Dear Ann, In general, I agree with FTDNA's definition of an 11 cM match as being as closely related as a 4th cousin and as distantly related as a 20th cousin. However, an 11 cM match could still be a 3rd cousin and could also be more distantly related than a 20th cousin. My dad has matches at 23andMe who are from the Netherlands and Belgium. Since my dad's Mennonite ancestors left these countries prior to 1600 it seems probable that my dad is no more closely related than being an 15th cousin to these matches. One of my friends who has Croatian ancestry told me recently that he has a match at 23andMe from Iran. There are ancient connections between Iran and Croatia. It seems probable that the ancestor my friend and his match in Iran share lived at least 500 years ago and could have lived as much as 2000 or more years ago. See http://www.iranchamber.com/culture/articles/croatians_cravats_iranian_origin .php and http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/common_origin_croats_serbs_jats. php for additional background. It would be interesting to see examples of other people who appear to have genealogical connections more than 500 to 1000 years ago who match each other in 23andMe or Family Finder. The relative number of matches you will have for each genealogical level of relationship is a function to two primary variables: the percentage of your relatives who have been tested and the total number of living descendents of the ancestors in question. If you have a lot of 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th cousins then you will have quite a few matches in the various databases if a significant percentage of these cousins have tested. A paper that attempted to look at this issue may be found at http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.10015 55. One of the authors, Graham Coop, has a blog about this paper at http://gcbias.org/2013/05/10/peter-and-is-european-genetic-genealogy-paper-i s-out/. The best way to try to discern the relative degree of genealogical relationship between two people who share an 11 cM HIR is to test more first, second, and third cousins of the two matches on the shared ancestral line. You then average the cMs of the HIRs that these people all share. See my Youngman project summary at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21841126/Youngman%20DNA%20summary.doc for an example of how this can be done. This approach only works if the group of people you are testing do not come from an endogamous population. You can't take a similar approach with groups such as Low German Mennonites or Jews since there are simply too many shared genealogical connections in the background that skew the results. You would need to test quite a few people from different lines of descent (at least 20 or more) in order to establish a genealogical relationship in the range of 6th cousin once removed using this method. Another approach to your problem is to attempt to do what I call "walking the segment back in time" on a chromosome map. With this approach you try to find other people who have a 2nd to 5th cousin genealogical relationship to your match or you on the same ancestral line that you believe the match and you are related on. You then hope that these people share the exact same segment that your match and you share. I recently "walked a segment" back one more generation in time. My uncle shares a segment with one of his paternal first cousins. His pedigree chart is at http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=janzen&id=I13. A year ago I tested one of his 5th cousins. The 5th cousin, the first cousin, and my uncle share the same segment. These people all descend from Isaac Zane (b.1753) and Myeerah (b. 1757). See http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=janzen&id=I30&styl e=TABLE for their pedigree chart. I recently got a match at 23andMe who is a 6th cousin of my uncle. This match descends from Isaac Zane's brother Ebenezer Zane (b. 1747). This allowed me to map the shared segment back one more generation to Isaac Zane on my uncle's chromosome map. If you are lucky you might be able to find a 4th or 5th cousin on the same ancestral line who shares the same segment that your mom's match shares with your mom. This would help you feel more comfortable about the hypothesized genealogical relationship at the 6th cousin once removed level of relationship. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of AGilchrest@aol.com Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2013 8:36 AM To: autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] 4th-remote cousin how close Hello, FTDNA defines the 4th-remote cousin could be as close as 4th cousin or as far as 20th cousin. My mom has a match in this suggested range. I don't match. The match is on chromosome 17, 11.01 cM and 1996 SNPs. Because the cM are above 10 and the SNPs are almost 2000 can I assume that the relationship is closer to the 4th cousin than farther away? The reason I ask is, the matches paper trail goes to a family line that I have suspected my line goes to. If my earliest known ancestors unknown father is a brother to the son of the matches earliest known ancestor then the relationship between the match and my mother would be 6th cousin once removed. Thank you Ann G.