I reached out to Paul as an exact match with 0 Distance in Family Tree DNA. I found Paul compelling because he said he had a Wikitree account and provided a Gedmatch number to compare autosomal genes. I set the meter back to 3cM because I'll automatically see the trace useless results, but then I'll also get results that often spread down over 10 chromosomes. At this setting Paul and I matched 72 cMs over 19 segments...that's more than coincidence.
My personal tree stretches back at least 8 generations back on a good 75% on both sides, so I began a chromosomal map on DNAPainter. I am a paid member on both MyHeritage and Geni to take advantage of their relationship with ftDNA. The benefit of MyHeritage and Geni is they have easy access to many of its members' DNA so I was able to upload a lot of relatives' information and sort their connection to which parent they're related to as well as an estimate as how distant a cousin they are to me.
On paper, so far, Paul and I have nobody in common. ??? but there's all that DNA snaking up my mother's tree. At least in Wikitree there was a relationship path but even that was strange. He is 18 degree separated from my Father in connection through his daugher in law's mother. That made me smile. Paul is actually from Illinois so it makes sense his family is from up north (I'm from Chicago). My father's family comes from Pennsylvania which tracks, but my mother's family and ancestors come out of Georgia which makes his maternal relationship with my mother very strange.
According to Wikitree's Relationship Finder, Paul is my 14th Cousin on his mother's paternal side...I would predict a closer relationship to Paul with our match at 72cMs over 19 segments. I'm assuming there are paths to be further bridged between us? I am verifying that there will be an MRCA up my mother's maternal branch following our mtDNA?
