And In DNA News

I am an avid genealogist and user of the various DNA services available. With every DNA match I see, I can pretty much tell how these people are connected to me. I recognize their last name, or the name of the people they're researching. Recently, however, I found a new match that's puzzling. 

This person is male, and the amount of DNA we share identifies him as a first cousin-ish. He shares more DNA with me than my 1st cousin once removed, who is also a DNA match. So it's pretty likely that "new guy" actually is a first cousin. I sent him a message asking if he would like to share information. He has not responded and has not logged in for two months.

Similarly, a new DNA match showed up on a different DNA service. It's a woman, with the same last name as the man on the first service. She shares less DNA with me than the man, in a proportion which would make her likely his child. I have sent her a message and have not gotten a response. Interesting side note is that if you Google her name, it returns no hits. How often does that happen? Never.

I now wonder whether there is a deeper mystery.

I know of no genetic first cousins on my mom's side. The mama had a sibling who raised an adopted child from the spouse's first marriage. The only possibilities that I can think of for a first cousin are that there was a hidden child who was then put up for adoption. My grandmother did have a year in high school in which she went off to two different schools in different parts of the state for the two halves of the year. An out of wedlock child could have been concealed during the summers before or after that year. The man who appears to be a first cousin could be the son of that child. But that sounds unlikely in this family, where my grandmother had a half sister from her dad's first marriage who was raised in the same town by an aunt but considered a sibling.

Alternately, my mom's sibling could have had a child that we never knew about. I think that this is more likely the case, but the fact that I haven't had any responses to my messages makes me wonder whether this isn't someone researching their own roots, but that the DNA came from a crime scene and not living people.

I hope that this person (or these people) are living and get in contact so we can clear up the mystery.