RootsChat.Com

I share my paternal 7G grandparents from Surrey with a match. This has been flagged up by Ancestry as a 'Shared Ancestor Hint'. Job done, 8th cousins, no problem.

I share 19.8 cMs with this match - not impossible, but perhaps unlikely to be 8th cousins.

However, shared matches are on my maternal side.

We haven't got to the bottom of this as yet, and probably never will, but his great grandfather gave what was probably a false name and age when he married, reported to be son of a Kentish policeman.

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=765221.0

In this case, the coincidence is not as striking as others given, as both my parents had roots in Kent and Surrey.  But it is still potentially confusing.

Regards Margaret

Perhaps it is only for testers with predominantly Irish heritage then.

There is a sort of breakdown for -
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 57% > Northern England and the Midlands > West Midlands and North West England.

What about his great grandmother and her ancestors, all from Somerset?
What about his great grandfather and his ancestors, mainly from Kent (his only acknowledgement of SE ancestry!!)

Ireland and Scotland has no breakdown at all, just says 43%, range 0 - 43%, nothing else.

My own ethnicity estimate regional breakdown is
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe 94% > Devon and Cornwall, South East England

Plus Ireland and Scotland 3%, Norway 3%

No known ancestors from Devon or Cornwall, perhaps Wiltshire is included in this.
I have a 4G grandfather reportedly born Cork, Ireland, none from Scotland.

As I said, a long way still to go, if ever. Still mainly for amusement, and click bait for potential testers.

Regards Margaret

At ancestryDNA when clicking on a match to see details you are provided with a list of shared surnames of direct ascendants.

Those with large trees often have many shared surnames with me. But it may be with only one of them where the connection lies, or none of them. If all eight surnames are relatively common, then there is nothing unusual about it.

Has this person added a tree, or just listed names of interest? If a tree, look for similar places as well as names - a rare surname from Norfolk is perhaps unlikely to be connected to the same rare surname from Scotland.

You might see someone with the same relatively uncommon surname as your ancestors, but you may be related via the Smith family rather than the unusual surname.

And what you think of as a rare name because it only occurs once in your tree and you have never heard of it before or since, could be a very common name in a particular area of the country.

At least you have a chromosome browser at ftDNA to help with your comparisons.

Regards Margaret

The right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, Ayashi.

My response from ancestry with a similar question about flaky surname search just replied that they didn't know why it wasn't working for me. And the 2 people I was contacting them about do now appear in surname search for that name.

Glad that you had a decent, and it would appear correct, reply from them.

Shared matches is possibly the same, but none of my shared matches have changed over time.

I always make notes for 4th to 6th cousins, including the shared matches. It's only when I get new matches that that alters, IYSWIM. Nobody that I have already made a note about has appeared as a shared match at a later date.

But time will tell, there really can't be any other explanation for Gadget's query, can there?

Regards Margaret