How often do the DNA results correspond with the paper trail?

[up2you2]

I think I have tried to follow up four of five DNA matches to my Tree, with 13,003 entries on it all sourced and confirmed.
This has all been done with no successful results at all.
Sure my volume of entries might still be the tip of the iceberg, but it would be reassuring to learn and hear just what kind of success others have had.
In so much as what are the chances, the percentage of those matches that have been confirmed on actual trees?

[Nanna52]

I have one dna trail that confirmed my 3 times great grandfather.  I had trouble with this person as he had a middle name my 2 X grandmother never used.  There were others in the area with the same first name and surname, but no middle name.
I used the dna, which was relatively low to,confirm this.  Recently I found a match lower than 20 cM that still lives near village they came from.  Remember your tree may be well researched, but theirs may not.
I also have an unknown grandfather.  I have confirmed his parents, but don’t know which of their five sons alive and in the area is my grandfather.  Yet.

[BushInn1746]

I think I have tried to follow up four of five DNA matches to my Tree, with 13,003 entries on it all sourced and confirmed.
This has all been done with no successful results at all.
Sure my volume of entries might still be the tip of the iceberg, but it would be reassuring to learn and hear just what kind of success others have had.
In so much as what are the chances, the percentage of those matches that have been confirmed on actual trees?

Hello

Over 13,000 entries all sourced and confirmed.

For the 19th & 20th Centuries you must have or seen 100s (or 1,000s) of Register Office Certificates and Parish entries, etc., etc.

My research of 5 particular Trees on Anc indicated that 4 had gone wrong. One Tree had gone wrong at 1911 and did not link back to the 1785 Birth given.

Also one had died at 4 (four) and therefore couldn't have married nor been parent to the next generation in Yorkshire.

The online requests of one Tree author show the author had placed too much reliance on well meaning suggestions and not checked the actual documents.

Having said that, there are some reasonably good trees online.

If you watched Heir Hunters yesterday (Friday) afternoon, who trace Lawful beneficiaries, the program showed briefly the difficulties and some Certificates acquired were seen and ruled out.

No Legal requirement to Register a Birth (England & Wales) until the 1870s.

Some families were nonconformist (NC), Quaker, or Catholic, etc., so no C of E Baptism and no surviving records for some NC Chapels further back and some more recent Registers are still in archives.

Mark

Added

Remember your tree may be well researched, but theirs may not.

One Tree felt that a person living in Selby, in America meant they could use a birth of the same surname in Selby, Yorkshire, England. Even though the one born Yorkshire could be found in subsequent England & Wales Census and having children in England.

The burden of proof and use of secondary records varies hugely.

Mark

[Nova67]

If you have tested with Ancestry are you looking at shared matches.  Sometimes you need to build the tree beyond what the tester has researched to look for the common ancestor.  You can also search for a surname and/or birth location in an attached private tree.  On the profile page, a user's location may give a clue.

For as much proof are as much frustration and confusion.  There are always going to be NPE's (nonpartenal events).

I have found a lot of proof in doing the above.

[Biggles50]

If I briefly explain my own tree.  Grandparents geographically separated from each other and hence low endogamy probabilities so getting DNA lines through Grandparents should be easy!

Not the case, Maternal DNA matches links to each Great Great Grandparent and their lines.

Paternal less so, no DNA matches via either Paternal Great Grandfather’s.

No amount of Paper or Certificates will prove that any Family Tree lines are correct.  This statement is not just applicable to me but it is applicable to everyone, paper can mislead, DNA needs, and can lead back into each branch to a common ancestor(s) that is shared between you and your DNA match.  Certificates can lie, Great Grandmother’s wedding cert is in error, my Uncle’s wedding certificate is in error, it has the wrong forenames, he married using his Brother’s forename (brother was only 14 at the time). 

I found my Great Great Grandfather via a DNA match and via shared matches these lead to over 60 other Ancestry DNA matches who all link back to a certain region of Italy.  Sadly many of these matches have either no trees nor usable identifiable user names hence little chance of actually linking to them.

Try using The Leeds Method and try to get as many Cousins and especially Second Cousins to take a DNA test.  Build separate trees around your mystery matches, I have done this with quite a few of my DNA matches and one is now a tree of 600 with 12 other shared DNA matches linked into the tree and another 35 shared with those already in the tree.

I know I have an NPE in my tree, but do not have the information as yet to follow it up.

It took 5 years to find my GGGF so it can be a waiting game.

[BushInn1746]

It appears that each of the DNA test/s used must be of certain types, also have all their family paperwork well researched too, to prove a continous lineage and be true to events, as well.
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There is a University article explaining how they established the King's remains found in Leicester, England from a skeleton dna.

The link goes to the quote (below) and another link to a document explaining ...
https://le.ac.uk/richard-iii/identification/genetics

"Professor Turi King and Professor Kevin Schürer’s work is freely available online in their peer-reviewed academic paper, Identification of the remains of King Richard III."

Mark

[coombs]

About 1 to 2% of your recorded ancestors will probably not be your biological ones. Through informal adoption of the wife strayed, or even husband strayed and the wife took the single woman's illegitimate baby on as hers. The once estimated 10% is too high a percentage. I say 3% at most. Although in countries of polyandry and such, the NPE rate is probably a lot higher.

Also DNA results going against paper trails, may not always mean an NPE but that you have researched the wrong lines and the DNA sets you on the right line. The late Guy Etchells often explains this.

NPE's will be higher if the husband was away at war, in the army or away at sea.

[BushInn1746]

Listening to the Youtube video which simplies the document in the link ...
https://le.ac.uk/richard-iii/identification/genetics

... it seems a Y-DNA test could be used to indicate that two men with the same surname from different parts of the country will share a common ancestor, or whether two variant spellings of a male surname might have a genetic link or not.

Apparently, I can also use my male lines already partly worked forward from most Brothers of my direct line male generations.

I have tried to research all those present (witnesses) at every Marriage and many are related.

Mark

[Nova67]

I am really confused particularly with one of my fourth great-grandmothers as I see how I could have genetic links to either of her two husbands. Quite a confusing line and this family is why I started genealogy in the first place. I have therefore recorded them as biological and additional parents just to explore the possibilities and future matches.

Regarding maternal events, the child could be a foundling, nurse child (foster child), informally adopted, or a child that is actually a grandchild.

Another confusing one at the moment is who in my immediate family it is matching or not matching.  I wonder if the assigning of parent one or two in Ancestry is always correct with 4th-6th Cousins or closer matches.

One of my distant grandmothers was named for where she was found on the porch of St John the Baptist, Bedminster.  It is very sobering to read that on a baptism and to know she survived in the 18th Century. The church was bombed during WW2.