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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Essnell on Friday 25 July 25 02:40 BST (UK)
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Hi Roots Chatters,
Our family is searching an unknown pair of grandparents. The grandson has done the DNA with Ancestry.
From that we have found the Grandmother: but no idea who is the grandfather. Birth rec for the child is available and has no father recorded and the child was given the mother's family name.
Now this is in a very distant rural township area of the country and in 1900's.
What has been noticed is that there are marriages that cross the last names together to interlinking the families, particularly on the grandmother's line.
It appears to be similar with the grandfather's line but we are not getting anything that works. Just isolated family groups.
Matches trees are there in some instances but they are only adding to the confusion.
I am about to tackle putting what I know into a genealogy tree program to see if I can find any sort of link.
Any other ideas would be appreciated. I can't name names etc because of privacy and living persons.
Regards and thanks,
Essnell
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Hi,
Yes, in principle, however I am a little confused. You say that you don’t know the grandfather and then go on to say that family names are linked?
You don’t give us any idea of the cM level of any of the matches which would make it easier to help, we don’t need names.
As you say, rural areas can make DNA trees complicated, with matches through multiple lines.
I have matches who are a bigger match than either parent due to both parents being related to me, even if very distantly, at the 5/6 generation level.
It is a slow process. You are correct in that you need to build a tree for as many of the matches as possible and try and work out where they intersect.
As has been mentioned here before labelling each match with a group name / colour which the shared match of the match allows you to build family groups.
Two further suggestions would be, if you build the tree in Ancestry, you will benefit from the relative finding algorithms that they provide. Thrulines etc, they are not always correct, you have to prove the links yourself, but again I have found confirmed 5/6 generation matches this way. And secondly a short subscription to pro tools is probably worth it. It is much easier to put groups together when you understand how the shared matches are related, especially at the 2nd or third cousin level.
Happy hunting.
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Please read post #28 in thread https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=863488.27
This is the method that I use and often suggest to rootschatters.
You can also use The Leeds Method to group your qualifying matches, there is a website explaining it.
https://www.danaleeds.com/the-leeds-method/
Once you get a tree built with the DNA matches incorporated into it then if you upload it to the WATO tool in DNA painter that should give you some help.
Endogamy may well screw results so may affect your results.
To give an example I have a 364cM match whose shared cM level is significantly higher than should be given the relationship we have with each other. Her First Cousins share cM levels with me that she should share. As many other matches exist and all have the expected cM level the only hypothesis that works is that her Father was the product of an endogamous relationship despite all the BMD records showing otherwise. I have reached out to the family many times but despite contacting different family members they have all closed ranks and will not respond.
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Hi David and Biggles 50,
Thank you both for your responses.
Firstly I am working with others who actually hold all the DNA files. I was given an invite several weeks ago and was able to access the DNA and the cM values then. Something has gone amiss with my access and I think it has to do with updating my OS on this and my main computers. They are LINUX ones. I have realized that that also affects the cache and this is why access as been refused by Ancestry. I have contacted them and all they suggest is to completely clear the cache. That is at this point not an option.
Now I have actually spoken to the person holding the DNA and I will soon get a new invite. That will help. In the interim I was considering making several trees around the information I had already made notes about. It would be a good start. On the actual site I had started doing the grouping unfortunately due to the update I can no longer access through the cache which allowed me to access already viewed pages and work off those and see the groupings.
So I am sort of working a bit blind.
This is re finding a set of grandparents - Who, in reality to living people, are the great grandparents. I have found the grandmother it's her partner we need to find if possible.
So person A with parents W father and Z Mother. Mother here is quite well known. Father W's parents are R father and Q mother. Q we have found it's R we are looking for.
In the search most of the searching was concentrated around her Q and her family as many of their last names appeared in the match listings, We think that this part is pretty well sorted. I have made that into a huge pedigree document for us.
What has me/us questioning is the fact that all these other individuals on the DNA match on Ancestry do not appear to be as cohesive as the female side. In that list there are names matching those in the female side.
It was back then 1890 - 1920 a small community . The place names show that . I was also wondering if a place name map might be useful, just to see how small the community was.
Okay, Biggles I am going to try your method in that post, from the provided link.
Once i have access again i will come back with whatever i find.
Thanks for reading and sorry it's a bit rambling,
Essnell
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Esnell,
You are very welcome.
I would not get too bogged down with surnames.
