How to Triangulate DNA Matches | GEDmatch TUTORIAL Genetic Genealogy 

🤔What is a DNA Triangulation with a Crossmatch on GEDmatch?? 👉🏼 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wq10brEELjI.html

This is at least the third time I've watched this video -- and I pick up more each time! Thank you.

Your explanation of "Cross-match" is the best I have seen to date. Great video.

Great informative video. I am enjoying watching all your video lessons and have learned alot. While watching your posts I recognized your Ancestry photo and have found that we are related and are matches with the Greene Line.

Thank you, Andy. Clear and concise.

Finally understand this a bit better. As always, much more to learn ! Good job.

Thank you very much for your videos! This is exactly what I needed!

Excellent and easily understandable, thanks for that👌

Great video. I tried this Tier 1 report before but could not make head nor tails of it. I had no idea what the two kits meant. Now I do and checking the box for cross checking was even better, especially with the color coding. THANKS

Thank you for the explanation. It helped me figure out the family of my grandfathers, who was born in 1888, unknown father. Now all I have to do is figure out which one of the 3 males in the family was the father.

Very nice video, Andy! I would like to know what the relationship is between the "cM" entry and the start & end numbers in each row of the triangulation result. Thanks!

Thanks a lot for this! it's time for me to try Tier1 tools. Would be great if you make a separate video explaining a cross-match concept

Great video! It really helped clear up the "mud" for me! However, the closed captioning needs some work!

Thank you, question: color cross match, so all those red in line, then different colors moved over a bit. So one color for same segment on same chromosome or if I remember you did one chromosome so, the all one color shares same spot on Chromosome 1 and another color shares a different spot on Chromosome one therefore from a different common ancestor?

I wish I had found this video a long time ago. I watch your videos a lot. There are great!

One segment I share with Ashkenazi Mexicans Spanish and North African Jews over 70 people all match up the common ancestor would have been Sephardic Jewish I use Tier one. I ran your kit against me no match LOL. Great video.

How can I use Trianglation to find a missing great grand mother identity?

pretty nice

Thanks for this informative video. Is there a way to use triangulation in other DNA software or websites such as 23andMe, FTDNA, MyHeritage, etc, other than Gedmatch?

I’ve only watched the video once and think I can understand the concept of triangulation. Will probably have to watch the video again to get things clear in my head. One quick question at this stage. Once I have a triangulated group that share the same Ancestor is there somewhere which will give an estimate of how many generations back the common Ancestor is? Thanks.

Thank you, hopefully this helps with matching me up to someone at 173cm that we cant seem to work out

The information on the triangulation page states that our common ancestor lines are shown in "green". Are the same colors in many DNA kits common relationships, such as the red matches shown in the video?

Cross Match Highlighted color, does not have to be a highlighted green?

What colours are given for: Paternal on paternal side, maternal on paternal side and Maternal on maternal side and paternal on maternal side.

I noticed I have several people who are in the same segment group but one group of them is orange and they are repeated in green. I also noticed a column for TG. The Orange group said TG9_1 and in the green group that column was blank. It looks like not all of the people are in both groups. What is the difference?

I tried the Tier 1 and mine did not come up with the color code, which I really need. What now

Any more in depth explanation regarding the difference between a triangulated group and a cross matched group?

Andy, I have a situation where we have 5 matches, all within 2nd cousin range same side of family. One of those 5 is my full sibling and the other a known 2nd cousin related through my great grandmothers 2nd marriage. When I compare 4 of the 5 matches, they all triangulate. But when I bring in the 5th match ( who’s grandfather was my great grandmothers full sibling ) we all still share some DNA in random spots but the 5th matches DNA does NOT triangulate with any of the other 4 (including myself). I’m entertaining the possibility that this 5th match may only be related to “1” of the great great grandparents and not the other, am I thinking correctly? Curiously this 5th match’s grandfather was supposedly my great grandmothers “full” sibling but I’m thinking he may actually only be “half” as he was adopted out😳!

Does the length of the green box have any significance? A lot of mine are quite small. Quarter inch or less. One however is about two inches. Is this worth looking at further?

Thank you for all you do for us! My question is this: can I manually enter a list of gedmatch kit numbers for one to many analysis? I have a list of kits from a genealogy website that people have submitted, publicly, I guess eventually to participate in Gedmatch's Ancestry Group. However, well, no one is actively working on the upload needed. (I would volunteer to do it, but I feel it would be a little over my head). So, can I enter them as a list or do I need to enter each manually in one to one? Donna (tier 1 member)

Why am I getting red for snip overlaps when I have high total cM shared (ie 2000) for some of my matches?

