Was Frederick Sr the father?

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

If Frederick Hales (Sr) b. 1843 Navenby is your ancestor then he's a 2xgrt g/f so matches that descend from him could be 3c, removed 3c and 4c distance which can be problematic, a genuine full 3c relative matches in around 80% of cases and it drops away the more distant a match is. Those that do match are easy to overlook as they are often very low cM.

As someone with  complicated family history in Lincoln and the surrounding villages as well as Sheffield I often build large branches of certain families  and try to bring them towards the present day, I've been lucky to be able to link quite a number of low cM matches to my tree that way, often matches fit in but their error ridden tree (or lack of a tree entirely), would otherwise mean they were just yet another unknown distant match.   

[mrs.tenacious]

If Frederick Hales (Sr) b. 1843 Navenby is your ancestor then he's a 2xgrt g/f so matches that descend from him could be 3c, removed 3c and 4c distance which can be problematic, a genuine full 3c relative matches in around 80% of cases and it drops away the more distant a match is. Those that do match are easy to overlook as they are often very low cM.

As someone with  complicated family history in Lincoln and the surrounding villages as well as Sheffield I often build large branches of certain families  and try to bring them towards the present day, I've been lucky to be able to link quite a number of low cM matches to my tree that way, often matches fit in but their error ridden tree (or lack of a tree entirely), would otherwise mean they were just yet another unknown distant match.   

Thanks for your reply, I'm not sure I understand half of it regarding how I can determine if Frederick b. 1843 was the biological father of Frederick Jr. In my reply to Biggles50 I question whether the DNA matches showing from descendants of his siblings could be from the two further children born to Frederick Sr and Harriett rather than Frederick Jr?

This is frazzling my brain, I'm afraid!

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Building deep and wide trees long with good grouping will go a long way to proving if Frederick b1843 is genuinely an ancestor. Just because something is written on a birth cert doesn't make it true, on the face of it I have a link to a Navenby family, the mother was pregnant when she married but the hubby isn't the father, the dna contradicts the paperwork (the father is the brother of my pedigree ancestor).

[Biggles50]

Take a look at :-

https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4

This website should be bookmarked by anyone using DNA.

For each relationship you can see the Mean Shared DNA & the Range of cM that their data has.

It is the Best website for checking on the likely DNA Relationships with a DNA Match.

Now with your:-

His sister No. 1:  22cM/2seg
Sister No. 2:       9cM/1seg
Brother No.1:      9cM/1seg
Brother No. 2:     17cM/1seg

If we enter 22 in the DNA Painter, which I suggest you do that yourself.

We get a far more distant relationship likelyhood than a 3C, there is only a 16% Probability of a Half 3C and 58% Probability for the more distant.

As Glen suggests, building wide and deep is a good foundation with DNA Research.

A possible hypothesis in this case is that the four Brothers are perhaps a Second Cousin with the person who you are seeking as the Father and hence going back much further and extrapolating wide may lead to possible Fathers being identified.

I too have a complicated family tree, and in the tree of a relation whose DNA I manage they have an unknown Great Great Grandfather, finding him is still a work in progress even after so many years.  I do have one candidate who fulfils the means, motive and opportunity criteria seen in many a Police drama, the person lived in the next village at the same time as conception occurred, alas the “going wide” in this case found the man but the DNA Match is via his Uncles line and hence a very lowish cM shared with the match led to this tree build and so I have nothing to substantiate the hypothesis of him being the Father.

DNA can be a waiting game.

[mrs.tenacious]

Building deep and wide trees long with good grouping will go a long way to proving if Frederick b1843 is genuinely an ancestor. Just because something is written on a birth cert doesn't make it true, on the face of it I have a link to a Navenby family, the mother was pregnant when she married but the hubby isn't the father, the dna contradicts the paperwork (the father is the brother of my pedigree ancestor).

Thanks for your help.  My tree is 'deep and wide' so far.

[mrs.tenacious]

Take a look at :-

https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4

This website should be bookmarked by anyone using DNA.

For each relationship you can see the Mean Shared DNA & the Range of cM that their data has.

It is the Best website for checking on the likely DNA Relationships with a DNA Match.

Now with your:-

His sister No. 1:  22cM/2seg
Sister No. 2:       9cM/1seg
Brother No.1:      9cM/1seg
Brother No. 2:     17cM/1seg

If we enter 22 in the DNA Painter, which I suggest you do that yourself.

We get a far more distant relationship likelyhood than a 3C, there is only a 16% Probability of a Half 3C and 58% Probability for the more distant.

As Glen suggests, building wide and deep is a good foundation with DNA Research.

