Ross family cluster

[buckyb]

Hi All

I have done an autosomal dna test through Ancestry. My matches show at least a dozen matches to the Ross family of Balbair Scotland. The matches seem to go back to an Irish branch of that family and to the Scottish  branch, both of whom had members migrate to the USA State of North Carolina around the early 1700s. From Ancestry Shared Matches and GedMatch my ancestor appears to be my gg grandmother who migrated to Australia from Ireland in 1842. I have been unable to find any paper trail connection between my ggg, or any other ancestor, and the Ross family.

My question is: Does a cluster of this sort indicate a definite dna connection or is it just a distant mix of ancestors from a common place, I also have many other unidentified connections to Virginia and NC ?

Thanks
buckyb

[davidft]

Can you give an indication of the scale of these matches on Gedmatch. that is how many cMs do you share and in how many batches

[buckyb]

Thanks David
The Gedmatch that I have identified show
23.7 cM across 1 segment
10.5 cM across 1 segment
  9.9 cM across 1 segment

Ancestry Matches
19.4 cM across 2 segments
13.2 cM across 1 segment
12.9 cM across 1 segment
11.5 cM across 1 segment
11.3 cM across 1 segment
 9.5 cM across 1 segment
 9.0 cM across 1 segment
 7.8 cM across 1 segment
 7.1 cM across 1 segment

buckyb

[sugarfizzle]

buckyb, This is a difficult one. An indication of cMs shared would be helpful as davidft has said, but if you are talking about 3G grandparent level, I presume Ancestry shows you as 4th cousins with a high or extremely high confidence level.  At that degree of cousinship, I would think that the relationship is genuine, rather than coincidental.

Sounds like a possible illegitimacy. Have you used a tool such as DNAPainter to see if you all match to a high degree in the same place?  This could be very helpful.

What makes you feel that it was this particular 2G grandmother? Couldn't it have been any of them, or a bit further back? An English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish 2G or 3G grandmother could have had a liaison with a Scottish Ross family member who was on his travels. Or a 2G or 3G grandfather could have had a liaison with a Scottish Ross girl whilst he was on his travels.

Regards Margaret

[sugarfizzle]

Cross post!

Doesn't seem particularly high match, could be a lot further back than 2G grandparent, or coincidence (though perhaps unlikely).

You might have to look at quite a few more people than your 2G grandmother, but you have some reason for thinking it was her.  A couple of generations before that you have quite a few candidates, male or female, who could have had an extra marital or pre marital relationship with a Ross family member.

Regards Margaret

[davidft]

I would have thought at least the 23.7 cM should be a match 5 or 6 generations back.

If you have not done it I would suggest you do the test (Gedmatch) of which results match 1 or 2 of two kits where your kit is the first test criteria and the 23.7 cM kit is the second test criteria. If any of the other results then match the pair of you, you will be able to look at the chromosome browser to identify a common matching point. Those who match at the common matching point should then share a common ancestor.

However trying to match this far back is not easy especially when people have only partial trees. I recently spent a week trying to find the common ancestor between myself, three people in New Zealand and one in America. According to Gedmatch the match should have been about 5 generations back and although my tree is > 95% complete at this level I could not make the match because the trees I was trying to compare to had big gaps in them and their owners could not throw any more light on where a connection might be. So that is now on the backburner until some new information emerges.


Good luck with your search

[buckyb]

Thanks Margaret

As you know Ancestry don't show chromosome segments. However Ancestry does show shared relationships for most matches with good confidence or better, these all led back to Hannah Rowan and Joseph Thompson. I think my tree is quite accurate for at least 5 generations as my paper trails are confirmed by dna matches.

I have tried to avoid specific relationships on this thread as I was more concerned to ensure that my thinking was right in that the matches constituted a true connection to the Ross family. I do have another thread posted on the Irish Antrim forum (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=795503.msg6532340#msg6532340) detailing specific persons. I also wanted to make sure that the two threads didn't start to overlap and cause too much confusion.

You might be quite right about an extra marital relationship between the Ross and Rowan families as this would start to make some sense of the situation and the dna matches.

I am not familiar with DNAPainter but I will certainly check it out.

Once again many thanks for your thoughts and input.
Rod

[buckyb]

Thanks David

I can relate to the problems of trying to match further than 5 generations back, a lot of trees are obviously wrong and incomplete. It is particularly difficult when the trees of matching persons show none or very few people.

I made an error on my 23.7 match, unfortunately he is not on GEDMatch, so I have only identified the chromosome segments of a few people with traceable trees.

I would also very much appreciate your opinion as to whether you think I have a valid connection to the Ross family given the lack of a paper trail.

I think I will probable need good luck to work all this out.

Rod

[buckyb]

Hi Margaret

I have just reread all the posts and I think I may have confused the situation. I didn't mean to imply the connection was with my ggg Hannah but rather through her family line, perhaps back to the early 1700s. As you suggest an extra marital relationship could still be a distinct possibility.

Thanks Rod