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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Josephine on Wednesday 10 December 25 16:29 GMT (UK)
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I've been busy going through my various DNA matches and assigning a group label and a note to every one that I've checked, so I don't waste time doing it again.
One of my group labels is "Unknown" and it probably won't surprise many of you when I say that, out of a total of 33 group labels, "Unknown" has been assigned to the highest number of DNA matches. I've got 426 "Unknown"s so far, and 108 "To Do"s. My highest known group is at 137 matches, and my five smallest groups contain just one match each.
I've had to make peace with the fact that I will never be able to figure out some of these unknown matches. It's a process, of course, and I keep having to remind myself that I won't be able to solve all the mysteries. But sometimes it feels like an itch I can't scratch.
How many of you have also had to make peace with the unknown and, possibly, the unknowable? The promise of truth is so tantalizing, and the knowledge that it's just out of reach can feel so frustrating.
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Never surrender!
But on a more serious note, yes we have to accept that we are all going to have matches we can’t explain. Whether by not enough people testing, private trees or NPE’s.
What I would however say is you do need to revisit match clusters, I have had more than a few mystery clusters that suddenly become clear because of one more match in a cluster or because someone has decided to make there tree public, or even just adding another couple of generations to their tree.
So it’s definitely always worth revisiting periodically.
Happy Hunting
David
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Good points, David.
I should include the date in the notes that I'm creating for my DNA matches.
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I'm starting to add date info to my notes as it's surprising how often an existing match comes up in shared matches but I overlook them or fail to add new information. If the note section on the match list is too small then I add and link them to my tree on a floating branch and use the notes section on their tree profile page with 'last update' noted on the tree and match list.
In terms of names in my tree I'm using tags far more frequently, particularly custom tags, I'm not sure what the maximum number is but wonder if there's enough available to tag them to align with the dna group names so they can be searched in tree view more easily?
NPE's are right at the base of my tree so my matches are never going to be big, yesterday my 4th highest match of all dropped @366cM, they are my closest living relative save for half siblings. I'm resigned to the fact that age gaps and deceased unknown cousins will probably mean I can only ever say brother x, y or z from a particular family is my grandfather.
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When you have a DNA Match with a User Name “kgeng45” and no Family Tree there is not a lot you can do other than look at the Shared Matches too see if their is any divine intervention likely to happen.
K Geng b1945 reports Zero records in Ancestry.
I have gone through all my DNA matches where the shared DNA is 20cM and greater.
To those who I can ID they have been placed in one of four Groups (One for each Grandparent) where the shared matches would indicate which one to select.
Those that I have worked but have not resolved are placed in the “ :o Mystery Group”, others who have potential are added to the “WIP” Group.
Those that have found a place in my tree are given a * and assigned to one of eight Groups which are for each GGP. So my half Sister has a * and a 1, 2, 3, 4 Group label as we share 4 Great Grandparents. In the Note section I add the names of the MRCA and if the DNA Match has used her married surname I also include her Birth Surname.
Those without any Group label are well, assigned to the “one day, maybe, but don’t hold your breath” category.
I have 16 assigned WIP and 3 assigned to “ :o Mystery” as these do seem to have an NPE in their tree that they have not yet realised they have.
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Those are all good methods, Glen & Biggles50. I'm going to think about possibly incorporating some of them.
I like the idea of using more tags with my tree and coordinating those with my DNA matches. I use Reunion for the Mac and I've only recently starting using the tags, "DNA Match" and "DNA Match with Descendant." They're really helpful.
I hadn't thought of using numbers as group labels! Numbers might be better than letters, because I have duplicate first letters that are only differentiated by colours, which I can never remember. Then again, I'd have to keep a list somewhere to remind me of what the numbers stand for. It sounds like I have my matches split up into a more groups but it's out of necessity because I have so many mysteries.
It would be helpful if we could see more than the first number or letter of a group label while scrolling through the list of DNA matches.
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Another tip I saw which I've found useful is to add the shared cM amount in the suffix box, as someone who dips into WATO from time to time it saves me diving into my match list or tree to look for the figures all the time.
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That's a great idea, Glen!
I use the suffix box (for the "Junior"s) but I'm sure there's some other spot where I can plug in the cMs.
