A possible NPE found through Family Finder Test?

[Hando]

Hello all, I recently took two Family Finder tests.
Results showed that my two test subjects "JK Male" and "JK Female" matched as 2nd or 3rd cousins. This was great news for me as it assured me that they shared a common ancestor.

However, the bad news is that a Family Finder customer from another country then came along and claimed to be 5th or remote cousins with JK Male. This customer however, did not claim to be 5th or remote cousins with JK Female.

I asked Family Finder customer service and told them that it was not possible that this Family Finder customer could be related to JK Male and JK Female, because I have family records that stretch back in time and there is no record of any of our ancestors marrying anyone from outside our country.

Customer service replied and said it was possible that the ancestor of both JK Male and JK Female was an NPE, either by adoption, illegitimate birth, or born out of wedlock etc.

So my question to you is this.

1) Does this mean that one of JK Male's and JK Female's shared ancestor is not related by blood to JK Male and JK Female?

2) Or that one of JK Male's and JK Female's shared ancestor was adopted or illegitimate? I am talking specifically about the shared ancestor of both JK Male and JK Female. Please note that the FTDNA customer who is claiming to be JK Male's 5th or remote cousin, does not show up as a 5th or remote cousin match of JK Female. This FTDNA customer only appears as a possible match to JK Male. Meanwhile, JK Female and JK Male are related to each other as second or third cousins, through JK Female's mother's side and JK Male's father's side. I do not know whether this is relevant to my questions two questions.

3)If it is indeed possible that there was an NPE among the shared ancestor of JK Male and JK Female, what sort of scenario can be suggested? A scenario in which a shared ancestor of JK Male and KK Female was adopted into the their family, or adopted out of their family? In other words, did the NPE occur within my family or in the FTDNA customer's own family?
Thank you in advance. I don't know much about DNA.

[dna]

Highly speculative

I respond to every single query from any match. I think you should too. I will try to write a longer explanation for you. In the meantime, my Family Finder experience and a question.

For the four Family Finder tests I am taking care of, so far nobody that was listed as the 3rd, 4th of 5th cousin looks even remotely like anybody related. That includes matches labelled 2nd Cousin - 4th Cousin. And each of the kits has over a hundred of such “matches”...

You did not provide enough of information. Is it that JK Male has only two matches and JK Female only one (JK Male)?

[Hando]

Hi dna, thanks for your reply and questions. When you say "highly speculative" are you referring to the 2nd to 3rd cousin relationship between JK Male and JK Female or the "relationships" between them and their other "matches"?
To answer your question, no, there were a few more supposed "matches." Here are the FTDNA customers (and their shared cMs) who claim to be related to JK Female and JK Male respectively/separately.

JK Female has 3 "matches" apart from JK Male. Two of these claim to be 5th to Remote cousins with 61.26 and 41.25 shared cMs, while one claims to be a 3rd to 5th cousin with 43.99 shared cMs. How on earth can someone claiming a closer 3rd to 5th cousin relationship have less shared cMs than someone with 61.26 shared cMs claiming 5th to Remote relationship?! I contacted this supposed 3rd to 5th cousin, but so far they don't know much and need to ask their mother.
By the way JK Female and JK Male share 158.25 cMs and are 2nd to 3rd cousins. This must be true because they are well known as family members. My only reason for conducting the Family Finder test between them was to make sure this was true. And the tests came up as them being 2nd to 3rd cousins. In fact, JK Male and JK Female are related through JK Male's father and JK Female's mother. In other words, JK Female's maternal grandfather and JK Male's paternal grandfather is their shared common ancestor. This is how they are related as 2nd or 3rd cousins.

With regards to JK Male he has three FTDNA customers, apart from JK Female, claiming to be 5th to remote cousins with 35.76, 25.34 and 52.14 shared cMs each. The FTDNA customer who shares 25.34 cMs with JK Male contacted me. Let's call her Catherine R. Catherine R told me she was adopted from a country that neighbors JK Male's own birth country, but our family records do not indicate any marriages with any foreign nationals. And besides, her shared cMs with JK Male are much lower than those found for the other two customers who also claim to be JK Male's 5th to Remote cousin. Which makes me think the others have a stronger case of being related if at all.

