DNA Triangulation Help

Question

Hello everyone,

I have a question concerning DNA Triangulation and confirmation of DNA descandants.

I have a match with my fifth cousin from my fahters side. Both of us are in a direct paternal line to our commen ancestor [[Johannes Wilhelm Behler|https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Behler-91]]. The family tree to this point is pretty well documented and the match at myHeritage is even suggesting he is my thrid cousin since we share a rahter large DNA segment of 66 cM.

Reading the DNA Traingulation page and specifically the three legged stool segment I was looking for another descandant that might also share the DNA segment in order to get DNA confirmation until my 4th GreatGrandparent.

Wilhelm had 4 children. I am decenent of the younger brother of my matches thrid GreatGrandfather. The two sisters either died young or never married to my knowledge.

Going one step further my ancestors children also died young or never married except for my direct ancestor and the same goes for my matches ancestor.

Going a generation back only our commen ancestor is found in the chruch book so this doesn't work either,

I have a match to my second cousin, but she is his fifth cousin as well, since she is descandant from my part of the family tree.

Any idea how I could still confirm the DNA relation to our common ancestor?

Thanks in advance

Jörg

Answer 1

YDNA testing could help, since you're both in the paternal line. And I don't see any reason you couldn't use your 2nd cousin, if you all match on the same location.

Comments

The DNA Traingulation Help page says the three contestants common ancestors should not be more than 1 generation away from each other. Using my second cousin there is a two generation gap.

Unnfortunately we only tested autosomal by now.

Answer 2

You can't do a triangulation for confirmation on Wikitree, but you can put a DNA research note on the relevant profiles, you can only do a simple confirmation back to your shared greatgrandparents with your 2nd cousin

Answer 3

It looks like you may need to expand some of your tree outwards to include other descendants of Behler-91. From what I can see, there are several descendants that could allow for the triangulation you seek, but they may not yet be on Wikitree or may not have taken a DNA test yet.  I see that you are on GEDmatch.  This is good because there are a lot of folks that have tested with other companies may do the same.

What I would recommend doing is to try to fill out the other descendants of Behler-91 to see if they are in any of the DNA databases. They may have a different surname than yours so don't rely on just that. The vast majority of those at my 5th cousin level do not share my surname at any point until we reach that common ancestor.

Good luck!

Answer 4

I would second Ken's suggestion of expanding your tree, especially around Johannes Behler. In addition to the advantages Ken mentioned it may also help encourage an unknown relative to further explore their ancestry.

I would also approach this from the DNA end by researching those people who have triangulated matches with you and your 5th cousin. MyHeritage makes it very easy to identify triangulated matches. Triangulated matches with multiple matching segments may also lead to other DNA segments that may have been inherited from Johannes Behler, though you have to be careful of the effects of any endogamy. You can get similar information from GEDmatch either through the tier 1 tool for triangulation groups or by using the "People who match both, or 1 of 2 kits" tool and then reviewing the closest matches individually to see if they triangulate. Then you need to see if they have trees posted or hope they'll respond to requests for information on their tree.

The yDNA test could be useful, but to get any sort of reliable evidence would require at least a couple of rather expensive tests. Unfortunately, the less expensive tests won't do much to prove your relationship, though they could provide some extra support (or not).

Best of luck.