These discussions of which side matches are coming from are so interesting, and so baffling. I have yet to be able to figure out any of my own matches. Two I think I did but since we could not be positive on at least one generation, I couldn't claim them to a specific degree of cousinship. Anyway, after reading some of the recent discussion(s), I should be safe in telling someone to mainly concentrate on those matches over 10cM just to be sure. And if/when those are all exhausted, to try the remaining ones over 7cM. Does that sound right? They should start by looking at the matches with the largest segments. So if two FF tested people share a mother, the mother is deceased and untested, have different fathers, only one father could be tested and is, those matches in common for the two 1/2 siblings that the father of the one sibling does NOT have, and 10cM or over, SHOULD be from the shared mother. Right? I don't want to confuse them too much with the IBD and IBS 7cM gray area to start with. It's already confusing since the mother is a distant cousin of the tested father, making the one half sibling cousin to the other half sibling's father. Since the MRCA of the mother and the one father would have to be from the early 1700s though, those matching segments should be pretty small? I think I tried to ask this same thing last week, but didn't get an answer. I 'think' I'm asking it in a better way this time but I may still be talking gibberish :) melissa