Dawn (Robuck) Uribe

Your questions are good ones, and here are my responses: Q1: “Since we have a common ancestor according to Wiki Tree, we should have matching DNA, correct?” A1: Not necessarily…since our common ancestor shares our common paternal surname (mine should be Benefiel(d)) then barring non-paternity events or unrecorded adoptions somewhere along the genealogical linkage between us, we should definitely have matching Y-chromosomal DNA, which is passed down relatively unchanged from father to son across generations, and therefore if you have Y-DNA results on a first-degree male relative who is a descendant of Catherine Benefield that can be compared to mine, we can find out. Q2: “When I compare our DNA on GEDMatch, it says no matching segments found. Comparing Kit M396023 (*mgbissell) and M464387 (Dawn Uribe) Largest segment = 0.0 cM Total of segments > 7 cM = 0.0 cM (2181) No shared DNA segments found So that means something is incorrect in the tree?” A2: Again, Not necessarily…since the DNA we have both uploaded to GEDMatch is Autosomal DNA which, according to Mendel’s Laws is randomly distributed between the paternal and maternal DNA segment contributions to the offsprings’ genomes at each generation, in other words, autosomal DNA is shuffled and dealt out like cards in a poker game for each new child and the contribution of either original parent is completely diluted out by 8 generations down line on average such that “No shared DNA segments found” would actually be expected statistically at that point, but bear in mind that since this gene shuffling is totally random, such dilution could easily also happen after 5 generations as in our case. Of course, as you say, and as mentioned in my A1 above, another possible explanation is a clerical error, non-paternity event or unrecorded adoption in one or the other tree, which can be hard very to pin down. Let me know if this helps, and if you have any more questions or concerns.

Your presumptive cousin, Mike Bissell (WikiTree ID = [Bissell-517])

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Just a quick PS

Don't forget to Head over to the G2G forum. and take a minute to introduce yourself in the Tree House or ask a question in any of the other categories. There's also a brickwall tag in the G2G forum: for that "special" ancestor who is eluding you.

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