When I do genealogy it is 95% documents and 5% DNA. I don't have very many close cousins. I had 10000 cousin matches on 23&me and only identified two of them. I have a tree on Ancestry with 3 to 4 thousand people on it. DNA is good for proving you are right with documents.
As an admin to a few DNA projects, I keep answering the same questions over and over. I watched this video asking myself the same questions, "What about ..." You answered each one of them faster than I could think of them. I'm not qualified to judge but it's amazing how you answered every last question exactly as I would have. As a person with over a decade of DNA experience, over 50 years experience in traditional research, and experience with 4 different testing companies, I think this video is amazing. If my meager opinion is worth anything, the info here is spot on! I'm saving this link to refer to others so I don't have to keep repeating the same answers you've already covered. BIG Thanks!
I found a cousin from Hungary going back to the late 1590's -1600's there was no other way we could have been related and the family name remained the same the name and was so incredibly unique it was easy to trace even though there was at least 2 country changes in the family on that line! It was only 1-2 centimorgans in common still with this DNA cousin. So people it is still VERY possible to make connections even further back than is traditionally expected.
Exactly, there are some well known families, in the USA from the Mayflower, or in Brasil the Cavalcanti's and the Albuquerque's so if you have this surname it might help. And then cousins marrying cousins and these marrying other cousins. That changes the whole picture. So the paper (internet) trail together with DNA is the best in these cases.
On Geneanet, I found a distant cousin with whom I have a common ancestor 10 generations back in the mid to late 17th century. We share a paltry 8.2cM. I don't see any other connection between our trees, so it basically confirmed that line of my tree.
I'm extra impressed that I matched up our DNA with someone where our paper trail goes back to our shared 3x great grandfather! The DNA portion was tiny, but our trees matched.
Endogamy in some lines makes it easier. My dad's french Canadian, my mom's Amish Mennonite, my favorite southern colonial lines. American colonial lines are much easier. I have mine , mom's , her sisters, and my dad's DNA on all major sites. Plus access to 10 others cousins matches on ancestry. Been obsessed with this for years. I was into triangulations on GEDmatch too. My mom and dad have some thru lines on Ancestry with cousins in common that leads to Mayflower and Jamestown.
@@lisafisher8178 , you should try to expand your tree. When you find one, you can sometimes find more. I first found Henry Sampson, then Degory Priest, Richard Warren, White , and one more. Sorry I can't remember right now lol. But then recently I just found another line too Richard Warren. I also am also descended from Delano who came a year later. My Dad's side has known lines and it's get to be too much sometimes.
@@lisafisher8178 I haven't found anyone from the Mayflower in my lines yet. But definitely Seath Warde in the very early Jamestown, Virginia. Also, possibly my Byrd ancestors from same period definitely in Virginia, as well as Bell ancestors. Strickland ancestor probably was the officer that came over to very, very early NY, but still getting the final details verified on some of these...
I would highly recommend that getting access to other cousins' DNA, is a great way of catching more Cousins with DNA, as Connie mentions you won't match EVERY distant cousin with your DNA but your sibling might, your Mum, Uncle and close cousins might match them also etc. Sharing DNA is vital in my research and has enabled me to vastly dot the i's and cross the t's. As I always say sharing makes family history/research that little bit easier.
Most of the time I ignore any single digit DNA matches. But, about a year ago I looked at one match that I only shared 6 centimorgans with. That match had an extensive tree and going thru it I found a married couple who were both born in the early 1600s. 400 years is a long way back, and it is the only one I've ever found a match. But that match was dropped off my Ancestry list when they changed how low they go for centimorgan matches.
I first saw Diahan here on your channel last year. Since then I have taken both her Y DNA course and her DNA skills course. Both are amazing and will REALLY help you learn and understand how to use DNA along with paper research to answer those brick wall questions. I am looking for a set of 3x great grandparents. I already found the male but am still working on the female. But what I learned in her courses is amazing. She gives you the knowledge and the tools. Then it is up to us to put those to work for our genealogy questions. And you even get a “one on one” with an expert who will help you on you own personal question. It really is amazing. And you can view the course videos over and over again, forever. Plus there are live Q and A sessions every week. I loved it! I am hooked on DNA for solving seemingly “unsolvable” questions where there are no public records to help us out. This is a new way to attack the empty spaces on your family tree. And there are tons of free videos out there too. I started with the free ones but then went to these courses because they really lead you by the hand.
Agreed! Great testimonial for Diahan Southards DNA courses. I took both of the same classes and they are fabulous. For those reading the comments and want to take her classes, here is my affiliate link www.yourdnaguide.com/ref/6/
Thanks for another wonderful video, Connie! I was actually wondering about this question. My grandmother’s great grandmother was full Portuguese-my grandma’s only source. That’s why I can be pretty confident about DNA relationships to Portuguese cousins for her and my results. I’ve found a few NPEs (both great grandparents), so I was hesitant when I found connections to my grandma’s 4x great grandparents. However, there are so many from their same family line that I’m confident that’s the connection. I actually match some of them, so I have connections to my 6x great grandparents! 🙂 (Mainly because the test takers are, although much younger, of my great grandma’s generation.) I also recently have been searching for matches from a specific location in the Azores, and found one linked to my grandma’s 7x great grandparents. It looks like it makes sense right now (their entire tree is built out well-no other connection), but I want to prove the lines below them before celebrating and claiming a DNA connection.
Really good, thx. One thing that would be obvious to most, but maybe not to newbies is that it's best to get the eldest in your family tested, for all the reasons you stated.
I am glad you put a caveat on your personal practice, because I do not have plenty of cousins for verification. I dwell in the land of 9cM to 13 or 14CM. I have nobody much to work with. I have a fifth cousin but we think there is a different grandmother at the 3rd great grandparents. It is odd to me that I have soooooooooooooo many cousins at about 13cM. There is a message in that to me, but I haven't broken the code. This is all Early American colonial heritage. I have been trying to find the women to take me back to my 4th great paternal grandparents.
Sheila here. I love your charts! The visuals help me so much. I just started using Ancestry DNA matches a few months ago. Wow! A few shared- match groups opened up my paternal great grandparents’ line that we previously had no info on through traditional genealogy. I found their home village in “the old country.” Endogamy abounds, but I’m excited to sort them all out. And I have you to thank 😊
I only pay attention to at least 25 cM, but if I see someone below that with a good sized tree I will check that out. I have found some good info doing that. I wish more folks would do a family tree, at least a few generations. It would be so helpful if they did. I have 77 matches of 40 cM and above. My grandparents were born in England on my father's side and I have almost twice as many matches on my mother's side. Most of her family go back to the 1600's. I have 29,000 total matches, but many of them have no tree. Only 1680 are not assigned to one parent or the other.
Yeah, thats when you really have to dig in and stay focused on the ones you are really interested in. When I took a DNA course the instructor pointed out how we will probably find ourselves building out allot of trees for other people. We need to do that to see where we connect. I only do that on really super good specific “genetic network” matches. A skill and strategy I learned from that expert. I remember her saying “don’t chase squirrels!!” I had a bad habit of doing exactly that! Looking for one person and then running after someone else who crossed my path. I think focus and patience are the most reliable tools we have. DNA or no DNA.
Do what??? You only have 77 matches of 40 cM and above??? I have 20 "close family"...the least of which I share 205 cM and she is the granddaughter of my maternal grandmother's brother...my great-uncle Ed...and I met him as a girl several times. There's a first "extended family" category that extends to 73 cM...and a second "extended family" category that I haven't found the bottom of...with several hundred people in the second category. One would think with that much information, I could solve the two major black holes in my family tree...but no! (I call them black holes rather than brick walls because it appears that all the information about them has been sucked into black holes the same way light does. My great-grandfather I swear was deposited fully formed by aliens!)
@@joannathesinger770 I have 12 close family matches with 215 cM being the lowest. I have loads more matches for my mother. I think that is because my grandparents on my father's side were British and many relatives would be in GB where DNA testing isn't as popular as in the US. I have 3 great great grandparents that are dead ends so far. When I get to ggg grandparents there are quite a few missing. I have one line that I can trace back about 750 years. When you run into a prominent family in your ancestry, you've hit the jackpot because those families are well researched.
@@jjbud3124 That would be my Nesmith (assorted spellings including Nessmyth) line. It goes back to 1300 Scotland. My Byrd line gets totally messed up because--I don't know why (sarcasm included)-- people assume there could ONLY be one George Byrd in a region when there were actually three...if not more. George Byrd is the colonial equivalent to John Brown or Smith. Aarrrgghh!!! The census delineates them correctly, so the basic information IS there.
@@joannathesinger770 I have one line that absolutely has been driving me crazy for years. I have a grandfather (last name Vaughn, middle name Ridgway) whose grandfather, an uncle, a brothers and two cousins with the middle name of Ridgway. I have a 4th/5th genetic connection to some members of the family, but I cannot find any marriage between my known relative and that family. The marriage/hookup would have been around 1775 with 3rd great grandparents. I've been searching for years. I "know" the connection is there, but with what person? Seems odd that if it were illegitimate that the name would be so used for the middle names of so many males in my family. The one possibility was a woman named Rebecca who seems to have never married and has no offspring. I second the aarrrgghh!!
I have hundreds maybe even a thousand 4-6th cousins (best Ancestry can do). Due to many in family who have kept great records, I have usually been able to find common ancestors. I did find that my parents had a common set of 5th gr. grandparents. My daughter has not had the same luck with her father's family. I simply don't have the time anymore to spend days looking for ancestors, no matter how interesting the information I find is. 🙃
I fall into that southern early colonial endogomy set...and I have over 100,000 4th-6th cousins. You are lucky with so few. I don't even bother looking at those I share less than 40 cM in common anymore.
DNA helped me find records that I hadn't been able to find. Turned out ancestry's search algorithm HID records from me that were the right person because there were different names attached because of his 2nd marriage (that I didn't know about). If even his obit had come up, I would've found it. Wish ancestry's search algorithm was less "helpful."
Gotcha! My cousins use Ancestry version of Canadian census- because of name & spelling variations, they miss more of our lot 3 times out of 4- & #4 has an error in their transcription. Hair-pulling!
Wonderful thank you. One caveat, I found out recently coming across an allegedly 4th to 5th cousin: Valley and village-endogamy. Imagine that nice pie chart at 13:39. And then you have a churchbook that tells you in almost every second marryage: 'dispensatio because of 3rd degree in main(male line) and 2nd and 3rd dregree in sidelines(mothersides)'. This 4th/5th degree cousin with high reliability turned out to be - at the lowest level - an 8th degree cousin. But some 8 times a cousin in the 10th and 11th generation.
Hi Connie - I have roughly 85000 DNA matches via Ancestry. My parents comes from two different states (NC & KY). Interesting, I have been notified I have three "matched" DNA shared between my two parents. These three are coming in between 12 cM & 25cM's. Your mention focusing on greater than 10cM or better yet 25cM's. My head scratch moment is the drastic difference with these three cousins being between 4th and 8th cousins. That's a big swing in GGP.
I just have a piece of advise while doing this. Do not assume that someone your age that you believe is a family member, ignore age completely. I went to highschool with someone I believed was a cousin, my mom said sh thought he was from one of the ranches who move to my county when she was little. The actual family tree places him in my grandfathers generation. Grampa was one of the oldest, born to one of the oldest, born from one of the youngest. Guy I went to school with was born to a line that was all youngest. They were all descended from large families, most numbered 5 or more. My mom was 1 of 11 as was my grampa. The middle to younger kids in my moms family mostly had smaller families so I am only 1 of 50 grandchildren. Most of the next generation had 3 or fewer. And the next so far is 2 kids or less. My aunt spent 40-50 years gathering info and tracing things plus getting updated info yearly from everyone who would respond. She and my cousin input all that data on a program and had it printed as a book. They only traced the patriarchal line so I’ve started working on the matriarchal line for my grandpa s mother as well as my grandmother and all those past great grand on my dads side. My aunt had a distinct advantage because their were still members of the first or second gen born in America Alive into the 60s. I had great grands alive with the last dying when I was 17. I had a 2 nd great grand aunt until my 20s. My moms family is very long lived. My grands were 96 and 104. My mom is 80 and still has 3 older siblings, one of the dead was killed in his 20s, the other was 89 and had she not refused treatment she would have lived longer. I alway tell people to just assume I’m related either by blood or marriage to everyone in that county. I’m only related to one branch of the Mennonites, I think the more conservative one, and one Amish family though.
