I was interested to see if there was a connection between what were deemed as cousins on 23andme and those on HIR search. For HIR search, Decodeme data was sent. The results are as follows:
HIR search top match: no connection via 23andme 9.30GD
Match 2: yet to look up 9.00GD
Match 3: no connection 8.90
Match 4: 5th cousin 8.70
Match 5: 5th cousin 8.20
Match 6: 5th cousin 8.10
Match 7: no connection 8.00
Match 8: don't know who user is 7.70
Match 9: Top match again :S 7.60
Match 10: Yet to lookup 7.60
There is also a distant cousins at 7.10.
There are other matches higher than 7GD but I will look them up later. There are two matches to the sister and cousin of match 4 on HIR but not on 23andme. So what is going on? I can only think that because the Decodeme data contains more information, HIR is picking up what 23andme simply doesn't test. I have compared the locations of these matches on the chromosomes and where they do, they match.
What is interesting is the trends in where sharing occurs-there is a part of chromosome 1 that is very commonly shared with other users so I am discounting this as something ancient for the time being.
Also on part of chromosome 15 there is a shared segment between one person who is described as Ukrainian Jewish, one who is German and one who is partly of German descent.
