Blaine Bettinger shared via Facebook his experimentation with Dana Stewart Leeds method of visualizing DNA matches. Dana’s blog post New Method: DNA Quick Sort explains how to use a spreadsheet to quickly group DNA matches.
Intrigued by both the simplicity of the method and the easily visualized results, I decided to try it with my 1st thru 3rd cousin matches.
Because I have had a first cousin and several first cousins once removed who tested on my mom’s side, the majority of the matches on my mom’s side of the tree formed one cluster. The technique did work to separate out my great-grandparents on my dad’s side of the family.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out as I add 4th cousins!