Sometimes DNA throws you curve balls that are just as twisted as it is! Here's an important situation to be aware of and what to do with it.
Here comes the DNA Bully!
THE WHAT???
Simply put, it's a DNA strain that literally tries to run all of the others out of town.
The Skew Is In
Think of the DNA you get as going into a sandbox, and it's size is fixed.
Most of the time, DNA strains play nice and you get a pretty even spread.
But not with these guys. They play for keeps.
You'll be rolling right along tracing a line and then, all of a sudden, the numbers just fall off a cliff like a herd of panicked lemmings!
When you see this, you can be almost certain that a line has been bullied right to the fringes of the sandbox, and sometimes completely out of it.
At this point, you might as well throw the DNA charts straight out of the window because you just can't use them anymore.
It's a whole new ball game!
What This Means To You
When this happens you're going to get hits that are sky high (the bullies) or basement bottom low (the bullied), but nowhere near where you'd expect them.
For instance, on Justin's test, he has 7th cousins coming in at an eye-popping 98 centimorgans, when normally it would be a measly 10.
98 is normally a 3rd cousin.
That's a huge difference, huh? See what I mean?
They're so crazy that Ancestry won't even acknowledge them as possible, but they're real.
Ditto the reverse, where he has 2nd cousins coming in at an underwhelming 40 when they should be 150.
Just realize that the tree placement will be different than the norm and you'll be fine.
And, of course, murphy's law being what it is, the ostracized lines are the ones you want to know more about.
It happened to me. All 5 of my brick wall lines ended up this way. Go figure!
Connecting The Dots
The important takeaway here is to be aware of this quirk, and that's the bulk of the battle.
But fret not, you CAN still win the war. It's just going to be harder for these squeezed out lines.
You're going to have to rely more on traditional research, unless you can find a cousin that has these lines, unsqueezed, in their test. (This is why it's so important to get as many tests as possible done.)
So keep this in mind when you're having a hard time figuring out how another tester connects based solely on centimorgan strengths. A DNA Bully might be in play here.
Chances are, like my friend below, they never know what hit them!
Happy DNAing!
Who Was That Guy?
If you have a DNA mystery of your own, I'd love to help!
Drop me a line or give me a call and I'll get started on it as soon as I can.
danny@hallgen.com
(888) 444-3211
Photo Credits:
Bull - Clker Free Vector Images - Thank You!
Lion - Open Clipart Vectors - Thank You!
