The Anti-Mirror Tree

Since Ancestry.com started messing up my DNA readings every time I switched it to a new mirror tree, I have been forced to come up with a new solution.

DNAGedcom is the answer.  DNAGedcom is free to join, but if you want their ever-so-handy Ancestry Download Tool, you have to subscribe for $5 a month.  A price that I believe is worth every penny for someone who uses those files for their DNAGedcom and for Genome Mate.

I still copy trees, but instead of waiting for matches to show up, I look to see if they are going to produce results.

For example, this is a cousin match tree:

As you can see, I have marked a (0) in front of every name. At a glance I can see that I will get no cousin matches from these.  I know this because I looked up the names in my collection of matched trees at using the GWorks system at DNAGedcom. There are a lot more tools at DNAGedcom for discovering lost relatives, but for now, I will just focus on this because it has been my go-to weapon in fighting broken DNA links at Ancestry.

Not only does it check against my matches trees on Ancestry.com, it also checks against any trees that are on FTDNA.  This is time saving, even if going through the trees, one person at a time, seems tedious.  If it isn't a tree that is already matched up on my database I can copy the tree,  upload the Gedcom file to DNAGedcom, then compare it to see where the matches are.  Once it is in the system, it will remain for any new queries I make.

Even though I am not moving my DNA, I get to know my who and where my matches are.  I don't have to lock my tree from those who match my Maternal side on my main tree to do my research. Ancestry doesn't break my DNA results because I am swapping trees daily.  If I see a name I think I recognize, I can look it up right away.  There is no "letting it cook" over night. Most of all, it cross references both DNA sites I participate in.  Those are some nice advantages.

I am currently working on a predicted 3rd cousin match (92cM across 3 segments) that has 20 other cousins in common on Ancestry and an unknown amount on FTDNA.  Since Ancestry only gives a limited amount of people in common, there may even be more.  This could be the key to cracking this case, if I can find the links to the others.  She matches my Shannon County Missouri relatives, even though the majority of her family comes from Iowa.  She has not logged in since Aug 2015, and her DNA is not attached to a tree, but by using her unattached tree and the public trees I have been able to fill out what she left behind and pursue my matches on my own.

What I wouldn't give for a new 2nd cousin match or closer.

Now I know at least one thing.

I got confirmation last night that the segment I share with my cousins is DePriest line and not Nicholson. It has to be DePriest because my cousins share this same segment with a match that has no Nicholson connections, but does share a DePriest common ancestor.

I have a Nicholson without DePriest match who is planning on uploading to Gedmatch.  It is a distant cousin, but should give me some idea what chromosome and segment I am looking for.

Here is what I have so far:

The results on Ancestry are as follows:

Green Christopher H Depriest and Louisa Elizabeth Nicholson

Through	cM	Segments	Prediction	Placement
Edward Martin Depriest	71	4	4th Cousins	3rd Cousin 1x Removed
Josephine louella DePriest	65	6	4th Cousins	2nd Cousin 2x Removed
Edward Martin Depriest	27.6	1	4th Cousins	3rd Cousin 1x Removed
Edward Martin Depriest	19	2	4th Cousins	3rd Cousin 1x Removed

Green DePriest and Mary POLLY Allen

Solomon C. Depriest

14.5

2

Distant Cousins

4th Cousin 1x Removed

William DePriest and Rebecca Charity Casey

Isaac Depriest

8.7

1

Distant Cousins

6th Cousins

John A "Jack" Nicholson and Martha Malinda Berry

Mary Adaline Nicholson	31	2	4th Cousins	4th Cousin 1x Removed
Tamer Jane Nicholson	15.6	1	Distant Cousins	4th Cousins 1x Removed
Mary Adaline Nicholson	8.7	1	Distant Cousins	5th Cousins
Sarah Loucressie Nicholson	6.5	1	Distant Cousins	5th Cousins

James William Nicholson and Lucretia Dover

Isaac "Ike" Nicholson	24.8	2	4th Cousins	4th Cousin 2x Removed
Isaac "Ike" Q Nicholson	6.6	1	Distant Cousins	4th Cousin 2x Removed

