Author Topic: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA  (Read 1057 times)

Offline traceyjanesykes

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Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« on: Wednesday 08 July 20 12:01 BST (UK) »
Hi all,
I have recently received the results of my Ancestry DNA test. I was hoping to find out who my father was through this test (I've checked birth certificates, adoption papers, his name is listed no where) I have also tried to be in touch with family members that would have known of him but they have either passed or haven't replied.

I have been able to distinguish my maternal DNA matches apart from the paternal DNA matches but on the paternal side there is only a few matches of a '4th-6th cousin' and I'm not even sure where to start to determine who our common ancestor is as each cousin has a different family tree. Has anyone had any success with doing it this way and has any advice?
Cheers, Tracey.

Offline brigidmac

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #1 on: Wednesday 08 July 20 14:11 BST (UK) »
I'm working on a project of how to do this to help people establish
DNA connections to ancestors

I ve had some success  confirming birth parents of more distant ancestors
 
 Start with a hypothetical tree going back at least 3 generations
Start with yourself as home person
Putting F as father M as moth.er their parents as FF FM MF MM
Or whatever words or codes you prefer .

There a few ways of doing triangulations
Here's one way
Next step is to make a list surnames in the tree of your highest match

 Try putting each surname into the search filter and see how many hits you get .
Some trees will be closed or have unlinked trees
But they will also show up on search so make a note of the name there is a colour code facility ...

Pm me for a better explanation

Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline brigidmac

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #2 on: Wednesday 08 July 20 14:34 BST (UK) »
4--6 th cousin sounds a distant match but if you faction in that
1st cousin may be half sibling

 2nd cousin may be half cousin
 and if you match a 90 year olds DNA you may be half second cousins twice removed

So it could be 1 ggrandparent of  your father.  Who is their grandparent

What are the cm & segment numbers for your closest matches ?

Do they live in same country and region ?

Do you know where your birth mother lived at time of conception ?



+

Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline traceyjanesykes

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #3 on: Wednesday 08 July 20 14:44 BST (UK) »
the closest matches on my fathers side with family trees are :
60cM across 3 segments
57cM across 2 segments
56cM across 4 segments
21cM across 2 segments
 
they live in different countries and my mother lived in Surrey at time of conception. I also know my father was in his 40s at the time.


Offline brigidmac

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #4 on: Wednesday 08 July 20 15:31 BST (UK) »
From what Tracey told me in pm.her

16 percent German ethnicity

Would indicate a German great grandfather .

Tracy could you calculate possible birth year of great grandfather

Subtract your age and
Your father father's 40 years
We have to imagine an average birth age of 20-40 for next 2 generations .

* Please chip in rootschatters on how many years is average for ,2 generations I'm going with 60 .

What names are on the tree of your German match within that time period?

Do any of the 3 matches you have match each other or come up as shared matches ?


Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline brigidmac

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #5 on: Thursday 09 July 20 05:25 BST (UK) »
Advice to  anyone doing this kind of search ;

It's a long and slow process but knowing likely origins of unknown sides of the family can be interesting on the way to narrowing down the candidates of a birth father .

Even if your matches are distant you can work out an area where your great grandparents come from and some potential surnames which may lead to identifing your birth parents

 Modified *

1)check your ethnicty against matches
however distant , as well as names

.(I'm 52percent Scottish so can be pretty sure that anyone with majority Scots heritage is on my father's side...)

 Tracey. you know your mother is English and Scottish  the rest of the English DNA + German DNA must come from your father .

 2) identify countries/counties /towns  your matches live in now ?

If any of your matches are 100percent German  that's origin of one great  grandparent
.if the other high matches don't match each other you can start identifying regions for the other 3 great grandparents ( their children who will be your great aunt's  uncles and one grandparent)

2) see if  you have matches from your birth town or
 Surrey

 you may be lucky if your father was a local man or came from a small place

3)Match by area  exclude the ones which link to your mother .

( This could work  for example if two of your father's grandparents were born locally and the one who married the person of German origin  lived in a different region).

4) colour code  to spot patterns when you get matches showing same towns and same surnames .
For example use light blue for Surrey and darker shades for specific towns
 Green for Germany and close.colours for potential names from German tree

And other colours for the Surrey + other region names

Hope that helps
Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson

Offline monosnochan

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #6 on: Friday 10 July 20 07:37 BST (UK) »
I've had some success finding missing fathers.  One took a few hours to find, another took 8 years.  In any case, don't give up.  You never know when you'll find him.

Since you're using Ancestry, create groups.  Start simply with one named Mother and the other named Father.  Set a goal of placing every Close Match in either one. This will not be quick.  Shared Matches will help you along.

Upload your DNA to other sites to compare your DNA to other pools.  Try familytreedna.com, myheritage.com, livingdna.com, gedmatch.  Also, do another DNA test with 23andme.


Offline Flemming

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #7 on: Friday 10 July 20 10:07 BST (UK) »
Upload your DNA to other sites to compare your DNA to other pools.  Try familytreedna.com, myheritage.com, livingdna.com, gedmatch.  Also, do another DNA test with 23andme.

It's definitely worth doing this. I'd start with MyHeritage. It's free to upload your DNA and then it's a one-off £35 (I think) fee to unlock all the tools. There's an auotcluster function which groups matches for you. It's not earth-shattering but can save some time doing it manually. Also, it shows cM shared between you and a match and any other person you both match with, as well as whether the three of you triangulate (i.e. if you all match on the same section of chromosome). You don't get any of these functions with Ancestry, although MH does have a smaller database and some of their matches can be a bit flaky.

For all that, I've had some major breakthroughs in finding parents and grandparents on MH. Perhaps it's just the luck of the draw but it's where all my/our >100cM matches seem to hang out.

Offline brigidmac

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Re: Finding my father through Ancestry DNA
« Reply #8 on: Friday 10 July 20 12:10 BST (UK) »
This advice is great .

I personally haven't downloaded my DNA from Ancestry to my heritage yet .can't do it from smart phone.

I ve just had news of one lady who worked out who her birth father was after several years
Roberts,Fellman.Macdermid smith jones,Bloch,Irvine,Hallis Stevenson