At any rate, I repeat my questions from my original post here.
I asked Family Finder customer service and told them that it was not possible that this Family Finder customer Catherine R could be related to JK Male (Catherine R does not claim to be a match with JK Female by the way), because I have family records that stretch back in time and there is no record of any of our ancestors marrying anyone from outside our country.

Customer service replied and said it was possible that the ancestor of both JK Male was an NPE, either by adoption, illegitimate birth, or born out of wedlock etc. Meaning my family records could be inaccurate somehow?! That is a grave concern for me.

So my questions to you are.

1)Does this mean that FTDNA customer Catherine R who claims to be JK Male's 5th or remote cousin is also related to JK Female or not?

2)If Catherine R is not related to JK Female, then wouldn't this mean that the shared common ancestor of both JK Male and JK Female was not an NPE and in fact, biologically descended from (and biologically related) to the ultimate founding father of their line, who is listed in our genealogical records as having lived in the 1300's?

3)Does this mean that one of JK Male's and JK Female's shared ancestor was adopted or illegitimate? I am talking specifically about the shared ancestor of both JK Male and JK Female. Please note that the FTDNA customer Catherine R, who is claiming to be JK Male's 5th or remote cousin, does not show up as a 5th or remote cousin match of JK Female. This FTDNA customer only appears as a possible match to JK Male. Meanwhile, JK Female and JK Male are related to each other as second or third cousins, through JK Female's mother's side and JK Male's father's side. I do not know whether this is relevant to my questions.

3)If it is indeed possible that there was an NPE among the shared ancestor of JK Male and JK Female, what sort of scenario can be suggested? A scenario in which a shared ancestor of JK Male and KK Female was adopted into the their family, or adopted out of their family? In other words, did the NPE occur within my family or in the FTDNA customer's own family?

4)How certain can we be whether it was a case of an NPE among one of the shared ancestors of JK Male and JK Female or some other reason?

5)If this was an NPE, then can we tell whether this NPE offspring was a direct ancestor from whom both JK Male and JK Female are descended, or if this NPE offspring was a sibling of the shared ancestor of JK Male and JK Female? In other words, I am interested in knowing whether this NPE offspring was a direct or indirect ancestor of JK Male and JK Female?

Basically, what I want to know is whether or not JK Male and JK Female are indeed biologically descended (through their more recent shared ancestor) from the ultimate founding father of their lineage who lived in the 1300's? If the shared (and more recent) ancestor of both JK Male and JK Female is indeed biologically descended from the ultimate founding father of our lineage who lived in the 1300's, then wouldn't this also mean that both JK Male and JK Female are also biologically descended from their lineage founding father who lived in the 1300's? I am not talking about the ancestor who makes JK Male and JK Female 2nd or 3rd cousins. I am referring to their ultimate founding father from whom we all are supposed to originate? But, if the more recent shared ancestor who makes JK Male and JK Female 2nd or 3rd cousins was an NPE, then this would mean that JK Male and JK Female are not in fact biologically descended from their ultimate founding father who lived in the 1300's (I think).
Thank you

[dna]

A very long story to tell

When you say "highly speculative" are you referring to the 2nd to 3rd cousin relationship between JK Male and JK Female or the "relationships" between them and their other "matches"?
To answer your question, no, there were a few more supposed "matches." Here are the FTDNA customers (and their shared cMs) who claim to be related to JK Female and JK Male respectively/separately.

By saying highly speculative, I was strictly referring to Catherine R relationship to JK Male (and consequently even more so to JK Female).

Your questions require answers both in terms of genetics and genealogy (genealogy as a science devoted to establishing and explaining family relationships).

Let's deal with the easy part first - genetics. Those FTDNA customers that have common segments with either JK Female and JK Male they do not claim to be related. Only one of them - Catherine R - does. They, including Catherine R, just have large enough common segments in autosomal DNA that Family Finder software marked them as possible relatives.

I tried to show you that for the four people whose family trees I know, the mere fact of having some number of centiMorgans in common with someone does not translate into any close (even 5th cousin) relationship. Moreover, for those who have matches and show the names and locations I can clearly see that there is almost no chance**** for any relationship up to the 6th cousin.

