The other day, while perusing the latest update from Ancestry.com, one name and number caught my eye. In case you haven’t gotten your own DNA report yet, I should explain that it evolves over time as more and more people’s data comes online.
Like any information network, this DNA registry becomes more powerful as it expands, yielding new insights that never before were possible, let alone accessible. Today the Ancestry network claims it has data on 25 million people.
Among those are hundreds of people I share some percentage of DNA with, and the names at the top of the list were all familiar. It’s a simple matter of math: My children share 50 percent of my DNA, my grandchildren share ~25 percent of my DNA, my first cousins share ~12.5 percent of my DNA and so forth down the line.
The range for first cousins is actually 7.31–13.8 percent; my late cousin Dan Anderson, for example, shared 13 percent of my DNA.
Well, downlist the number that caught by eye was 8 percent, but the name attached, Stephanie Weir, represents a complete mystery to me. Was she a first cousin? I don’t see how that could be possible.
A first cousin, once removed? This does seem within the realm of the possible, as following the deaths of my parents, my sisters and I have lost track of a few cousins on my father’s side — the Weirs.
(I first published this one a year ago.)
A first cousin, once removed, would share between 2-11.5 percent DNA with the average being 6.6 percent. Since she shares 8 percent with me, Stephanie, wherever she may be, is almost definitely a first cousin, once removed.
I contacted my sisters, none of whom knew of any Stephanie in the family either. But we have all lost contact with my Dad’s brother Bill’s four sons, one of whom likely was responsible for Stephanie, one must assume.
For now, the mystery lies there, unsolved. Further digging clearly will be necessary to connect up the dots. Should I one day get around to that, there are apparently a few other potential first cousins, once removed, and second cousins out there, sharing 2-5 percent of their DNA with me.
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