holy cow. i sent a message to my nearest dna match. she is adopted.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

second cousin, or second cousin once removed.
i mentioned a few family names. she replied she didnt know them. then sent a message that she was adopted and didnt know her bio family.
wow.

[Karadeniz]

1. I bet she's happy to have more roots now!

[The Genealogist]

2. No surprises with my own DNA matches

However, my awesome first cousin once removed was conceived via artificial insemination. As a young adult, she is very interested in who her father and his family is. She was tested, and periodically asks me if person x or person y is a relative on her mom's (my) side. So many people trying to figure out who their blood relatives are these days.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

5. i got in touch w my mom's brother's daughter.

it was just the 2 of them, and he died very young. right about the time i was born. so did her dad. w/in a year of each other. grandma moved in w us. my mom said i never sucked my thumb because the minute i open my mouth to cry, grandma was there to pick me up.
they used to come to our house for holidays, but after her dad died, the relationship fell apart. this rly crushed my mom.

and i discovered that my dad's mom had 10 siblings that i never even heard about, and my mom's mom had 6 she knew nothing about.
the irish hold grudges man.

[The Genealogist]

11. That is a LOT of new relatives to learn about

WOW!

Sometimes, I do wonder if I will have an unexpected half sibling show up. My dad was a wee bit of a randy in his younger days, and lived in various parts of the country in the years before he married my mother. No telling who might pop out of the woodwork.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

12. yeah. my dad was a traveling salesman.

plumbing supplies.
insert your own joke here.

[MaryMagdaline]

3. That's exciting! I hope you can help her discover her unknown family

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

6. i will sure see what i can do.

she is about my age. i have to wonder if this doesnt have something to do w the siblings of my grandma that i never knew anything about.
catholics. shit.

[mommymarine2003]

4. My husband had something similar happen to him.

We could only guess that she was the child of one of his first cousins. She did not want to find out anything further from us.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

7. well, i have to assume that is why the lady did the dna thing.

[doc03]

8. A friend of mine that has since passed away did the DNA test. He discovered he fathered a

daughter when he was in the Korean war. He found out she now lives near Akron Ohio not far from his
American daughter. He met up with his Korean daughter and American daughter shortly before he died.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

10. aint science grand?

and i thought the fancy cat scan i had today was amazing.
this is so cool.

[doc03]

13. He was so happy about meeting her, he was very ill at the time and

passed away about a month later. Imagine his Korean daughter and his American daughter both ended up living just a few miles apart near Akron Ohio. Myself there wasn't any surprises with my DNA test.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

9. funny story. when i first did 23/me

it told me i had a brother. he didnt use his name. i wasnt all that surprised. my dad liked the ladies. and he was a charmer.
he had a mistress in milwaukee. she was a working girl. he set her up in an apt on our sears credit card. we ended up in bankruptcy because of it.
but it turned out to be the one i grew up with.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

14. also had a nice chat w a second cousin who still lives in offaly county.

planning a trip there this winter.
i told him that i think my family has a banshee. when my uncle passed away, my dad was already very ill himself, and on a lot of pain killers. out of it most of the time.
but at almost the same time his brother died, he woke up calling his name. cousin gerald affirms that it is likely.

[csziggy]

15. In trying to locate my fourth great grandfather's lineage

I talked my cousin who is a directly male line descendant into getting his DNA testing. One of the respondents was a young man who is looking for his biological father who was a sperm donor. The young man has to be a blood relative since the match was very close, but could be third or fourth cousin.

Since the ancestor I was trying to trace had ten children who lived to have children, one of which had 24 children, there are actually a lot of possibilities for that young man's father. I sent a GEDcom with all the information I have but since recent enough people to be his father are not easy to find through genealogical sites, he will have some work to do.

My cousin, his brother, and their children are not possibilities for the father. The sperm bank was in California and none of them went to school or ever lived there.

What I have determined is that the 4th great probably was not fathered by a man with the surname we know. The closest other matches have been a selection of men with various surnames. One of those was advised that his ancestor was likely the result of an "undocumented paternity event!"

