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Thank you for explaining. Now it makes sense.

Deborah, yes I brought up DNA because for me it is the reason for my wish to find more information about this particular John Clark, I felt it provided context. I got drawn in to further comment by what others said. As siblings inherit different parts of their parents DNA, so it is inevitable that their offspring will match at different levels to their cousins and aunts and uncles. However, it was explained to me, that where there are children who share a mother and their fathers are brothers, or indeed it's the same father and sisters as the mothers, rather than matching at the sort of levels expected for half-siblings or half-cousins, the levels may well be higher, akin to a three-quarter relationship. It was also explained that it may not be possible to pinpoint which brother within a family is the biological father of a child, but it still remains that DNA can identify the family itself.
In the case of Harriett I have this higher than expected cM match to a cousin. This supports the fact that my great grandfather names one brother as his father on marriage, whereas a younger half-sibling names his brother as father. When my great grandfather married, his father's brother was probably living with Harriett, he certainly was a few months later on the census, and he was the informant when Harriett died. Added to that my great grandfather took his youngest 2 half-siblings into his household when they had lost both parents - he doesn't describe them as his full brother and sister. Top that off with the fact that the brother named as father of my great grandfather moved out of the area well before any of the later children were born.
So, a combination of documents, circumstantial evidence and DNA, taken together, support the inference that at least some of the children were fathered by 2 brothers.

So
there is an almost 200 cms difference between our results with the match to our 1st cousin once removed. That person has also tested or uploaded results to other companies - for each one we have a different amount of cms matching

I have a range of 112cms difference over the matches to 2nd cousins from the same great grandparents.

Exactly namelessone.

Referring back to my twin cousins, one would expect their DNA to be identical or at least almost identical, but it is not.

Like Deborah I wonder how you think the fathers were brothers. One of my brothers a,so tested with Ancestry, the amount of cms shared with 1st and 2nd cousins can differ a lot. (I’m on my I pad so will add the number difference later)

Even odder is that I can share a match with my 1st cousins daughter but not with the first cousin. :-S

You say your original query has been lost in the process, you brought up the subject of DNA.

DNA is a very complex random and unpredictable subject, I have some 35,000 matches, I don't kid myself that I have that many relatives out there.

I have two 1st cousins who are twins, you would presume they would have the same shared matches, they don't.

I was just trying to say that I appreciate the help we receive on this site by helpers who pay to subscribe to various companies to help us in our common interest just because they love doing it.

As I said in my first post, DNA should only be used as an assist, not as a place to start, how you can possibly say that Harriet Clark has children fathered by 2 brothers is substantiated by DNA is beyond me given the time frame. DNA didn't even exist then. Well it did, but we didn't know to much about it.

You then go on to say they cant prove whether 2 brothers were involved or not, so what are you saying, that is not what this site is about.

As ErikaH said, we are not interested in DNA, its about documentation and cross referencing, checking, and double checking, and then you have to take into account that people lie, they did back then and they still do now.

Some times you just never know, that's what we call a "brick wall" and we all have them.

namelessone, I quickly realised that the Ancestry relationship is only a high level prediction, there's a much longer list of possibilities behind that. Added to that, intermarriage and other complications can throw those out of the window. I have many cases where siblings married siblings, or people from one family are entwined in various ways with another. I'm so glad I went down the route of having both paternal and maternal lines on the same tree, the 2 sides overlap in several places and not because they were all in the same local area.

Harriett Clark seems to have had children fathered by 2 brothers, DNA matches to some of their siblings confirm the link to the family, although they can't prove whether one or two brothers were involved, there are circumstantial factors that point to this.

I hadn’t noticed that Ancestry had done some renaming/ regrouping. But beware of where they change from one group or another. I have several 2nd cousins, all descendants of the same great grandparents who are spread over several of the Ancestry groupings.

I once had got to a similar place as Julie. I had managed to work out the family name and a potential group of brothers but it was down to one closer relative testing on another site that proved which brother I was searching for.

Deborah, there are a lot of conflicting claims out there regarding where the threshold on "accuracy" falls, many put forward quite coherent arguments to support their case, I don't know who to believe! However, where I have a higher cM level match, who shares a number of other lower cM matches with me, it seems logical to me to conclude that we are all related in some way.

This thread has strayed a long way from where it started out and I feel my original query has got lost in the process.