You probably do not want to read explanations, you just want the answer whether Catherine R is related to your family or not. None of the three possible answers you are probably expecting here is a valid one (in alphabetical order):

• difficult to say
• no
• yes

Family Finder does not answer your question that way. Please consider what Family Finder authors said about “4th – remote cousin” and “5th – remote cousin” designations. The explanation is available under the following link
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/...lse-positives/
And I am repeating it here verbatim

I have many Family Finder matches in the “4th – remote cousin” and “5th – remote cousin” ranges. I cannot find the connection. Are these false positives?

These matches are in the Speculative Relationship category. Their quality should be taken as exactly that. Your relationship may be as close as 4th cousins. On the other hand, you may share some autosomal DNA with cousins beyond genealogical times. Thus, it may also be as remote as 20th cousins. It is not possible to say exactly where the relationship falls.

You have more questions, and I will answer them. In the meantime, I have just one question to you, that would allow me to offer better explanations. When you wrote the following founding father of our lineage who lived in the 1300's, using that calendar system do we have now year 2014 or 1435 AH or 1393 SH or... ?

To Be Continued...

**** More about that tomorrow.

[Hando]

By saying highly speculative, I was strictly referring to Catherine R relationship to JK Male (and consequently even more so to JK Female).

Your questions require answers both in terms of genetics and genealogy (genealogy as a science devoted to establishing and explaining family relationships).

Let's deal with the easy part first - genetics. Those FTDNA customers that have common segments with either JK Female and JK Male they do not claim to be related. Only one of them - Catherine R - does. They, including Catherine R, just have large enough common segments in autosomal DNA that Family Finder software marked them as possible relatives.

I tried to show you that for the four people whose family trees I know, the mere fact of having some number of centiMorgans in common with someone does not translate into any close (even 5th cousin) relationship. Moreover, for those who have matches and show the names and locations I can clearly see that there is almost no chance**** for any relationship up to the 6th cousin.

You probably do not want to read explanations, you just want the answer whether Catherine R is related to your family or not. None of the three possible answers you are probably expecting here is a valid one (in alphabetical order):

• difficult to say
• no
• yes

Family Finder does not answer your question that way. Please consider what Family Finder authors said about “4th – remote cousin” and “5th – remote cousin” designations. The explanation is available under the following link
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/...lse-positives/
And I am repeating it here verbatim

I have many Family Finder matches in the “4th – remote cousin” and “5th – remote cousin” ranges. I cannot find the connection. Are these false positives?

These matches are in the Speculative Relationship category. Their quality should be taken as exactly that. Your relationship may be as close as 4th cousins. On the other hand, you may share some autosomal DNA with cousins beyond genealogical times. Thus, it may also be as remote as 20th cousins. It is not possible to say exactly where the relationship falls.

You have more questions, and I will answer them. In the meantime, I have just one question to you, that would allow me to offer better explanations. When you wrote the following founding father of our lineage who lived in the 1300's, using that calendar system do we have now year 2014 or 1435 AH or 1393 SH or... ?

To Be Continued...

**** More about that tomorrow.

Hi, thank you for your detailed answers and comments.
You said "Let's deal with the easy part first - genetics. Those FTDNA customers that have common segments with either JK Female and JK Male they do not claim to be related. Only one of them - Catherine R - does. They, including Catherine R, just have large enough common segments in autosomal DNA that Family Finder software marked them as possible relatives."

Actually, Catherine R does not claim to be related. She took the test and showed up as a match to SW Male, so she contacted me to find out if this was possible. I am JK Female's son. I guess JK Male is my relative in some distant complicated way. Catherine R was adopted as a child from China and does not know anything about her parents or her ancestors. She tried to contact the orphanage, but apparently it no longer exists. So she cannot get in touch with any family members whom she can ask.

JK Male and JK Female were not born in China, nor are there any indications of any Chinese marrying into our family (JK Male and JK Female's family) in our family records, so I was taken aback by Catherine R's match to SW Male. Catherine R emailed me from out of the blue a week ago. She said "Yeah, I'll be happy to just find anyone that could tell me about my past. I was left at the orphanage when I was one year old..."

