All male ancestor line

Question

My father's paternal ancestors on The Conti branch [Conti-274] are all male for 6 generations or more. Even though I know who the DNA cousins should be on paper, I'm not a match.  The cousins are descended from female Conti ancestors.  Could this be because of the DNA that is passed on to males but not females? I've been tested by Ancestry which is autosomal DNA tested.  I'm female.  My grandfather was an only child who may possibly have a half sibling - female (it's a long story)  who I think is a DNA cousin.

Comments

I'm a bit unclear on what you're asking, but it sounds like you've heard about Y-DNA and mtDNA, which are only for male and female lines. As Ole says, the test you took, auDNA, is good for matching all your biological relations.

All such relations who have been tested on AncestryDNA - out to at least 2nd cousins, once removed, or equivalent - will show up somewhere on your match list. The chance of matching a 3rd cousin is about 90%, and that probability decreases rapidly as you get more distantly related. At the same time, the number or relatives you have at those levels usually expands exponentially, so it's believed that most of your matches will be 4th or 5th cousins.

What exactly do you mean by a "DNA cousin" here? Do you mean you have relative who you know were tested on AncestryDNA, and aren't showing up on your match list? Or are you talking about people on your DNA match list?

In a reply to a question below, you report have 1Cs on your mothers side in your matches. If they are within the right range of cM, that gives you DNA confirmation of not only your mom, but also for your grandparents. (If they're NOT in the right range, which is unlikely, you may have stumbled upon their actually being biologically related in an unexpected way - for example, they could be half 1Cs instead of 1C).

I'm not completely clear what you're saying about your father's side in that reply. Are you saying your grandmother was tested (it doesn't really sound like it)? It sounds more like relatives through your grandmother are showing up. If you have strong matches (over 90cM) to 3rd cousins on that side, you can confirm back to your applicable great-great grandparents, by current WikiTree rules. Otherwise you might have to settle for less far back.

As Ole says, further back usually requires triangulation, which is an advanced topic.

---

Oops - I was going to add that if you have specific questions about specific matches you have, we'd be happy to help out. Avoid using real names for the living though (which we don't really need to know).

I'm not a huge fan of that table, BTW. It's from crowd-sourced data, and the ranges given are too broad, in my experience. For example, I'd say that a half-great-aunt should be 200cM to 650cM, with an average of about 410cM. It's the same thing as a 1st cousin, once removed, or a half-1st cousin, as far as cM values go.

---

I have several DNA matches who are descendants of my grandmother/Weaver’s ancestors. No my grandmother was never tested but these are descendants of out 2nd great grandparents or thereabouts.

---

I understand now that any ancestors male or female pass on autosomal DNA.

---

Very good!

If you have the "paper trail" that shows how you're related to a 3rd cousin on the Weaver-Leat side, you can use that match to confirm back to those gt-gt grandparents, if the match is strong enough. If it isn't strong enough, try to get the other person to upload to GEDmatch, and you might be able to use your match there instead.

If you can find a 2nd cousin of your dad's on that side, that would also work, and is more likely to be a good enough match.

---

When I say DNA cousin, who on paper should be related and has been DNA tested.  I have matches who on paper are descended from my 4th great aunt on the Conti branch.  They have been DNA tested but don't show up as a match.  Maybe there isn't enough DNA because of the distant relationship.  I'm working on finding matches on my Ancestry site.

Can anyone recommend a Gedcom or provide a link?

---

Gotcha! By my math, 4th-great aunt is sister to your gt-gt-gt grandfather, so gt-gt-gt-gt grandparents are the common ancestors, and someone on that line in your generation is a 5th cousin (5C).

I certainly have many 5C matches, myself, but that's because I have tens of thousands of 5Cs - the chance of matching a particular individual 5C is said to be about 15% (which I don't doubt). Perhaps a few thousand of my 5Cs are people I would match, if they were tested. A fraction of them actually have been tested, so I have hundreds of such matches. That's the way the math works - despite all those matches, there are no doubt, WAY more 5Cs of mine out there who have tested, but don't match me..

Starting with your AncestryDNA matches is certainly a good idea. I'd recommend starting with relatives that are closer in - 3C or closer, if you can find them. They're easier to confirm, and - using the shared matches feature on AncestryDNA - can give you a hint as to how other matches are related. Once in a great while you can also run into a "surprise", where your biological tree isn't what the documentation says it should be due to adoption, etc.

GEDcom is simply a common file format for storing genealogical data, so I'm not sure what you're getting at with that last question.

Good luck!

---

Thank you for your comments.  I wasn't sure how you confirmed the DNA match by Wiki standards, even though I had matches on the Weaver/paternal grandmother's side of my Fathers family in my ancestry tree.

---

I'm delighted to report that I managed to get a GEDcom downloaded and locked in on my Wiki tree!  It should be good to go by tomorrow noon, which is about the time it takes for GEDcom technology to download and connect with all my Wiki relatives I suppose. Thanks for all your encouragement and support wiki people.  Anna

Answer 1

No; autosomal DNA is inherited independently of whether it is through male or female.  The expected amount of matching DNA can be seen from this table from DNAPainter and as you can see 2. cousins (even half 2. cousins] and closer will always share DNA, while 3. cousins and more distant often will share DNA. You will also see that the expected amount of shared DNA for a half great aunt will be 125 - 765 cM.