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Are you investigating the trees of your matches? Or are you mostly grouping?
If the group has a good amount of matches, it's often not difficult to find common ancestors among the matches. I open up dead-end ancestors of people in each tree and press the [Search] button for them. Typically they occur in another tree with more ancestors. Otherwise you can look them up in records. So the unknown ones I will label based on the common ancestors in the trees, such as:
Jones of Llanbrynmair
Dodd-Carter of Suffolk
With all the groups I don't know what the link is, I then put them into groups, where I think they probably have a connection, like so:
(https://i.ibb.co/2071JwW7/Screenshot-from-2025-12-16-12-21-50.png)
When you have groups of matches when the largest match is not greater than about 32cM (not sure of the exact threshold, might be higher), those tend to be more distant with common ancestors more in the window 1700-1730. That takes you back to about 6X GGPs, of which you have 128. So you'd need to have a pretty good idea of who those 128 are to make sense of your DNA matches, and I don't think many of us have close to that.
So, I've not been able to determine a relationship between most of my small clusters, which is in part due to remaining NPE gaps; otherwise due to inadequate records.
A key aspect is how far back shared ancestors in a cluster are. In my experience they always range from MRCAs in the window 1800-1660; typically more towards the former. If a cluster has matches that go back further on a line, then you can see there are no NPEs on that line.
You can have other clusters where you can only find MRCAs going back to 1800, and not know how they connect to you. So the common ancestor with you may be three or even four generations earlier. So when you don't know all your 6X GGPs and you then have to have a reliable tree for the 1700s of multiple lines of ancestry - most of which are not shared, it becomes cumbersome. If you are lucky there is an obvious surname link, but that occurs in the minority of cases.
As an example, see the char above where I have clusters for York and Ward-Wright. I found marriages between Yorks and Wards; and Wrights. However, since I don't know where in my tree that fits in, it's just a mystery.
There's also the possibility NPEs mean that actual paper trial in the cluster are false. There are so many variable that make DNA a delicate art. One ancestor was married in India and listed as being from an orphanage. Her surname was Nash and I've found nothing from DNA that connects to that surname. So I lean to that not being her birth surname. I've got a few clusters I know fit onto her general line, but I don't know which, if any, relate to her. One has MRCAs from about 1770. With no further generations. For all I know one of them was actually an NPE deposit from an unknown ancestor.
When I first began, with no knowledge, I clustered too fervently and made clusters that don't actually exist. This is done by clustering when there are not enough common matches. I tend to only put someone in a cluster if they share at least three matches in a cluster. If you add everyone who just matches one, you will end up with giant clusters with no common thread.
Another mistake I made is thinking that if I could not find DNA matches on a line, then it's probably due to an NPE. I felt pretty certain that two of my lines were NPEs. However, after more time and knowledge, I found that matches were just hidden away. Specifically almost all of the matches on one line also matched another line independently. Then the other cluster is just small and very diffuse; while still having matches with MRCAs back to c 1720.
So there's a very large amount of time and moderate knowledge that allows you to make the most of the matches. I was going through some matches a few days ago when after a lot of digging I found MRCAs from c 1715, some of which were from matches I'd written off. So there is always the possibility of finding more, but mostly I don't know how I am related to these people.
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That's a great idea, Glen!
I use the suffix box (for the "Junior"s) but I'm sure there's some other spot where I can plug in the cMs.
For WATO+ purposes Jonny Perl hs just added the option to have WATO search for cM figure entered in the name field, from his fb post
'Hi all. I just added a feature that I had definitely talked about adding years ago but which had somehow fallen through the net:
When importing a GEDCOM in WATO plus, you can now specify that you'd like to look for shared cMs in the name field (e.g. some people put them in the suffix field)
If you select this option, if WATO finds cMs, it will import the person as a match with this number of cMs shared and will strip the cMs part out of the name
So for example John Smith 23cM would be imported as a match called John Smith sharing 23cMs.
If this feature is useful I can add it to the old WATO as well. As an aside, a longstanding feature in the Coverage tool is that if it finds cMs like this, it will mark the person as tested when you import.'
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I have an unknown Great Great Grandfather in the Family Tree of my “Adopted Cousins” (they are biological Cousins to each other, and I am the adopted one into the family).
