DNA matches can be so frustrating!!!

[Jill Eaton]

Has anyone else come up against the brick wall of trying to identify where exactly where a DNA match fits/doesn't fit into a family tree? Especially when the Ancestry match doesn't match and other matches but mine.

Apparently the match is about 4th cousin, confidence HIGH, 40 centimorgans so we should share a gt gt gt grandparent. This was looking promising since of the two trees from my match it was likely, the most probability was that their Wheeler family came from Bermondsey, London and so do many of my ancestors. My illegitimate gt Grandmother Mary Ann Lane was born in Rotherhithe and since I don't know her ancestry she seemed a good candidate for a possible connection.

The family for the Wheeler match went to Australia in 1839 though not the whole family with the earliest Wheeler on the tree called John Wheeler and his son James Wheeler (born 1806 in Bermondsey) would be the 3 x gt grandfather. The family were apparently Victuallers. Since then I've spent many hours trying to find a Lane/Wheeler link in the Southwark area.

The problem isn't that I haven't found any - it's that I've found several!! And still can't sort out which one is relevant.

If it wasn't for DNA matching I'd have never looked or I'd have assumed that the Lane surname and it's connection to Wheeler was purely coincidental. Now I can't ignore it

And what if it's the other possible family tree from my Australian contact - the Parish family? I haven't even started to look at those yet. again, they'd have been of no interest to me. Now I've got to spend time on research that may actually be totally fruitless.

Anyone else given up because they simply couldn't find the connection?

[DavidG02]

Just move on to the next one. Something somewhere will be kicked loose at a later stage

Thats how I treat my DNA close matches .

[Jill Eaton]

Just move on to the next one. Something somewhere will be kicked loose at a later stage

Thats how I treat my DNA close matches .

Its excellent advice except that since I was the one who initiated the original contact with my match, and since they've emailed a couple of times to see if I've found anything, I now feel an obligation to find an answer 

[Ruskie]

You shouldn't feel obliged to find the answer even though you initiated contact. You're just an amateur and there finding any matches should be a two way street I think. 

I've given up trying to find connections with my close matches.

I think it must be driving you mad to try to find the connections with matches of as little as 40cM!

My closest match is 109 cM and I had already established our connection via paper trail and more recently discovered our DNA tests too - she is a second cousin once removed.

My next closest match is 99 cM so should be a fairly similar sort of match. I have seen her tree but can't find any connection at all except that our families lived in the same county, though not the same town. I keep returning to this puzzle in case something jumps out at me, but I tend to give up fairly quickly.

i have little patience. 

[Jill Eaton]

You shouldn't feel obliged to find the answer even though you initiated contact. You're just an amateur and there finding any matches should be a two way street I think. 

I've given up trying to find connections with my close matches.

I think it must be driving you mad to try to find the connections with matches of as little as 40cM!

Almost all my 212 matches at Ancestry are 40cM or less. The only ones higher than that are two first cousins, my daughter, and 2 people who haven't responded. This particular 40cM match has trees with information that is incorrect - place names in England in the wrong counties and regions and dates for ancestors/decendents that are biologically impossible. I'm not infallible by a long way but I do ty to double check my research as much as is possible. Hence, whilst I'm happy to research alongside someone else I still feel the need to double-check.

My matches at MyHeritage DNA tend to be higher numbers of centimorgans. There is also a small circular national flag by each match's name which identifies their location. I try to contact those from Britain first as their ancestors are likely to have been someone in the same geographical position as mine at a far more recent date. I wish Ancestry would do something similar, especially on Private Trees.

I've found the DNA matches for the US and Australia come from trees where their family have emigrated before 1837 making it much harder to prove a paper trail.

[sugarfizzle]

Jill, You say "Almost all my 212 matches at Ancestry are 40cM or less."

Surely you have more matches than that at ancestry?!  I have many thousands, too many to look at and most other people seem to as well.

Or did you mean 4th to 6th cousins? These go down to 20 cM at ancestry, anything below that shows up as 5th to 8th cousins.

Ruskie, You say "I think it must be driving you mad to try to find the connections with matches of as little as 40cM!"

I have found very valuable matches with my 5th to 8th cousins. These go down to 6cM at ancestry, though none of my confirmed matches are that low. 