Isaac Nicholson and Che-Wah-Nih Betsy Walkingstick

Isaac (1776) Nicholson	17.5	2	Distant Cousins	6th Cousins 1x Removed
Sarah Walkingstick - Nicholson	14.6	2	Distant Cousins	6th Cousins 1x Removed
Isaac (1776) Nicholson	12.7	1	Distant Cousins	7th Cousin
Isaac (1776) Nicholson	11.3	2	Distant Cousins	6th Cousins 1x Removed
Isaac (1776) Nicholson	11	2	Distant Cousins	7th Cousin
Isaac (1776) Nicholson	8.4	2	Distant Cousins	6th Cousins
Sarah Nicholson	5.1	1	Distant Cousins	6th Cousins 1x Removed

Thomas Berry and Sarah Elizabeth Martha Walker

James Enfield Berry

6.4

1

Distant Cousins

7th Cousin

Before I got the chromosome and segment triangulation, I assumed I was not in the correct place based on the peach highlighted area above.  I didn't seem to fit that spot because I was too close for that match up. Now that I see the cM and segments, it seems more plausible.  They may not be accurate, but they do help.

So now to figure out what the next step down would be.  Once I eliminate the children that did not marry, or couples that did not have children, my choices are:

• Louella DePriest and Ridley Thomas
• Edward DePriest and Rose Etta (Rosie) Anderson
• Lafayette (Fate) DePriest  and Vie Lasley
• Tamer Jane DePriest  and John Y Harris
• John DePriest  and Nellie Brooks

I already know I am going to get a match from Ridley Thomas's line.  His line is very familiar.  The Thomas's marry Nicholsons and Crowders and all kinds of people in Shannon County.  It will look like this:  The problem is, once again, this is how that highlighted match currently matches to me.  He is already really close for the numbers.  Even closer seems wrong.  I am not sure what to do about that.

One of Edwards children ends up in Eastern Washington, right in my territory.  I did a preliminary search, but his wife has not parents attached.  It is going to be very difficult to prove much without her line to match up to.  

.. and this is why I keep running in circles.  All these matches seem great, but they are very difficult to juggle.

Step 3 - Decide where to go next

I got some really great news.  Two of my paternal matches uploaded their DNA to Gedmatch! Here are the results:

Chr 4

Match ID	Type	Name	Matching segments on Chromosome 4	Overlap with previous match
1	F2	*lbusby2000 (A156133)	90735702 - 149322904 (47.237 cM)	New Root
2	F2	*Bevie (A826168)	101931127 - 149010098 (39.197 cM)	101931127 - 149010098

  Chr 4
  

All of the bars in darker orange are related to them.  The gold bars are what I thought I had identified relationships with on my maternal side.  As you can see, one of my maternal matches is included in the ICW.  Normally, I would throw my hands in the air and let my St. Bernard eat my laptop, but I happen to know for a fact that my match on that one was a leap of faith insert by that cousin.  She has no paper trail and was using this and some other matches with Ephraim Osborn as ground for assuming she was related to him as well.

You see how easy it is to make that mistake?  It happens to everyone.  Us seekers need to be careful that we do not fall so in love with our hypothesis that we blind ourselves to the facts.  It's called confirmation bias.  Now I get to tell her I am pretty sure she is related to me on my paternal side.  I hate putting brick walls back up for people.  That sucks.

This also points out something that has happened to me for the first time.  I discovered a Half Identical match.  This is explained clearly at FTDNA in their learning center HERE.

So now I can tentatively mark those segments as John "Jack" Nicholson and Martha Malinda Berry in  Genome mate.  Anyone that matches me on this segment is either related to John Jack and Malinda, or they match Ephriam Osborn.

I also want to note that I am seeing some of the issues being discussed about Timber (used by Ancestry to eliminate false positives) here as well.  Bevie has a total of 77.9 cM with me on Gedcom. Ancestry reports 71 cM.  That is a loss of 6.9 cM. Busby has 47.2 on Gedmatch and 26.7 on Ancestry for a total loss of 20.5 cM.  I am not educated enough about this issue to make any kind of conclusions about what I am seeing.  I just know that Gedmatch assumes Bevie is a closer match than Ancestry does because they do not recognize some of the segment.

So were am I?

