I had my DNA tested with ancestry, however my Fathers DNA test results do not list me as any DNA match at all with him? [closed]

Question

So with that said as a relative newbie to genealogy, I guess I am searching for the confirmation to confirm what I already suspect, that the person I thought was my biological father for over 50 years is in fact not?

Mum, Dad & I have all recently had our DNA tested with Ancestry. Unexplained results ....always difficult to navigate.

Dads DNA match is however linking to the many relatives I had already reserched when building our combined family tree on Ancestry prior to receiving all DNA results.

Again....highlighting that his results show no match to me however they do show matches to his half sisters biological son, along with many other close 1st-2nd cousins.

I love researching, and my parents, and only began my own journey initially as a means to fill in the gaps for my parents family history before they get too frail to recall, help them with their own questions, while both still alive. Never did I imagine what I think is the very unexpected............well so I suspect?

Along with many millions of you who have had to navigate the same results and worse, I know I am not alone. My parents are and always will be my parents, whether biological or not.

I would appreciate very much another persons perspective and clarity to confirm what I already suspect (that is, that I am not a biological match to my own father), info on the accuracy of Ancestry DNA tests parent/child DNA results when triagulated, as all three of us recently had the tests! Rationally, without judgement, but scientifically.

Thanks in advance. We are one big family tree afterall?

 

UPDATE & THANKS TO ALL THAT COMMENTED 

Both my parents are alive. Today we discussed the results together, confronting this unexpected results with them was difficult for all involved. Such a private matter as you can appreciate although I can confirm we are all in agreement to work together to move forward, we are family .... biological or not! 

WikiTree forum helped me to understand my results before approaching them both. As both my parents were born in the 1940's, you can imagine this is as much of a shock to them as it was to me. They have been married for over 50 years and I am so proud of them for wanting to overcome this together as a family.

Future focus will be my Genetic Family Tree, as not only will I be searching for my biological father but continue the search for my mothers own unknown biological father! Not sure where to start that challenge??!

I'm so very grateful this first step to discuss the results with my parents is done. We will be ok ....

Wow...that sounds different saying it out loud?! Thanks WikiTree for all your members assistance :)

Comments

This very same thing happened to my husband.   IMO DNA doesn't lie. I found several people matched to my husband not in the USA and others that were just as surprised as my husband about the matches.  We did unravel the mystery concerning the connections.  All parents are deceased, so no one is hurt except his siblings, but it does answer some questions about how much different in stature and looks there is between him and his siblings.

If you want to reach additional matches on a larger scale without  putting your DNA at multiple sites, I suggest GEDmatch.

Answer 1

First, I must commend your acceptance and openness about the issue, it's quite impressive.

I had a quite different situation, but hopefully can be of some help. My father never knew his father. His mother was not married when he was born and would never reveal his identity for my father's whole life. I met my Dad's mother for the first time at his funeral, he had become close to my Mom's family and we never had anything to do with his. I moved away shortly after and never saw her again. Some years later my sister and niece (who was doing some genealogy at the time) met with her once or twice, but said she had no interest in telling them who our grandfather was. She passed nearly twenty years ago and took his identity to her grave. I've since discovered, or at least narrowed down his identity to one of two brothers, though it took a few years for that lucky DNA match to turn up. All the while I was searching though, I wondered why she would have been so reluctant to tell us who he was, even after my father had passed. I thought that it could have been one of the more troubling scenarios, either incest or rape, which would have certainly, understandably made it very difficult for her to discuss. It turns out to have been a boy within a year or two of her age who lived a few blocks away, though I don't imagine I'll ever know if it was consensual. All of these people had long since passed by the time I discovered my grandfather's identity and I imagine these very same potential scenarios would be much more difficult if they were all still living. Please understand that I'm not suggesting that any of these situations are the case, only that they are probably worth considering. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor and hope that you find what you are looking for.

Answer 2

I would search G2G for NPE (non-parent event)

But this G2G in particular 

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1520244/friendly-reminder-its-christmas-dna-tests-season?show=1520244#q1520244

Maybe add the npe tag to your question so those following that issue will see your question on their feed.

Comments

Thank you for your quick response, & link to a beautifully written link.

Every persons NPE experience is different, however many of us share the same tough journey of mixed emotions as we begin to process the results. Be kind people, it costs nothing.

Answer 3

The accuracy of Ancestry DNA as far as close relationships go is incredibly good. If two people have both taken the Ancestry DNA test and don't match, you can rely on that. Or, if two people show a close relation such as parent/child or siblings, you can also rely on that. Ancestry's labeling of relationships, such as "2nd cousin" is only approximate.

One rare exception to this accuracy is if the people involved have been bone marrow donors or recipients. Bone marrow recipients can receive results applicable to the donor rather than to themselves.

Comments

Jamie is correct, but there are minutiae about bone marrow transplants that complicate things. Specifically, there are two basic kinds of marrow transplants, autologous and allogeneic.

Autologous transplants use cells taken from the patient, not a donor. An example of one of the most common uses is in a cancer patient whose lymphoma has returned following conventional chemotherapy. High-dose chemo can destroy normal blood cells, so preserving marrow/stem cells for implantation after the chemo can restore normal blood cell production. This has no effect on a DNA test.

