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My father was adopted and, while I’ve had my DNA tested, he is not quite ready to do so. I’ve found some fairly close matches, one that shares 9.8% (692.7 cM) and another that shares 14.4% (979 cM). The two men share fathers, so are first cousins to each other. Neither matches my mother.

This info is from two different websites, so I can’t compare them to each other that way. One of them (I’m assuming the 14.4% one due to ages of the parties, etc) is probably my dad's half sibling.

If so, the high percentage of the other party at 9.8% is confusing, is it possible he is a second cousin to me with a percentage that high?

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If your matches are willing, have them upload their raw data files to Gedmatch. It's free. That way you can compare them to each other. As you have clarified, the matches are first cousins to each other and neither has any match with your mom.

The higher match, with 979 cM, can be related to you in multiple ways. Using the Shared cM Project for numbers. These ways include the following (I've included the relationship your dad would be in parenthesis).

  • Great grandparent (grandparent) (I assume you can rule this out by age).
  • Half aunt/uncle/niece/nephew (half-sibling).
  • Great aunt/uncle/niece/nephew (uncle/nephew).
  • First cousin (uncle/nephew).

The lower match, with 692 cM, could be your:

  • Half aunt/uncle/niece/nephew.
  • Half great aunt/uncle/niece/nephew.
  • Half first cousin.
  • Great grandparent.
  • Great aunt/uncle/niece/nephew.
  • Great great aunt/uncle/niece/nephew.
  • First cousin.
  • First cousin once removed.

It is not possible he is your second cousin as that range is 46-515 cM, much too low.

Since we know that the men are first cousins, we can definitively rule out the ones we already ruled out by age: grandparent and great grandparent. But a lot of the other possibilities still hold.

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  • Thank you so much for your response. I do know they should be related because their fathers were brothers. I was trying to be brief and left out this valuable info! Of course they may not be, as all kinds of things are possible, but they are not related on my moms side -she has done the dna testing too and there is zero relationship. My concern is that it seemed impossible that those two weren’t more closely related given the high percentage relationship to me, but if the second could be a first once removed that would work. 9.8% seems high for that though doesn’t it?
    – Wendy
    Jan 26, 2019 at 8:36
  • Hey @Wendy I edited your question and my answer to reflect your very important additional info. While I could analyze every combination of relationships with you to see if it works with first cousin for them, it's just too much. Get more info to narrow down the choices and a pattern will start to emerge. Good luck.
    – Cyn
    Jan 27, 2019 at 2:02

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