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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Littlebn20 on Monday 31 May 21 08:50 BST (UK)
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Good morning all.
I am a bit of an enthusiast when it comes to Ancestry but really struggle to understand DNA matching and what it means so I am looking for a little help.
My Nan was given away as a baby and through Ancestry we have managed to correctly identify her birth mother and learn that she had a half sister. We were able to do this as we knew her Mum's name and got a DNA match to a lady who would have been my Nan's half Niece. The match segment is 469cM.
My mum has a similar match on what can only be my Nan's biological fathers side however unlike with her biological mum's family, this side is unfortunately unwilling to help, so I am having to do the work myself and I am honestly finding it to be completely mind boggling. The match with this individual is 406cM so think that we must be matched in a similar way, in that one of her grandparents or possibly a grandparents sibling, or even great uncle could be the father. All we know is that he was Irish and somehow related to this woman. Have I got that right? To my mind that should mean that it wouldn't really be too hard to suss out but I just want to ensure that I am barking up the right tree.
For anyone with Ancestry access, I have put together a tree here, with the female entitled XX X as the DNA match, including her parents and what I know of her grandparents. Is this the right way to go about things? Any other tips. I have asked every single shared match (some who are also very closely matched with us both) if they would help, or knew what the connection might be but unfortunately every single one of them is either unwilling or unable to help. I am quite naive when it comes to this stuff.
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/tree/175219644/family/familyview?cfpid=422272636152
Unfortunately I have limited details on Doherty line.
Any tips or advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks
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Surprisingly, there are lots of family trees with a person names 'XX X' so I can't identify yours but Doherty is one of the most common Irish names so it may be difficult to find the correct family in records without fairly precise details to start with.
This will give you most likely possibilities for a match of 406cM-
https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4
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Thanks, I will check it out :)
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Do the matches who have not helped all have closed trees or no trees ?
Have you looked at shared matches of their shared matches ..their may be clues in snaller matches with large open trees .
We found my grandmother s birth father's name from a court record for patsrnity payments confirmed by dna links to descendants of her grandparents.but i think we were lucky .
Is DOHERTY the presumed fathers surname or ? i looked at your tree but it has mother unknown for bridget DOHERTY.
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That was good luck, I am rather envious. As you rightly say, the trees are private or non-existent! Of the much lower DNA matches, loads of them (at least 12) have a John Langston born in 1822 in their trees but that could be a red herring as it doesn't seem to lead me anywhere. There are a few other names of interest that pop up but I am guessing that they are typically related to the Doherty line. The problem is there are just so many Doherty's it is night on impossible to find the right one. Some seem willing to help until they find out there is an illegitimate child involved so I try to withold this information until the last possible moment.
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Ive just looked at Bridgette's workhouse admission from the tree do you know about her "parent " that she was dischaged to does it say john Birtles ?
Is he at address that she was admitted from ?
Another trick you can try is to just put place names in DNA searches for matches
Were both parents from Ireland ? If they were from different towns the shared matches on each side may reflect this .
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Good tip. The workhouse record was a bit speculative to be honest, but I will follow up with that
name Birtles.
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Which workhouse is the record from?
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It says South Dublin Poor Union if that is of any help?
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http://www.workhouses.org.uk/DublinSouth/
Nothing with the name John Birtles or surname Birtles coming up in Dublin area in 1901/1911 census or vital records.
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New results come in every day mostly tiny but.last week we had another of my mums second cousins !
Another recommendation i would make is if you can persuade your uncle or a male cousin or brother to test too you may get stronger results and you may get more replies if you can say the dna matches yourself your mother and ....xyz
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Hi there, are the 469cM and 402cM matches with your Mum, rather than your gran?
If you're stuck on Ancestry matches for the time-being, you could try uploading the DNA to MyHeritage. You pay a one-off fee to unlock the tools but then you can see all the people you and a match share DNA with (Ancestry only shows this for matches above 20cM). It also has a chromosome browser which allows you to group matches on the same section of chromosome (called triangulation, and there is an 'auto-cluster' function which does some of this for you).
The database is smaller than Ancestry's and, just a personal thing, I don't find it as user-friendly as Ancestry, but I've had some big wins on there with high cM matches who haven't tested on Ancestry.
Family Fanatics has a YouTube tutorial for MH which might help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vql0AXbtI6w
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You can also upload resd results from ancestry to gedmatch for free
If im reading the trees + (what youve told me in pm) right your grandmother
Was born 1920
Bridget DOHERTY would have been wife or girlfriend of your grandmas birth father so you wouldnt have dna matches with the Doherty line further up .only to her descendants whose surnames would presumably not be DOUGHERTY is that where your match might link ?