I just love your channel! I have to say, I LOVE genealogical research, but I do not watch many videos about it. Your channel is honestly my favorite on the topic. Thank you for the excellent info you put out here in cyberspace for us! ❤👍
Excellent point at 4:07, once you get to 3-4x Great Grandparents you really need to switch over to traditional genealogy. Distant DNA is great to point you in a family direction, but without a traditional tree to guide you, you're basically just guessing at anything under 20CM - imo. Cross matching helps narrow down the specific branch, but you need the tree to find people way back. So, please people, if you're doing Ancestry fill out your tree as much as you can, don't just stop with 1 or 2 generations. Having said all that, if your tree is very well done, you can trace people back quite a ways. I started Ancestry to find my biological father - which i did after 2 years, but along the way I noticed that researchers were having this ongoing debate about my grandmother's line and if it came from Ireland, England or Scotland, so I started mapping every person who had the surname Downing and matched me via DNA. I now have about 400+ mapped DNA matches on that line and 257 of them go to a Timothy Downing from 1720 (English by the way), and William Downing 1724 (Scottish) two different lines. Not all matches make them the common ancestor (many came after after), but over 50 do have them as the common ancestor. So, you can reach out to 300 years - IF - you have a good tree to support the DNA matches.
This is a video I really like, funny enough, I had to just answer this question on a different forum. The 'Why not' question on 5C or further back comes up all the time related to atDNA. Thanks for another quality video.
I always get excited when I’m contacted by ancestry with a new match. Sadly, so far, only one in about two dozen have created a tree at all. It is very frustrating to know that they are out there, but have no opportunity to discover just how we are related. I always contact them and introduce myself and give them the opportunity to look at my tree. But, so far, even though some have written back to say hello, they have not gone on to build trees.
Hi Connie, thank you. I have stopped watching your videos as I am researching my West, East and Balkan European ancestors (non British). That is a whole monster on its own. I am still subscribed to your channel though as I like your presentation. If you ever expand to those other European areas I would be happy! Just to add to the topic here, I was able to match my cousin from the 7th generation back! We are descendant of the same person that far. So I match that descendant on 11cM, only one segment. My daughter shares the same. However, my sister does not shares any recognisable cM with her. I only use FTDNA and MyHeritage as that is the best for European (non British) ancestors. My distant cousin is confirmed by us knowing it and also found in books! I hope this story will inspire someone to look at smaller matches and test family members as not all of us match our distant families, but some of us do
It 's refreshing to hear someone say they have a healthy number of matches and can adjust their searches rather than just pick from dozens of ideal tests they manage like some channels are prone to do. I often feel those channels are telling me what I 'MUST' do rather than suggesting some of the options that may be available to me that I've seen on this channel. I've tried a few ideas and adapted some of them to my needs, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but I know more now than I did before. I have around 16,000 matches on Ancestry but only 360 matches at 20cM or greater, only 12 of them are above 100cM. A minority have trees and common ancestors options are in single figures. I don't even have four grandparents now after DNA proved several certificates were nothing more than fairy tales and the small number of second and third cousins I have are names I don't know and can't place. I accept that illegitimacy and lack of matches makes my research challenging but I keep trying. I have another 15,000 matches on myheritage after importing my raw data, four are duplicates from Ancestry, The top three are unique to MH and in the 80-110cM range. Again there are hardly any worthwhile trees to check for clues. I did pay for the DNA tools in order to use Autocluster but could only match a very small group to anyone in my Ancestry matches presumably due to the low number of duplicates across the two sites?
I have Catholic church records from St. Augustine, FL and Menorca, Spain as well as Spanish census records that definitively show my Spanish ancestry. The records are from the 1600s and 1700s. Here's the kicker; my DNA results show no Spanish ancestry. This is why you absolutely need to use traditional genealogy as well as DNA. Great video as usual!
Indeed. If there's one thing that "DNA" teaches "us" then it's that women CAN keep a secret (popular science: tell a woman a "secret" and she cannot resist the urge to relay that. 20 minutes max and the "secret" is out.) Except when out of wedlock pregnancy happened, potentially painful because incest or rape. In the UK you might expect up to 25% chance of nature being different from genealogy at every generation level. As to your own case, beyond our parents there's no "equal chance" gene inheritance at an individual's level, only at population level. And we must treat the Y chromosome different, and the non-human mitochondrial DNA too. These are passed on almost as-is over many generations. So do these say something about a male ancestor of 10 generations back (Y chromosome), or a female ancestor of 10 generations back (mt-DNA)? Absolute. Is that relevant to us? Well, if you have no "doubles" in your family tree, then 10 generations back there are 10^2 (over 1,000,000) ancestors. The "Y" man is 1 of them and the mt-DNA female is also 1 - you ignore the over-one-million others at that.
The fact that your folks have been in the Iberian peninsula doesn’t mean they have DNA which is typical for that area. They might have migrated from other places in Europe.
That’s one of the many reasons your DNA doesn’t show anything from the Iberian peninsula. Also, and sorry for being blunt, you, one of your parents, one of your grandparents, etc could have been adopted, taken into the family, etc. that was very common, throughout centuries and even in the 20th. In Churches, the priest would offer the baby to one of the families in their congregation when there was a young lady who wouldn’t afford raising the baby or couldn’t have it with her at all for reasons of it being the result of a relationship with the landlord, in other words, of a forbidden one.
When you are 76 it is hard to find close cousins that are still alive. I knew my great grandfather and great grandmother on my mother's side, but not on my father's side. Most of my 1st and 2nd cousins are dead..
@@GenealogyTV thank you. My daughter has been doing all of the tracking and she is very good. But I guess that sometimes dead ends occur in we older people. My father and outsider uncles, plus me have lived our lives as a lie. Very hard finding out that some of my uncles were Betheas and that my cousins and I were either Nicholsons but from the Campbell bloodlines. You do such a great job..
I don't understand why you do not discuss the Y chromosome. It's an amazing tool for searching our origins. In my case, my Y chromosome is R-M167 and is only 2500 years old. My ancestors were Celt-Iberians and were pushed out of Spain by the Romans. ( St-Bertrand de Commingue). My ancestors had their own writing ( celt-iberian script) I could go on and on and on.... all because of my knowledge of having this particular Y chromosome. And my mitochondrial DNA? U5B2B: Its at least 12000-14000 years old and the oldest child tomb in Europe was found to have U5B2B in Liguria Italy: The child has been called Neve. My ancestors were Epigravetian: makers of statues of obese women: fertility symbol.
It seems that testers in America generally have far more matches of 20cm or above. Here in the UK, even though I've got a decent amount of matches, most are in the 4th-6th cousin range. Using Thrulines, I don't think I've ever had a match further back than a 6th cousin - of course, if I could have tested my grandparents before they passed away, this might have allowed me to go further 'back in time' in terms of establishing links.
The good part about your research is that your records go back farther, in many cases, than those in the U.S. Perhaps you focus on the paper trail and check in once in a while with the DNA matches to see if there is anything new.
Much to my surprise, by systematically adding DNA cousin match tree to my account, I have been able to identify several matches as far back as John of Gaunt, (son of King Edward III), King Robert Stewart II of Scotland, and all the five James Stewart Kings of Scotland, and the majority of my DNA I have inherited from King James IV, as I have tons of large DNA matches that lead back to him. However, I suspect that I have inherited my DNA from his mother's German Danish, House of Oldenburg side, as many other descendants of the Duke of Oldenburg, the father of Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, also share the same personality traits as me. I have also traced many English aristocrats back to 1400s. I was inspired to do my research when they traced descendants of relatives of Richard III. I have some close relatives with whom I don't share any of little DNA.
My family tree goes back to 1455 with Matthew De Beanland died in East Morton, Bradford. In the village hall they is a a room called Beanland room. I was born only 3 miles away in Bradford.
Considering only the theoretical model this makes sense. But depending the where your origins are of the ancestors, I have found that on certain lines that a tester might have have less actual 4th or 5th, etc great grandparents. While there may be 64 ancestor positions on theoretical model for a certain generation a tester might have the same historical person occupying multiple locations among the 64 theoretical positions. I have found the perfect model of 2, 4 , 8,16,32,64, 128, 256, might really be much smaller on the actual application, as certain family groups going way back married among themselves and some ancestors of a tester could have ancestors that are some sort of cousins to each other. I use the color code system on Ancestry. On some of my matches, I have come up with DNA shared matches that have shared matches in two distinct color groups , paternal grandfather and paternal grandmother for example. I was able to figure out that a DNA match and siblings had two sets of common ancestors with me from their ancestors. One was a 5thC relationship and the 2nd was a 8thC relation to me with the second couple. In another case, I have DNA matches that have both parents and all 4 grandparents and 7 of 8 great grandparents that are some sort of cousins to me because those ancestors came from a certain geographical area (early New England). Those families stayed in the same area (small state/ colony) for a long time so the descendants of these people married each other later on in time. If a DNA match has parents , grandparents, great grandparents that came from distinct geographical areas, then the theoretical model might hold up better with respect the shared amounts of DNA and distinct actual ancestors. But I bet most people have pockets of ancestors that are probably some sort of cousins to each other.
And when some of those New Englanders moved to Nova Scotia 1750 -1785 they again married within their little groups...some matches' trees drive me crazy!
I'm Irish/Northern Irish, we've got no records beyond our great grandparents (about 1850s). I've been able to find out the name of my g great grandparents, on one side, because their names are recorded on birth certs, but I can't verify when and where they were born, through traditional genealogical records. A cousin, passed on a family tradition of our g.g great grandparents names but we do know our g.g.great grandmother's maiden name but we've no idea when or where either were born, married, the number of children they had, where they lived or died. It's not so much a 'brick wall' but rather a vacuum. YDNA, mtDNA and atDNA is our only hope is DNA.
Sixth cousin matches have a potentially valuable place. I've found 5-g and 6-g DNA matches brilliant in cracking dead-end or cold cases. An example. Traditional methods stopped with a 3-g grandfather - he'd migrated to Scotland from England with no information about his parents. Simply looking at very low centimorgan matches was hopeless and Ancestry ThruLines didn't help. Then I noticed a daughter's unusual second name. Assuming it might be his mothers maiden name, led to a hypothesis which I put into my tree. Ancestry DNA computers mulled this new information and three weeks later a 5-g possible match emerged and some months later several more confirming sixth-cousin less-than-10-centimorgan matches were found. These matches were narrowed down using ThruLines.
All true, but if you approach DNA analysis a little differently, 5th and 6th generations is very achievable. Ancestry allows shared matching down to 20 Cm. Using this tool and finding multiple paths toward common siblings or cousins can be used to find 5th and 6th great grandparents. It's all in how you use the DNA tools available and the data available. Also, there are other sites that allow shared matching below 20 Cm, though they don't have the depth of DNA data Ancestry does.
Hi Richard I have found that if I do a name search on Ancestry for a name I've found recurring in matches - but I've no idea of our connection-, I will get the matches below 20cM carrying that name. Often when I click on some of these matches, there will be matches at 20 cM or more that we share. (Sometimes gaps are filled in, or more questions raised! )
The real question is "How far back is DNA". I understand the fundamentals of genealogy and how it relates to migration, so not every percentage will make sense. That being said Geneavlogger was able to identify the great grandfather that attributed 3% Ashkenazi Jew to a person, yet my grandmother has 30% Daniel/Swedish all on her paternal sude (can't wait for that to get broken down!) when the rest of her paternal side is nearly entirely German/Polish/Russian (which we haven't exactly untangled due to border changes). When I enquire in Facebook groups everyone says "it's because of migration". So a 3% ethnicity can be identified, but 30% can't? Her maternal is the GPR mix we expected. She has a 2x 1st cousin, so we've ruled out an NPE issue.
