Distant DNA Match - is it Possible?

[farmeroman]

My wife has an Ancestry DNA match of 52 cM across 1 segment.

The linked person and my wife have no common ancestors in her tree, but her tree is public and contains >2500 names, one of which is a Peter Russell, who was born in Brenchly, Kent (where my wife's Russell family have several generations of history) in 1849 and died in Australia in 1934. From there her tree goes back another three generations to a Thomas Russell, who could be the brother of John Russell, my wife's great x5 grandfather, both possibly being baptised in Goudhurst in the mid 18th century. This is the only possible link I have found so far to the two Russell families.

My question is could a distant cousin so many generations removed have 52cM shared DNA or is there something clearly wrong? I would have expected to see <10 cM at that level of separation.

[whoamitoday]

I would say that it is possible.

Have you looked at the DNA Painter chart? Although the shared values are on the high side, do they fit within the possible range for the proposed relationship?

A test I have access to, has a 52cm match that appears to be a 4C2R with the common ancestor also born in the mid 1700's.

[farmeroman]

Yes it does seem to be within the range of 0-93 with an average of 22, so I suppose it is OK. It's just far higher than anything I've seen preseviously, which made me suspicious.

[whoamitoday]

That's completely understandable.

The test that I have access to, that I referred to above is my grandmother. She passed on 51cm of that particular piece of DNA to my mum and my sister inherited all 51cm of that piece from my mum. It didn't get very diluted over the 3 generations that took DNA tests so it's not inconceivable that it wasn't proportionally diluted in the previous generations either. I got a little less though.

The mysteries and wonders of DNA!

[farmeroman]

That's completely understandable.

The test that I have access to, that I referred to above is my grandmother. She passed on 51cm of that particular piece of DNA to my mum and my sister inherited all 51cm of that piece from my mum. It didn't get very diluted over the 3 generations that took DNA tests so it's not inconceivable that it wasn't proportionally diluted in the previous generations either. I got a little less though.

The mysteries and wonders of DNA!

Thanks. That's very interesting.