More Questions Than Answers

Question

I have been doing my research and it only leaves me with more questions than answers. According to Ancestry, I have a second cousin and we share 272 centimorgans. The issue is her husband manages her ancestry profile. I have to filter all questions through him. The closest family member she believes as being our shared ancestor is a great great grandparents cousin. I know this cannot be true. I would dare say one of us has a family secret. My question is how to best resolve it? A second cousin is pretty close to ignore.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Your second cousin may be dyslexic or have some other reading, writing issue and this could be the reason her husband  filters all questions.

If you are 100% sure that your information is correct then  reword it and see if  there are other relatives that you can converse with.  Also remember that  bone marrow transplants  may change the relative relationships.

Good luck

Comments

There are many of us who manage profiles for other family members Rionne. It does not necessarily mean that they have a problem. More likely that they just don’t have a passion for genealogy.

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Problem only as in it's hard to get responses. I ran my husband's for a while until the bug bit him.

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I had never considered bone marrow. Thanks for the idea!

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Just a quick note that there are two types of marrow transplants, nowadays going by the really catchy new title of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT)...much easier to write and remember.  :-/

Allogeneic transplants use marrow/stem cells from a donor. This may be a necessary recourse 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. Saliva will contain the donor cells plus epithelial cells from the patient's mouth, in which the DNA won't be changed. In general, to put it bluntly, if it's a spit test, I don't think the major testing companies want to process samples from an allogeneic transplant patient. There are ways to separate known donor and patient cells, but it's more expensive and labs for genealogy testing aren't really set up for that.

Autologous transplants, on the other hand, use cells harvested from the patient. An example of a common use is in cancer patients whose lymphoma has returned following conventional chemo. 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 at all on a DNA test.

Answer 2

S. Hollingsworth, Start by looking at shared matches. This can help you to narrow down potential common ancestral lines.

Comments

I have looked at them. I know she is related on my father's side, but all "close" matches have not logged on in months. Getting nowhere. It's discouraging.

Answer 3

While 'second cousin' may be right, there are other possibilities.  If you go to the Shared cM Project and plug in 272, you will see other relationships, that you might want to consider for possible connections.  Half first and second cousin is possible, and maybe any of the 1R (once removed) choices.  More than 1R would probably be too much of a generational difference.

If you can talk the husband into entering her data into GEDmatch, you can check the segments you match on, and compare with others you are related to.  You may find common segments that point to a particular lineage.

Answer 4

Take heart! If your research leaves you with more questions than answers, that just means you're doing it right - after all, every ancestor found means two more to look for!  ;)

But to get to your real issue, we just need to take a careful look at this:

First of all, with the 272cM, can we verify that we're not missing a decimal point? Below 30cM, they tell you to the tenths of cM, so "27.2cM" would be a possibility. It doesn't really sound like that's it, because you call your relative a "Second Cousin", when you clearly are unsure how you're related. I presume you mean she's listed under Ancestry's "2ND COUSIN" list. That doesn't necessarily mean that she really is a 2nd cousin, but the 272cM would have to be correct to be in that category.

So, assuming 272cM is right, I can tell you that the Shared cM Project Chart WORKS, although 90% of the values I have in my own matches are a little lower that the averages given (and I wonder if the ranges are a bit too wide sometimes). Also, I'd point out that it's just as important - with a number as high as 272 - to notice what relations it CAN'T be, as it is to see what it CAN be. What I'm saying here is that it's basically impossible for 272cM to be a 3rd cousin or more distant.

So it looks like you're really fairly closely related, but with the 272cM being so high above the table's 233cM number, I have to wonder a little if there isn't something slightly special going on here - by which I mean endogamy. In other words, you may have more than one pair of common ancestors.

It sounds like you have at least two great-grandparents in common. If you have enough relatives who have done the test, and put in enough data so you can tell how they're related, you ought to be able to used the Shared Matches feature to see which two great-grandparents they are.

Good luck!

Answer 5

Years ago on 23andme, a DNA cousin replied to my initial contact with "I have absolutely no interest in Genealogy.  The only reason I spit in the damned tube was to get my wife off my back!". I posted this on the forum and the wife confirmed it was her husband.  There have been many discussions about the number who subscribe but have little interest in genealogy. I manage about 20 kits, and none of them want to be contacted unless they are very close.

My suggestion is to work on your own tree using traditional genealogy so that you can share the workload with others.  They may see something familiar in your tree.  You should also try and put the predicted 2nd cousin's Ancestry on Wikitree if it is not already, and work both lines (assuming they are not already doing it.)

Answer 6

Forget the DNA at this point and focus on the paper trail. Second cousins share a set of great-grandparents. it means your parents are first cousins. Surely there is enough family and enough documentation around to verify your kinship. Of course if someone had an affair or took in an orphaned child and kept it a secret then the DNA will indicate an issue. But you are only dealing with a few people in the tree so it should be fairly easy to pinpoint where there is a problem.