Step 1 went well.
Step 2 was a half dead end.  After using the Gedcom tools on the remaining siblings spouses, I have no matches with them either.  It is a total dead end.  An educated dead end, but I can't go anywhere with it.  I know I am related to the Maxey's and Crowders somehow, but without matching any of the spouses on maternal and paternal, I can't viably move down that line.  So that research must sit and wait for more clues to trickle in.  That is close to the same place I was with this Nicholson/DePriest match when I decided to chase down that 3rd cousin hint.

So where do I go now?

My next closest match on Ancestry is kc051551 with a 3rd cousin prediction, 121 cM over 7 segments. but last login date is May 7. 2015.  

Not a difficult tree to copy, but not much room for a match.  If I don't match Casey, or if I can't chase that Williams name to something viable, it's unusable.  This person shares a match with Bevie and Busby plus 15 more. Unfortunately, I have no way of contacting this person to learn what is happening with this tree, or get more information.

PB is a 3-4th predicted match.  We share 98 cM on 7 segments and have Bevie and Busby in common plus 4 more, but not KC, I did find her on Facebook and she gave me some names on her paternal side, but no locations.  

Then I have A.M. Predicted relationship 3rd cousin.  We share 92 cM on 3 segments and have Bevie and Busby in common plus 18 others.  Included in the others is a match that I share with cousin on my mothers side.  Let me explain:

RH has a 4th cousin prediction.  Their match to my maternal side is sitting at a 6th cousin 1x removed.  We share 17.9 cM on 1 segment.   No Gedmatch or FTDNA, and not responding to messages.  This is a managed account with 4 accounts in total.  3 out of 4 of her accounts use the same tree and have the same match.  One of her accounts does not have an ancestor hint, but I share DNA with them.  On the account that I do not have an ancestor match, I share cousins with two people, including this RH.  

I haven't quite wrapped my head around all of that yet.  Since she is not responding to messages, all I can do is look at the data and try to figure it out.  She is a super connector.  She also matches my husbands family.  He also has Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Carolina's.  

Step 2 - Work your way down the tree? Kinda

Before I begin how my next step went, you need to know that this was not where I actually began.  I actually began exploring another cousins tree with a tree that had the name DePriest in it because it looked like that was going to lead me to breaking down a brick wall I have on my French Canadian grandfather.  The idea was to maximize my matches to my maternal side before exploring my paternal.

When I realized I was seeing my paternal side, I could not stop myself.  Curiosity took over and I followed line after line, generation after generation. Some of this post ties into that research.

So I left Step-1 with Peter Maxey and Arie Crowder as my Paternal 3G Grandparent candidates.

My next step is to get all of their kids named, born, married and buried.  I do this by using the member tree hints.  This can be a dangerous practice.  For example, when I first put Arie into this tree, I had the wrong mother.  Fortunately, I talked with a cousin that had done her research on that family and she told me that there are many trees that have the wrong mother for Arie, because a lot of people were forgetting/or didn't realize Moses married twice.  Had I not reached out and asked the question, I might have concluded that I was not related to Arie at all, because I had no connection up her branch.

I also want to mention that some of my 4th cousin matches are the nicest people in the world.  They are patient, they are helpful and most of all, they were more helpful and patient when they understood why I am asking and why my tree is getting built upside down.  My research is public.  I resorted to doing this on my main tree because Ancestry kept breaking my matches when I swapped my DNA around.  I had matches from two different trees showing up in my hints for a full week and a half and it wasn't registering new matches.  After that I decided that I am not going to be ashamed if someone gets disturbed by my tree, and I am not going to let Ancestry steal a full week worth of testing from my research.  The reaction I received when I went full on publicly open was the exact opposite of what I was expecting.  There are cousins actually wanting to help me and I have not had one person scold me for confusing them.

The name of my tree is Faucett Family (Paternal Experimental).  I have a little blurb on my profile that explains that I have no idea if anything on the paternal side is correct.  It is currently under construction.  My cousins that are curious ask me what I am doing and quite honestly, it has been my maternal side (where I have done my research and dug up the documents) that give me most trouble. Who knew!  So all that advice about keeping a secret tree and doing your research in the shadows?  You don't have to.  If you are fully open and willing to let yourself be vulnerable to criticism, it can actually help you in the long run.  I am not saying that is everyone's experience.  I am saying that is mine.

Back to Born, Married, and Buried.. 