You need to build those trees. I have quite a lot of low cM matches who the tree peters out 5 generations back with a tantalising family name before records begin.
Or another where the match and I share twenty names in our tree, and as Biggles50 says not as close a match as they would appear.
With the crossed names I would say that is not uncommon everywhere, a man marries a woman and the brother of the woman marries the sister of the man.
Finally with your name consistently, you may simply be seeing confirmation bias. All the matches on the females side have the shared name because they are the easy any obvious links and trees to build.
Happy Hunting
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With an unknown Father it can be that his Uncle and his offsprings can lead to the identity of the Father.
Hence build the trees and if all else fails wait until more DNA Matches apear.
There is also the WATO tool on DNA Painter that you could try.
If the line is direct male to male then a 111 yDNA test may provide help. It is a longshot but it worked for me as I have hundreds of matches with every surname that you can think of but only four who bear the family name that I was expecting. It goes to show that you cannot rely on documentation or birth records to display the truth.
Good luck.
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Have you thought about doing a YDNA test with familytreedna? this will show the paternal line. Results will show matches and hopefully there will be a common name occurring that you are familiar with, you can the search for possible men in the locale. People who have already taken a ydna test usually put up a simple tree and you can contact closer matches to see if there is any information the matches can possibly help you with. It isn’t cheap though as the basic tests will have way too many matches if your ydna is one of the more common/later branches. Might be worth exploring the possibility before spending a fortune though.
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To follow on from Biggles last reply, ai had an Ancestry match with someone at 2x great grandfather level…
emailed the tree owner, who was doing this for her husband and it had always been assumed the young lady, a servant, had married her widowed boss but the dna didn’t come up with any matches. When I emailed, I said well she matched with my family and one of the family (a married man) lived next door around the time of conception, luckily close enough to a census year! You do need to check where the mother was living and the expand out to possible neighbours, relatives and others who were maybe living in the same household if she was a servant.
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Jc26red and Biggles50,
Regarding an uncle i still have ti find one that isn't directly related to the Mother, so I am looking for Aunts Uncles and or cousins on the paternal side .
We have considered that the child we are trying to trace may have even been fathered by the man she eventually married but the DNA isn't showing that. Too many odd little groups.
As to the y111 test the one test that has been done was a xmas gift from me. I can't pay for this second test much as I might like to. Unfortunately living with a 60 odd year old set of fabricated family stories, it's going to be hard to accept the truth about ones father and then thence their grandparents. Because of that our research has to be spot-on.
I will keep you posted on our progress.
Thank ever so much for all the suggestions ideas and examples.
Essnell.
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Where there is a person who is/was the child of a casual or undocumented liaison the only proof may well be DNA.
In crime thriller parlance, means, motive and opportunity.
In searching for an unknown Great Great Grandfather, DNA points to a trio of Brothers, one of whom lived in the next village, that is as good as it gets, at least for now.
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Hi Biggles,
Yes I reckon we are looking at something like that and we aren't even as close as you are, yet......
i am still working on all these scraps and i have come across cross marriages and brothers and sisters fron seperate families marrying but they are not part f the issue just in one of the families beign looked into .
I will keep plodding along.
Cheers Essnell. :)
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Hello Everyone,
Essnell back again:.... yes
i have been working on as many of the scraps as i can. now i have an interesting thing that i have noticed last evening.
As i have said i had an invite to the DNA of the person looking for his grandparents or more specifically his father's parents. That got screwed up but i was able to get into some parts yesterday through my cache back near when the invite was sent. , I was able to see some of the results.
Now i am looking at matches to the person who wants to know. What i am seeing is that Ancestry has labeled people as on parent 1 side or parent 2 side. I thought i had that sorted as parent 1 male and parent 2 female but it is not as clear as that.
i really cant tell which side is which. I am seeing the same people on both sides and the relationships provided are way off the mark.
Everyone seems to eventually lead back to the same locality and the same root family.
It is looking to me like just one big family with a division within that because of this undocumented parent.
Could he be part of that family and not someone from outside that?
Does anyone know how Ancestry would deal with such a scenario.
here is an example .....
Person wanting to know has a half brother...same mother
Ancestry comes up with this:
1st Cousin or half Uncle, 14% shared DNA 976cM 37 Segs. That does not make sense to me at all. and there are others just as odd. The half brother was adopted out.
Anyone any ideas here.
Thanks Essnell.
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Endogomy screws up how DNA results are reported.
