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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: noland01 on Friday 28 February 20 21:38 GMT (UK)
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Hi all,
Just looking for a little help/guidance re. DNA match's on Ancestry.
Have recently gone back to look at one particular group (90 or so matches) which ranges from 50cM to 8cM shared DNA.20 or so in the 30cM plus range.
It seems to be a closed group ie when I look at shared matches with any of them ,the same people come up time after time.
As none show a match to my mother's test would assume its on my fathers side.Have a good few confirmed matches 3rd/4th/5th cousins on all his lines (well back to 1800 or so as thats about the extent of Irish records)
All his family are/were from an area in Carlow ,Ireland less than 5 miles in any direction from where we still live.
None of this group show as a match to any known relative.
Annoying part is that all available trees(some very extensive but accurate?) show families all settled in the USA long before 1800 in most cases.None contain any names in my tree or even any remotely "Irish" sounding ones,All available details seem to indicate Texas,Mississippi,Alabama,Georgia Kansas area of the US.Also not one in this group seems to have any Irish connection whatsoever as far as I can see.
All bar one(87%) show as 10/20% ethnically Irish at most although this really indicates very little I think.
Have contacted a few but of those that responded none seemed to have any inkling and none had ever thought they had any Irish connection.
Started back on this as recently contacted someone who seems keen to figure it out if that is even possible.
Sorry for the long post but open to ideas etc.
By the way have DNA already uploaded to Gedmatch,My Heritage,FTDNA and same story with any matches there ie same people over and over as shared matches but no link to any known relative.
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Did you group them by hand or by using a clustering tool like GeneticAffairs? I wonder if the "auto-tree" function from GeneticAffairs would throw up any names you could start from.
It can be frustrating when you know yoy only need to stumble across one cousin to solve it!
Happy hunting.
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I grouped them myself by shared matches.
Its by far the biggest group I have on Ancestry.For many of them I have 20/30 shared matches with every one just matching each other and no other people.
Frustrating thing is the amount of them and the amount of shared DNA.Of those with a family tree attached at least half have a Noland somewhere in it.Nolan/Noland being very similar makes me wonder if on the law of averages that's the connection but ?
Its the lack of any Irish link at all that's puzzling and some of the trees seem pretty well researched with records etc.They seem to indicate US based long before 1750/1800.
Really what I would like to know is how many generations back a common ancestor could be with the amount of DNA and if the fact that its almost all showing as only 1 chromosome is significant or not.
My own tree I am pretty sure of.Have accounted for all my grandfathers siblings(none left Ireland, in fact only he and one sister married/had a family)Likewise for my great grandfathers siblings have found all them in Parish register from c. 1833 to 1847 and have accounted for them all plus their children.
Have loads of matches on all other sides of the relevant family lines.
Never heard of Genetic Affairs so will have a look at it.Thanks for the suggestion.
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Can you find an ancestral couple that is common to several matches in the group? If so, build out a tree from them and see if you can connect it to yours.
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Can you find an ancestral couple that is common to several matches in the group? If so, build out a tree from them and see if you can connect it to yours.
Tried that but best I can come up with is a person with a similar surname to mine(well the side I think its the link) who was born in the USA according to any tree they appear in,pre 1750.
Would that be too distant to explain a 45/50cM DNA match?
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Is it at all possible that the person the US trees link to was an immigrant? From what you say it looks as though no one has a definite record of the birth of this individual. Is there anyone born where your own family come from who has the right name and maybe can't be accounted for without considering that they might have emigrated?
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Just updating this as have a bit more time these days to look at this.
On Ancestry have approx 200 DNA matches in this group now.I know that US based people seem to make up the majority of tests on Ancestry but even so I think its unusual that not one shared match (from available trees/locations) seem to be from outside US.
Presume that's why the ethnicity part shows so little Irish.
Unusually for my matches on Ancestry anyone in this group seems to have 10/15 plus shared matches with me, even those who are in the 10cM to 20cM range.Click on a 15cM match and they can have 20 or more shared matches for me.
