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Messages - AndyH81

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Monday 16 May 22 21:17 BST (UK)  »
Ooooh, it's been a while, but I thought I'd come back to this again.

The girl who I initially matched to we now think is my 1st cousin once removed, as her mother has subsequently taken a test and has come back as an even closer match which would rather suggest her mother is my first cousin. In turn, her grandmother has now agreed to do a test to determine our relationship; as if she is my aunt, then we know my biological father must be one of her own brothers... it's just not easy to know which one. Several of them are dead, and the one who is alive would not be interested in finding out.

But what I wanted to check is if anyone knew much about the accuracy of MyHeritage's relationship suggestions as they offer a 'range', rather than a specific relationship? I'm going to use initials to protect identities, but the relationships I know about now are:

BC - first girl I matched with, we share 543 CMs. The suggestion is 1C1R, Great Niece, or 2nd Cousin

PW - mother of the girl I matched with, we share 1,130 CMs. The suggestion is 1C, Great Aunt, Great-grandmother or great-granddaughter.

Would there be any way for me to know definitively which of those suggestions is correct?

For PW I immediately ruled out her being my great-granddaughter or grandmother because I don't have kids and she and I are only about 12 years apart in age, so that would leave a cousin or a great-aunt. Is there any way to actually know?

When PW's mother takes a test: If she is my aunt: Would that give a 100% definitive result? Or would it still provide a range of suggestions?

This is all doing my head in after so many months. All I want is definitive answers.

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Saturday 22 January 22 17:13 GMT (UK)  »
I already looked in to how I might get hold of her records, but I am legally unable to do so. There's very specific instances when you can, but I don't believe myself or anyone else in my family qualifies to do so based on what I had read.

Now that my father has spoken to my aunt, I think the idea of there being an older sibling is very unlikely now.

I've decided to focus my efforts on the possibility of finding out who the biological father is instead. I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down to about 5 different men but in so far as I can currently tell, they're all dead.

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Saturday 15 January 22 18:38 GMT (UK)  »
I guess I have mixed feelings about it all. On one hand, it's nice to know she wasn't keeping secrets; on the other hand, it means I haven't gotten any additional insight which I suppose I was secretly hoping for.

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Saturday 15 January 22 16:35 GMT (UK)  »
I've created a family tree based on the relationships I have been able to reconstruct from information I have been given by others or what was available online. I've also got some other information in a spreadsheet about connections related to the tree made via other sites, just not sure how these all fit together.

Dad spoke to my mum's older sister today and she said she knew nothing whatsoever about mum ever having had another child or that she had ever cheated. I got the sense she was completely blindsided by it all, so maybe there's no weight to the older sibling theory after all. She's not the kind of woman who would lie.

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Sunday 09 January 22 18:16 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Carmella on Sunday 09 January 22 15:01 GMT (UK)
Hi Andy

Can I ask if the mother of your 543cM match is still in process of taking a DNA test?

This result would definitely help you both narrow down your relationship - a full Aunt would share
between 1201 - 2282 cM with you.

Earlier on you've also mentioned that some of your known family & one of your DNA matches
family were living in the same street in the same town...  this seems too much of a coincidence to me.   Have you investigated each person in the households to see if there is any "household mixing"  for want of a better phrase...?

If this was my tree I would also be researching the life story of any man descended in any way from the Common Ancestral couple in Ireland who would be alive at the right time.  Electoral rolls and BMD records might help...

Yes, she is taking a test but I don't know when the results will be ready. By rights I should be a closer match with her mother. I think my biological father is likely to be someone who bridges the people in England and the people in Ireland. Unfortunately I am struggling to figure out exactly which person (or persons) are the one/ones who are the connection(s). That in of itself makes tracing any male descendants difficult. I'm also finding that the people who might be able to answer these questions aren't particularly forthcoming with information which makes it harder again.

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Saturday 08 January 22 17:35 GMT (UK)  »
Thanks everyone. It's the outcome that I was expecting, but I guess there was (obviously) still a little part of me who thought things might be wrong.

I forget who mentioned blood transfusions, but I've never had one, and I went and checked and apparently a transfusion would not have any significant effect on the outcome of a DNA test anyhow.

If anyone is prepared to help, I can hand over the information I have gleaned from various sites, the only thing I am reticent to handover is a DNA file. Which, as stated before, is not meant to cast aspersions on anyone - it's just not something I am comfortable with.


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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Friday 07 January 22 22:16 GMT (UK)  »
Well, as expected: My father and I are definitely not related biologically.

And now I have no idea what to do, because it would seem that I share a common ancestor with my closest match, but I've no idea who... and she also has no idea who her father is.

Oh, what a mess!

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Thursday 30 December 21 14:32 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Guy Etchells on Thursday 30 December 21 10:50 GMT (UK)
That depends on what they are referring to, whether it is the DNA results or the ethnicity results. Ethnicity is a construct that changes. Whereas your DNA is fixed in every cell of your body and does not change unless you have other DNA added by various routes, e.g. bone marrow transplant, blood transfusion etc.
Having said that your sample may be contaminated by mishandling.

They weren't referring to ethnicity, but the results themselves as the result of mix ups, cross-contamination, or misinterpretation of the results (not sure what that meant, but I would assume the type of relationships - cousins for siblings and so on). All they really said was they'd had to contradict multiple results in the past. I kind of got the impression that they looked down on the genealogy site tests and were dubious about any results given. *shrug*

I don't know what the statistics are on cross-contaminations and mix-ups etc. are, although I'd like to think it was quite rare.

Either way, I can't imagine mine is wrong given that I've matched with a multitude of people who would be on my mother's side. That being said, I did also match a few more distant relatives who would be on my father's side who have no apparent connection to my maternal family in so far as I can tell. So god knows. This hurts my brain.

But as this final test is deemed good enough for the courts, I am accepting it as the definitive outcome, no matter what it says!  ;D

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Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing / Re: DNA ethnicity logic check / Unexpected result
« on: Wednesday 29 December 21 22:46 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: Hillhurst on Wednesday 29 December 21 19:25 GMT (UK)
I presume your mother is no longer around, in order to ask her about the "circumstances"?

No, she died when I was a child. My father did say that she had a very close friend who might have been able to shed some light on it - but unfortunately he is now also dead.

And of the more likely candidates for bio-father, they are all dead too. Well, the ones whom I have been able to theorise about myself anyway. A professional could probably do better.

The one thing my father seems to be divulging more about is my mother's personality and mental health. It seems like she was probably a very damaged woman as the result of things she experienced growing up.

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