Can you advise each of the lines that Ancestry reports for the person especially the Unweighted DNA if it reports it?
Working through the Shared Matches may yield clues as might Pro Tools.
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Essnell,
Hi, as Biggles50 says Endogamy makes things complicated.
At first sight, if you are saying that you have two half siblings who share 976 cM, that seems unlikely, if you use the below it is well below the minimum expected for a half sibling.
https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4
Ancestry use the Timber Algorithm to simplify finding close relatives. However, having looked a bit more deeply at it recently, it seems to make the assumption that there is no endogamy in play. Arguably true for recent USA population, but definitely not in your case.
This means that Timber may be artificially under reporting the match. Hence Biggles50’s request for the unweighted match.
Again with the Parent 1 / Parent 2 definition this can be difficult with endogamy in play. I have quite a few groups who seem to morph from Parent 1 to Parent 2, I think the reason being that the USA population in question was quite small early on and ancestors of both parents emigrated to the same area.
The below gives a better understanding of what Ancestry are doing and the numbers.
https://thednageek.com/ancestrydna-is-using-firs-to-distinguish-full-and-half-siblings/
Uploading the Ancestry DNA to one of the other sites, may give you a better understanding, but then you may lose sight of some of the matches.
Happy Hunting
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Hello everyone ..
Biggles50 where do I find the info you asked for? I am feeling a little dumb here.
David Nicoll I have looked at both links the painter one has the match also in another grouping other than half sibling using the 976cM or 14% so it hasn't changed anything as far as I can see.
on the DNA Geek one there is lots of information . FIRS seems to be a very useful piece of science. but if ancestry has this why have they reported this match as other than half sibling. I believe that this is because of the endogamy issue which thy clearly state is not accounted for.
okay i do have protools which is giving me the cross ref between a match pair. I am about to se if there is anything else in protools.
Still floundering......fish out of water.
Regards Essnell
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Hi, every day is a learning day, I found out things myself last night.
Ancestry Unfiltered match data.
In the Web browser, go to the matches page, then click on the predicted match which is hilighted in blue, (a link I have successfully ignored!). The unfiltered match data is shown there.
You may already have found this.
In the Shared CM tool, if you click on the boxes, you get to a more detailed window, showing the bell curve of the probability of a relationship given a cM value.
The value you give is outside the 99 percentile, but does not mean it is impossible, it may be the original sample size does not capture a real relationship, with 1266 sibling data points, I would need to brush off my school statistics to work that one out!
With Pro Tools you have to be patient, I am going through this process myself, albeit with more distant relatives.
You need to build a DNA tree.
Take the first match, assign it a colour, and a name, this may change as you go through the process. Group 1 will do for this, then add all the shared matches of this person to this group.
If there are close shared matches, look at these and see if you can find the senior person, parent grandparent etc. add this name to the Group name, for clarity.
Then look round for people with trees, the best ones may be children, grand children or cousins, the most interested!
Repeat for the next of your matches unless they are part of the close family of your first group member.
Second and Third cousin matches can be useful for pushing the family back in time especially with big trees.
I have taken to labelling the people with big trees in the Notes, also the parent names of the tester where shown, or worked out.
It saves continuously diving back into their trees.
Reminder it can be a slow process.
And with what you are describing you probably have a tree that looks more like a net with the interconnections!
As you look through, you will work out what is clearest for you.
Happy Hunting
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Alas there is no quick fire easy method of learning about DNA, only the hard slog method.
In post #2 I gave a link to the thread where I explain about Grouping. This and the method explained by David are basically a variation on the Leeds Method which is well documented.
In DNA there is the Chromosome Browser which produces the Group Chart which may or may not be useful. Unfortunately Ancestry’s ProTools still has a long way to go to be able to be worth its subscription for anything other than short term use. If only Ancestry could incorporate the Gedmatch tools then our research would be so much improved.
It may be that you will continue to have unanswered theories, DNA in practice is not at all like the vast majority of the tutorials that we may watch. For us our issues tend to be restricted to the single Ancestry site and cannot be fully resolved.
I know that you have read many of my posts but for others who may find it useful I shall explain again:-
I have a 364cM match on Ancestry, her Son and Daughter have also tested and they fail to respond to messages and their DNA is not on My Heritage, ftDNA or Gedmatch.
A Great Great Niece is on ftDNA and shares 96cM with me, her DNA is not on any other websites and I am in contact with her but she has no actual contact with my 364cM match or her children.