You said "You probably do not want to read explanations, you just want the answer whether Catherine R is related to your family or not. None of the three possible answers you are probably expecting here is a valid one (in alphabetical order):

difficult to say
no
yes"

I am sorry, but I'm a bit confused here. The three answers you provided above (namely "difficult to answer", "no" and "yes"), to which of my 6 questions do they refer to? Which of my 6 questions do they answer? And I do not understand what you meant by "None of the three possible answers you are probably expecting here is a valid one." What do you mean by valid? Are you suggesting that my 6 questions cannot be answered by a "yes", "no" "difficult to say" type of answer?
To be continued since I have exceeded my word limit...

[Hando]

I am reposting my 6 questions here again, but with revisions and extra additions. I made some mistakes due to the complicated nature of the possible connections and non connections.


1)If Catherine R is related to JK Male, but not related to JK Female, then wouldn't this mean that the supposedly shared common ancestor of both JK Male and Catherine R (I assume that the shared ancestor of a 5th cousin would be a great great great great grandparent), was not an NPE within the JK Male and JK Female family line, since JK Female would also have to be related to Catherine R for an NPE to have happened within a shared ancestor of all three JK Male, Catherine R and JK Female? (Ie. Catherine R is claiming to be related to JK Male, but does not show up as a match to JK Female.)

2)If JK Female and Catheine R are not related and only JK Male and Catherine R are related, doesn't this mean that there were no NPE's among JK Male and JK Female's direct ancestors and that JK Male and JK Female are indeed biologically descended from (and biologically related) to the ultimate founding father of their line (JK Adam), who is listed in our genealogical records as having lived in the Anno Domini 1300's? I will refer to this 1300's founding father as JK Adam for convenience sake.

3)Or does this mean that one of JK Male's and JK Female's shared ancestor (such as a great great great great grandparent from whom Catherine R would then also be descended) could have indeed been adopted or illegitimate (ie. NPE)? Please note that the FTDNA customer Catherine R, who is claiming to be JK Male's 5th or remote cousin, does not show up as a 5th or remote cousin match of JK Female. Catherine R only appears as a possible match to JK Male. Meanwhile, JK Female and JK Male are related to each other as second or third cousins, through JK Female's mother's side and JK Male's father's side (In other words, JK Male's paternal grandfather is JK Female's maternal grandfather). I do not know whether this is relevant to my questions.

4)If it is indeed possible that there was an NPE among the shared ancestor of JK Male, JK Female and supposedly Catherine R, what sort of scenario can be suggested? A scenario in which a shared ancestor of JK Male, JK Female and supposedly Catherine R was adopted into the JK Male and JK Female's family, or adopted out of their family and into Catherine R's lineage? In other words, did the NPE occur within my family (JK Male and JK Female's family) or within Catherine R's own family? I am trying to establish whether my genealogical record/biological lines (to which JK Male and JK Female belong) are accurate, or if there was any NPE among one of their direct ancestors. I do not care if a sibling of JK Male and JK Female's direct ancestor was NPE or not. I just want to be sure JK Male and JK Female and me are descended to our ultimate founding father JK Adam from the 1300's AD.

5)How certain can we be whether it was a case of an NPE among one of the shared ancestors of JK Male and JK Female or some other reason such as a speculative and incorrect match on FTDNA's part?

6)If this was an NPE, then can we tell whether this NPE offspring was a direct ancestor from whom both JK Male and JK Female are descended, or if this NPE offspring was a sibling or other relation of the shared ancestor of JK Male and JK Female? In other words, I am interested in knowing whether this NPE offspring was a direct or indirect ancestor of JK Male and JK Female? Basically, I am trying to establish whether both JK Male and JK Female (and myself since I am JK Female's son) are biologically descended from our ultimate founding father JK Adam who lived during the 1300's AD.

You asked "You have more questions, and I will answer them. In the meantime, I have just one question to you, that would allow me to offer better explanations. When you wrote the following founding father of our lineage who lived in the 1300's, using that calendar system do we have now year 2014 or 1435 AH or 1393 SH or... ?"
Sorry, I should have been clearer. The founding father of our lineage and ancestor of both JK Male and JK Female, lived in the 1300's. I shall refer to him as JK Adam. He lived during the 1300's AD (Anno Domini). Since it is 2014, that would be about 650 years ago.


