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Old 31-12-18, 19:52
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Default DNA matches - how am I related to these people?!

I have a large group of shared DNA matches on ancestry with descendants of a couple called Hans Martin Grider (supposedly born about 1717 in Switzerland) and Catron Brake (supposedly born about 1719 in Germany), who married in 1746 in Virginia, USA. Some of the couple's grandchildren married children of another couple, Rice Medaris (supposedly born about 1745 in Virginia) and Rachel McPheeters (supposedly born about 1757 in Virginia.) I have DNA matches with descendants from those intermarriages, but also with descendants of Rice and Rachel down other lines, and with descendants of Hans Martin and Catron down other lines. Rice's parents are supposed to be John Thomas Medaris and Rachel Davis, both born in Virginia, and Rachel McPheeters' parents are supposed to be Charles McPeters and Mary Ann McDowell, both from Ireland.

Those intermarriages: Charles Medaris married Barbara Grider (daughter of John Grider and Isabel Blair) about 1796 in Kentucky.
James Grider (son of John Grider and Isabel Blair) married Sarah Medaris about 1804 in Kentucky.

So I would have thought this meant that one of my ancestors was descended from one of those Medaris /Grider pairs, but some of the DNA matches in this group are shared matches with someone who is related to me on the Bristow / Lucey lines (their ancestors being Charles Lucey born 1793, brother of my ancestor Ann Jane Lucey, and Elizabeth Catherine Bristow born 1793, sister of my ancestor Robert James Bristow). Which would suggest that the link was further back.

I keep saying "supposedly" because all the information I have about these people is from public trees. But a lot of the info on those particular trees must be right as it connected my DNA matches together.

So, any ideas please? I'm confused!
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Old 31-12-18, 20:06
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Not sure I've grasped it, Kate, but my immediate thought was - you may well be related to these people but that doesn't mean the names on their trees are correct. It all depends on how accurate their research has been.

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Old 31-12-18, 23:10
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Ideally I would pick one of the people on my match list who has both Grider and Medaris ancestors and has researched their tree back far enough, and contact them to ask if they can suggest the connection, but I don't think any of them fits those criteria. Maybe I can find someone who isn't on my match list to ask by looking through the public trees, and / or post a message on the Grider board on ancestry and see if anyone replies.
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Old 01-01-19, 10:47
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Maybe see who has a well researched tree back to Grider and Medaris and contact them. They may not have put details online for further back if it is not widely known to avoid useless matches.

I'd also contact the match that links your 2 branches to see what, if anything, they think/know.
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Old 01-01-19, 11:59
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Thanks, Toni. I'm going to see if I can check whether the people on the two separate branches are shared matches with each other first, and go through some more of the shared matches tracing them back to see what their connections are.
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Old 01-01-19, 12:30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kiterunner View Post
I'm going to see if I can check whether the people on the two separate branches are shared matches with each other first,
Answer - yes, they are.
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Old 02-01-19, 17:19
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Which I take to mean that the two families were related somehow before the two intermarriages that I know about, and that my connection is likely further back than those marriages. Maybe on the Lucey line as I have a couple of "Elizabeth Unknowns".
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Old 06-04-19, 12:09
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I'm still baffled by this. I have used the chromosome browsers on My Heritage and FamilyTreeDNA to look at some of the matches in this group and they share a certain part of chromosome 11 with me, and that is the same for the Grider / Medaris descendants and the Bristow / Lucey ones. I just can't figure out what the connection could be.
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Old 08-04-19, 06:45
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Check all your baptisms and marriages.

I had a match and couldn't work it out either, which is no shock, many can't be worked out but she had a surname I have. I took me a while as she hasn't gone back as far as I have but what I had missed on my tree was the eldest child in a marriage of my 3g grandfather's brother. I think that it had been missed when FMP released the first lot of records for the area and I hadn't relooked at that branch again.
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Old 08-04-19, 18:22
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I've got another one now!

I have two shared matches (both estimated as 4th-6th cousin) who are descended from different daughters of a couple called Francis Steer Hunter, born 1791 Stockwell, London / Surrey, and Mary Sealy, born about 1789-1792 Surrey. One of those daughters was married to a Henry Edwin Atkins. Now I find that another of my DNA matches (estimated 4th - 6th cousin) is descended from Henry Edwin Atkins's brother. This person does not come up as a shared match with the descendant of Henry Edwin Atkins, although they are 4th cousins to each other - I guess the amount of shared DNA they have must be below the cutoff point.

So I have DNA matches with both the Hunter family and the Atkins family, which I would have thought should mean that I was descended from the Atkins / Hunter couple - Henry Edwin Atkins and Elizabeth Hunter who married in 1845 in Lambeth. But they only seem to have had one surviving child, and even if I was descended from him (how?) I would be much more closely related to one of those DNA matches than ancestry estimates. But it seems too much of a coincidence if I'm related to the Atkins branch and the Hunter branch in separate ways. None of these families hung around in the same place for very long!
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