I’ll call the above four people “Family X”.
On My Heritage are two Half Sisters who share 130cM and 90cM with me, their DNA is not on any other site. The two Half Sisters are full First Cousins to my 364cM match and knew of her but have no contact details and I have talked to both of them on the telephone.
Also on Ancestry there are well over 100 DNA matches that I have who all link in to an Irish family, I now have about 20 of them in a Family Tree.
Pro Tools came in useful as I could see how much DNA each of these 20 also share with my 364cM match and this helped to validate their actual relationship with my 364cM match.
Now I have this “Irish” family tree, but where do I fit into it?
If I temporarily discount the Family X group then using the DNA cM of the other 20 DNA matches that I have in the Irish family tree then it looks like my Great Grandfather was not who I thought him to be.
On My Heritage and their Chromosome mapping, the Grouping feature offered zero new clues and the triangulation was inconclusive with no triangulation between me and both of the half Sisters.
The only scenario that works is that my Grandfather was the illegitimate Son of a specific identified person in the “Irish” family tree.
Now the problem being that each of the Family X group share more cM with me than they should.
The two Half Sisters each share levels of DNA with me that are in the expected range as are the 20 Ancestry DNA matches who are also in the Irish family tree.
DNA matches both shared or not who link to specific family lines can also help in tree building. The man who was probably my Great Grandfather is the MCRA to a number of known DNA matches who are also now in my Irish family tree. There are also people who are also my DNA matches who are in the Irish family tree but link to a MRCA beyond my Great Grandfather who was called John his Wife was called Kate, now for the but, I currently have no DNA matches that link to a MRCA beyond Kate. So there is a dilemma, did John play away from home or is it just that I have not yet linked a DNA match to Kate’s family?
So I am left suspecting that Edgogamy occurred within the Family X group but I do not have access to the DNA tools to research further as the DNA of those affected are not on Gedmatch.
The wait continues.
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BTW
The “wait” being my standard “DNA can be a waiting game”.
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I guess endogamy that exists within certain communities and that includes Ireland e.g. west Mayo and multiple relationships e.g. parents being cousins or suchlike are different in nature but manifest themselves similarly. In any case, both %^&*er up conventional cM analysis
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Hi Everyone, Well i got the weighted shared DNA info thankyou david.
thus: for person's half brother: Shared DNA: 976 cM across 37 segs.
Unweighted Shared DNA: 976 cM
Longest Segment 77 cM
Pedicted Relationship: First Cousin or Half Uncle.
For Persons Full Niece, Sister's Daughter: Shared DNA: 1867 cM across 42 segments
Unweighted Shared DNA : 1867 cM
Longest Ssegment: 119 cM.
since last here I have separated the match list for the niece into parent 1 and parent 2 according to Ancestry.
this was interesting: Many more for Parent 2 than Parent 1. Parent 2 people I have already tracked and they predominantly lead to the grandmother's family. Where the missing father is concerned most do not have a tree online.
Parent 1 group are looking more like the group belonging to "person wanting to know" their mother. So I have two female lines befuddled by the looks of things.
That is as far as I have managed and laptop is in need of charging. be back in a while.
Essnell
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Hi up and running again.....
Is it possible that this is being caused because there is nothing on any thing about either the father or the grandfather. Not anything on any tree that I have seen.
I am not a DNA expert but my common sense tells me that there has to be DNA in someone's kit test that is being ignored.
It has to be in the DNA for the 'person wanting to know ' . It should also be in the Niece's DNA , one would think.
That same DNA will not be in the half brother's test. I wonder how Ancestry is dealing with this.
I also know that there are three half siblings to the grandfather provided I have got my searching correct.
Cheers Essnell. off to do more thinking...... :-\
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Esnell,
Hi, I think you are thinking along the right lines.
Am I correct in understanding you have the following
A, B - Sibling
C - Half Sibling
D - Child of B.
What are the relative ages of A,B,C? Is C the eldest, if so the DNA may be correct?
I would be looking at the shared DNA between C and D, what is that predicted relationship?
Ignore the known relationship and go with the DNA for the moment, confirming relationships between shared matches of A, B, C and D individually.
I have not used it myself, but many others have, the WATO tool on the DNA Painter web site may help here.
Happy Hunting
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hi David Nicoll,
Thank you for your reply. yes A is the one wanting to know.
