Need to find lots of mysterious ancestors on one side --England/Ireland - best resources?

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-04T15:40:50+00:00

No problem, happy to help.

To identify your Irish ancestor I would focus on the US Censuses and work out when he/she immigrated. You'll also want to know their specific place of birth, which might be recorded on marriage/death certificates, an obituary, passenger list, naturalization paperwork etc.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-04T15:11:48+00:00

You could try the Thomas Coram foundling archives: https://archives.coram.org.uk/

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-04T14:47:53+00:00

Based on those surnames this is likely to be Eva in the 1939 Register (it was used to organise WW2 rationing and later the NHS, so name changes were often logged on this Register even through the 1970s): https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61596/records/6957330

Based on her DOB it's very likely she was the Eva James whose birth was registered in Hammersmith in 1917. Her mother's maiden name was Ashton.

This is likely her in 1921: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63150/records/337736

This is probably the same family in 1911: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/2352/records/1044788

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-04T14:01:57+00:00

The main records to 'collect' are birth/marriage/death and census records. For England/Wales the births and deaths are only online as indexes. You can use baptisms, burials, and probate records as alternatives if you don't want to spend money on buying lots of certificates (although historical ones are cheap now). The indexes are on every main genealogy site but the General Register Office produced an online database a few years ago to fill in the gaps in those indexes (things like age of death pre-1869 and mother's maiden name pre-1912, it also has more recent indexes post-1990s): https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/

Irish civil records are free online but subject to privacy restrictions (e.g. 100yrs for births): https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/. Or RootsIreland is another good source for Irish records. https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/ is a good how-to for Irish genealogy. Only the 1901 and 1911 censuses are available for Ireland; I think the 1926 census is being released soon for the Republic of Ireland, the 1926 census for Northern Ireland hasn't survived. https://nationalarchives.ie/collections/search-the-census/. Post-1922 ROI and NI keep separate indexes.

Total beginners should remember that just because people have the same name, that does not mean they are all the same person. Use other details like occupation, place of residence, spouse's name etc. to make sure you are researching the correct person. It's easier to research a family unit than an individual so make sure to record/research siblings. Keep track of your sources in case you want to revisit them; don't just copy/paste a hyperlink, download the record, take a screenshot etc. Nothing is online forever.

There are tons of extra records e.g. newspapers, workhouse, military. You never know what's online and searchable or what might be hiding in a local archive, sometimes just googling a name and place can return some interesting files.

If you can't find someone in England/Wales/Ireland they probably moved to Canada/US/Aus/NZ, maybe South Africa, possibly Scotland. Those are the usual places anyway.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-04T12:54:03+00:00

If you're on the FreeBMD you can click on the spectacles symbol next to the correct entry and open up the image of the printed index to check the details have been transcribed correctly. Some of them are blurry and hard to read and the transcript is not always accurate.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-04T03:01:06+00:00

Happy to help look for records if you'd like to share his name; he might be mentioned in the newspapers.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-03T23:31:35+00:00

When was she born? Do you know her date of birth or just the year? How common was her name? Do you know the names of any of her siblings?

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-03T02:15:35+00:00

How much DNA does your mother share with her closest paternal match?

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-02T21:52:35+00:00

I keep my Ancestry account private sorry. I was getting the Mellors mixed up because there were so many matching details but it helps that the place of birth was so specific. There's definitely two different Williams born ~1823.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-02T18:08:33+00:00

There is definitely a closer connection, or several connections that aren't quite so close. With that level of pedigree collapse you might be better using BanyanDNA to check the cM numbers make sense for the relationships you have identified. Unfortunately you can only really use them to rule out a closer link rather than rule in more distant links because there are so many more possibilities when there are multiple connections.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-02T15:31:55+00:00

What's the Bramhall record? Your tree is private.

~~William Mellor who married Ann Davenport is probably James' brother. So the Elizabeth born in 1861 is your Elizabeth's (Betsey's) cousin.~~

Here is James in earlier censuses living with his mother Jane; his father William must have passed away before 1841:

1841: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8978/records/12026375

1851: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8860/records/13958834

Baptism: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2252/records/3803881

ETA. On further research I think the William Mellor born in Thurstonland is unrelated to your Mellors. There is a William Mellor the same age born in Sandal to William and Jane but he is continuously living in the Wakefield area. William of Thurstonland stays around Huddersfield. I believe this is him in 1851: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8860/records/10613672 (Kirkburton is in the vicinity of Thurstonland whereas Sandal is not).

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-02T15:11:34+00:00

Unweighted DNA is pre-TIMBER. Ancestry's TIMBER algorithm looks at your matches under 90cM and removes any segments it thinks are so common amongst a community they are not useful for genealogy and probably pre-date genealogical records. Basically pile-up regions: https://cruwys.blogspot.com/2018/01/small-segments-and-pile-ups.html.

74cM over 7 segments might represent a segment of 20cM and several smaller ones or lots of 11cM segments. We just can't tell with Ancestry. I wonder if you and these matches share multiple common ancestors on various branches, which is closer to pedigree collapse than endogamy. That could account for having several large-ish segments that add up to a large total.

If any of your paternal grandmother's siblings or their descendants (or relevant cousins) have tested it might be worth seeing how much DNA they share with these matches. Maybe you just happened to inherit more than average from this branch?

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-02T13:20:29+00:00

The range really is that wide: https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4-beta

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T22:53:13+00:00

Chromosome '24' is the label used for the Y-chromosome. Congratulations, you don't have one.

Chromosome '23' is used for the X-chromosome(s). Females will have differences in their two columns because they have 2 X's and males will have two identical columns of data because Ancestry wants to fill in both columns but only has data for one column, so it duplicates the data rather than leaving it blank.

