Linda, My advice is to take Tim's advice. You don't have enough data to make a call yet. So move on to another segment (I estimate you will need to find about 500 MRCAs on 7-20cM segments to map your genome to the most distant ancestors possible with the current technology). To solve this segment you need more matches on it - you can get them by: 1. Testing at other companies 2. Using GEDmatch 3. Recruiting known close relatives to also test. The DNA, and your Matches, are random - sometimes the segment is easy to determine, sometimes it's not. Jim Bartlett On 10/03/13, Linda Boorom<lboorom@fuse.net> wrote: Tim, I have thus far tested myself, both of my parents, the only 2 living siblings of my maternal grandmother, & a 3rd cousin descended from my grandmother's father's brother (3rd cousin to me). Results are pending for both of my mother's brothers. My grandmother had 8 full siblings, all with large families. I could attempt to contact those still living, their probable results would be interesting as for the most part, my grandmother's siblings married distant cousins. I admin. a Family Finder Project for this surname to which we now have 40 members from a dozen or so different lines, most which have a brick wall in trying to surpass the lack of any paper trail in the 1700's back to Peter the immigrant. Many between the different linages match others in the project (and others not yet in the project) not even to mention the amazing number of matches in common between members. But, back to the match in question. The most distant ancestor for each of the 3 Project Members was born in MD 1775-1785. One line migrated from MD to AL by 1810, the other 2 to KY in the same time frame. Of the 2 to KY, they lived in different counties and only my line stayed in KY. The son of the 3rd mda migrated to CA. It's remote that any of the 3 share a common ancestor previous to 1775 or there abt. Of my personal relatives tested, (not incl. my father!) all but one of my great aunts match the gentleman whose branch went to AL. Both great aunts and 3rd cousin match the gentleman whose branch went to CA. Back to chromosone 14 and the segment in qiestion. Only the 1 great aunt matches both gentlemen. Neither great aunt match each other on 14 until after this segment. The 2nd great aunt has 2 matches in this area. One with a cousin through her fathers mother, the other through her mother's mother. Since the 2 sisters don't match each other here, I am presuming that the first great aunt's DNA is from either of her 2 grandfather's & not her 2 grandmother's My mother & I match the first great aunt overlapping this segment, but even through we both match the AL gentleman on other segments, we don't match him on this segment and neither of us match the CA gentleman at all. At this time, there aren't any other matches to compare and determine for certainty which grandfather. It's certainly possible it c/b the maternal grandfather, as he too is a brick wall of mine going back to the same time period in MD. However, because of the common surname shared by all 3, it seems more likely that my great aunts DNA on this segment came from her father's father. HELP! Linda ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Janzen" <[1]tjanzen@comcast.net> To: <[2]autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 5:36 PM Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Matches with a common surname > Dear Linda, > It sounds like you are making progress, but perhaps you don't have enough > data to draw any firm conclusions yet about the genealogical relationships > involved. If you can't prove the genealogical connection now then I would > keep testing cousins of these people on the same lines of descent you are > interested in. Hopefully, that will eventually allow you to draw firmer > conclusions. However, proving a genealogical connection to someone in the > 1600s using autosomal DNA is still challenging at this point. We need to > have better chromosome maps for people linking phased segments back in the > 1700s before we can really start reaching back into the 1600s with > certainty. > Tim Janzen References 1. mailto:tjanzen@comcast.net 2. mailto:autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com