Confused about how to document DNA

Question

I apologize but I am terribly confused on how to document my DNA results. Early on I was given one way to do it and I have recently been contacted telling me that I shouldn't document that an individual is confirmed to both parents and the matches have to be a third cousin or less. As I have DNA confirmation via Ancestry up through my fifth great grandparents, am I to understand that I can't list it as confirmation unless a third cousin or less has also taken a test?

Answer 1

Hi Rene,

Someone who's a real DNA expert will be along shortly to explain more, but this page may help with some of your questions: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:DNA_Confirmation

Insofar as DNA confirmation for both parents, if I have a DNA match with a cousin, I only confirm for our common female ancestress until such time as I get confirmation on the father's side. What I'm saying is, there's a saying that goes mama's baby, father's maybe. Without casting any aspersions on the reputations of our ancestresses, it's possible to be cousins and share DNA but not to descend from the husband half of a couple.

Comments

Hi Rene,

See the link that Jessica shared for information regarding confirming relationships with DNA here at WikiTree. That page describes the DNA confirmation process for matches that are 3rd cousin or closer, and provides a link to the Triangulation Help Page which describes the process for matches for which relationships are more distant than 3rd cousins.

DNA matching at Ancestry can't currently be used for confirming relationships here for which DNA matches are more distant than 3C, since segment triangulation is required, and Ancestry doesn't currently provide the necessary tools to view the matching segments that you have with DNA matches there.

If you've tested at another DNA testing site that provides segment matching tools and/or if you've uploaded your AncestryDNA results to one of those sites or to the 3rd-party GEDmatch site, you can use the segment matching tools at those sites to evaluate segment matches with your DNA matches at those sites. See the triangulation help page for more details.