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I have been given so far about 75 DNA matches and it shows the person and their profile. My top match is shared DNA of .9% is anywhere from a first cousin, twice removed to a fourth cousin.
Have you contacted any of your DNA matches to find out more about them? I've never heard of this person but we apparently share DNA.
I have been given so far about 75 DNA matches and it shows the person and their profile. My top match is shared DNA of .9% is anywhere from a first cousin, twice removed to a fourth cousin.
Have you contacted any of your DNA matches to find out more about them? I've never heard of this person but we apparently share DNA.
Yes, I have received several emails from people (most of them are 4th cousins), specially from Ancestry, FTDNA and Gedmatch. One of them is an italian family living in New Jersey, their kids are also my cousins as per their DNAs, but so far we have not found any relatives, related to both families, kind of weird.
I know my grandpa and grandmother were italians.
I have been given so far about 75 DNA matches and it shows the person and their profile. My top match is shared DNA of .9% is anywhere from a first cousin, twice removed to a fourth cousin.
Have you contacted any of your DNA matches to find out more about them? I've never heard of this person but we apparently share DNA.
It sounds like you tested at 23andMe. Responses are hit and miss but it doesn't hurt to contact them.
Yes, I have received several emails from people (most of them are 4th cousins), specially from Ancestry, FTDNA and Gedmatch. One of them is an italian family living in New Jersey, their kids are also my cousins as per their DNAs, but so far we have not found any relatives, related to both families, kind of weird.
I know my grandpa and grandmother were italians.
It's possible you share an ancestor from back in Italy and your immigrant ancestors both happened to immigrate independently of each other. I was finding a lot of people weren't a match to my mom, or my paternal grandfather, meaning they must be from my Italian grandmother's side. And while those people did have Italian ancestry, I couldn't find any connection until I did some heavy microfilm research of my ancestors in Italy back to the 18th century. Suddenly, I started seeing common surnames and locations among my Italian matches. I had first thought since most testers were in America (I don't think the AncestryDNA test is available in Italy), that most of my Italian matches must be descended from my immigrant ancestors. But actually, lots and lots of my ancestor's cousins immigrated too, many more than I thought. And then, of course, there's the issue of at least one of my Italian ancestors being a foundling, and another having an unknown father. So there's a few branches where I might match someone on that branch but with no way of knowing it.
It helps if you have a paper tree researched ahead of time but we all have hundreds (or thousands) of cousins way beyond our tree research. I've 'shared' and had contact with several dozen DNA cousins on 23andMe but not on GedMatch yet. I found the common ancestor on three or four but most people do not have much of a family tree compiled. You can find clues if you look hard enough to know what family the cousin might be part of. I have Ukrainian DNA cousins that can be related only to one ancestor. My Irish cousins are most likely from my maternal grandmother. That still leaves tons of unknown cousins. Probably half are unresponsive, which is annoying.
Out of hundreds of DNA cousins on 23andMe I've shared information with several dozen. Out of those I've only ever identified a specific common ancestor in one case, which I still find pretty amazing.
I just don't know what to say when I contact the person. "Hey, we're related". Other than that, I can't imagine they would have much interest in getting to know me.
But I would like to know if we have common relatives and if so, who are they.
I just don't know what to say when I contact the person. "Hey, we're related". Other than that, I can't imagine they would have much interest in getting to know me.
But I would like to know if we have common relatives and if so, who are they.
Which test did you take? 23andMe or MyHeritage? The low number of matches suggests MyHeritage (which is still a new test with few people tested) or, if you have recent immigrant ancestors, perhaps 23andMe. Both of these companies display the DNA percentage shared with matches.
At 23andMe I have about 1400 matches (I have a combination of US colonial and recent immigrant ancestry) while in MyHeritage only 36 matches. At 23andMe I have communicated with lots of people in the over 4 years since I tested there and have identified common ancestors with at least 30 of them so far. I am still new to MyHeritage and haven't worked with it much.
In order to find common ancestors with your matches you have to have a well-developed tree yourself, if that is possible. I have a few dead ends at 3rd great-grandparents, but can go back one or more generations on other lines. In some cases with matches who have not responded to my messages I have found the common ancestor by doing Google searches on their names, which sometimes leads to an obituary of a parent or sibling, and then taking those names to genealogy websites I find one of my own ancestors in their tree.
Several DNA segments I have mapped to specific ancestors, so sometimes when I can see a matching segment (usually possible in 23andMe, not MyHeritage) I know which ancestor it comes from. So I can start my message out by asking if they are a descendant of that ancestor. Sometimes they say yes, other times they don't know but with a little information I can find the connection to that ancestor. This method requires compiling data in spreadsheets over a period of years.
I just don't know what to say when I contact the person. "Hey, we're related". Other than that, I can't imagine they would have much interest in getting to know me.
But I would like to know if we have common relatives and if so, who are they.
Your first contact should just be a simple introduction...
"Hello, I'm __tassity22__ and I'm happy to meet a new DNA _4th_ cousin. My ancestry is _____________ and _____________ . Please check out my profile page. Let me know if you would like to share information."
If you see something, like a common family surname, you should mention that as well. Don't be disappointed if you get no response...that is pretty common. I never send a 23andMe share request without a brief separate introduction email.
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