DNA triangulation

Question

I have been working on a puzzle for the past few months, that started with a discovery that one of the persons in my tree (Floyd Lester Hanson) had somewhat mysterious  parentage. His "Parents" had gotten married 2 years *after* he was born, and both had been married previously.  After digging, and DNA tests, I am pretty confident that his presumed *mother* is indeed his birth-mother....  there are multiple DNA matches that show up on Ancestry and gedmatch that connect 2 of Floyd Lester's children to descendants of his maternal grandparents.

His father is not quite as clear cut.  While we *can't* find a DNA match to any Hanson descendants of his paternal grandparents, that isn't particularily useful... mostly because we don't know any personally that aren't also descendant from his mother. This is sort of expected, since we are now pretty sure he is not descendant of that line.

His *new* possibly presumed father is a Charles Hughbanks. And we *have* Ancestry DNA matched his children with *one* cousin from this line...  not very definitive. This cousin is *not* on gedmatch (yet).  Now the funny thing is that with the help of WikiTree, we have identified a significant number of more distant cousins that have been DNA tested.  None of them are a direct match, *but* all the DNA tests have significant numbers of "Cousins In Common" per gedmatch.  I would like to think this gives me some kind of proof... however, using myself as a control sample, I find that *I* have DNA cousins in common with some of the same people (This is my wife's line, not my own) so that poured cold water on it.

Anybody have any clever ideas on moving forward?

Comments

If Charles Hughbanks really is the father of Floyd Hanson, I would expect that the tested descendants of Hughbanks would include some half-third cousins or closer relatives of Floyd's descendants. The results (from Gedmatch, not Ancestry) could be compared with data from Blaine Bettinger and others on the DNA match likely at various degrees of relationship.

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Hi Ellen,

I googled Blaine Bettinger and it showed me some Genealogist results...  Are you saying this person is Hughbanks related, or just that they have subject matter expertise?

The closest relative ID'd by WikiTree+Gedmatch is a 1/2 3rd cousin of Floyd's two children, neither of which is a match... however according to the statistics I have seen, there was only a 50-50 chance of this match in the first place (if the relationship is correct).

Answer 1

Hi Brian, Ellen isn't saying that Blaine is related to Charles, she is instead directing you to Blaine's shared cM project which gives you an expected range of cM DNA you would likely share with a relative by their relationship to you. I like using Blaine's chart on ISOGG https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_statistics so if you find a 2nd cousin or closer relative of Charles and Floyd's they would be guaranteed to match, anyone less than 2nd cousin may or may not match but up to 4th cousin 2x removed there is still an average chance of a match.