Ross family cluster

[sugarfizzle]

Rod, I think from what you have said that the matches are probably valid ones if all the other trees relate to the same Ross family, though there is the outside possibility that you match each of these people through a different line, but they all happen to be connected to the Ross family.  That is, you connect to A through Smith, B through Jones, C through Brown etc, but A, B and C are all related to Ross family. With so many Ross descendants matching with you this is perhaps unlikely to be the case.

As davidft says, you will need to compare where you match with those who have uploaded to Gedmatch.

Or compare those who have tested/uploaded to other sites with chromosome browser.  I use DNA painter.

https://dnapainter.com

I keep one profile for proven matches, another profile where I paint in details of any match, immediately get notified if it matches with any previous one. The advice is to use desktop, but I find it works well on my tablet as well, for convenience.

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

But I still don't understand why you think it could be Hannah's line. Couldn't it be any of your multiple ancestors where the connection is? For example, have you identified all of your 3G to 5G grandparents?  I certainly haven't, and it's not through want of trying - a couple of illegitimacies, some instances where the parish records are incomplete or unavailable, one ancestor from 'Ireland' with no further details available, etc. etc.

If there is even one of these missing, it could be Mr or Miss Ross.

It may be something you will never find out, but it is certainly interesting and over the months/years more matches will appear which might help in your search.

Work as closely as you can with any that reply to your messages, to see if there is a place or time frame that could help, perhaps they have a family story about one of their G uncles who left Scotland for Ireland but came back after a few months because he couldn't find a job, or a story about one of their G aunts who was left pregnant by a travelling Irishman. You never know your luck!

Regards Margaret

[davidft]

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

Re BIB my opinion at this stage is that there is a probable connection to the Ross family. This comes with the proviso's that it could be via several different people links as Margaret mentioned above and also that you need to do the chromosome matching on Gedmatch (or use the DNA painter tool) to establish whether what you have is one link or a number of conincidental links. If you could establish that it is just one link in common wit several people then that would increase significantly confidence that it was a valid Ross family link.

In the instance I mentioned above where I was trying to match with several people we all shared the same matching point of 18cM down to almost the last fraction of a cM point and despite that I could not make the match because of the lack of family knowledge in the other people's trees.

You need more information and if you have not contacted the people you have matched with I would suggest doing that although replies can take a while to come if ever.

Good luck

[buckyb]

Thanks David and Margaret, your help has been most valuable, I will take on board your comments.

Just by way of interest, 7 of the matches, including the 23.7cM match,  go through three different children of James Ross Snr  b Antrim, 1715, died 1788 Rowan, North Carolina. James is a grandson of David Ross of Balblair. The others come through siblings of James' father.

Also Margaret thanks for the telling me about DNA Painter, I have registered and it looks to be a very handy tool.

Best Wishes
Rod