I think that while DNA genealogy is a useful tool it’s no substitute for traditional research. I got my Ancestry results back a year ago and in that time I’ve managed to find the links to just ten of those. One is a second cousin once removed, one is a half-second cousin, seven are 4th cousins and one is a 5th cousin. In most cases they had good trees, although in one case they had just four people in their tree but by luck there was an unusual surname also in my tree which turned out to be the link.
I have many other matches where I’m still doing work to establish the links. I guess I’ve learned two main things over the last year:
(1) Up until doing my DNA test I had always focused on going back in time with research. I went sideways across each generation (e.g. added in siblings) but never went back down these lines again to more recent generations. I now realise that coming back down these lines helps enormously with trying to place DNA matches.
(2) Linked to this, I now realise that I shouldn’t dismiss matches who are based in other countries. Initially I thought “no point in following this one up, she lives in the USA. No one in my family tree lived there.” Wrong. Coming back down these sideways lines I now find people who emigrated to the USA, Canada and New Zealand. The common ancestor was in England, but people moved away.
Once you’re u get started you’ll learn some tricks, and making the first few links will give you new links. It does become a bit easier, honest!
