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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Biggles50 on Sunday 20 November 22 16:26 GMT (UK)
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PART 1 of 4 - My DNA dilemma!
I have commented on many posts by using my own DNA dilemma as an example and its probably time to explain it in detail, sorry in advance as I do ramble on a bit.
I am sharing my own methodology so that others may benefit or that someone can offer guidance to me in a problem I have been staring at for three years. Hope all that I have written makes some sort of logical sense to you. Its split up over multiple posts to bypass the size limit per post as I could not include all the info in one post.
A 364 cM match on my Ancestry DNA website raised concerns about a possible close relation that neither I, my late Brother nor any First Cousin knows about (1 maternal and 12 paternal).
So started what is now a three year hunt for answers.
First, a standalone Pedigree tree was built going back 200 years with the 364cM match as the home person but no apparent connection could be found. I then expanded the tree sideways generation by generation as far as I could.
Then I started looking looking at the shared matches and built about 12 of them into the tree, but still no joy in finding a link to myself.
Entering 364 into the DNA Painter shared matches gives these results regarding the probabilities.
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PART 2 of 4
Next I uploaded a Gedcom file to the WATO Tool, what you see is what you get. I entered the cM value for each DNA Match in the WATO tool and got these probabilities.
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PART 3 of 4
None of the probabilities in the WATO tool seem viable as my existing DNA Matches that are linked into my own Family Tree contradict the results.
You can see from the image just where the DNA matches fit at various generational levels with our mutual xGGP(s).
In Column F you see DNA between my Maternal Great Grandparents & this is where DNA Matches are already linked into my Family Tree
In Column H a DNA match fits to either one GGGP or to both.
In Column J a DNA match fits at the GGGGP level or beyond.
There can and are multiple linked DNA matches where DNA is shown and over 100 are already linked to and included in my Family Tree.
So you can also see from the image that there are gaping holes in me having DNA matches at or beyond both of my Paternal Great Grandfathers.
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PART 4 of 4
As my Grandparents were from geographically diverse regions of England and Wales and hence endogomy is unlikely to be a factor.
My Maternal Grandfather emigrated in 1903 and at first I thought that he left behind a known or unknown offspring, but this was soon discounted. The fact that the 364cM match to myself is not a one off but there are at least 35 other DNA match’s who are Shared with my 364cM then the family common to all these Shared match’s has to have donated their DNA into my Family and Grandfather could not have been the culprit.
I have also created a colour coded chart and then used it by following the Leeds Method to try and determine where the Family Trees link together. Sadly nothing conclusive can be drawn from the results at the current state of research.
My Raw DNA Data has also been uploaded to Gedmatch, My Heritage, my Living DNA and others and both My Heritage and My Living DNA have yielded other DNA matches who are as close as First Cousins to my 364cM match.
Hence by now I know who they are are, who they married, where they live, who their children are and who their grandchildren are, its almost like I am stalking them (in the nicest possible way of course). I tied contacting them without a useful response being received, just a, yes they are my parent.
Based on research to date my current hypothesis is that one of my Paternal Great Grandfathers is not who the paper trail shows him to be. DNA test results from a Paternal First Cousin are awaited and I expect him to also be a DNA match to my 364cM match which incidentally Ancestry’s Sideview predicts that the 364cM is a Paternal match.
So there you are my own Families DNA dilemma!
Time to go and bang my head against the wall yet again to see if inspiration can be gathered.
Image in next post ie Post 5 as for some reason it would not attach in this post.
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Part 5
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Not an answer, but possibly a similar situation, my mom has a match at 380cMs (296cMs to me), who we can't place.
The long list of shared indicate quite clearly the side of the family the match is on and who the shared ancestors are.
Although the person has a 'name', it's not a name that enables us to build a tree.
With the numbers, I'm thinking that the match is either a child of a (known) cousin of my mother so this may suggest an adoption or illegitimacy somewhere (given that families of cousins are known), or it may even be that there is an unknown cousin.
Every now and again I have another look at it all to see if anything else sheds any light.
Good luck with finding the answer,
Lisa
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Thanks for sharing this Biggles
I admire your technology skills
As you probably know I'm more haphazard but have a lot of experience and data for matches across generations and thru single mothers or adoptees
I work on ancestry so don't know if my techniques will be useful
Think I may have given example of solving my cousin's highest match
I added a hypothetical parent to his grandfather called Yorkshire man
Then looked at shared matches with highest match for common ancestors. Looked at there tree and for extra details they only had one English grandparent which made things easier .they were born to a single mother in Yorkshire so I added Yorkshire man with parents ..." Possibly + 2 surnames that were in their shared matches next highest being 67cm
Eventually. Came across correct person my going an extra generation back to look at matches to siblings and spouses
My mum had a 365cm match that was her half cousin thru a grandma whose married name we didn't know ..they didn't have a tree but did answer message ..
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I was a bit luckier in constructing a rationale for my 339 cM match who on paper is no match to me.
My next closest match was his niece, at 167 cM, which clarified the match's age as being close to mine, and they were both shared matches with my maternal 2C1R (145 cM). The close match is also shared with a 3C and a 4C from my maternal grandfather's line.