Basically, what I want to know is whether or not JK Male and JK Female are indeed biologically descended from the ultimate founding father of their lineage, JK Adam who lived in the 1300's AD. If the shared ancestor of JK Male, JK Female and supposedly Catherine R, is indeed biologically descended from JK Adam, I assume this would also mean that both JK Male and JK Female are also biologically descended from their lineage founding father JK Adam who lived during the 1300's AD. I am not talking about the ancestor who makes JK Male and JK Female 2nd or 3rd cousins. I am referring to their ultimate founding father from whom we all are supposed to originate. But, if the more recently shared ancestor who makes JK Male and JK Female 2nd or 3rd cousins and JK Male and the supposed Catherine R 5th to remote cousins, was indeed an NPE, then this would mean that JK Male and JK Female are not in fact biologically descended from their ultimate founding father JK Adam who lived in the 1300's AD.
This is my main worry. And this would mean my genealogical records are inaccurate.
Thank you

[tlgarrison]

I am reposting my 6 questions here again, but with revisions and extra additions. I made some mistakes due to the complicated nature of the possible connections and non connections.


1)If Catherine R is related to JK Male, but not related to JK Female, then wouldn't this mean that the supposedly shared common ancestor of both JK Male and Catherine R (I assume that the shared ancestor of a 5th cousin would be a great great great great grandparent), was not an NPE within the JK Male and JK Female family line, since JK Female would also have to be related to Catherine R for an NPE to have happened within a shared ancestor of all three JK Male, Catherine R and JK Female? (Ie. Catherine R is claiming to be related to JK Male, but does not show up as a match to JK Female.)

I just have a couple notes after reading:

1) You say Jk Male and JK Female being related to a (SET of common ancestors? or did grandfather have another wife?) on your genealogical tree and that they both match each other with enough shared cM to support the genealogical tree. Jk Male and Jk Female could have (Likely) dna segments with that set of common ancestors that they just don't share with each other. Even a brother and sister will have portions of their parents dna that they don't share with each other. FTDNA can't tell if each shared segment is Paternal side or Maternal side. The shared dna between jk male and jk female would be a mix of both (most likely). Either way you must assume that jk male will have some of the grandfather's dna that jk female did not get and vice versa. That is how Catherine R can match one and not the other and still not be an NPE.

2) If you pick any of your ancestors say your 5th great grandparents on a certain line and just assume that they had 4 children and each of their children had 4 children. Then by the 5th generation they would have around 4,096 descendants. But back then the number of children was probably like 8 so you can see how many 4th, 5th etc cousins you could have. How can you possibly track all of their movements?

[travers]

Hando - I think you are over-thinking things way too much here, probably as a direct result of your JK Male and JK Female kits having so few matches. Even a brother and sister will have many matches that the other doesn't have because siblings only share approximately 50% of their DNA, so 50% of their DNA will be different. Any given match could share DNA with one sibling on a segment of DNA that the other sibling didn't inherit, because of this one sibling will show as a match but the other won't. Both siblings are related to the match but only one shares DNA.

JK Male and JK Female are 2nd cousins, 2nd cousins only share approximately 3.125% of their DNA. That means 96.875% of their DNA is different. Remember too that 2nd cousins only share one set of great-grandparents out of 4 so they only share 25% of their ancestors in common. You asked about Catherine R and why she only matches JK Male: Catherine R either is related to JK Male only and not related to JK Female at all (related to JK Male through one of his other set of great-grandparents) or JK Male and JK Female are both related to Catherine R through JK Male and JK Female's shared great-grandparents but Catherine R only shares DNA in common with JK Male. Since Catherine R doesn't know her ancestry you have no way of knowing which is the case.