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

16. well that's a great euphemism! interesting stuff this science.

i have hit a dead end so far trying to trace my dad's grandma. i cant find any birth, immigration or census records for her. kinda interested as she is an oddball in the family. born in ireland but was english. have a pic, and looks to me to be at least part black.

of the 7 in my family, 5 have her black hair. interested in that, as there are autoimmune diseases in the family that affect the gingers, like me, the most. the black haired one are healthy as horses, mostly. the males, anyway. the women, like me, get sicker when they have kids. esp sons. black hair less so, but gingers all end up w something. the second sons are less healthy. girls born after second sons are the sickest.
been chasing this for 20 yrs. finally think i know what it is. sjogrens syndrome. usually just an annoyance. but viruses and pregnancies make it worse. had most of the viruses that go around, starting w 3 before age 2. got west nile in '02 and havent been the same since.
had 6 pregnancies. 5 kids, lost one in a very bad miscarriage. also lost 1 of a pair of identical twin boys. girl boy girl boy girl. the last one is a mess.
but she is also the kicker. this thing can cause microchimerism in a fetus. this kid is. she is a tetrachrome in one eye, and nearly colorblind in the other. and one of her thumbs is longer than the other. she has been sick sense she was little.
leads me to a lot of curiosity about autoimmune diseases.

[csziggy]

23. Family history is very interesting

And DNA research is making it even more so.

Both my father's mother and my mother did a lot of research on their families, taking them back at least until they got to the US. Neither side has any indication of anything other than Northern European ancestry - English Welsh, German, and a touch of French. When my sister and I had our DNA tested we both showed a trace of Native American ancestry - but our mother didn't.

This was fun since Mom's side has rumors (sort of like Elizabeth Warren's family) of Indian ancestry that have never been proven by research or DNA. Dad's mother's side had no hint of any in the research - but we think the trace must have come from them since Mom doesn't seem to have any. Unfortunately we never got Dad's DNA tested - he died before the prices got reasonable.

Dad's father's side was Welsh and Canadian and I have traced pretty much all of them back to when they came to America. His mother's side traces back all the way to the Mayflower or New Amsterdam. I suspect one of the numerous wives who we only know by their first name may be the source of the Indian blood, but no one has been able to find the parents for most of them.

The trace is so small that the introduction of the American Indian blood had to be eight generations back so that makes finding the specific person pretty much impossible.

I'm hoping as DNA results get more refined we can narrow it down more. When I first got my DNA tested, Ancestry only said that trace was from somewhere in the Americas. Now it is narrowed to somewhere in the Eastern US and Canada. Maybe some day they can tell us which tribe it came from and we will have a better idea!

Other than that, our family DNA just confirms what we knew from documentary evidence and family stories. We had no surprises, which was a bit disappointing.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

24. well, that english ggrandma doesnt seem to have left much of a trace.

this site says 100% irish, but 23 said i have a bit of scandanavian, some neanderthal and a bit of sub-saharan african. much as i like the 100%, i know the 23 is correct. i knew about the neanderthals, cuz i am a ginger. the viking is cool, tho.

suspect ggrand was irish extraction before someone moved to the other isle. but it is sorta cracking me up that i cant find her anywhere. her family must have snuck back in, and stayed underground. maybe i should start searching for criminal records.
and she looks black. dark curly hair, dark skin. true black irish i guess. 5 of us 7 have black hair. my dad used to tease the sister that had the brown eyes, calling her angelina bartaluci. the others had the galway blue eyes.

it is fun. and a lesson in how stubborn the irish are that both sides had relatives i never knew about. one of my aunts did a pretty good job of researching those that came here and their descendants. but she missed the 10 siblings of my grandma. even she didnt know, and she was born and raised in the same town that half of them died in.

so no ethnicity surprises, but....

[csziggy]

25. My only Irish ancestors were Protestants probably brought in by the English

One family was English, the other maybe German (from the name). Both families left Ireland in the 1680s after they bought land from William Penn.

Ireland had an influx of Spanish after the Armada was lost in the storm. Some of the ships that made it to land set down in Catholic Ireland where their crews often settled in and started families with local girls. Remember, Spain at the time had only recently driven out the "Moors" so there was a lot of North African influence throughout the country.

Way before that, Vikings went there - but now they say not all Vikings were what we think of as traditional Scandinavians:

DNA data shows not all Vikings were Scandinavian
By Brooks Hays

Sept. 16, 2020 (UPI) -- In the public imagination, the Vikings were closely-related clans of Scandinavians who marauded their way across Europe, but new genetic analysis paints a more complicated picture.

For the last six years, researchers in Britain and Denmark have been sequencing and analyzing DNA from more than 400 Viking skeletons recovered from dig sites across Europe and Greenland.

The data, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests Vikings were more genetically diverse than researchers thought.



"This study changes the perception of who a Viking actually was -- no one could have predicted these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europe and Asia happened before and during the Viking Age," said Willerslev, a professor of evolutionary genetics at Cambridge University.

