RootsChat.Com
General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Sikes on Friday 16 June 23 13:50 BST (UK)
-
As I spend a lot of time stuck on my wifes brickwall (https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=873740.0 (https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=873740.0)) and mine (https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=873730.0). I wondered if DNA could provide answers? Though my knowledge of this area is very basic. Is it correct to say, say via Ancestry DNA, that if my wife has a connection with the same surname (Mortimer in this case). With no connection in their current trees or obvious connections, it might worth tracing their tree down to maybe demolish my wifes brickwall?
We both have family stories (hers Roger Mortimer and mine Dafydd ap Mathew) that I would like to prove or disprove.
-
I avoided a DNA test for years don't know why.
My Great Grandfather came from Dublin his Marriage Certificate in Liverpool showed his Father was a Corkcutter named Anthony Chapman
I wondered if my Great Grandfather followed over an Older Brother who came over First
I found a Corkcutter in Liverpool named Anthony Chapman 3 years older
I decided to research him as the possibility that he was the older Brother
He married in Liverpool and named his Father as Anthony a Corkcutter which added to my Theory but couldn't prove it and none of my Relatives would accept my Theory.
The Brother first moved to Manchester and became a Mormon and then Emigrated to Salt Lake City and his Family Tree all grew up there and started an Ancestry Tree.
One year I finally took my DNA test
And Wow !!!
It matched my DNA to those Descendants of the Brother in Salt Lake City which proved we all shared the Anthony Chapman Corkcutter in Dublin and proved my Theory that they were Brothers
It certainly broke down my Brickwall!
I now recommend people use DNA to help them in their Research.
-
I suggest that you read my contributions to this thread.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=863488.0
-
I took a DNA test to help find my grandmother's parents. I asked a cousin to do a test so I could work out maternal and paternal matches to me. This was helpful as it allowed me to do this and to also look at shared matches with my cousin. My highest matches are with surnames of Spong (149 Cm) and Barlow (63 Cm). I have managed to work out how these two surnames match and who the common ancestor is by building a tree. I know my grandmother is related to these 2 matches but it has not brought me any closer to working out who her parents are.
There are a number of people who do a DNA test and are not really interested in ancestors. They do not have trees and they do not reply to messages. You really do have to be lucky sometimes and just wait until a good DNA match comes up.
My husband did discover a half-brother through DNA. His half-brother had been searching for over 40 years and DNA was his last resort. There have also been a couple of other discoveries but these need another person to submit a DNA sample and it is a bit daunting to ask them to do this.
Regards Kaybron
-
I suggest that you read my contributions to this thread.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=863488.0
Thats very useful, thank you.
-
Good question. Firstly you are correct to consider using Ancestry if you do go down the DNA route. That's because it has by far the largest DNA database of all the DNA companies. After testing you can widen your net by uploading your Ancestry test results to a few other sites. Ancestry, however, will not let you upload test results if you test with another company, so if you don't start with Ancestry you cannot access their database.
Testing should come with a warning however. You can get results that you don't expect and which can be very upsetting (I have personal experience). Nevertheless I have widened my family tree enormously as a result of testing, with cousins from families I had never heard of before.
-
In straightforward terms:-
If you have not taken a DNA test and used it to validate each Parental and Grandparental lines then your tree is a Genealogical Family Tree, that is it is “paper” based.
Your Family Tree is not a Biological Family Tree.
All it takes is for a single Birth Certificate to be fabricated and the whole line is not necessarily ones bloodline.
Siblings need to take a DNA test as does at least one Cousin from each side of your family.
Hopefully Second Cousins will show as matches but if not then those that are found on paper should also be approached to take a DNA test.
This can be a difficult task, it took three years of persuasion before my Cousins agreed to take a DNA test.
Multiple tests all help in narrowing down actual Biological relationships.
