On FamilyTreeDNA I found a couple of third cousins (same set of great-great-grandparents). One of them was one of my closest matches; the other was way down the list sharing a much smaller number of centiMorgans with me than the other man does.
I did the Ancestry test in 2016 and have had two revisions since then--in October 2018 and a few weeks ago. The most recent one seems the most accurate (which is not to say I am 100% convinced by it).
Sometimes the matches are useful--I have had some interesting exchanges with distant cousins I would not have known about otherwise. I was able to help a fourth cousin in Australia, adopted at birth, to find her biological mother and they had a happy reunion. Of course many of the matches are too distant to be able to find a paper trail documenting the exact relationship, and sometimes I wonder how I could possibly have a relative in that country.
Thanks for your reply. How wonderful that you were able to connect your Australian cousin with her real mother. That must have been such an awesome accomplishment. Although my DNA Matches are well over a thousand, I only share a common ancestor with a handful of them, and they’re only on my mother’s side of the family. None on my father’s side at all. I am DNA matched with two 1st and 2nd cousins, and two 2nd and 3rd cousins. The rest are all 3rd and 4th cousins...and so on.