Visualizing Ancestry Relationships using Google Fusion Tables (Part 1 - Creating the sheet)

First, I want to thank Randy W Whited for planting the seed to use Fusion Tables in the first place. Thank you!

This blog post describes how to create a simple but insightful network plot like the following (some names are blurred to protect the privacy of living people--no ancestors were harmed in the making of this chart):

The difficulty in creating this chart is not the chart itself, it is arriving at the required data to build it.

The hard part:

Some prerequisites:
1-you have an existing tree and can get a simple listing of your direct ancestors (your pedigree).
2-you have installed, and already run the DNAGedcom Client and have an "A_File" that is a listing of all your DNA matches' ancestors.
3-the format of your pedigree (Surname, Given name etc) match the format in the A_File.
4-using Excel (or Access) you can compare 1 above with 2 and come up with a listing of all the ancestors of all your matches who match your direct ancestors

If you have done the prerequisite work above, you probably already know where I am going with this.

Before diving in and setting up the required table, it might be good to take a moment to understand what a network plot is trying to do. In this case, I am only trying to do the most basic of things: compare items in column 1 to items in column 2. That is it. Very simple.

From that simple idea can come complex relationships. For this example, I want to visualize how I am related to those Ancestry DNA matches of mine who share common ancestors.

In a network diagram, the most basic explanation is that it plots a line between the value in column 1 with the value next to it in column 2. That is it. If I created a simple spreadsheet that looked like this:

The resulting network diagram would look like this:

So far, so good. Easy, right? So if I repeat the same in col 1 and something different in col 2, I get the following result:

So you can see, that with a simple idea can come some complex relationships:

That is the foundation for how Network diagrams work, whether in NodeXL, Gephi, or Google Fusion tables.

Setting up a spreadsheet with ancestor data is basically the same as right above. In the first column, add your ancestors list and in column 2, add those DNA matches who have them in their tree. Pay attention to the ancestor details because small difference will give different results (circled names in red, even though the same person in your mind, will be treated as two people):

Once you have that part done, you need to connect it to you. I found the easiest way was to simply copy the ancestors in column 1, and paste it under the last entry in column 2.

While they are still highlighted, go ahead and remove any duplicates, because this is where we connect your ancestors to you, and even if they occupy more than one Ahnentafel number, you only want them in this list one time while connecting them to you. (Under the Data Menu, you can find the Remove Duplicates Button. Don't expand the selection if asked):

The last thing to do now, is simply add your name into the blanks cells of column 1 next to your ancestors: 

That's it! You now have a file you can upload to Google's Fusion Tables and have some fun.

I will describe the process of uploading the file and creating the chart in Fusion Tables in the next post. (see part 2).