-
I'll echo Biggles. And also add anyone interested in family history but doesn't have their DNA tested probably inherited the Silly Gene. Family history without DNA is like watching a film without sound. It's lead me to discoveries that I would never have made otherwise, making a mockery of my research otherwise. But it isn't easy. You need many skills.
Zaphod
-
Theres not a lot more to add to previous comments. If you want to solve brickwalls, then take a DNA test, an Ancestry one, followed by subsequent uploads to other platforms if necessary. it is a very simple decision to make as long as you appreciate what you may find out when the bottle is opened. I manage many DNA accounts including my own and I just love the divinely logical puzzles that you get to solve featuring all sorts of utterly unexpected weird and wonderful facets. Good luck!!
-
definitely can help with brickwalls tho the more collaberation you get from matches the better
i have also posted on this subject have helped 2 distant matches identify their birth fathers one was a war baby from my smith branch ,the other is from jones branch and his father could be 1 of 2 brothers who are 20+ Years older than his mother ...spent a long time looking at wrong generation
more recently helped a frenchman identify his mothers birthfather she was a WW1 baby
my 1st success was identifying my grandmothers birth parents..i think its one of the longest threads on here
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=702286.msg6082485#msg6082485
started 2014 ..how many pages before a dna match proved the theories ?
we Found the correct birth father before the birth mother
biggles posts are wonderful btw
-
Like if you find an illegitimate ancestor, and found a suspected father, the only way to be 99.999% sure is to take a DNA test.
I have a 2xgreat grandmother born Dec 1863 whose parents wed in mid 1864 when she was a baby and the baby was then baptised as the daughter of the new husband. Turned out he was still married when his future 2nd wife was pregnant, and his first wife died in November 1863 of a long illness just weeks before the 2nd wife gave birth. Autosomal DNA testing would be definitive, it is the father of my maternal line 2xgreat grandmother.
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
-
Sadly with DNA one can get a high probability that ones hypothesis may be correct but one will never likely get the paper trail to substantiate the matter or even a cM level in the right ball park.
As an example in a tree that I am researching where there is an NPE, both the potential Father’s are deceased and there is no records that one of them ever got married.
The Grandchildren of one of the Potential Father’s are in themselves likely to have inconclusive cM levels with the person that I am researching.
Hence there is another brickwall on the other side of the demolished one.
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
Yes, human behaviour has always been rollercoaster.
I know some stuff about DNA testing but I get confused with all this centimorgan data, and also know that it may not answer all your prayers as it is not as cut and dried as seems. I have been doing my family tree for almost 30 years but with DNA testing I am a novice, and have not even tested yet.
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
Yes, human behaviour has always been rollercoaster.
I know some stuff about DNA testing but I get confused with all this centimorgan data, and also know that it may not answer all your prayers as it is not as cut and dried as seems. I have been doing my family tree for almost 30 years but with DNA testing I am a novice, and have not even tested yet.
Coombs
There are plenty here to help, if and when you are ready to take a DNA test, pm me and I can send some files that I sent to help my Cousins understand what I have been doing.
Yes there can be pitfalls, but there are benefits, I am in contact with DNA Cousins (2C’s) who I never knew existed and they in turn have supplied plenty of family information.
The book by Blaine Bettinger is a good place to start. He is the guy behind the DNA Painter website that you will have seen commented on and suggested here many times.
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
I am far from convinced that you can tell.
My parents are tested. Their 16 great-grandparents typically date from the 1700s or very early 1800s.
My parents each have over 20,000 DNA matches, but I can't identify positive DNA links to all 16 great-grandparents for them. Indeed, we don't even know who some of them were. That far back, DNA matches become quite random - which I can see with many examples of match/no match between family members, and also highly varying levels of match where matches do exist. I don't conclude from this that that there were "illicit children".
