Are all your DNA cousin matches worth researching? - Quality Match Comparison

Jovialis

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Ethnic group
Italian
Y-DNA haplogroup
R-PF7566 (R-Y227216)
mtDNA haplogroup
H6a1b7

I like this channel, Family History Fanatics, and I recommend watching this video concerning DNA cousin matching. Some of the people you get may not actually be related to you, depending on the amount of cMs you share with them. In the end he recommends 23andme, followed by gedmatch, for the most quality matches.

I'd say it is certainly the case in my experience. AncestryDNA has me match with people who I don't even share any of my autosomal components with. They have a lower threshold for the cMs they consider "cousins" for their matches, and that greatly inflates the number of matches. Nevertheless, these people may in fact be false matches.
 
I have been luckier. I used FTDNA and got three "cousins" who share my last name (or spelling variations thereof). And, yes, they did end up being in my family tree. The other links I got, only three, were less helpful, though all in England, where I was looking for family, and two were in the north, even better.
 
I'll add that I've also used GEDMatch. The top link was a real cousin, from my mother's family. None of the rest have panned out so far.
 
I have found many 3/4th cousins on ancestry. To illustrate how random dna inheritance is, I have 2 3rd cousins and we all descend from a couple who lived in Cumbria, England in the 1800's. I was descended from a son of this couple, the other 2 descended from each his 2 sisters. Yet I only share 1 dna segment of 11cM with one, while I share 8 segments totalling 136 cM with the other. I do agree though that most of the matchest don't pan out.
 
I have found a few 3rd and 4th cousins on both Ancestry and MyHeritage that are promising. I contacted like 3-4 of them but only one answered and we have established that our grandparents came from the general area. That was on my mother's side. The other 3 I also think are on my mother's side based on the last name endings. I have yet to find anybody that I think is on my father's side.
 

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