Dotting

Ancestry DNA's latest revelation that they are removing matches below 8 centimorgans from our match lists has created a new geneafrenzy or phenomenon, Dotting.

My social media feeds have been buzzing this week as DNA experts and genimates discuss this news. Although experts I follow eg Blaine Bettinger and  Debbie Kennett have written articles explaining why this move by Ancestry is not all gloom and doom many DNA amateurs like me are going dotty as we try to salvage our matches at the 6 and 7 cm level. I noted that two of our Australian experts in an online SAG discussion last Friday explained that they are busily salvaging matches. 

We have been told that to keep these matches in our lists we must do one of three things:

1. Create a note in their match field note 

2. Add them to a group you have created using the Ancestry coloured dot method

3. Send a message to the match using the Ancestry matching system  

My Dotting Schema

Of these Option 2 is the easiest as it does not require as much data input as Options 1 and 3. As most of us have thousands of matches, many in the lower range, we have no hope of salvaging all of these matches before some time in August when Ancestry have indicated the great purge will occur.

There have been many posts from genimates on social media outlining the priorities for their rescue missions. Most of these involve refining their lists of small matches further by surname, geographical location or matches who have online trees. I created a new dot in my schema Match under 8cm  to which I am adding my salvaged matches.

No matter which filtering methods we are applying to our lists there is one thing for certain there is a lot of  Dotting going on.

NB My genimate, Randy Seaver, has created a list of a number of expert responses to this news: https://www.geneamusings.com/2020/07/ancestrydna-changes-coming-soon-what-im.html.