Ancestry DNA Match

[noland01]

Don't get lost in Surnames, especially when your relatives emigrate to another country. There has been waves of migration from Ireland beginning in the mid 1600's. Religious persecution, conflict and famine fueled many of these migrations. There was discrimination when they arrived. Many people modified or changed their names to better assimilate. As you note records are difficult to find but not impossible.
Focus on the largest CM matches. When you are down at 10- you are working with a questionable match. At face value, a 20cm match would connect with you at GGG Grandparents, that's a long way back. Your comment about 1 segment is telling also. DNA is variable but that is a difficult relationship to establish.
Moving from DNA, (and I assume you are familiar with your grandparents surnames) try searching graveyards by surname. Many of the old headstones have multiple family members, which can open the possibilities for furthering your searches.

Thanks for the reply.

Regarding the 1 segment matching was really wondering if that was of significance or not.

The surname possibility is that of the DNA matches with available trees (about perhaps 30 or so) the vast majority have the one surname ,Noland , appearing in it.Looking at their trees again, cant really verify some of it, it appears to be the same family line ie same ancestors listed over and over again.
Of those that replied to messages,none seemed to have even the remotest clue that they had any Irish ancestry whatsoever and none could shed any light on a possible connection.
As far as I could see a few trees early ancestors were just copies of other on-line trees.

Looked at a few on-line resources and even 40/50cM match could indicate a 5th/6th/7th cousin relationship which in an Irish context would be almost impossible to figure out as records are practically non existant pre c.1820 or so.

Again back to the surname.Mine is Nolan which is probably one of the most common surnames in my local area.Similar to the Noland above but have never seen it used around here and not a name/version that I have seen in Ireland to my recollection.

To be honest don't think i will ever get to place this group into my tree but then again that's what makes it a challenge and interesting.Irish records mean that I am most likely at a dead end regarding getting any further back so instead of onwards and upwards I will have to go sideways and downwards.

[noland01]

Our smaller DNA matches may be more important than we think. People had many children who often
had many children. Mothers died during childbirth etc. So these seemingly distant matches
could be from half siblings and their offspring during the years.

Again thanks for the reply.

A good few of confirmed 3rd/4th and in a couple of cases 4th once/twice removed cousins are matches with me at 30cM or less.
Usually go through my unviewed matches on Ancestry every month or so and see who's popped up.
Found a few that way who had shared matches and a tree attached.
Takes a bit of the fun out of it though !!!!

[rsel]

Have you looked at the DNAPainter website, specifically the What Are the Odds (WATO) tool ? If you are in contact with the people and can get approx year of births and the know the amount of cM's that you share, using the tool it can start generating an outline 'tree' with the most likely relationships. If you can get 2 of 3 people with known relationships and input the details it will get more accurate with its predictions on the possible connections.
So for example, i had a match who shared 5 known DNA matches with me, and using the tool i could narrow the MRCA to a particular generation of grandparents

Richard

[mgeneas]

Perhaps the common ancestor was a British soldier, who was stationed in Ireland and USA. This might mean that you have a non parental event in one of your lines.

[noland01]

Perhaps the common ancestor was a British soldier, who was stationed in Ireland and USA. This might mean that you have a non parental event in one of your lines.

The NPE would have had to have been a fair bit back I think .
Have confirmed DNA matches on all sides back to my great great  grandparents .

Its on my Paternal side for sure as none show a match to my mothers test .
Also none show up on match lists for any 3rd cousins that have checked for me.
Its a real mystery so far and problem is getting someone from that group who is interested enough to follow it up.
Quick look on Ancestry shows I have 234 in that group.Only put in those that are a shared match with 3 or more people.
Whats also unusual is that the vast majority have 20 plus shared matches for me whilst on any other line its usually 10 at the very most for 3rd cousins.
Maybe the fact that Ancestry is very US biased re. test numbers could influence that.

My tree stops at c.1800 as that's about it regarding Irish records.Have a few distant DNA matches that suggest connections mid to late 18th century but unprovable really .Can probably place where they might fit in as both my parents were from 2 different counties but each had ancestors who came entirely from within 3/4 miles of where they were respectively born.

What I really need is someone on that match list who finds some Irish connection .Wonder sometimes if one "inaccurate" tree is copied over and over again as it seems to fit the facts but then again contacted a person couple of years ago on a message board re. the same general family and they had the same details.They were totally record based and had no interest in DNA whatsoever.They also had no idea of any Irish connection.

[Galium]

I think I would take the 'Noland' surname popping up in your US matches as being significant - it isn't a long leap from Nolan. (I have ancestors who arrived in 18C America from Germany with the name 'Knisely'; some of their descendents are 'Nicely').

Ethnicity from Ancestry tests is not of course wholly reliable, but if your matches have up to 20% Irish
shown in their results, I wouldn't dismiss that as insignificant.  My mother's 3xgreat grandfather was an Irishman from Dublin, born of Irish parents - Ancestry doesn't give her any Irish ethnicity at all. My husband's 2xgreat grandfather was also Irish - Ancestry gives him 4% Irish ethnicity.

[noland01]

I think I would take the 'Noland' surname popping up in your US matches as being significant - it isn't a long leap from Nolan. (I have ancestors who arrived in 18C America from Germany with the name 'Knisely'; some of their descendents are 'Nicely').

Ethnicity from Ancestry tests is not of course wholly reliable, but if your matches have up to 20% Irish
shown in their results, I wouldn't dismiss that as insignificant.  My mother's 3xgreat grandfather was an Irishman from Dublin, born of Irish parents - Ancestry doesn't give her any Irish ethnicity at all. My husband's 2xgreat grandfather was also Irish - Ancestry gives him 4% Irish ethnicity.

Not too sure I would place much faith in Ancestry ethnicity results as think they are based on tree matches.
Taking my closest matches of the group ;
49cM shared over 1 segment ; ethnicity result is 3%Irish,39% Scotland ,36% England ,12% Wales ,3% Norway .

45cM over 1 segment ;ethnicity result is 2% Irish,30% Scotland ,27% England ,18% Wales ,2% Norway

45cM over 1 segment ; ethnicity result is 15% Irish ,31% Scotland, 46% England ,7% Wales .

My own test shows as 97% Irish and 3% Scotland.


Went back for another look and looked at names/surnames in trees where available.
No recognisable "Irish " surnames at all as far as I could see.
Even the christian names are real Southern USA ones to my eyes , eg,Rufus ,Robert Lee ,Zelica ,Virgil Lee ,Erasberry ,Reuben Pickett etc.