One of the places I recommend people to start is with Facebook groups dedicated to genetic genealogy. The people, knowledge, and resources available to you in those spaces is truly without price. Imagine an entire community of people who personally invest themselves in what you want to know about your family, and engage with you to find answers with you. You may be new, but you don't have to be completely lost and alone while trying to make the most of your DNA test.
All you have to do is search for "DNA testing" into the Facebook search box, sort by Groups, and you'll see so many of these groups appear. Why are there so many? What's the difference between them? How do you know which ones to join? And what should you post once you join them?
No Two Groups are Exactly Alike
Each group has different rules about what kinds of posts they accept. Some welcome people to post their GEDmatch kit numbers. Others don't. Some are targeted at new users. Some are targeted at adoptees and the donor conceived. Some allow sharing personal success stories. Others want to focus solely on inquiries and solving specific research problems. Some don't mind if you post relevant or topical stories from the news as it relates to genetic genealogy. Others view those posts to be a distraction from the core purpose they are trying to fulfill. To find the groups that best match your needs and interests, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the conversational culture of the group.
Most admins will try to communicate those rules and the group's purpose in their About section, as well as their group entrance questions, and possibly even a welcome post to all new members. Be sure to familiarize yourself with these before you post in a group. This truly is not something you should skip, and attempt to learn "on the fly" if you truly want people to help you.
Inquiries
When you're writing a message to a cousin match from a testing site, it's very important not to throw too much information at the person all at once. You go into the interaction assuming they may not know anything about genetic genealogy, segment data, or their family tree. You break your research questions into basic, digestible chunks. You try to engage someone in a prolonged conversation, in which you explore many questions over an extended period of time--months, or sometimes even years. At the same time you're trying to solve research problems, you're also trying to build a personal connection with another relative or family member.
Posting in these groups is completely different. You go into these interactions with completely different assumptions and behavior because your audience is different. You're talking to people who DO understand segment data, and who will assume that to you do too (unless you clarify otherwise.) You take into account the volume of inquiries the group has. Your post is one of many that is entering what essentially amounts to an assembly line. The more already-complete pieces you can bring to that line, the more complete your final product will be. And the results you get will vary depending on who is on the line that day.
What the users in these groups need to know to help you is who you're trying to find, what cousin matches you think might be related to your question, the segment data for those matches, and what you've already done to solve your own problem. All these details center around the same one question: "Do your numbers and segment data line up with the relationships you think you share with these people? And if not, why not?" You won't need to include loads of private information or back story. The segment data is its own language for family relationships, and will help people to tell you where to look for the answers you're trying to find.
Questions
Sometimes the questions you need to ask won't always be related to a research problem. Sometimes they'll be conceptual problems, and trying to grasp how DNA works and how to use it. Don't be afraid to ask these questions when you need to. Even if people have taught about something like X DNA a thousand times, and you read all the background material in the world, there's no guarantee that someone would explain it in a way you understand it completely. Sometimes the only way to achieve understanding in your own mind is to ask questions.
A good example of this for me was when I was seeing my cousin matches line up on my chromosomes in the same places, but the people weren't related to each other in any way I could see. It was a basic question that I knew must have a very simple answer, and I didn't want to ask it for that reason. But I asked it anyway in one of these groups because I knew it was the only way I would learn.
The answer I got from one woman was perfect, and even came with a visual that I still think about to this day. We don't just have one copy of each chromosome. We have two of each: one from our birth mother and one from our birth father. And we can think of these as being overhead projector transparencies sitting on top of each other. The only way to tell them apart is to see who does and doesn't match each other in these positions together, and then determine which matches come from our maternal side, and which from the paternal side.
Had I not asked that question where and when I did, I don't know when or how I would've had the "A-Ha!" moment when everything finally made sense. But it would've been much later on in my journey than if I'd tried to do everything myself.
Had I not asked that question where and when I did, I don't know when or how I would've had the "A-Ha!" moment when everything finally made sense. But it would've been much later on in my journey than if I'd tried to do everything myself.
Thread Etiquette and Tips
Discussions in these groups are organized into "threads." You have two options in how to interact with these threads: to post a new thread, or to respond to someone else's thread. Knowing when to do each one can be really helpful in being the most efficient and respectful group member you can be.
Before you ask any question or make a post, it's helpful to search the back catalog of the group to see if someone else has asked the question before. In Facebook groups, the search box is on the left side of the page. Think about how you might Google the question you're asking, breaking down your question into search terms. Use those in the search box and see what you find. You may find not only the answer to the question you were looking for, but answers to questions you haven't even thought to ask yet!
It may be helpful to tack your question onto a previous thread, if the issue or question you're trying to explore isn't substantially different from what someone else has already posted about. It can save you and others the work of having to get and reframe the same context that went into that discussion. What you should avoid, however, is posting a completely irrelevant response or question on someone else's thread. It distracts people's attention away from the original poster's question, making it less likely they will get the help they asked for. And for posts that may be very old and involve a lot of respondents, it's helpful to consider how many people will have to sit through a slew of notification and responses in a conversation they not longer want to be a part of.
The temptation to post your same question, word for word, into various other groups isn't the best course of action. I recently saw a woman do this, and someone pointed out that he'd seen her same post for the 4th time that day. It's better to err on the side of assuming that most people will be in more than one group. If you're going to post the same question to multiple groups, consider spacing them out a week or more apart, and posting them at different times of day to get the greatest variety of responses.
What makes Facebook groups great for traditional genealogy and connecting with local communities where our ancestors lived also makes them great for DNA analysis. Who you know or can access in person is no longer a limitation with the social media machine on your side. And with just a little bit of prep work, the returns on that time are sometimes exponential.
A Group List
Here are some Facebook groups you could consider joining for your genetic genealogy journey. Note, there are other regional, national, and ethnicity specific DNA analysis groups that are more specialized than these. Try combining different search terms together with DNA to see what you find!
