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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: hwlambert on Sunday 18 February 24 09:04 GMT (UK)
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I am having trouble finding a common ancestor for 3 of my DNA matches. They are aged around 26, 14 & 12 and I am in my early 70s. They match my paternal line, and a half sibling would be a surprise.
They share enough DNA to be 2nd cousin, 1st cousin 2x removed or half 1st cousin 1x removed with 165, 224 & 203. The parent of the 14 & 12 year-olds is in their late 50s and not tested so they have one generation less than me in their tree. They do not know of any adoption or illegitimate birth.
Would our common ancestor be at my grandfather and their great grandfather? Any help is much appreciated.
Heather
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There is no easy way.
What I would do is first assume that their Grandparents are of your Generation.
I’d build a tree from them going back to the equivalent of your Great Great Grandparents and see what you find.
At the cM values that you quote the relationships predicted by DNA Painter do have a wide spread so it is no mean task to build a tree.
I would also print out a pedigree chart from yourself going back to say your 3x or 4x GGP’s and on the chart I would mark up where known DNA matches (those who are in your tree) and you share MRCA’s. What I would look at is where, if any, there are xGGP’s that do not have any DNA matches linked to them. Despite having all the paper trail there may be a NPE in your tree or for that matter the tree of your 3 DNA matches.
At 3xGGP this is the level that DNA inheritance can become non existent, whilst this may see odd so is the DNA recombination process which is very random in what segments are passed on.
Good luck
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With a 2nd cousin match you are looking at the common ancestor being your great grandparent level and a first cousin match would be from your grandparents. Given the ages mentioned it's not unreasonable to expect they are removed cousins to you and will therefore have to add an additional generation or two before they reach the common ancestor(s) you share.
I'm not entirely clear why the lack of the parent testing results in a tree having one less generation as going backwards there comes a point at which there are no living people to test. It's been 30 years since the last relative in my parents' generation died and almost 60 years since the last one of the previous generation passed away so dna of an earlier generation was never an option for me.
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Thanks for your replies.
My 3 DNA matches all have the same grandparents recorded but they are not on my family tree, and I can find no DNA matches in my tree to their grandparents or great grandparents’ surnames. I think there may be an NPE in their trees.
I need to check their DNA matches but unfortunately 2 are children and I have not been given access. The other has kindly given me access so I will see what I can find and what names their matches are connected to.
I have found another 2 matches on this same line coming up as half 1C and half 1C1R who also match my 3 DNA matches. They have not responded to my messages. They also have grandparent and great grandparent surnames that do not match my tree. I think they have another NPE and probably the same one as the others.
Any further hints appreciated. Thanks.
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As per previous advice that I gave.
Unless you have other DNA matches linking through your own Grandparents to your GGP’s and beyond the NPE could be in your line.
Hence marking up your pedigree chart
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Surname searching can be frustrating as often trees may not go back far enough, married names rather than maiden names could have been entered, entries made based on census relationships can also be an issue and many simply don't check the GRO index for maiden names which can often reveal a child born out of wedlock. That's even before considering those certificates with dubious information passed to the registrar that only DNA can show to be 'questionable' (I'm looking at you great granny Maria!!)
I never ceased to be amazed at how the big sites are great at giving hints from trees (often unsourced), that a couple of bmd searches quickly show to be flawed but somehow skip the one or two that have been researched with some care.
I might just be unlucky with who has tested but I have a lack of matches to both grandfathers and some groups of mystery matches including some around 200cM, unfortunately they like to keep their trees private and dismiss any connection simply because the surnames they know aren't in my tree which is public. One claims our 180cM shared dna is a false match, I wish it were and I'd happily swap them for a cooperative match who would like to unpick the story with me.
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Point taken and you may well be right! I might own the NPE. My family tree on my father’s paternal line is very small. I will go back and look at things with a change of focus.
I have found DNA matches to my great grandmother and back to her grandparents, but I have found NO matches to my great grandfather other than my immediate family and 1st cousins.
I have looked at the Ancestry trees for my 2x great grandparents and no-one connected to it is a match to me. My great grandfather’s only sibling does not have a tree on Ancestry. I am not sure now if either side is a match to me, so I need to do lots more work.
I will have to check out my unknown matches in the Yorkshire/East Midlands, my common areas. My biggest match is 315cM, the 3 matches already mentioned and my biggest matches nephew at 147cM then down to 35cM.
I have communicated with her, and she knows nothing about her family after her grandparents. She did not answer my last message through Ancestry over 2 years ago. I have done some work on her family but not with the focus on mine being the NPE so will take another look. Dad, I wish you were here.
Thank you both so much for your interest and input. Thank you for educating me.
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It might help if you can persuade the parents of your two young matches to take DNA tests.