More: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/09/16/DNA-data-shows-not-all-Vikings-were-Scandinavian/9231600264027/

So although most people think of Ireland as being a land full of gingers with little outside blood, they are as mixed up as most countries.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

26. hmmm. well, no spanish, and the only african was sub saharan.

iow- eve.
but moorish, hmm. did they have curly hair? blue eyes?
she did have an english name- hipwell.
she may just stay a mystery.

so i went back today to add all those sibs of my dad's mom. funny thing, most of them have no records. no birth, no census, nuthin. methinks gramps might have been cheating on his taxes.

[csziggy]

27. Moorish is an old broad term, just as "Arab" or "Muslim" are today

Most of the "Moors who invaded Spain came from Morocco, so Northwestern Africa. I've never researched how they look, but Spaniards can have black, curly hair and light eyes.

Remember, it has been proven that even as early as Roman times, people of African descent lived in Britain and continued to pretty much up to current times with few interruptions in new individuals going to the British Isles. Also consider the British Colonial times, when children of the colonizers that could "pass" for white were often sent back to England for an education, some of whom stayed.

Some of my brother in law's ancestors lied every census and show up on few records. They also moved often so trying to trace them is a nightmare. Some years everyone over eight was literate, the next census no one in the household could read and write. Their children often changed names and the parents' ages changed drastically (by over ten years sometimes) from census to census. For a while I didn't think I had traced them, but once I got the pattern of their lies, I decided the families I'd been tracing were all the same one.

The ones that puzzle me are the ones where a kid (or two or three) will show up as a young child, then ten years later they are not in the household, then in their old age the parents are living with them. I did find at least one of those - the child had been sent to live with a grandparent, probably to take care of them in their old age. Then after she married, had her own children and house, her parents moved in with her and her husband. That case got me the mother's maiden name and parents since the girl was definitely the same one.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

28. but no birth certs.

and they stayed in the same town for all their childhoods.
i will check baptismal records, and i know their church from burial records.
my mom didnt have a birth cert. was born at home, i assume. common in those days here in chi.
when she needed a passport to go to ireland herself, she had to use that. church went under long ago. but the diocese has it.

matters if i am to help this adopted cousin. narrows it waaay down. there was a daughter that never married. prime suspect.

[csziggy]

31. Yeah, lots of families with no birth certificates

Some had no baptismal records - whether they were never baptized or the churches were burned either by Indians or Union troops, it varies. A few had family bibles with records, but no many.

Many relationships were only proved through wills where the will writer named their spouses, children, and sometimes grandchildren. Others were through land records - which are not maintained online as much as other sources.

I grew up helping my Mom search her family history - I learned to type on an antique typewriter by transcribing wills and deeds from her ancestors. The most discouraging part was transcribing a will that left human beings in the same sentences as livestock was left.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

32. i will check. there was a baby that died.

that should show how fast they got to church. i think my mom was baptized at 3 days.

[wnylib]

37. RE: People of the British Isles

Earliest inhabitants being of African origins makes sense since the first modern humans to spread around the earth were African. Other physical traits evolved later.

But there were periods of "outsider" influx into the British Isles. As early as 300 BC, Phoenicians, Greeks, and then Romans competed for the tin trade in Cornwall and Wales. They established mines and trade settlements among the locals. Jewish traders arrived on Phoenician ships. Roman soldiers from all over the empire were stationed in Britain and many acquired land to settle on when their service time was done. During the tin trade period, before Rome conquered what later became England, there were frequents raids and battles in both directions between the tin settlement areas and Irish tribes, resulting in captives, slaves, and intermating (not always voluntary).

Celtic people in Britain had connections with, and likely originated from Gaul (France) and Belgium (Belgae tribes). Gaul is the Roman word for the Celts. The word Celt comes from the Greek term, Keltoi, for the same people. There was a Celtiberian culture in Spain, composed of Celts and Iberians (from Africa, who gave the peninsula its name).

Old tales in both Ireland and Spain tell of a group from Spain settling in Ireland. The tales are usually discounted as Medieval inventions of Irish monks, but the same legends in Spain suggest maybe a kernel of historic truth underlies the tales. The Spanish believed it because they accepted Irish refugees from wars with England as full citizens of Spain. And in Spanish history there was a tribe called Celti, as well as the Celtiberian culture.

Then there were the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain, some of whom had settled down there before the Viking invasions and then fled the Vikings to settle in Ireland. The Normans (mix of French and Scandinavian) who conquered England also fought with the Irish and gained some footholds in parts of Ireland, mostly coastal areas.