Not all of these children have a spouse and some of them do not have death dates.  If I can't find them on the quick and dirty copy method, I don't bother.  Why? If anyone of my cousins are related to me through these people, they don't know it either.  Otherwise, there would be info about them.  I am completely dependant upon other people actually knowing who they are related to.  I need matches.  No info means no possible matches.  I am sure this is not always true, but when you have 10 kids to research, it seems like the most efficient way to handle this problem.

I already know that Pearl Maxey married John Fabris.  That is how Cousin A from my first post is related.  I also believe that they can not be my next step down, because the distance between me and Cousin A is currently correct.  That is not a hard assumption.  It is an assumption I use to prioritize my order of searching.

My first child couple is William D and Mary J Maxey - She has no maiden name and no parents in the public sector.  I already know how I am connected to William D.  I will not be able to know if I am related to Mary J.  I copied their children, just in case I get desperate and decide to look down a generation, but that is only if I have no luck with any of the others.

Charles, James have no spouses or deaths recorded.  Keep moving.

Zilla does get married, but as far as I see, she had no children from that marriage.  There has to be children to get a cousin.  More about this later.  Keep moving.

Myrtle marries William Nicholson.  Nicholson is a very familiar name.  I have researched that entire family genome.  They ARE Shannon County, Missouri.  I don't think they leave room for anyone else to live in Shannon county.  There are a ton of them!  I also know that I have matches on this connection.  That's good, right?  Well, yes, but it also leads me right back to the tangled mess that I was trying to distract myself from in the first place.

Starting with the paternal side of William Nicholson:

On John A "Jack" Nicholson and Martha Malinda Berry I have:

BS - 4-6th cousin - 71 cM - 4 segments
LB - 4-6th cousin - 27.6 cM - 1 segment
RM- 4-6th cousin - 31 cM - 2 segments
B2 - 4-6th cousin - 19 cM - 2 segments
CJ - 5-8th cousin - 15.6 cM - 1 segment
SH - 5-8th cousin - 8.7 cM - 1 segment (He does not have his Nicholson branch up to Jack,  but if he just had one more generation added, he would match me there)
IS - 5-8th cousin - 7.3 cM - 2 segments (He does not have his Nicholson branch up to Jack,  but if he just had one more generation added, he would match me there)
CW- 5-8th cousin - 6.1 cM - 1 segment
BJ - 5-8th cousin - 6.5 cM - 1 segment

On James W Nicholson and Lucretia Dover I have:

JR - 4-6th cousin 24.8 cM on 2 segments
JC - 5-8th cousin 6.6 cM on 1 segment

On Issac Nicholson and Betsey Walkingstick I have:

The O Group.  I call this the O group because she has 4 members that have tested and all of their trees are more or less the same from my point of view.

BJO - 5-8th cousin - 17.5 cM on 2 segments
C5O- 5-8th cousin - 11 cM on 2 segments
POO- 5-8th cousin - 11.3 cM on 2 segments
ROO- 5-8th cousin - 8.4 cM on 2 segments

and a couple stragglers
PC - 5-8th cousin - 14.6 on 2 segments
LH - 5-8th cousin - 5.1 on 1 segment

On John Nicholson and Elizabeth Andrews I have:

KD- 5-8th cousin - 10.8 cM on 1 segment
T6- 5-8th cousin 5.6 cM on 1 segment

So up the paternal line, that gives me a grand total of 18 matches so far..

Since I am really only trying to prove that William Nicholson is a viable candidate to be my grandfather, this might be enough, right?  Well.. maybe.

On Martha Malinda Berry, I have to work really hard to find my connection.  I get no more matches on the Berry line at all.  It could be that I have copied the wrong information.  It could be that some cousins just haven't worked their tree that far.  When I was working with this information before, I wasn't completely convinced that I was assuming the correct couple in this Nicholson line.  Now that I am right back here staring at it, I have to wonder, again, what this means.

I do finally get a match on John Smith IV and Mary Johns Smith

DB 5-8th cousin - 9.2 cM on 1 segment
RQ 5-8th cousin - 5.4 cM on 1 segment
LP 5-8th cousin - 8.5 cM on 1 segment

Remind me later to discuss what happened here and why it is important to mark your matches.

The next part of this is what really gives me problems.  I have no matches on William Nicholsons maternal side.