Although you can’t find any familiar surnames in the matches’ trees, are any of the place names the same as in your tree?
They could easily be descended via a female line whose surnames changed upon marriage.
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That is well worth a look, thanks.
All the matches I have on my father’s paternal side are from New Zealand and have Yorkshire & Midlands as our common area. I have a few unknown matches who also have that common area, but most have no trees. My grandfather and great grandfather were born in England.
I have made up my 315cM matches tree and checked all the surnames against the Ancestry trees researching those people and have found no DNA matches to me or my sister. I have also made the trees for the 3 younger matches and checked them but again there were no matches to me other than them.
That only leaves matches to my sister and 2 of my first cousins’ children. I thought I had my paternal side researched because my dad knew his grandfather well and lived with them during his early years.
As for the young children, I have no contact with their father and I don’t know if he knows that they have taken a DNA test uploaded by their mother. I have communicated with her but she has not replied. So unfortunately at this time it is not likely I can get anyone to do a DNA test.
So back to the to the beginning again for me.
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Just because a document says that somebody is “Fred Smith” does not mean that Smith is their actual biological surname, it can be an Adoptive surname.
To prove the point, a yDNA test only goes from male to male to male and that should follow with each generation having the same surname. Wrong, in reality there are hundreds if not thousands of surname variations in the match list. I know I took a yDNA test.
DNA testing does help but it can unearth secrets and throw research out of the door and into the trash. Again, voice of experience speaking.
Good luck finding valid solutions.
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I realise the complexities and problems thrown up by DNA results could throw one’s research out the window and am happy to do that, but I can’t seem to get my head around my one. My matches are fairly high so I should be able to work it out. I guess I will have to be patient and hope someone takes a DNA test that will provide answers.
Thanks everyone for your input.
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I have results for five maternal 1c1r's and have access (or manage) all but one set of results. We seem to share one ancestor but that's it, there are no shared matches apart from that one line. We can't work out if we have one or more NPE's, what generation they may be at or if we just lucked out with test takers at crucial points in our trees.
I'm unique in that I have a group of matches that has just topped 50 people all descended from a couple but nothing on paper links me to them and they don't match ay of my other matches. The highest is 199cM and her sister is 168cm to it can't be a freak set of false matches. I have one 1c from another maternal line that hasn't tested but I was adopted and this cousin is in her 70's and has no idea I exist as far as I know. It's not an ideal basis to try and find her and ask her to take a test (but knowing my luck she probably knows the whole story already).
Somewhere there has to be a dodgy birth certificate and traditional records/techniques are not going to solve the mystery but just lead me up another wrong path.
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I have results for five maternal 1c1r's and have access (or manage) all but one set of results. We seem to share one ancestor but that's it, there are no shared matches apart from that one line. We can't work out if we have one or more NPE's, what generation they may be at or if we just lucked out with test takers at crucial points in our trees.
I'm unique in that I have a group of matches that has just topped 50 people all descended from a couple but nothing on paper links me to them and they don't match ay of my other matches. The highest is 199cM and her sister is 168cm to it can't be a freak set of false matches. I have one 1c from another maternal line that hasn't tested but I was adopted and this cousin is in her 70's and has no idea I exist as far as I know. It's not an ideal basis to try and find her and ask her to take a test (but knowing my luck she probably knows the whole story already).
Somewhere there has to be a dodgy birth certificate and traditional records/techniques are not going to solve the mystery but just lead me up another wrong path.
I can so relate to your tale Glen.
My two highest cM matches have been colour coded in the Ancestry DNA Match list.
Going through all the shared matches and shared matches of the higher shared matches gives currently about:-
70 are coded Green
150 are coded Blue
I am never going to find links to so many as all of these are in the 20cM to 364cM range.
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It is nice to know others face similar challenges. I have 7 people other than myself and my sister who match my paternal line with more than 149cM and I only know 2 of them. I thought I would be able to find our common ancestor but alas not so, there is nothing familiar to start working on.
It’s frustrating so many don’t have trees of any sort and are often using initials or a coded name. At least I have the time to sit and stare and attempt to build out a few trees. It keeps me busy in retirement.
Thanks again for the suggestions, they have been a big help.
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I target tested two relatives and manage the results alongside my own. I often forget that I see the full names but everyone else will just see a match named 'S.T.; or 'E.J.' As one test is my half sibling some of the matches to that test will see I am the manager but I am not a match.
Off Topic Rant Alert;
I often feel dna is marketed as an easy 'one click instant tree' solution. Many find that isn't the case and don't have the knowledge or experience to make sense of their result. They quickly vanish and if they don't have trees or respond to messages it leaves the rest of us to choose to either forget them or undertake something resembling clandestine research.
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I think many, many people underestimate the variability of the quantitative DNA match numbers, and hence jump to conclusions that may not be warranted.
