No DNA matches for great-grandfather's surname

[SamuelF992]

Hi all,

I did an Ancestry DNA test last year and have found quite a number of cousins and confirmed links through it. Something that's been bugging me is when I search for my great-grandfather's surname (Elsbury) no cousins come up. Elsbury is quite a rare surname, but I have searched for all common variants too and still nothing comes up. I get a bit of luck with his ancestors, but only one or two results and they have more common surnames so it could be coincidence. Should I be expecting more to come up if he is indeed my great-grandfather? (For anyone interested, the great-grandfather in question is George Elsbury, born 1900 in Bristol, England.)

Many thanks
Samuel Fawcett

[lizdb]

I guess if he just had daughters, or if his only sons just had daughters, then there will not be lower generations with the surname.  Traditional research will help you confirm if that is the case.

Or maybe there are sons who had sons, but they have not had DNA tests!

[Clarkey500]

I find the Ancestry results for searching surnames pretty poor, to be honest, as they, like the shared matches, are not complete.

[rosie99]

Perhaps no one else has submitted results to the database for the surname Elsbury.  There is no guarantee that others with that name in their tree have had DNA tests. 

[SamuelF992]

Thanks everyone.

Should probably have mentioned in the original post a reason I'm more sceptical is that my grandmother was born to George Elsbury and Louisa Hutchison due to an affair between the two (he was her lodger at the time). I wondered if maybe my great-grandmother had more skeletons in her cupboard!

[shellyesq]

Not everyone who takes a DNA test has done a tree or one that goes back several generations, so  if you're aware of George's other descendants, you could try to trace forward and see if you find any of the future generations' surnames.

New tests are being added all the time, so if you haven't had any of that branch turn up yet, they may in the future.

[hurworth]

Sometimes there just aren't many cousins or descendants who have tested.

There were no matches at all from a particular line at FamilyTreeDNA.  I started to worry a little about that.  Then I transferred to MyHeritage and immediately found three "cousins" - one descended from my tester's grandfather and two descended from two of the grandfather's sisters.

Since then a diffferent relative has tested at Ancestry and recently two more matches from this family have tested.  They descend from a brother of the grandfather. 

It was the same story for another line, but that was a maternal line and generally you can be pretty sure that your mother must be your mother, right?  Well, apart from the birth certificate that has our maternal ancestor registered as her grandparent's daughter, but we know the real story and and her "sister" was her mother.  There's still only two matches from that branch of the family and they only tested very recently.

So sometimes it takes a while before anyone pops up.

[SamuelF992]

Thanks for all the responses everyone! Nice to know all my research on that side almost certainly hasn't been a waste of time!

[Brummie Lass]

Have you uploaded your DNA results to Gedmatch.com it's a free site and people can upload their DNA results from 23andme, Ancestry, MyHeritage etc so gives you another chance of linking with other cousins that have used different DNA companies