We just recently had my mother's male cousin's DNA tested -- to 37 markers. The test results have come in, and the results have us a bit stumped. I am hoping someone here can answer my questions.
Let's call the tested family line the B family. We know it to a certainty back to 1832 but have been road-blocked beyond that point. There is a possibility the line is a German descent line, but it is also possible the line is an Irish/English descent -- we don't know which one, and that is a major reason for having the DNA test done.
Quite a few people in the overall B family have had DNA tests done, so we expected to get a goodly number of matches.
Not so. We ended up with 4 matches at the 12-marker level, and just 3 matches at the 37-marker level. Of the 4 matches at 12-markers, 3 of them are to members of a B family who have their furthest paternal individual being of German descent. The 1 remaining 12-marker family is not a B family at all but a G family and we have no members of this G family anywhere in our records.
How did the G family results show up at the 12-marker point for our B family testing? My guess is that the G family does have a direct line B family member and had that DNA test done for the B family, but on the website where it asks for the furthest paternal individual, they put the furthest paternal individual for the family name they now have which is *not* the B family. This would be like my mother who is a B family member, misunderstanding what the website is asking for and putting in my dad's furthest paternal individual because my dad's family name is her last name now.
Next, with regard to the matches at the 37-markers, all 3 of those are B family matches and are the same B family matches that showed up at the 12-marker results. They have as their furthest paternal individual a person of German origin. One of them shared his GEDCOM file with me, and when I looked through it to find out where our two B families connect up, I found an error. If his records are correct up to that point, then in fact his B family descends from a B line that is NOT of German origin. And so it then follows that, since our B family is a close match with his B family, our B family doesn't descend from a German origin either. Right?
Lastly, I'm having some trouble understanding what the Y-DNA Haplogroup info is telling me. At the 12- and 37-marker level, I'm being given 3 matches to Germany -- I believe that this is because the B family we show as a match to has their furthest paternal individual indicated as German, as described above. There are 3 individuals who have posted results, all of them from the same B family. But when I look at the Y-DNA Haplogroup Origins information, there are only 2 matches to Germany, 1 match to Switzerland, 1 match to France, 1 match to Iraq ... and 10 matches to England, Scotland, Ireland and/or the United Kingdom. This suggests to me that by the preponderance of the evidence, our B DNA is predominantly from the United Kingdom area -- am I correct in this understanding?
And since I already know that quite a few B families have done the DNA testing, why in the world are we showing up with basically a match to only 1 of those families in the first place?
Many thanks to anyone who can help me out here!
Let's call the tested family line the B family. We know it to a certainty back to 1832 but have been road-blocked beyond that point. There is a possibility the line is a German descent line, but it is also possible the line is an Irish/English descent -- we don't know which one, and that is a major reason for having the DNA test done.
Quite a few people in the overall B family have had DNA tests done, so we expected to get a goodly number of matches.
Not so. We ended up with 4 matches at the 12-marker level, and just 3 matches at the 37-marker level. Of the 4 matches at 12-markers, 3 of them are to members of a B family who have their furthest paternal individual being of German descent. The 1 remaining 12-marker family is not a B family at all but a G family and we have no members of this G family anywhere in our records.
How did the G family results show up at the 12-marker point for our B family testing? My guess is that the G family does have a direct line B family member and had that DNA test done for the B family, but on the website where it asks for the furthest paternal individual, they put the furthest paternal individual for the family name they now have which is *not* the B family. This would be like my mother who is a B family member, misunderstanding what the website is asking for and putting in my dad's furthest paternal individual because my dad's family name is her last name now.
Next, with regard to the matches at the 37-markers, all 3 of those are B family matches and are the same B family matches that showed up at the 12-marker results. They have as their furthest paternal individual a person of German origin. One of them shared his GEDCOM file with me, and when I looked through it to find out where our two B families connect up, I found an error. If his records are correct up to that point, then in fact his B family descends from a B line that is NOT of German origin. And so it then follows that, since our B family is a close match with his B family, our B family doesn't descend from a German origin either. Right?
Lastly, I'm having some trouble understanding what the Y-DNA Haplogroup info is telling me. At the 12- and 37-marker level, I'm being given 3 matches to Germany -- I believe that this is because the B family we show as a match to has their furthest paternal individual indicated as German, as described above. There are 3 individuals who have posted results, all of them from the same B family. But when I look at the Y-DNA Haplogroup Origins information, there are only 2 matches to Germany, 1 match to Switzerland, 1 match to France, 1 match to Iraq ... and 10 matches to England, Scotland, Ireland and/or the United Kingdom. This suggests to me that by the preponderance of the evidence, our B DNA is predominantly from the United Kingdom area -- am I correct in this understanding?
And since I already know that quite a few B families have done the DNA testing, why in the world are we showing up with basically a match to only 1 of those families in the first place?
Many thanks to anyone who can help me out here!
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