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I recommend uploading to my site for DNA too, FTDNA. It's cheap and you get a whole new database of potential matches.
https://www.familytreedna.com/autosomal-transfer
Actually it seems to be free now. I thought there was a $19 charge somewhere but I can't tell.
If you are interested in matching, you may be more likely to get some there. People who do DNA testing at Ancestry tend to be dilettantes (present company excluded of course!) expecting they will turn out to be descended from Cleopatra or some Viking warrior. It always seems like it's one step farther along the new-age reincarnation claptrap path. People at FTDNA are more likely to know what they're doing, and there are users with all kinds of different projects who are happy to help.
I don't know much about autosomal DNA (what Ancestry tests) yet. I've just ordered upgrades on my two male rellies' DNA kits to get the autosomal ("family finder") testing done. Here's hoping my mum's male rellie is still usable. He died a few months before she did. And I've ordered YDNA and autosomal for No.1 in the hope of maybe finding out who his parents' fathers were, and mtDNA (female line) and autosomal for me, hoping for more news of my mum's loony grandfather's family. I had got a quite close match for my mum's male rellie's YDNA with someone who was just what I expected: a family with long roots in Cornwall 10 miles from where my mum's grfather was born. With a third and theretofore unknown surname.
I've been especially lucky that someone in England had been researching that surname because a bunch of USAmericans have got such strange theories and he's trying to help them out, and along came me and the woman whose dad matches my guy, and proved at least that our Cornish clan is not at all related to those other ones, but they don't match among themselves or anybody else, pretty much. So the guy in England has done all this pro bono researching and explaining for us ... much more than I care to take in, frankly. :-)
The big thing when dealing in DNA: never ever give out personal details at the websites. My kits are named things like "Mr. X. Private" and I'm "Ms. [cute childhood nickname] Private". I delete address details after kits are received. And so on.
Back to your question: have you exchanged ancestral surnames with the possible matches? I'd just sling a whole list of them at them and get theirs in return. If there's any match among them, then work on what the connection might be.
The best way to tell whether a match is on your mother's or father's side is to get a first cousin on one side to test. Then you can separate your matches into those who match with that person and those who don't.
So ... what's the ethnicity answer? :-D
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Thankyou grannyfranny, I haven't loaded my DNA to gedmatch, may do so at some point.
I really only took the test because it was a gift, and I was interested more in the ethnicity aspect than contacting distant connections, so it's not a pressing issue as such. :-)
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Presumably you mean those who match you, but match no others of your matches?
Possibilities - they might not actually be your matches, at that distance away there can be errors.
Some more distant people on your tree may have 'unknown' parents. Or even some closer ones.....
At that long distance, there are very many family 'lines' so many more individuals.
Have you loaded your DNA onto Gedmatch? That is a good site for sorting matches into groups.
Edited to say that I've checked how many matches I have, back to 4th cousin (as they describe it), and I have 15,326, of which I can identify 11 of them as in my tree.
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I'm sure there's a simple answer, but it's beyond me lol. It's like one of those questions in maths, if x has 30% of 99 oranges and shares them with 16 people who gets the apple.?
I have one first cousin match ( my paternal uncle's child) with whom I share 40 other matches of varying degrees 3-5th, no surprise as my gt grandfather and gt grandmother had, and came from, large families,
I have a lot of other matches at 3-5 that 'seem' likely to be on my maternal side, and some of those match each other, probably mum's paternal side in Ireland and maternal side in England.
But what about the 3-5th cousins who seem to have no matches to anyone else?
I've put this on this board as I know some DNA savvy people here are more likely to see it and put me out of my misery :-D
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