DNA match problems

[Barlews]

Hi. I am a new member although I have been researching for around 30 years.
I recently had a breakthrough with my G.G. Grandmother through DNA and it has inspired me to try and solve others. Very complicated but her Granddaughter, my grandmother was born as a Sene in Australia but her father was killed six months before she was born. Her mother married again 3 months after she was born to an Irishman by the name of Henry Shaw and went on to have three sons by him. She returned to the UK with her children leaving her husband behind.
My first DNA match was a 1st cousin to the Australian Shaw family so I presumed that gran was Henry Shaw's child. This lead on to more matches with her family. Will not bore you with all the details but I then started getting matches with the Sene family. Some I could see could be explained by making my mistake but to date, I have had matches with all her fathers 4 siblings and the son from her father's first marriage.
Back to the Shaws, I now have matches with 11 and there are many trees on Ancestry. There would appear to be two distinct base trees, the rest look as though they have been copied. Both trees are well documented with photographs and I have tried to check all the data and so far cannot fault either.
The way I see it, the only way I can be connected is through gran's Shaw half brothers. Two were killed in the 1st world war, cannot trace any marriages but were old enough to have fathered a child. The other, Henry Hamilton Shaw joined the army in the UK, was in India in 1911 but turns up back in Queensland in 1937. The R of E. shows him living alone through to his death in 1955 so could easily be involved. Hamilton and Henry are a very common name in this family and there are quite a few of them around.

My question is how do I go about solving this. I have tried contacting a few of them and very politely explained my quandary and certainly did not accuse them of being wrong. So far, none have shown any interested in investigating any further.
Your observations and advice would be much appreciated.
Barbara

 

[Heather]

Hi Barbara, just wanted to welcome you to the forum, I am not very knowledgeable about DNA but there are lots of members on this forum that may be able to help you.

 

[Helen7]

Welcome to the forum, Barbara.

If I've understood your post correctly - please correct me if I'm wrong - it seems you are now sure that your grandmother's father was Mr Sene not Mr Shaw, but you want to find out why you have so many 'Shaw' matches? Also, I assume you don't have a DNA match with either of the owners of the well-documented 'base' trees? If you do, have you contacted them?

You mention 11 'Shaw' matches, so how do you know they are Shaws - do they have trees, or are they just named Shaw? Can you work out (even approximately) how they might be related, and is the amount of shared DNA consistent with the likely relationship - which would be a half cousin if they came from your grandmother's Shaw half-brothers. Try the DNA Painter tool at https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4 to check on possible relationships.

It is annoying when people fail to respond, but we have to accept that some are just not as interested in family history as we are!

 

[Barlews]

Thanks Helen.
Yes, in my own mind I am pretty sure she was a Sene, I think the match with her half brother's family just about settles it but....... they are all 3 -4th cousin matches against the 1st cousin x 1 removed or half cousin match with the owner of one of these trees and yes that is correct if it was one of her half brothers. She did reply and said she would look into it but nothing happened. I tried again a few months later with a similar reply. A couple of others replied and said they were happy with their tree and knew nothing of the brothers.
I believe it is the close matches grandmother that might be the answer and the correct relationship. Not one of the trees gives a birth record for her in spite of numerous other records and photographs and all sources given for her parents which I have checked.
I think I might see if I can get her birth certificate but I know Australia is pretty sticky about these although it might be OK with a death certificate reference.
It is just that Peter always says you cannot assume anything but have I the right to stir things up with the Shaw family. Personally I would prefer to know but their reaction seems to be different. It is a shame as it would have been nice to get to know a half cousin.

 

[Pauline]

If I’ve understood correctly, you have a half 1st cousin once removed match and it appears that the grandmother of this match could be a daughter of one of your grandmother’s Shaw half brothers (which would explain the DNA connection). However, the available trees show a different father for the match’s grandmother. Is that right?

If so, then obtaining the birth record (and any other available records) for the grandmother, if you can, seems like a good start. Different states have different guidelines and sometimes you may be able to get some information from the indexes. It’s perhaps odd that none of the trees has a birth record, which might suggest the trees are relying on ‘family information’ rather than anything documented, and as we all know, ‘family information’ isn’t always correct.

As for stirring things up in the Shaw family, the first step is to gather as much documented information as you can and see where that takes you. I see no harm in presenting any findings to those you are already in touch with, although they may choose to reject the information. Such is life, but the best we can do is try and solve the mysteries we come across, and record what we find.

 

[Pauline]

Just to clarify, when I wrote above “you have a half 1st cousin once removed match”, I should have said “you have what could be a half 1st cousin once removed match”.

 

[Barlews]

Hi Pauline
Thanks for your reply. Yes, you have understood correctly.

I did some digging around yesterday; all the trees say she was born in Sidney, New South Wales, with the birth date. Unfortunately New South Wales do have the 100 year rule for births and I was hoping one of the exemptions might be a death certificate but this is not acceptable. It says "However, if this person is deceased, and you are a descendant of the person whose birth you're applying for, you can get a copy if you can prove descent from that person, along with a copy of their death cert."

Using my F.H. programme, I have worked out that my gran's half brother and the grandmother of my match are on paper 1st cousins one removed and her father a first cousin. So I suppose there are two scenarios. She could be the result of an affair that nobody knew about and if so, the birth certificate will not help, or they adopted his cousins child.
The other thing I find rather odd is that nobody has any birth information on her only other sibling, a sister born five years later "about 1935" and no place in what is otherwise a well documented and sourced tree.

It looks as though the only way of sorting this out is to get a member of the Shaw family to get on board.

 

[Helen7]

Oh I see. It does seem that you need one of the Shaws to get their grandmother's birth certificate, though as you say it won't help if your match's great-grandmother had a secret affair with her husband's cousin.

I had a similar puzzle in my husband's DNA matches, where the only way I could explain his 'half 2nd cousin' DNA matches to a pair of sisters was if his grandfather and their grandfather were half brothers, as a result of an affair between next-door neighbours. The paperwork doesn't reflect this, of course, as the woman was married, her husband naturally named as the father on the birth certificate, and the trees showed no family connection whatsoever (apart from the fact they lived literally next door to each other). But as they say "DNA doesn't lie!"

 

[Pauline]

DNA doesn't lie!

Very true, but as is also said “it can be misinterpreted”. So Barbara is undoubtedly doing the right thing here in at least trying to verify by other means what looks likely in the DNA. But as you say, sometimes that just isn’t possible.

 

[Helen7]

Very true, but as is also said “it can be misinterpreted”. So Barbara is undoubtedly doing the right thing here in at least trying to verify by other means what looks likely in the DNA. But as you say, sometimes that just isn’t possible.

Yes, I agree that verification by other means should always be sought if at all possible, so Barbara is definitely doing the right thing.

In the case I mentioned, even though there was no relationship shown by our trees going back several further generations, the amount of shared DNA pointed to either 2nd cousin or half 2nd cousin (the sisters being the same generation as my husband). Also, there were lots of shared matches pointing to my husband's great-grandfather being the common ancestor, so I came to the conclusion I did in the absence of any documentary evidence (other than the census showing the families as neighbours), as it seemed the only logical scenario.