RootsChat.Com

I'm pretty sure there are NPEs at play here.  All the closest matches (100-500cm) have no shared ancestors on paper so I'm being really careful not to make assumptions, hence I don't want to assume these distant matches are relatives if that may not be the case.

I am working on a family tree where the paternal side is entirely unknown.  I've tried reaching out to the stronger shared matches via the Ancestry messaging service but most are still unread.  I've been able to plot out basic trees for the shared matches from what they have posted online themselves and am experimenting with putting their great grandparents into our tree to try to use thrulines to identify more distant matches to try to find where the shared ancestors might be.

For one of the close matches 217 cm are shared.  Thrulines suggested a 2nd great grandfather, who having checked the paper trail (census, births, marriages, deaths etc.) looks like the wrong guy (I've read that Thrulines can give rogue results so have been trying to double check them).  The name fits, but other aspects, such as children and parent names, dob etc. are wrong.  However, I have 3 DNA matches linking to this guy.  They are descendents of his siblings (each descends from a different sibling), so theoretically sharing a 3rd GGF.  The amount of DNA shared with these matches is very low: 8cm in 1 segment, 9cm in 1 segment and 14cm in 2 segments.  The last one I can see one of her ancestors is also related on the maternal side of my tree. I have a good tree on the maternal side and thus far all DNA matches have fitted with the paper trail.  Also looking at the shared matches with the 14cm person, they are all on my maternal side except the 217cm match and a very close relative of the 217cm match.  There are no shared matches with the 8cm and 9cm people.

I guess what I'm asking is could the two other matches (8cm and 9cm) be matching by random chance because they are so small?  Is there an amount of cm that we share with people by chance even if we are not distant cousins?

I find all this DNA stuff so fascinating, but as soon as I feel I'm making sense of things, something like this happens and I realise I really don't understand very much!

Grateful for any thoughts or insights!

Quote

Now you come to mention it, I don't think we have anything saying for certain that Sarah was her mother.  I have the 1921 census but Ivy is living with Sarah's mother. Our understanding is that she lived with Sarah's mother for most of her childhood

If Ivy is on the 1921 census she must have been born before 1923.  Perhaps one of Sarah’s brothers got a girl in trouble and Sarah’s mother bought Ivy up.  She would still be the grandmother.

Sorry, that's me getting confused!  No, Ivy is not on the 1921 census - I have Sarah and her mother living together.  Sarah's parents separated between the 1901 and 1911 censuses.  In 1911 Sarah is living with her mum and her brothers are living with their paternal grandparents.

Who did Ivy name as her father when she married?  Is there definite knowledge that Sarah was her mother?

In July 1984 an amendment was made to add the middle name 'Lucy' (Form CR282).  No amendment was made to the year of birth.  Do you know how Ivy proved her age when she became eligible for the aged pension?  It seems she thought she was born in 1924.

Debra 

Hi Debra, we noticed the Lucy too.  We don't know her to have had the name Lucy, but thought if it was hand written on a document, Ivy can look like Lucy (especially how she used to write it).  Do you know what the form CR282 would be for?  If she was born in 1924, she would have reached pension age in 1984.  Could the 1939 register have been updated off the back of something to do with her pension?

I've ordered her marriage certificate, but I'm expecting it to say Joseph is her father.

Hi Michael.  We don't think she would have been registered as Page, because Sarah didn't marry Joseph Page until 1927 and we know Joseph was not her biological father.  DNA testing indicates her biological father probably had the surname Stead.