Nearly all of the ancient cultures and civilizations practiced enslavement of war captives who were sent wherever they could be sold, so modern people can have quite a genetic mix among our ancestors, regardless of where our most recent ones come from.

[csziggy]

38. Thank you for that detailed discussion!

African DNA in Britain is not just from human origins but from later periods. There are indications of Africans brought by the Romans, and later brought by people returning from the Crusades. During the "Age of Discovery" explorers brought inhabitants from every place they visited. And where ever the people came from, they often found someone to have children with.

Germany was a crossroads, while the British Isles was something of a dumping ground. Even the Scandinavians and Vikings have been shown to have a mix of peoples.

That is what is laughable about the "Master Race" concept or that of "white purity" - everyone has always mixed with everyone and will do in the future!

[wnylib]

39. So true. There are no "pure" ethnicities.

But it's interesting to learn about the backgrounds that we can trace through records and DNA. Informative, too. I learned a lot about history and what life was like for the people of various places and times just from records that are traceable. Have not tried DNA yet, but plan to soon.

[csziggy]

40. Learning the history and stories of my ancestors was what got me hooked on geneaology

I did my DNA as did my sister and our Mom. The only really startling bit was the both my sister and I have a trace of American Indian. Now, my paternal grandmother and my Mom did a lot of research on their family trees and no trace of Indian is in either. My mother's ancestor was reputed to have married an Indian woman, but Mom's DNA showed no native trace at all.

As little as shows - less than 1% - the Indian ancestor had to have been about eight generations back. By that far back,my grandmother's lines have a lot of women whose parents are unknown and in many cases, not even their surnames are known. I suspect that is where our trace comes from but it will be almost impossible to prove.

[wnylib]

41. There is Native American ancestry in my family, too.

Last edited Tue Oct 13, 2020, 08:11 PM - Edit history (1)

It's recent enough that physical traits were very noticeable in my father's generation and in his mother. Her ancestry was English (colonial Puritan descent) and Seneca, plus some Mohawk. We know the time period was the early 1800's for the mixed marriage, but by the early 1800's, many Senecas and Mohawks were using European names, so we can't learn much by the names alone, especially since they include such common ones as Williams and Johnson. Plus there are a few gaps in the names we have from that time period.

My father's father also had some Native ancestry mixed with German, but farther back than my grandmother's.

My grandparents had 9 children. Their appearance varied according to which sets of genes they inherited. One of my aunts looked "pure" European, with light brown hair, very fair skin, and blue eyes. Another aunt looked like she had no European ancestry at all. She had straight black hair, dark black/brown eyes, and medium brown (not beige) skin. My father and one brother had black hair, blue eyes, and medium beige skin. The rest had black hair, very dark brown eyes, and medium to dark beige skin. They also had other features associated with Native ancestry.

Yet, my cousin had a DNA test from Ancestry a few years ago. It showed zero Native ancestry, just British and German. Tests are more thorough now, especially from other companies, on tracing autosomal DNA. Y or mtDNA would miss Native ancestry if there is not an unbroken gender link to the Native ancestor.

The cousins most likely to still carry some autosomal traces of Native ancestry, based on the features of their parent, do not want to do the test.

[csziggy]

42. We also have a mix of physical characteristics in the different families

My father's mother and my father had black hair, dark brown eyes, and dusky complexions. On my mother's side, her great grandfather looked very exotic with sharp cheekbones and that line had a lot of people with black hair, but blue eyes. It would have been that man's grandmother who was rumored to be Indian - but according the to thee DNA trace that is too recent, unless she was actually only one quarter Indian.

Mom and her part of the family never agreed with the rumored Indian heritage, and as I said, she showed none. My cousin, who was a direct male line descendant of the possible Indian woman, also showed no trace. But if it was only passed through the maternal side, she may not have.

I still think it was more likely through my father's side - his paternal grandmother was from Canada and I have not nailed down every ancestor there, so there could have been a Canadian Indian ancestor. His mother's side goes back to the Mayflower and many of the earliest settlers so there may have been someone in the early colonies.

[wnylib]

43. If your cousin is a direct line

descendant of a Native woman, no Native ancestry will show up in his male Y DNA or his female mtDNA. Only a straight line of female descendants of the Native woman in each genereration would carry a Native American mtDNA haplotype.