Have contacted a fair few and any who replied had no idea of any possible Irish connection.
One other thing that stands out for me is that all apart from 1 match have only one shared segment. Whether this indicates anything I have no idea.
Tried the building a tree bit but as Irish records cease to exist around 1800 and really are sparse pre 1820 or so its really leads nowhere.
i don't think I will solve this through records from my Irish side and looking at available trees online not too sure re. US ones.
More looking for someone who understands DNA matching etc who might give an indication as to what/how far back a connection might be.
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Don't get lost in Surnames, especially when your relatives emigrate to another country. There has been waves of migration from Ireland beginning in the mid 1600's. Religious persecution, conflict and famine fueled many of these migrations. There was discrimination when they arrived. Many people modified or changed their names to better assimilate. As you note records are difficult to find but not impossible.
Focus on the largest CM matches. When you are down at 10- you are working with a questionable match. At face value, a 20cm match would connect with you at GGG Grandparents, that's a long way back. Your comment about 1 segment is telling also. DNA is variable but that is a difficult relationship to establish.
Moving from DNA, (and I assume you are familiar with your grandparents surnames) try searching graveyards by surname. Many of the old headstones have multiple family members, which can open the possibilities for furthering your searches.
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Our smaller DNA matches may be more important than we think. People had many children who often
had many children. Mothers died during childbirth etc. So these seemingly distant matches
could be from half siblings and their offspring during the years.
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Don't get lost in Surnames, especially when your relatives emigrate to another country. There has been waves of migration from Ireland beginning in the mid 1600's. Religious persecution, conflict and famine fueled many of these migrations. There was discrimination when they arrived. Many people modified or changed their names to better assimilate. As you note records are difficult to find but not impossible.
Focus on the largest CM matches. When you are down at 10- you are working with a questionable match. At face value, a 20cm match would connect with you at GGG Grandparents, that's a long way back. Your comment about 1 segment is telling also. DNA is variable but that is a difficult relationship to establish.
Moving from DNA, (and I assume you are familiar with your grandparents surnames) try searching graveyards by surname. Many of the old headstones have multiple family members, which can open the possibilities for furthering your searches.
Thanks for the reply.
Regarding the 1 segment matching was really wondering if that was of significance or not.
The surname possibility is that of the DNA matches with available trees (about perhaps 30 or so) the vast majority have the one surname ,Noland , appearing in it.Looking at their trees again, cant really verify some of it, it appears to be the same family line ie same ancestors listed over and over again.
Of those that replied to messages,none seemed to have even the remotest clue that they had any Irish ancestry whatsoever and none could shed any light on a possible connection.
As far as I could see a few trees early ancestors were just copies of other on-line trees.
Looked at a few on-line resources and even 40/50cM match could indicate a 5th/6th/7th cousin relationship which in an Irish context would be almost impossible to figure out as records are practically non existant pre c.1820 or so.
Again back to the surname.Mine is Nolan which is probably one of the most common surnames in my local area.Similar to the Noland above but have never seen it used around here and not a name/version that I have seen in Ireland to my recollection.
To be honest don't think i will ever get to place this group into my tree but then again that's what makes it a challenge and interesting.Irish records mean that I am most likely at a dead end regarding getting any further back so instead of onwards and upwards I will have to go sideways and downwards.
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Our smaller DNA matches may be more important than we think. People had many children who often
had many children. Mothers died during childbirth etc. So these seemingly distant matches
could be from half siblings and their offspring during the years.
Again thanks for the reply.
A good few of confirmed 3rd/4th and in a couple of cases 4th once/twice removed cousins are matches with me at 30cM or less.
Usually go through my unviewed matches on Ancestry every month or so and see who's popped up.
Found a few that way who had shared matches and a tree attached.
Takes a bit of the fun out of it though !!!!
