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Thread: 1,614cM Match

  1. #1
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    Default 1,614cM Match

    A relative has asked me to look at a DNA match.

    It is 1,614cM with 23% shared DNA. Ancestry suggests a first cousin. Neither party recognises a surname in each others tree.
    I myself, handling 3 DNA records, have nothing above 717cM and that is a definite first cousin, so 1,614 is particularly high in my mind for someone unknown.

    My suggestion has been that the two matches must share parents who are siblings for such a high match.

    Am I on the right lines?

    Thanks

    Mitch

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    Super Moderator christanel's Avatar
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    Hi Mitch
    I know next to nothing about DNA research so I googled your question and found a Family Tree magazine article which is about adoptees and their relationship to DNA matches, here.
    My understanding is that there are a number of relationships that it could be. They also give a link to the International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki which has further information and a chart I haven't seen before but of course you may already have.
    Christina
    Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
    William Burroughs

  3. #3
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    Hi Mitch,

    It is common for Ancestry to list a match of that value as a first cousin, but if you look at a cM chart you will see that there are a number of other relationships that it could encompass. These include grandparent, aunt/uncle, half-aunt/uncle and great-aunt/uncle. However, if your relative and her close "cousin" are of a similar age, the most likely explanation for this level of match is that they are half-siblings, with adoption, an affair or donor conception being the connecting factor. If this is the case, this NPE (Not Parent Expected) event will almost certainly come, initially, as an unwelcome shock to both of them.

    In an adoption scenario, half-siblings normally share the same mother but the same father would be most likely for the other two options. I would suggest that to test the half-sibling possibility, your relative and her match should examine the cousins they have "in common" to see if these cousins can be identified in either of their documented paternal or maternal lines.

    If neither of them can identify any of their other cousin matches as belonging to their paternal lines but can place matches on their maternal trees, it would suggest that they are half-siblings sharing the same (at this current time) unknown father.

    At that point it would be advisable for them to discuss with their parents, if they are still alive, how this situation might have arisen. Sometimes parents continue to hide past secrets behind a wall of lies and refuse to accept that the truth is out of the bag, but DNA simply doesn't lie. It may be possible for your relative and her close match to find the identity of their unknown common parent using the information from family trees provided by the DNA matches they have.

    It can be quite traumatic for people to discover later in life that their biological identity differs from the legal one they have grown up with (an all too common occurrence now that direct to consumer autosomal DNA tests are readily available) but there are online support groups for people dealing with misattributed parentage, which can be helpful.

    Deeny

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    Thank you both for your replies. I have suggested to my cousin your points and pointed her towards this thread. And yes the two testers were born within a few years of each other.

    Thanks again

    Mitch

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