But, Native American genetic traits might show up in autosomal DNA (the DNA that you get from both parents) if the Native ancestry is not farther back than 5 or 6 generations. Some companies claim to go back 8 generations. However, it depends also on the genetic roll of the dice when chromosomes pair up at conception. There can be Native ancestry that doesn't show up in DNA if the genetic traces got dropped over generations of non Native ancestors. My aunt who looked 100% European is an example. Both my paternal grandparents had a mix of Native and European ancestry. But my aunt apparently inherited only the European traits from each parent. The aunt who looked 100% Native apparently inherited most of her DNA from the Native side of each parent. The rest of my aunts and uncles inherited mixed genetic traits.

So, comparing two cousins of mixed ancestry, for example, one cousin's DNA might show genetic traces of Native ancestry while the other one shows none. But they both have the same ancestors from the parents who are siblings.

[csziggy]

44. Yeah, my cousin showed no Native American DNA at all

We talked him into being tested to try to find the husband of the woman rumored to be Native America. It didn't help at all. There are no matching results from anyone except the ancestor's decendents, at least not with the same surname. We got lots of matches for people with other surnames - except those people don't match in the DNA projects for those surnames. So other than finding many distant cousins, it has not given us any leads at all to find that ancestor's parents.

According to the tiny trace, less than one percent, our Native American ancestor must be back 7 or 8 generations. The chances of finding who it was is slim - but it may be on the maternal side, even if our mother didn't show it in her DNA results.

[wnylib]

45. We know from craft items handed down

in my grandmother's family that the time period for her Seneca ancestry was early 1800's. She was born in 1899, probably 3rd or 4th generation from her Native ancestor on her mother's side. On her father's side, probably 3rd or. 4th generation from an English/Mohawk mix. I would be 5th or 6th generation. Slight chance of Native DNA.

There are 2 Seneca territories near me. I have visited the library and cultural center at one of them several times and spoken with people there. A Seneca man suggested that I do a DNA test for family matches more than for DNA because many mixed families remain on Seneca land. He said many Senecas have had DNA tests. So if I have mixed relatives in the area, I might get a family match with someone who knows the history of my family.

That's a possibility because on one visit to a Seneca territory, I saw a woman who resembled my grandmother so much that they could have been twins. It was really a striking resemblance. I did not have a chance to talk to her. From her age, she would have been next generation after grandma, about the same age as grandma was when she passed away 40 years earlier.

So I'm hoping to locate some mixed relatives when I do the DNA test.

[csziggy]

46. The good news is that DNA results for Native Americans are more accurate now

When I first got my Ancestry DNA results, they just listed possible East Asia/Americas for that trace. Then it improved to just the Americas. Now it shows Eastern American Indian - which could mean anything from Creek to the groups that lived in Canada. Originally, it was because most of the tribes resisted being tested for various political reasons.

If they ever refine it down so their DNA results can narrow it down to specific tribes, I will know where my trace comes from. My father's family lived in the Northeast (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island) before moving to Western New York after the Revolutionary War. Then in the 1870s they moved to Upper Peninsula Michigan.

My mother's family lived in North and South Carolina from the Revolutionary War until the Mississippi Territory opened up after Andrew Jackson chased the Indians out. Then they moved to what is now Central Alabama where they stayed.

So if I have Seneca or Cayuga Indian DNA, it's from my father's side; Creek would be my mother's.

So far no distant cousins with either of those DNAs has shown up, but lots of cousins with no family trees!

[wnylib]

47. Goodness! Your family's history parallels mine.

Last edited Wed Oct 14, 2020, 04:05 PM - Edit history (2)

My grandmother's colonial British ancestors lived in CT and MA before the Revolution, then moved to western NY in the early1800's. From there, they went to NW PA, where I was born. I ended up in western NY for my husband's job, so I've been able to do some local records checking on ancestors who used to live here.

One big reason why most Native Americans resisted (and still do) DNA testing is the way the gathering of scientific "evidence" about them was used in the past. Biologists and anthropologists used to measure skull size and shape to "prove" a hierarchy of races. They raided Native burials, often very recent ones, to get their data. It was the same as if someone went to European-American cemeteries and dug up graves - without consent - to study the skeletons in order to establish which ethnicities were inferior to others. Native people mistrust the way people use science (pseudoscience) against them. That past practice is the reason why NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) was passed.

Another reason for hesitance about accepting DNA testing is that people with distant Native ancestry sometimes think that proving their ancestry makes them an instant Indian, without knowing the culture or history of the people they claim as their "identity.". They often have fantasies about "special treatment" that Native people get and want to be part of it, e.g. getting proceeds from casinos, or preference in hiring, etc. It's ridiculous. My British ancestry does not make me a citizen of the UK. My mother's German ancestry does not make me a German citizen. I am not Seneca, for example. I am a just person who has some Seneca ancestry. And I want to learn more about it.