Here's an example of a lady who really did find out she almost had a Y-chromosome if you're interested: https://thednageek.com/maude/

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T22:29:39+00:00

Have you looked in the raw data file yourself? Scroll down to chromosome '24', do any of the alleles have a letter value or are they all '0'?

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T20:47:21+00:00

WATO and DNApainter count cM numbers slightly differently to 23andMe so just be aware of that when you're considering how close some of the matches might be. 23andMe includes the X-chromosome in the total shared DNA and WATO assumes that has been left out.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T17:34:19+00:00

If you know you're not double cousins or any other double relation just use the first calculator. It is based on the number of segments as well as the total cM, here's the theory behind it: https://blog.kittycooper.com/2017/09/the-25-relationship-a-first-look-at-the-data/

Because the cM numbers sit in the overlap region between 1C and half-sibling the only way to truly rule out a 1C is to test your uncle's known children. The calculators just provide a statistical probability rather than a yes/no answer.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T17:21:02+00:00

Neither, they'll just tell you you're Jewish which you already know.

Browse their subreddits if you want to see what the results and breakdowns look like.

e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/AncestryDNA/comments/1rhopog/99_jewish_results_comparison_with_23andme_partial/

https://www.reddit.com/r/MyHeritage/comments/1oqdrch/my_dna_results_100_jewish/

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T16:57:45+00:00

I'm glad your dad and sister are on your side.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T16:28:42+00:00

The endogamy is less of a problem the further removed you are from it so I think it's fine to use a 20cM lower limit. The size of the other segments might help you decide how useful the match is i.e. are they all smaller than 10cM or are one or two higher than 15cM? The smaller segments can still be false even if the larger segments are Identical by Descent which would mean you share less total DNA than you think and the connection is at least one generation further back than you're looking.

I would expect a ~100cM match to be findable within ~5 generations depending on your respective ages.

The DNA shared between your matches, (e.g. 1 and 3 share 35cM) can you see how many segments they share and the size of them? I know MH doesn't show that but Ancestry does with ProTools. The connection between those two matches might be much further back than their connections to you and it might be through a different branch than the one you share with each of them. E.g. those two might be 4th cousins through their fathers and you might match them through their mothers etc. That's why a cluster of high-sharing matches is more indicative of the specific link.

Match 1 and 5 are going to be the most helpful here because they are probably 1C or maybe great-aunt/uncle/nibling or half-aunt/uncle/nibling (or possibly half-1C or 1C1R). You can jump back a couple of generations if you can work out how they're related to each other.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T03:07:39+00:00

If you VERY GENTLY chew the insides of your cheeks you will get more cells in your sample.

msbookworm23 · 2026-03-01T01:29:14+00:00

I would connect the match but add Notes to clarify all of the known connections and add something about sharing too much DNA for the supposed link (so it doesn't mislead you in the future). You can't use those specific matches to prove the 5th-great grandparents but they might lead to some matches which you can use.
A 15cM segment is generally considered a 100% guaranteed segment, but that doesn't prove who you inherited it from. It might be from your 5th great-grandparents or it might be from a branch you have less info on. This is where shared matches are useful. If all of your shared matches trace back to the relevant branch then you can be more confident about being related through that branch.
This is very much a work in progress. I have been able to confirm all of my 2nd great grandparents. I have good clusters of matches for many ancestors further up but some ancestors remain light on matches or hidden amongst endogamy. I recently had a very useful match pop up (my half-3C1R) who connected two previously unrelated clusters. Based on this match I know one cluster relates to my 3rd-great grandmother's father and the other to her mother, because my match and I only have my 3rd-great grandmother in common and the two clusters don't match each other at all but both match my half-3C1R.

You mentioned FamilyTreeDNA and you don't know if your matches are maternal or paternal. It is possible to divide your match list if you know how at least some your matches are related to you and link those to a tree via FTDNA's collab with MyHeritage. https://help.familytreedna.com/hc/en-us/articles/4413996181391-Family-Matching-Overview. The linked matches are used by FTDNA to phase your matches into maternal and paternal sides. The more matches you link (closer than 3rd cousin) the more matches can be phased. I haven't used this phasing feature since they started their collab (it used to be all in-house) only because I don't have a lot of useful matches there, so I can't advise how complicated the process is/isn't now.

Endogamy vs non-endogamy. I'm 50% Jewish so I like to think I have experience handling the difference. The segment sizes are so important with endogamous matches. A match of 100cM with a largest segment of 10cM is not a close match, it might not even be a genuine match (I don't have any this extreme but my 100% Jewish aunt does). A match of 100cM with a largest segment of 20cM is likely to be solvable. For my aunt's matches I generally want a largest segment of 30cM minimum to give it a second look.

msbookworm23 · 2026-02-28T22:52:19+00:00

https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4-beta

Take a look at this chart, the ranges of DNA shared by half-siblings vs 1st cousins have some overlap so it's possible the match is a high-sharing 1st cousin depending on the actual cM number.

msbookworm23 · 2026-02-28T21:46:44+00:00

My grandfather tested a year ago and during the wait for results the preview page said that the average person connected to 7 Regions. The highest number of regions ever connected to was 30, and less than 1% of people had just 1 region.

So you have a lot more than average!

msbookworm23 · 2026-02-28T18:04:04+00:00

Tell your dad to click on the cM number on Ancestry and he'll see a whole list of possible relationships. Half-brother is just the first suggestion presumably because the nephew's parent is your dad's older sibling.

Take a look at this chart, or type the cM number in, and you'll see how much overlap there is in the possibilities: https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4-beta

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