Ancestry results= family bombshell??

[SqueakyRadish]

Hey!
So... I did an ancestry thing just for fun, thought it would be cool to see my heritage etc.

Had my results back last week and it has "matched" me with another user that I share 27% of my DNA with, who it suggests is a half sibling or niece.

The most likely explanation (due to various factors) is that this is a niece.

But what the actual fuck do I do now? I feel awful because I know this and, as far as I know, nobody else in the family does.

I have one brother who has no children (or so I thought!) but who has been living, happily, with his partner and her 2 children for around 10 years.

He could have no idea? He could know and just want to keep it secret? He could know and other people in the family might know but keep it secret?

I literally just don't know what to do. I feel like I can't ask anyone in my family for advice because then I'm putting it on them as well.

Plus, if this other person does not want to be contacted or have anything to do with us then it feels like it would be better to just keep things as they are and do nothing at all.

I don't really know what I want... I just needed somewhere to talk about this and figure out what, if anything, I do next...

So you have an extended family member shared with her. How many cm do they share with you? & with her. Do you know who they are/can you place them on your tree?

It means they are related to your paternal side, not your maternal.

Keep in mind that surnames still have high occurrances in certain local areas. Eg you'll be more likely to find a Shelton in the Staffordshire or Derbyshire area than Gloucestershire area.

Looking at relative cm shares for you & her & your closest mutual cousin matches should illuminate more.

Is the extended fam shared paternal match, as she sees it, approx 200cm or closer?

I suspect if I ever did my ancestry DNA it would come up with a lot of close matches that would be unusual in some places. My parents were related and from a small village where pretty much every family intermarried until fairly recently (since about year 2000 or thereabouts). Noone ever moved away and there were large families of 6-9 living children. Doing the family tree is fascinating and complicated!
I'm intrigued by this thread and also wondering how many families are being disrupted by Christmas presents etc as people do their DNA and find out things like you've done, @SqueakyRadish I hope it all works out okay for you all.

Not much
Under 2% DNA and 120cm for one and 87 for the other

But this is the thing - you know about this and you'd likely have lots of matches saying Both Sides. You'd have lots of matches coming back with higher than expected cM values. Its unlikely you'd be unaware of endogamy in the family as a result.

It sounds like she knows more than you do and has decided to let sleeping dogs lie. I’d accept her decision but say if she changes her mind she’s welcome to get in touch.

That’s not an insignificant share. Can you place who it is on your tree? Are you the higher match?

Everyone from the British isles tests as an average of about 6th cousins, even with no known common family member. It might just be happenstance.

Shes spoken to her mother who has warned her not to say anything, after she initially messaged the OP.

She messaged the OP and said she knew the story. Then said there was a mix up.

Every time anyone says 'its a mix up' for these its because they or their close relative has decided to lie about something. She or her Mum has panicked after that first message for some reason.

It’s unlikely at those shares, they’re relatively & comparatively close cousinships. Third cousins, 2nd once removed territory & Ancestry measures conservatively.

Could you have an older sibling on either parents side you don't know about and this is their child, if not your brother's?

Unlikely for cM values that high.

Anything over 40cM is generally easy to work out and place with a bit of process of elimination if you have family trees.

Exactly. Identify & build tree for shared ‘extended family’ matches.

DNA tests are such a can of worms.

DH's cousin did a test and discovered she had a half-sister. With further investigation, it turned out her father had a relationship before marrying her mother. She contacted her half-sister just to know that she had a good life, as she herself was middle-class privileged. Fine. It got a bit distasteful when unmarried aunt excluded this woman from her will (all other descendants from her parents were beneficiaries).

DS did a test and, thankfully, he came back as 50% Scottish (me) and 50% Irish (DH).

Buy your brother a test for Christmas and leave it at that.

Have you a tree for your own father & can you identify his family connections in your matches?

Interesting. I know some of my third cousins, so I can imagine that would be fun. Far enough away not to reveal a hidden history, but close enough to feel a connection.

Yes, genetic genealogy is fascinating.

Even without a family tree you can work out most 40cM matches unless you have high levels of endogamy.

OP how similar are your paternal and maternal regions? Do they share a lot of the same regions?

Go to origins > by parent > then go to Ancestral Journeys by Parent.

If they are distinctly different, it makes it much easier to eliminate an issue with endogamy. For example my Mum splits very neatly into Irish Regions on her mums side and English Regions on her dads - but DH has both his parents sharing one region which occasionally throws up some issues with ancestry allocating his matches to the wrong parent.

I don't think it's your information to share.

It's up to the niece to do something, of for you to encourage your DB to have a DNA test.

I recently spoke to a 3rd cousin of DH. There was a surprising amount of common themes within the family.

I've met my 3rd cousin (before DNA testing) some years back. Again lots of very common themes within the family. Surprisingly so in terms of common occupations despite not having contact between the families in several generations.

Some of this is to do with social circles and class but other things definitely not.

Yes agree & good advice.

The regions are very closely matched. Mainly in the area they still live in.

I can't place these people on my tree, and I can't see if they are on hers because she has made it private. But they share the same surname as her and it's a relatively unusual name I'd say, although could still just be coincidence