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Have you looked at the DNAPainter website, specifically the What Are the Odds (WATO) tool ? If you are in contact with the people and can get approx year of births and the know the amount of cM's that you share, using the tool it can start generating an outline 'tree' with the most likely relationships. If you can get 2 of 3 people with known relationships and input the details it will get more accurate with its predictions on the possible connections.
So for example, i had a match who shared 5 known DNA matches with me, and using the tool i could narrow the MRCA to a particular generation of grandparents
Richard
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Perhaps the common ancestor was a British soldier, who was stationed in Ireland and USA. This might mean that you have a non parental event in one of your lines.
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Perhaps the common ancestor was a British soldier, who was stationed in Ireland and USA. This might mean that you have a non parental event in one of your lines.
The NPE would have had to have been a fair bit back I think .
Have confirmed DNA matches on all sides back to my great great grandparents .
Its on my Paternal side for sure as none show a match to my mothers test .
Also none show up on match lists for any 3rd cousins that have checked for me.
Its a real mystery so far and problem is getting someone from that group who is interested enough to follow it up.
Quick look on Ancestry shows I have 234 in that group.Only put in those that are a shared match with 3 or more people.
Whats also unusual is that the vast majority have 20 plus shared matches for me whilst on any other line its usually 10 at the very most for 3rd cousins.
Maybe the fact that Ancestry is very US biased re. test numbers could influence that.
My tree stops at c.1800 as that's about it regarding Irish records.Have a few distant DNA matches that suggest connections mid to late 18th century but unprovable really .Can probably place where they might fit in as both my parents were from 2 different counties but each had ancestors who came entirely from within 3/4 miles of where they were respectively born.
What I really need is someone on that match list who finds some Irish connection .Wonder sometimes if one "inaccurate" tree is copied over and over again as it seems to fit the facts but then again contacted a person couple of years ago on a message board re. the same general family and they had the same details.They were totally record based and had no interest in DNA whatsoever.They also had no idea of any Irish connection.
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I think I would take the 'Noland' surname popping up in your US matches as being significant - it isn't a long leap from Nolan. (I have ancestors who arrived in 18C America from Germany with the name 'Knisely'; some of their descendents are 'Nicely').
Ethnicity from Ancestry tests is not of course wholly reliable, but if your matches have up to 20% Irish
shown in their results, I wouldn't dismiss that as insignificant. My mother's 3xgreat grandfather was an Irishman from Dublin, born of Irish parents - Ancestry doesn't give her any Irish ethnicity at all. My husband's 2xgreat grandfather was also Irish - Ancestry gives him 4% Irish ethnicity.
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I think I would take the 'Noland' surname popping up in your US matches as being significant - it isn't a long leap from Nolan. (I have ancestors who arrived in 18C America from Germany with the name 'Knisely'; some of their descendents are 'Nicely').
Ethnicity from Ancestry tests is not of course wholly reliable, but if your matches have up to 20% Irish
shown in their results, I wouldn't dismiss that as insignificant. My mother's 3xgreat grandfather was an Irishman from Dublin, born of Irish parents - Ancestry doesn't give her any Irish ethnicity at all. My husband's 2xgreat grandfather was also Irish - Ancestry gives him 4% Irish ethnicity.
Not too sure I would place much faith in Ancestry ethnicity results as think they are based on tree matches.
Taking my closest matches of the group ;
49cM shared over 1 segment ; ethnicity result is 3%Irish,39% Scotland ,36% England ,12% Wales ,3% Norway .
45cM over 1 segment ;ethnicity result is 2% Irish,30% Scotland ,27% England ,18% Wales ,2% Norway
45cM over 1 segment ; ethnicity result is 15% Irish ,31% Scotland, 46% England ,7% Wales .
My own test shows as 97% Irish and 3% Scotland.
Went back for another look and looked at names/surnames in trees where available.
No recognisable "Irish " surnames at all as far as I could see.
Even the christian names are real Southern USA ones to my eyes , eg,Rufus ,Robert Lee ,Zelica ,Virgil Lee ,Erasberry ,Reuben Pickett etc.