Nope.. none.

In fact, I eliminated him as a candidate when I was researching this before because of this.  One can make all kinds of stories up about how this could be possible.  I believe some of the greatest romance novels and hit drama movies are made of scenario's like this, but me?  I don't need this kind of drama in my life!

So what do I do with this?  Do I assume that 18 matches to his line means he IS a candidate, or do I assume that because I cannot match his mother, this is not a candidate.  As far as I know, there are no other Maxey/Crowder/Nicholson combinations to choose from.  I confirmed my connection to the Maxeys/Crowders.

So now I am like a child of divorce.  Do I choose to keep the Nicholsons or the Maxeys?  This isn't the only time this situation comes up with different matches.

A word about Zilla.

Zilla does get married.  She marries William Nicholson, Myrtles husband.  I think she married him later in life.  I don't know the story on that.  I just know it doesn't change anything in my research, because I am still dealing with the same ancestors. If I figure out this is my match, I will ask the juicy gossip.  :D

Now for that advice on marking your matches.  

When Ancestry fixed my tree something broke on this connection.  The match on John Smith IV and Mary Johns Smith no longer shows up as my matches on my Shared Ancestry Hints page even though they are on my current pedigree view.  When I look at the Smith name under the common surname list on each match, John Smith IV and Mary Johns Smith are not listed on my side of the list.  They are clearly there in my tree.  They are not in my ability to match to my cousins.

When I get a match, I copy their line from the ancestor they match to all the way down to their place.  On the ancestor and I upload one of these images and attach the couple and my match.  If I already have a marker up, I just go into my tree gallery, find the marker and add the new cousin to the image.  If this explanation makes no sense, I will clarify on a different blogpost.  Because I do this, I did not lose the knowledge that I match to these cousins on this ancestor when I am looking at the tree view.  I can even follow their line to them.

Ancestry is a little buggy in places.  If I have to choose the nice visual tree that automatically finds most matches or sifting through the trees on FTDNA, I choose the buggy visual, but.. dang this can be frustrating.  My take away?  Always mark my matches and put their connection in my tree.

Step 1 - Find your closest match

The first thing they tell you on any DNA research site is to find your closest match.  It just so happens that my first four matches on Ancestry are second cousins and related to my maternal side. I am one of the lucky ones who has a lot of her maternal information figured out.  Even though two out of the four are do not seem to be participating in any kind of tree building, it is easy to see by our common matches where they would roughly fit into my tree.  So second cousins taken care of, I move to my third.

My very first third cousin match is also a non active member with her "Last logged in Apr 26, 2015" status.  She did leave me with some helpful information before she stopped coming.  Her mother and fathers names.  At least I think they are her parents.  Her mother had not dates or places associated with them, but her father was born in 1919 in Franklin County, Georgia, USA.  If I assume he was around 25 when she was born, that have her born around 1944 and she would be close to my mothers age.  In order not to offend anyone, I am going to call this cousin Cousin A.


Ancestry has decided to give us the amount of centimorgans we are related.  I match Cousin A 135 Centimorgans shared across 8 DNA segments.  So what does this mean?  (besides the fact that it would be nice to know which segments those are)  According to the Table on ISOGG, it means I am looking at somewhere between Second cousins 1x removed, Half second cousins and Second cousins, first cousins twice removed.  Either way, when I look at the chart on ISOGG, I see that I need to be looking at her Great Grandmother or 2x Great Grandmother.  (This would translate into a 3x Great Grandparent set for me, because I am a generation after her) She doesn't have that info, so I had to build it.

This is a my research cleaned up.  In my research tree, I built out the Phillips branch to see if anything lined up and there was no matches or familiar names or places.  Most importantly, this connection does not seem to match anything remotely close to my maternal tree.  This is my closest paternal clue.

When I researched the Fabris branch I discovered that John Fabris immigrated and there was no info beyond his birth or death dates easily available.  (Oh great!)  As I continued to research, I discovered that this Crowder line seemed to catch a few cousin matches.  See the purple arrow?  

I am going to take a moment to discuss my multi layer annotation system.  I like to mark the ancestor and cousin with those purple arrows I made in Paint and attach them to the ancestor and the cousin that matched to them.  I also keep a spreadsheet of my matches on the side, but it is nice to know when I am looking in Pedigree view which ancestors have hits.  I can see at a glance where I want to go next with my research this way.