But more Native People are interested in knowing what their DNA can tell them. Most Native Americans today have some non Native ancestry.

[csziggy]

48. Yes, I agree. The only reason I'd like to know where I cam from is to understand

The stories behind the people from the past. The Native American trace has me intrigued since, other than some family rumors, there had been no hint before my sister and I had our DNA tests.

Oh - I got mine through Ancestry, my sister got hers through the National Geographic Genome Project, so that trace is not an aberration from one source.

What part of Western New York state? My ancestors settled in the area next to Lake Cayuga in the 1790s. One branch, that had originally settled New Amsterdam, moved to Albany just a bit later than that. At the time the first of my ancestors moved to the Finger Lake District, there was still a reservation for the Cayuga Indians in that area. The most recent immigrant on my father's side was his grandfather who arrived from Wales in 1872, worked in Pennsylvania in the coal mines then moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and sold cedar logs to the railroads and the mines.

On my mother's side, some of the people were among the first to buy land from William Penn in Pennsylvania - in fact the family arrived before William Penn did. There is an affidavit from one of the sons about how he was on the dock when Penn's ship arrived. One part of that family moved to North Carolina where he and his son were among the Regulators - a group that objected to taxation well before the Revolutionary War. There was also a strong German influence - in South Carolina some sons of indentured servants who served out their parents' indentured after they died - there is a document from their master stating that their requirements had been satisfied and that they were free to buy land. There is even a line of French Huguenots who got a special dispensation from the Virginia government in 1709 to allow them to settle there.

Having trained as an anthropologist, I know that scientists have no respect for the ancestors of anyone, not even their own. That is really no excuse, but when you look at what peoples have been dug up across the globe, they are pretty indiscriminate.

[wnylib]

49. My ancestors had a farm near

the towns of Wheeler and Bath, just south of Keuka Lake. They went farther west after that, near Buffalo, before ending up in PA, where they were among the founders of a village in Crawford County, PA. That village was the last stop for pioneers to stock up before heading into the Western Reserve Frontier (Ohio). A couple generations later, my great-grandmother moved north to Erie, PA, my hometown.

I minored in anthropology. Wanted to major in it, but I was taking courses piecemeal as my husband's job meant moving a few times. By the time we settled into one spot where I could take full time classes, I switched to modern languages, with an anthro minor, which seemed more practical.

The first British ancestor in America that I was able to trace arrived at Watertown, MA Bay Colony, in 1636. He moved soon afterward to become one of the founders of Wethersfield, CT. MA Bay was too theocratic in government for him. (A "liberal" Puritan, LOL)

Another branch settled briefly at Hartford, CT in 1652, then moved up the CT River Valley to western MA. His son settled in a village at the edge of the MA frontier, where his village was raided by French and their Indian allies. His wife, youngest daughter, son-in-law, and brother-in-law were killed. Three of his children (including the son who is my ancestor) and another son's wife were taken captive to Canada. So he later ransomed them back, along with several other captives. Books have been written about the raid and his role, so I've been able to read details about him, his family, and their lives.

It's those kinds of stories that I like to collect in genealogy research. They make dry facts come to life and are more interesting to me than just a collection of names, dates, and who begat whom. I wrote it all down, with a list of references for more reading and passed it on to relatives, along with photos that I found. A 3rd cousin that I met online sent me a photo of our gg-grandparents, which my 90 year old uncle loved getting.

[customerserviceguy]

17. Please help her

She may have been looking for years.

I was adopted, and did DNA tests back in March, 2015. Only last month did a first cousin, once removed show up. Then, three weeks later, his uncle tested, and confirmed what I was able to figure out about who my bio-mother is.

I have tried to reach out to her son, and another member of the family, assuring them that I only want some health history, and maybe some innocuous family history, and they have not gotten back to me. I don't mean to disrupt their lives, but I would love to see a photo of my bio-mom. As far as I can tell, she is still alive at the age of 85. She showed up as still being alive in an obituary for one of her brothers-in-law as recently as February of this year.

In genetic genealogy we have a saying, "People lie, DNA doesn't."

