I am from England am an only child and so was my late mother. I also have no kids of my own and am medically unable to. My late father didn't have any other kids apart from myself. He only had one sister who had 2 daughters. I have had 3 DNA tests with different companies and can only find 5th cousins or even more distant ones. I was hoping to find some closer family as I have none here in the UK whatsoever. It's a really horrible feeling to not have any family. On a more positive note, I am now training to be a foster parent and hope to make a family with teenagers to care for.

Thank you so much, someone gets my problem. My Dad is one of three, one of them unable to have children. He has only 3 first cousins. His grandmother was an only child, her mother also was an only child. HER mother was one of two, and HER MOTHER, my fourth great grandmother is my brick wall, with a far from unusual name, Mary Brown b.~1825, married 1841. At that point we're looking for her in 1830 and 1840 censuses, she died after the 1850 census and before 1853. There are three potential families in that 1840 census with a daughter the right age, James Brown, Richard Brown and John Brown. I would give anything for an Aloyisius that I could at least trace and try to rule out. I have the best possible candidate tested and I'm looking for X-Matches, but they are few and far between. I'm out of ideas. Some questions may never be answered.

Interestingly my fathers parents both came from large famiies but very few of their descendents have actually done a DNA test. On my mothers side - she was an only child and her mother only had one half sibling. But my great grandparents (on my mothers side) both came from large families and there does seem to be a lot more matches on my mothers side. I have found, first, second and third cousins all from my mothers side. Interesting topic. Thanks for that.

It was a lack of matches on my paternal grandfather side that first got my attention. I could see that he had a large family and that wasn't counting the parts I was unable to trace, yet my other grandparents didn't have the same problem. It turned out that my grandfather wasn't my biological grandfather and I assume that his family was quite small because even third cousin's are hard to find, at this stage I don't even know if any of my matches are even third cousin's. To solve this my dad did a test and the needle barely moved. In fact his second closest match is related via his dad who he knows nothing about

I found that DNA testing companies do not send kits to Japan. So when my daughter in law first tested on Ancestry she had 65 matches. Now its up to abut 520. I have also found there are no tools available to check or compare matches. So we get a who lot more out of 23andme with about the same number of matches.

My AncestryDNA matches are reporting 30,985 today. That is a lot of matching going on.

Hate to burst some bubbles here, but sometimes it doesn't really matter how many people on sites like 23&Me find that are your DNA matches. I know from personal experience. I have two known cousins on there who descend from the same common ancestor, our third great grandfather. Likewise, this third great grandfather had one brother who has three modern descendants who all have the exact same genetic marker on an X chromosome. We six cousins are the only proven descendants of these two men, but there are up to sixteen others among our DNA matches who have the same X chromosome marker, and none of us knows how these people are related to us! Many of these DNA matches have no surname list or bother to reply to any messages you send them through 23&Me, which makes attempts to research this part of the family perpetually frustrating. Sometimes small families will remain an enigma when it comes to determining familial connections and it is a bitter pill indeed.

How do I trace my grandfather on my paternal side? my grandmother took the secret to her grave so we have no name or nationality, except that my father was born in England and used his mothers family name.I have had a DNA test and am trying to go that way.

Boy the generations to come like 30 or more years from now are going to have a problem considering the average couple barely have more than one child.

When calculating the average using numbers of children in families per generation does that include all the people of one generation as the number of families in the next (minus number of couples made up of 2 of those people!) or just those who had children? It makes a huge difference. 2 of my grandparents were one of 5 (I believe!) and the other two were one of 3 so that's 16 people in 4 families a nice round average of 4. But between those 16 people (you have to take 2 off for total number of families because 4 of those people make 2 couples) were 12 children I believe (possibly one or two more?), so average 6/7 children per family, but it's really just from 8 families and the other 6 did not have children (as far as I know), so average 1.5 per actual family. Then of those 12 people, 2 of them make one couple so potentially 11 families, but only 5 had 1 or 2 children: 7 people in 5 families average 1.4 but really average should be 7/11 per 'family' from the previous generation. So these 7 people on my generation is just myself, 2 1st cousins and 4 2nd cousins (and 7 children I know of in the next generation which seems to average 1 per family, but those 7 are from 3 families, and there may be others from the other 2nd cousins I don't really know!). I don't think I have any other 2nd cousins, only a small chance I might have half 1st cousins! I suppose if you go back to great grandparents and further you just pick one branch and follow its descendants down rather than trying to work the average out on all branches. It is more difficult if you don't know all the families of all the great-great aunts and uncles. I only know of one 3rd cousin, but there may be many others as I know of lots of 1st cousins twice removed (some of whom my Mum thought of as aunts) who might have grandchildren. Average family sizes were bigger 3-4 generations ago and further back. It's easier to go back and count siblings of ancestors than to pick an ancestor and count children among their descendants if we don't know all those other branches coming down from that ancestor!

I have a segment that has over 75 Ashkenazi Jewish cousins but we cannot find any common ancestor.

In the case of the person I am trying to help, I really do not think it has to do with her family being small but with the fact that only very few people from South America have tested. Commercial dna tests are not absolutely not common over there but I guess it works the same as having a small family. She is an adoptee and has no clue about her origins, we only know that she comes from Chile. There are no records or documents left because the adoption was illegal. :(

It also depends on your ancestors social class how many children they had. You always find that the more educated and wealthier people have less children. This is especially true when a husband has work that takes him away from home like a merchant or a MP. Very few children died in such families. My grandfather (50% German) was illegitimate and I have Y-DNA R-M269. All I know he was brought up (outside the stately home) by a great German aristocratic family. When 17, they wanted him sent overseas to avoid embarrassment. He rebelled I feel because he father took no interest in him.

I have over 25000 matches on ancestry.

I am Jewish so I have the opposite issue toom any matches.

What happens when a couple have 2 daughters. One have kids and the other don't have kids?

Grammar police: less people or fewer people? Andy used the word LESS at 3:25-3:26 meaning not as big a group or "the group of people who are related is small" I think his grammar would have been "better" if he had used the word "fewer" here instead of "less"

Like a bottleneck effect!