-
I've always been sceptical on some DNA reports I've heard about getting no near connections but a lot of general stuff like, descend from Norman, Saxon. Druid, Asian, African and or other descent. I have seen a programme of late on unknown male sperm donation fathers and they have had success being able to track the father or at least his family connection with DNA for the child that was born from a sperm donation for/when that child has grown up wanting to know who was their biological fathers. ( I believe the father or his family were contacted first to see if they wanted the fathers identity passed to the child of the sperm donation first though)
So DNA does solve or help breaking down walls.
:)
-
So DNA does solve or help breaking down walls.
:)
Yes, but that's very recent. Once you get further back, it's not so easy.
I have two groups of matches who match each other on my paternal side, and one on my maternal side. They are largely full of matches who don't have trees, or have private trees. The ones who have private trees don't turn up in any search for any locality my family lived in, and the few who have useful sized public trees usually turn out to be based in the States, and not have managed to cross the Pond yet.
And two of my paternal brick walls are in parts of the country which have no group of unknown matches to even look at. My great grandmother (an only child) came from Oxfordshire, and should have several matches of a reasonable size, but there's absolutely nothing from her locality at all.
Just not that simple, and very dependent on who has tested.
-
I have posted this before but do listen to the BBC Sounds series “The Gift”.
It is all about DNA and covers six different aspects in the broadcasts.
If anyone has any doubt about DNA test just listen to the episode where a guy who spent 30 years researching his Family History found out the truth about his past.
-
So DNA does solve or help breaking down walls.
:)
Yes, but that's very recent. Once you get further back, it's not so easy.
I have two groups of matches who match each other on my paternal side, and one on my maternal side. They are largely full of matches who don't have trees, or have private trees. The ones who have private trees don't turn up in any search for any locality my family lived in, and the few who have useful sized public trees usually turn out to be based in the States, and not have managed to cross the Pond yet.
And two of my paternal brick walls are in parts of the country which have no group of unknown matches to even look at. My great grandmother (an only child) came from Oxfordshire, and should have several matches of a reasonable size, but there's absolutely nothing from her locality at all.
Just not that simple, and very dependent on who has tested.
Hi
A lot of what you say is true about what you post about DNA, but you mention early further back usually pre 1837 census years and you talk of family trees as sources for pre known information on a family history.
What you have to remember if its hard for you to find & prove your family history it is most likely have been hard for them to have found it - so they copy other trees with the the notion that if a lot of trees have the same information, then it must be right. (Though there will be some accurate trees - they are very few provable, usually very rich family records or poor law records of the parish like overseers payments from the parish relief funds to the poor, or parish chest info and in between people of different classes like working or middle class folk - its pot luck on any information has survived.
Graveyard epitaph MI's help also deep research in archives and as an extra tool DNA helps also but its not an instant shortcut with info from family trees (But does help as a tool of many in the overhaul picture)
Added: With LDS religion ! the followers need to go back 6 generations of their family history out of necessity of their religious belief with family history DNA it is improving all the time for this for a reason
-
word of warning too
dna can create new brick walls + demolish the established branch not just because of wrong birth father but also if you have certificates + documents but you are following the wrong person with same names
at the moment im unravelling a mess of Dobsons tree leads back to a farmer b 1794 from amotherby yorkshire england
no dna matches confirm any of the lines
but about 10 matches to descendats of a basket maker b1821 + his mother from elwick durham
which is a totally different branch
im starting back at the beginning .
checking ie got the correct sarah daughter of john
.first names john sarah + jane feature heavily
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
Yes, human behaviour has always been rollercoaster.
I know some stuff about DNA testing but I get confused with all this centimorgan data, and also know that it may not answer all your prayers as it is not as cut and dried as seems. I have been doing my family tree for almost 30 years but with DNA testing I am a novice, and have not even tested yet.
Coombs
There are plenty here to help, if and when you are ready to take a DNA test, pm me and I can send some files that I sent to help my Cousins understand what I have been doing.
