- This topic has 2 voices and 2 replies.
-
Posts
-
The deeper I get into DNA and genealogy results, the more I see how hard it can be to isolate common ancestors in our group. I have far more double cousins than I first realized. There is a standard flowchart for estimating relationships based on the amount of shared DNA that was created by Blaine Bettinger. There have been alternative ones created with different numbers for endogamous groups – like Saponi descendants.
My main goal has been to triangulate the cousins on the line of Massa Jones. All evidence points to her being Catawba. The problem is that even when I find people who match genealogy and DNA on my grandmother’s side I find other matches on my grandfather’s side. Yesterday I found a cousin with two matching segments one bigger ~10cM match and a smaller 4.9cM match that overlaps with my Smith cousin.
When I looked at her genealogy I found specific shared ancestors on both my grandmother and grandfathers side. She is a 7th cousin through a Coppock-Coulson marriage on my grandfathers side and a 6th cousin through a Stainbrook-Leffler marriage on my grandmothers side. To make things even more complicated there are three other matching surnames/locations on lines that brickwall in the 1800s so there are even more cousin possibilities.
Same with my family. Both my maternal grandparents wind back to the Swearingen line, while my great-great grandparents on my grandfather’s line were first cousins. And then, I got excited with a Deuel match to my mother, as I pursue Mayflower Society membership; that is the Mayflower line. Her Ancestry tree went back to a Deuel, but then as I checked further on her tree for her, she has a Deuel married to a Potter also, so I cannot say that the match is Deuel-only.(She was interested in the Native stories in the family, since her daughter was adopting 2 Lakota children. I suspect a mixture in the Deuel line, as well as Potter.)
Everybody married neighbors and moved together, so intermarriage continued. In fact, I am of the opinion that if your children are dating someone who is a neighbor, best you check the genealogy. It turns out, I figured out 2 years ago that I was dating my 3rd cousin in high school, but no one knew it at the time :).
Cindy
Funny you say that. When I did my wife’s grandmother’s DNA I saw a few small matches to my sample. I figured it was just IBS, but after much genealogy I discovered I am distantly related. We have a shared Mayo ancestor from the Mayflower, which makes us twelfth cousins or so. My wife is a closer cousin to Angelina Jolie than me though. 🙂
I have noticed married couples in DNA studies who discovered they are distantly related despite having grown up in totally different areas. My wife and I grew up in different countries. One DNA match discovered his parents are 6th cousins, one from IL one from MA.
I have never had much interest in the Mayflower Society or the SAR/DAR, but could be a member through of both through several ancestors. My mother joined the DAR in hopes of accessing more historical records, but did not find it especially useful. Recently I have been getting more serious about genealogy and am joining the Ontario Genealogical Society and the New England Genealogical Society.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