Namelessone, I would agree with what you say about 35cM’s. Even 35 is not reliable enough.

nameslessone, I'm no DNA expert, but I did join a DNA matching group, and several there grumble because Ancestry cut out shared matches lower than 20cMs a while back, saying they were very useful. They have a category that is headed close matches, which equates with 4th cousin or closer, which is their 2nd tier, 4th cousin goes down to 20cMs. I haven't worked on matches more distant than that, there's plenty to keep me busy on those. I've several thousand individual matches before I'd get as far down as any at 9cms!

Interesting that Ancestry believe you can go as low as 9ams. In the series of talks given locally by renowned experts the believed that anything under about 35cms or more than 4th cousins was unreliable.

Deborah, I don't feel I was challenging anyone, I was merely trying to clarify and focus. If my attempts to do this have been taken in any other way that was not what I intended. I have used this forum on many occasions and value those who help.

If you have read the complete post I hope you can see that I am not using DNA on its own, but DNA in conjunction with trees, including those I have built out from matches who only have minimal trees.

I would like to point out that for adoptees DNA is the only place where they can start, it can be the only tool in finding biological family they have. This was the case with a match of mine who turns out to be a second cousin. It has enabled her to find family of both her maternal and paternal lines. The same can be true of situations where a parent turns out not to be as expected. I am not challenging you on this, but trying to point out that there are other angles on the DNA front that you may not have considered.

Ancestry DNA no longer provides shared match information at less than 20cMs so the matches in this case are all related to each other in some way. I am simply trying to establish how.

I am sorry to but in here Julie, I am not a helper, but I do read the posts on here every day, it is a good source of learning.

The helpers on here are extremely knowledgeable, they give up their own time to help us,I have had a great deal of help on here over the years. I cant speak highly enough of them.

I doubt they appreciate being challenged when they are only trying to help you. I know I wouldn't.

Anyway, what I really want to say is that I have a cousin who works for Ancestry, and he told me that there has to be an absolute minimum of 9cM for there to be any chance of you being related.

You simply cannot go by DNA, it should be an assistance only rather than a place to start.

The researchers will have no knowledge of your DNA matches, and at the very minimum it should be used, maybe, to confirm your findings, after you have done the research properly, ie, documentary evidence, which is what the helpers on here are trying to do for you.

Sorry helpers, if I speak out of turn, I will delete this comment if requested to do so, but I have asked for your help many times over the last 5 years and have had no cause to either complain or challenge. Your help and advise only, when "advise only" is requested is second to none. xx

namelessone, agreed, indeed one of the 2 trees I checked and expanded in this case was wrong. That's why I always produce my own version of a matches tree. The original tree failed to pick up on the fact that a man had married twice, both times to a Sarah Ann. They had the wrong mother because of this. If I hadn't spotted that I would never have made the actual family connection between the 2 matches. That said, sometimes the documentary evidence is wrong, as with another DNA match whose grandmother claimed to be a widow on marriage, when in fact she was a spinster with an illegitimate child. She used her actual birth name, but a partly made up name for her father.

I had thought that perhaps John Clark was a made up name in Harriett's case, but having DNA matches pointing to a particular Clark family that includes a John, is I feel worthy of follow up.

You are right, DNA doesn’t lie ( except for false positives) but other peoples trees may not be correct unless they have the documentary proof.

Sorry ArgyllGran , that was a typing error on my part, probably had John on the brain and was trying to do too many things at the same time..

I appreciate that some researchers have no interest in DNA, I didn't go down that route until a year ago. I am only seeking to highlight that there must be some family connection between the ancestors of my DNA matches and myself and that I haven't simply plucked this particular John Clark out at random, DNA has pointed me in his direction.

I also accept that there are various approaches to family history research, I was just trying to focus on finding John.

Fair point ArgyllGran, it's just that I know quite a few researchers searched for early info on Harriett and found nothing.

"The marriage to John Hayes is a red herring, it seemed to be "right" way back in 2011, when I had only just started researching. "

But you mentioned it today at 14:49:

"Harriett married John Hayes in 1875, but by 1879 they were living apart . . . "

which is why I looked for it.
However, I assume you meant Robert.

No interest in DNA.......trying to find a 'father' for Harriet.

You asked for help - that is what we are trying to provide.

If you don't like our methods.........................