My Chandler dna from the Chandler Family Asso. goes back to John Chandler, who came to Jamestown in 1609. They found his father in England and male decendants living today.
I successfully used the DNA matches of about eight cousins to figure out the identity of our 4th great grandparents on a brick wall line. Our John Williams was born 1811 and eventually I was able to assign a huge list of DNA matches as John's paternal and maternal relatives. This led to a hypothesis of who his parents had to have been.
A common process is when aDna "washes out" after repeated generational recombinations, so expected ancestors are no longer represented in one's aDna. Some aDna stubbornly persists. My Scandinavian Y-dna R-BY164240 is dated to the first century, but only about 1.2% of related Scandinavian aDna remains. Embrace the chaos.
As some below have already said, I do think it is possible to match people 9 generations back. I have connections to very special rather unusual names to certain areas in Sweden far way back to almost the 1600s. However, the matches don't match each other as the DNA i so small, but they all belong to the same ancestor. I believe they belonged to large families, that in turn got large families themselves, why they managed to get enough people today taking DNA-tests.
This is fine, Sheila, but the span between 1620 and 1750 or so was an endogamous period in New England. The entire community of New England was small, so breeding within this population permitted less dilution of DNA than larger demographic conditions. Immigration was very light so crossing of family lines after a few generations was common. This magnified the impact of the early setters. All records were in writing, and relationships were not as clear as they are to us today. We are a patronymic society, so maiden names hide relationships, causing inadvertent marrying between close relatives. The point is that the theory she is discussing is not consistent except for large populations with new blood being introduced on a regular basis.
Thank you so much for this video! I want to find my 5×great grandparents. My 4×great grandparents are solid but I haven't found any records for my 5th (on a certain line.) I found the grandmother's father but not the grandfather's parents. The assumed line goes back to the 8th× grandparents who has much documentation but as for who the direct parents are cousins have not confirmed their guesses. I was hoping DNA would solve the puzzle. I have also found clusters of families in my DNA matches (groups of cousins who have specific families in their trees) in the area I am looking for and last names I am familiar with. Putting those puzzle pieces together with documentation is the hard part. I guess that is what you call a brickwall lol
Thanks for another great video, Connie. I'm still hoping and praying for DNA matches to lead me to my matrilineal 3rd great-grandparents and doing all I can to find relevant records (no luck so far). Patience is not one of my strengths, really. :) Have a blessed week.
You might try a mtDNA test at FTDNA. This looks up the maternal line only. This is one of the most uncommon test out there so cousin matches will be slim. You never know, you might find something there. Here's my affiliate link if you want to give it a try. www.kqzyfj.com/click-9110145-13710350
@@GenealogyTV Thanks, Connie. I've done the full sequence mtDNA test at FTDNA. Apparently my maternal haplogroup is rare. The initial result was U6b2, then I was told that I was put into a group even more refined, U6b2a. Even at the U6 level, 23andMe says it is rare, one in 11,000 on their site. Aside from our daughter, there is only one other U6 match there and he is an adoptee searching for his family. On FTDNA, I only have one gen 0 match and it is to an English man that shares no autosomal DNA with me and his brick wall is his grandma. I have a gen 1 match, also no autosomal DNA shared and her listed foremother is at least in the USA. I've been trying to trace back and forward the trees of both people. I am told the connection with either one could be well over 500 years ago. I haven't had any luck with the downline of my great-grandmother's 2 sisters. When I ask about DNA testing, though they respond to other points in my emails, they ignore the DNA test question (even though I have offered to pay for the tests). In the meantime, I keep digging through records and trees trying to find something, anything, that is a clue to those 3rd great-grands. I am checking both South Carolina AND Alabama since the census isn't consistent with birth location and the death certificate says she was born in Alabama. I really don't know what else to do. Sorry for writing a book here. Thanks for all you do to encourage all of us. Have a blessed week.
I have at least 30 matches to families on Malta, all in the 8-12 range. I have hundreds in that same range to the Sicilian province of Agrigento. I figure that during the 16th Century or even earlier either a Maltese family moved to Agrigento or a family moved from Agrigento to Malta. I can't resolve which is correct but I'm sure it's one of those two.
I have tons of cousins I found through DNA and most were 1st and 2nd cousins I didnt know from my grandmothers side that we never saw. I shocked to find that my mothers mothers sides tree went straight up...lol They married mostly cousins and married back into the family. I found a grandfather that was also a uncle and a aunt that was also a cousin several generations back. If a husband died then the wife married the brother. Crazy stuff like that. They were a strong Scottish family and wanted to keep the clan bloodline thick. In fact the only families they did marry into were also scottish and there was only about 4 families that they did marry into and kept coming back to. Me and my cousin I grew up with help me do the tree and all we could do was laugh. My biggest hope was to find my mothers father, but outside of the state and federal census my mother doesnt exist. She never knew her father and my grandmother would never tell. She took it to her grave. Mom never had a birth certificate. My grandmother claimed the courthouse burned down and all records were lost, but I dont believe that. I think she lied to keep my mother from finding out who her father was.A huge secret for some reason. I keep hoping for a cousin to pop up that I cant account for in the family line I know but no luck yet.
@@GenealogyTV Well that was an easy task. The present court house is the 2nd court house built in 1911which still stands today. My mother was born in 1927. Grandma lied.
I can go about 10 generations in my mother’s line, including a Mayflower traveler, but my father’s line ends with a great-grandfather because of Nazi destruction of the town of Sturzenhart, Germany. Apparently all those records were destroyed when the town was razed to the ground. Very sad.
I think we do not necessarily inherit equal amounts from each Grandparent and so on. Our Dna seems to favour some lines more than others. My late brother looked nothing like me, we thought he strongly reflected Mum's Scottish side of the family. I appear, like my father, to have inherited my father's maternal line's physical appearance. Photos of my G.G. Grandfather (paternal) do not look like any of us or as far as I can ascertain, nor do first cousins look like him. Different physical traits appear in siblings, indicating, different ancestral contributors! The Royal family of Britain is an interesting study because there were so many photo's taken back around the turn of the century. We can see physical appearances in George V's sons that show their similarities to ancestors gone bye, and yet the Princes do not all share the same look. Some short, some tall, and eye colour differs between a lot of siblings. Your chart suggests everything is evenly divided, and that is clearly not the case.
@@GenealogyTV I have a problem with this as well because although you say this roughly it isn't implied in any of your further explanations and charts. When you get back to even 4x Great Grandparents there will be some that you inherit more from, and some that you don't inherit any from at all, which would mean you just so never match with any of your cousin's from this branch of your tree. I agree that the lower the amount of shared DNA the less likely it is to be able to match up with them so start with the lowest hanging fruit, but to assume that just because they might be negative matches they won't have any useful information in them at all is I think being too dismissive. You have to be selective, you shouldn't spend much time on them, but in the end they can hold the keys that you can't find anywhere else, that's what I've found and I'd never have found this with records only. I do agree that you need to use records and DNA where possible to confirm relationships. Without this you can't totally be sure your two trees matching is proof of the relationship, however likely it is to be correct. Lastly DNA might be the only way if you've gone back further than most records for the common person exist. It may not be 100% period in this case, but there is really no other way (not until time travel is discovered at least)!!!
Yeah I agree. I found one cousin who shares 2% of my DNA. Could immediately rule him out as a 2nd cousin since he had no African DNA and none of my great grandparents were white. Also he's too old to be a great grandson to any of my great grandparents. I think he might be my grandmother half 2nd cousin sharing the same great grandfather with her which would make his great grandfather my 3rd great grandfather if I have that right. If I share 2% of my DNA with his grandson then I likely share more then the expected 3% DNA with him. Obviously my 3rd great grandfather is dead so it's not like I can test him to see how much DNA I would share. Had another cousin who share 6% DNA just like my half 1st cousin. Was wondering if my half uncle or grandfather had another kid. Turn out he wasn't my half 1st cousin he was a 2nd cousin so I did share an unusually high DNA with my 2nd cousin making the relation look closer than it actually was.
I was trying to find the parents of my 3rd great grand parents... all I knew was that one was born in VT and the other in NY around 1820. One had an unusual name of Ellenwood. What I did was build a tree based on names found in trees of my DNA matches that had this name..but not by 3rd Great Grandmother. Then I looked for a man and wife who lived in NY state... ideally in a place that made interacting with people from VT more likely. I found a couple living in Morristown NY..who ran a ferry. After posting a message on a board looking for more info on this man.... up til now I never had success with an ancestry board.....but the next day..someone pointed out that the will for this man was available and it listed my 3rd Great grandmother by her married name and where she was living in the 1860s. My question.. is that the DNA/tree approach I used... well I am not sure this is a valid approach. Seems a bit like 8 wheel logic to me..eg if a 4 wheel car can go 200 mph..think how fast one with 8 wheels can go... sounds logical..at first. Anyway. is building a tree based on DNA matches..of people with same surname but no known matches...a valid approach? One other thing... few if any of these Ellenwood matches in my list shared DNA with other Ellenwood matches... and the amount of DNA we shared was very small... around 7-10 cM. I am wondering if I just lucked out using this approach. I am trying this with her husband... and have come down to two possibilities... one was born in VT and settled in Ill.. where my 3rd GGparents lived in 1850..one county over... the other lived in the same county as Morristown NY.. also born in VT. But being born in the early 1800s and married around 1840... records are few and far between. One problem with the husband's side is that the two people I have come with are distant cousins themselves... so that complicates things... Now I have found DNA matches to the parents of one of my hypothesis men.
My mom's mother's father's family can trace it''s ancestors back as far as 1590.Any farther back and the Dutch language is hard to read as it is in old Dutch.
I was able to use DNA to verify/confirm a 2nd great-grandmother via matches to descendants of a potential 4th ggrandmother's sibling descendants; her father was not named in his father's will, and my gggrandmother had married a 2nd cousin. I was also able to identify the father of my 2nd great-grandfather b. 1846 who was illegitimate. My greatest quest is to find my 4th ggrandfather's 1st wife. There are zero written records to identify her other than a couple of unusual given names for a couple of sons, but no one of that surname lived near the husband's family prior to the birth of their children in North or South Carolina. The husband's family lived in Rutherford Co, (now Cleveland). No clues in deeds, taxes, or church records. And it doesn't help that many of the descendants connect the wrong Isaac Tabor from RI to the one in NC in their family trees.
This is in the regard to your reply concerning my membership. Would like to thank you for your suggestion about checking if I had more than one Google account. All is fine now. Thank you again.
My paper trail hit a roadblock in 1696 with my Pindell ancestor buying land in the Maryland Colony. I've been unable to find any records of when, exactly, he arrived in Maryland or where he sailed from in Europe during the 1600's. Help?
If I cut off at 40 cM, I'd only have just over 50 DNA matches LOL. My biggest annoyance is a match at 61 cM that I've been unable to place on my tree - he's one of 5 DNA matches that all descend from the same couple born ~1860 in Guernsey; 2 of my great-grandparents were born around the same time in Jersey...but still no joy in finding a connection LOL.
Hmmm- were they living on the islands full time, or - as fishermen- was there any chance of another base in Dorset or Devon? (That was common a century or so earlier. )
Is the 50/50 split inherited DNA too simplistic OR is it possible that you miss out all the DNA from 2 grandparents (2 of those not married to each other), and your sibling misses out all the DNA from the remaining 2 grandparents (again not married) ? Meaning none of your DNA is still in common with your sibling -apart from some other markers?
