Dna has given me an answer but need help

Question

I have seen court transcripts for Devanney-29. Dates of trial, transportation, ticket of leave, marriage certificate. I have been able to procure his transportation, etc from Ancestry and FMP. Court I obtained from Ireland National archives

The question is on receiving my DNA this week, a question was answered, but caused another problem.

John Devanney's mother, we all assumed her to be a single mother Mary Devaney, Devaney-295. I think Mary is buried in Limerick, if it is the right one. My DNA result give a John McAvaney as Devanney-29 father. I know there is many transcriptions of McAvaney sometimes hair pulling.

I hope someone can help, me sort it out

Comments

I am not sure I understand your query. You say "My DNA result give a John McAvaney as Devanny-29's father." What exactly did the results say? DNA test results do not come stamped with the names of ancestors, so I'm guessing that you tested with a company that shows you possible ancestral lines derived from family trees contributed by other test-takers with whom you match.

We need to remember that the other members' trees may not be accurate. Regardless of that, I think it would be a good idea to ask those other members for their family trees and sources.

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It says 11 DNA matches for John McAvaney

Between 16 and 2,698cm

I thought I would check His Mother Mary Ann

her is the same 11 DNA Matches

between 16 and 2,698 cm

Please bear with me as I am new at all this.

Ancestry did my DNA

Barbara McAvaney, it has been a puzzle from this end of the globe

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Barbara, Ellen has given you the best advice at this point.  You can't use those DNA results to prove specific relationships to specific people over 200 years ago but what you CAN do is find out who else at ancestry.com you match with so you can collaborate on research.

Contact those people, look at their trees, see if they have solid sources for John's origins.  You have a specific date for his birth on his profile, where did that come from?  I didn't see a source for it on his profile but if it is true, that would obviously be very helpful to identify his parent(s) for sure.  I didn't see anything on his mother Mary's profile linking her to John either.

With the number of generations between you and John, the centimorgan matches can vary a lot. Even a great grandparent is typically a match of anywhere between 480 and 1480cm (see here) so your match with one great grandmother could be very different than your match with another ggm even assuming there were no adoptions or non-parental events.

So I would take Ellen's advice and find people you are related to on ancestry and see what sources and records they have come up with.  Once you have one or more solid paper-based trees you might come back to work with DNA matches and non-matches (just as important to prove or disprove paper records) to help prove or disprove relationships.

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Hi B, you are describing information you would see on Ancestry’s “Thrulines” tool. This tool is based on the family trees of Ancestry users, which may or may not be accurate or sourced. It tries to use the trees to match up names found in yours and your DNA match’s tree.

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Thank you I understand  so much more now.

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Your reply was amazing  and helped  me understand  so much more Thank you

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Valerie, that is exactly what I mean since the OP is using ancestry.com although the answer really applies generically if you are matching with people at gedmatch or ftdna or anywhere.  Many people get tripped up by saying "my DNA matches with John Smith and his tree says he is descended from Charlemagne therefore DNA proves that I am too!"  They don't stop to consider, "is John Smith's tree accurate"?  let alone "does a DNA match actually say how John Smith and I are related?"  Or the supposed oldest ancestor is just something that somebody keyed in when setting up their account at the DNA web site, but is equally unsourced or suspect.

As always, I highly recommend reading just about any post by Edison Williams on the topics of DNA and genetic genealogy. You will learn so much about what you can and can't get from DNA results and how to use them properly.

Answer 1

I recommend you Google how to get your Gedmatch number and follow through with that process as one of your next steps.