Back to understanding the DNA..

I understand that catching a cousin match does not necessarily mean I actually have this ancestor in common, it simply means that me, Cousin A and this cousin all share DNA and THEY have that ancestor in common.  It does, however, mean I am searching up the correct branch.  So let me take a look at the cousin that matched.  

Cousin B matched on Michael Nicholas Crowder.  When I looked at Cousin A's shared matches, I see Cousin B on our list.  Cousin B has a predicted relationship of 4th Cousins.  She and I share 21.7 cM over 2 DNA segments.  In this configuration I have her sitting in a 3rd cousin 2x removed location.  That seems to line up with the data ok.  I am going to leave that as is and move on.

It is too early to assume that Arie Crowder and Peter Maxey are my possible grandparents just yet.  I need more proof than two cousin matches, I think.  So I kept pushing this tree back in time to see what happens.

Cousin C matches Moses Clark.  He does not match Ann Stevenson because his grandfather is from Moses's second wife.  My predicted relationship to Cousin C is 5th to 8th Cousins with a "Good" confidence.  We only share 6.3 cM on one segment.  This is not a strong connection.  He is only a half cousin, so I shouldn't expect much, I suppose.  In the current configuration he is a 5th cousin 1x removed.  That agrees with the data, so I am leaving that also.

According to Ancestry, I have one shared match with Cousin C, but it isn't Cousin A or Cousin B.  It is a 4th cousin match I have no usable information about, yet.  Does she match on something other than the Hannah Clark/Arie Crowder connection?  This is just something to keep in my notes as I move on.  Right now, I need to concentrate on this particular problem.

Cousin D is where I start to get a little confused.  This cousin has a predicted relationship of 4-6th cousins with an extremely high confidence.  We share 31 cM across 2 segments.  Her sister shares 26.8 cM across 2 segments, also predicted to be a 4-6th cousin with extremely high confidence.  I know it is D's sister because they administer through the same account. This is a cousin with 2 common cousin matches I have no useful information about, yet.

They match me on Robert Crowder and Lively Hastings.  That would put them at 4th cousin 3x removed.  That data does not add up to this match.  It does, however give me "evidence" on my match with Arie Crowder and Peter Maxey.  Yes?  No?  I don't know.  What do I do with that?

Cousin E is another 4-6th cousin match.  Very High confidence.  22.2 cM on 2 segments.  I have one shared match with her and it is none of the cousins mentioned earlier.  She matches on Henry Young and Elizabeth Kedey.  She is sitting at the 4th Cousin 2x removed position.  That is checking out with the data just fine.  She matches with Cousin Lou.  I will talk about Cousin Lou later.

Cousin F is a 5-8th cousin match.  High confidence.  16.0 cM shared on 1 segment.  Our ancestor match puts her at 4th cousin 2x removed.  It is the same distance as Cousin E, but we share less DNA on fewer segments.  

Incidently, Cousin F and I have a shared single cousin match with a locked tree.  I am going to be patient with this particular shared match, because her tree seems to be growing.  When she first came aboard, she had no tree.  Maybe when she is ready she will unlock her tree for the rest of us to see.  In the meantime, I will give her space to hunt down her relatives.  I have no real information to offer her, so that seems to be the best course of action.

While I am looking at this, I recognize the Peter Doshier and Alley Pritchett from my NAD collection on Ancestry.  Hmm.  I know I am going to get some connections on that one for sure.  Maybe that wasn't so full of crap?  When I first saw it, it just looked like a lot of random names and places.  

Speaking of which.. 

Cousin G is a 5-8th cousin match with a High Confidence.  We share 13.6 cM on one segment.  We match on Peter Doshier and Alley Pritchett!  She is at the 3rd Cousin 4x removed spot.  That checks out.

And lo and behold, this cousin matches Cousin A and Cousin E on the shared matches!  The real bummer about these Shared Cousin Matches is that you have to dig into the 5-8th cousins and test each one individually to see what 4-6th cousin they match.  Other 5-8th cousin matches might also match, but I will never know that.  

Cousin H is a 5-8th cousin match with High confidence.  We share 13.6 cM on one segment.  Another match for Peter Doshier and Alley Pritchett.  She also matches Cousin A in shared matches.