My question is in regard to an unknown great grandfather. Her birth certificate only has great grandmother, and the father is blank. So how many centimorgans should I be looking for. Or DNA percentage should be at what level. My stone wall for my son-in-law. 9:36
I'm surprised you didn't mention that it's very likely you do not, in fact, have DNA from all of your 5th & 6th great grandparents. DNA inheritance is so random, that it's theoretically possible for you and a sibling to have inherited exactly the opposite portions of your parents' DNA, so you'd not show up as related. Isn't it therefore very likely that the farther along you go, the more probable it is that some of a particular ancestor's DNA is stripped out, and you end up with twice as much of another ancestor's? Add to that pedigree collapse, which as an American whose ancestors all predate the American Revolution, sometimes by 100+ years, I see a lot of. When your ancestors lived in very small rural communities, there were a lot of cases of siblings of one family marrying the siblings of other families, and then their grandchildren (or even children) intermarrying.
When trying to find DNA relationships in Ireland, are there any special DNA kits you'd recommend? Or would uploading my DNA profile from Ancestry work? I am unable to locate my family from 1860 on passenger ships, the family lore is that the husband was in trouble and used a false name to travel over to America. I was hoping maybe a DNA kit would help me make some matches, or even better, my fathers DNA :D I've used Myheritage, I have 1000s of possible matches but only 2 close matches . Was wondering if there is a better site or DNA kit to try.
I had hunted for the parents of my maternal grandparents. .I found my great grandmother and great grandfather when my grandmother's death certificate was opened they were named. But there was a last name problem with my great grandmother and where did she come from and still where did she go ? My DNA matches confirmed I had the correct family. I am still can not find my grandfather's parents but the DNA Matches shows where his family was and what family group by the DNA matches. I can only hope his parents are on his death certificate that opens up next November. My grandmother was not on any official paper but her death certificate.update. I send off for my grandfather's SS5. His application for a SS number. He would be 139 years old so his parents should be on the application
When you inherit your genes from a parent, those genes are not divided up evenly amongst the parent's ancestors, as you assume. During inheritance of genes, there is a process called "crossover" where the parent's genes are shuffled, like in dealing cards, so that the child receives a random mix of their parent's ancestors genes. During this process, some ancestor's genes may be missed out entirely while with other ancestors genes, the child could receive a relatively large proportion. I have seen this in my own matches where I have no matches at all with several ancestors, and proportionally large numbers of matches from one specific ancestor. I have seen examples in my own family where people alive today are identical to their 3x or 4x great grandparents. The result of this "crossover" process makes nonsense of this article which assumes we inherit equal shares of our ancestors genes. I know for a fact that aI have inherited a preponderance of DNA from just one of my 3x great grandfather, which means I will have much more than the average 6% of his genes. I am certain I have more like 25%. This means I can easily go back several more generations of cousins for this ONE FAMILY LINE. And this is why people keep finding ancestors in the 8cM and less range. Its because a much greater proportion of genes from this one line are present in this 8cM segment than you would expect of you ignored crossover and uses averages as have been erroneously explained in this video.
I've been trying to identify one particular 4th great grandfathers dad. The lines intermarry a ton So, I've plugged in multiple cousins of the appropriate age and location. They all come up with the same liklihood. No matter which I chose, within 2 generations back I end up with the same 6th great grandparenlikelihood. Still have no clue as to " whos the daddy?"
Go back to traditional genealogy records. Focus on the siblings and FAN Club in the records you have from the previous generation. Sometimes DNA is a deadend.
@@GenealogyTVthat would be good advice, except we started there, lol. His name is George Washington Tubbs, b abt 1830. Probable mother is Hannah glass, b. 1808. She was a recent widow with close ties to his family at the time of his birth, and was remarried soon after. To my knowledge, Absolutely no documentation found by even local area researchers or by professionals. We simply have found no evidence of his birth whatsoever. The most commonly accepted father is a 12 year old boy. Possible, but unlikely. The only data we have that connects him to his "mother, is that he was living with her, her second husband, and their children when he was 19. Using DNA matches, if I plug any of Hannah, Hannah's sisters or cousins ( the glass family) in, my little lost lamb comes back as half sib to the plug ins kids. And the same happens no matter which Tubbs cousin I've plugged in, he comes up as half sib. My hope was to find a full sib, and solve the mystery. I, and a number of associated researchers, have decided that he must have been planted by aliens.😱
I have been at my tree for about 40 years but I have one brick wall my birth father I know who my birth mother was and she never wanted to meet up On my birth cert it just shows me as illegitimate. Have tried all the usual avenues no go Can you help
Take a DNA test at Ancestry, if you have not already. This is a huge start. Then use the new separated paternal group of cousin matches and look for the closest matches. Research their trees for clues. Also, see this video about Search Angels... they often help you with research for free. ruclips.net/video/be55EHzPAZo/видео.html
Interesting but by the time you go back each generation the likelihood of having 'average' DNA inherited is less likely. My mums cousin has a 42cm match where we have a known ancestor and i don't match that person at all. The 25 year average for me is also way off - i was born in 1959, dad in 1926, grandfather in 1880 and great grandfather was 1820 so by that logic i should have been born 1900ish. I find 23andme pretty hopeless (people never reply, or reply once and then never again) and I'm not fond of MyHeritage (it seems to display shared matches on both sides simultaneously and causes me great confusion) - Ancestry is by far the best and i like the new sideways tool although it seems to contradict in my matches in a few places where i know the common ancestor. I wish Ancestry would give us more colour labels and have some way for me to check what matches i share with the other 4 accounts i manage, its such a chore to try and trawl through names and cut and paste to check who else has them, so lots of room for improvement in Ancestry
@@GenealogyTV It would be helpful if there were two distinct shapes to the color-matching. Say dots and squares. That would make it easier to remember whether a match comes from a Paternal or Maternal line - or both!
My mother did my Dad's Roots in the 70s. She found he was related to Caesar Augustus. Her work has been lost to the years. How can I find this information? Can DNA take me back that far?
Hi, ok so question. When you look at the ethnicity & Ancestry states that you have 29% Scotland on Maternal side, but there is nothing showing. What generation will you have to look to find Scotland? It is the same for both side on my parents. Father has 21% & I'm in 1620's with nothing
Would it be possible to trace my great grandmother through my DNA results? My great grandfather deserted the British army in 1898 and changed his name from Drew to Smith( I know, worse choice). He married an Indian lady (don’t know name) and had my grandfather and great uncle in 1902 /1904. She passed soon after that. The 3 men stayed in India until 1923. I would like to at least know her name. I cannot find birth records that match so I’m hoping I could trace through DNA matches member trees.
You likely could make progress with DNA if there are descendants who have also tested at AncestryDNA. A great grandparent is close enough of a relationship that you might find some second cousins that descend from said grandparent. If you're searching the grandfather or grand uncle descendants then you would be looking for DNA matches from their descendants in the neighborhood of a 1st cousin... or maybe a 2nd cousin that descends from the great grandfather. The only way to find out is to take a DNA test. I recommend starting with AncestryDNA (they're the biggest company, odds of success is greater). Here is my AncestryDNA affiliate link if you want to use it. I do make a small commission on this, but doesn't cost you anything extra. www.ancestry.com/?ranMID=50138&ranEAID=3739942&ranSiteID=h02_ybBif9I-xFV0qvilOSv6aPMdPxBgiw&o_xid=0003739942&o_lid=0003739942&o_sch=Affiliate%20External
Ok these co. use the gdneology from the bible to make assumptions it didnt tell me who my parents nor grandparents were but both went back to enoch merlin hercules achiles, Hows that workout
I understand that if u have a 16th of DNA that's the same as someone else's 16th, you must share great grandparents at some level (great, or great x2, x4, etc.) However, to the point of the question, "How far back can u go with DNA?" - I'm thinking not very far because no one was collecting DNA samples in my grandparents' day, if they even knew what it was. I don't see how u can go back far enough with DNA to say, for example, I'm related to Abraham Lincoln. U might be able to trace that thru family records, vital statistics, etc. by creating your family tree, but not by using DNA. Am i wrong?
Apparently, everybody with Irish DNA can connect to the sequenced genomes of a 5,200-year-old female farmer from the Neolithic period and three 4,000-year-old males from the Bronze Age.... The woman is called the Ballynahatty woman and the men are referred to as Rathlin Island men... If you go to GEDMatch you can test your DNA against theirs... That's pretty far back. In reality though, 7 generations is the most reasonable amount of generations that you can assuredly connect to... Farther back than that and it gets murky.
Sounds like you need a coach. Here are a couple of options. Legacy Tree Genealogist - Coaching - Hiring an Expert www.legacytree.com/genealogytv or Aimee Cross at ancestryconsultingbyaimee.com/
I got as far as when you said you don’t bother with matches less than 40cm and thought hang on, looked at my matches - I have 13 matches with 40cm or more that have public trees on Ancestry. No wonder I’m having a tough time. What’s the norm here, and why don’t I have more. Feeling a bit inadequate now.
I don't bother going that low because I have a lot of matches that are closer (higher cM) to work with. If I am working some obscure line that only has a few say 15-20 cM range matches, you know I'm going to look for clues just in case.
I “trust” Ancestry if it says I have a distant cousin AND we have a common ancestor on our trees show the same common ancestor and it matches the relationship. I can comfortably trace most of my ancestry back 6-7 generations. Because of the many people who desperately want to be “royalty”, there are various peerage books tracing European royalty back to Charlemagne or earlier. If they are to be believed, I am related to the first kings of Ireland and Scotland, as well as to Theodocious II of Rome. Grain of salt….
When I do genealogy it is 95% documents and 5% DNA. I don't have very many close cousins. I had 10000 cousin matches on 23&me and only identified two of them. I have a tree on Ancestry with 3 to 4 thousand people on it. DNA is good for proving you are right with documents.
As an admin to a few DNA projects, I keep answering the same questions over and over. I watched this video asking myself the same questions, "What about ..." You answered each one of them faster than I could think of them. I'm not qualified to judge but it's amazing how you answered every last question exactly as I would have. As a person with over a decade of DNA experience, over 50 years experience in traditional research, and experience with 4 different testing companies, I think this video is amazing. If my meager opinion is worth anything, the info here is spot on! I'm saving this link to refer to others so I don't have to keep repeating the same answers you've already covered. BIG Thanks!
Wow what a nice comment. Thank you.
I found a cousin from Hungary going back to the late 1590's -1600's there was no other way we could have been related and the family name remained the same the name and was so incredibly unique it was easy to trace even though there was at least 2 country changes in the family on that line! It was only 1-2 centimorgans in common still with this DNA cousin. So people it is still VERY possible to make connections even further back than is traditionally expected.
I have relatives from Hungary as well, last name Tossi. They settled in Montgomery county Illinois.
Exactly, there are some well known families, in the USA from the Mayflower, or in Brasil the Cavalcanti's and the Albuquerque's so if you have this surname it might help. And then cousins marrying cousins and these marrying other cousins. That changes the whole picture. So the paper (internet) trail together with DNA is the best in these cases.
On Geneanet, I found a distant cousin with whom I have a common ancestor 10 generations back in the mid to late 17th century. We share a paltry 8.2cM. I don't see any other connection between our trees, so it basically confirmed that line of my tree.
I'm extra impressed that I matched up our DNA with someone where our paper trail goes back to our shared 3x great grandfather! The DNA portion was tiny, but our trees matched.
Endogamy in some lines makes it easier. My dad's french Canadian, my mom's Amish Mennonite, my favorite southern colonial lines. American colonial lines are much easier. I have mine , mom's , her sisters, and my dad's DNA on all major sites. Plus access to 10 others cousins matches on ancestry. Been obsessed with this for years. I was into triangulations on GEDmatch too. My mom and dad have some thru lines on Ancestry with cousins in common that leads to Mayflower and Jamestown.
Same here.
@@deborahstrickland9845 I descend from Stephen and Constance Hopkins on the Mayflower. And you??
@@lisafisher8178 , you should try to expand your tree. When you find one, you can sometimes find more. I first found Henry Sampson, then Degory Priest, Richard Warren, White , and one more. Sorry I can't remember right now lol. But then recently I just found another line too Richard Warren. I also am also descended from Delano who came a year later. My Dad's side has known lines and it's get to be too much sometimes.
@@lisafisher8178 I haven't found anyone from the Mayflower in my lines yet. But definitely Seath Warde in the very early Jamestown, Virginia. Also, possibly my Byrd ancestors from same period definitely in Virginia, as well as Bell ancestors. Strickland ancestor probably was the officer that came over to very, very early NY, but still getting the final details verified on some of these...
