Should you provide a source for every time you confirm with DNA?

Question

I've got DNA confirmations for my parents and grandparents, but I'm wondering if I should enter additional sources on every line I show that say my maternal grandfather is confirmed by a new match?  And if so who has the most sources showing a confirmation?

Answer 1

Yes! The guidelines are clear on this and in fact it doesn't make sense to not include the source if the citation exists. In other words, "Confirmed with DNA" is simply the label for the citation, not the fact itself.  Does that make sense?

I might add however that only one citation per profile is needed or required. Multiple citations do not make the condition more clear or more relevant than a single one in a profile.

Comments

I may not have been quite clear in how I worded my question.  Yes, when mark a profile "confirmed with DNA" by marking a father and/or mother's relationship that way, it's a one time thing.  But sometimes you have several different matches to different profiles and the connection you have with cousins will only have 4 parents to go through, so pretty soon you might have 2 or 10 or 25 separate connection paths and I'm wondering whether or not to enter the details for each different match.  I expect I do have to, and it's not a big problem as the same info will go in each profile in the connections with minor differences so it's mostly cut and paste.  But I just added my first DNA confirmed line on my dad's side of the family, and while getting everything right I found another match who's the first cousin of the one I just did who is my second cousin, so the pathway will be the same from me to her grandfather.  Putting in two sources isn't too bad but if I get up to 10 of my cousins in the line, it may be tiring.

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Got it - of course more senior members may still lean in on this issue... But my approach has been to focus on direct matrilineal and patrilineal lines for "Confirmed by DNA". You are welcome to do as you wish but I have not used autosomal results or other test data to confirm cousins except through the direct paternal or maternal line. When I've done so it was just a matter of cut and paste and I did go generation by generation as necessary. Let me know what you think but I've only done this for 5th and higher cousins. Closer cousins are too numerous and the relationship value is not quite there imo.  Good luck!

Answer 2

I always give the closest and strongest match in the sources for a confirmed by DNA connection when there are multiple ways it is confirmed.

See the link https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/DNA_Confirmation for the DNA confirmation process.

Comments

I agree, William! I think it's just confusing to have multiple entries of which additional DNA matches confirmed a person's relationship to his/her parents. One entry per parent on each profile is sufficient.