I have seen quite a few threads on here asking if an Ancestral DNA test was worth it, or even people stating that they were worthless, so I though I would share what could possible be the biggest break through I have made on my tree thanks to taking a DNA test.
I took a test through Ancestry several years ago, and following up on this last year I persuaded both of my parents to take one, mainly so that I could determine which side of the family my hits were coming from. I had already had some success through my own test, I was uncertain as to who my grandmother's mother was (mainly due to the fact she had added a middle name), I though I knew who she was but could not be 100% certain. My test proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the woman I though was my great grandmother was indeed flash and blood, although this is not the story I am wanting to tell.
Looking through the results for my father over Christmas I came across a man who was said to be my father's 4th cousin (I will refer to the cousin as Mr. H in the rest of my tale). Ancestry had the confidence down as being high, in most cases of hits have confidence as high I have been able to work out the connection relatively easily. In this case however it was proving more complicated.
We both had families called Humphreys, the families lived around 35 miles apart but I had managed to trace my family back to around 1700, Mr. H had also researched his family back to around the same time so if there was a connection it would have occurred in the 17th century which is too early to really be a close relative. Ancestry, although predicting 4th cousin does go on to say that the range for the relation could be 4-6 cousins, but if there was a connection between our Humphreys' families it would have been well outside this range.
If you were to compare my father's tree and Mr. H's tree you would see no other common names (as in names in both tree's, not names like Smith!). Having said this, a name did jump out at me, Mr. H's great grandmother had been called Elizabeth Jane Jesson.
My father's grandmother was a woman called Ethel Mary Whitefoot. She was born on the 20 October 1889 at 2 Gem Cottages, Dolobran Road in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. Her mother was Mary Whitefoot, a housekeeper, no father was mentioned on the birth certificate. I have spend many years trying to find out who Ethel's father was with no success, no contemporary records exist to tell me, and she fabricated a father when she married.
The only name I could venture was Charles Jesson. He was the head of 2 Gem Cottages on the 1891 census (the Whitefoot's were still there), but I had no hard evidence to suggest that he was Ethel's father, after all he could have taken Mary on as a housekeeper while she was pregnant. It is also worth noting that on the 1891 census (I believe) Charles' wife was in the Asylum, so the circumstances were there which could have lead Charles to fathering a child with Mary (especially as Mary was quite 'loose', she had already had three illegitimate children before Ethel was born).
After noticing Elizabeth Jane Jesson on Mr. H's tree I decided to see if there was a connection between Elizabeth and Charles. As it turns out they were first cousins, both grandchildren of Edmund Jesson of Stechford, Yardley. If you say that Ethel Whitefoot was indeed Charles' daughter then the relationship between my father and Mr. H would be 4th cousins, exactly what is predicted by Ancestry.
This of cause does not prove 100% than Charles is my 2nd great grandfather, but it is certainly a start. If I had not gone down the route of taking these tests I would never have found out this information. However, this could be the start of me being able to close off a gaping hole in my own tree and finally find the ancestor's I though I had lost.
MercianSte
