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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: atlantikman on Monday 29 March 21 22:18 BST (UK)
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I’ve been trying for many years to find out who my mother’s father was, as she was born technically illegitimate. All we might know has been kept secret, other than my Mum thinks his name was “Mack”. Mum did a FTDNA Family Finder test some years ago before she died. I have myself done the same test, as well as a FTDNA Y-DNA test. Recently I did an Ancestry DNA test. The latter helped me discover a second cousin in Australia that I didn’t know existed. Sadly, regards Mum’s Father’s side, I’ve hit a huge brick wall.
I thought I knew who Mum’s Putative Father was. Based on circumstantial evidence, I was sure that he was a Beaumont, especially as this man may have fathered two others out of wedlock before he eventually married. Now I’m unsure, as no matches on either test has shown a link to any Beaumont.
I have narrowed my Ancestry matches down to a few dozen of about 450 that are probably linked to Mum’s Father’s side. But I don’t recognise any surnames on their trees (some don’t even have any tree) as I don’t know his name. Most of these matches are 5th-6th cousins, with one that is a possible 3rd-4th cousin who has not responded to my email.
Obviously the biggest hurdle is in finding his name. It looks like I may have to wait until a closer possible relation does an Ancestry DNA test, which may then reveal something. What I have noticed is that of those matches mentioned above, they seem to have a US connection, but that might just be more Americans than British doing these tests.
Paul.
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Don't dismiss the Beaumont name it might just be that no-one from their family has tested .
You can make a hypothetical tree for Beaumont find out names and locations of his mother and maternal grandmother and see if any of those names +locations turn up in your shared matches .
Have you got any shared matches with your 4th cousin who is not replying .
When my aunt tested no close matches with our surname showed up
Closest matches we eventually worked out were children grandchildren +great grandchildren of female cousins so names had changed through marriages many people concentrate on paternal side and don't add or know mother's maiden names .
One match we worked out thru triangulation and matched an adoptee who matched other second cousins .
Good luck
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Hi there, have you uploaded the DNA to MyHeritage as well? The database isn't as large as Ancestry, but it is bigger than FTDNA's, and I find it easier to use than FTDNA. There's a one-off fee to unlock the tools (about £35, I think) which includes a chromosome browswer and autocluster report. It does have some oddities (e.g. showing a match with half of Finland) but I've had some big wins with higher cM matches. One branch in particular just seems to use MH and not the other two sites.
With the Ancestry test, have you searched matches based on the exact location where your Mum was born? That sometimes can throw up interesting leads, although not if the father was born out of the area.
Good luck with it. It may be a question of time and more people testing.
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Hi and thanks for those responses.
Yes I already have a Beaumont tree that goes back to 3xGGF, but maybe I'll go back further...
I'll take a look re the Location Search; not something I had considered. I know quite a lot about my Mum's Mother, but extremely little about the possible Mum's Father.
I'll also take a look at MyHeritage and see what they can offer. My Ancestry account is just limited to DNA only, as I usually use FindMyPast for my research. Though I have occasional access to a friends' Ancestry account, where I can check the Public Trees.
Thanks again.
Paul.
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Can I endorse the suggestion of MyHeritage?
They had an offer on recently where you could join (for free) and also get the tools without charge. I don't know if that is still running...
I've always ignored MyHeritage because I have so many American DNA contacts via Ancestry, I didn't want any more - one of my lines is packed full of them :D However, I uploaded my DNA and found a number of reasonably close relatives in another section of my tree altogether so it was well worth doing!
Another question - have you been able to access your mother's account on FTDNA? If you can download her results and upload those you'd get much more reliable results than just using your own. Apologies if that isn't possible.....
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I have 13,359 matches on AncestryDNA and not one of them shares my birth surname! Don’t be discouraged by that - the vast majority of our blood relatives don’t share our surname.
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You can download results to gedmatch for free
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What do you say on your ancestry profile
If you add a mini tree and say you are looking for mother's birth father matches with closed trees or unlinked trees may be more inclined to help you
Do you use the colour code system to classify matches by locations and names which at least can eliminate matches from mother's side
My cousin also has lots of American matches that I don't know where they come from .
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Hello All and thanks for the info.
I do have access to my Mum's FTDNA, and have started looking at the matches again. I have amended my Ancestry profile to include a note about her. I have used the colour coding of matches on Ancestry DNA and there is a tree online there for public view. I'll also take a look at Gedmatch as well as MyHeritage. Thanks again.
Paul.
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As well as using the colour coding of matches on Ancestry, have you tried doing a Colour Cluster spreadsheet using the Leeds method https://www.danaleeds.com/dna-color-clustering-the-leeds-method-for-easily-visualizing-matches/ ?
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Hi scotmum,
Thanks for that info. DNA Colour Clustering seems to be for close matches (2nd-3rd cousins). But I only have four 2nd-3rd cousins listed on my Ancestry DNA, of whom I know which side they are on, along with only one 3rd-4th cousin who I suspect is on my unknown Mum's Father's side, who has not responded to my email. The majority are 4th-6th cousins (44 of them), of which 16 are possibles on my Mum's Father's side. The rest of my 450+ matches are classed as distant cousins by Ancestry.
Paul.
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How are you getting on Paul ?
I realized I'd advised you to download to gedmatch
But I can't remember how to access and haven't checked to see if she has any matches on there let alone download my own DNA to gedstch site
Will need a tutorial from cousin
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Whilst I appreciate it might not help atlantikman, colour clustering can work with 4th cousins etc. I'm posting these links, as they may help someone who hadn't considered trying:
https://www.danaleeds.com/color-clustering-working-with-4/
https://www.danaleeds.com/dna-color-clustering-does-it-work-with-4th-cousins/
http://theenthusiasticgenealogist.blogspot.com/2018/08/color-clustering-top-25-fourth-cousins.html
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I had the same challenge last year, a half 1st cousin wanted to try and find the name of one of her grandfathers.
She had very little to go on other than a couple of rumours regarding names but they seemed to be either just forenames or surnames nothing to complete to work.
I used Ancestry to build a tree with as much as the know information as possible, very quickly and maybe luckily a match was suggested on another persons tree.
What was incredible was that the unknown names I was looking for appeared to be complete on this persons tree and vice versa.
I reached out to the tree owner and between us we actually were able to fill in the gaps.
My cousin was thrilled especially as her father had just celebrated his 88th birthday. He was amazed that at last he knew who his real father was...
Maybe we got lucky in that the names we had to work with as forenames included Cecil and Horace and one of the surnames was bullock which I guess helped reduce the matches.
But building the tree was the real door opener.