A distant cousin of mine (4th!) who is a full-time genealogist persuaded me to take the FTDNA Family Finder test, and quite frankly I wasn't too impressed with the results. Plenty of so-called matches, but who on earth were they? Hardly any of them had a family-tree that made any sense to me.
Then my relative asked for permission to upload my details onto MyHeritage. Carry on, said I, not expecting much from that either. In fact, right from the start I have been blown away by the matches I have found on MyHeritage, many of whom are related to me in recent time. The first one I checked out turned out to be the daughter of a 2nd cousin I used to exchange emails with most Saturday afternoons.
But the star of the show is a chap with a name that meant nothing to me, but he shared 7.5% of my DNA, 544.1cM(!) and we had shared segments on 22 out of the 23 chromosomes. I noticed that he also matched several people who matched me on my paternal Watson side, so he had to be close family. My dad was the youngest of 10 children, and I knew pretty well who my various cousins were, except that I did have an uncle who moved from Scotland to England before I was born and we lost touch with him and his family, although I knew he and his wife had 6 children.
Cutting a long story short, with the help of my genealogist 4th cousin I have established that this chap is the grandson of my long-lost uncle, hence my 1st cousin, once removed. Unfortunately he hasn't responded to my email, but at least my curiosity is satisfied, and autosomal DNA is vindicated!
Harry