This morning I posted about a problem I am having with FTDNA results that appear to be skewed in favor of more recent tests.
There are doubters who think that all these odd results are within the norm.
Here is some additional detail. Not comprehensive, mind you, but enough in my mind to make the point.
Dan has a match with someone named MG who is called 2-3 cousin. The match is 135 cM with a longest segment of 12 cM.
Amy has 139 cM and a longest of 15 cM and is called a 3-5 cousin. Sarajoy has 139 cM with a longest segment of 12 cM. She is called 4th cousin-remote cousin.
Dan has a 2-4 match with a fellow named Mark. The total is 143 cM and the longest is 8 cM.
Jean has 149 cM with a longest of 23. She is called a 3-5 cousin. Sarajoy has 145 cM total with a longest of 8 cM. She is called 5th cousin-remote cousin.
These are unambiguously wrong.
You cannot convince me that Michael and Dan who match with 135 cM and a longest of 9 cM can be called 2-3 cousins, when the same Michael matches Jean and Sarajoy with 131 cM and a longest of 9 cM are 5th cousins-remote cousins.
etc.
So what is your theory on why this is happening? Are they doing this intentionally? Just a mix up in their logarithms? Have you contacted FTDNA and asked what is going on? I've long ago realized that their estimates are way off since I have so many so-called 2-3d cousins who are definitely not that closely related to me, if they're related to me at all. Thanks for posting this, troubling as it is.
ReplyDeleteAnn Turner thinks they changed their algorithm so that it would no longer downgrade estimets for endogamous populations but they only did thet for new tests. This makes sense.
DeleteYes I have told them - first privately and yesterday when I sent them a link to the blog.
The fact that they appear too close is a separate issue, cause my the endogamous nature of the Jewish population.