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

18. oh i am happy to.

she signed up for this website several years ago, and i am apparently the first person to look at her profile.

and i shared that i have a suspicion about which branch of my family she comes from.
turns out my dad's mom had 10 siblings that i never heard anything about. seems like just the sort of thing that could cause a family rift. his old man was a grand knight of the knights of columbus, so.....
trouble is, w 10 siblings, it might be hard to narrow down. but i assume it was a female. and matching up her birth date to their marriage, etc dates should narrow it down.
i messaged her back, and asked where she was born.
there are some other relatives that even my mom didnt know about on her side, so could be there, too.

i love a puzzle. i hope i can help her figure it out. at least i could tell her confidently that she was irish, cuz i am as irish as they come. tho her dna likely told her that.
all those that would know are likely long dead, tho. and secrets likely died w them. but who knows.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Good, I'm glad to hear that

It may be helpful to have other people in your family test on the same DNA website. If she's using 23andMe, maternal haplogroups might be useful.

If she has something called "non-identifying information" from the place that handled the adoption, that could narrow things down somewhat. I have information about the age of my bio-mom, and that of her parents, and that she came from a family of eleven children. All those things except her father's age (off by two years) checked out.

PM me if you would like my help with this. I've spent the last five and a half years studying genetic genealogy like crazy. The night I found that first cousin, once removed, I couldn't sleep, I kept going over the possibilities that I was wrong all night long. This match only messaged me twice, but the surname of his paternal grandmother unlocked the whole thing. Then, the uncle came along, and confirmed absolutely everything I had figured out.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

20. well, you can just upload to the site.

and several of my sibs have done one test or another. a couple of cousins, too.
i asked if she had done other tests. i dont see her on 23/me. but finding out where she was born should tell me which side of the family it is.
the site is myheritage, btw. i flipped for the big package, cuz the main reason i am doing this is to get my irish passport, so i need access to the irish records.
but it does have more records easily accessible than ancestry. i mean, i think they are there, i just have found so much more on here. plus i dont rly trust the mormons. historical records, sure. but family trees, no.

[customerserviceguy]

21. Great, that makes it easy

MyHeritage had a lousy DNA site when they first got into the business, but they have improved things greatly. Still, they say that I am 51% Iberian (Spain and Portugal) and all of my research has shown that I'm 100% French-Canadian.

23andMe is still my favorite DNA site, they do some haplogroup testing, and the fact that the uncle of my first cousin once removed match shares a maternal haplogroup with me means that they are on my maternal side. The uncle also shares some X chromosome DNA with me that indicates the same thing. 23andMe has an ancestry-only product that they sell in the US, and it is half the cost of the ancestry-and-health product that they push in advertising.

If your newly discovered relative has not tested on all of the DNA sites, I'd advise her to do so. You have to fish in all of the ponds.

As for the records from Ancestry and MyHeritage, I use both in building pedigree trees for my matches. MH is integrated with RootsMagic software, and as I enter information on a matching person, it suggests names and data of that person's parents, etc. But, it is not perfect, and I use them both together to find trees for my matches.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

22. yeah. different goals. you want to narrow it down, and i want to expand.

it's fun finding a bunch of people.
i do like the science of it too, tho. i do the 23 surveys and stuff. when i get my health shit nailed down, i will go back and add that to my profile.

[WePurrsevere]

29. As an adoptee & advocate, I'm so very glad you're helping her...

I found both bio families 3 yrs ago via 23andMe and Ancestry. I occasionally help fellow adoptees and always if they're a match because I understand the deep sense of longing to know, to connect that many of us have. I

If anyone is interested I have a write up of suggestions for adoptees and NPEs to try...

When you're looking for bio family DNA testing is the way to go but I highly suggest you request your non-identifying info, and original birth certificate if available, from the state you were born in.
Testing DNA is suggested because.. "people lie, DNA doesn't." (It may not seem like much sometimes but even non-ID info can help give you clues that when combined with your DNA results can help.)

So.. here's what I and some others who regularly try to help adoptees suggest ...

Test at Ancestry first since it has the largest data base. Please be sure to attach your raw data to a private tree there... it can't hurt, might help. When setting up a tree just use your name and "unknown father" "unknown mother" unless you know a name. If you have an approx idea of age or where they were born you can add that too. (I had this from my non id info).

If you still don't have your answers, upload the raw data you have from Ancestry to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch.. getting matches there is free. Only extra tools cost if you want them.

If you still don't have close enough matches test at 23andMe. (Amazon Prime Days often has the basic kit at a great price).

I originally found my closest maternal on 23andMe and my closest paternal on MyHeritage and Ancestry. Different people will test at different places so you want to cover as many places as you can and this way also can save you a bit of money.

If you get close matches screenshot all info, especially if they have a tree, immediately just in case they freak. If you're confused about your results pop in here or try Facebook groups: DNA Detectives and their more social group DD Social. Both are very adoptee friendly and helpful.