In my immediate family I have DNA results from two sibling pairs. The quantitative variation between their matches, and between them and other relatives is large.
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My 240cM match (on Ancestry) had a tree of two, him and his late Father.
Luckily that was enough to expand upon and to determine who my probable Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother were.
Of course it is all ifs and buts as there is no paper trail to link them to me, there is only DNA.
There is a 199.3cM match (on My Heritage) that also link to me and also to my 240cM. There are also over 150 who are coded in Ancestry as Shared Matches of which about 12 are linked in the standalone tree. So a good outcome.
With regard to DNA matches, as long as I can determine their actual birth name and that of their Mother I try to build a tree and aim to go two generations beyond what the data predicts as the MRCA generation. Sometimes I am lucky in finding a link, sometimes not and then that just becomes a waiting game.
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I can guarantee that if I gave you my birth ref and asked you to build my tree I would have the wrong father displayed. My mother was married but fell pregnant to someone else, in terms of my birth registration everything was done correctly but it does mean I appear to be a legitimate child born through her marriage. My father isn't recorded on my birth cert and 'adopted' appears in column 10 so even with that in hand I would be an unsolvable mystery unless my adoptive name was discovered.
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Unfortunately, you are right. Because my father’s family lived with their grandparents, I thought they would be correct, silly me. I should have known better. I know my tree will have mistakes but I am doing my best to fix those. I will concentrate on my great grandfather’s brother’s family and see where that leads but its looking more like we don’t belong there.
I am going to research back 2 generations beyond my MRCA and see where that takes me. Hopefully I will be lucky but am prepared to play the waiting game.
I will take on board your family circumstances Glen as that is also a possibility, something is not right somewhere. I find many of my DNA matches trees have different people attributed as family members making it difficult to follow through the generations. There are so many differences in people’s trees it makes researching that much harder.
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Too many trees are full of mistakes, especially on certain sites. They find something that looks right and assume it is the right person. You have to find your own information. One tree has my great-grandmother marrying in Wales and then emigrating to the USA. I know who she married and where she is buried; and it is in Wales.
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The issue that's now totally out of hand and can never be corrected is the sheer number of wrong trees, granted we will all make the odd mistake here and there but some trees have such blatantly obvious mistakes I almost wish I could be blocked from seeing them, of course these trees are the ones that are then shared far and wide and almost forced upon us by AI.
Two wrongs don't make a right and I'm afraid 10 wrong trees don't make that hint, thrulines and Theory of Relativity any more valid despite what the AI may think.
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The problem of course often lies with the incessant Ancestry hints.
Hints for people scattered hither and yon, before and after the time of interest.
All too many people accept these hints. Which is how they then end up with trees populated with people marrying before they were born, or having children randomly all over the world.
And once someone accepts one of these stupid hints, Ancestry will then uses that as evidence/supporting proof to incessantly press the same stupid error on others.
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I couldn't agree more. I am removing anyone not confirmed on my tree and working from there. I wish there was a way to stop the errors being passed on.
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No way to stop others passing on incorrect hints.
Only way is to turn off receiving hints for a specific tree
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It's when people find the right census via a hint but mum will forever remain in her married name. That in turn throws up wrong hints.
I've spent most of the day fumbling through families that keep intermarrying, one of my main surnames and several of my big matches are all intertwined but the interlinked bits are all siblings from the pedigree lines, I'm pretty sure I'm related to everyone in 3 ways though.
Still frustrated with messages not being read. Why is it you can message a mystery DNA match and never hear from them but do a bit of stalking, erm, I mean research on FB and you can see what they had for breakfast, dinner and tea for the last three months!
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It's when people find the right census via a hint but mum will forever remain in her married name. That in turn throws up wrong hints.
I've spent most of the day fumbling through families that keep intermarrying, one of my main surnames and several of my big matches are all intertwined but the interlinked bits are all siblings from the pedigree lines, I'm pretty sure I'm related to everyone in 3 ways though.
Still frustrated with messages not being read. Why is it you can message a mystery DNA match and never hear from them but do a bit of stalking, erm, I mean research on FB and you can see what they had for breakfast, dinner and tea for the last three months!
Hey, don’t knock stalking, that is how I found my Oz Cousins ;-)
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Hi everyone,
Just an update. I have searched all the trees on Ancestry I could find searching my surname in the right area and have come up with no DNA matches. My grandparents are the right couple and I do have DNA matches to my grandmothers side. It looks like I have no DNA matches to my 2x great grandfather but I do with my 2x great grandmother. I went back one more generation and still no DNA matches. I will now follow up all the unknown matches that have West Yorkshire as a common area with me and see what I can find.
I am glad I took your advice and changed focus for my research. How good is retirement. Thanks again.
Heather