I don't know why you jump to the conclusion that there must me an NPE. You have already proven on paper and through DNA that JK Male and JK Female are in fact 2nd cousins, they share great-grandparents. This doesn't mean that it is proven that JK Male and JK Female's common great-grandparents are descendants of "JK Adam" (it doesn't disprove it either) it just proves back to their in common great-grandparents. Just because you can't find a paper connection to one of your DNA matches doesn't mean there is an NPE. Very few of your DNA matches will you be able to figure out how in fact you are related, most of the predictions will be way closer than the actual relationship. This is because it is difficult to predict beyond a 3rd cousin based strictly on DNA shared what the relationship is since there is such a small amount of DNA shared. You seem to be focusing strictly on this "JK Adam" that is just one tiny branch in your tree, going back to the 1300s you have thousands of ancestors, this "JK Adam" is only one of these. JK Male has thousands of ancestors too and could be related to Catherine R through any of his ancestors. Just because somebody matches JK Male or JK Female doesn't mean that person is a descendant of "JK Adam", don't just focus on him he is a tiny fraction of your tree. Family Finder can find matches from any branch of your tree.

[Ann Turner]

It sounds to me like customer service sent you down the garden path by even suggesting a non-paternity event in the distant past. Even siblings won't share all of their matches, because they have inherited some portions of their DNA from different ancestors. For instance, my sister might have a match based on our paternal grandmother's side of the family. But I received that section of my DNA from my paternal grandfather, so I won't match him.

[travers]

It doesn't change the basics of what I wrote before but I'm confused on how in fact JK Male and JK female are related to one another? In one post you said they are related through each of their grandfathers (are they descended through the grandmother too?, is the grandfather the common ancestor or were their grandfathers brothers?) in another post you said they are related in some distant and complicated way. It wouldn't be a distant relationship at all. You keep writing that they are 2nd or 3rd cousins you should be able to figure their exact relationship, if they are 1/2 cousins of some sort it makes it a little more difficult. What countries are your ancestors from to have so few matches?

[Hando]

Thank you for your reply TLGarrison.
You said "1) You say Jk Male and JK Female being related to a (SET of common ancestors? or did grandfather have another wife?) on your genealogical tree and that they both match each other with enough shared cM to support the genealogical tree. Jk Male and Jk Female could have (Likely) dna segments with that set of common ancestors that they just don't share with each other.

JK Male's paternal grandfather is also JK Female's maternal grandfather. So they share a grandfather in common. But, their shared grandfather had two wives. JK Male is descended from his paternal grandfather's first wife. And JK Female is descended from her maternal grandfather's second wife. Both grandfathers are the same person.
In other words, JK male's father was born to JK male's grandfather's first wife, while JK Female's mother was born to JK Female's grandfather's second wife. So it's a bit complicated.

From your statement above am I correct in assuming that you mean that eventhough JK Male and JK female share a common grandfather, they still could have dna segments which they do not share with each other? And that this may be the reason why FTDNA customer Catherine R is comes up as a match of JK Male, but not of JK Female? If this is the case, then how does it bear on whether or not there was an NPE somewhere along the lineage among the shared ancestor of both JK Male, JK Female and supposedly Catherine R?

Dear Travers, thank you for your message.
You said "Hando - I think you are over-thinking things way too much here, probably as a direct result of your JK Male and JK Female kits having so few matches."
Yes, perhaps you are right that I am over thinking things too much, and the reason is because FTDNA customer service suggested that there may be an NPE among one of JK Male and JK Female's shared ancestors. If this is the case, it means that I am not biologically descended from our lineage founding father who lived in the 1300's. Our genealogical records would therefore be lying.

You also said "I don't know why you jump to the conclusion that there must me an NPE. You have already proven on paper and through DNA that JK Male and JK Female are in fact 2nd cousins, they share great-grandparents. This doesn't mean that it is proven that JK Male and JK Female's common great-grandparents are descendants of "JK Adam" (it doesn't disprove it either) it just proves back to their in common great-grandparents. Just because you can't find a paper connection to one of your DNA matches doesn't mean there is an NPE."

I am glad you said that I have jumped to the conclusion that there must be an NPE. The reason I did jump to this conclusion is because FTDNA said there might be a possibility of an NPE and I felt that if an expert such as FTDNA said there's a possibility of an NPE then there must be a reason possibility/probability that there indeed was an NPE and that therefore JK Male, JK Female and me as JK Female's son are not biologically related to JK Adam from the 1300's AD. It is important to me to know whether or not I am descended from JK Adam or not. It's a personal bias.