B is his full sister... same parents both sides
C is half sibling to both A & B same mother different father.
D is dau of B so niece of A.
ages approx as i really do not know the exact dates. A early 60-65
B mid 60-65
C late 60 - close or in 70.
B 25-30
The relationship between C & D is stated as: Half 1st Cousin 1 x Removed or 1st Cousin 2 x Removed.
I mentioned this fact earlier :
A & B ' s father Q who was born in 1922 has 5 half siblings, all born between 1935 and 1950 . Their mother did not marry until 1935 , 14 years later.
I am not able to find any information about these people except names. All family trees are private.
So now to get these shared matches and examine those.
Cheers Essnell.
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The light may be dawning!
So to clarify,
A to C 976 cM
A to D 1867 cM
C to D around 200 cM
It’s a bit early in the morning, but I think that would be what you would get if A and C are in fact cousins, not half siblings.
Does this make any sense?
If C has matches to A’s fathers side then that will make life a bit more complicated.
As you say shared matches.
Happy Hunting
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Hi David Nicoll, I have just got a partial comparison of those Shared DNA.
A to C 14% 976 cM 37 segs
A to D 27% 1867cM 42 segs
C to D 309 cM 16 segs Longest 52 cM
B has not tested she may need to.
C to A Nothing on the match page re A
C to D similar to A.
So C appears to have no DNA to either A or D.
Now I have just read your post as well. : According to what I have been told emphatically is that A's mother had a child before she married A & B's father. That child was adopted out by her. Her family have always known but A was never told. He only found this out last year.
We have been looking for A's father for about 5 years with no success. This half brother visited our place last Christmas. That is all I know. But if this is the true DNA story that screws everything for a lot of people.
That does not change anything about looking for his father. Might be another search looking for who C's father was and his mother.
So C looks likely to be not a close relative.
Been thinking : drew a map What if the adopted out child married and had a son .... that being C which makes him a Half First Cousin. ... which is what is coming up on Ancestry. !!!!!
so one problem looking solved but another on the horizon but for much later.
Still hunting for A's grandfather.
Cheers Essnell.
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OK, you have made great progress so far.
I would build separate family trees for the shared matches who appear to be the most useful i.e. have user names that can ID them and useful linked family trees, working back to each GG GP if you can.
I’d work on one match at a time, ignoring the others until I had between 4 & 6 family trees.
I would then look are the surname makeup of theses trees and using Pro Tools look at the cM shared between the people in the trees.
Where the trees have a link I would join them together in Roots Magic to form a new combined tree and export the tree back into Ancestry.
Make a note of the cM value of each of the DNA matches in the tree and then export said tree as a Gedcom file. Import the Gedcom into DNA Painters WATO tool and enter the cM value of each of the DNA matches against them in the WATO tool, complete the presented question and let it start the analysis.
You will be presented with a list of weighted probabilities of the answer to the question.
Yes, endogamy can and no doubt will skew the results but it has to be worth a try.
As often written DNA can be a waiting game and Summer is a very quiet time for finding new DNA matches for me the last two weeks have only gained a handful of new matches, come the New Year they will no doubt ramp up again. So do not get disheartened if no resolution is found simply wait a while and look again.
Given the cross fertilisation that seems to have happened a possible scenario is that there will be multiple families from where the unknown parent is. If you can then identify a person who is a descendant of that unknown then approaching them and offering a DNA test could reveal what you seek or it can help in pointing towards another family where this process can continue until there is a resolution.
This is how I found my Half Sister and ID’d my Biological Father.
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Esnell,
Sorry you have me confused.
C to A Nothing on the match page re A - that should be impossible A>C must mean C>A. It is shared DNA after all.
C to D similar to A. Do you mean D to C? As above? You previously stated A cM value for C to D.
Does C have any matches?
Unless I am going daft, entirely possible, Ancestry’s algorithm is not working or there is a testing issue.
Happy Hunting
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Hi, I've been following this thread with interest as I have a similar puzzle in my dna matches, albeit further back.
It seems to me the simplest solution is the correct one, as David said above, A and C are 1st cousins and not half-brothers, everything (dna wise) then fits.
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Hi David Nicoll. Sorry about confusing everyone even myself.
Yes, I was struggling as to how to put those shared DNA results.
so first I used A's match list and that's for A to C and A to D
and then with pro-tools C to D which gave the 309cM over 16 cM
Then I changed it to make C the person with a match list and looked at that list
It did not show A or D. in his list. This was confusing too. That was what I meant in the last two items.
