I love RootsFinder and feel like the DNA tools could really help me break through my brick walls. The tutorials are very helpful for getting started with these tools and copying in data from gedmatch. HOWEVER, there doesn’t appear to be any information on how to interpret what one can see in these tools, leaving me to scratch my head and return to building my own database tools in Access and Excel.
Segment View:
I can’t puzzle out how to interpret this tool at all. It doesn’t help that the maternal and paternal segments are all mashed into one view. It would be much more helpful if the paternal fanned out left, and the maternal to the right, with a third option for the unmatched. As it is, I can’t get this tool to mean anything. Why do some matches push out way to the right? What do all those kit listings mean exactly? These people share the same segments? Or are they maternal and paternal matches that match anyone at that spot?
Triangulation View:
Why are some nodes close to other nodes? Do they share more DNA? Or they just match on the same segments, but may be a maternal or paternal match? Why do they cluster? What does it mean when one lone node is super connected to two different groups of nodes? Are these more likely to be siblings of my matches or descendants of other lines?
Circle View:
What are the nuts and bolts of how the height and thickness of lines are computed? How are names grouped?
I guess the bottom line is that without understanding how the program builds these visual aides, they are pretty but almost completely useless in actual interpretation.
RootsFinder is amazing. But we need some experienced super-users to make some videos of how they interpret their views, and more documentation on how these tools work, what each visual cue indicates, and how the program builds these views. Please!