Again thank you so much for helping them. Sadly there's still an amazing lot of bias out there against us and adoptees all too often are shunned.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

30. i wonder, tho.

i dont know too much about the whole- once removed thing.
is it possible that this means the father was a family member? wouldnt she otherwise just be my 1st cousin? she is about my age.
i have some once removed cousins. they are around my age. my da was the baby, their mom was my cousin.

that adds fuel to my theory that this is what caused the family breech.

[myccrider]

34. The 'removed' thing

It was confusing to me, too, when I first started doing genealogy. It can still be confusing.

The way I got it mostly straight in my head was remembering that a first cousin and I share grandparents. My first cousin’s child and I are first cousins once removed and my grandparents are their great-grandparents, who are the ancestors we have in common. Per your own example age has little to do with it. Similar to you, I have 1st cousins the same age as my son, who are his 1st cousins once removed.

My head doesn’t handle much past once removed, so I also found a handy-dandy cousin chart here: https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin
You can download and print it out, that’s what I did.

[myccrider]

33. Is through Ancestry.com?

A very similar thing happened to me about a year ago. A woman contacted me saying I was one of the two closest DNA matches to her, she was adopted and looking for her bio family. We showed as 1st-2nd cousins. I was flummoxed about whose daughter she could be as my tree is pretty complete out to 2nd cousin. The only thing we could tell was that we were related on my Dad’s side because of the other cousins we had in common.

Long story short, a woman who helps adoptees find their biological parents using DNA and family trees found her father and mother. She turned out to be my half first cousin! (That’s the long part of the story. 😏

I’m pretty sure I still have contact info for that woman who helped, but it’s through the Ancestry system. Would that info be any help, do you think?

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

35. this was my heritage.

i have an ancestry account but have been having trouble getting on. their customer service blows. i somehow got an extra security layer that i KNOW i did not put on.

my cousins on my da's side are on there. i have a cousin on my mom's side on 23. i asked her what other sites she had used, but havent heard back from her yet.

[myccrider]

36. Yeah, Ancestry has been getting bad,

but I started my tree there in 2008, when they were still pretty good and a whole lot cheaper.

[Edit]Have you tried the community help board? It doesn’t always work, but I’ve resolved a couple of problems with advice from there. I had a more serious problem once and did get a human tech eventually. [scrambles around at Ancestry] Ah, here’s the number! 1-800-615-6560 9am-11pm Eastern, every day. It was still a pain to get through all the hoops, but it got fixed.[edit]

I have sooooo much info, records, pictures, stories, links, etc attached to the 7,000+ person tree that it would take a monumental effort to download it all, then attach all the individual docs/pics/stories/etc to the correct people in my computer program. My computer program syncs with Ancestry but doesn’t download the actual docs, just the Ancestry links to the docs.

Is MyHeritage easy to use? Been thinking I should at least upload my gedcom there, might get some new family info. I have uploaded to 23andMe, but their family tree function isn’t great, imo. Also uploaded the tree to GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA. Most of the people who contact and share info with me do it through Ancestry, though.

They have a new feature called ThruLines where they use an algorithm to match DNA results to their millions of family trees and suggest common ancestors with those 3rd-6th cousins (often removed 2 or 5 times ) that you can’t generally find how you’re related to unless you have main surnames in common. I’ve blown through at least half a dozen brick walls using it and have another half dozen that are intriguing possibilities, but need more facts/docs to confirm. Records can be garbled or misinterpreted or get destroyed or never exist, but DNA doesn’t lie, to paraphrase.

In one case, I found that an ancestress (4th great-grandmother to me) that all our family researchers thought was one person turned out to be someone else that no one even suspected. I ended up in a spirited discussion with a family researcher from that new family who wasn’t convinced we were related (we didn’t have DNA in common, too distant to be likely). They finally had to admit that there was no other plausible explanation for me and other cousins on my side sharing DNA with descendants of the brothers and sisters of my newly discovered ancestresses parents!

My new cousin has contacted her biological parents and has been warmly accepted. Hers was a somewhat unusual story in that her biological parents married each other after she was given up for adoption, so there was no big reveal to, or angst or rancor from unsuspecting spouses. My aunt and her husband were shocked but ultimately thrilled to again see their only daughter and her children, they have two sons.

She had already gone through all the steps that someone upthread suggested, so she knew her date and place of birth and had her DNA in all the usual places. She said her adopted parents were wonderful and had let her know she was adopted from an early age (so no shocking revelation), her childhood had been great, but she just couldn’t release the drive to find her biological roots.

Best of luck to your cousin who was adopted. I can only dimly grasp the way adoptees feel, but wish all to find what they need to know.