Now I also have a huge task set by Biggles which I will tackle tomorrow But I have more :
I thought i might see what i could fond about A's mother via Ancestry.
Again it's a hind sight endeavour and again I am on the outside looking in and have been told that "it has all been done ,There is no need to do it again' Well! Done by other's than me and I should know better than to accept that.
So I began on A's mother. It has altered quite a few things , all which need seriously checking . But I do probably have the unknown father of C. I also need to check through all the matches as I need to find that surname which I am sure I saw. It's added two more male children and lost the Sister. :o
Question for anybody : Dose anyone know how and where to find divorce records. C 1961. South Australia Area.
Hi Steve3180, Thank you for your reply. Yes I am pretty certain that the issue of the half brother has resolved. And as above I think I know his father but I need to check that out first. I hope you sort yours out too.
Thank you everyone I will check tomorrow as it's late here, Aussie Land.
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Essnell,
That’s kind of what I meant. Which should be impossible, but you mention pro-tools for C to D only, don’t you have pro tools for them all?
If not worth investing for a month on all the accounts.
I have had some funny results which make me wonder if there is a subtle bug in Ancestry’s matching algorithm.
Happy Hunting
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QUOTE
Thank you for your reply. yes A is the one wanting to know.
B is his full sister... same parents both sides
C is half sibling to both A & B same mother different father.
D is dau of B so niece of A.
ages approx as i really do not know the exact dates. A early 60-65
B mid 60-65
C late 60 - close or in 70.
B 25-30
The relationship between C & D is stated as: Half 1st Cousin 1 x Removed or 1st Cousin 2 x Removed.
Hi David Nicoll, I have just got a partial comparison of those Shared DNA.
A to C 14% 976 cM 37 segs
A to D 27% 1867cM 42 segs
C to D 309 cM 16 segs Longest 52 cM
B has not tested she may need to.
C to A Nothing on the match page re A
C to D similar to A.
So C appears to have no DNA to either A or D.
Now I have just read your post as well. : According to what I have been told emphatically is that A's mother had a child before she married A & B's father. That child was adopted out by her. Her family have always known but A was never told. He only found this out last year.
We have been looking for A's father for about 5 years with no success. This half brother visited our place last Christmas. That is all I know. But if this is the true DNA story that screws everything for a lot of people.
That does not change anything about looking for his father. Might be another search looking for who C's father was and his mother.
So C looks likely to be not a close relative.
Been thinking : drew a map What if the adopted out child married and had a son .... that being C which makes him a Half First Cousin. ... which is what is coming up on Ancestry. !!!!!
so one problem looking solved but another on the horizon but for much later.
Still hunting for A's grandfather.
Cheers Essnell.
C is not a half sibling at 976cM it is simply not likely to be a half Sibling relationship, my Half Nephew who tested shares 933cM with me.
My Half Sister who also has tested, shares 1817cM with me, two Half Sisters in my tree who I have spoken to on the phone share nearly 2000cM with each other.
DNA Painter has the mean of a half sibling DNA range as 1759cM.
Using the DNA Sci relationship tool which takes into account the number of segments, does not report any possibility of a Half Sibling relationship.
Suggest you revisit your relationship theories
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Hi Biggles50 and David Nicoll and anyone else following this thread.
As above, accepting the DNA evidence that C is not a Half Brother but a Half first Cousin to A means that I am still looking for the elusive half brother that A's mother is said to have adopted out.
Now I found one related match that has information that might just sort this out. It's in the Ancestry account tree etc that they have. However that information is also confusing. i am not sure yet just how much is accurate but it's the first and so far only place where anything on this section has been included.
I appears to be naming the person to whom A's mother had this adopted out child. If this part is accurate then this whole bit about a half Brother gets confirmed.
So I am about to go look at all of that .
What Biggles has suggested I should do should show up this from a different point relying on DNA.
Still Hunting
Essnell
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Essnell,
Hi, no I was suggesting C as a full cousin, of A, common grandparents.
976 cM is right in the middle of the curve for that relationship.
You really need to plot the cM relationships for everyone.
David
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Hi David, I have had to do some thinking.....
I cannot find any common grandparents for A and C. as I said before I had two things to lookup, one being A's mother. She has been document on the pages for one of A's matches. The other was the name contained in those pages in any of the match lists. .....none.
