finding biological father

[oldhippyone]

im helping a cousin I will call her ann [ found through DNA ] who was adopted find her biological father she has a close match [ on ancestry ] of 2nd cousin  [ I will call him john ] ann was born 1958 in UK john born 1994  born australia john has 27% middle eastern he  said his grandfather was 100% Israel ,and his grandmother English [ john never met his father or grandparents as his father would not have anything to do with him or his mother ] I am building a tree to see how they connect but would having 27% middle eastern mess with the cousinship could they be related further back than 2nd cousin ancestry say they share 269 x 15 segments ann,s mother who she just found will give her no information on her biological father and one able to help with this

[PaulineJ]

if one party was b 1958 and the other 1994, then are they not more likely to be cousins (once) removed?

anyway if John b 1994 Australia has an "English ethnicity" (maternal?) grandmother, I personally would start there

[oldhippyone]

yes I have started there  on his grandmother but no luck with her what I wanted to know is does having 27% middle eastern mess with the cousinship

[Ayashi]

The problem with using the percentages of nationality is that they are subject to change. Each DNA site has their own database and might not agree with each other, plus when they get more results from somewhere they can change what they think the DNA represents- my mother's nationality estimates have not changed but since testing her husband's results went from 66% British to something like 97%.

I think the two biggest helps for your friend here are going to be identifying her mother's side of the family and the "Shared Matches" function. John, being a relatively close match, could lead to identifying other members of her father's family through shared matches. Likewise, a shared match with an identified relative on her mother's side could eliminate certain people as being paternal matches. If a close maternal relative of hers, especially her mother if she can be convinced, is willing to test this would help that process enormously.

[oldhippyone]

I have done her mother side and has a lot of shred cousins on that side and john is definatley not connected to ann,s mother

[PaulineJ]

We are telling you that you should be researching JOHN's mother .

[oldhippyone]

I have done a very large tree for john including his mother and his mothers side all her relatives are included in john,s tree going way back and all from Australia apart from a little irish who were deported from ireland back in early 1800,s to Australia

[Ayashi]

I have done her mother side and has a lot of shred cousins on that side and john is definatley not connected to ann,s mother

Sorry, you might have misunderstood what I was saying. I'm not suggesting that John is related to Ann's mother.

Let's say you've got a DNA match, Person A. You look at Shared Matches to see who they are connected to.

The more identified reference points you have, the more chance you have of identifying who that person is related to.

If Person A comes back as a Shared Match to Ann's mother, or other close maternal relative, they can be safely discarded for the purposes of paternal research.

If Person A comes back as a Shared Match to John, or other identified paternal relative, then their tree can be examined for identifiable people in common with other matches.

If Person A doesn't come back connected to either, then it could be that they are a match too far back to have much DNA in common with Ann's mother or to John, or that they are related via a branch of the family that is not connected with the reference people tested.

Since you are going to have a lot of results that are from the outset unidentifiable in terms of which side of Ann's tree they come from, having a close maternal reference person could help essentially half your results so you can better focus on the ones who might actually assist you.

[Gadget]

I managed to located a great grandfather through extensive research on the shared matches and locations of people in their trees between certain dates. The shared matches were a very distinct group and one of the trees was wrong which throw me. I was in touch with one of the matches early on and she gave me info that I was able to use to link the two of us with the others (who, I found through research,  were all close relatives).

It takes time. I think I reworked their available trees a few times (and bought certs)  as an important ancestor's history had been wrongly entered - one had given a wrong father and one had given a wrong husband. When this was sorted, it was really just joining up the dots. It is extremely  important to check and double check the matches available trees.

Incidentally, cM should be  looked as as a measurement in a range using 95-99% confidence level (see https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4  )
I have two 3rd cousins from another line (both descended from sisters of my great grandmother) I share 292/18 with one and 169/9 with the other. I've checked to make sure that the first one wasn't related in any other way but not so.

Gadget