RootsChat.Com
General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Ploppy123 on Tuesday 23 May 23 17:31 BST (UK)
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Good evening, This message concerns the area of Lancashire. I am new to genealogy and even newer to DNA testing. I received my DNA results about 10 days ago and was very surprised to find a 1st cousin and 2-3 cousin still alive. I was already in touch with the 2-3 cousins niece so that was easy. The 1st cousin was very interesting has i had been trying to find out about my cousin who i hadnt seen since school days (i am 82) so was very excited. I tried to contact this 1st cousin on ancestry but no reply. So looked for him on Facebook - nothing. Then i went onto linkd in as he is 40-49 and probably still working. Anyway luckily i think i found him! He had a link to the local Grammer school.
I sent him an email to his works address, but he did not reply. And then suddenly a few days later he has dissapeared from my DNA list and there is not trace of him. Can anyone tell me what is happening? Maybe he thinks i am a scammer??
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He has possibly turned off DNA matching in his profile or deleted his test results.
It isn't uncommon for matches to ignore or not reply to messages, sometimes perhaps because they don't know that they have been sent a message, but some people may not want any contact. They take the test because they want to find out their "ethnicity" and for whatever reason might have very little interest in their ancestry or family tree research.
It's disappointing and can be frustrating, but you have to respect people's right not to engage if they don't want to. If you are lucky with a bit of detective work it is sometimes possible to work out who a match is and research their ancestry yourself in the hope that you find a common link.
Just one other point in case you don't realise. When Ancestry or other companies say "a first cousin match" or any other relationship, it is only a suggestion based on the most probable relationship according to the length of the DNA match that you share. Whilst it may turn out to be correct, there are often several other relationships that can be just as valid, and you can only confirm that a relationship is correct by doing the hard work of paper and records based research to establish the exact link between you.
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Many thanks Phil57, You are very correct about respecting someones privacy.
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Good morning again Phil, Just to let you know my 1st cousin contacted me and has given me a wealth of information. Photos of graves etc. Many thanks for replying John
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That's great news John. Good luck with your research.
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Out of interest did you find out why they were deleted and have they put their results back up ??
I once helped my friends motner with her tree .once she'd found out about her second cousins she deleted her account
Possibly in mistaken belief that she would have to continue paying subs
It's a real pity because I found out her ancestors came from the same village in Latvia as one of mine .
She has dementia now .
Her daughter + grandaughter are very interested in the family history .
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Good morning Brigidmac, Tha ks for your messaege. No my cousin hadnt deleted this DNa information it had just vanished. Eventually he contacted me and i have now a first cousin in USA with heaps of information.
The reason he had not answered his email was that he works as a partner in law in a London firm and the firewall had diverted to spam.
How do you find searching data for a country like Latvia? I am about to look for some information for a friend who had Polish ancestors?
Kind regards, John
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My Latvian relatives were Jewish and there are some data bases on ancestry + good research on jewishgen .
Most of my help with paperwork came from
A rootschat member
And there was an online group for people with same surname
The other countries forum is very useful
As my mother only has 1 Jewish grandfather
Who was eldest son of an eldest son
His parents were born 1850 and any DNA matches who are 100percent Jewish link somehow to this couple.
I colour coded the matches and mums 2nd cousin gave me access to her DNA results too
+ I was able to contact some of the elder generation for more information !
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That is brilliant. I am still new to the game and at the moment finding it a bit of a struggle. I built u[ a bit of a family tree on Brothers Keeper and then decided to use family historian after lots of advice. And then lost all my data whilst trying to transfer everything between programmes!!
Good luck in your adventure! John
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I am worried of this happening. So I keep spreadsheets concerning DNA matches. In which case I have the important details I can use if they happen to disappear from my matches.
I record the name of the match, age and location, if available, either name of parents/grandparents or line to common ancestry if known, and the shared cM.
For those I find a shared line I add a note to the child of the shared ancestor (that is my ancestor) and add a ⚕ in the title of their name. So I can see which lines are DNA proved.