The Pareto Principle (see below) is often referred to as the 80:20 rule, or the law of the significant few. 80% of outputs come from 20% of the inputs. For example, 20% of customers generate 80% of sales. 80% of complaints come from 20% of recurring issues. It is a widely observed principle. Sometimes the proportions vary. It might be 75:25, or 90:10. The important thing to remember is not to waste too much time on the long tail that has very little impact on the overall outcome.
At first glance, my DNA samples provide a wealth of data. There are nearly 4000 matches against my Y-DNA sample. The autosomal matches total nearly 22,000. Happiness? No!
Amongst the Y-DNA matches is one that traces his paternal line back to Azerbaijan. (To save you looking on the map, the Caspian Sea is to the east, Iran to the south and Russia to the north.) I am happy to accept that significant migrations have taken place over hundreds of years. But the key is ‘over hundreds of years’. I am trying to push my timeline back into the 1700s, not to the time of Genghis Khan (died 1227) or Attila the Hun (died 453).
Y-DNA matches on 25 data points (I tested on 37) produces a more manageable list of just 23 names. nine of these trace paternal roots to Ireland (which is promising), eight have an unknown country of origin, two to America, two to Scotland and one each to England and Germany. As already covered in ‘Y match names’ the American links almost certainly connect back to Europe.
Of the autosomal matches, over 35% are unallocated to either parent. This indicates that there is insufficient additional information (e.g. in terms of family trees) to be able to draw a meaningful conclusion.
Even with the nearly 7,000 matches linked to my paternal side, the matches at the bottom end of the top 50 suggest relationships in the ‘fourth cousin’ or ‘third half cousin once removed’ area.
I am coming to the conclusion that for DNA, even a 95:5 ratio is too broad. I cannot recall discovering any significant information outside of the second or third page of results. Perhaps I should adopt a ‘pareto cubed’ approach. (Looking at the 20% of the 20% of the 20%.) This would focus my attention on the top 1%.
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was born in Paris to an Italian father and French mother. The family moved back to Italy when he was 10. After qualifying as an engineer, he broadened his interests into economics and socio-economics. He later became the chair of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne.