I understand that the Label in DNA matches was intended for a different purpose, but I am using it to identify the family group from which I and the matching person diverge. Labels for my two first cousins (and their descendants) on my father’s side who have done the DNA test show “Rock/Chenoweth” (my paternal grandparents’ line), while my first cousins on my mother’s side shoe “Bird/Breedlove”; my mother had half-sisters, so those cousins down that line are labeled as “Scott/Breedlove”.
When I get to fourth and fifth cousins, the labels get a little hairier, as their labels show things like “Puckett/Holoway” and “Bird/Strong”, and I strain to remember how far back that is for me.
It would be very helpful to either create a second field to keep the ancestral line’s name, or to make the label a separate field from the Person, so it can be sorted and printed separately.
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another field (or two) for optional label or comment might be helpful
I use the date of test field to enter our common ancestor and Rin “William Mercer-25”
I will give that a try, but it is still a workaround. I’d like to have a field dedicated to that purpose (though I admit that “date of test” is pretty impractical, as I do not know the date of 90% of the tests).
This is the early days of this feature, and we can all see all sorts of improvements to it.
I took the Leeds report, copied it to an Excel spreadsheet, and made sense of it. The current version is useful as a building tool, but having columns 1,2,3, et al. is far less useful than listing ancestral surnames.
I agree completely. I know they are working on expanding it but it will be awhile before the next release comes.
I agree that a dedicated field for the most recent common ancestor would be ideal. As far as your hairy labels go, I combine the names, such as “Puckett/Holoway” etc with their AFN numbers (e.g. Puckett/Holloway (144/145)) so I’ve got another clue as to where they fit into my chart.
I moved the generational connection over to the “Date of test” field, and it cleans up the “Person” field. However, the field was designed specifically for a date, and does not sort with text, and defaults to “Shared cM”.
Yeah, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.