DNA relatives

[afecad]

If you are seeing that much of a match, she is related, but by what degree is the question? Also since you have no way to separate Father/Mother's side with autosomal, her % Italian Heritage likely is via your Mother's side but it could also be someone on your Father's side had a child out of wedlock with someone who was of strong Italian heritage.

Lot's of families and people have skeletons in the closet that were not disclosed, whether that be children born out of wedlock and given up for adoption or etc..I long suspected that I may have a 1/2 brother or sister in Germany, since my Father lived in Germany during his time in the service and left in a hurry, came back to the US then finished his term and was in a serious relationship at the time with a German national.

I have no evidence and no matches have shown on any site or Gedmatch, but it doesn't mean it's not the case...people keep secrets especially that generation where it was taboo or frowned upon.

DNA can tie together people, but it can't pull connections out of thin air unless the % of people tested is higher. Given all the concerns over privacy, being cloned or wrongly accused of a crime, many will never be tested and some will never know anything and maybe they are okay with that, then you figure in those of us who have little surviving parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and etc. to test or won't test...

[darkerhorse]

Can someone explain how you can tell if a DNA match is Italian? Are you matching on specific chromosomes?

[MarcuccioV]

If you are seeing that much of a match, she is related, but by what degree is the question? Also since you have no way to separate Father/Mother's side with autosomal, her % Italian Heritage likely is via your Mother's side but it could also be someone on your Father's side had a child out of wedlock with someone who was of strong Italian heritage.

Lot's of families and people have skeletons in the closet that were not disclosed, whether that be children born out of wedlock and given up for adoption or etc..I long suspected that I may have a 1/2 brother or sister in Germany, since my Father lived in Germany during his time in the service and left in a hurry, came back to the US then finished his term and was in a serious relationship at the time with a German national.

I have no evidence and no matches have shown on any site or Gedmatch, but it doesn't mean it's not the case...people keep secrets especially that generation where it was taboo or frowned upon.

DNA can tie together people, but it can't pull connections out of thin air unless the % of people tested is higher. Given all the concerns over privacy, being cloned or wrongly accused of a crime, many will never be tested and some will never know anything and maybe they are okay with that, then you figure in those of us who have little surviving parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and etc. to test or won't test...

The strange thing is things have gotten worse. Your scenarios are perfectly plausible, and I accept that. I'm waiting to hear if she can supply any additional information from her side.

What has made this so bizarre is the matches to BOTH sides (to varying degrees) -- that simply doesn't add up (at least not to my satisfaction).

And to further throw gasoline onto a raging fire, I have 23&me matches tied to my Maternal side (through ancestral surnames, etc) that MAGICALLY also match relatives on my paternal MORRIS line (I know you remember the enormous brouhaha over THAT).

There are too many criss-crossed connections (if it was one, okay, I could dismiss it, but I keep finding more & more, just reinforcing the confusion). It's nothing but one big knot that I don't think ANYONE can untie...

[darkerhorse]

If there was blood relation between your parents or grandparents, would that explain it?

[MarcuccioV]

BTW, I have so far found ONE 23&me match who is 99.9% Italian/W Asian with a last name that is the same as the married name of one of my Gf's sisters that remained in Italy. So I think I can confidently tie him to my maternal side (so far he is the only one I can conclusively do that to)...

As far as blood relations, NOTHING between my parents (their ONLY match is birthplace, Detroit, MI, but they met in CA).

On my maternal side, there are X-connections to surnames on both sides (at least 2 that I have found). But it was a smallish town with a limited number of families.

No such X-connections with my paternal grandparents (plus they came through different states).

[afecad]

Can someone explain how you can tell if a DNA match is Italian? Are you matching on specific chromosomes?

23andme (if the person opts in) will show matches and you can also see their % estimated ancestry.

[afecad]

I can say, without a doubt, that 23andme and Ancestry, accurately align my relations, but again I know of these people or can connect the dots, the ones beyond that are unknown to me and without having good family trees listed, the software can only predict which ancestor we might share.

Again it's hard to build a solid connection without family trees, while Ancestry's Thrulines helps, it's often based on people's trees that may or may not be correct. I see ton's of errors in what people believe are their ancestors, many don't correct and nobody ever contacts me asking me questions either.

I just logged into Gedmatch and see a new update:

New Tier 1 Tools Released

We are excited to announce the release of three new tools that will enhance the experience for our users. The tools – Autocluster, Autotree and Autopedigree – were developed by EJ Blom of Genetic Affairs. Tier 1 members can access these tools through the standalone Clusters, Single Kit input, Basic Version tool as well as on the Clustering tool in Multi-Kit Analysis.

Have not tried it yet, but you might want to if you are not aware of it?

[darkerhorse]

Can someone explain how you can tell if a DNA match is Italian? Are you matching on specific chromosomes?

23andme (if the person opts in) will show matches and you can also see their % estimated ancestry.

Okay, but you can't tell the ancestry of the specific section of DNA which matches?

Can you tell if the match is paternal or maternal?

[afecad]

Okay, but you can't tell the ancestry of the specific section of DNA which matches?

Can you tell if the match is paternal or maternal?

23andme only shows "Ancestry Composition" in a % of match, it does show matching by chromosome but does not tell you what chromosomes are of specific heritage, there might be a way to extrapolate this by comparing your chromosomal painting but then again it's an estimate.

IF you have a tested parent if will denote which side the match is, if not then it groups them together. For me my Mother is still living so I had her tested, the Italian is on her side only and the match below in the image is from Italy, third cousin and it's predicted we shared 2nd GGPs, again which ones is a guess? He also list only countries of birth as all Italy, but no surnames...I suspect this is one of my relatives who did not leave or went back to Rome, I had two who returned to Rome and became Doctors.

Ancestry.com will show "Thrulines" if the person had a tree listed, showing "predicted" connections, mine are quite accurate back to 2nd cousins but some of their trees are not correct, if they list no tree then Thrulines won't show anything beyond cM and % ancestry. I have no way to denote Father/Mother on Ancestry because my Mother has not yet been tested on Ancestry, not sure I'm going to bother as al the matches I have that are close are known, most from Great Aunts/Uncles...

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