DNA updates: relative matches for Mom

Within hours of the health results arriving, the genetic matches became available for my mother at 23andme.  She has around 1000 matches, same as I do.  My paper research has so far uncovered only Irish roots.  The matches in the database are mostly not Irish.  This tells me that I have a lot more paper research to do.

For those of you who are wondering about privacy concerns and revealing unknown children or parents, we now appear as a potential "parent or child" match in the database.  Our identities were hidden and our matches were described as "close" until we consented to be revealed to each other.  Before consenting to be revealed, the website cautioned that the information may be welcome to some, disturbing to others.

Aside from me, my mother's closest match shares about 1.5% of her DNA.  I sent her a request to share.  It is up to this person to consent.  She can ignore us or reject the request, and there will be no way of knowing who she is.  To compare, my closest match shares about 0.6% of my DNA.

For the 100 people who consented to share genomes with me, I am able to compare my results with them and with my mother.  I started with my closest match, who is not my mother's closest match, by the way.  I am a little confused by the results.

It would seem that I am related to this person on my mother's side.  All three of us match on two areas.  My mother has an additional matching segment, which is okay- it just means that I did not inherit this particular segment from my mother.  The part that confuses me is how I match this distant cousin on chromosome 1- but my mother does not share this connection.  Does this mean that this person is also related to my father?  His results are not available yet.

I anticipate a lot more work ahead.