Gedmatch overburdened

It appears that the interest in gedmatch has turned into a  computer overload problem. Gedmatch is an excellent website that provides great services for those of us working on DNA matching. Gedmatch has announced that the servers have been overloaded, and as a result, they have to pare away some of the data that has been submitted. This includes the match triangulation feature, which is very useful. I actually wish more people were using it! Then I could see more connections to my matches, and make some inferences. But the popularity of the feature actually seems to be the problem. Let's hope that there will be a solution that will be worthwhile to all involved. The features of gedmatch.com should be of interest to many researchers and to many of the companies offering testing.

Again--the benefits of the triangulation feature include the following-- I ( or any researcher using genetic testing) might be stumped by a match who provides no information about his or her ancestors. In the Gedmatch triangulation utility I can look at some of the matches we have in common, and some of them may be more forthcoming with their information about ancestors. I may notice that all are from the Southern States. That gives me a clue to follow in trying to identify how the elusive matches ancestors match mine. And for all of those people who provide no information whatsoever about their ancestry when they test with RF or FF, please be aware that we researchers are not interested in the current generation. We only want to find the common ancestors we share with you. Yes, preserve your privacy, but why not let us know who your four grandparents (or if that is too close to home--who your gggrandparents) are.

The above is just one benefit of the triangulation feature. If it comes back online, try it out yourself.

Gedmatch and the matches of matches...

Now that more people are testing, there is less guesswork and more constructive logic involved in finding common ancestors with Family Finder or Relative Finder matches. When you can see matches for matches on Gedmatach, you can start plugging in possible ancestral names. All you have to do (well yes, it takes some time) is to build the family trees of each match, and see where convergences appear likely. Challenging, but in a fun, doable way. This is where Family Finder and Relative Finder have so much potential for success. They provide the matches, and online websites like Gedmatch.com provide forums for pushing info on those matches as far as possible. One by one, American ancestors will be found, named, and included in our trees.