DNA Analysis

I had the Ancestry testing done years ago and find it very good, and accurate. Initially I found my first cousin on it from the maternal side and its showing 900cM shared

Recently my paternal first cousin did it and she's only showing as 280cM which I'd well outside the range for full first cousins.

She's not showing as a common ancestors or match for any of the people on my paternal fathers side. So am I correct to assume that given the low cM and the lack of common matches, that my father and his brother were only half brothers?

Also, on the paternal mother's side she's showing a significtly higher cM with people I show as having lower cM. For example, im showing as a 5th to 8th cousin sharing 44cM with a woman, and shes showing 2nd cousin with 140cM.

We have come to the conclusion that they were half brothers, but why would the relationship on the mother's side be much stronger for her?

Hello. I'm basing the conclusion that she's my first cousin based on the fact her dad and my dad were brothers. They grew up together before dad's brother went to England. I've known her since we were small kids. But the DNA really is suggesting our fathers were only half brothers, despite birt cert information.

The shared ancestors I refer to are shared matches, ie dna matches, not based on the tree which she and I would enter, that way we are sharing ancestors, but based on the DNA, we don't share matches on my grandfather's side at all.

The information seems quite obvious regarding drawing the conclusions but I'm probably grasping at straws at this point

My dad is. But sadly uncle has passed. The other sibling doesn't share the interest

I have about fifteem matches on Ancestry that appear to be descended from a daughter of my great-great grandmother's first marriage. I'm descended from her second marriage. They range from barely half-4th cousins to half-5th-8th cousins. The odd thing to me is that my brother and none of my full 2nd, 3rd and closer 4th cousins also share these matches, not even one. Just me. Does that mean I inherited some bit of DNA that these distant cousins share but none of my much closer cousins do? Seems so odd.

Unfortunately, a lot of people on Ancestry now seem only interested in ethnicity, at least in the US, and have no tree at all. I doubt they could give any info to queries. My matches recently have mostly been young people with no attached trees.

I have had a couple of unusual experiences in contacting matches. For years I tried to place one close match--2nd-3rd cousin. I was really curious as this person was clearly on my mother's side but shared one close match on my father's side. For greater NYC and generations after immigration, this was quite a find. I finally contacted the person who managed the test who told me my match was the product of a donor egg. I believe they were trying to ID the donor. I didn't have any idea.

More recently, I contacted the manager of another close match's test. My father's side but just couldn't nail it down. The match turned out to be a 94-year-old woman who never knew who her father was. The family was trying to find out. They gave me access to her DNA results and, while I could not be specific--remembering PinkyPinky's immortal words to me--'Tread carefully, Virginia, tread carefully'--I was able to narrow it down quite a bit. They were delighted. They picked one name to give peace to the woman, who died this January. RIP.

Hi all .Just looking to see if anyone can help with a DNA "puzzle " .Think I may have asked this here previously .

Have one particular group of matches on Ancestry (where I did my test ) which I cannot place anywhere .What I know is that they are on my fathers side as no match with my mothers test .

Its a group that at this stage I have 283 people placed in .This group range from 50cM down to 8cM .All apart from 2 or 3 match across just 1 segment .None show more than 20% Irish ethnicity although I am aware this is more based on tree matches etc than anything else .

Unusual thing is that with any of them I would have 20/30 shared matches whereas with even known 2nd/3rd cousins I would normally share perhaps 10 or so matches .With some of them I have upwards of 70 shared matches .Not one person in this group match any test that matches a test I have in another group (Have my matches placed into 24 groups through shared matches ).

None of the attached trees show any Irish ancestry back to 1800 or further and any that I got a reply from had any inkling of any Irish ancestry .One family name occurs in most of the trees but having looked at this family for a few years still cannot make any headway .Any with what looks like a decent family tree seem to originate from the US states of Kansas ,Texas ,Mississippi and Missouri and most that have a location attached seem to be still based in that general area of the US .

Not really looking for genealogy help ,rather someone who could explain if this is an anomaly or where should I be looking .Have my test on My Heritage Gedmatch etc and its the same story on there with any of this DNA match puzzle .

Any and all suggestions/questions welcome

Agree that 50cM is distant although have 3 known 3rd cousins with whom I share less than that .

The Ulster Scots part is possible but unlikely as all my fathers ancestors back to at least 1800 came from within 5 or 6 miles of where we still live in the South East of Ireland .

Not really worried about placing them in my tree ,rather I was amazed at the amount of shared matches plus the fact that not a single one is a shared match to any test that is placeable in my tree .

Presume the endogamous population would explain the number of shared matches I have with each one .Looking at online trees the vast majority seem to have been in that part of the US since before 1800 .

Then again one person getting it wrong ,convinced they are correct ,and loads copying details from that tree could explain a lot .

Kinda resigned to the fact that my tree /DNA included ,is probably back as far as possible for a "normal" Irish tenant farmer/labouring family .No missing great grand aunts/uncles etc that I am aware of so have a lot of the sideways stuff done at this stage .

How common is it for Irish people to score 40-50% Scottish on AncestryDNA tests?

My mother hasn't taken it, but some of her brothers and sisters have and they're each scoring between 40-50% Scottish for some reason even though we don't have any known Scottish ancestry. My mums family are all nordies (catholics) btw.

I'm 80% Irish 20% Scottish, which appears all my "Scottish" comes from my mum and my dad would've been close 100% Irish.

Did you see Ancestry is about to update its DNA estimates again this month? Last time was April.

I think the ‘Update’ result will depend on two factors, the first being how Ancestry has modified its algorithms.  Hopefully some of these new tweaks will be based on customers using the ‘Do you recognize them?’ tab and allocating matches to paternal or maternal sides.  If the algorithm parameters used have been more precisely defined it could actually diminish the match count, as it could/should exclude some ‘clutter’. The other factor depends on Ancestry’s marketing department. In the past I’ve noticed my new match numbers diminish prior to an announcement and then followed by a splurge of them to hype the new announcement. Currently I’m getting a steady trickle of rubbish matches, 95% of them <10cMs, the rest <18cMs.  Those few matches with trees have no shared ancestral names and none have recognizable ‘shared matches’ (except for a couple matching with my bugbear, the elusive ‘Wayne’ ).

My new Ancestry DNA results just showed up. Almost no difference from April except that 2% of my small Spanish DNA has magically been transformed into Scottish. 85% Irish, up 1% but down 9% from the results given before the April 2022 estimate.

Not much change for me.

94% Irish

2 % English

2% Welsh

2% scottish

My results after update.

Ireland - 78%

Scotland - 22%

I have no known Scottish ancestry.

I agree that the Ethnicity test is an estimate but to be fair it should be noted that all DNA databases for France are tiny because DNA testing is basically illegal there. (It can be done, but only through a doctor and the results obtained from him/her.)

My new result has changed from 97% Irish, 2% Welsh, 1% Sweden/Denmark. I've now lost my Welshness to Ireland but retain my Scandi DNA.