Can someone help me write a letter please

[Lensgirl]

Hi

I have now received the DNA results for my mum and a person who I matched to now matches as either an uncle or half brother to my mum. This person is almost 80 and I want to be respectful, so was hoping someone could help with wording please

[Anne in Carlisle]

Well, the good thing is that they have taken a test themselves so presumably might be expecting some contact. Although there's a lot of disappointment on another thread.

Why not rough out the sort of thing you want to say and let folks make suggestions? You might want it moved to the Sensitive thread.
Anne

[maesglasssclub]

Hi Lensgirl, what is your mums name and birth record, also the name of the person linked to yourselves, send it by personal message.

Robert

[Lensgirl]

So my thoughts are:

Dear Mr xxx

Please excuse me for contacting you direct, or if you are not the correct person. Myself and my mum have recently uploaded our DNA profile via My Heritage and you have come back as a very close relative match.

I wont say any more here in case you do not wish to take this any further, however if you do, please feel free to contact me on the details below

Yours


xxx

[Olde Crone Holden]

Lensgirl

Why would he not be the right person?I

"My mum and I" reads better than "myself". Otherwise I think your approach is fine.

Good luck!

OC

[PhotoFamily]

Am I correct in thinking that you don't have any question marks in your ancestry out to, say, g'grandparents? And he doesn't exist on your known family tree?

Then I'm guessing you're the answer to his research. He may be quite pleased to hear from you.

One other thought - sometimes when you do genetic genealogy you find out that your paper tree does not reflect your genetic ancestry.

Have you found the option to download all your matching segments on MH? A close relative makes it possible to identify whether other matches come from the same side, or the other (meaning, paternal vs maternal). It can be quite useful for research. MH's grouping of related cousins is similar, but it doesn't allow you to see the people who share with you on the same segment but don't match the other people in that group.

[GallowayLass]

Have you found the option to download all your matching segments on MH? A close relative makes it possible to identify whether other matches come from the same side, or the other (meaning, paternal vs maternal). It can be quite useful for research

Could you screenshot where this option please? Sounds like a very useful tool.

[PhotoFamily]

from your list of all your matches, in the upper right hand side, "Advanced Options". Click the down arrow. I've not tried the first of the two options, just the second. Please note - you have to do the work to determine if segments overlap, and compare on MH to see if those who overlap on the same segment match each other. I use a spreadsheet to read the file, and sort it into something useful.

I'm using GenomeMatePro to group all segments from all sources together. The version I have doesn't include MH segment upload, but I think the new version does.

There are other segment-managing apps out there, but I haven't tried them.

[Lensgirl]

Lensgirl

Why would he not be the right person?I

"My mum and I" reads better than "myself". Otherwise I think your approach is fine.

Good luck!

OC

I have tried contacting this person via my heritage and they haven't responded so I'm having to physically write a letter to them, and although he is the only person with his name born in the UK I don't want to assume! I have this natural instinct to apologise!