I have an unknown 4th-6th (or greater?) cousin with 50+cm (one segment)

Question

Greetings.

On my father's side I'm blessed with three individuals who have researched the paternal and maternal trees over the past 60 years.  One of them was able to interview my paternal GGF (Dawson-10126) back in the 1960s, and I have a good grasp on the descendants of my GGF's aunts/uncles and his great aunt.

There are a slew of clusters of DNA matches that must be from that side, and prior to Dawson-14991 (b. 1816) and Lawrence-21902 (b. 1819) (aka Sam and Mary) the family has been at a brick wall since the 1960s.

I have a DNA match who matches with known descendants of Sam and Mary where we share one segment of over 50cm.  I'm not sure of the etiquette of posting names, but I'm researching this individuals family tree is pretty straight forward.  I can see several of his cousins and second cousins as matches, so I have an idea which branch of his family tree to follow, and it's nearly walking distance from where Sam and Mary lived (in the early 1800s).

Has anyone else had a huge single segment like this before?   I think it's 58cm unweighted, and 57cm weighted.

Thanks in advance for anyone that provides any insight.  I'm trying to use DNA to advance the hard work that was done over the past 60 years.

Answer 1

If they are living and not a Wikitree member their names should not be posted due to the Privacy rules, even if they are on Wikitree asking their permission to post would be a good thing to do.

Answer 2

I am a fan of researching "Triangulation Groups" of dna cousins who all match each other on the same chromosome segment.  

If you share multiple segments with a dna match then it's possible to be a more distant cousin who has multiple sets of ancestors in common.  Researching each TG group on it's own can help to possibly find a set of common ancestors for the group of cousins.

The DNA Painter website had some free tools to help organize genetic genealogy matches.  Along with WikiTree as a great place to help research ancestors and keep track of research notes.

Good luck in your research!