"No shared matches"

[Jill Eaton]

I'm a bit confused. I have 189 4th to 6th cousin matches on Ancestry.
I have my daughter, 2 first cousins who are matched to me by both maternal AND paternal lines and also my nephew on the site as DNA matches to me.

I've just checked on a 4th cousin match on Ancestry - (just initials of my match to identify and no Tree} which matches we both share with other people.

Apparently there are none.

Surely with so many potential relatives our trees must cross at some point with my other possible DNA matches

Would it be possible to share just one section of DNA with someone else that no one else has?

[rsel]

Hi Jill,
    I assume you are referring to the button on the individual match page ?  If so i have yet to work out the logic for the Ancestry process myself, but it appears that it will only show matches to a higher or equal confidence level, not anybody with a lower match. So for example your cousin may not have any shared matches, but you may have 5-8th cousins that lists them as a shared match.  I find this very frustrating, as it means you have to trawl through every match to find any one in common, which should be a 5 min job for the compute to do for you....

Richard

[brigidmac]

Yes i believe they only show shared matches if the link is closer rhan 3rd coisins .do you use the shared location buttons sometimes thats good for seeing which of the distant matches might ne closer .


Good luck ..ps loving the outfit ...what was the occasion?

[Jill Eaton]

Yes i believe they only show shared matches if the link is closer rhan 3rd coisins .do you use the shared location buttons sometimes thats good for seeing which of the distant matches might ne closer .


Good luck ..ps loving the outfit ...what was the occasion?

Thanks Brigid

that would make sense. I've had a really nice reply from this particular contact and although we cant connect matching surnames yet, it looks as if the match would be further back than a third cousin

I'm a Steampunk, have been for about the last 4 years, so the occasion is as often as possible . Husband and I go to as many Steampunk events as we can manage. 

[brigidmac]

ha ha ive started going to leicester steampunk monthly meetings ..mostly to get inspiration for time travel as great grand ma

very drawn twds it .

[Jill Eaton]

I'm confused again....I have an Ancestry match 40 centimorgans across 2 segments, should be a 4th - 6th cousin. Confidence HIGH

My daughter and both 1st cousins (one is a paternal cousin and the other shares my maternal and paternal line) also have had their DNA tested and yet my Ancestry match does not match to them.

I can see that maybe there wouldn't be enough DNA to show up as a match to my daughter but shouldn't they match with at least one of my 1st cousins? Could it be a false positive or am I not understanding how DNA matches work?

[IJDisney]

Its just the way DNA works. I have three 5th cousins (three sisters) who DNA match as full sisters to each other, but only two flag up as DNA matches to me! The third sister just didn't inherit that little bit of random DNA that her sisters and I have.

So a 6th cousin match to you who does not relate to your other close cousins is not unusual.

This also means that there are LOTS of people who are related to you but won't show up as a DNA match, even if they have had their DNA tested. Websites don't put that in its advertising!!

[Jill Eaton]

This also means that there are LOTS of people who are related to you but won't show up as a DNA match, even if they have had their DNA tested. Websites don't put that in its advertising!!

Phew! that very reassuring. I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to sort out exactly how I match my contact and I've still not really made sense of the paper trail. I would be even more dischuffed if I'd actually been wasting my time completely