Two DNA Questions

[ReadyDale]

Sorry if these are basic questions. I have not been working with DNA result for very long.

1) On Ancestry (with ProTools), in the same way as Ancestry advises whether your matches are on the Maternal or Paternal side, is there any way of seeing whether a shared match is on the mat or pat side of the sharer?

2) As mentioned on posts before, I am helping a friend to discover who her father is, via her DNA results. Leaving aside her maternal matches (as that side of things is fairly well documented), she has around 200 matches of 20cM or above. All but one are labelled by Anc as 3rd or 4th cousins, that one being labelled 1C1R (we're expecting the 1R to be my friend, owing to the ages of them both). The c.200 matches grouping in to 17 clusters (with a handful of stragglers), varying between 3x3 and 47x47. Of these clusters, 6 of them are also shared by the "1C1R". I am working on the theory that these 6 clusters would all be ancestor clusters of the "1C1R". I have so far managed to connect 2 of the clusters, tree-wise, and these are connected via the 1C1R's father. I have now found that another of the 6 links via the 1C1R's mother. Translating this to my own tree (to try to make sense of this), barring an earlier (but as yet unfound) pedigree collapse, the only thing I have come up with is that the 1C1R is an incorrect guess by Anc. The match is of 686cM across 28 segments. I am thinking the true label should be G-Aunt or similar.
I would be grateful if the experts here that have helped me no end so far (you know who you are) could say whether they feel I am on the right track (or not).

Thanks in advance

[Biggles50]

Each match in Pro Tools shows one of the following:- paternal, maternal, unassigned or both.

When you select a match and then select shared matches each of them will display one of the above.

I manage a DNA test where a Female has taken a DNA test as has her Grandson who shows as Both.  Neither his Mother, Father or Maternal Grandfather have taken a DNA test but a Paternal 1C has so this is where the Both comes from.  All his Paternal lines are South Africa and Maternal lines all British Isles.

Take Ancestry’s relationship predictions as a guess.

Key in the cM value into DNA Painter’s Shared cM Project to see the range of relationships and the %age probabilities.

The 686 cM has a 65% chance of being 1 of 7 possible relationships so I cannot be any more precise than that to help you.

I like your reasoning and I am an advocate of determining a hypothesis, working it, testing it and yet keeping other options on the table.

Pedigree collapse can and does skew cM values, so please do keep this in mind.

[ReadyDale]

Each match in Pro Tools shows one of the following:- paternal, maternal, unassigned or both.

When you select a match and then select shared matches each of them will display one of the above.

I manage a DNA test where a Female has taken a DNA test as has her Grandson who shows as Both.  Neither his Mother, Father or Maternal Grandfather have taken a DNA test but a Paternal 1C has so this is where the Both comes from.  All his Paternal lines are South Africa and Maternal lines all British Isles.

Take Ancestry’s relationship predictions as a guess.

Key in the cM value into DNA Painter’s Shared cM Project to see the range of relationships and the %age probabilities.

The 686 cM has a 65% chance of being 1 of 7 possible relationships so I cannot be any more precise than that to help you.

I like your reasoning and I am an advocate of determining a hypothesis, working it, testing it and yet keeping other options on the table.

Pedigree collapse can and does skew cM values, so please do keep this in mind.

Hi Biggles,

Thanks for replying, nice to know you feel my reasoning is feasible.

With regard to my first question, not sure if I explained myself properly.
My friend is Person A
Person B is a paternal match her.
They have a shared match of Person C
Person C is also showing as a paternal for my friend (A)
Is there a route to seeing whether Ancestry is reporting Person C as being a Paternal or Maternal match for Person B? I'm not seeing it by default.
On the enhanced shared matches screen (Pro Tools) with the two-columns, it shows Pat/Mat for the first column (Person A to Person C), but not in the second column (Person B to Person C)

[Biggles50]

It does not show.

“Both” only shows on the applicable match.

With a match selected the Shared matches do not show if they are maternal, paternal, unassigned or both.

Ancestry currently only displays the 4 options relative to the Managed DNA testee.

Take a look at the clusters to see if any matches are in multiple clusters, it may help narrow things down.

[ReadyDale]

Biggles,

Thanks for confirming. Saves me spending ages trying to find a different view that might include it.
Sadly in all c.200 matches, only 1 is in two clusters, but nowhere near the ones in question.

[David Nicoll]

Hi,
   If you are not doing so already, I would suggest creating clusters manually using pro-tools. Don’t just rely on the auto cluster feature. It seems to miss some of the more distant clusters due to the cM values being used. Some of my manual clusters are much bigger and can lead to some good tree merging.

[ReadyDale]

Thanks David.
Yes, already done that manually with Excel, before I got ProTools.

[4b2]

Sorry if these are basic questions. I have not been working with DNA result for very long.

1) On Ancestry (with ProTools), in the same way as Ancestry advises whether your matches are on the Maternal or Paternal side, is there any way of seeing whether a shared match is on the mat or pat side of the sharer?

They should really be providing this data as part of ProTools - what side of the match's tree do you match to. So rather than two full trees, you can narrow the search by 75%. That would require the match to have defined which of their sides is maternal/paternal.

The only way to get this information is to message the matches. If they are on a desktop, it will say if you are a maternal or paternal match in the message pane.

[ReadyDale]

Yes, I agree, it would have been good for ProTools to show the label on BOTH sides not just your own column.
I didn't know the two sides of your own matches came unlabelled - when my friend gave me access to help, they were already labelled, so I assumed this was an Ancestry tag.
Yes, we are going to message the match concerned. My friend already had contact before I got involved, so thankfully can make a good judgement on whether that is ok. Makes a difference as to whether she is my friend's 1C1R or her gt-Aunt (i.e. the matches nephew is likely my friend's dad).