Confirming a suspected 5th great grandfather from East Riding of Yorshire v DNA

[DavidG02]

I think you are saying you more or less confirmed your 6th Greatgrandfather through DNA.

When you are advised of a DNA link what actual information do you receive . -ie you share a 6th Greatgrandfather or 5th Great Grandmother?  Or is  much less informative? ie just share an ancestor-go and work it out. ?

I am looking at a matched link with a shared 6th or 7th  grandparent.

As I advised David --I have only one interest -- to confirm whether the Driffield Thomas is my 5th great grandfather . No interest in knowing cousins -or my ethnicity mix .


Phil Hanley .

Just to give my example. One of my brickwalls was a person born 1765-1786. GGGGGgrandfather or 1 less. There had been a story floating around the internet where someone had done some research and chosen a 'best fit' with some leaps of faith. There were names and stories, and because he and his wife were convicts, quite a bit of information.

I was never 100% committed to the story and had filed it under possibles. Once my DNA results came back I looked at all the possibilities and was slightly stunned to see the name of a 2nd husband of the wife ( if that makes sense) The match was in the range of 2nd-4th cousin

As the family lived in Tasmania and I had no Tasmanian connections except these 2 convicts I had to come to the realisation that the person tested was a relation and the most likely connection was through my GGGGgrandmother.

She had 1 surviving child to my brickwall who then went on to become my maternal side.

That is how I believe you can find your Driffield connection. Chaff and wheat

[sugarfizzle]

"I think you are saying you more or less confirmed your 6th Greatgrandfather through DNA"

More or less, agreed. I would like further matches on this line to confirm the connection. Would also be helpful if some of my 8 confirmed closer Laversuch matches at ancestry were willing to upload their results elsewhere, to enable use of chromosome browser and compare with the myheritageDNA match. None of them have, so I have just the one match, at myheritageDNA, to use chromosome browser with.

"When you are advised of a DNA link what actual information do you receive . -ie you share a 6th Greatgrandfather or 5th Great Grandmother?  Or is  much less informative? ie just share an ancestor-go and work it out. ?"

Nothing as simple as either of those, I'm afraid!

At ancestry you are provided with a list of matches, and how much DNA you share. With 4th to 6th cousins you can see who else shares a match with you and that other person, which may or may not give you clues. With more distant 5th to 8th cousins, sharing as little as 6 cM of DNA, it is up to you to work out the connectIon.  If they have a public tree you may be able to work it out, you may not.

You can search for surnames and places of interest in other people's trees, which sometimes doesn't work.  I found the descendant of Mary Leversuch by searching for surnames.  Obviously this is only as good as the person's tree, could be wrong.

It really is up to you to do the legwork - it might pay off for you, there is also the chance that it won't. If you go for it, do it when there is an offer on at whichever company you decide to go for.

You seem to be disregarding the autosomal DNA test - as far as I understand it, it is the only one likely to give you the result you are looking for. Paternal DNA test cannot pinpoint the surname to any particular location at a given time, maternal DNA obviously inappropriate. It is only by matching with other autosomal DNA testers, (ie cousins, in whom you have no interest) that you will be able to pinpoint a particular person. Like David and I have done, sorted through the chaff and the wheat.

Regards Margaret

[hanleyp]

Reply to Jane -familydar ( reply 2- dated 26 March)

Thanks Jane for your posting. Sorry for the delay in thanking you. I have been trying to understand best way to reply .[ Understand it now -- pressing "quote" gobbles up everything ( quote -whether an edit or reply ) and sticks it on the end --making it cumbersome . Pressing blue reply button does not--if you want to extract quote you can import when composing your reply . Got it! I think ]

My understanding from both you and others is that the Autosomal DNA test is more likely the most appropriate as it catches a wider group -even though that wider group has a very low DNA match as one  goes further back in the generations -making is a hard task to sort through .

 My understanding is that for 5th great grandfather a DNA match with the Autosomal DNA test of only 0.78% is the average --with some spread around this. I am beginning to see that  whilst the paternal Y DNA test would be better for me not many people would actually do that test based on their search interests . Added to that is that the likelihood of direct male descendants of the Great Driffield Thomas born 1704 being relatively few in number.

In any event it still relies on me matching with someone who has the Driffield Thomas ( or his his siblings or parents ) in their tree --in which case there does seem the alternative logic of conducting a thoroughly extensively search for this--or just filling up my tree ( with the suspected ancestors ) and hoping for a future contact .

Many thanks again.

Phil Hanley

[hanleyp]

Reply to Margaret ( sugarfizzle ) Reply 5 26 March,

Many thanks again Margaret for your additional response

As explained in my very last posting to Jane --\
whilst the Y DNA test (sharing the same "specific paternal"  DNA"- as opposed to the "Parents DNA mix ) initially appears the logical way to go for suspected male direct ancestors  many generations back,  it probably has little  chance of a match since shared direct descendants this far back would be relatively few --and then very few of these people would get this test done .

Regards Phil Hanley