Ancestry DNA Matches

[chrissy1]

There is as much information in your DNA as in the DNA of your siblings, it's just distributed differently between ancestors. You'll get the best results by working with all the matches of all the siblings - it would be a serious mistake to ignore your own results!

My sister has more DNA matches than me, but her matches complement mine because I have lots of matches that she does not and vice versa. Comparing looks alone, it is obvious that we have acquired different genes from the parental gene pool.

 

[chrissy1]

If they're second cousins they only share one-quarter of your tree, so there will little correspondence between the number of close matches they have and the number that you have. However if the cousins are all siblings the variation in the number of close matches is greater than I would expect.

Not all siblings, but one has parents who were first cousins, the grandmothers both being full sisters of my grandmother, so I would expect her to have a much higher share of DNA from this branch of the family - half as opposed to a quarter.

 

[peter]

Not all siblings, but one has parents who were first cousins, the grandmothers both being full sisters of my grandmother, so I would expect her to have a much higher share of DNA from this branch of the family - half as opposed to a quarter.

It's quite possible for there to be large variations between 1st cousins, for example if one has Irish or Jewish ancestry and the other doesn't.

 

[chrissy1]

It's quite possible for there to be large variations between 1st cousins, for example if one has Irish or Jewish ancestry and the other doesn't.

Why Irish or Jewish, or am I missing something?

 

[peter]

Why Irish or Jewish, or am I missing something?

It's partly because of endogamy - people marrying within the same group - and partly because they tend to have more children.

 

[jorghes]

There is as much information in your DNA as in the DNA of your siblings, it's just distributed differently between ancestors. You'll get the best results by working with all the matches of all the siblings - it would be a serious mistake to ignore your own results!

In reality the reason I rarely look at my own results (and that of my siblings) is because I have been lucky enough to test not only my father and my mother, but also my paternal grandmother. I don't have any DNA that isn't already with one of my parents!

Why Irish or Jewish, or am I missing something?

My Jewish Ancestry has a massive amount of intermarriage - for example, I might be entering a marriage for a distant cousin and the name of the cousin's spouse looks familiar... because they are also a distant cousin of mine, and are already on the tree!
Equally, my Jewish tree has pedigree collapse due to the marriage of 1st cousins in my own direct line and that wasn't the only marriage of first cousins within that branch of the family.

Jewishness, I have learnt, was past down the matrilineal line - the women were expected to marry a man within the faith, so that their children were also considered Jewish. If you weren't living within a large Jewish community, then the choices were limited.

 

[peter]

In reality the reason I rarely look at my own results (and that of my siblings) is because I have been lucky enough to test not only my father and my mother, but also my paternal grandmother. I don't have any DNA that isn't already with one of my parents!

Indeed, it makes one wonder why you and your siblings tested at all? It's certainly not something I would have recommended - but perhaps your parents were initially reluctant to test.

 

[chrissy1]

Why Irish or Jewish, or am I missing something?

Thanks. I wasn't aware of Jewish intermarriage and I would perhaps have limited the Irish reference to Irish Catholics, of whom there are many in NW England.
However, I too have direct ancestors who were first cousins who married and several other instances in the same branch of my family in rural Devon, but no Irish or Jewish connections. Pure Devonian, but I think intermarriage often occurred in small, isolated rural communities too. The same surnames keep appearing.

 

[peter]

Thanks. I wasn't aware of Jewish intermarriage and I would perhaps have limited the Irish reference to Irish Catholics, of whom there are many in NW England.
However, I too have direct ancestors who were first cousins who married and several other instances in the same branch of my family in rural Devon, but no Irish or Jewish connections. Pure Devonian, but I think intermarriage often occurred in small, isolated rural communities too. The same surnames keep appearing.

Marriage between cousins is rather different from marriage within a group - whilst there are some similarities it's important to understand the differences:

• When cousins marry there are identifiable relationships and you can adjust the expected shared DNA accordingly
• By contrast a group can be very large, and there may be no marriages between cousins, but as a result of members marrying within the group over many generations there will be a restricted gene pool; this makes ALL relationships between members of the group appear closer than they are, but without any obvious reason.

If you remember my examples in the newsletter which used a pack of cards to illustrate how matches occur between cousins, endogamy is like using a pack of cards where all the red cards have been removed, making matches more likely. Cousin marriages are like using a regular deck, but drawing two lots of cards from the pack, rather than one.

 

[peter]

I wasn't aware of Jewish intermarriage

Intermarriage is a term best avoided in genealogical discussions as in common parlance it has two opposite meanings, ie marriage within a group or marriage between people from different groups. I'm guessing you weren't referring to either of those - since it's well known that Jewish people tend to marry within the faith - but to cousin marriages. I'm not aware that there are more marriages between cousins in the Jewish community (and in any case I would expect it to vary according to the locality and sect).

I would perhaps have limited the Irish reference to Irish Catholics

You're partly right, in that Catholics tend to have larger families, but both Catholics and Protestants in Ireland tend to marry within their own communities.

Of course, the same is also largely true of Catholics and Protestants in England, but there are an awful lot of the latter which means that the gene pool is comparatively diverse.

 

[jorghes]

Indeed, it makes one wonder why you and your siblings tested at all? It's certainly not something I would have recommended - but perhaps your parents were initially reluctant to test.

Most likely curiosity factor to begin with - I was the first to test before I slowly convinced the others.

 

[AlanB]

I have a little over 30,000 matches on Ancestry. Just over 12,000 are assigned as Paternal, just under 13,000 as Maternal, 5,000 currently unassigned and one that I know is related to me on both sides.

My closest matches are two (confirmed) 2nd cousins.

One anomaly is that I have many more matches that I can identify as being through my maternal grandmother, than through my maternal grandfather (only two in the latter case). It may be that I received more genes from my grandmother's side than my grandfather's, or possibly because he was in his 50s when my mother was born, and he was one of the youngest in a large family, hence any matches alive today would be further removed from me.

 

[John Dancy]

Alan,

I think you need to be pleased with what you have got. My figures are 7,920, 6,627 and 7,816 although I expect this to change as I have assigned some of the unassigned and would assume Ancestry might take notice?

Reasons for differences, where do we start - the age gap for one. I am the eldest of five born in six years, my wife the youngest of five born over twenty. If one line has parents born in their forties marries another whose are born in their teens and these trends continue generations soon overlap.

The number of children can vary, from one to fifteen, more children means more descendants and more to be interested in family history. Or single children with no interest at all.

If the DNA cousin is old when he tests his matches might well stretch further down some branches than someone who tests young simply because he has a fifty year start

Or it could just be your DNA. You inherit half of your father's and half of your mother's. It could be that the more distant relatives DNA sample actually falls within the 50% of each you haven't got. This is why it helps to have siblings match as well as yourself, you get a fuller picture. If you have siblings...

It is all a lottery, I just consider it a considerable blessing to be able to do it at all.

 

[peter]

I don't tally up the number of matches I have from different parts of my tree - knowing the answer wouldn't affect my decision-making. Nor do I take much notice of how many matches I have in total, or how many of those Ancestry have allocated to one side of my or the other. My brother has always had about 20% more matches than me, even though we have exactly the same ancestors - it's just random variation.