Finding Mr. X

Question

Judy Fine Malin and Kelley Hagspiel Conrad, whom I am working with,  (both in WikiTree but Kelley's tree may not cover this question yet) are a 1-3 cousin match to each other.

We have identified and confirmed by birth certificate an unidentified male/father who would be a paternal Great GF of Kelley's as the probable male.  Judy is 98% Ashkenazi and Kelley, to her and contemporary relatives  surprise, is 30% Ashkenzi.  Kelley's Wikitree in progress has no other known Ashkenazi in it and is mostly otherwise non Jewish Western European and heavily Irish.

The au DNA match is remarkable for a 98% Ashkenazi (Judy) in that it is multi chromosome: 3 at 45+ cM, 2 at 25+ cM, and nine others at 7+ cM.  Total is 305 cM.  IMHO this is legit and relatively close.  There is a small X match at 3.6cM with 401 SNPs.  Small but maybe not ignorbale?!

The common matches, triangulated and not ,are the more typical endogamy loaded matches I have come to expect working with Ashkenazi.

My reasoning based on Mr. X being Kelley's paternal Great GF, no X match with Judy?, and that Kelly is 30 years younger than Judy, is that Mr. X is an (unidentified) male descendant of one of Judy's  two grandparent sets making Kelley and Judy 1st cousins once removed (within prediction).  I suppose it is possible that they are second cousins or second once removed but since Mr. X and Kelley are fixed at GGP the age difference does not seem to work for Judy.

I suppose I am looking for comments regarding my thought process if not also suggestions as to how to find Mr. X (believe me though we have tried).

Thanks,

Pete

Comments

I think I'd add DNA to the tags so the experts will see this.

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Can you give link to Kelley Hagspiel Conrad?  Is Judy's line to Mr. X a patriarchal connection?

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I haven't built out much of the tree here yet, but it is on ancestry.

 

Wikitree: https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Hagspiel-Family-Tree-3

Ancestry: https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/7555716/family

 

As far as I know, we don't know yet how Judy might be connected to Mr. X. Mr. X would be my great-grandfather (my father's maternal grandfather). We have been unable to find a link between Judy and me through the tree searches despite the DNA results, so this Mr. X. seems like he might be a possible link.

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Did Kelley's mom take an autosomal DNA test?  If so, you could phase Kelley's to get only that portion which came from her dad.

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Does Judy have any known siblings or cousins that could take autosomal test?  That would be a big help too.

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If you, or anyone else interested, has Ancestry access Kelley and I have a Work In Process tree (under the Ancestry radar) for Judy and Kelley that has not only Kelley and Judy's known ancestry trees but several tree segments built from "high value" au and X matches mostly to Kelley.

Other than the "lowered criteria" X-match, Kelley and Judy do not appear to have a solid X-match.  Mr. X is an X-contributor to Kelley and Kelley has several high value X-matches (seven people from 10-20cM overlapped completely within the largest 20cM match.

I do not yet know yet if the Kelley-Judy match is paternal or maternal for Judy.  Judy's close paternal nephew (maybe two if I can be more persuasive)  via Judy's brother is going to au test with FTDNA. Should have results in 6-8 weeks. All other close relatives are deceased as is Judy now. I might be able to track down a maternal niece/nephew but the documentation for Judy's maternal side is very thin (Aarons).

Kelley's father just tested and his sister should have results in a week or so.

Pete

 

PS
My gut tells me that the match with Kelley is Judy's paternal Fine side based on the fact that known Fine ancestors and families seemed to congregate around Boston - relatively close to Manchester/Concord , NH - whereas Aarons (maternal) seemed to stay around New York.

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My mom did not take a DNA test and she passed away10 years ago. Her family is from Virginia and North Carolina, and my father's family is in Massachusetts, so we think the connection is likely on that side. I have found some DNA matches on GedMatch from my mother's side and none of those of matches with Judy, which seems to support the idea that the connection is on my father's side.

Answer 1

Since Kelley's father is tested, once his results are in you will want to phase Kelley's autosomal results on GEDmatch.com to get her maternally phased kit.  With Kelley's father and this maternally phased kit for Kelley, you be able to confirm or deny which side of Kelley is connected to Judy.