Cousin I is a 5-8th cousin match with High confidence.  We share 13.0 cM on one segment.    He matches me on Robert Crowder and Lively Hastings and has a shared match with the Cousin E sisters and a cousin with no tree.

Cousin J is a 5-8th cousin match with High confidence.  We share 12.4 cM on 2 segments.  She matches me on Robert Crowder and Lively Hastings in a 5th Cousin 2x removed position and has a shared match with Cousin A and Cousin B.  There is a third cousin that has matched some of the others, but his tree is only 4 people and there is no information to be gained from it yet.

Cousin K is a 5-8th cousin match with Good confidence.  We share 11.3 cM on 2 segments.  He matches on Walter Maxey and Nancy Catherine Doshier in the 4th Cousin 2x removed position.  His shared cousin match is a locked tree with no response (that also has a shaky leaf)

Cousin L is a 5-8th cousin match with Good Confidence.  We share 7.3 cM on 1 segment.  She matches Robert Crowder and Lively Hastings in a 7th cousin position.  We have no shared cousin matches.

Cousin M is a 5-8th cousin match with Good confidence.  We share 6.8 cM on 1 segment.  He matches Henry Young and Elizabeth Betsy Kedey.  He also matches Peter Doshier and Alley Pritchett.  I am not sure which one is driving this particular match.  He has two shared cousin matches, but one is an empty tree and the other is a locked tree with no response.

Cousin N is a 5-8th Cousin match with Good confidence.  We share 6.6 cM on 1 segment.  He matches Walter Maxey and Nancy Catherine Doshier.  He is in a 4th Cousin 2x removed spot.  Another cousin match to the cousin with no tree.

Cousin O is a 5-8th Cousin match with Moderate confidence.  We share 6.3 cM on one segment.  This is another match that has both couples: Walter Maxey and Nancy Catherine Doshier as well as Henry Young and Elizabeth Betsey Kedey.  This one also shares a mach with Lou.  

Cousin P is a 5-8th cousin match with Moderate confidence.  We share 5.8 cM on 2 segments.  A match on Peter Doshier and Alley Pritchett as a 6th cousin 1x removed.  A shared match with the locked tree.

Cousin Q is a 5-8th cousin match with Moderate confidence.  We share 5.6 cM on 1 segment.  A match on Peter Doshier and Alley Pritchett as a 6th cousin 1x removed and a match on Henry Young and Elizabeth Betsey Kedey as a 6th cousin,  They also share a cousin match with Cousin E.

Wow.. that is a lot of cousin matches!

So lets recap and sum up what is happening here.  In order to see if I do actually match Cousin A on Peter Paul Maxey and Arie Elizabeth Crowder, I have to match both people on their maternal and paternal side.

On Peter's side we have 18 paternal matches and 7 maternal.

On Aries side we have 9 paternal matches and 1 maternal

Not one of these matches have uploaded to Gedmatch or FTDNA, nor are they interested in doing so. The very best I can do is keep casting the net and seeing what I can fish up on Ancestry, comb through the nasty trees on FTDNA to see if I can find a match with an identifiable chromosome, and scour Gedmatch for anyone that might have changed their minds.

This represents several hours of research.  For now, I am going to assume that Peter Paul Maxey and Arie Elizabeth Crowder are my paternal 3G Grandparents.  This is just the set up for the real confusion.  This was the easy part.  If there is an error in my method, or my understanding, please please please let me know.  I need to understand where I am going wrong.

And now for my promised note about Cousin Lou.  

Cousin Lou is a 4-6th cousin match who matches a lot of what I believe are my paternal cousins.  I have made a mirror tree, analyzed her ancestors, looked at her places and done everything but memorize the thing.  Absolutely nothing matches anyone that matches her.  I don't know if this means she has an NPE or if she has accidentally attached herself to the wrong branch of a family in her research.  I have no idea.  Every time I download an update of my matches, I run her tree through a comparison of all trees just to see if she will match up to ANYONES tree that I match to.  Nothing.  She has sat there since day one and in well over a month of research, not once has she ever matched up to even a useless connection in the 1600's.  Good ol cousin Lou.  She's always trying to be included in the party, but never quite makes it in the door.