A possible hypothesis in this case is that the four Brothers are perhaps a Second Cousin with the person who you are seeking as the Father and hence going back much further and extrapolating wide may lead to possible Fathers being identified.

I too have a complicated family tree, and in the tree of a relation whose DNA I manage they have an unknown Great Great Grandfather, finding him is still a work in progress even after so many years.  I do have one candidate who fulfils the means, motive and opportunity criteria seen in many a Police drama, the person lived in the next village at the same time as conception occurred, alas the “going wide” in this case found the man but the DNA Match is via his Uncles line and hence a very lowish cM shared with the match led to this tree build and so I have nothing to substantiate the hypothesis of him being the Father.

DNA can be a waiting game.

Thank you for that link, I'll do as you suggest and see if I can make sense of it all.

All I want to find out is if I am a direct descendant of the Hales from Navenby, from Frederick Hales Sr.  Harriett registers her son as surname Hudson, with no father named. But it's too coincidental that she names him Frederick when that's the same name as Frederick Sr.

If Frederick Hales Sr wasn't the biological father, and Harriett Hudson is the only one I'm related to directly as she is Frederick Jr's mother and therefore my g-grandmother, are the DNA matches coming from the two children they had together later, who would have been the half-siblings of Frederick Jr?

I will continue searching for Frederick, Harriett and Frederick Jr on the 1871 census and see if I can find them together or not, as it may nudge me towards assuming Frederick Sr was the biological father.

As I said, I am a novice regarding DNA and understand that it is a 'waiting game'.... if I can ever find proof he was the biological father, how will that happen? I am confused by the process.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Does Frederick sr have siblings? If so are any descendants of those siblings dna matches to you and/or the descendants of the later children?

My focus would be looking for those matches, adding them to my tree and linking them from the match list. Based on the relationship to them given in tree view I'd then be checking to see if the shared DNA is within the range for that relationship. If there are no matches then there  are a few possible reasons, from a lack of testers to mistakes in trees resulting in the wrong ancestor being added. 

I have too many cousins who simply don't use their DNA results and listen to Uncle Tom & copy (wrong), trees, they look the other way at the half dozen unknown matches at 150-200cM we all share, the matches that prove the birth cert for our ancestor is just a work of fiction. I genuinely don't know why they took a test, if they don't use the information from it then it was pointless doing it.

[mrs.tenacious]

Does Frederick sr have siblings? If so are any descendants of those siblings dna matches to you and/or the descendants of the later children?

My focus would be looking for those matches, adding them to my tree and linking them from the match list. Based on the relationship to them given in tree view I'd then be checking to see if the shared DNA is within the range for that relationship. If there are no matches then there  are a few possible reasons, from a lack of testers to mistakes in trees resulting in the wrong ancestor being added. 

I have too many cousins who simply don't use their DNA results and listen to Uncle Tom & copy (wrong), trees, they look the other way at the half dozen unknown matches at 150-200cM we all share, the matches that prove the birth cert for our ancestor is just a work of fiction. I genuinely don't know why they took a test, if they don't use the information from it then it was pointless doing it.

Frederick Sr had eight siblings. The DNA matches I have are from descendants of four of them (as detailed in my reply to Biggles50 yesterday).  I have no matches from the two later children of Frederick Sr and Harriett.

So far, I have no matches with Frederick Sr b. 1843, or Frederick Jr b. 1868 apart from my 1st cousin (who is a 380cm match). Our grandfather was Sidney Hales , son of Frederick Jr.

(I was urged to take a DNA test by another cousin, I hadn't been too bothered about doing so before.  I never realised how complicated it was, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered, although it has been interesting regarding ethnicity and making contact with others. I obviously don't have a mathematical or scientific brain,  some of it is like trying to understand Chinese....I need a 'DNA for Dummies' guide   

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

The Hales link seems valid then but I'm a little concerned as 380 isn't enough for a full 1st cousin (the range is 396-1,396), a half 1C or the child of a full 1c would fit with that amount. I've got the odd match to families with Navenby links but I don't think there's anything that crosses into your tree, at least not at a level where there is much chance of sharing DNA. I'm adopted and both my parents are NPE's so 380 is about as high as my matches go with the exception of a half sister who tested to try and help sort our tangled paternal side. 

If you have tested with Ancestry and use facebook I'd suggest looking for a group called 'DNA Family Finders UK', it's a private group with search angels who help with unknown parent/grandparent scenarios but they can help with tasks like grouping matches. Everything in the group is private and you can post anonymously if you wish. It wouldn't hurt to join and read a few posts to see what the group is about and how they may be able to help, there's no obligation to ask for help but it's an option that might be worth looking at.