My lowest confirmed match shares as little as 6.9 cM with me.  He is my 4th cousin and is also in one of my DNA circles, shared with my first cousin Sarah and 3 other people, all of the latter 4th cousins. The other 2 share 23.8 cM and 0 cM with me, but they are first cousins to each other.  They share 0 cM with my first cousin

So Sarah shares no DNA with any of them, I share DNA with Sarah and with 2 of them.

Goes to show the randomness of DNA inheritance.

Regards Margaret

[IJDisney]

DNA does not follow a surname, so common surnames can be a red herring if there are a couple (or more!) lines of descent that have a '?' not many generations back. You might share relationships on completely unexpected lines, or through step-siblings.

I've found some useful matches on Ancestry DNA, which have been a real comfort in confirming my paper-trails back 4 or 5 generations.

But you can only link up with the paper trail if;
1. It exists (not everybody leaves the right paperwork behind!)
2. You and your match have 100% accuracy on all your lines of descent

If the person you are seeking a match with has incorrect data on their tree, then I should put your energies somewhere else. Especially if they seem to be expecting you to come up with the answers. They sound suspiciously like the 'click and paste' genealogists who rely on Ancestry hints, or the first answer they come across. If you want to continue, that's the joy of research, but you'll be needing to check every line of descent for errors, not just the one you currently think is correct - since they might have got an incorrect link elsewhere, which, once corrected, might prove to be your missing link.

Are there any common matches between you and this match? Or do they come up as a common match between you and a different match? Focusing on one or two trees can help when you start to see them converge, although it multiplies the number of lines of descent to investigate. I found it useful to create my own lists of 'sub-groups- matches that seem to link up with each other, but not with other 'sub-groups'. Then when I start spotting common lines of descent amongst them, I can start to focus on whether that might be the line that connects to me (although that still might just be a coincidence and the common line/s with me be completely different).


 

[Jill Eaton]

Jill, You say "Almost all my 212 matches at Ancestry are 40cM or less."

Surely you have more matches than that at ancestry?!  I have many thousands, too many to look at and most other people seem to as well.

Or did you mean 4th to 6th cousins? These go down to 20 cM at ancestry, anything below that shows up as 5th to 8th cousins.


Regards Margaret

Margaret, Yes I should have clarified - 212 4th to 6th on Ancestry I've no idea how many there are beyond that point.

Myheritage informs me that I have a total of 1812 matches. I certainly haven't discounted 5th to 8th cousin matches from either site. I've started an excel spreadsheet noting who shares with whom and whether I can identify a paternal or maternal connection. It's very early days yet and I'm still finding my feet. fascinated by the whole concept though

[Jill Eaton]

If the person you are seeking a match with has incorrect data on their tree, then I should put your energies somewhere else. Especially if they seem to be expecting you to come up with the answers. They sound suspiciously like the 'click and paste' genealogists who rely on Ancestry hints, or the first answer they come across.

That may well be the case and we know it does happen but I also think that this will be a new challenge for genealogists - both amateur and professional. DNA matches now link people from all continents in a way that could only be followed by a really good paper trail in the past. DNA shows a possible familial connection that may only have been suspected before.

My present contactee (yes I know that's usually a alien contact term but it seems the easiest and quickest terminology for this situation) is descended from two lines who were sent to Australia in the early part of the 19th century. The vast majority of their trees are centred on an entire different continent. Anything they do know about their ancestors before they left Britain's shores is likely to be hear-say and legend. Add to that trying to locate places in a country you have no knowledge of with a registration, and recording system that may be entirely different to the one you are used to and all sorts of mistakes and misunderstandings are likely to occur.

I have an ancestor from Leicestershire. Birth registered in Melton Mowbray. it's about 45 minutes from where I live. On various websites her place of birth is transcribed as Branstone and Braunstone. I don't know which of those is correct? Are there two places near Melton Mowbray with similar names? is it the same place badly written? Are neither correct? I'm 90% certain it's Branstone but her surname is very common in the region and if there are two places with similar names I could easily have identified the wrong person.

I've tried identifying places in Ireland. That's a challenge in itself. Parishes, townlands, baronies, it's all a bit mysterious to me. Imagine what it's like trying to research relatives on a landmass thousands of miles away!