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With unknown patentage or adoptions one technique is the opposite of traditional research
You start from top of one tree and work down from a common ancestor of your matches .
Then see if there are places / names where they cross over from any of your candidates
It
Looks like you have identified a 3 x or 4x ggfather john LANGSTON & you've worked out names of 4 grand parents of your potential half cousin or second cousin .
Fascinating hunt
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Btw Your common ancestor is fascinating and he and his family moved from Macclesfield to London then Hull +USA while he ws a child + briefly back to UK
(in his biography written in 1877 )
He finally decided to become mormon and one of the reasons for so many matches to him is that the families were really big .
Also as someone said earlier more Americans test .
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Congratulations 28 dna matches to john LANGSTON b1822
+ thrulines from adding "child LANGSTON
Thats an incredible amount
+ The cm values are consistent with being descended.from john but not his wife
Tho half 3C.results would be similar to 3c 1r or 4c so you may have to alter your provisional ancestor.
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If you want to follow the story of the one of the LANGSTON children that I had a hard time locating I've posted on USA board
Maybe it will be seen by one of the 100s of descendants
I really do think it's a miracle that Littlebn has DNA matches to 8 out of his ten children who grew up to marry + have children
+ There is a possibility that bn is descended from one of them and not a love child
Need to do some cm number crunching from the thru lines
Is the highest match 34cm for a 4th cousin
half 3C 1,R + half 2c2,r ?
Seeking George Heber LANGSTON
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=849796.0
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You are absolutely brilliant Brigid. Thanks millions for all of your help and persistence so far. I could have never got anywhere near this without you :) . I am so glad that I posted all that time ago. Feel that we still have so much to learn. 28 DNA matches to one man is pretty significant!
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Highest matches are 34 cM, 33cM, 31cM and then loads between 22 - 12cM ( x 12 matches in this range) x
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Definitely something to work on .the fact you match descendants of children of both wives means that the match is through the father not the mother's
Next
You have to check if any of the 25+ cm matches have shared matches with any other cluster of shared names
Looking for connections from UK to USA
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Thanks for the glowing review Littlebn *i didnt spot reply 17 yesterday.
I m sure we have helped some of the American matches climb further up their tree + it's been exciting to watch developments confirm the DNA to one distant ancestor .
Which will surely inspire others to use this method
Now to apply the same technique to find the English Irish descendants and John LANGSTON s baby mama
* Will link this topic to the American one .
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Littlenbn By the way the link you posted to nansdadclues tree in initial post is fixed on your early hypothesis I think it's changed quite a bit since then
You should put your gran or living person as the home person instead of cc who you could call matchB then you can see what relationships would be of the matching generations
Does that make sense
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Hi everyone, I suspect there's been a name change at either gf or great gf level on my maternal side, despite having a name of my great gf on my gf's marriage cert. I've been searching for my great gf and great gm for 7 years without success. I've purchased lots of certificates without giving me a firm clue and built multiple trees just adding my gf in hoping for a dna match. My only hope remains through a dna match (of which there are hundreds) but none with the supposed family name of Parker. Is it worth using the heritage tool mentioned above, is it easy to use and is it costly? I've literally run out of ideas now.
John
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John ive never used the heritage tool but its definitely worth looking at dna matches with shared surnames
Littlebn has a few first ti second cousin matches and im beginning to suspect name changes too as there seems no other explanation of how Dougherty Weir Thompson and Fox matches
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Thanks Brigid, I have asked Ancestry for a quote focusing on DNA rather than research, but they haven't got back to me yet.
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Little bn you now have another definate ancestors with a cluster of matches through 3 of his different children
It's John THOMPSON 1804- 1903
It's a question of working out how close the matches are to you and how close to each other
His great granchilds mutual matches will give the most clues .
My working theory is that you are and your WEIR match are both his great great grandchildren
And your highest match is a great grandchild but from the same one of his children
I hope that makes sense and that other descendants of adoptees can use the same working down techniques
It is slow but more scientific than taking guess at nearest matches surnames ..tho sometimes that method brings a lucky break
I found your potential great grandfather lodging in household with your new matches 4 year old grandfather ...it doesn't mean he is the birth father but they are connected !
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Its the best clue that we have really ever had, so its a magnificent find. Thank you.
