Thanks for the encouragement – but the essential point remains. A 17 cM match is likely a 4th cousin or half 3rd cousin. 4th cousins share a common 3.g,grandparent, of which we both have 32. I was hoping to avoid checking up to 32 separate potential ancestors of X to find out which one Thrulines imagines might be connected to her via DNA by adopting a ‘bottom up’ approach but as neither you nor anyone else had advised how to I’ll assume it’s not possible.
I share 17 cM with X and 135, 112, 78, 59, 40 with A, B, C, D, E, and X shares 42, 23, 24, 21, 28 with A, B, C, D, E.
X has many other shared matches and from the names of many of them I’m sure a lot are on her maternal line – and as that’s solidly Cornish: all were in St Ives back to the mid 1700s. But a paternal great grandfather moved there from Bridport, and his line leads back to South Somerset – Bridport is less than 20 miles from the area I’m convinced my ancestor came from (Chard, Ilminster, Yeovil). Indeed his father came from Chard to settle in Bridport.