However the first is really quite amazing what is there but I have looked pretty closely and I just cannot put two and two together. It makes no sense.
But this is what is reliable. Her first marriage which I already had. then the birth of the first child to that relationship which I already had. This child married and has since passed away. which we knew.
Then the divorce reference for the Australian state where that occurred which I knew about but not the record..
It names a reference party. who is referred to as "husband' where his death is documented. Now this is where it comes unstuck; and is causing me to question .
It has a son recorded not named as this person's child but born in 1961 with the mother's now divorced married name.
there are also electoral roll images for where she was living and I have checked those and what are there are accurate but there is no mention of her last and current husband. He is also on some of those electoral rolls at the same address as A's mother. there is no electoral roll image showing the reference person.
Marriage Certificate dated 1953 in a different state is not recorded . so I am totally lost ...
How can a child be born 1961 mother divorced 1952 and married again 1953 but child's father is someone else. ???
I could almost cry with frustration.
This is not what we set out to find. A's fathers parents.
I need to backtrack on this to find him.
Essnell
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Essnell,
Hi, it sounds complicated. Don’t
Just a couple of clarifications.
Have I misunderstood, do you just have access to A’s Ancestry matches?
Did A’s mother have any siblings?
Did either of A’s mother’s husbands have siblings?
Can you clarify what you mean by reference party, it is not a term I have come across. Is this an alternative for co-respondent?
I think you need to forget names for the moment and look at the DNA alone.
Where are the next further back matches, do you have any second third and fourth cousins in the matches?
Try to build some trees around them
Paper records can be complex, especially, if there are complex family relationships.
There are other DNA relationships I can think of but that does then get complicated. I would focus on slightly more distant relatives first.
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In this situation you cannot rely on documentary evidence alone.
DNA does not lie but it can hide true relationships!
Alarm bells should sound when “remote rural communities” come into play and these can lead to DNA matches whose cM values are skewed. The end result is that sites like Ancestry, DNA Painter el al predict a relationship that is incorrect.
Alas in this case there is no easy solution but to “work the problem”, develop and test likely relationships and do keep options open.
Do use the techniques that have been suggested, it is the only way that is likely to be effective.
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Hi okay for David:-
1. yes it is complicated - much more than I ever expected.
2. yes at the moment I only have access to A's Ancestry matches but as I have pro tools I am getting those against the matches.
I did have an invite to A's Ancestry DNA results but that has got screwed up an is useless waiting on getting a new invit sent by my dau.
3. A's mother has a dozen siblings
A's mother's husbands:- 1. I do not know...I can try to find out
2. I have no idea as we know nothing concrete about him... he's the object of all this.
But, I believe I know who his mother was and i have researched all that family all the sisters and their husbands and their children.
4. Reference party. I believe today he would be co-respondent ? However I am not sure that's the full story there.
so: I can find about 4 or 5 more likely cousins in the 2nd to 4th range and get their backgrounds. I will take those off what matches I have access to. I think the best list to be from the niece's listing.
thanks Biggles I hear you.
Give me 24 hrs to see what I find. :)
Essnell.
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Hi,
Unfortunately I am not making much progress with matches and their relatives, And I am not sure how to work in the cM values to assist. still pondering all of that.
I did however dig through the family of the person I believe is the original quarry's mother from what I am able to put together she had a child in 1922 who was passed apparently to a family member to rear. Years later she married and had children 1 female and 4 males. This family and some descendants are impossible to follow as there is little info that assists. Every person connected to this group has made everything private. Even off the match lists and some are appearing in A's match lists. I have been able to work back into the past relationships of the man she married in the hope that someone might just acknowledge the fact that this happened. No luck so far.
I would think that those matches in A's match list come via the common parent - their mother.
Regarding C : looked at what there is on his match page for a family line, and that was surprising as I expected to find one of A's Mother's sisters. No!! and left it for the time being.
okay coffee time and more thinking.
Essnell.
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I have built over 100 family trees trying to find who a Great Great Grandfather was.
5 years later there is one potential, but that is all, only reference is that he was in a nearby village in a census. Hardly supporting evidence.
Many of the others could not be linked to the family in question as the cM value did not equate.
Maybe it is soon time to park it until about March next year when the boom in DNA test results tends to occur every year.
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Hi again everyone
As Biggles50 has said park it till ????? That is a possiblity but .... I see no way anything more will come up than there already is . The family has closed ranks and tree after tree has exactly the same information, even 2nd -4th and 5th cousin levels reiterate . I won't stop looking . There has to be something.
