ancestry dna matche question

Question

I have a DNA match that is 100 cm match. This match doesn't appear any of my known maternal family list that have also tested which include my maternal uncle at 1733 cm and maternal first cousin at 993 cm a son of my maternal aunt. As well as 19 other maternal matches ranging from 515 cm down to 130 cm. We only have one person on our shred matches list that is also unknown to me and a lower cm of 24. My paternal father is unknown to me as well. My mother passed before I found out that my father was not my father. I have reached out to this match several times with no response. the aunt that I am in contact with is unsure of the name as she is not close to her relatives. am I safe to assume that this is a paternal match, or could this still be a maternal match. a little bit more info my birth year is 1988 and this match's birth year is 1967. my mothers is 1968. I have tried to find common surnames or places. there is no common places as of yet and my maternal surname list have the majority of the most common last names, which include. williams, lawson, bennett, smith, jackon,johnson.jones, davis,brown, ect. So I dont believe that I will be able to solve this with surnames. any advice is welcome and i am willing to try anything. my mother passed at 52 and i am worried that I will never get to meet the other person that created me before he passes.thank you to anyone that took the time to read this, feel free to reach out on here anytime.

Answer 1

Hello, Brandy.

Is the 100-cM match you mention your strongest match that is not related to your maternal side?  At that strength, the person might be something like a second cousin once removed, and likely as not (I'd guess) be unable to answer your question about who your father was.  

I see from your profile that you've tested with a couple of companies, and uploaded your data to GEDmatch.  I'd follow the same process you've used on the 100-cM match, i.e. looking for shared matches, to evaluate your other matches, beginning with the strongest.

Meanwhile, it would be a good idea to add sources to the WikiTree profiles you've created.  That might help you meet helpful genealogy contacts including relatives.  The more you document your mother's life, the more clues you might find to where she was and who she might have been likely to have met at the time you were conceived.  If you need help getting started, WT has a list of Mentors whom you can choose from (scroll down the page to see their qualifications and specialties).

Comments

Hello, Yes the 100 cm match is the strongest match that does not match does not match any of my known maternal relatives that have also tested. my unknown match is the next name on my list after the 21 known maternal matches so number 22 out of 1546 that are in my close relative-4 cousin category on ancestry.com. My 100 cm match and I only have one shared matches that is a unknown 24 cm match to me. my 24 cm match and I only have one shared match and that is my 100 cm match. so like a triangle. sorry I'm trying to explain in as much detail as I can and I feel like I'm not making any sense. thank you so much for you advice about my mom wiki page I think it should be easy to figure out where she lived in around the time of my conception and maybe where she worked. I will also look into the mentors so i can learn more so that i can hopefully accurately teach my children about where they come from. I am unsure about if you think my 100 cm match could still be a maternal match. or am I safe to assume I found my first paternal match. thank you again and if any thing I typed is confusing, I am so sorry I have hard time putting my thoughts out.

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Brandy, you're doing fine.  I understand what you've said.

It seems unusual that your matches are so heavily weighted towards your maternal side.

I had thought about suggesting that maybe your parents were related* (which wouldn't necessarily mean incest or anything horrible).  But I used the "Are your parents related?" tool on GEDmatch for your GEDmatch number (from your WT profile) and it says they likely are not.

*Thus some of your maternal relatives might have actually been both maternal and paternal.

Another possibility that occurs to me is that your father was not American.  For instance, he might have been a foreign student that your mother met at college.  There seem to be more people interested in DNA testing in the U.S. than in most other countries, and if all your father's relatives lived elsewhere, they may not have tested.  You might be able to get an idea from your ethnicity estimate(s), if yours show ethnicities that your maternal relatives do not.

I can't think of much else to suggest.  Maybe someone else will.  Good luck!

