How Many Common Ancestor Do You Have On Ancestry?

Randy Seaver asked this question on his Genea-Musings website. How many Common Ancestors do I have on AncestryDNA? I decided to check this out myself to see how my results compare to his results.

Randy Has A Lot More Matches Than I Do!

The first thing I noticed is that Randy has a heck of a lot more matches than I do. He has 60,721. Do you know how many I have? 15,427. Gulp.

I’ve seen Randy’s family tree over the years. He has long roots in the United States.

I, on the other hand, have fairly recent immigrant ancestors. Several immigrant ancestors. The earliest came to America in the mid-1840s and the most recent in 1908.

Outside of MyHeritage, I’m not seeing a lot of non-American matches on the other websites where I have DNA results.

So, How Many Common Ancestors Do I Have?

I counted them all. I have 55 DNA matches with Common Ancestors. That doesn’t seem like very much.

How many does Randy have? I’m guessing a heck of a lot more considering how many DNA matches he has. 325 to be exact.

My matches are broken down as thus:

• 2nd cousins: 5
• 3rd cousins: 2
• 4th cousins: 13
• Distant cousins: 35
• Resolved: 41

That shows the power of researching collateral lines! I know enough about the descendants especially on my Azorean line that I’ve been able to connect many of these people to my tree. I did know a few relationships beforehand which was helpful.

Again, I think because our family trees are so different, there is a disparity in our totals. Ancestry doesn’t attract that many non-Americans and my tree is not filled with many American ancestors.

In fact, it’s fairly easy to find my American ancestors. They include my parents, my Grandma Lassalle, my Grandma Shellabarger, and my great grandmother, Marguerite (Jones) Jackson. That’s it folks.

Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond is a good guide to start with if you want to understand your DNA test results

How Do Your DNA Results Compare?

Have you tested on Ancestry.com? Is your family tree linked to your results? If so, take a peak at your Common Ancestors. Tell us in the comments how many you have.

I’m going to venture a guess that those whose ancestors went to Hawaii might be seeing the same results as me. Though, I’d suspect if your entire tree migrated to Hawaii you’ll have better chance of having a higher total of Common Ancestors than one like mine where they came from a variety of migrations.

Lesson? Link your tree to your results! You might be related to me and we don’t even know it.

I’ve written a bit about my questions and impressions of Common Ancestors. Check it out!