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View Full Version : Is a DNA match proof? Discuss!


Sue from Southend
18-11-18, 09:46
I have a DNA match which connects to my 3x gt grandfather b1782 and leads to his parents and potentially back many generations. However this new branch of the family is in Germany and whilst I have no doubt that my ancestor was from Germany there is no documentation in the UK that connects him to this German family.

I can see no other possible link in the match's tree (she is American with a very German heritage) and there are no shared matches with her. I've messaged her but had no response. The tree is fairly well sourced as far I can see but as I don't have a Worldwide sub I can't check. A trip to the library is required!


So, to add to my tree or not??

Phoenix
18-11-18, 11:16
If she has a good tree, it might be worth finding others with the same German families and seeing if they too are DNA matches. Shared matches work in very strange ways. You may find people who link to both of you but, perversely, not to each other.

kiterunner
18-11-18, 11:23
Assuming the 3xg-grandfather is Christian Benzing, does the DNA match have him born at Schura u Schwenningen? There are a few Christian Benzing births in the same place around the same time, and they are probably all related, so it could be that your Christian is a different one from the one in your match's tree, and the DNA match could be a generation or two further back.

I should think it would be worth a trip to the library to look through the German records on ancestry anyway (though of course ancestry doesn't have all of them.)

And have you searched your DNA matches for the surname to see if there are other matches? Apparently ancestry doesn't look for shared matches if the amount of shared DNA is below a certain level.

Sue from Southend
18-11-18, 13:43
Thank you both!

The match is for Christian Benzing, Kite. Well worked out! The tree owner is descended from Christian's sister Elisabetha making us possibly 5th cousins from their parents Johannes and Susanna. To confuse the issue Susanna would appear to have been born Benzing too but I'm not certain of any other relationship.

I've now searched my matches for the Benzing name and there are eight which surprised me. Some seem to have left Germany for the USA in the 1850's and the tree owners haven't researched past "Germany" I don't have the resources or time to do their research for them.

Two others would appear to be descended from the same person as my original match but haven't made the connection to Johannes and Susannah.

Last year I was contacted by another descendant of Christian who had paid a German researcher to look into his origins and he/she had come up with the same family. This Christian would appear to be the only one born in the correct time frame that had "disappeared" from Schwenningen records. This contact has taken my "match" as proof. But I'd still like something more tangible.

Meanwhile thanks for telling me that no shared matches doesn't necessarily mean that there's no-one else with that name in a tree!

Sue from Southend
18-11-18, 14:13
I've been thinking about what I've just posted above.

It occurs to me that the matches that are descended from the same person as the original match (Elisabetha, sister of Christian) are 17cMs as opposed to the 34cMs of the original match. I'm sure it means something significant but I haven't an idea what! We would all appear to be of the same generation ie Elisabetha and Christian are our 3x gt grandparents.

kiterunner
18-11-18, 16:14
I don't think that the difference in number of cMs is particularly significant for a relationship that distant, Sue.

If someone has already ruled out the other Christians then it looks likely that yours is the brother of Elisabetha, but you might still want to check it for yourself by going to the library and looking at the Schwenningen records on ancestry. Hopefully you can find deaths that match to the other births.