@@lisafisher8178 Mine predate the Mayflower and the first American colony from Europe in the U.S. .
I would highly recommend that getting access to other cousins' DNA, is a great way of catching more Cousins with DNA, as Connie mentions you won't match EVERY distant cousin with your DNA but your sibling might, your Mum, Uncle and close cousins might match them also etc.
Sharing DNA is vital in my research and has enabled me to vastly dot the i's and cross the t's.
As I always say sharing makes family history/research that little bit easier.
Excellent point.
Most of the time I ignore any single digit DNA matches. But, about a year ago I looked at one match that I only shared 6 centimorgans with. That match had an extensive tree and going thru it I found a married couple who were both born in the early 1600s. 400 years is a long way back, and it is the only one I've ever found a match. But that match was dropped off my Ancestry list when they changed how low they go for centimorgan matches.
Excellent! Yes sometimes those small matches pan out.
I first saw Diahan here on your channel last year. Since then I have taken both her Y DNA course and her DNA skills course. Both are amazing and will REALLY help you learn and understand how to use DNA along with paper research to answer those brick wall questions. I am looking for a set of 3x great grandparents. I already found the male but am still working on the female. But what I learned in her courses is amazing. She gives you the knowledge and the tools. Then it is up to us to put those to work for our genealogy questions. And you even get a “one on one” with an expert who will help you on you own personal question. It really is amazing. And you can view the course videos over and over again, forever. Plus there are live Q and A sessions every week. I loved it! I am hooked on DNA for solving seemingly “unsolvable” questions where there are no public records to help us out. This is a new way to attack the empty spaces on your family tree. And there are tons of free videos out there too. I started with the free ones but then went to these courses because they really lead you by the hand.
Agreed! Great testimonial for Diahan Southards DNA courses. I took both of the same classes and they are fabulous. For those reading the comments and want to take her classes, here is my affiliate link www.yourdnaguide.com/ref/6/
Thanks for another wonderful video, Connie! I was actually wondering about this question.
My grandmother’s great grandmother was full Portuguese-my grandma’s only source. That’s why I can be pretty confident about DNA relationships to Portuguese cousins for her and my results. I’ve found a few NPEs (both great grandparents), so I was hesitant when I found connections to my grandma’s 4x great grandparents. However, there are so many from their same family line that I’m confident that’s the connection. I actually match some of them, so I have connections to my 6x great grandparents! 🙂 (Mainly because the test takers are, although much younger, of my great grandma’s generation.)
I also recently have been searching for matches from a specific location in the Azores, and found one linked to my grandma’s 7x great grandparents. It looks like it makes sense right now (their entire tree is built out well-no other connection), but I want to prove the lines below them before celebrating and claiming a DNA connection.
Really good, thx. One thing that would be obvious to most, but maybe not to newbies is that it's best to get the eldest in your family tested, for all the reasons you stated.
I am glad you put a caveat on your personal practice, because I do not have plenty of cousins for verification. I dwell in the land of 9cM to 13 or 14CM. I have nobody much to work with. I have a fifth cousin but we think there is a different grandmother at the 3rd great grandparents. It is odd to me that I have soooooooooooooo many cousins at about 13cM. There is a message in that to me, but I haven't broken the code. This is all Early American colonial heritage. I have been trying to find the women to take me back to my 4th great paternal grandparents.
Sheila here. I love your charts! The visuals help me so much. I just started using Ancestry DNA matches a few months ago. Wow! A few shared- match groups opened up my paternal great grandparents’ line that we previously had no info on through traditional genealogy. I found their home village in “the old country.” Endogamy abounds, but I’m excited to sort them all out. And I have you to thank 😊
Wonderful! You are lucky to find the village in the old country. Many struggle to find the locations. Thanks Sheila for your support.
I only pay attention to at least 25 cM, but if I see someone below that with a good sized tree I will check that out. I have found some good info doing that. I wish more folks would do a family tree, at least a few generations. It would be so helpful if they did. I have 77 matches of 40 cM and above. My grandparents were born in England on my father's side and I have almost twice as many matches on my mother's side. Most of her family go back to the 1600's. I have 29,000 total matches, but many of them have no tree. Only 1680 are not assigned to one parent or the other.
Yeah, thats when you really have to dig in and stay focused on the ones you are really interested in. When I took a DNA course the instructor pointed out how we will probably find ourselves building out allot of trees for other people. We need to do that to see where we connect. I only do that on really super good specific “genetic network” matches. A skill and strategy I learned from that expert. I remember her saying “don’t chase squirrels!!” I had a bad habit of doing exactly that! Looking for one person and then running after someone else who crossed my path. I think focus and patience are the most reliable tools we have. DNA or no DNA.
Do what??? You only have 77 matches of 40 cM and above??? I have 20 "close family"...the least of which I share 205 cM and she is the granddaughter of my maternal grandmother's brother...my great-uncle Ed...and I met him as a girl several times.
There's a first "extended family" category that extends to 73 cM...and a second "extended family" category that I haven't found the bottom of...with several hundred people in the second category.
One would think with that much information, I could solve the two major black holes in my family tree...but no! (I call them black holes rather than brick walls because it appears that all the information about them has been sucked into black holes the same way light does. My great-grandfather I swear was deposited fully formed by aliens!)
@@joannathesinger770 I have 12 close family matches with 215 cM being the lowest. I have loads more matches for my mother. I think that is because my grandparents on my father's side were British and many relatives would be in GB where DNA testing isn't as popular as in the US.
I have 3 great great grandparents that are dead ends so far. When I get to ggg grandparents there are quite a few missing. I have one line that I can trace back about 750 years. When you run into a prominent family in your ancestry, you've hit the jackpot because those families are well researched.
@@jjbud3124 That would be my Nesmith (assorted spellings including Nessmyth) line. It goes back to 1300 Scotland.
My Byrd line gets totally messed up because--I don't know why (sarcasm included)-- people assume there could ONLY be one George Byrd in a region when there were actually three...if not more. George Byrd is the colonial equivalent to John Brown or Smith. Aarrrgghh!!! The census delineates them correctly, so the basic information IS there.
@@joannathesinger770 I have one line that absolutely has been driving me crazy for years. I have a grandfather (last name Vaughn, middle name Ridgway) whose grandfather, an uncle, a brothers and two cousins with the middle name of Ridgway. I have a 4th/5th genetic connection to some members of the family, but I cannot find any marriage between my known relative and that family. The marriage/hookup would have been around 1775 with 3rd great grandparents. I've been searching for years. I "know" the connection is there, but with what person? Seems odd that if it were illegitimate that the name would be so used for the middle names of so many males in my family. The one possibility was a woman named Rebecca who seems to have never married and has no offspring. I second the aarrrgghh!!
I have hundreds maybe even a thousand 4-6th cousins (best Ancestry can do). Due to many in family who have kept great records, I have usually been able to find common ancestors. I did find that my parents had a common set of 5th gr. grandparents. My daughter has not had the same luck with her father's family. I simply don't have the time anymore to spend days looking for ancestors, no matter how interesting the information I find is. 🙃
I fall into that southern early colonial endogomy set...and I have over 100,000 4th-6th cousins. You are lucky with so few. I don't even bother looking at those I share less than 40 cM in common anymore.
DNA helped me find records that I hadn't been able to find. Turned out ancestry's search algorithm HID records from me that were the right person because there were different names attached because of his 2nd marriage (that I didn't know about). If even his obit had come up, I would've found it. Wish ancestry's search algorithm was less "helpful."
Gotcha! My cousins use Ancestry version of Canadian census- because of name & spelling variations, they miss more of our lot 3 times out of 4- & #4 has an error in their transcription. Hair-pulling!
Wonderful thank you. One caveat, I found out recently coming across an allegedly 4th to 5th cousin: Valley and village-endogamy.
Imagine that nice pie chart at 13:39. And then you have a churchbook that tells you in almost every second marryage: 'dispensatio because of 3rd degree in main(male line) and 2nd and 3rd dregree in sidelines(mothersides)'.
This 4th/5th degree cousin with high reliability turned out to be - at the lowest level - an 8th degree cousin. But some 8 times a cousin in the 10th and 11th generation.
Hi Connie - I have roughly 85000 DNA matches via Ancestry. My parents comes from two different states (NC & KY). Interesting, I have been notified I have three "matched" DNA shared between my two parents. These three are coming in between 12 cM & 25cM's. Your mention focusing on greater than 10cM or better yet 25cM's. My head scratch moment is the drastic difference with these three cousins being between 4th and 8th cousins. That's a big swing in GGP.
I thought the 55k i had was astounding. Of course, 42k are on my maternal side.
I just have a piece of advise while doing this. Do not assume that someone your age that you believe is a family member, ignore age completely. I went to highschool with someone I believed was a cousin, my mom said sh thought he was from one of the ranches who move to my county when she was little. The actual family tree places him in my grandfathers generation. Grampa was one of the oldest, born to one of the oldest, born from one of the youngest. Guy I went to school with was born to a line that was all youngest. They were all descended from large families, most numbered 5 or more. My mom was 1 of 11 as was my grampa. The middle to younger kids in my moms family mostly had smaller families so I am only 1 of 50 grandchildren. Most of the next generation had 3 or fewer. And the next so far is 2 kids or less.
My aunt spent 40-50 years gathering info and tracing things plus getting updated info yearly from everyone who would respond. She and my cousin input all that data on a program and had it printed as a book. They only traced the patriarchal line so I’ve started working on the matriarchal line for my grandpa s mother as well as my grandmother and all those past great grand on my dads side.
My aunt had a distinct advantage because their were still members of the first or second gen born in America Alive into the 60s. I had great grands alive with the last dying when I was 17. I had a 2 nd great grand aunt until my 20s. My moms family is very long lived. My grands were 96 and 104. My mom is 80 and still has 3 older siblings, one of the dead was killed in his 20s, the other was 89 and had she not refused treatment she would have lived longer. I alway tell people to just assume I’m related either by blood or marriage to everyone in that county. I’m only related to one branch of the Mennonites, I think the more conservative one, and one Amish family though.
I just love your channel! I have to say, I LOVE genealogical research, but I do not watch many videos about it. Your channel is honestly my favorite on the topic. Thank you for the excellent info you put out here in cyberspace for us! ❤👍
Wow, thank you!
Nice clearly explained and visually clear video on what can be a daunting subject. Thanks Connie.
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent point at 4:07, once you get to 3-4x Great Grandparents you really need to switch over to traditional genealogy. Distant DNA is great to point you in a family direction, but without a traditional tree to guide you, you're basically just guessing at anything under 20CM - imo. Cross matching helps narrow down the specific branch, but you need the tree to find people way back. So, please people, if you're doing Ancestry fill out your tree as much as you can, don't just stop with 1 or 2 generations. Having said all that, if your tree is very well done, you can trace people back quite a ways. I started Ancestry to find my biological father - which i did after 2 years, but along the way I noticed that researchers were having this ongoing debate about my grandmother's line and if it came from Ireland, England or Scotland, so I started mapping every person who had the surname Downing and matched me via DNA. I now have about 400+ mapped DNA matches on that line and 257 of them go to a Timothy Downing from 1720 (English by the way), and William Downing 1724 (Scottish) two different lines. Not all matches make them the common ancestor (many came after after), but over 50 do have them as the common ancestor. So, you can reach out to 300 years - IF - you have a good tree to support the DNA matches.
Well done!
This is a video I really like, funny enough, I had to just answer this question on a different forum. The 'Why not' question on 5C or further back comes up all the time related to atDNA. Thanks for another quality video.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
I always get excited when I’m contacted by ancestry with a new match. Sadly, so far, only one in about two dozen have created a tree at all. It is very frustrating to know that they are out there, but have no opportunity to discover just how we are related. I always contact them and introduce myself and give them the opportunity to look at my tree. But, so far, even though some have written back to say hello, they have not gone on to build trees.
Yes... we call them DNA Tourist.
