DNA and NodeXL
The Facebook group, Genetic Genealogy Tips and Techniques , has provided lots of opportunities to learn how to use my DNA results to support my research -- and to break thru brick walls. Recently, Shelley Crawford has been posting links to her blog posts detailing how to use NodeXL and Microsoft Excel to find DNA connections. Yesterday, I followed the steps in her post, Visualizing Ancestry DNA Part 2 - Loading the Files . With my first attempt, I downloaded all of my matches and worked my way thru the instructions to get a 'blob'. I went back and rechecked my 'alternate' file to make sure I was skipping my siblings, my mother and 1st cousins (once removed). It took a while for the graph to appear but it was still a blob. So, I started over and downloaded my matches for 4th cousins or closer. After creating a new file and again making sure the 'skip' information was included, I still had a blob -- just less dense. Knowing this wasn't what it was supp...