Looking for Unknown Grandfather Using DNA

[farmeroman]

My daughter-in law's mother was adopted. I know her mother's birth mother through her adoption records and have found many DNA links to that side of the family at upto 262 cM.

I'd like to use DNA to trace a potential father and have eliminated all of her DNA hits who also share DNA with the mother's side. Once that is done the strongest link to my daughter-in-law and her half brother, who both share the same mother, is at 48 cM.

The child was a war-time baby so it is very possible that her father was a (American or Canadian?) serviceman. Could that be a main reason for the low cM count of the hits on Ancestry.co.uk? And are those low cM hits likely to be irrelevant and not worth following up?

[brigidmac]

That is quite a distant match to find a mutual common ancestor unless you have a cluster of shared ancestors.

Worth checking that there are not any matches which could be from BOTH   maternal and paternal side especially if the known maternal ancestors were from a small community..

[Biggles50]

Does your Wife’s Mother have any Brothers that she is aware of?  If so then getting them tested with a yDNA test would be a good idea as this looks at just the male line.

As with all autosomal DNA tests if they are uploaded to all the comparison websites then the chances of getting good matches will increase.

I usually suggest Ancestry for DNA autosomal tests which you are referring too as they have 2x the most people in their database and their test results can be downloaded for upload to the likes of Gedmatch, My Heritage, My Living DNA etc.

It can be a waiting game, it took five years before, via a DNA match, that I found the father of my Great Grandmother.

The 262cM you quote is in the range of a 2C or 2C1R so knowing this may help.  If you are not aware of it look at DNA Painter where you use their Shared DNA tool to enter the cM value and the tool responds with the percentage probabilities of the relationships which in turn give an indication of where to look.

The 48cM worst case is a match with a common ancestor of 8xGGP level so a long way back.

A first cousin is about 860cM and a half first cousin is about 450cM so getting matches of over 300cM would mean you are getting close so the the 262 match is well worth following up and building a separate tree around them if you have them as likely on the paternal side of your MinL’s family

Good luck

[Spelk]

Do not ignore the lower level matches.
My gran was illegitimate having been born in NRY when her mother was age 16. A couple of years later her mother married a Arthur MARSH born in Keddington in Suffolk.
After getting my DNA test with Ancestry I spent months trawling through the matches. Eventually found a 26 cM match with a woman in Canada who had a smallish tree; 38 people. Her tree was all people born in Canada apart from  David MARSH born in Keddington in Suffolk.
A couple of hours work showed that David MARSH was a first cousin of the father of Arthur MARSH. So  the family “myth” that Arthur was the true father of my gran were true.

[shellyesq]

The child was a war-time baby so it is very possible that her father was a (American or Canadian?) serviceman. Could that be a main reason for the low cM count of the hits on Ancestry.co.uk? And are those low cM hits likely to be irrelevant and not worth following up?

I think Ancestry gives you matches regardless of where they're from.  I've seen DNA matches for people from the UK and Ireland, even though I'm American.

[Heb66]

Hi,
I have a 48 cM shared DNA match.
My great-great grandfather and his great-great grandmother were siblings.
Maybe this will help out when trying to fathom a family connection if the DNA match has a family tree.
Helen.

[Cell]

Have you uploaded the ancestry results to other companies? If not , I  highly recommend you do. It is free ( or a minimum cost ).

I know you said you think that he may be an American or a Canadian, but he could be any nationality including British ,Australian, Polish and so on  . Ancestry UK will  give you all results from around the world that has tested with Ancestry , regardless of if it is ancestry UK or their Com or Au site . (,so do the other companies with their tests/ uploads)- but I find Ancestry is far more popular with Americans using their kits to test.  With mine , I tend to get far more European matches on My Heritage, and far more Americans on Ancestry.

It's  free to upload your Ancestry results to My Heritage and view your  matches( you just  pay a small fee for the  extra features if you want these,  the unlock feature , can't  remember how much I paid)

I found  my parent's half sibling ( who is a war baby )that we didn't  know about , on My Heritage  - who wasn't  on Ancestry ( non british born). .I also have some full first cousins and second cousins ( British born) , and also half cousins ( non British born )  on my Heritage that are not on Ancestry.as they did not test with them.
 
It's  really worth uploading your  Ancestry results to other companies, spread  the net. Not everyone who takes a test does an Ancestry one. Other companies results can't be uploaded to Ancestry - but ancestry's can be uploaded to other companies sites.

If it is any help - I share 562 and 546cm cms with my HALF  1st cousins ( both are full siblings to each other)
And my child shares( with the same two  people)  346cm and 292cm with them ,  which are his HALF  first cousins once removed

The match to the 262 one  could very  easily be a Half first cousin once removed , it falls within that 61% chance (.although you said you know the names on that maternal side  and are tracing the paternal side)

 Don't  rule out being a  half first cousin either at 262cm , as it can  fall in with being  be a Half first cousin too , and not a removed ( There is 16% chance of being a  half  first cousin) .

As a good example of this  , My first full cousin only shares 253 cm with one of those  same first  half  cousins ( which is  13% chance according to dna painter website)  - whilst my child's who is a once removed and shares 292 cm ,and where  I am 546 ..Hell of a difference between full cousins and full once removed sometimes sharing with half cousins . My child shares more cms to the cousin(  half  first  cousin once  removed to my child)   than my full  1st cousin does to our 1st half cousin , Which is really not in the least surprising  (as my 1st full cousin tests a lot lower than I do to our parents half sibling ,  just a  little over 700cm to my well over 1100 cms) .

I would certainly not  discount  the low matches.

69cm may not be too far back.
I share 149cm with one of my known full second cousin once removed ( common
link is  my great grandparents
and my matches gg grandparents) -.my child shares 69cm with the same person ( third cousins)

If you haven't done so already, my one major tip to you is consider uploading  the results to other companies.
It also it is very much  a waiting game too .
Good luck.


Kind regards.

[farmeroman]

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

Please note that the 262 cM link is for a definite relative on her mother's side, not a potential one on her father's side. The highest I have for someone who cannot definitely be connected to her mother's, so may be from her father' side, is 48 cM.

I agree that the best course of action now is probably to upload her DNA profile to other sites to see if I can get some higher value cM links.