Great video! However, what does it mean when you get different triangulation groups? All greens come from one ancestor, all yellows from another and so forth? Or they still may come from the same ancestor?

Thank you for this! However, when I ran the Triangulation, and clicked on the link for a .tsv file output, I only got a basic text print-out without the colored segments displayed. I would like more information about each of the columns on this text spreadsheet, but would also like to get the first report that appeared on the results display. This first report included a column on the far right that showed common segment placements. This report did not get printed out into Excel. How can I get this report to print, and where can I find detailed information on the column names and contents for both reports?

Hi, just watched some of the videos, is triangulation the place to try and start to find an unknown maternal great-grandfather? What is the difference between this and clustering DNA matches? Unfortunately on Ancestry and on Gedmatch I don't have large numbers of matching cms - the highest on Gedmatch is 42. Many thanks,

Andy, thank you for all that you and Devon do. It’s watching your videos that encouraged me to upload my Ancestry DNA to Gedmatch. I’m now starting to try and understand what I can learn about my family and I have a question about triangulation. I do not have Tier 1 access, but have been attempting some triangulation and I have a question . JR is my half 1C 1x removed. We established that thru documentation before either of us took DNA tests so I know which branch of the family she is on. We both match on Chromosome 2 start 13,120,212 End 33,668,178. Another person ( LQ) has contacted me and they match me on Chromosome 2 start 20,878,406 end 33,369,582 , and JR start 20,878,406 end 33,413,640. Is that a true triangulation of the three of us ? Also, does that confirm LQ is definitely related on the same branch as JR ? I ask the question for two reasons. Firstly to make sure I understand what constitutes a triangulation. Secondly, LQ contacted me feeling sure our link was on my fathers side, but JR is definitely on my mother side, so this would confirm LQ was also on my mother side ? If so, it eliminates one side of my tree. Sorry if this is a dumb question  Sorry for the long post. Andrew

Thanks for the explanations. I have been to a few meetings on DNA and nobody has ever explained the meanings so succinctly. I am trying to identify who my paternal grandmother actually was. I was told recently that as she is deceased as are both of her daughters that I should get my female first cousins tested. I have had a cousin whose results have just been received. What should we be looking for when we do the triangulation?

Thanks, Andy. Very helpful. Just to clarify cross-matching: if I have two cross-matched groups on the same segment, does it mean that one is on the paternal chromosome and one on the maternal? Is there any other explanation? I have this situation on Chr 16 with the added factor that some (but not all) people are in both cross-matched groups.

Hi Andy - can we please have a follow up to this? What to do now with these triangulation groups. Also, when I ran this, I noted my maternal sister in with paternal cousins in the same segment. So we can't take for granted that all people in the same coloured crossmatch group triangulate? If we view it by kit number and check the names in the triangulation, I think we can tease it out this way. Is this correct? Thank you.

Other question. Is there any way to find out

Is it a good idea to do a "match one or both" first if you know a cousin matches your ancestor and then do a triangulation and cluster next?

Hi, I have a bunch of triangulations that go back to various children of the same ancestral couple. How do I know which child is my direct ancestor? All my DNA triangles go back to this same family but they match through different kids so I'm not sure of the next step.

Hi Andy, I am working on the X-chromosome as a way to identify my gg-grandmother. If I use Segment Search, is it selecting from autosomal matches that are also X-DNA matches? I get a slightly different grouping if I first use One to Many and select the X-matches option, then select all and triangulate with cross-match vs Seg Search then triangulate with cross-match.

Please!! Having trouble finding your video on how to Paint Chromosomes in DNA Painter. My memory slipping....painted last week and now forgot what tool I used in GedMatch to find data. I am having trouble finding way to communicate with you....

In the overlap column I have a few with rose color. What does this mean?

Will this tool help if I don't know who the MRCA is through a match? For example, I don't know who my mother's paternal grandfather is and I'm hoping some of these Tier 1 tools will help me get closer to figuring that out.

This might be a dumb question, but does Gedmatch only use the kit # matches from people that have downloaded their dna to Gedmatch? I have a cousin that I would like to figure out, but he has only done Ancestry, whereas I have done Ancestry, 23andme and Gedmatch.

would buying the GED match full version provide more matches based on higher cM

I’m of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish with a tiny bit of English and Irish ancestry Gedmatch is fun lol.

I am new to GED match and am working on a particular missing piece in my geneology line that i think i can discover through triangulation. before i get started, i wanted to ask you if you agree! my great grandma was adopted off of an orphan train, and i am trying to discover a link to her parents or grandparents, in order to break through the road block that her disconnect to records creates. do you think triangulation would be useful for this? she only had one child, my grandma, and then died from complications soon after. so i know that there are no relatives directly linked to her that i don't know about. she might have had a sister, so there could be some on that level. however, i think aiming for her parents or grandparents is my best bet. any advice or input? thank you so much!

