## Why would I match someone in a region neither of my parents do?

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I was surprised to find someone show up in FTDNA as a 2nd-3rd cousin to me (168 shared cM, 34 segments with a minimum length of 5 cM) but not among the 17,667 matches of my father or the 18,178 matches of my father.

Fortunately, the person's DNA was also on GEDmatch, where I could compare his DNA to mine and my parents'. The chromosome browser showed me as inheriting most of the segments that my parents had in common with that person; however, on chromosome 14, I had a 3.1 cM match to the person in a region in which neither of my parents matches him. Something similar occurs on chromosome 20, where my match with the unknown person (4.47 cM) is longer than my mother's match to him (3.13 cM) and my father has no match.

Is the likely explanation that my parents have matches too small to show up unless they're combined in me? For example, they could each have a 2 cM stretch:

Mom ------XX-------
me  ------XXXX-----


Or is there a different explanation? In general, what is a reasonable minimum cM threshold?

I am an Ashkenazi Jew. My parents are not closely related to each other.