You Ask, We Answer - Your Genealogy Questions | FHF Live 

Wish I had seen this four days ago. I'm an experienced amateur genealogist (been doing it for nearly 40 years from the age of 17 - I'm now 56) but am now almost solely doing genetic genealogy to bust brick walls. Have mirror trees for nearly 670 "DNA matches" but am unable to make much sense of it. I have three or four very intriguing leads (am matches with descendants of several children of several potential MRCAs) but am not quite sure how to proceed. I do subscribe to the channel, so I plan on taking a break from "mapping" trees of DNA matches and just try to consolidate knowledge. Great channel. Kudos and thanks!

Not advice but an a-ha moment like Phoenix / scenic route. When I was 3 or 4, I went with my grandma to visit an aunt in Love Bucket, Texas. The aunt died before I was 5. I was in my 20s when the light bulb went off - Lubbock! I still LOL about that.

In reference to census research I've found some headings that were designated either as Townships with no Range designation and then others that had both. Often abbreviated as "T" and "R." I don't know how the enumerators would know where those lines stopped. Also the way they were plotted on the township maps were often not exact. I have gone to the BLM/GLO website and they have a very detailed map showing the township and range lines and in some places (such as the Cook County area of Illinois) the original lines determined years ago were SO far off that rather than showing perfect squares the actual depictions on the modern map show pie shaped and even very thin sliver shaped division. Also things like extreme changes of the topography can seriously affect where those places are today. A good example is Lake Guntersville, Alabama which was created by flooding land around what used to be the Tennessee River. It is practically impossible to determine where large portions of land (as explained in pre-flood land records) were due to the flooding and erosion of what WAS compared to what now IS. Also I have found that on the older census records the top of the page might have residents of a particular area carried over from the previous page and then no division between those and the residents toward the bottom of the page who were residents of a completely different area. I had ancestors who lived within the city limits of Guntersville but the federal census heading at the top of the page where they were enumerated is from a completely different area. Also some places where they lived now lie under the lake. So just some comments of things that I've found when trying to find "where" these places are on a modern map and the obstacles I've encountered in that process.

I have an NPE (Non-Paternal Event) in my direct paternal lineage. I have participated in Y-chromosome projects for the Chandler Family Association up to the Big Y level. I have extensively pursued the paper trail and DNA trail back to my great great grandfather. His father's identity is still not known to me. I suspect that his father probably had the surname CHANDLER, but, I can find no documentation of that. The most that the CFA Y-Chromosome Project can determine is that I match 100% with a large number of men who (per the CFA) have been determined to be descendants of John Chandler, who was probably born about 1600 in England and who, as a boy, emigrated to the Virginia colonies about 1609/10 on the ship, "Hercules" which was one of a flotilla of three. The other two ships being the "Blessing" and the "DeLaWarr" whose most important passenger was Lord DeLaWarr on his way to become the first legitimate actual Governor of the colonies. Even with the Big Y and my matches there they can still not narrow down which of John's sons (let alone grandsons or other of his descendants) was my most likely probable ancestor. They cannot even determine if I was definitely descended from him. It could have been an undocumented brother or first cousin. There have been huge losses of colonial records particularly in Virginia. I can honestly say that if there were NO representative specific Chandler DNA Project I would have absolutely no clue how to proceed. I think it is almost essential that there be some kind of official Y-chromosome DNA project prior to attempting to determine a lineage to a presumed ancestor. I will probably never really know further back than my great great grandfather who was probably born either in Tennessee or Alabama around 1850. The ancestral migration route was possibly western North Carolina to Eastern Tennessee to northern Alabama. I've heard a lot of family stories of a large number of people from western North Carolina going "over the mountains" into Tennessee. I suspect my Chandler ancestors were probably some of those. Most of whose journeys were NOT officially recorded. So these are my comments concerning Y-chromosome testing and specifically the Big Y and when documentation does not exist how limited even that testing can be.

I hope you see this question although it was not asked during the live. I have 4 siblings who are known cousin matches. Their biological mother is my paternal half first cousin. So they all would be half 1C1R. However the number of CMs I share with them range from 60 CMs to 207 CMs. Why is there such a range of CMs shared with these four siblings?

That's funny. I marked on my primary school group photos the people I didn't like. I know stupid of me, I was young!

Q When I have a small CM match and that match & i have just one other match in common. Can I assume that they are not false matches?