Im new to the DNA process. I want my Dad to have the Y DNA test, would he also need the autosomal as well? If so, since I have to go through Family DNA would I have to have him test his autosomal DNA at that Company or can we use another Company like Ancestry? I had my test through Ancestry.

How do you find Mayflower Ancestors that may be linked to you?

Hi! Thank you for this great video. Could you please confirm for me if my thinking is correct on this? I have used the Tier 1 Triangulation tool with cross-matching. I have a group of 8 people in one segment area of Chromosome 5. GEDMatch tagged 6 of these with the tag TG5_2. Two of the 8 people are not so tagged. Since all 8 overlap in the same segment space, does this mean that those two without the tag belong to the other side of the family, for example the TG5_2 people paternal and the untagged maternal? The man that I and some friends have been trying to help to identify his grandparents just died yesterday and I want more than ever for us to find the answers for him. Thank you for any help!

I am trying to locate a possible ancestor Gr-Gr-Gr Paternal Grandmother via triangulation. We don't know really who she is. We (other researches and I) have a possible first name via Census records but no perfect proof. Can you explain via triangulation how to narrow down a possible common female ancestor through triangulation? Thank you for your wonderful and helpful videos.

I am just beginning this level of DNA analysis. Will it be more productive to start with triangulation or clustering? My parents' trees do not intersect, but there is significant endogamy on each side.

Must matches A, B, and C all have the same starting and ending positions? If all three simply share part of the same segment adequate? If A and B are identical, but C only shares part of their segment, is that triangulation?

What if you don’t remember your ged kit number? Can it be found out?

If I am trying to find a common ancestor between 3 people that is probably found below 3cM, how can I run this report?

My confusion arises when more than 2 triangulated groups form on the same segment and it increases when some members are in multiple groups. An actual although abbreviated example follows. After running the GEDMATCH Tier one Segment Search on one chromosone (in this example X, but I've had the same type of results on other chromosomes also) with minimum of 10 cMs, I used the Triangulation Tool with cross checking. The output indicated 14 triangulated groups in the 145M to 151M range on X - there were other groups in other locations also. There were 47 individual kits across the groups. Each group had between 5 and 18 people. 17 kits were in only 1 group each, 12 kits were each in two groups, 7 kits in three, 7 were in 4 groups and one kit was in 6. What does this mean? It's not triangulation unless each member of the group matches the all the others, but putting a person in multiple groups for the same segment doesn't make sense to me. Logically it seems that each person would be limited to two As I am not part of an endogamous group what are the odds that I would match so many people on the same segment on both copies of each of our chromosomes and as far as I know I have only two copies - not 14. Obviously I am missing something. Sorry for the long message. I hope it is clear. TG23_0 Chr: 23 Triangulated Group: segments range: 145189694-149648283 ........Triangulated Group Names: .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 1 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 2 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 3 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 4 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 5 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 6 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 7 TG23_1 Chr: 23 Triangulated Group: segments range: 145245430-150354165 ........Triangulated Group Names: .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 3 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 8 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 9 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 10 TG23_2 Chr: 23 Triangulated Group: segments range: 145420425-149537834 ........Triangulated Group Names: .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 4 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 10 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 11 TG23_3 Chr: 23 Triangulated Group: segments range: 145544411-150507512 ........Triangulated Group Names: .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 3 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 8 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 9 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 14 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 15 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 16 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 17 .............. kit: XXXX Name: Person 18

If I were to share info on a one to one with you, could you confirm a full sibling or half sibling match?

Ok I can do this but I can't sort them out afterwards. I need more help. I have a dna match of 105cm. He matches my mom at 155cm.

I have a dna match who could be my first cousin once removed or twice removed my great grandad married her relative how come we share dna?

I love the presentation and it could not be clearer. However, if those matches do not have a tree (and they don't) or you can't tell who the matches are because they use a username, what conclusion can you reach just knowing a few matches share a common ancestor.

I’m so confused. Triangulation is amazing. But currently I’m struggling with figuring out what my dads match is to another family member. Did the autosomal match and I can’t figure out if I’m looking at half sibling or an aunt/nephew relationship. Can you help or steer me in the correct direction?

i tried a multi kit traingulation on GedMatch I was wondering how to open it in Google sheets spread sheet instead of microsoft spreadsheet?

I'm a newbie with gedmatch and I'm triangulating for a match that I know matches me on a certain chromasome segment. Several of the resulting matches show up in the same segment with her, but not me. How can that be?

