Test the siblings if you can.
The world of DNA testing for genealogy has been moving rapidly and I have been trying to keep up! Strong marketing by Ancestry with regular reductions in the cost of tests means that they now have over 14 million kits so I am gradually adding to my list of matches.
It is obvious that, if you can, you should test your parent(s) but it has been noticeable from the start that my brother has many more matches than I do and without him testing I would have far fewer matches to follow up, so I started to collect some tests for testing aunts, uncles and cousins.
Thus far, a paternal aunt has tested and sure enough she has matches which my father does not. At the time of writing between us we have 775 matches listed in Family Historian who match one or more of us and distinct family groupings are beginning to show up. Very few match us at 2nd or 3rd cousin level and there is an enormous paternal group who all match each other but we have no idea where the connection is …. yet.
| AncestryDNA | Total | 4th cousins or closer | Distant cousins | Paternal 1st-4th cousin | Common ancestors |
| Me | 38,706 | 229 | 38,477 | 81 | 61 |
| Brother | 45,879 | 378 | 45,501 | 131 | 64 |
| Father | 35,018 | 231 | 34,787 | N/A | 48 |
| Aunt | 27,382 | 206 | 27,176 | N/A | 43 |
AncestryDNA only highlight paternal/maternal matches from 1st to 4th cousin i.e. 20cMs and above, but using the new color grouping we can differentiate distant matches as well, although this is not going to be 100% accurate at the lowest levels of number of cMs.
My first genealogical conference
Generally the hobby of genealogy can be rather solitary and you spend much of your time hunting down dead people and the live people you meet up with are cyber acquaintances with strange usernames. Apart from a small local family history fair and a U3A talk in the...
Surprise match
Since ThruLines appeared, a small group of descendants of James Budden and Mary Littlefield, my great x5 grandparents, has been building up. The Buddens are a West Sussex family and if I have the right marriage, Mary is from Hambledon just over the border into...
Genetic memories …. or just coincidence?
The picture above is taken looking west from fields in Yapton. The spire in the distance is Chichester Cathedral and if you stand in exactly the right place the spire can be seen on a clear day. It is about 12 miles as the crow flies. At least one of my ancestors must...
DNA and other musings
Ever since I first started my website in 2006, I had intended to include a sort of blog. Setting up the site while researching my family history, getting involved with FamilyTreeForum, relocating from Belgium to West Sussex and the incredibly fast moving world of...
Am I a name collector?
It's my tree and that is how I like it. The other day I saw somebody commenting that they would never bother to even look at a tree with fewer than 2000 people. This was in a Facebook group where the central theme was DNA. Others won't look at a tree with high numbers...
AncestryDNA changes
In March (2019), things began to go awry on the Ancestry site to the accompaniment of much wailing and gnashing of teeth on social media as new features appeared and disappeared, worked and then stopped working on some browsers. A good sign that we are about to gain...
First thoughts and experience ( or lack of ….) with DNA
In October 2015 I finally decided to see what an Ancestry DNA test might show. I had vaguely started a one name study of my maiden name as we have been trying to join all the isolated pockets of the name together. I had a little luck and identified a match who from...