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I Noticed that my matches seem to be mostly maternal on ancestry.com. I was thinking it was because my mothers is the youngest of 9 and to the best of my knowledge Both of my grandparents were 1 of 6 or more children. I do believe it is possible that somewhere in my family tree that that my grandfather and my grandmothers family might have co mingled. I also can believe that my mother and father could be related somewhere down the line. sadly I know very little about my maternal side as well. most of what I learned came from a great aunt when she reached out to me after we matched a few months ago. she told me that my maternal family and our ancestors pretty much start in North Carolina and spread all the way down into Florida and they have been there a long time. My report Shows that I am 15% eastern European/Russia and 14% Ashkenazi Jewish and 6% Baltics and 3% french. I dont not Share these with my uncle or my cousin.  the baltics and french do show up randomly with my maternal matches but so far the other 2 do not seem to be shared between me and my known maternal relatives. I did consider that my father was from a different country. so I transferred my raw dna to any site that would let me. I believe i have my file uploaded to nine or ten sites just in case. I am looking for a way to combine all the shared matches list into one place but i have to figured out how to go about it. I have 30,000 dna matches on ancestry alone. I log on every time i have a few moments with out my son and try to look with fresh eyes.I have to go for now my son wants to play. Thank you so much for a wonderful comment and telling me the different scenarios you were thinking about. until next time, have a wonderful rest of you day.

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Around March/April 1987  my mom was 18. she was living in  sanford florida. every weekend my mom with go out drinking with friends. I guess my aunt felt guilty for saying she never knew anything  about my unknown father. My aunt shared a conversation to the best that she can recall after 33 years. this took place between her and my mom after one of those night and she found out she was pregnant. My mother told her she had a one night stand with a man she met at a bar in daytona beach florida and that she was pregnant. my aunt said my mom said the mans name was Todd or Tom, My aunt said my mom never tried to find him and tell him. So he does not know about me and My mom never planned on me ever finding out any of this. i added what i could to ancestry. i want to see If any dna matches or thru lines will pop up because I had a thought that it would have been so easy to make up and name and give to someone. I was wondering if there is a way to look up  old business information from that long ago using a year and a city.

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Brandy, I'm going to send you a private message.  Please watch for that.

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Julie's doing a great job!

Since 15%+14%=29% is about 1/4, you can probably safely assume that one of your biological grandparents was an Eastern European Jew, born right around WWII. That raises the possibility that at least part of the reason there aren't more matches on that side is because most of the family was wiped out in the Holocaust.

But there would be two grandparents on your biological father's side. Your 100cM match is likely (but not definitely) a 2nd cousin of your biological father's, so they are related only through ONE of your father's parents. I'd guess that they're related to the one that's NOT Jewish, but you can see what AncestryDNA tells you about the ethnicity of that 100cM match and see if it has the Eastern European/Jewish in common with you.

If your 100cM match has an uncommon enough name you might be able to find out a thing or two about them by just researching that name on the Internet.

The Daytona Beach clue may or may not tell much - it depends on whether you biological father was a tourist.

If you're desperate (and this situation kind of sounds like it) another thing you can do is look at distant cousin matches - matches below 20cM, and see their shared matches lists. A 19cM match might have your 100cM match on their shared match list, meaning they're probably related on that side - even though they wouldn't show up on the shared match list for the 100cM match - because they don't list matches below 20cM on shared match lists.

19cM matches and below can easily be too distantly related to be of much use, but sometimes they can also be as close as a 2C1R. Like I said, it's something to do out of desperation - it's a ton of work with dubious chances of a big payoff, but if that's all you got you can judge for yourself whether it's worth a shot.

Good luck!

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thank you for your comment. yes julie is amazing. she has been able to answer my questions in an easy way for me to understand. your comment makes alot of sense as to why I wouldn't have alot of jewish matches. I am going to take a look at that the smaller matches and see what connections can be made.

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Thanks for the star, Brandy.  I hope your search is going well.

Answer 2

First, we advise people to NOT put their email address in a post on this open forum.  So, please - for your own safety remove that by editing your question.Any replies you get to this question will automatically generate an email to you.

Second, when you edit your profile to remove the email, you should add the tag "Adoption Angels" that will call the attention of members who can help you with your search.

Third, Welcome to WikiTree and to G2G - we are here to help.

Comments

Thsnk you for your welcome to wikitree and G2G, also Thank you so much for your advice I will make the edits to my post right now. I was unsure of where to post my question.