry Dawson and his wife Bridget Mylan. He was born in the Cooma district of NSW in 1885. On 25th August 1914, less than three weeks after the outbreak of the First World War Ernie, a farmer who lived at Old Bonalbo enlisted in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment in Lismore. Ernie had previous military experience. In 1906, he answered an advertisement to join the Shanghai Municipal Council Police Force, as a recruit. He was appointed on 10th Ja

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