Total ignorant about DNA but could it fill in a tree branch?

Question

Is there enough information for a decision?

WikiTree rejects a father/son match between Daniel Gage-126 and William Gage-175 while the 6 great grandson was told by family research it is .

There are 2 au tests for Gage-175

Private results:

6 GGS Dave Smalley-784 23andMe+AncestryDNA+MyHeritageDNA

Public:

6 GGS George Kellogg-1557 AncestryDNA, GEDmatch A417177 (also on ftDNA y-111, mtFull kit B226995)

Test for Daniel Gage-126

Gladys (Goodrich) McMillan-2017     ftDNA Kit# 509311

Thank you for your consideration!

Answer 1

At least as the data appears today, the DOB of William Gage is 9-10 months before Daniel Gage's marriage. That doesn't mean the relationship is wrong, but it does make it slightly less likely.

As to your question at hand: DNA certainly *could* be useful to prove this connection. However, because you'd be dealing with more distant relationships, you'd have to triangulate three known ancestors with verifiable paper trails. See the Triangulation Guide. Additionally, triangulation augments traditional genealogy, so you still require a confirmed paper trail linking William to Daniel, which it seems may not exist given the comments on the profiles.

A good first step would be to find a valid triangulation to Daniel Gage, not through William. If a descendant of William then shares the same segment, that would be significant evidence in favour of the relationship, though I cannot personally say whether it would be sufficient - I would check back in at that point.

Comments

Thank you for the response!!

Is it worth triangulating with this DNA?

Gage DNA:

Daniel's 7th GGD through daughter Martha Gage-121: au Fontaine Wiatt-12  ftDNA Family Finder kit 93595, GEDmatch F93595,

Daniels' 7th GGD through daughter Lydia: Anne Merrill-2780 ftDNA kit 604128, GEDmatch T103489

Karen Martin PRIVATE PROFILE AncestryDNA ftDNA also descendent of Lydia

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You need 3 tests to match on the same segment.  You'll be very lucky at that distance.

But where does the date of birth come from, if the parents aren't known?

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Running the numbers on GEDmatch for F93595 & T103489, the biggest matching segment is 3.6cM - MUCH too small for triangulation. Basically, they don't match each other (and you'd need them to).

So sorry, but you need some better matches.

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George - it's always worth checking to see if you have a valid triangulation between three people. However, at minimum you need 7 cm, and not all sites allow triangulation (Gedmatch is best for this). For 6+ cousins, triangulation is possible but not very likely - most 6th cousins will not share very much DNA anymore.

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Thank you all for the education!  It was worth the try to get past the wall.

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It would not be the first marriage to occur some time after the mistake.

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To be clear, if any two of the three matches do not have at least the minimum required cM, then the three together can't possibly give you a triangulation. The overlap of three matches can only be less than, or equal to, the overlap f any two of them.

In this case, the two matches quoted that are on GEDmatch only have 3.6cM at best, and even the most generous triangulation requirement would require at least 7.0cM. So there's no way these two could ever be used to triangulate with a third match.

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Jeff, you are correct.  Research of the Branford, Ma town clerk's ledger showed an entry for birth of oldest known child followed by the next entry months later of Daniel's and Martha's (parents) marriage.  Followed by births of 12 more children, most of which are not on WikiTree.