When married parents aren't your DNA
Can you please update your famous relatives to reflect that a person may have DNA that is not from one of the married parents. If lineage is reflected as a partner that results in the birth of a child, it would be enormously helpful to use that information for finding relatives. I have a DNA grandfather that does not show up in any "famous relatives" matches, but loads for the married grandfather that is not genetically related to me. Thank you!
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I hope you don't mind me throwing a few random philosophical thoughts about family and DNA.
The scientific debate about what is most important for determining who we are has been raging for decades. Researchers have been trying to untangle the contribution of nature vs. nurture on what a person becomes and whether DNA or family is most important for a long time.
The vast majority of the people on my Famous Relative chart and I share a common ancestor who is about 12 generations back from me. So what is more important? Family traditions and parenting styles that reach probably not more than four generations at the most and often less than that? Or the fact that on average I share (ignoring collapsing pedigree lines) about 0.025% of my DNA with that common ancestor and almost certainly no DNA at all with that Famous Ancestor? Most likely neither are of any importance at all.
Another point to keep in mind is that that Famous Relative chart only checks so far back. I'm not sure of the cut-off, but there is a high likelihood that if the chart went back just a couple of generations more and if your DNA tree lines and family lines both go back the same number of generations on sufficient direct lines, you would be almost certain to start seeing the same Famous Relatives on both routes. Even now you have to keep in mind that that chart only shows the closest route we connect to them, not all the ways. It very well could be that you are related to the people on that chart through a common ancestor just one more generation back following the DNA line. Also keep in mind that if you and any random person both have lines going back to Europe in the year 1000, you are related through DNA lines, even though the two of you most likely don't share any DNA, because that is the point at which we are related to everyone who was alive in Europe at that time and are directly descended from everyone who has any descendants reaching down to today.
In other words, while that Famous Relative chart is kind of fun, in reality it is pretty meaningless.
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@morningcrow All of FamilySearch's various relative finder or relationship finder functions do not check relationship types. I registered for the RootsTech conference and the second closest relative on my list of the "find relatives" page was a descendant of a couple who raised my great grandmother when her mother died and her father couldn't raise her and her brother. No blood relation, but a FamilySearch connection. The "foster" couple is connected to my great grandmother with the correct relationship in FamilySearch, but these algorithms don't look at that.
I doubt they will change any of this.
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