DNA Links/matches

[esomu]

I am new to working with dna matches but i am trying to expand my family tree and i was wondering if there was a need to add second marriages and children of those second marriages in order to help locate dna matches.  Many of my grandparents have second, third and sometimes fourth marriages and children with each of them.  Would they produce dna matches thru those marriages?  I know i am finding connections thru in-laws which make no sense to me so i thought maybe its because they are connected thru second/third etc marriages to a grandparent somewhere. 

[sugarfizzle]

esumo, First of all, a very big welcome to Rootschat.

If your 4 grandparents married several times and had children from each marriage, these children will still share approximately 12.5% DNA with you and will show up as very close matches to you. With a cooperative match or using shared matches it should be relatively easy to work out where the connection lies.

If you are talking about more distant 'grandparents', e.g. 2G, 3G, 4G grandparents etc, the same applies.
Fred Smith married Mary, Eliza, Susan and Sarah Jane and had 2 children from each marriage. Fred's parents were joint ancestors of all 8 of the children, so will share DNA.

My tree is getting very big now as I include multiple marriages and children, also as many marriages of the children as I can find, especially the girls.

If Fred and Mary had 2 girls, they would marry different men and new surnames would be introduced (Jones and Brown). If the daughters marry and have children, further new surnames would be introduced (Williams and Davidson).

Fred Smith plus perhaps Jones and Brown may be the only ones you have followed, you might never have heard of Williams or Davidson. Your match, descended a few generations further on from Williams, only has Wilson in her tree as she hasn't researched it further than her father.

You are a potential DNA match with all of these descended originally from Fred and Mary, and descendants of his other narriages.

In-laws by themselves shouldn't give DNA matches, but as you say, they may be connected from a previous generation.

Regards Margaret

[medpat]

If a direct ancestor has a second marriage you are related to the children by DNA.

e.g

my gt gt grandmother was widowed at 26, I am a direct descendant of her first marriage via her 3rd son. I am therefore in the Lloyd family. She married again and produced more children.

I link with 2 from my gt gt grandfather's Lloyd siblings confirming link.

I also found family links with my gt grandmother, wife of the 3rd son.

A man from UK linked to me, my Lloyd contacts and the links to my gt grandmother so our shared grandparents are my gt grandparents and his gt gt grandparents who are the 3rd son of 1st marriage of gt gt grandmother and his wife.

Now it gets complicated. A man from the US linked to me and the man from UK BUT doesn't link to the Lloyd or gt grandmother's links. Take the none links out and you are left with my gt gt grandmother as the link. The man is now getting his tree back to see if he is related to gt gt grandmother's 2nd family, to one of her siblings or parents families.