Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- How Many Autosomal DNA Matches Descend From Your Eight 2nd-Great-Grandparents?

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision. 

1)  How many autosomal DNA matches do you have descended from your eight 2nd-great-grandparents (they would be your third cousins)?  Do you know how they are related to you?  Have you corresponded with them?  Why are your numbers high or low?

2)  Share the number of your autosomal DNA matches for each of your 2GGP, and answer my questions above on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a Comment on this blog.  Share the link to yourpost on this blog, so readers can respond.

Here's mine:

The number of autosomal DNA matches I have on AncestryDNA (using the numbers from ThruLines) with a known common 2nd great-grandparent is:

• Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) and Lucretia Smith (1828-1884):    2
• Edward Hildreth (1831-1899) and Sophia Newton (1834-1923):   2
• James Richman (1821-1913) and Hannah Rich (1824-1912):  23
• Henry A. White (1824-1885) and Amy Oatley (1826-1864):   17

• D.J. Carringer (1828-1902) and Rebecca Spangler (1832-1901):  0
• Devier J. Smith (1839-1894) and Abigail A. Vaux (1844-1931):   0
• David Auble (1817-1894) and Sarah Knapp (1818-1904):    1
• James A. Kemp (1831-1902) and Mary Jane Sovereen (1840-1876):   13

TOTAL:  58 (44 paternal, 14 maternal)  

However, some matches are the same for two different 2nd great-grandparents.  For instance, the two matches for the Seaver/Smith and Hildreth/Newton couples are descendants of my grandparents.  And five matches for both Richman/Rich and White/Oatley descend from my great-grandparents Richman/White.

The number of autosomal DNA matches I have on MyHeritage DNA  with a known common 2nd great-grandparent is:

• Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) and Lucretia Smith (1828-1884):    2
• Edward Hildreth (1831-1899) and Sophia Newton (1834-1923):   2
• James Richman (1821-1913) and Hannah Rich (1824-1912):  4
• Henry A. White (1824-1885) and Amy Oatley (1826-1864):   4

• D.J. Carringer (1828-1902) and Rebecca Spangler (1832-1901):  0
• Devier J. Smith (1839-1894) and Abigail A. Vaux (1844-1931):   0
• David Auble (1817-1894) and Sarah Knapp (1818-1904):    0
• James A. Kemp (1831-1902) and Mary Jane Sovereen (1840-1876):   1

TOTAL MyHeritageDNA:  13 (12 paternal, 1 maternal)

I have a few other 3rd cousins or closer on 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA.

A1:  I have traced the lines from my 3rd cousins (and closer) back to the common ancestors, and entered them into my family tree in RootsMagic.  There are some matches that might be third cousins or closer (with more than, say, 50 cM shared DNA) that I have not been able to trace to find the common ancestor.  

A2:  I have corresponded with several of my cousins who descend from my 2nd great-grands, but not with all.  

A3:  The numbers are high or low for three reasons - some ancestors had large or small families (Richman/Rich and Kemp/Sovereen are the major ones); some families had a cluster of siblings that tested; some DNA matches do not have a significant online family tree.

My number of matches are really low here because my mother was an only child, and her parents were only children.  My closest DNA matches on my mother's side are 2nd and 3rd cousins.

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