Just received by Ancestry DNA results...

[BevStimpson]

I've just been contacted by a lady in Canada who got a match from Gedmatch, she is convinced we are 3rd cousins, but nothing in my or her tree is even remotely similar, nor the areas that my or her family would have been located in. I don't see how it is possible, but I admit to not understanding how the dna works.

Any ideas?

[nestagj]

I have also been contacted by a lady about my husband's - she is a 4 -  cousin match.   His mother's family originally come from suffolk as do her gg grandparents so we suspect the match is from there.  Unfortunately I have not done a huge amount of research on his side although I have hearsay family tree which seems to match up.  I hope to get the papers out this weekend and see if I can see the match if any

[davidft]

Reply to BevStimpson's post

I would contact her and ask her of she can tell you all the surnames in the third and fourth cousins generations. Two reasons for this, first you may recognise a surname and second you may spot some omissions in hers or your research that would benefit from further digging.

Gedmatch does tell its customers when they make a universal match on their site to do the other test on their site

Please DO NOT send emails to anyone on this list without first using the one-to-one utility to verify that it is a legitimate match.

 to confirm it as a true match so you could ask her if she has done this or you could do it yourself (I assume you are a gedmatch customer)

I have several matches on gedmatch at 4th cousin level mostly in America but one in the UK. The interesting thing for me is these matches potentially match in some cases further back (7th cousin) level between themselves. I have not followed this up but will try to in due course.

Whatever you decide I wish you good luck but do think its worth enquiring into a little deeper

[ikennedy]

Mine just came in and my ethnicity figures are as follows:
 Europe 100%

    Europe West 42%
    Great Britain 29%
    Ireland 24%
    Trace Regions 5%
    Scandinavia 3%
    Finland/Northwest Russia 2%
    Iberian Peninsula < 1%

My family tree is something like 45% west Scotland, 45% NE England, 5% Ulster, 5% Welsh borders. GEDMatch kit number A828783.

Iain

[nestagj]

Further to my earlier post - we have a clear match; my husband's g (3) grandmother is a sister to the lady's g (2) grandmother which is quite exciting as we have been in contact and she has introduced me to another similar link except that we have a brother and sister marrying a brother and sister from the other family - does this make them double cousins ?

There are several matches with origins in my area of the countryside and have messaged a couple of them but no response.
Nesta

[Craclyn]

Mine arrived late last night and I could not resist a quick skim through before bedtime. Already found three matches which confirm that I was on the right track with paper trail research for the MRCAs involved. Going to have fun at the weekend looking more closely at the rest of the results.

[hiraethu]

Thought I'd join in, as I got mine through last week from AncestryDNA and they mostly seem to match up with what I have already, minus the trace regions.

98% Europe
- 62% Great Britain
- 28% Ireland

Trace regions
- 4% West Europe
- 2% Scandinavia
- 1% Finland/Northwest Russia
- <1% Iberian Peninsula (for now, this disproves an old family tale we had about Spanish sailors wrecking off Ireland and marrying locals, 'explaining' some of our Irish lot having olive complexion etc. The fact an Irish/Italian friend of mine had this same story made me doubt it some anyway.)
- <1% East Asia
- <1% Polynesia

On my Mum's side I've traced back to 1800s, all from Wales. Dad's side is Scottish, Manx, and Irish. I've transferred my raw data to gedmatch, ftdna, and prosapia but I'm waiting for them to process on ftdna and prosapia, and gedmatch confuses me a little with all its scientific lingo, but I think they all sort of match up.

I've had a few possible very distant cousins contact me on Ancestry, but haven't had a link with one aside from a surname and haven't replied to the other (whoops). I did find one very likely match for a 4th-6th cousin, and after checking her tree at the library I found our link. No word from her yet though, but fingers crossed (though I don't think she'll be able to give me any info on our shared ancestors, I have a good chunk to share with her).

[whiteout7]

hiraethu isn't the Iberian pennisular part of Spain? You could have one ancestor from the shipwrecked spanish man (or a soldiers wife) and now the blood is that diluted it makes for 1%.

I'd like to get some of my family to do an ancestral DNA test, very white people who go a lovely dark brown very quickly in the sun (no known spanish or any other non-irish/english blood) compared to me with proven (Maori blood). I can't tan as well. Some of my family have the Spanish legend but it could be anything?

[hiraethu]

It's certainly possible that there is Spanish heritage there, but this story was more prevalent before I started researching my tree and found (so far, anyway) no Iberian blood anywhere in our records. If there are Spanish ancestors, they're probably a lot further back (or more diluted) than the story states.

Could just be a very common story among Irish descendants though?