A Billy and a George

I use DNA research in searching for connections and proofs in my tree. Records can be lost, inaccurate, false, etc, but DNA does not lie. The trouble with DNA is understanding what it is actually telling you. As I shared in the previous post, I have numerous DNA matches to Billy Maher's descendants, not just on Ancestry, but on MyHeritage as well. The amount of centimorgans of DNA and the number of segments I share with them tells me that Billy Maher was unquestionably a close relative of my great-grandmother.  

Interestingly enough, I have another DNA match that is not a descendant of Billy Maher, but matches both me and Billy Maher's descendants.  I have had some email exchanges with this match and learned that he is the descendant of a George Maher who was a railroad conductor and lived in N.J.--the same area that Ellen and Patrick had lived in. This particular George Maher was born in NJ in 1867 (so he was about 20 years younger than Ellen). He was the son of George Maher Sr., born around 1832 in Ireland and Catherine Cusick born sometime between 1835 and 1841 also in Ireland. They married in New Jersey in 1852.

George E. Maher (born in 1867) married an Emma Healy, who was adopted according to my match. It is possible that the connection is through Emma, but more likely through George because he was a Maher.

I requested the death certificate for George (the father), just as I had for Billy, and the parents are listed as "unknown", just as they were for Billy. There is no George born in Gortnahoe. George and William are both very English names. There are not that many Georges born to the Catholic Irish in the 19th century.

The information on the death certificate was given by his son George (who worked for the railroad). 

My DNA match is 3 generations away from George Sr.  This means that if George's father was our MRCA, then we would be 3rd cousins. We only share 37cM of DNA and 3 segments.  Ancestry predicts we are 4th cousins. Here is the likelihood of the various relationships:

My DNA match could reasonably be my 3rd cousin.

We seem to have come to another wall with this match, just as we did with Billy.

Perhaps one day we will solve this mystery.  What we can make a reasonably good prediction of is that Ellen, Billy and George were all related--but how?