Using DNA matches to find my Paternal grandfathers family

[DaveMcC]

I joined Ancestry in 2021. I currently have 916 4th cousin or closer matches. I was wanting to know how I could use my DNA matches to find my paternal grandfathers family as he is my biggest brick wall.

My paternal grandfather, John Daniel McKnight was Illegitimate and born in Creevycarnoonan, Kilmore, County Down, Ireland and he took his mothers surname. See this thread I made asking about him for info on what I have found out: https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=851721.msg7221404#msg7221404

My dad and his siblings refused to take DNA tests so I can't directly connect many of my paternal matches to them.

My mum and some of her cousins did take DNA tests on Ancestry so I know who matches to them.

I have one 2nd-3rd cousin match who could be related to my grandfather but we don't know how we are related, although it says Paternal.

Most of my 2nd-3rd to 4th-6th cousin matches are either on my mums side and I know the direct connection or at least which side of the family the connection is on, or mostly on my paternal grandmothers side and I know the connection.

I do have some 4th-6th DNA matches which say Paternal and have the common surname McMullen or McMullan and my 2nd-3rd cousin match, shared matches with some of them.

Any of them who have trees, some live in USA or Canada and say their ancestor McMullen/McMullan ancestors that came from Ireland were born in the 1700s or early 1800s but don't have the exact location, either County Down or Ireland so that doesn't help pin anything down.

Also, any of my matches who are McKnight/McNeight/McNight or have those names on their tree are mostly 5th-8th cousins, no 4th-6th cousins.

Is there anything I can do with my DNA matches to help my research and find out more about my Grandfathers family as I have checked most documents like Birth, Marriage, Death, Newspapers, Griffiths Valuation records and more and not got very far.

[RickyJack]

Hi Dave,
Can I suggest Gedmatch...Its Free and password protected ..one-to-many around 3000 matches you will get...One -to-one will allow you to compare and one area will allow you to put your kit and their kit numbers it will give you that you both match.
having the Haplogroup = tribe..might also be handy...the thinking is that many nations immigrated overseas and English-ised their names and some just wrote it as it sounded
maybe Ireland Genealogy projects with Christina Finn Hunt...lots of links to search different counties in Ireland
Cheers Rick in Australia   

[hurworth]

Have you uploaded your DNA to any other sites?  You may find useful matches at FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage.

[Biggles50]

Immediate thought, your Dad and his Siblings are hiding their knowledge of family events!

Alas Irish records are very sporadic, I am 25% Irish and have had great difficulty building my tree and I have been doing so for 15 years.

I would work through your highest cM matches, ignoring any on the Maternal side of your family.

Look at the shared matches, build trees of them and build them into the trees of others.  This would be better happening in software where it is easy to combine trees when a MRCA between matches is found.

You could also take a y-DNA test with FTDNA and that will give you your Male to Male lineage.  I did just that when my First Cousins all failed to take a DNA test, and found the person I thought was a direct ancestor to be correct.

DNA can be a waiting game so do be patient.

Meanwhile take time to learn about DNA, its inheritance and relationships ie First Cousins share in your case the same Grandfather and you and them are likely to share around 750cM with each other.  If a Grandfather is unknown and if he then went on to have further children by a different woman then their Grandchildren would be of the same generation as you.  They would be a 1/2 First Cousin and share about 400cM, do note cM for a relationship does cover quite a range.

As others have said uploading DNA to Gedmatch, myFTDNA, My Heritage may yield further results.  These will only be useful with DNA knowledge so do study.

A 275cM match to me led to finding one of my Great Great Grandfather’s who was Italian, the match had a tree of him and his Dad and failed to respond to Messages.  A 364cM match led to my yDNA test and that shows my Irish Great Great Grandfather to be who I thought him to be.  So do not give up it can be as I have said a waiting game.

[Jane Stewart]

Someone did mention this briefly above - the next very important step would be to take a Y-DNA test with FTDNA.  I'm assuming you are male, Dave :-)
A small piece of DNA (completely separate from the DNA examined in your Ancestry test) is passed down from father to son, therefore normally following the paternal surname line.  The idea is that you will match several men with the same surname, possibly indicating the surname of your great-grandfather.  This is the theory, but it doesn't always work like that - as you can well understand, as you yourself did not take his name.
The cheapest Y-37 test would be perfectly adequate for this, to start with (if you upgrade later you just pay the difference).

[ikas]

DaveMcC - have you explicitly stated on your Ancestry profile that you are trying to find your paternal grandfather? Your matches will often be able to tell which line you belong to through their shared matches with you more easily than you can. I have seen several examples of that. If you explicitly state what you want to know on your profile it makes it more likely that the key match sends you a message. Perhaps worth a shot.

[hurworth]

Someone did mention this briefly above - the next very important step would be to take a Y-DNA test with FTDNA.  I'm assuming you are male, Dave :-)
A small piece of DNA (completely separate from the DNA examined in your Ancestry test) is passed down from father to son, therefore normally following the paternal surname line.  The idea is that you will match several men with the same surname, possibly indicating the surname of your great-grandfather.  This is the theory, but it doesn't always work like that - as you can well understand, as you yourself did not take his name.
The cheapest Y-37 test would be perfectly adequate for this, to start with (if you upgrade later you just pay the difference).

For one branch of my tree Y-DNA would have been misleading.  We did find four men with the same surname - two in England, one in Canada and one in Australia, but it's a different surname to the name our family has been using.  We realise now that the family name changed about 6 generations ago, and we were using two surnames interchangeably for a couple of generations before that. 

Nevertheless, Y-DNA testing seems quite popular in men in North America whose patrilineal line is from Ireland (because it's often very difficult to  find records that make the jump across the Atlantic) and the matches are usually very enthusiastic.  We've also managed to find a missing grandfather and initially the closest matches on the unknown side were in North America and Ireland.  A bit of a breakthrough started when we were matching 2nd cousins with a mutual grandfather William born in 1820 in Ireland.  And we were all matching a woman with this surname whose ancestors arrived in Canada in the 1830s.  Still couldn't find how they connected to the mystery grandfather down in our part of the world though.  It was three years until the crucial match appeared - descended from the mystery grandfather's sister and we realised the grandfather's mother was a niece of William and had emigrated halfway around the world in the 1870s.

FamilyTreeDNA is rolling out Y-haplogroups for the Family Finder test - have you uploaded or tested there? 

[hurworth]

Sorry - the two second cousins had a mutual GREAT-grandfather William, not grandfather.

[Biggles50]

Well the Op is very noticeable in his absence.

Last on the forum 9th Dec and nothing.

I’m done