Suggestions for a 2nd cousin conundrum

[Petros]

My wife has 3 apparent second cousin matches (on Ancestry)  from her 3 maternal great uncles who all lived in the London area

Cousin 1 b 1966London 207 cM - matches paper record
Male 2 b 2000 Cumbria 258 cM, father's name not recorded
Female 3 b 2002 Bedford 296 cM- mother's name a Yorkshire name (but not identifiable to a specific person)

Messages with Female 3 have indicated that Male 2's father's surname W is the same as her mother's surname and that they are close matches while she shares < 1% DNA (i.e. < 100 cM) with cousin 1

My wife has 7 other living 2C from this family line (born 1959 to 1989)

Thoughts?

MyHeritage shows an additional match at 239 cM, born in Lincs, with no apparent connection to any of the above

[phil57]

I'm not sure what thoughts you are after?

None other than the one you appear to have confirmed by paper record are necessarily 2nd cousins until you have confirmed as much. Ancestry's 2C reference is a hint based on probabilities for the match length. They could be related in other ways.

For the female born in Bedford, has she shared her parents' names and any other details, or is she only willing to confirm the surnames.

I would start by building my own tree back from that match and looking for a connection. For matches at that length I usually find a connection within a few generations, and which line it is one often becomes apparent as the research progresses.

If all you have are her parents' surnames. Start with a marriage search for couples with the relevant surnames within 9 years preceding and 1 year after her birth. You can widen that if nothing turns up with the original search. Sometimes there can be too many possibilities and/or too little information to make a determination, but more often than not I find a link to start researching back from.

I find FindMyPast's advanced marriage search the best place to start with those type of searches, then  move on to check the same information with other databases if I get non-specific results. If necessary, you can apply for copies of the marriage certificates to obtain additional information that may help with grandparents, etc.

Of course if you match's parents were unmarried, that complicates things, but again there are checks you can make which may or may not get you on track.

It's all about detective work. Some you win, some may end up going nowhere. You have to accept that sometimes it is impossible to resolve some matches without their assistance, although by widening and bringing forward the lines of those you do have that appear to be connected, you may find they then suddenly slot into place. It can be laborious and time consuming though.

Or are you asking about something else? Sorry if I'm missing the point, but "Thoughts?" isn't particularly clear.

[Petros]

Phil, thanks for the suggestions but I've tried most of that. The female's parents aren't married (at least in any database search) and although the electoral roll points to the full mother's name, the only two individuals of that specific name both married in Yorkshire in the 1990s with one apparently still married to the same man.

My wife's great uncles of relevance to these two matches were born in 1917 and 1919 so might perhaps have fathered a child while serving in WWII but identifying any such child with scant information, and a relatively common surname (W), is almost impossible

[phil57]

Sometimes matches are just not interested, for whatever reason, although to have had some sort of response from her is a start. Perhaps she only tested for the ethnicity estimate, or she doesn't want to be drawn down a path she doesn't want to know about.

The only other possible way forward I can think about is if there are shared matches between the two of you that may help at least point to the line you are likely connected on, which might point you towards investigating those matches and/or widening and bringing forward that line in your own tree, in the hope it might lead somewhere

There may be all sorts of reasons. It can be frustrating, but if you've tried there may be nothing else you can do, unless another match pops up in the fullness of time that makes everything click into place.

I have my own collection of strange issues: A match who I believed I had identified as a 3C1R. I sent her a message and got an enthusiastic response confirming the relationship. She seemed very keen to know more. I gave her a bit more information in a reply, along with my email address, and suggested that if she let me have her email address, I could send her a copy of my tree, photos and other information. She never replied.

A 2C whose tree was all over the place. We actually met up and I showed him my research and gave him copies of all the relevant BMD certificates and other information. He used some of it, but not it appears, anything that referred to illegitimate ancestors, bigamous marriages or similar issues. He has invented lines still in his tree masking and bypassing those issues.

And another cousin who has a tree on Ancestry that is completely incorrect on our GGF's name and ancestry. Since it appeared it has completely skewed nearly all Thrulines hints on that part of our family. But I'd already sent him copious amounts of information about the correct lineage. When I spoke to him about it, he told me that he knew the tree was wrong, but it had been created for him by a friend, and he doesn't feel that he can change it for want of offending her

[Biggles50]

The Ancestry match’s could download their DNA and upload it to My Heritage, if, that is they can be encouraged to do so.

There you could use MH’s DNA Tools.

Same with them uploading to Gedmatch