DNA Ancestry question

[Rufous Treecreeper]

Trace both women back afew generations and see ifyou.have any matches with their grandparents surnames or localities these can be tiny matches but it will confirm

Just wanted to agree that this method worked for me.  I had two brothers and their (combined) six sons as possible fathers.  It was a search of one of the brother's wife's maiden name that gave me the answer.  A very small percentage match to me from someone descended from the wife's sibling also shared a match to the person descended from the unknown father.  Therefore it had to be one of the two sons to this couple who was responsible.

I found the more you organise your matches into descendant groups the easier it is to make discoveries like that.  Use the colour-code buttons 

Good luck!

 

[mike6265]

Again thanks for all the suggestions.
A brief question
A result is: 12cM over 2 segments
Unweighted DNA 23cM
Longest segment 17cM

The Unweighted DNA and Longest segment. What do they indicate? or where is an explanation of these terms?

[mike6265]

Another quick question.
Will uploading to MyHeritage DNA help?
I realise that is a silly question as use as many resources as possible is always good advice, but can someone comment on the process. Is the MyHeritage database helpful on top of ancestry?
Thanks,  Mike

[mike6265]

Sorry to go on a bit but I have used the information on the top of this site to transfer to MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA so will report in a week or so how I get on.

[brigidmac]

Its interesting to.see spmeone else's progress .

I dont.know anything about unweighted segments and longest segments .
Maybe I should try and understand .

Good luck..look forward to.tne update

[mike6265]

A quick update.
Easy enough to upload DNA  results to My Heritage and FamilyTreeDNA.
I had strong confirmations to someone I had already made contact with on ancestry.
I also had a strong connection to the brother of an ancestor born about 1790s and it would have been interesting to communicate with this person. However they have not replied!
I find a large number of the DNA connections never reply to my e-mails. What am I doing wrong?

[Albufera32]

A quick update.
Easy enough to upload DNA  results to My Heritage and FamilyTreeDNA.
I had strong confirmations to someone I had already made contact with on ancestry.
I also had a strong connection to the brother of an ancestor born about 1790s and it would have been interesting to communicate with this person. However they have not replied!
I find a large number of the DNA connections never reply to my e-mails. What am I doing wrong?

To answer your final question, probably nothing. Everyone who has messaged people on Ancestry will tell you the same - many, many inquiries go unanswered.

There are many reasons why - the person may not have been doing family history research for a while, they may have lost interest altogether, they may not be interested in connecting with other people, they may only have done the test for the ethnicity estimates, someone else may have bought it for them, and of course they may just be too selfish or rude to bother to send any reply.

The one thing I have found is that I have a higher success rate when, at least in my first message to someone, I keep the level of detail relatively small, i.e. something along the lines of "I think we may be related through x, who is my gggg grandfather, and seems to be the grandfather of y who appears in your tree" or something like that.

[mike6265]

Thanks for the suggestion.
I think in several cases you are correct. I have an inclination to give most of the information I have including certificate copies etc in my first message. Some people, not all, take this information and never reply.
Thanks again.
Mike