Also, when you said "This doesn't mean that it is proven that JK Male and JK Female's common great-grandparents are descendants of "JK Adam" (it doesn't disprove it either) it just proves back to their in common great-grandparents." I assume you mean that the Family Finder Test can only indicate that JK Male and JK Female share common grandfather. And that it cannot indicate whether both JK Male and JK Female are descended further down the line to JK Adam in the 1300's. I understan this part. What I am trying to find out is if JK Male and JK Female share an ancestor with Catherine R. If they do, then as FTDNA customer service suggested, this could indicate an NPE somewhere among their shared ancestors. This is what I'm trying to find out.


This was the relevant part of FTDNA's reply

"You are a lucky individual to have your ancestry back so far as you do. I do not mean to be disrespectful with my next comment, so please understand I am only trying to help you understand your results and point out possibilities. Often in our genealogies, we focus on the people in our direct lines of descent. Do you have the siblings and those siblings children for each of your grandparents on your paper trail. In other words, is it possible that one of your 4th great grandparent's children's siblings had children that went to China?

Another possibility is also a non-parental event (NPE), in which someone had a child out of wedlock or adopted a child. This could also account for a very distant cousin match from an area your family did not inhabit. Also note that finding shared surnames is not always a guarantee that you will or will not share DNA with someone.

Again, I am not saying your tree is not accurate. I am simply pointing out the possibilities we see on a regular basis. I hope this information helps you with your results. Thank you."

Anne Turner, you said "It sounds to me like customer service sent you down the garden path by even suggesting a non-paternity event in the distant past."
Yes, I really hope that it is a case that customer service sent me down the path of paranoia. I am indeed paranoid that there may have been an NPE. When customer service mentioned this, my heart sank. I really hope there was no NPE but now my mind is firmly fixed on this as a possibilty and even a probability.

Travers, you said "It doesn't change the basics of what I wrote before but I'm confused on how in fact JK Male and JK female are related to one another? In one post you said they are related through each of their grandfathers (are they descended through the grandmother too?, is the grandfather the common ancestor or were their grandfathers brothers?) in another post you said they are related in some distant and complicated way. It wouldn't be a distant relationship at all. You keep writing that they are 2nd or 3rd cousins you should be able to figure their exact relationship, if they are 1/2 cousins of some sort it makes it a little more difficult."

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. It's so convoluted that I must have made a mistake somewhere. So let me clarify here.
JK Male's paternal grandfather is also JK Female's maternal grandfather. So they share a grandfather in common. But, their shared grandfather had two wives and they are separately descended from these two different wives. JK Male is descended from his paternal grandfather's first wife. And JK Female is descended from her maternal grandfather's second wife. Both grandfathers are the same person.
In other words, JK male's father was born to JK male's grandfather's first wife, while JK Female's mother was born to JK Female's grandfather's second wife. So it's a bit complicated.
I just basically want to know whether or not JK Male, JK Female and me (as the son of JK Female) are all biologically descended from our lineage founding father JK Adam who lived during the 1300's AD as is stated in our genealogical records. I know we all have thousands of ancestors, but it is personally very important to me that we are biologically descended from this JK Adam.
Thank you all very much.

[tlgarrison]

Hando, Yes I thought that was the case (two wives). But even so, it is very and almost certain that the offspring of the common grandparent will have DNA that are not shared with each other. And you are right, I think it has no bearing on an NPE. Like Ann Tuner said "They sent you down the garden path". For it can be explained by the simple recombination rules each child gets half their dna from each parent. So the child is missing half of each parent's DNA. Then the child's sibling gets half from each but because of recombination the child will not get the same exact half that the other sibling has. So that is how Catherine R could theoretically match JK male and not JK Female.

[Parameswara]

I suggest that JK Male, JK Female, and Catherine R upload the data on Gedmatch. The treshold is lower there, so you can check Catherine R and JK Female sharing small segments or not.

[dna]

I suggest that JK Male, JK Female, and Catherine R upload the data on Gedmatch. The treshold is lower there, so you can check Catherine R and JK Female sharing small segments or not.

In my opinion, that is not a good idea. Yes, you can compare smaller segments, but there is no relevant genealogical information to be gained from that.

[Hando]

In my opinion, that is not a good idea. Yes, you can compare smaller segments, but there is no relevant genealogical information to be gained from that.

HI dna, I'd love to get your input and opinion on my questions if you please. Thanks