I manage the DNA of one of them and for many years and many trees I still have not found out who the guy is?
I am definitely Not At Peace, nor will I ever be, every week I look through James’s new DNA matches to see if there are any likely candidates.
The hunt continues.
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Those are all excellent points, 4b2.
Yes, I do follow the tactics you mentioned.
I have some match groups that probably have an MRCA from the early 1800s and others that are probably from the mid- to late-1700s and no one seems to have managed to build full enough trees to reveal the identities of those MRCAs. In most, or all, of those cases, the records needed to build such trees either aren't online or they don't exist at all anymore (if they existed in the first place).
I'll look at a DNA match and sort our shared matches by his/her highest to lowest matches. If my person of interest has a tree, I'll look at it. If his/her shared matches have trees, I'll look at those. (I'll also look at their highest shared matches and their trees.) I'll create custom clusters in case they might reveal anything. Etcetera, etcetera, until I either find something useful or give up. In the process, however, I've assigned them to a group with an appropriate label and added notations for future reference, just in case.
Once in a while, it pays off, but it's often a huge time-waster that makes me question why I'm doing this in the first place. :-\
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For WATO+ purposes Jonny Perl hs just added the option to have WATO search for cM figure entered in the name field, from his fb post
'Hi all. I just added a feature that I had definitely talked about adding years ago but which had somehow fallen through the net:
When importing a GEDCOM in WATO plus, you can now specify that you'd like to look for shared cMs in the name field (e.g. some people put them in the suffix field)
If you select this option, if WATO finds cMs, it will import the person as a match with this number of cMs shared and will strip the cMs part out of the name
So for example John Smith 23cM would be imported as a match called John Smith sharing 23cMs.
If this feature is useful I can add it to the old WATO as well. As an aside, a longstanding feature in the Coverage tool is that if it finds cMs like this, it will mark the person as tested when you import.'
'
Interesting; thanks.
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I wish you success, Biggles50.
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I've just sent a message to someone trying to establish which side of their tree we match through, I suspect the match has an NPE ancestor though whether they know or not is hard to tell. They are active if last login details are anything to go by but don't have a tree (their inactive child does but it doesn't remotely align with bmd records).
Truth be told my tree doesn't align with bmd either thanks to NPE ancestors though it's difficult to display on a tree without the DNA results visible to back things up, all I can hope for is the match is open to mutually sharing results and accepts they have a wayward ancestor back in time.
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Once in a while, it pays off, but it's often a huge time-waster that makes me question why I'm doing this in the first place. :-\
I'm hoping some may bear fruit later.
Charting them out like this give a bit more perspective. But then it's a lot of leg-work trying to figure out where they may intersect.
(https://i.ibb.co/Fb8vk63y/54.png)
On my paternal line (NPE with great-grandfather), I have spent a lot of time deducing the probabilities based on shared matches and cM. I have a two main clusters on this line.
In the first cluster I've found three sets on MRCAs in the matches, and an obvious marriage between two of them. Since there is no marriage between to the other cluster I've assumed it's an NPE. All of those clusters have common matches showing the line back to c. 1725, so I can know they are solid. So my assumption is another illegitimate union between a specific man and a woman who died around 22. Best guess. All of the closer matches in this cluster also clearly have an NPE. So while we share a common ancestor, born c. 1820, I don't know who it is.
In the other cluster. It's very tricky, as all of the matches have three grandparents with the surname Jones, in Wales. Of the closest matches in that cluster, they also relate to many of the more distant ones on another line. So I need to spend a lot more time in looking into this. But the person of interest seems to be a John Jones, b.c. 1849. I need to order his marriage certificate to find out the father is, but I think it's an NPE. It's very difficult to know where that line goes back to. But the intersection and MRCAs suggest that there is an NPE with another cluster (also Jones). So I have put together a provisional tree of what I think it probably is, based on this. It's not going to be possible to know more without closer matches, either autosomal or Y.
When I got my Y test back it showed that my paternal surname was, at some point, Proctor. So this being in Wales, there were only two families named Proctor. One was 11 miles away and can probably be ruled out, as I am related to another family that married into them a generation back, so there would probably be a cluster.
