Jorghes, do you have matches that don't appear in either of your parents' match lists? By the way, I'm impressed by the high cM numbers you are seeing in your mother's 'distant cousins'. Apart from my son, the only match I have above 100 cM is a second cousin, and my husband and I both have quite a few 2nd-3rd cousins but all below 150cM, some substantially so - for instance, my husband has a 2nd cousin who shares only 60cM. I wonder if we're unusual in having such relatively low cM numbers? I know DNA inheritance is random, but even so...
Yes, there are matches attached to me that can occasionally appear to match one of my siblings, but neither of my parents, which to me always seems strange. I did have a contact from GEDmatch a long time ago who was in that very boat - a match to me, but not to either of my parents, so I'm not sure about the veracity of that particular match.
My mother's results are actually on the smaller end of the scale, probably because my father's tree has a lot wider distribution in regards to emigration outside of the UK. And plus, he and my grandmother have larger proportions of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, and there are a LOT of results linked to those parts of my tree.
My identified matches are rather unevenly split amongst my grandparents: 39%, 7%, 15%, 39%. I assume this is due to different family sizes and/or differences in how many people in each branch emigrated, especially to the US?
My mother's results tend to have less as there is less evidence of emigration into the USA - although I do know of some significant emigration into Canada and to Australia and the like.
But equally my mother's matches are those where I know and have contact with a number of cousins who have also been DNA tested, so in some ways her results should be easier to sort. (even more so since they link to three out of her four grandparents)
Those are NOT distant cousins!!!! They could be 2nd cousins of your mother or 2nd cousins once removed (so 3rd cousins to you). Or even half 1st cousins once removed.
Whoops, my bad. They're actually sitting in the "3rd cousin" section of my mother's results at the moment.
At the moment. But you can extend their trees, can't you? Your first objective is to find out how they are related to each other - presumably they don't know already otherwise you would have mentioned it.
There are, unfortunately, no shared names at all - one tree only has 6 or so names, the other only 8. The only link at this point is both have someone who lived and or died in Rhode Island in the USA, but one has people in Lancashire and the other only from the US.
What proportion of her close matches have you managed to resolve?
So in regards to my mothers results - we have the following:
Four results listed as "2nd Cousins" by Ancestry - and all are 2nd cousins (to my mother that is), two are related to my mother's paternal grandmother and the other two to her maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather respectively. (I know exactly where all four sit on the family tree). - these results share between 304 and 230 cM.
Under "3rd cousin", there are 8 results. Two are the before mentioned unknown pair; 2 are a 2C and 2C1R (to my mother) on her paternal grandmother's line - both of these through either contact or Common Ancestors, I know where they fit; 2 come from her maternal grandmother's line (one I know exactly, the other I know through shared DNA) and the final two are linked through DNA to my mother's maternal grandfather's line, but I don't know their exact linkage, but they share significant DNA with results from the 2nd cousin section. (these results share between 197cM and 106cM)
I haven't been as dedicated with the 4th cousin section, but I do colour code according to shared matches so I have an idea for many, and I make notes on specific relationships where there is a "Common Ancestor" tag (and that can also affect my colour coding).
I don't have as many well known/contacted links with the branches in my other two main lines (my father and grandmother's results), but they also have numerically many more matches.
. I think Peter mentioned such 'missed matches' across generations in another thread. I'm adding a note to those where there are 'common ancestor' flags or surnames of interest, just in case.