Clearly match 1's father was closely related to my maternal grandfather, which given the ages of the respective individuals, pointed to my grandfather having fathered an illegitimate child. This would be consistent with what was known of my grandfather's character.
When I identified the birth record for the match's father I found that he was illegitimate, and with the birth registered late. This person only being registered with the surname of his mother's husband some 30 years later! By the time this individual was born both my grandfather's brothers had emigrated ruling out a number of possibilities.
Thus I concluded that my 339cM match was my half-1C.
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You've been very thorough!
Although you haven't as yet found out how they are connected to you, have you managed to find out how your match is connected to (some of) the 35 shared matches? If you have found their common ancestor(s) it might at least give you a positive line to investigate?
If you are of a similar age then I'd start with the hypothesis that they are a half first cousin or H1C1R and use the shared matches to identify which of their grandparent's or great grandparent's lines that the link is on.
Are your paternal grandparents also from different areas? Maybe there'll be a locational clue as to which might have a NPE?
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Many thanks for your replies and kind words.
My 364cM match is the home person on a standalone tree that I have on Ancestry (it is set as Private), the tree now consists of 600 people and it goes back to the late 1700’s in Ireland.
I now have about 15 DNA matches to myself within the tree and they all have a link back to the same Irish family.
The 364cM match does not have a tree but their Daughter has a tree of 11 and I used the visible people in that tree as my starter tree. Other DNA match’s have trees and others do not but I am lucky in that actual names have been used hence expanding the prime tree was time consuming but easy. Well easy for the most part as some of the shared match’s have been in contact but it is a wip getting them into the tree.
I have Colour Coded the match’s using Ancestry’s system and today there are 42 Cousins who could be added to the tree but that is only using match’s who are more than a 30cm match.
My 364 cM match is 8 years older than I and was born and raised in and still lives in Bradford, which is where my Maternal Grandfather was born but he lived in Canada from 1903 and died in 1931.
In the 364cM family tree the shared match’s all work out in the right ball park relationship if I put myself, my Dad and Grandfather in the tree and have Grandad’s Father as an Irishman who was born in 1860.
The 364 cM is possibly higher than it should be and there may be my Maternal Bradford family DNA getting into the other branch of the 364 cM’s family thus skewing the results. The 364cM Match’s First Cousins only share half the DNA with me which is why I suspect that there may be an NPE in their tree.
As it is Ancestry’s Sideview has listed the DNA match’s as Paternal which falls in line with my chart in the prior post as where my own NPE is likely to have occurred.
As for location my Lancastrian Great Great Grandmother put her favours around as did her Sister with both having at least two children out if wedlock and by different Fathers given the locational changes so maybe her Daughter was equally promiscuous?
DNA test results awaited from two of my Cousins will help clarify my hypothesis.
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Biggles Unfortunately 99.9% of what you say about DNA goes over my head but I wonder if you could give me your thoughts on a problem I have.
I have a match showing 389cM on Parent 1's side.
I have no idea who this woman is but she has an extensive tree on Ancestry with nothing to show any person connected to me.
Now her family came from a part of the country where none of mine have ever lived but her maternal grandfather was born, lived and died in the same city as my Parent 1 was born in.
Looking at her maternal grandparents on 1939 they lived very close to one of my uncles and in fact the 2 men worked for the same company and the 2 women had very similar occupations.
What do I think? well who knows.
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389 cM would put the match in a high probability of them being a 1/2 First Cousin provided they are of the same generation.
A younger generation and it would be 1C1R
Or 2C or half 1C1R or 1C2R
A older generation and they could be a 1/2 Great Aunt.
These possible relationships are from DNA Painter.
First I would look at the Shared Match’s you have with them to see if any are in your tree or look like they can be easily added to your tree.
With my own mystery it could be one of my Aunts or uncles parenting the 364 match but when I look at shared match’s there are too many for me not to have a NPE in my tree.
Next I recently found a 2C who had used two of my Family images in their tree so I looked at their tree and found they were a generation short of getting to our Common Ancestor. We made contact and I created a tree for them on the lines which do not link to me. They came back to say that their GGM, who was my Great Aunt was an only child. This was a significant error so I revisited their tree and found that another person in the same town with the same forename and surname had got married two years earlier. So they had the wrong parents and we were not in fact my 2C. So just because someone has a tree it does not mean it is correct.
Back to your 389, I would look at Uncles who may have been mobile as being the one spreading their seed.
Without WW1 neither my Paternal or Maternal Grandparents would have met, Maternal Grandfather lived 4000 miles away from the lady who became my Grandma. So wars and conflict do aid mobility as does large infrastructure projects.
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UnmarriecWomen also travelled to distant relatives to give birth away from town where the baby was conceived .
Include aunt's and uncles on your tree to check for locations near child's birth place .
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UnmarriecWomen also travelled to distant relatives to give birth away from town where the baby was conceived .
Include aunt's and uncles on your tree to check for locations near child's birth place .
That was still happening in the 1990’s.
A young member of staff who worked in our office got herself pregnant after too much alcohol and a one night stand with a guy she did not know and was too legless to remember his feature and she left work to move 150 miles away to live with relatives until the baby was born, she never did return to the office.