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Can someone confirm if the cm of three people
( who are cousins 5th gg grandchildren of john THOMPSON & first wife)
Confirm they are half 2c 1R to your mother
42cm 34cm + 58 cm
A full 2c once removed descrnded from john and 2nd wife is103cm
The people with higher Matches descend from johns son william 1879 and violet McCRODDEN
So definitely narrowing down the birth father
Lilbn can you add your aunts and your own level of cm just to the people ive mentioned here for now ( i ve named them in email). Very exciting mystery to solve .
So we can see a range and
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Will devote some time to this tomorrow Brigid. Thank you. Struggle with the numbers (which is why I start a new tree per new theory) :)
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Yes i know
I just want you to tell me if you match the 3 granddaughters of emma SEITAS+ john joseph Thompson and if so by how much & the WEIR match
And how your aunt cm compares
I can do the analysing
Im pretty sure my theory hold up but the more evidence the better a
anamolies do happen in dna matches because of the range
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Morning. My matches are as follows;
CD 21cM
GS 20cM
JP 14cM
Will wait on aunt for amounts and reply when I have them.
B
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Also interesting is that my match to A Weir is actually only 29cM vs my Mum at 103cM!
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Early start on this !
so those three grandchildren of John Joseph and Emma THOMPSON nee SEITAS
can either be your third cousins or half third cousins
You connect to WEIR
thru the 1804 JOHN THOMPSON patriarchs daughter Louise THOMPSON
So he is either full or half 3rd cousin
The high match to your mother and lower match to you is a normal amount difference for a generation apart but having your aunt's and your cousins cm amounts will confirm which of patriarchs children you are more likely to be direct descendant of
Need to find out if patriarch had a wife between Elizabeth WINTERBOTTOM + mother of the John who married Sietas
+
Roseanne SHIEL mother of Louisa
William Thompson m Elizabeth violet MCCRODDEN they are parents of Noel Cyril Thompson
William could be son of Roseanne SHIEL or unknown
So we are looking to see if your direct ancestor is another child of John Thompson+ rose SHEILL / Shields/Sheil or Louise or William
Half siblings now ruled out
What exactly is the mystery BEDFORD connection?
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Two brothers Stanley and Harry BEDFORD are lodger and visitor with
William + violet Thompson and children + grandma MCCRODDEN + great aunt
So they definitely knew each other
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And the HARTY WALSH connections
In my opinion it's usually a case of "chercher la femme"
So far no connections to SHEILS
We also have to look for connections to the BEDFORD candidates mother and grandmother do you have those surnames
No connections may just mean no relatives tested but the fact that you match THOMPSON s and LANGSTON s means a NPE or adoption or unknown mother is somewhere on your line
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I have modified and added to answer 32 because I had problems typing and the sentences weren't clear
Not done any extra work on this but it's cleared in my mind
Enjoy the football
Will come back to this next week when all DNA matches are comparable on same page lilbns her mum aunt + cousins
Maybe include matches to HARTY that's the next line to follow
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You need to have john THOMPSON 1804-1903 + Roseanne
On your trees as direct ancestor for connections to show
I.ll wait to get the summary of cm dna amounts for you .mum . your cousin .and aunt
Before making more speculation !
The Bedford -Oakley marriage may be a second marriage so your ancestor could be Mary ... something else
One tree has Bower/Davis but no sources.
Roseanne SHEILS could also be a surname from first marriage maybe she s a LANGSTON
Next step is to invest in some certificates ..birth certificates + marriage certificate where you dont know morhers name
Also may show twins
Or give clues in names of witnesses
I think getting a certificate of the Bedford potential birth father would be worthwhile and marriage certificate of his father.
My nans marriage cert gives
" otherwise known as "for her foster family .surname shed used at school+ work from 1906-1924
Her birth mothers surname as her regusterd Surname
father unknown but her middle name was his surname !
You cant ses that kind of information on transcript s !
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Little bn great that youve made contact with a granddaughter of emma seitas
But odd that dna thru lines are showing via Winterbottom .i need to see it all on big page .zoom or whatssp with you and aunt we.ll be able to see each otjers screens.
I can use my converted computer and hope to learn how to get zoom app on it before 1pm ...my comedy workshop..
Time travel gran episode is required from me Mrs Lottie BENJAMIN will be arriving from 1942 age 62 and borrowing my body and clothes and will be very confused because im in yet another different house & different hair colour and she may see her 91 year old granddaughter .!
+
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Thank you! I have changed it so that it doesn't show Winterbottom, but I need to pay it some attention as it is still not correct. Has got messy but work has been busy and I have only been able to look at it fleetingly. I loved the days when I could just look at it all day. It is so close to being correct! I need to tidy up all my Thompson's/Weir's/Bedford's as something has gone awry!