Thanks everyone,
Essnell :(
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Hi,
It sounds like you have a few matches to go through, so I would suggest some patient tree building. Ignore other people’s research, use the DNA information and see if you can make sense of the information.
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thanks David , yes quite a lot about 650 if I check each one. I pondered over night how to document all of that and decided it is best held in a family tree program which I have so a tree for each or a branch tree and merge as I go. I also considered including what I ready know re A's father and see what transpires.
I will keep you posted to progress.
Essnell.
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Hi Everyone,
Over the last few days I have been endeavouring to work out the connections between some of the matches that I am accessing via the Niece's list. It is quite interesting. There are two sides which are making me question why they are so.
Ancestry is dividing the matches into parent 1 and parent 2. in relation to A. what I am seeing is this.
parent 1 this is all A's mother's line .... they all go back at some point to the family from South Australia.
Parent 2 this is all A's father's mother's line. All go back to Swan Hilll, Victoria
There is a division in that to her family by her documented husband.
I know that A's father is connected to this family as they are all appearing on the DNA match lists.
Within this part there is no connection to any outside family section. From other points I have picked up connections to that group at a different generational level.
What I am trying to understand is how Ancestry is able to divide the matches up in this way -- with no male side.
Does it mean that A's grandfather was a member of part of this family, close or distant? Not an unrelated individual.
If anyone has any thoughts on this I would appreciate hearing them .
Regards and thanks ,
Essnell.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVndHlIg9-Y
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Hi Biggles50,
Thank you for the link. It was really interesting. Unfortunately the presenter was a bit too quick for me. I am deaf on both sides, implant on one and aid on the other, but he was still too fast. So I will have to watch several times to follow his reasoning.
He seems to think that Ancestry is mostly accurate - unless I missed something important.
One thing though I still do not have a male line to follow.
I have two ideas :- one that the father was the the man she eventually married 15 yrs later or the other- someone from within the connected female side.
Even though this is a small town ship there were people moving between the various outer areas into and out of the township. A lot of them had drifted from the not too distant gold fields of Ballarat and Bendigo into the wheat farming area to the west.
I am in the process of obtaining some official Certificates as well as using indexes. Certs do have more information.
In the interim I have been expanding information on anyone connected to anyone so the basic family has grown considerably.
Thanks again. Essnell.
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About 4 weeks ago I started to try to group S-I-L’s match list which was not making much sense. As I said, Ancestry has divided the list into parent 1 and parent 2.
I have been puzzelling over this division as Parent 1 appeared to be all on his mother’s line while Parent 2 looked to be connected to S-I-L’s grandmother’s connections. That didn’t make a lot of sense.
I tried listing out all of those on A3 sheets - bigger page more info-
I had that page lying on the desk and I happened to see that some of those names were in the big tree I had for the relatives of this person seeming to be the grandmother.
After colouring those out, I could see others .
1. grandmother’s second marriage children
These would all be half relatives or should be - so they do not affect who S-I-L’s grandfather was.
2. grandmother’s brother’s and sister’s family members
3. a group with Kelly and O’Connell, O’Donnell
4. a group with Moore with 5 members
Looking at match lists for just two there is a group of 10, the same for both .
I think that the person of interest would be connected to group 3 and 4.
I have quite a bit of research on the Moore side so a doc similar to the Smith side may help.
Thanks for reading again
Essnell
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It sounds like you are making good progress.
It can happen like that though, suddenly you see the pattern and things begin to make sense.
Sometime because of someone with little or not tree, but because of where they sit in the mesh of matches.
Happy Hunting
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Hi... It's been a few days since I had any news.....
So first I have been able to break up this parent two match list into several parts. They all relate to the male side which includes the gr. mother's family and her second marriage family.
It still does not point to whom we are looking for.
There is one group I am concentrating on which after running the cluster tool on ancestry ....yes it finally worked. This group form one cluster 7x7 individuals.
currently mapping those to see how and who matches to whom within the group and how often. Then who has the least matches and who the most and to whom.
I have also found a contact in the area from whence these people came and the outcome is that we both are looking at this same group . This is where our quarry comes from. and one line possibly in particular. Slow progress but it is getting some sort of indication of where we need to keep digging.
hunting well ...... Cheers Essnell
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Good progress, keep it going, quiet applause from this corner.