Hi Connie, thank you. I have stopped watching your videos as I am researching my West, East and Balkan European ancestors (non British). That is a whole monster on its own. I am still subscribed to your channel though as I like your presentation. If you ever expand to those other European areas I would be happy! Just to add to the topic here, I was able to match my cousin from the 7th generation back! We are descendant of the same person that far. So I match that descendant on 11cM, only one segment. My daughter shares the same. However, my sister does not shares any recognisable cM with her. I only use FTDNA and MyHeritage as that is the best for European (non British) ancestors. My distant cousin is confirmed by us knowing it and also found in books! I hope this story will inspire someone to look at smaller matches and test family members as not all of us match our distant families, but some of us do
It 's refreshing to hear someone say they have a healthy number of matches and can adjust their searches rather than just pick from dozens of ideal tests they manage like some channels are prone to do. I often feel those channels are telling me what I 'MUST' do rather than suggesting some of the options that may be available to me that I've seen on this channel. I've tried a few ideas and adapted some of them to my needs, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but I know more now than I did before.
I have around 16,000 matches on Ancestry but only 360 matches at 20cM or greater, only 12 of them are above 100cM. A minority have trees and common ancestors options are in single figures. I don't even have four grandparents now after DNA proved several certificates were nothing more than fairy tales and the small number of second and third cousins I have are names I don't know and can't place. I accept that illegitimacy and lack of matches makes my research challenging but I keep trying.
I have another 15,000 matches on myheritage after importing my raw data, four are duplicates from Ancestry, The top three are unique to MH and in the 80-110cM range. Again there are hardly any worthwhile trees to check for clues. I did pay for the DNA tools in order to use Autocluster but could only match a very small group to anyone in my Ancestry matches presumably due to the low number of duplicates across the two sites?
I also agree about taking Diahan Southern Classes. You will learn so much.
I have Catholic church records from St. Augustine, FL and Menorca, Spain as well as Spanish census records that definitively show my Spanish ancestry. The records are from the 1600s and 1700s. Here's the kicker; my DNA results show no Spanish ancestry. This is why you absolutely need to use traditional genealogy as well as DNA. Great video as usual!
Thank you.
Indeed. If there's one thing that "DNA" teaches "us" then it's that women CAN keep a secret (popular science: tell a woman a "secret" and she cannot resist the urge to relay that. 20 minutes max and the "secret" is out.) Except when out of wedlock pregnancy happened, potentially painful because incest or rape. In the UK you might expect up to 25% chance of nature being different from genealogy at every generation level.
As to your own case, beyond our parents there's no "equal chance" gene inheritance at an individual's level, only at population level. And we must treat the Y chromosome different, and the non-human mitochondrial DNA too. These are passed on almost as-is over many generations. So do these say something about a male ancestor of 10 generations back (Y chromosome), or a female ancestor of 10 generations back (mt-DNA)? Absolute. Is that relevant to us? Well, if you have no "doubles" in your family tree, then 10 generations back there are 10^2 (over 1,000,000) ancestors. The "Y" man is 1 of them and the mt-DNA female is also 1 - you ignore the over-one-million others at that.
The fact that your folks have been in the Iberian peninsula doesn’t mean they have DNA which is typical for that area. They might have migrated from other places in Europe.
That’s one of the many reasons your DNA doesn’t show anything from the Iberian peninsula. Also, and sorry for being blunt, you, one of your parents, one of your grandparents, etc could have been adopted, taken into the family, etc. that was very common, throughout centuries and even in the 20th. In Churches, the priest would offer the baby to one of the families in their congregation when there was a young lady who wouldn’t afford raising the baby or couldn’t have it with her at all for reasons of it being the result of a relationship with the landlord, in other words, of a forbidden one.
Does DNA show Nirth African instead as I see Menorca's actually a small island rather close too to Algeria.
When you are 76 it is hard to find close cousins that are still alive. I knew my great grandfather and great grandmother on my mother's side, but not on my father's side. Most of my 1st and 2nd cousins are dead..
John, since you knew your great grandparents, I would document everything you can remember about them for future generations.
@@GenealogyTV thank you. You do a great job.
@@GenealogyTV thank you. My daughter has been doing all of the tracking and she is very good. But I guess that sometimes dead ends occur in we older people. My father and outsider uncles, plus me have lived our lives as a lie. Very hard finding out that some of my uncles were Betheas and that my cousins and I were either Nicholsons but from the Campbell bloodlines. You do such a great job..
I don't understand why you do not discuss the Y chromosome. It's an amazing tool for searching our origins. In my case, my Y chromosome is R-M167 and is only 2500 years old. My ancestors were Celt-Iberians and were pushed out of Spain by the Romans. ( St-Bertrand de Commingue). My ancestors had their own writing ( celt-iberian script) I could go on and on and on.... all because of my knowledge of having this particular Y chromosome. And my mitochondrial DNA? U5B2B: Its at least 12000-14000 years old and the oldest child tomb in Europe was found to have U5B2B in Liguria Italy: The child has been called Neve. My ancestors were Epigravetian: makers of statues of obese women: fertility symbol.
Mark I have done several episodes on Y-DNA. This was focused on atDNA. Thanks for the feedback.
I went back to 650 in France on one branch.
It seems that testers in America generally have far more matches of 20cm or above. Here in the UK, even though I've got a decent amount of matches, most are in the 4th-6th cousin range. Using Thrulines, I don't think I've ever had a match further back than a 6th cousin - of course, if I could have tested my grandparents before they passed away, this might have allowed me to go further 'back in time' in terms of establishing links.
I've had similar results. My father is from England, my mother the US. My matches are way skewed to her side.
The good part about your research is that your records go back farther, in many cases, than those in the U.S. Perhaps you focus on the paper trail and check in once in a while with the DNA matches to see if there is anything new.
Thank You Connie for one of the best visual DNA Cousin explanations I have seen!!
Thanks. I try.
Much to my surprise, by systematically adding DNA cousin match tree to my account, I have been able to identify several matches as far back as John of Gaunt, (son of King Edward III), King Robert Stewart II of Scotland, and all the five James Stewart Kings of Scotland, and the majority of my DNA I have inherited from King James IV, as I have tons of large DNA matches that lead back to him. However, I suspect that I have inherited my DNA from his mother's German Danish, House of Oldenburg side, as many other descendants of the Duke of Oldenburg, the father of Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, also share the same personality traits as me. I have also traced many English aristocrats back to 1400s. I was inspired to do my research when they traced descendants of relatives of Richard III. I have some close relatives with whom I don't share any of little DNA.
Wow. Nice.
Most Europeans have a connection to Charlemagne
Me too!
Don't think I would be pleased to find out I was related to 'royals'.
What does your phrase mean? ( I don't share with close relatives little dna). I'm confused.
One thing I’ve discovered on Ancestry. Unrelated people making additions on the family tree, valid or not. Going back to the early 1600’s seems easy.
With 32 3x great grandparents, it makes me SO grateful I have a photograph of one of my 3x great grandfathers!
Wow! That’s amazing.
My family tree goes back to 1455 with Matthew De Beanland died in East Morton, Bradford. In the village hall they is a a room called Beanland room. I was born only 3 miles away in Bradford.
Keep in mind none of us knows you de Beanland. Thanks for sharing.
@Pahrump It's a very rare surname, found around Keighley, East Morton, Bradford, and Yorkshire. Look it up.
Considering only the theoretical model this makes sense. But depending the where your origins are of the ancestors, I have found that on certain lines that a tester might have have less actual 4th or 5th, etc great grandparents. While there may be 64 ancestor positions on theoretical model for a certain generation a tester might have the same historical person occupying multiple locations among the 64 theoretical positions. I have found the perfect model of 2, 4 , 8,16,32,64, 128, 256, might really be much smaller on the actual application, as certain family groups going way back married among themselves and some ancestors of a tester could have ancestors that are some sort of cousins to each other. I use the color code system on Ancestry. On some of my matches, I have come up with DNA shared matches that have shared matches in two distinct color groups , paternal grandfather and paternal grandmother for example. I was able to figure out that a DNA match and siblings had two sets of common ancestors with me from their ancestors. One was a 5thC relationship and the 2nd was a 8thC relation to me with the second couple. In another case, I have DNA matches that have both parents and all 4 grandparents and 7 of 8 great grandparents that are some sort of cousins to me because those ancestors came from a certain geographical area (early New England). Those families stayed in the same area (small state/ colony) for a long time so the descendants of these people married each other later on in time. If a DNA match has parents , grandparents, great grandparents that came from distinct geographical areas, then the theoretical model might hold up better with respect the shared amounts of DNA and distinct actual ancestors. But I bet most people have pockets of ancestors that are probably some sort of cousins to each other.
Absolutely!
And when some of those New Englanders moved to Nova Scotia 1750 -1785 they again married within their little groups...some matches' trees drive me crazy!
I'm lucky. I only have a few cousin marriages back in the 1700's
I'm Irish/Northern Irish, we've got no records beyond our great grandparents (about 1850s). I've been able to find out the name of my g great grandparents, on one side, because their names are recorded on birth certs, but I can't verify when and where they were born, through traditional genealogical records. A cousin, passed on a family tradition of our g.g great grandparents names but we do know our g.g.great grandmother's maiden name but we've no idea when or where either were born, married, the number of children they had, where they lived or died. It's not so much a 'brick wall' but rather a vacuum. YDNA, mtDNA and atDNA is our only hope is DNA.
Very love your videos
Sixth cousin matches have a potentially valuable place.
I've found 5-g and 6-g DNA matches brilliant in cracking dead-end or cold cases.
An example. Traditional methods stopped with a 3-g grandfather - he'd migrated to Scotland from England with no information about his parents. Simply looking at very low centimorgan matches was hopeless and Ancestry ThruLines didn't help. Then I noticed a daughter's unusual second name. Assuming it might be his mothers maiden name, led to a hypothesis which I put into my tree. Ancestry DNA computers mulled this new information and three weeks later a 5-g possible match emerged and some months later several more confirming sixth-cousin less-than-10-centimorgan matches were found. These matches were narrowed down using ThruLines.
the best is in 8 cm's and lower. I mean those the unknowns you want to know about.!
Thanks for this video. I’ve taken 2 of Diahan’s courses and they are great!
Yes they are! Thanks for your support of the channel.
All true, but if you approach DNA analysis a little differently, 5th and 6th generations is very achievable.
Ancestry allows shared matching down to 20 Cm. Using this tool and finding multiple paths toward common siblings or cousins can be used to find 5th and 6th great grandparents. It's all in how you use the DNA tools available and the data available. Also, there are other sites that allow shared matching below 20 Cm, though they don't have the depth of DNA data Ancestry does.
Agreed.
Hi Richard
I have found that if I do a name search on Ancestry for a name I've found recurring in matches - but I've no idea of our connection-, I will get the matches below 20cM carrying that name. Often when I click on some of these matches, there will be matches at 20 cM or more that we share. (Sometimes gaps are filled in, or more questions raised! )
Very informative as always. I appreciate the graphic representations, as I’m very visually oriented!
Glad you like them! Thanks Richard... and thanks for joining the channel membership.
The real question is "How far back is DNA". I understand the fundamentals of genealogy and how it relates to migration, so not every percentage will make sense. That being said Geneavlogger was able to identify the great grandfather that attributed 3% Ashkenazi Jew to a person, yet my grandmother has 30% Daniel/Swedish all on her paternal sude (can't wait for that to get broken down!) when the rest of her paternal side is nearly entirely German/Polish/Russian (which we haven't exactly untangled due to border changes). When I enquire in Facebook groups everyone says "it's because of migration". So a 3% ethnicity can be identified, but 30% can't?
Her maternal is the GPR mix we expected. She has a 2x 1st cousin, so we've ruled out an NPE issue.
My Chandler dna from the Chandler Family Asso. goes back to John Chandler, who came to Jamestown in 1609. They found his father in England and male decendants living today.
Great video, thank you very much. This video answered a few questions that I have had for a long time
Glad it was helpful!
