Half Sister is my cousin.....and more. Questions.

[JJSchultz]

Hi everyone. I'm in need of some serious opinions in terms of deciphering all of this. I'll list some "problems" (if that's what it's called).

My half sister and I uploaded our raw DNA and compared it against one another. She is most definitely my half sister (dad's side)BUT while comparing our common relatives I noticed her cMs were double and triple those of mine in relation to them. I questioned whether or not her mother (she's unknown) and my father were related. I ran the "Are Your Parent's Related" test with her kit number and it showed that they were, in fact, distantly related. So that makes sense as to why she's much more related to some family members than I am.*

Looking through our list of shared matches and then our lists on individual matches brought up some questions:

*There are some people in our shared matches who are family of people who are only in either mine or her individual matches. What would cause this?

*In addition to the fact that she is much more related to some of our family members than I am, there are also a group of family who is much more related (2 and 3 times the cMs) to me than they are to her. I've already determined her mom and my dad are distantly related, causing the additional relation for her, but now what's causing that for me?

*The biggest question I have is this. I have gone through the first 200 matches on Ancestry.ca and they all come back to german lines (I assume they're related to my dad). I am finding NO members that are related to any of the people on my moms side of the tree. It's like my mom's DNA is completely missing. Even going through the GEDmatch matches I am finding very few that could even be POSSIBLY related to my mom. Everyone seems to point to my dad's side of the family. Where is my mother's side?

[Germanica]

Hi everyone. I'm in need of some serious opinions in terms of deciphering all of this. I'll list some "problems" (if that's what it's called).

My half sister and I uploaded our raw DNA and compared it against one another. She is most definitely my half sister (dad's side)BUT while comparing our common relatives I noticed her cMs were double and triple those of mine in relation to them. I questioned whether or not her mother (she's unknown) and my father were related. I ran the "Are Your Parent's Related" test with her kit number and it showed that they were, in fact, distantly related. So that makes sense as to why she's much more related to some family members than I am.*

Looking through our list of shared matches and then our lists on individual matches brought up some questions:

*There are some people in our shared matches who are family of people who are only in either mine or her individual matches. What would cause this?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying you and your half sister have some matches in common even though those matches are from your mom's side, or her mom's side?

It could just mean that some of those people share different, unrelated ancestry with you than with your half sister. So for example, they share ancestors John Smith and Jane Doe with you, on your mom's side... but also happen to be descended from Joe Schmo and Anna Jones on your half sister's mom's side. John Smith/Jane Doe are unrelated to Joe Schmo/Anna Jones, but this person happens to have both in their tree, and therefore matches both you and your half sister even though it's on different sides. I know that seems too coincidental to be true, but it's actually not uncommon.

It's also not impossible that your half sister's mom and your mom share a distant ancestry. As very distant relatives, it's possible you and your half sister didn't inherit any matching DNA from your mothers, but you and your half sister would still share some distant maternal matches.

*In addition to the fact that she is much more related to some of our family members than I am, there are also a group of family who is much more related (2 and 3 times the cMs) to me than they are to her. I've already determined her mom and my dad are distantly related, causing the additional relation for her, but now what's causing that for me?

Recombination is random. You do not always share the same amount of DNA with each cousin of the same degree. Even full siblings do not have all the same matches - some cousins will match one sibling and not the other. Likewise, some will share more DNA with one sibling than the other. This is perfectly normal and to be expected.

*The biggest question I have is this. I have gone through the first 200 matches on Ancestry.ca and they all come back to german lines (I assume they're related to my dad). I am finding NO members that are related to any of the people on my moms side of the tree. It's like my mom's DNA is completely missing. Even going through the GEDmatch matches I am finding very few that could even be POSSIBLY related to my mom. Everyone seems to point to my dad's side of the family. Where is my mother's side?

How are you confirming these matches are from your dad's side? I ask because a lot of people seem to think that a shared surname in both trees is confirmation of how you are related, but this is not enough to go on. You need to find shared ancestors, not just surnames, in both trees to confirm that this is the branch you're related on. If you've been going on surnames alone, you may be erroneously attributing some of them to your dad's side.

The other thing I would ask you is if your mom's ancestry is from fairly recent immigrants? Although the test is available in several other countries, the majority of the testing database is from US. The less time your ancestors have been in the US, the fewer descendants they have, and therefore the fewer (if any) have taken the test at the same company you have.