General Chat

Well I have my DNA results

77.8% English
19.1% Balkan
3.1% Scandivian

The biggest matches were a surprise!!

USA 3767
UK 2028
AUS 479
FRANCE 427
GERMANY 383
CANADA 247
NETHERLANDS 245

These are the biggest matches. But the most surprising thing of all is, it says i have 0 close matches?? So unless someone closely related to me has done a DNA test, it wont show any results?

It showed a 2nd cousin from Australia, so i emailed him to ask how we are connected as the only 1st cousin I had, sadly died age 45 back in 2004 .
But I dont understand how I can have more USA matches than UK?

In all I have over 11,000 matches. is that normal? What kind of numbers have others had?

Its a lot to process ;-)

Florence in the hebrides

Florence, what those match numbers indicate is that more people in those countries have had their DNA tested...........

And the fact that you have no close matches means that no one closely related to you has had a test and uploaded it to that site.

You may find that the Australian has other rellies with DNA on there, so that might account for a few.

Of that huge number of matches, some of the most distant may be 'false'.

I too have a huge number of matches, I found a few who I had already contacted through tree matches, plus a few who I knew who they were from my tree.

If you haven't already done so, put up a family tree, even a small one, and list the surnames you have. Then every week or so (after you get bored of looking every day) check for any new matches, and check out anyone who has any of your surnames.

I've just checked, we don't match.....

I can't remember which company this was.

Dna testing is much more common in the US - and there are a lot more of them.

A second cousin is descended from your joint great grandparents, your first cousin from your joint grandparents. For example , my first cousin is my mothers niece. My second cousins are the grandchildren of my mothers uncles.

The second cousin may actually be further away than that. It is just a guess made due to the amount of cms.
Not all matches are true matches.

Experts say one should discount anything beyond a 4th cousin or 30-25 cms as the results cannot be relied on.

Added: don't get disheartend if they don't reply - it seems that many people that have their dna done are not interested in family history.

With ancestry I have over 6000 matches, with about a dozen being fairly close. Before they changed how they set things out they had some second cousins from same family spread across as 2nd or 3rd cousins.

On My heritage I have 12453 matches. First two I know and know of. Tehn I have a jump to 4th or 5th cousin. She has an odd name and I was able to work her out and she is actually a 5th cousin. So for me MH is pretty useless.

Added: I cant give you my matches from Living dna as it seems not to be loading, but last time I looked I only had one known match, who is actualy on both the other sites.

Added: just realised I look very clever, I didn’t trace the 5th cousin all the way back, she had a small tree on another site and I was able to link her into my tree.

There are 7 matches that are2nd or 3rd cousin and 2 of them are in my Grandads tree of which I have the full family tree so I know who they are. I emailed 1 other today as never heard of the name and its fairly unusual.

A few Irish 4th cousins popped up but to my knowledge we had no Irish in the family on either sides so may be very distantly related somehow??

The Netherlands is an interesting one with 245 matches as I have been looking for the elusive Gr Grandfather on mums side of the family for years! He has a Dutch surname.

I can't believe that no-one else in my close family has had this done. maybe noone else is interested in our family history, I know many of my cousins don't even keep in touch and they are 1st cousins!

You probably need to know where in Holland, or possibly Belgium, he comes from.

Don’t forget that there are several companies doing the dna testing, as you know yourself, you can choose any of them. In my own case, apart from the close relative who is on several, only one relative chose MH but loads of them chose Ancestry.

Also the algorhythms they all use are very different so that result from one company can seem to make more sense than snother.

Edt:I’ve just scrolled down on my Ancestry matches and found just over 6000 more on the unassigned list. I do know that some of them are definite relatives

What i don't understand is when its says "parents 2 or 3rd cousin" because which family?
I have some cousin that is descended from my grt grandmothers family of which i know nothing except grandads mother gave 2 of her children her maiden name as their middle name but noone ever mentioned that side of the family. So unless the match specifies which parent its related to, then how am supposed to find out how I am related
:-S :-S

By checking the family trees and comparing with yours. Also check if you have any names in common. You might also consider if you both have ancestors who came from the same district.