I absolutely love this content
Another great clear presentation of a very complex subject thank you
Glad it was helpful!
I successfully used the DNA matches of about eight cousins to figure out the identity of our 4th great grandparents on a brick wall line. Our John Williams was born 1811 and eventually I was able to assign a huge list of DNA matches as John's paternal and maternal relatives. This led to a hypothesis of who his parents had to have been.
That's awesome.
I can't wait to get my Ancestrydna test in the mail and send it back to find out more, especially on my paternal side
I'm excited for you. Happy hunting.
@@GenealogyTV it's here😲
A common process is when aDna "washes out" after repeated generational recombinations, so expected ancestors are no longer represented in one's aDna. Some aDna stubbornly persists. My Scandinavian Y-dna R-BY164240 is dated to the first century, but only about 1.2% of related Scandinavian aDna remains. Embrace the chaos.
LOL Embrace the chaos.
As some below have already said, I do think it is possible to match people 9 generations back. I have connections to very special rather unusual names to certain areas in Sweden far way back to almost the 1600s. However, the matches don't match each other as the DNA i so small, but they all belong to the same ancestor. I believe they belonged to large families, that in turn got large families themselves, why they managed to get enough people today taking DNA-tests.
This is fine, Sheila, but the span between 1620 and 1750 or so was an endogamous period in New England. The entire community of New England was small, so breeding within this population permitted less dilution of DNA than larger demographic conditions. Immigration was very light so crossing of family lines after a few generations was common. This magnified the impact of the early setters. All records were in writing, and relationships were not as clear as they are to us today. We are a patronymic society, so maiden names hide relationships, causing inadvertent marrying between close relatives. The point is that the theory she is discussing is not consistent except for large populations with new blood being introduced on a regular basis.
Thank you so much for this video! I want to find my 5×great grandparents. My 4×great grandparents are solid but I haven't found any records for my 5th (on a certain line.) I found the grandmother's father but not the grandfather's parents. The assumed line goes back to the 8th× grandparents who has much documentation but as for who the direct parents are cousins have not confirmed their guesses. I was hoping DNA would solve the puzzle. I have also found clusters of families in my DNA matches (groups of cousins who have specific families in their trees) in the area I am looking for and last names I am familiar with. Putting those puzzle pieces together with documentation is the hard part. I guess that is what you call a brickwall lol
Thank you for educating us ...
You bet!
Thanks for another great video, Connie. I'm still hoping and praying for DNA matches to lead me to my matrilineal 3rd great-grandparents and doing all I can to find relevant records (no luck so far). Patience is not one of my strengths, really. :)
Have a blessed week.
You might try a mtDNA test at FTDNA. This looks up the maternal line only. This is one of the most uncommon test out there so cousin matches will be slim. You never know, you might find something there. Here's my affiliate link if you want to give it a try. www.kqzyfj.com/click-9110145-13710350
@@GenealogyTV Thanks, Connie. I've done the full sequence mtDNA test at FTDNA. Apparently my maternal haplogroup is rare. The initial result was U6b2, then I was told that I was put into a group even more refined, U6b2a. Even at the U6 level, 23andMe says it is rare, one in 11,000 on their site. Aside from our daughter, there is only one other U6 match there and he is an adoptee searching for his family.
On FTDNA, I only have one gen 0 match and it is to an English man that shares no autosomal DNA with me and his brick wall is his grandma. I have a gen 1 match, also no autosomal DNA shared and her listed foremother is at least in the USA. I've been trying to trace back and forward the trees of both people. I am told the connection with either one could be well over 500 years ago.
I haven't had any luck with the downline of my great-grandmother's 2 sisters. When I ask about DNA testing, though they respond to other points in my emails, they ignore the DNA test question (even though I have offered to pay for the tests).
In the meantime, I keep digging through records and trees trying to find something, anything, that is a clue to those 3rd great-grands. I am checking both South Carolina AND Alabama since the census isn't consistent with birth location and the death certificate says she was born in Alabama. I really don't know what else to do.
Sorry for writing a book here. Thanks for all you do to encourage all of us. Have a blessed week.
I have at least 30 matches to families on Malta, all in the 8-12 range. I have hundreds in that same range to the Sicilian province of Agrigento. I figure that during the 16th Century or even earlier either a Maltese family moved to Agrigento or a family moved from Agrigento to Malta. I can't resolve which is correct but I'm sure it's one of those two.
I found 6 generations apart relatives in Swiss with myheritage matches
I have tons of cousins I found through DNA and most were 1st and 2nd cousins I didnt know from my grandmothers side that we never saw. I shocked to find that my mothers mothers sides tree went straight up...lol They married mostly cousins and married back into the family. I found a grandfather that was also a uncle and a aunt that was also a cousin several generations back. If a husband died then the wife married the brother. Crazy stuff like that. They were a strong Scottish family and wanted to keep the clan bloodline thick. In fact the only families they did marry into were also scottish and there was only about 4 families that they did marry into and kept coming back to. Me and my cousin I grew up with help me do the tree and all we could do was laugh. My biggest hope was to find my mothers father, but outside of the state and federal census my mother doesnt exist. She never knew her father and my grandmother would never tell. She took it to her grave. Mom never had a birth certificate. My grandmother claimed the courthouse burned down and all records were lost, but I dont believe that. I think she lied to keep my mother from finding out who her father was.A huge secret for some reason. I keep hoping for a cousin to pop up that I cant account for in the family line I know but no luck yet.
I would go and try to verify if and or when the courthouse burned down.
@@GenealogyTV good idea. I hadnt thought to ck that. I mean in 1927 did they have microfilm or was everything just on paper?
@@GenealogyTV Well that was an easy task. The present court house is the 2nd court house built in 1911which still stands today. My mother was born in 1927. Grandma lied.
I can go about 10 generations in my mother’s line, including a Mayflower traveler, but my father’s line ends with a great-grandfather because of Nazi destruction of the town of Sturzenhart, Germany. Apparently all those records were destroyed when the town was razed to the ground. Very sad.
Sad indeed.
I think we do not necessarily inherit equal amounts from each Grandparent and so on. Our Dna seems to favour some lines more than others. My late brother looked nothing like me, we thought he strongly reflected Mum's Scottish side of the family. I appear, like my father, to have inherited my father's maternal line's physical appearance. Photos of my G.G. Grandfather (paternal) do not look like any of us or as far as I can ascertain, nor do first cousins look like him. Different physical traits appear in siblings, indicating, different ancestral contributors! The Royal family of Britain is an interesting study because there were so many photo's taken back around the turn of the century. We can see physical appearances in George V's sons that show their similarities to ancestors gone bye, and yet the Princes do not all share the same look. Some short, some tall, and eye colour differs between a lot of siblings. Your chart suggests everything is evenly divided, and that is clearly not the case.
Agreed. This is why I say we inherit "roughly" xyz percentage... but you can't demonstrate that easily in a graphic.
@@GenealogyTV I have a problem with this as well because although you say this roughly it isn't implied in any of your further explanations and charts. When you get back to even 4x Great Grandparents there will be some that you inherit more from, and some that you don't inherit any from at all, which would mean you just so never match with any of your cousin's from this branch of your tree.
I agree that the lower the amount of shared DNA the less likely it is to be able to match up with them so start with the lowest hanging fruit, but to assume that just because they might be negative matches they won't have any useful information in them at all is I think being too dismissive. You have to be selective, you shouldn't spend much time on them, but in the end they can hold the keys that you can't find anywhere else, that's what I've found and I'd never have found this with records only.
I do agree that you need to use records and DNA where possible to confirm relationships. Without this you can't totally be sure your two trees matching is proof of the relationship, however likely it is to be correct. Lastly DNA might be the only way if you've gone back further than most records for the common person exist. It may not be 100% period in this case, but there is really no other way (not until time travel is discovered at least)!!!
Yeah I agree. I found one cousin who shares 2% of my DNA. Could immediately rule him out as a 2nd cousin since he had no African DNA and none of my great grandparents were white. Also he's too old to be a great grandson to any of my great grandparents. I think he might be my grandmother half 2nd cousin sharing the same great grandfather with her which would make his great grandfather my 3rd great grandfather if I have that right. If I share 2% of my DNA with his grandson then I likely share more then the expected 3% DNA with him. Obviously my 3rd great grandfather is dead so it's not like I can test him to see how much DNA I would share. Had another cousin who share 6% DNA just like my half 1st cousin. Was wondering if my half uncle or grandfather had another kid. Turn out he wasn't my half 1st cousin he was a 2nd cousin so I did share an unusually high DNA with my 2nd cousin making the relation look closer than it actually was.
There is also a good chance that I didn't inherit any DNA from a 4G or 5G grandparent
6.5cM dna match confirmed with our trees and the match is back to my fathers 3rd Great Grandparents. I don't discount any match now!
That was when ancestry went lower than 8cM
I was trying to find the parents of my 3rd great grand parents... all I knew was that one was born in VT and the other in NY around 1820. One had an unusual name of Ellenwood. What I did was build a tree based on names found in trees of my DNA matches that had this name..but not by 3rd Great Grandmother. Then I looked for a man and wife who lived in NY state... ideally in a place that made interacting with people from VT more likely. I found a couple living in Morristown NY..who ran a ferry. After posting a message on a board looking for more info on this man.... up til now I never had success with an ancestry board.....but the next day..someone pointed out that the will for this man was available and it listed my 3rd Great grandmother by her married name and where she was living in the 1860s. My question.. is that the DNA/tree approach I used... well I am not sure this is a valid approach. Seems a bit like 8 wheel logic to me..eg if a 4 wheel car can go 200 mph..think how fast one with 8 wheels can go... sounds logical..at first. Anyway. is building a tree based on DNA matches..of people with same surname but no known matches...a valid approach? One other thing... few if any of these Ellenwood matches in my list shared DNA with other Ellenwood matches... and the amount of DNA we shared was very small... around 7-10 cM. I am wondering if I just lucked out using this approach. I am trying this with her husband... and have come down to two possibilities... one was born in VT and settled in Ill.. where my 3rd GGparents lived in 1850..one county over... the other lived in the same county as Morristown NY.. also born in VT. But being born in the early 1800s and married around 1840... records are few and far between. One problem with the husband's side is that the two people I have come with are distant cousins themselves... so that complicates things... Now I have found DNA matches to the parents of one of my hypothesis men.
My mom's mother's father's family can trace it''s ancestors back as far as 1590.Any farther back and the Dutch language is hard to read as it is in old Dutch.
I was able to use DNA to verify/confirm a 2nd great-grandmother via matches to descendants of a potential 4th ggrandmother's sibling descendants; her father was not named in his father's will, and my gggrandmother had married a 2nd cousin.
I was also able to identify the father of my 2nd great-grandfather b. 1846 who was illegitimate.
My greatest quest is to find my 4th ggrandfather's 1st wife. There are zero written records to identify her other than a couple of unusual given names for a couple of sons, but no one of that surname lived near the husband's family prior to the birth of their children in North or South Carolina. The husband's family lived in Rutherford Co, (now Cleveland). No clues in deeds, taxes, or church records. And it doesn't help that many of the descendants connect the wrong Isaac Tabor from RI to the one in NC in their family trees.
This is in the regard to your reply concerning my membership. Would like to thank you for your suggestion about checking if I had more than one Google account. All is fine now. Thank you again.
Wonderful! This is a common issue. I had the same problem myself. Rock on Bennett!
... and thanks for your support!
I use Genebase in Canada goes back thousands of years
How?
My paper trail hit a roadblock in 1696 with my Pindell ancestor buying land in the Maryland Colony. I've been unable to find any records of when, exactly, he arrived in Maryland or where he sailed from in Europe during the 1600's. Help?
It is unfortunate that Ancesty doesn’t do Y and MTdna testing because it could be very useful in confirming further back.
That would be pretty interesting if they did. I have no idea where my paternal line would lead. Ancestry could add it in the future.
AncestryDNA does do Y and myDNA, but for an extra charge (of course.) Family Tree does extended Y dna with surname groups, too.