I can see, that you have confirmed your parents with DNA. You should use the DNA confirmation instructions , so it is clearly visible on your profile how they are confirmed. I will recommend that you upload your results to GEDmatch You could be lucky to find matches there.

Comments

I don't know how to download a Gedmatch or what a Gedmatch is.  Can anyone give me simple instruction pls.  I have downloaded my DNA results from Ancestry.  Neither of my parents have been DNA tested, however, first cousins on my mothers side of the family match up which validates my mother as legitimate.  On my father's side of the family his mother is a match to many DNA cousins through her ancestors going back several generations.  That's how I can confirm that my father is indeed my father also.  The cousins related to the Conti's are descended from my 4th great aunt so probably don't meet the threshold as a DNA cousin.  I'm working on another branch of Conti's that looks hopeful. thanks for all your help.

---

You migth find some help in these two videos  first  and second they show both how to download your DNA data from Ancestry and also how to upload it to GEDmatch. GEDmatch is a free site that takes data from different firms like FTDNA, 23andMe, Ancestry and My Heritage and makes it possible to find matches, that has tested in other firms than yourself.

You can write this under your own biography:

Maternal relationship is confirmed by an {{AncestryDNA}} test match between [[Conway-3024|Anna Strutt]] and her first cousin Living ??. Their most-recent common ancestors are their grandparents, [[Scrivener-383|Alfred Schrivener]] and [[Brash-118|Zita Schrivener]]. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA: ? Cousins, based on sharing ? cM across ? segments. Confidence: ?

When I find living DNA matches I create their line down to their deceased ancestor and then writes "living grandson or daugther of the deceased profile"

Regarding your father I think you should change him to confident and under your biography also explain why. When you confirm matches more distant then 3rd cousin you need to triangulate - but that is tricky and request that you know where and on which chromosome the common segments are,

Good luck!

---

It seems your DNA results now has been properly transferred to GEDmatch. Your kit TC2457831 has some very good matches, that you should contact. Unfortunately they are not WikiTree members or havn´t provided a link from GEDmatch to WikiTree, but you can find their emailadresses and write them. Let us know the results.

---

Thanks for the encouragement.

Answer 2

DNA is "sexist", there's Y-DNA and mtDNA and autosomal and the first two are "sexist" 

YOU ASK: "The cousins are descended from female Conti ancestors.  Could this be because of the DNA that is passed on to males but not females?"

Y-DNA is what males are tested for; that is to say that Y-DNA is passed father to son. The father will not pass on any female his Y-DNA 

mtDNA is passed from mother to daughter. And while the female DNA will be passed to a son HE will not pass it on to his children because at conception, the ova consumes his mtDNA (think black widow spider mating) 

For autosomal it's believed to be fairly reliable out to the 5th generation from yourself. It is also "shotgun", in that siblings may have different amounts of DNA (of the other 22 pairs). 

So males can test for autosomal and Y-DNA and females can test for autosomal and mtDNA

Comments

mtDNA is passed from mother to her children.  You can also test males for their mtDNA.

---

Yes, Peter, I don't doubt a male could be tested for his mother's mtDNA -- I have not heard of any cases as such in g2g -- but he's not going to pass it to his children, it is consumed at conception by the ova (think black widow spiders) 

---

It is common for males to test for their mother's mtDNA.

---

Peter, I had no idea that was so. Should have "known" this, since HE still has it, just cannot pass it on to his children (black widow syndrome) so I am now in possession of one more fact per g2g forum. Man CAN BE tested for mtDNA and his MATERNAL trail followed backward however far.  Nifty. Knowing that could open some avenues of research for a number of families. 

---

It was mtDNA, that proved a match between the skeleton thought to be Richard III and descendants, via female line, of one of his sisters. https://www.le.ac.uk/richardiii/science/resultsofdna.html

---

I wonder if all this has been posted on Richard's profile? Slandered while alive, libeled after death.

---

Tracing the female line is often difficult but if we discount warming pan babies , there's far less likelihood of a non maternal event that a non paternal one.

Answer 3

Do you know if cousins on the male side have taken the Ancestry tests?  They are not going to show up on Ancestry matching lists unless they have also been tested.

Comments

No, as far as I know none of the males have been tested, so that probably explains it, however, there is a mystery cousin, 1st or 2nd cousin twice removed who may be the illegitimate child of my great grandfather on the Conti branch.

Answer 4

well, Anna, this is a short course in DNA, and does open the possibility you can utilize a number of different DNA tests for tracking your ancestry

Don't forget to lay down the paper trail which is somewhat more vital than DNA, which merely "confirms" or "denies" within certain percentages ... DNA is a tool to utilize in genealogy,  it is not genealogy

Comments

THANK YOU, Anna -- there are times when a discussion will wander afield, but this one pretty much stuck to the topic you addressed in your post. AND provided some working material on DNA and other points -- I certainly picked up a few more FAQ answers from it ... like you can test a man's mtDNA (I shoulda known that) 

As for gedmatch, Ole Semmer provided a link which will introduce you to the wonders of "matching". He has two separate comments which you can copy and paste for your future reference. (I just paste such goodies into a email to myself, and it goes into my Wikitree Tools folder)