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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: bugbear on Thursday 16 August 18 10:27 BST (UK)
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I have a specific problem to solve - a road block.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=666303.0
Short version - I cannot find any parents or siblings for one of my partner's great grandfathers (J T Bice, 1862-1938) , using documentary methods.
So she has had a DNA test done; the hope is that we can locate/identify living descendants of J T Bice's father who aren't descendants of J T Bice, then use documentary methods with these new start points.
People with a shared father are siblings, shared grandfather is (1st) cousin, shared great grandfather is 2nd cousin, shared G-G-grandfather is 3rd cousin.
So - I'm looking for 3rd cousins of my partner who AREN'T in my documented tree (or can be added to my documented tree). My SO is around 60, but obviously her 3rd cousins could have quite a wide age range.
The Big Question:
Is my notion ridiculous, and my quest doomed, or is this a reasonable approach?
BugBear
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If siblings had children and if these children had children and if these children had children and if one of them took a DNA test, then there is a slim chance if somehow a large enough SNP block survived intact to qualify as a "match". However, you would be testing the boundaries of the limitations of autosomal DNA matching.
Ancestry have a 25% off offer at the moment (put then add postage and packing so don't get caught out)??
If your SO has a relation along the same line, then submitting a test for them too might help by using the gedmatch.com "people that match two tests" function.
All-in-all, I think it is improbable that DNA testing will meet your needs.
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Bugbear, You are looking for potential 3rd cousins, descended from partner's 2G grandparents, as you say.
You may strike lucky, you may not. It really just depends upon who has tested and who has not.
My DNA has produced 1 first cousin, who I knew already.
Others who I knew nothing about - 1 second cousin (no good to you), plus 3 third cousins. The rest are 4th cousin matches and above, some of whom I knew about already.
So, if I were in the same situation as you, I would have 3 people to find a common ancestor with. 2 out of the 3 have no tree and no knowledge of their ancestral roots. That leaves 1 person, who has not responded to my messages, a common thing.
So, it is entirely possible, but not guaranteed that you could find out something. Going back to the next generations, fourth cousin and beyond, is less likely to produce the desired result, as names and places become more widespread and you may not be able to find the common link, unless your ancestors stayed in the same place and didn't change their name.
Regards Margaret
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It is possible, my cousin did a DNA test and it threw up some connections that have proven useful. I have done one as well and am waiting for the results. We started down that road to prove a family connection and it has done that.
The risk is, as mentioned, that the matches you get may not respond to you. There may be many reasons for that. In our family it is the attempt to keep secrets that can be exposed by a DNA test, some of them I discovered on my own, but you never know!!!
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Keep plugging away at it and analyse the groups of matches that are not fitting easily into your tree. If the paper trail is thin then you may find there has been a name change or a misattributed parentage. I am on a similar search, trying to find parents for my own great grandfather. I am not making good progress as more and more matches roll in. I have identified a family that I think he belongs to and now just need to figure out how he connects in.