Basic Overview

A member joins the project and provides their gedmatch kit # and family tree summary back to John and Patience. I take this information and add it to the project spreadsheet. The new project member will also get read-only access to this sheet. This gives them the ability to do their own connecting the dots as they wish with everyone's data.

Once the data is added to the spreadsheet, I do comparisons between the new member's DNA and other members to extrapolate how they might be related and hopefully, to confirm ancestry to John Turner.

More Detail

Given these challenges, here's how the project works :

1. I add your family tree and gedmatch id as reported
2. compare your gedmatch kit with everyone else in the group and hopefully find matches.
   1. If I don't find matches, you'll stay in the project unless we can ever definitively say you are not a descendant of John Turner. In the mean time, I'll still compare your DNA with other incoming project members to hopefully find a match.
3. Where I do find matches, I look for African Admixture in those snps. I am using the Dodecad K12b tool and ANY Sub Saharan African that appears, even if small amounts, counts.
   1. If you and your match both have African admixture in those snps, it is likely (although still not 100%) that we are looking at SSA on the same side of the family.
   2. If you DON'T have African ancestry in those snps, you aren't excluded, necessarily (because of random recombination) and I'll go on to the next step.
4. I look for your other close relatives on gedmatch and check them against other group members to try to determine/confirm/exclude which side of your family your John Turner matches are on.
5. Then I compare your family trees and try to extrapolate what your genetic relationship is to each of those matches and how their family tree compares to yours.
6. I may do research on your family tree, where there is an oddity or unknown.

A best case scenario is two (or more) people, who's tree research and DNA both reflect the expected relationship. In this case, we can say they are most likely descended from John Turner via the researched tree. The worst case scenario is someone who's tree doesn't match another researched tree to the same ancestor, and who's DNA does not match other participants. In the in between area are variations of matching family tree research, admixture and matching DNA.

Family tree match + gene match with multiple cousins + African admixture on matching snps = Fairly likely a descendant of John Turner

One or two of those criteria = could be a descendant of John Turner, might not be

None of those = Might not be a descendant of John Turner but we'll hold to find out more. We just might not have found your cousins or tree yet.