Annoyingly those people probably haven’t added trees. Have you looked at the shared matches.
Hopefully MH will follow Ancestry and tell you which side your matches are from.

Could you try asking a cousin to do a test, their results would then give you the hint of which side your own matches come from.

added: forgot your cousins aren't interested. Could you try making up a tree f ro your matches.

Last night, I looked at a couple of matches that say we are 3rd cousins. So one is from UK, I did look to see who we share our DNA with and it lists the names on their tree but none I know.

There is one from the USA and her name has popped up many times although have no idea who she is.

On my mum's mums side, I have that part of the family tree but only the branch I'm from. The rest of that tree is colossal.

I have 1 3rd cousin in Edinburgh who is on a different branch but of the same tree so going to email her and see if she has done the test but if not, she has done her own branch of that tree so it may just shed some light...hopefully.

In all of these shared matches that I have looked(about 20 so far), it says none have any of the 4 family names that I'm associated with so I can only think, they must be very distant relations?

Anyway off to mail my cousin and see where that leads me.

Your joint ancestor with a third cousin is your great great grandparent. Not everyone can or can be bothered to work back that far.

If you don’t know who’s the 3rd cousins are be mindful that the algorithm has come up with that and they might be a 2nd cousin so many times removed.

It is a minefield especially when you add in the false postives.

Edited. Just looked at the last email from MH. Says the match could be 4th Cousins daughter, 5th Cousin or 4th cousin. How on earth is one supposed to work that one out. Actually at under 30 cms I shan't be bothering to try.

Florence, have you looked at the filters yet? You can choose different ones to sort the matches. Or you can search for a family name, try one of your less common ones.

The latest Lost Cousins newsletter contains an updated version of the DNA Masterclass

https://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/jul23news.htm#Masterclass

Thanks Kense must read it through properly
. I think his materclass is excellent, but I have been noticing he is leaving off one of his charts. The one that gives a % againest a range of cms and then which level of relative you would probably find. That one sometime helps me get my head around it, easier to follow than some of the other charts.

Edit: just checked my folder and the table I was thinking of came from another on line article - Autosomal DNA Statistics / ISOGG Wiki

Well I have a result!

I have managed after reworking back that the 2nd cousin is on my grt grandmothers side of the family. That is my father's grandmother. I worked back to his grt grandad my grt grt grandad. I then looked at the census and found the connection to me.

My grt grandma had a number of siblings and one brother married who produced a daughter and this person married who is the connection to the DNA match.

I had looked at my grandmother's, mother's family origin but have not done her mothers tree.

It took some looking but so glad I found out how we are related.

When grt grandma married into the "Prophet" family, I did start that family tree but still working on it.But she obviously comes from another side.

I asked dad if he remembers his grandmother as a boy and he does ,but does not remember meeting any of the aunties or cousins sadly.

Oh well, a good ending to finding a match and a connection :-D

Btw, I'm not intending to post every result in finding a connection on this thread, it was just the 1st one I had sorted!

Well done! Hard work pays off.
Why not ask your Dad to take an ancestry test, you could then download it to MH. It is always said it is a really good idea to test your older relatives as they will be that little bit closer to your own match.

Names, I did ask him but he's not interested, he said "I know all my family and don't need to know all the distant cousins etc."

I have a 3rd cousin in Fife who I recently emailed and asked her and she said she will think about it, but she is related through my mums mothers family and I do have a lot of that family tree done already.

I wish I could convince someone closer to me to take the test but I seem to be the only one interested in Genealogy!

I know the feeling. I skied my brother( he’d been given a test,) if he’d give me access to his results. I think he must still be thinking about it

Well I have sent at least a dozen messages to some matches and not 1 has replied!! I'm finding it a bit disheartening tbh.

I have spent hours trying to work out connections but struggling now.

One 3rd cousin, I dont know their name or their shared DNA name. So I searched their origins on FMP on both sides and went back 3 generations but to no avail?? The surnames listed I have never heard of.

If the ones I messaged would reply, then at least I might connect with them somewhere.

Florence in the hebrides