2 of my 2nd cousins and me only share 12 cM and 19cM. They might be half cousins.
If I cut off at 40 cM, I'd only have just over 50 DNA matches LOL. My biggest annoyance is a match at 61 cM that I've been unable to place on my tree - he's one of 5 DNA matches that all descend from the same couple born ~1860 in Guernsey; 2 of my great-grandparents were born around the same time in Jersey...but still no joy in finding a connection LOL.
Hmmm- were they living on the islands full time, or - as fishermen- was there any chance of another base in Dorset or Devon? (That was common a century or so earlier. )
Thanks bunches
You are so welcome
Is the 50/50 split inherited DNA too simplistic OR is it possible that you miss out all the DNA from 2 grandparents (2 of those not married to each other), and your sibling misses out all the DNA from the remaining 2 grandparents (again not married) ?
Meaning none of your DNA is still in common with your sibling -apart from some other markers?
My question is in regard to an unknown great grandfather. Her birth certificate only has great grandmother, and the father is blank. So how many centimorgans should I be looking for. Or DNA percentage should be at what level. My stone wall for my son-in-law. 9:36
Use the shared cM tool at DNAPainter.Com
I'm surprised you didn't mention that it's very likely you do not, in fact, have DNA from all of your 5th & 6th great grandparents. DNA inheritance is so random, that it's theoretically possible for you and a sibling to have inherited exactly the opposite portions of your parents' DNA, so you'd not show up as related. Isn't it therefore very likely that the farther along you go, the more probable it is that some of a particular ancestor's DNA is stripped out, and you end up with twice as much of another ancestor's?
Add to that pedigree collapse, which as an American whose ancestors all predate the American Revolution, sometimes by 100+ years, I see a lot of. When your ancestors lived in very small rural communities, there were a lot of cases of siblings of one family marrying the siblings of other families, and then their grandchildren (or even children) intermarrying.
When trying to find DNA relationships in Ireland, are there any special DNA kits you'd recommend? Or would uploading my DNA profile from Ancestry work? I am unable to locate my family from 1860 on passenger ships, the family lore is that the husband was in trouble and used a false name to travel over to America. I was hoping maybe a DNA kit would help me make some matches, or even better, my fathers DNA :D I've used Myheritage, I have 1000s of possible matches but only 2 close matches . Was wondering if there is a better site or DNA kit to try.
I would start with Ancestry, then download the DNA results and upload them to other platforms like MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, etc.
I had hunted for the parents of my maternal grandparents. .I found my great grandmother and great grandfather when my grandmother's death certificate was opened they were named. But there was a last name problem with my great grandmother and where did she come from and still where did she go ? My DNA matches confirmed I had the correct family. I am still can not find my grandfather's parents but the DNA Matches shows where his family was and what family group by the DNA matches. I can only hope his parents are on his death certificate that opens up next November.
My grandmother was not on any official paper but her death certificate.update. I send off for my grandfather's SS5. His application for a SS number. He would be 139 years old so his parents should be on the application
When you inherit your genes from a parent, those genes are not divided up evenly amongst the parent's ancestors, as you assume. During inheritance of genes, there is a process called "crossover" where the parent's genes are shuffled, like in dealing cards, so that the child receives a random mix of their parent's ancestors genes. During this process, some ancestor's genes may be missed out entirely while with other ancestors genes, the child could receive a relatively large proportion. I have seen this in my own matches where I have no matches at all with several ancestors, and proportionally large numbers of matches from one specific ancestor. I have seen examples in my own family where people alive today are identical to their 3x or 4x great grandparents. The result of this "crossover" process makes nonsense of this article which assumes we inherit equal shares of our ancestors genes. I know for a fact that aI have inherited a preponderance of DNA from just one of my 3x great grandfather, which means I will have much more than the average 6% of his genes. I am certain I have more like 25%. This means I can easily go back several more generations of cousins for this ONE FAMILY LINE. And this is why people keep finding ancestors in the 8cM and less range. Its because a much greater proportion of genes from this one line are present in this 8cM segment than you would expect of you ignored crossover and uses averages as have been erroneously explained in this video.
I've been trying to identify one particular 4th great grandfathers dad. The lines intermarry a ton
So, I've plugged in multiple cousins of the appropriate age and location. They all come up with the same liklihood. No matter which I chose, within 2 generations back I end up with the same 6th great grandparenlikelihood. Still have no clue as to " whos the daddy?"
Go back to traditional genealogy records. Focus on the siblings and FAN Club in the records you have from the previous generation. Sometimes DNA is a deadend.
@@GenealogyTVthat would be good advice, except we started there, lol. His name is George Washington Tubbs, b abt 1830. Probable mother is Hannah glass, b. 1808. She was a recent widow with close ties to his family at the time of his birth, and was remarried soon after. To my knowledge, Absolutely no documentation found by even local area researchers or by professionals. We simply have found no evidence of his birth whatsoever. The most commonly accepted father is a 12 year old boy.
Possible, but unlikely. The only data we have that connects him to his "mother, is that he was living with her, her second husband, and their children when he was 19.
Using DNA matches, if I plug any of Hannah, Hannah's sisters or cousins ( the glass family) in, my little lost lamb comes back as half sib to the plug ins kids. And the same happens no matter which Tubbs cousin I've plugged in, he comes up as half sib. My hope was to find a full sib, and solve the mystery.
I, and a number of associated researchers, have decided that he must have been planted by aliens.😱
I don't even bother with the DNA matches, Parent 1 I have over 26k matches, Parent 2 I have over 30k matches.
I have been at my tree for about 40 years but I have one brick wall my birth father
I know who my birth mother was and she never wanted to meet up
On my birth cert it just shows me as illegitimate.
Have tried all the usual avenues no go
Can you help
Take a DNA test at Ancestry, if you have not already. This is a huge start. Then use the new separated paternal group of cousin matches and look for the closest matches. Research their trees for clues. Also, see this video about Search Angels... they often help you with research for free. ruclips.net/video/be55EHzPAZo/видео.html
Interesting but by the time you go back each generation the likelihood of having 'average' DNA inherited is less likely. My mums cousin has a 42cm match where we have a known ancestor and i don't match that person at all. The 25 year average for me is also way off - i was born in 1959, dad in 1926, grandfather in 1880 and great grandfather was 1820 so by that logic i should have been born 1900ish. I find 23andme pretty hopeless (people never reply, or reply once and then never again) and I'm not fond of MyHeritage (it seems to display shared matches on both sides simultaneously and causes me great confusion) - Ancestry is by far the best and i like the new sideways tool although it seems to contradict in my matches in a few places where i know the common ancestor. I wish Ancestry would give us more colour labels and have some way for me to check what matches i share with the other 4 accounts i manage, its such a chore to try and trawl through names and cut and paste to check who else has them, so lots of room for improvement in Ancestry
Yeah... the 25 year thing is never a perfect rule... it's just an estimation. Agreed on the color coding at Ancestry.
@@GenealogyTV It would be helpful if there were two distinct shapes to the color-matching. Say dots and squares. That would make it easier to remember whether a match comes from a Paternal or Maternal line - or both!
My mother did my Dad's Roots in the 70s. She found he was related to Caesar Augustus. Her work has been lost to the years. How can I find this information? Can DNA take me back that far?
In your situation, I would start from scratch and prove each link with available records on Ancestry and FamilySearch to start.
Hi, ok so question. When you look at the ethnicity & Ancestry states that you have 29% Scotland on Maternal side, but there is nothing showing. What generation will you have to look to find Scotland? It is the same for both side on my parents. Father has 21% & I'm in 1620's with nothing
Keep in mind that 29% could be a combination from several lines of the family.
Would it be possible to trace my great grandmother through my DNA results? My great grandfather deserted the British army in 1898 and changed his name from Drew to Smith( I know, worse choice). He married an Indian lady (don’t know name) and had my grandfather and great uncle in 1902 /1904. She passed soon after that. The 3 men stayed in India until 1923. I would like to at least know her name. I cannot find birth records that match so I’m hoping I could trace through DNA matches member trees.
You likely could make progress with DNA if there are descendants who have also tested at AncestryDNA. A great grandparent is close enough of a relationship that you might find some second cousins that descend from said grandparent.
If you're searching the grandfather or grand uncle descendants then you would be looking for DNA matches from their descendants in the neighborhood of a 1st cousin... or maybe a 2nd cousin that descends from the great grandfather.
The only way to find out is to take a DNA test. I recommend starting with AncestryDNA (they're the biggest company, odds of success is greater).
Here is my AncestryDNA affiliate link if you want to use it. I do make a small commission on this, but doesn't cost you anything extra.
www.ancestry.com/?ranMID=50138&ranEAID=3739942&ranSiteID=h02_ybBif9I-xFV0qvilOSv6aPMdPxBgiw&o_xid=0003739942&o_lid=0003739942&o_sch=Affiliate%20External
What do you think of gedmatch to find relatives?
I think it is a great place to find more possible relationships.
I've not managed to get anything useful out of Gedmatch. I live in hope though, maybe one day.
FYI law enforcement access these reports also...any family member has same dna
Ok these co. use the gdneology from the bible to make assumptions it didnt tell me who my parents nor grandparents were but both went back to enoch merlin hercules achiles, Hows that workout
I understand that if u have a 16th of DNA that's the same as someone else's 16th, you must share great grandparents at some level (great, or great x2, x4, etc.)
However, to the point of the question, "How far back can u go with DNA?"
- I'm thinking not very far because no one was collecting DNA samples in my grandparents' day, if they even knew what it was.
I don't see how u can go back far enough with DNA to say, for example, I'm related to Abraham Lincoln.
U might be able to trace that thru family records, vital statistics, etc. by creating your family tree, but not by using DNA.
Am i wrong?
You can if you research the family trees of your DNA cousins. Just make sure you verify with records what they have in their trees.
Apparently, everybody with Irish DNA can connect to the sequenced genomes of a 5,200-year-old female farmer from the Neolithic period and three 4,000-year-old males from the Bronze Age.... The woman is called the Ballynahatty woman and the men are referred to as Rathlin Island men... If you go to GEDMatch you can test your DNA against theirs... That's pretty far back. In reality though, 7 generations is the most reasonable amount of generations that you can assuredly connect to... Farther back than that and it gets murky.
If you submit DNA to Ancestry, does it link automatically with other people that have submitted DNA if you are a match?
Yes is should. However, if you have it marked as private then no.
Can you help me find out who I come from? I’m perplexed and have very little leads but I want to know how far back I go
Sounds like you need a coach. Here are a couple of options. Legacy Tree Genealogist - Coaching - Hiring an Expert www.legacytree.com/genealogytv or Aimee Cross at ancestryconsultingbyaimee.com/
I got as far as when you said you don’t bother with matches less than 40cm and thought hang on, looked at my matches - I have 13 matches with 40cm or more that have public trees on Ancestry. No wonder I’m having a tough time. What’s the norm here, and why don’t I have more. Feeling a bit inadequate now.
I don't bother going that low because I have a lot of matches that are closer (higher cM) to work with. If I am working some obscure line that only has a few say 15-20 cM range matches, you know I'm going to look for clues just in case.
How do you find out the NAMES, dates and details of your ancestors, with this?
Look at the DNA cousin matches, then drill into their trees for clues.
I “trust” Ancestry if it says I have a distant cousin AND we have a common ancestor on our trees show the same common ancestor and it matches the relationship. I can comfortably trace most of my ancestry back 6-7 generations. Because of the many people who desperately want to be “royalty”, there are various peerage books tracing European royalty back to Charlemagne or earlier. If they are to be believed, I am related to the first kings of Ireland and Scotland, as well as to Theodocious II of Rome. Grain of salt….
I'm Australian my ancestors were northern European
Can you tell me of my 0.9 West Asian result??
and how far back is 0.9 ? and what is it ?
Please
Focus on the larger percentages. Such a small amount might be nothing, might change over time, and in my opinion is not worth the time chasing.
@@GenealogyTV no problem thanks 👍
I did 23&me, why i don't have my daughter there. and everyone that are relate has the last name different and the tree is only one side?