The other Proctor family happened to live in the village my great-grandfather was abandoned in in 1882, where they were lords of the manor. That family had a coat of arms, which happens to be shared with my Proctor Y-DNA relatives. There's also a branch of my Y-DNA matches that breaks off c. 1100 AD where the surname is Tatham, a manor in Lancashire, where they have virtually the same coat of arms.
However, there are no trees on Ancestry with any descent from that family going back generations, as far as I can tell. So there are likely no or few tests to compare against. But that would explain why that DNA cluster appears to be blank before c. 1850.
My paternal grandmother's NPE was solved earlier this year after a closer relative was tested. So I am hoping for the same one day with this...
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When you have a DNA Match with a User Name “kgeng45” and no Family Tree there is not a lot you can do other than look at the Shared Matches too see if their is any divine intervention likely to happen.
K Geng b1945 reports Zero records in Ancestry.
I have had success in resolving a few odd usernames for DNA matches, via internet searches for the same name.
In one case an Ancestry match used the same username for a pinterest account, and information that I found there allowed me to also discover her Facebook account and piece together her name and location. I discovered that she was a 3rd cousin.
In your case, there is a "kgeng45" who is an active member of the Pearl Jam Community forum since 2018. His image suggests that he is a lot younger than someone born in 1945, so the "handle" is probably not connected to his year of birth. Not a lot to be gleaned there unfortunately, other than that he is probably located in the USA, but there was also a user "@kgeng45" on Twitter, who could well be the same person. His name is shown as Kyle Gendreau. The Twitter account was active in 2015 but appears to no longer exist.
There is a Kyle Gendreau from USA who is a company director of Samsonite - the luggage manufacturer. He was previously a director of Tumi(UK) Ltd, and the Companies House record indicates that he was born in May 1969. Several previous officers for Tumi(UK) appear to have had connections to Samsonite.
Kyle Francis Gendreau is currently the CEO of Samsonite. There is more information under his profile on the following link:
https://corporate.samsonite.com/en/senior-management.html
There are 6 Kyle Gendreau profiles on LinkedIn. From photos linked to the "kgeng45" accounts mentioned above, it looks like the Samsonite CEO may not be the best match, and "Kyle G." on LinkedIn, from New York and linked to Epsilon Technologies Group could be a better fit.
There may be more to find, the above is just a result of 5 minutes searching on my part.
There are 2 Kyle Gendreaus on Ancestry.
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Phil.
Kgend45 is the Gendreau family, they have a tree of 3 on Ancestry.
I share 30cM with them and we have 23 shared matches and the Gendreau name is not found in any of what few family trees there are in the shared matches.
Of the 23 there are 2 who are close relatives to kgeng45 but there lies the problem!
Each have the surname Murphy and both them and the other Shared Matches have Ireland as the Country of origin.
So researching Murphy’s in Ireland, well we would need a lot of luck with that.
Kgeng’s matches and a particular line does seem to originate in an area of Ireland different from my own Irish roots as my family came from the west coast, namely Sligo and Mayo.
The above was as far as I got with this particular match.
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Sorry that my detective work doesn't appear to be of much help Biggles.
It's a lot more difficult when clues lead to people outside of the UK, as records that might help further are either too sparse or just not there.
I've had results with several matches after researching various internet searches and social media tags etc. but mostly in the UK.
One was in Australia but born in the UK which I was able to match after I found his year of birth on another website, and resulted in a new line on my paternal GM's family.
But more often than not it's just another dead end. Always worth a try though!
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Phil
Poor choice of match on my part.
I should have used one like Bonnie123 a 47cM match, shares are her Mum, Sister, Granddaughter and a 3C who are all in the 35cM range yet despite a tree of 5,000 people there is no apparent link but there are holes in it.
Very strange that there are no shares outside this small family group.
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Very strange that there are no shares outside this small family group.
It doesn't take much to have a marked impact on some groups of matches. My NPE grandmother had kids via 3 relationships, three of her grandchildren and three great grandchildren have tested. The older generation often have mutual shared matches at h3c level but there's never shared DNA to the younger generation. There's a very obvious line in the sand beyond which the DNA don't reach but spotting it in the first place took some detective work.