Allogeneic transplants use marrow/stem cells from a donor. This may be necessary if the patient's own immune system is compromised. Blood tests for DNA will always produce incorrect results because the leukocytes (white blood cells) being produced come from the donor's marrow, not from the patient's. Of note is that red blood cells contain no nucleus, and thus no DNA.

Anyone having had an allogeneic type of transplant will need to contact the DNA testing company before ordering. The tests can look only at what's there, and some or most of our popular testing companies will refuse to process a sample from an allogeneic transplant patient due to privacy concerns: in effect, the test-taker would be submitting someone else's DNA.

Any test that uses a saliva sample will be impacted by an allogeneic transplant. However, cheek-swab tests may still produce correct results. Family Tree DNA uses cheek-swab samples only (as does MyHeritage; the FTDNA lab in Houston processes the MyHeritage DNA tests), and for transplant patients wanting a direct-to-consumer test I believe FTDNA would be my first call.

The reason for this distinction is, since it's only the white blood cells that carry the donor's DNA, the epithelial cells themselves (in this case, the cells from the inside of the cheek) will not have the donor's DNA. There are methods to separate known donor and patient cells, but it's a separate, expensive process and labs for genealogy testing aren't set up for that.

Answer 4

Difficult situation, but from what you say, the DNA is clear that your dad is not your biological father.  It sounds like you are the only one who has seen the results.  I would suggest addressing the issue with your mother first.  She would know at least of the possibility, and would know if your father already knows. If he doesn't already know, you and your mom can decide if and how to address the issue to him.

Comments

Thanks for your message. You are kind to have responded. Much appreciated :)

Answer 5

I did my AU DNA test with FTdna and later uploaded my raw Data to My Heritage, I have received far more new matches with My Heritage than with FTdna.

I believe that My Heritage has the largest NON-American Database for DNA matches and records. But that's just my opinion. I have been VERY happy with my membership and subscription at My Heritage.

Since I have no American Ancestry - I chose not to use Ancestry or 23 & Me.  I did not see the point. My Ancestry is pretty much ALL British with some European.

I have also updated my raw data to GEDmatch as well. That is helpful to find matches with those people who use different companies from you.

Comments

I had heard only good things about My Heritage and I have many distant family members who used the service, and recently they had promotion that allowed people to transfer their GED from other sites for free.  We've been tested at FTDNA, AncestryDNA and 23andMe so I gave it a try.  I did not find their results to be accurate.  For some unknown reason, it gave me a result that indicated I was over 40% Italian.  My family is not of Italian descent, nor have I ever had results that showed me that I had more than 1% Italian descent.  We are French (and British, Irish, Scottish, Northern European).  Big difference.  I called customer support to cancel the membership, and when I mentioned why, the customer service rep said that they too had test results of Italian heritage, and did not know of any family lines in their ancestry that reflected the findings.  I'm not sure if My Heritage's quality of service is as good as it used to be.

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Neither Ancestry nor MyHeritage ethnicity estimates were at all accurate for me, my 75% Scottish estimate is at least double what it should be, neither had Cornish etc, although the mysterious Scandinavian and Germanic/French components were revealed when connecting my last great-grandmother to her ancestors. I found Living DNA had the most accurate ethnicity estimates, they did pick-up my one eighth Cornish.

 But the really valuable tools that MyHeritage has that will be very valuble for you, is there match reporting tools and the Chromosome browser, MH reports both your shared cM with a match, and their shared DNA with a mutually shared match and the shared DNA between those matches. It also identifies triangulated matches.
 The Chromosome browser also allows you to view graphically the shared cM on each Chromosome for up to 7 mathes, very useful for trying to identify family branches that share the same DNA  to try and identify the contributing ancestor.

MH figures can also be fed into WATO analysis (Shared cm project)

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My Living DNA is a UK based company and breaks down ethnicity at county level.  It could help you to see where you might want to concentrate for records.  I found the ethnicity to be pretty spot on.

Answer 6

Strange mixed feelings ..... I am sure your husband felt that way too, and many more who have had to navigate a similar scenario. My parents are only just finding out. I am hopeful we are all going to be ok in the end. All living makes it tougher. My parents are pretty awesome so I can only hope we will work through this together and come out the stronger on the other side. They are, after all, the only parents I know.

Answer 7

First of all, do you have DNA Matches enabled? Does your dad have DNA Matches enabled? If the answer to both is yes, then you already have an answer.

Did your mom try to talk you out of testing? If not, and she knew you were testing, the most likely scenario is that she and your dad received fertility treatments and she assumed your dad was the biological father. It used to be very common that fertility clinics would tell couples that they were "mixing sperm samples" to "help the husband's sperm along" to allow couples to believe that the husband was the biological father.

Mothers with something to hide virtually always beg and plead with their children not to test, or try to convince them that "those tests aren't accurate", etc.

The other option is that you're adopted and neither of your parents are biological. The VERY rare scenario is "the babies were swapped at the hospital" but I've only heard of that happening ONCE in all the time I've spent in genetic genealogy, and that was 80 years ago.

Comments

Yes I was going to say check to make sure your DNA matches are enabled.  I had an aunt do a test on 23andMe but I have not seen her show up on my list because she never clicked through to look at her matches.  I have my cousins show as a match so obviously we all share dna but just she never clicked to share.