I am curious, I have a 'relative' who is 876 cM across 30 segments; how do I definitely prove relationship?

Question. At the end (10:45) when there is a green overlapping segment at the bottom and an orange segment below both that do NOT triangulate with the red groups above BUT they overlap... does that mean that is a triangulation to one member of that ancestor couple? Say 4th great grandma? And the others are to 4th great grandpa? What does it mean???

I attended a triangulation class at Roots Tech last year, and I think this might work with my family to break through a brick wall. But, I'm still confused. Is there a way to get some personal research help, to begin and understand the process? Do you have researchers to help -- for a fee?

Hi, I am confused about something. When I do a triangulation search on a specific person, Miriam, it shows her matching with Barbara and others on 5 different chromosomes for a total of about 40 cM. However, when I do a one-to-one between Barbara and Miriam, it only shows them matching on one chromosome for a total of 8 cM. Can someone please explain what is going on with that? Thank you.

As a tier one member why do I NOT have the display options?

I have three people that share a segment on My Heritage,but they only consider some of these triangulation.. Why is this?

When I tried to triangulate my half brother's kit, it did not show up on a page like you displayed in the video. It gave me a list of kits that matched each chromosome. There was no spreadsheet. I am trying to determine who my brother's father was. Can you give me any advice?

This was great. But I'm still lost LOL

I am trying to build a Lazarus file for my father. I am using my brother's kit and producing a triangulation file cross matched for each individual chromosome. When I find matches of Known paternal cousins, can I add those kit numbers to my dad's lazarus file? If I don't have more matches, I can't get his file to reach 1500. Both of my parents are deceased, and I have kits for my brother & sister. Should I do the same thing for my kit and for my sister's kit in order to obtain some matches? The known cousins would be my dads cousin's children and grandchild.

Help I downloaded my Rod DNA and I don’t know how do use it please help

Good day, Thank you for this series; it is most educational. I have a younger brother who was adopted into our family. He is now 54 and would very much like to satisfy his curiosity about his roots. I got him a DNA kit from Ancestry and have been able to make some progress through the assistance of a found second cousin. He knows only his birth name and birthdate. If I upload his DNA results to GEDMATCH, will I be able to find earlier ancestors and come forward to cousins, possibly parents? Or do we have too little information? So far the tree I have created for him does not include him and has a ton of extraneous ppl who may/may not be relatives of some kind. How do you suggest I tackle this. It could be a sensitive topic with his bio family. Thanks. Stay safe!

Hello. You have some bug on Triangulated page in GEDmatch. You write on page: "All kits shown in columns Kit1 and Kit2 are taken from the selected kit matches to XXXXXXXX 3-Way (Triangulated) segment matches are shown in green." But some matches are red, not green. First time I think it bad triangulation because of red :-) So rewrite your info about GREEN because it's ambiguous.

Don't we share ancestry will all our matches above 10 to 20?

What does it mean if I compare the dna and it only shows one chromosome match?

I am trying to find the common ancestor between my husband and myself. Our Daughter, my husband and myself took the 23 and Me DNA Test. The results that my daughter received said that my husband and I share several DNA relations . I am White and my husband is African American . Both my husband and I grew up in Baltimore MD and we met in high school. His mother's family is from Petersburg VA and my father's side is from North Carolina. This has raised our interest. I went in to GEDmatch Triangulate. I watched the Video 2x. I still do not know what I am looking for- so much information/names pops up I don't know what to target in order for me to get the common group of people relating to both of us. Can anyone help or be willing to work with me one- on -one?

I'm adopted and I'm trying to find my father and I want to know how I know if I am looking at my father mom or cousins dna how do I tell them apart

How do i find my matches

why is this so difficult to figure out. WHy is it not laid out for simple understanding.

When you download your matches to check where you may have “in common” segments, it’s easy to use the Matrix feature to see which other people match you and the other person you are studying. But, if you use the “in common with” tool, and then click the same list of people into the Matrix from the ICW tool, what results for me is no triangulated matches in the Matrix feature. If you see a shared segment between 10+ people on a particular chromosome, why don’t they show up when you use the ICW feature with Matrix? I’m confused. Can you help? Maybe I am doing something wrong.

I am adopted, and have submitted my DNA test ancestry uploaded it to jet match my heritage and have received information and confirmed regarding my biological mother's side. However I have matches that are from my biological father's side, but have no idea what I'm doing. And, no one from that side seems to have any clues, guidance, any type of information that would be helpful. I'm wondering if there is an agency or someone you'd recommend that can help me either get a little further along in the process or teach me how to do the leg work. I'm at a loss.