Interpreting DP’s ancestry results.

[Familyhistoryaddict33]

DP recently did an ancestry test, his maternal side is pretty clear. his paternal side not so much and I am confused.

Dp has a pretty common British surname, it’s his fathers surname he took at birth but after his parents divorced when he was about 2, he’s not had a huge amount of contact and none at all in the last 20 years or more.

his ancestry results were mainly English and other parts of Europe, however he came back as 15% Malta which was a surprise. Didn’t think much of it at first but he had some pretty close matches - perhaps 2nd or 3rd cousins that were 90-100% Maltese themselves.

I have searched for his birth surname on his matches (which as above pretty common) and not one of his matches has his surname. Now I know this isn’t uncommon, however his father is supposedly 1 of 11 mainly males, so you’d think one of them or their children or grandchildren may have taken a test but not a single tree has his surname in, also none of his paternal matches have people in their tree from the area his father is from.

he also has a relatively match on his paternal side where I cannot fit in anywhere, I’ve messaged the lady and she’s from another part of the country, no links to where his father is from and is certain who her own family is, I’ve looked at her tree over and over again but it doesn’t seem fitting at all. She’s listed as a grand aunt or first cousin once removed according to ancestry, her nephew is a match with DP on there too.

at one point do you question whether his father is his father?

or maybe it’s another generation up, maybe his fathers parents weren’t who they thought they were.

I can find a birth record for his father but cannot find a birth record for either of his paternal grandparents despite knowing their names as found their marriage record.

hit a brick wall with it!

also, the reason I’m doing this is because dp is interested but doesn’t fully understand how to interpret results yet.

clusters have not helped.

Does he know you're doing this?

Of course!

I’d upload his DNA to Gedmatch, My Heritage and Family DNA as well if you haven’t.

Have you got Protools? Any shared matches with that top paternal match and if so have they got trees? I helped someone find their paternal grandfather with a top paternal match of about 1000cM and when I looked at the shared matches of that match there were strong connections to another family and absolutely nothing to the people in that tree. The issue there was that it meant the father of the 1000cM match wasn’t who she thought it was which had thrown off the person I helped.

Start a private research tree and work through the shared matches to see if you can find common ancestors and add in matches if you can. It could be another generation up. You’re going to need to follow the DNA.

Bear in mind that the Maltese are an endogamous population. Also bear in mind that a small pool of surnames are very popular.

"Didn’t think much of it at first but he had some pretty close matches - perhaps 2nd or 3rd cousins that were 90-100% Maltese themselves."

@PeachPumpkin said:

"Bear in mind that the Maltese are an endogamous population."

If it's likely that you are looking at an endogamous population (ie the same small number of families intermarry over successive generations) then it is likely that these people are not 2nd or 3rd cousins but much more likely to be 5th or 6th (or even later) cousins.

In some parts of the world is was not uncommon for the same families to intermarry over the generations. This was especially true in areas that were isolated or where there was a difference of religion or language for example.

This means that you are much more likely to have DNA connections through both sides of the family. This also means that the same DNA is kept within the family for a longer period of time than you would expect normally so the connections may be further back than you would normally expect.

[EDIT]

Just as an example of this, according to Ancestry my mum has relations in the USA related to distant ancestors who moved there in the 1600s.

For example, an 8th cousin who shares 17cM of DNA and then also a number of 9th cousins once or twice removed who share around 10cM of DNA.

There is also a 10th cousin once removed who shares 13cM and a relation who is related through two separate routes. In that case a woman is a 9th cousin twice removed through one ancestor and through the other route is a 10th cousin twice removed. She shares 17cM with my mum.

The fact that this shows up many hundreds of years later is down to endogamy.

[/EDIT]

Areas in the UK like Cornwall (and Norfolk) were prone to this. The Isles of Scilly are a great example; back in the 19th century it is estimated that around 80% of the marriages there were endogamous to Scilly. In other words, they just married each other.

But this also happened in other areas as well. I have some distant ancestors who went over to the American colonies in the 1600s. To be frank, there were a lot of families intermarrying each other back then (the population in Maryland and Virginia was very small) and you can still see the results of that in the DNA today.

Many Americans who trace their ancestry from early US colonial families have found this when getting their DNA results.

I remember somebody saying that they had colonial ancestry from Maryland and Virginia through both parents. While the parents weren't related to each other in any way over the last two hundred years, they had dozens of DNA matches who were related to them through both parents, and quite a few more who had a DNA match to one parent and a paper trail that connects them to the other.

It is not uncommon for colonial Americans, Ashkenazi Jews, French Canadians and US Cajuns to still show the results of this endogamy from centuries earlier.

So I would guess that it is probably something like that?

I had very very similar though i don’t know if my story will be of much help as im still fairly confused and not sure ive ever got to the bottom of it.

i took a dna test initially on 23and me, then i paid for an ancestry one. The majority of matches on both sites were 4th cousin types so nothing exciting l. But 2 matches came up on ancestry which were iirc about 440 centrimorgans and were flagged as possible half cousins on my mother’s side. Which I thought was odd as my mum had one sister and I know my only cousin. The 2 matches were both my age and I came to the fairly quick conclusion one of my mums parents could not be her parent. Or my grandad had been shagging about and got someone else pregnant and my mum had a half sibling she didn’t know about and these half cousins were their offspring.

now you’d think the grandad shagging about story would be more likely but my mum was born in the middle of ww2. Grandad was in the army and in France quite a bit.

and then i remembered a weird story my grandma had told me when she was going a bit senile. She used to boast to me in the war she’d had a “gentleman friend” and that granddad found out and wasn’t happy and came home and there was a fight. It began to dawn on me that maybe grandma had played away from home during the war.

i emailed these two half cousins and asked them, do you think my grandad is your grandad or is your grandad my grandad? I guess we can’t be 100% sure but it seems like their grandad is my grandad. So this would be my grandma’s gentleman friend. Apparently their grandad was a right ladies man and had 16 kids that they know of my several women. So it just all fits.

I also uploaded my dna to various other free sites like gedmatch , myheritage, familytreedna. Found a few more second cousins, etc. some of whom have been able to fill in such gaps about various ancestors.

the thing you said to me which stuck out was your husbands lack of expected matches. The man I thought was my grandad was one of 9 kids, they all had kids, grandkids. I’d expect some of them to have taken dna tests but nobody comes up as a match.

remember it’s not always affairs, sometimes it’s secret adoptions? I would say upload dna everywhere and reach out to all fairly close matches.

There’s a good fb group called DNA detectives uk. They do free search angels to help you work it out.

So my ex husband has Maltese DNA as one of his great grandfathers was in the Rpyal Atillery in Malta. They have arabic and sicilian dna so i don't know if that hints to anytihng?

As they are 2nd and 3rd cousin matches and he’s 15% I’d be looking at a Great Grandparent that was Maltese. So one of his Grandparents had a different parent than would be expected. When were his Grandparents born and where? I’d start there.

Were any grandparents in the forces? Malta had an raf base until the 70s, no idea about army bases?

I think some of the things that are ‘missing’ can be red herrings.

Eg none of his father’s brothers’ descendants have done a test? When I pondered something similar my sister pointed out she’s visited the town our father is from, and if you go to the pub and see all your 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins there, you’re highly unlikely to bother with a DNA test. My matches are mostly Americans.

I also had very few matches with anyone with my father’s common (Scottish) surname in their family tree. Turns out my great great grandmother gave her kids a random surname (she wasn’t married, and I think her DC didn’t have the same father).