23andme results

[1alan1]

Hello,

My adopted Japanese daughter in law just received her 23andme results. I am wondering exactly what the results mean and is there anything additional we need to look at.
Here are her top three matches.
3rd to 5th cousin .69% shared, 2 segments
3rd to 5th cousin .3% shared, 3 segments
3rd to 5th cousin .26% shared, 3 segments

The charts 23andme show these results as 3rd cousins?
Of course these matches above do not reply to messages sent.
Is there something else we should look at?

I told her to use GEDmatch and see if she gets more matches.

Can someone recommend the next steps or should she try another test?

Thanks Alan

[1alan1]

Strange, received a reply yesterday and I replied, today both are missing???

So I have another question...

She has two matches that are mother and daughter.

Mother 4th cousin to distant .21% shared, 2 segments
Daughter 4th cousin to distant .19% shared, 2 segments

Would this indicate they are farther away than 4th cousin? I would think the mother would have a higher shared result.

Alan

[jova99]

hard to know

difficult to know for sure

My mother found a Third cousin match at 23andme....she matches .89%, while I match just .21% and my daughter also matches .21%

[1alan1]

Jova99 thank you.

I read 23andme's guide lines, but seen a load of posts about
after 3rd cousins its hard to tell the distance out.
I was hoping to ask and see what other people got.
Thanks again..Alan

[jova99]

23andme

it is difficult to know for sure , the estimates they give seem accurate

while the matches sharing .21% could be 4th cousins, some of them may be 5th cousins and some could be 6th cousins.

All the confirmed 3rd cousins I have share more than .3%

but have found a few third cousins once removed and fourth cousins whom we share just .19% to .24%

one of my 4th cousins shares 0 with me and .3% with my sister.
25% of your 4th cousins will share no DNA with you.

[1alan1]

Thank you again.

Its hard for her being Japanese to make connections to find family. So we are really excited for the results. But now we are wondering how close they really are. The only contact shared her family tree back as far as they know, just not quite far enough. Its a good start from absolutely nothing to Wow!

Alan

[1alan1]

She compared her top dozen matches to the possible 4th cousin and it seems only one result matched between them. Not the result I expected. I was thinking there would be several and could maybe judge where cousin's are in the tree.
Maybe she is farther out than 4th cousin.
Alan

[1alan1]

A 3rd cousin to 6th just replied. She could not see any of my daughter in laws matches.
Just seems strange to me to make matches but the matches do not see each other.

[MMaddi]

A 3rd cousin to 6th just replied. She could not see any of my daughter in laws matches.
Just seems strange to me to make matches but the matches do not see each other.

23andMe has a cap of 1,000 for DNA Relatives matches. You will only be shown the the top 1,000 matches, based on percentage of DNA shared.

In order to be declared a match, there has to be at least a 7.0 cM segment, which comes out to 0.09% of shared DNA. However, for example, if your 1,000th best match shares 0.25% DNA with you, you won't see anyone in your DNA Relatives match list with less than 0.25% shared DNA.

If you're from an ethnic community that heavily intermarried for a few or several hundred years, you're a distant cousin to everyone else with that same family background and will share larger amounts of DNA than people from other family backgrounds. Examples of this are Ashkenazis, colonial Americans and French-Canadians. People with that family background will have distant cousins in genetic genealogy databases with the same background who share large amounts of DNA with them. At 23andMe, because of the cap of 1,000 matches (to be raised next week to 2,000), the match list of those with, for example, Ashkenazi ancestry will be dominated by distant Ashkenazi cousins. Only close non-Ashkenazi cousins will share enough DNA to appear in the match list.

In the case you post about above, your daughter-in-law's 3rd-6th cousin match probably has some Ashkenazi (or colonial American) ancestry, but also some non-Ashkenazi (or non-colonial American) ancestry. The match is probably only seeing Ashkenazi (or colonial American) cousins in her match list, but few or none of her non-Ashkenazi (or colonial American) cousins, except for the closest ones that share a large amount of DNA with her. Your daughter-in-law probably has no Ashkenazi (or colonial American) ancestry and therefore this 3rd-6th cousin match is visible on your daughter-in-law's match list of her top 1,000.

What's the percentage of shared DNA for your daughter-in-law and this match?

[1alan1]

Her top matches are...

3rd to 5th cousin .69% shared 2 segments
3rd to 5th cousin .3% shared 3 segments
3rd to 5th cousin .26% shared 3 segments
3rd to 5th cousin .26% shared 3 segments
3rd to 6th cousin .29% shared 2 segments ***
3rd to 6th cousin .27% shared 2 segments
3rd to 6th cousin .21% shared 2 segments
3rd to 6th cousin .21% shared 2 segments
3rd to 6th cousin .19% shared 2 segments
3rd to distant cousin .26% shared 1 segments
3rd to distant cousin .19% shared 2 segments ***

The *** are the two people she was able to contact.
I was hoping the contacts might see her contacts even closer. Maybe would have family information that we could use.
Thanks!!

[1alan1]

Moved to GEDmatch.
Found the # 2 and #3 match on 23andme is her 1 and 2 match on GEDmatch. Not much new, her # 3 match wrote and said not a match.

GEDmatch allows you to look at the other users matches and I can see a few way down the list that are common, but are probably bogus at that level. 7+ generations away.

One things about the DNA testing most of her matches are Japanese. They say at 4th cousin it starts to get iffy, not sure if they look at race as part of the calculation to determine relationship.