Yes there can be pitfalls, but there are benefits, I am in contact with DNA Cousins (2C’s) who I never knew existed and they in turn have supplied plenty of family information.
The book by Blaine Bettinger is a good place to start. He is the guy behind the DNA Painter website that you will have seen commented on and suggested here many times.
Thanks I will take you up on the offer. I take it you have to pay to submit your DNA to Ancestry? Such as pay for a DNA testing kit?
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
Yes, human behaviour has always been rollercoaster.
I know some stuff about DNA testing but I get confused with all this centimorgan data, and also know that it may not answer all your prayers as it is not as cut and dried as seems. I have been doing my family tree for almost 30 years but with DNA testing I am a novice, and have not even tested yet.
Coombs
There are plenty here to help, if and when you are ready to take a DNA test, pm me and I can send some files that I sent to help my Cousins understand what I have been doing.
Yes there can be pitfalls, but there are benefits, I am in contact with DNA Cousins (2C’s) who I never knew existed and they in turn have supplied plenty of family information.
The book by Blaine Bettinger is a good place to start. He is the guy behind the DNA Painter website that you will have seen commented on and suggested here many times.
Thanks I will take you up on the offer. I take it you have to pay to submit your DNA to Ancestry? Such as pay for a DNA testing kit?
Yes, but if and when you want to buy do keep a look out for lower cost offers i.e. £60 ish.
No need for having traits things like that can be added retrospectively for a smallish fee.
Ancestry is the one to take as you can download the DNA Data and upload it to My Heritage, ftDNA, Gedmatch etc and hence maximise the hunt for DNA matches. A My Heritage DNA test is cheaper BUT, the database of testees is substantially less than Ancestry and you cannot upload to Ancestry which makes Ancestry far better vfm.
You do have limited information available to view without an Ancestry subscription but a subscription is really necessary, at least for a short time, to maximise making use of the probable 20,000+ DNA matches that one is likely to be presented with.
As an example my Nephew took a DNA test and I have his log in details, such that I could only see his Ethnicity results. I had to transfer Management of his DNA kit to myself to be able to log in under my user info and I could then view his results so now I have access to all the DNA matches he has of which those via his Mum, my Sister-in-Law is the research area of interest in expanding this side of our family tree.
-
Further to what I said earlier, and what Coombs has just said, DNA testing has shown that two of my 16 great great grandparents had illicit children. I don't think that's untypical.
Zaph
Yes, human behaviour has always been rollercoaster.
I know some stuff about DNA testing but I get confused with all this centimorgan data, and also know that it may not answer all your prayers as it is not as cut and dried as seems. I have been doing my family tree for almost 30 years but with DNA testing I am a novice, and have not even tested yet.
Coombs
There are plenty here to help, if and when you are ready to take a DNA test, pm me and I can send some files that I sent to help my Cousins understand what I have been doing.
Yes there can be pitfalls, but there are benefits, I am in contact with DNA Cousins (2C’s) who I never knew existed and they in turn have supplied plenty of family information.
The book by Blaine Bettinger is a good place to start. He is the guy behind the DNA Painter website that you will have seen commented on and suggested here many times.
Thanks I will take you up on the offer. I take it you have to pay to submit your DNA to Ancestry? Such as pay for a DNA testing kit?
Yes, but if and when you want to buy do keep a look out for lower cost offers i.e. £60 ish.
No need for having traits things like that can be added retrospectively for a smallish fee.
Ancestry is the one to take as you can download the DNA Data and upload it to My Heritage, ftDNA, Gedmatch etc and hence maximise the hunt for DNA matches. A My Heritage DNA test is cheaper BUT, the database of testees is substantially less than Ancestry and you cannot upload to Ancestry which makes Ancestry far better vfm.
You do have limited information available to view without an Ancestry subscription but a subscription is really necessary, at least for a short time, to maximise making use of the probable 20,000+ DNA matches that one is likely to be presented with.
As an example my Nephew took a DNA test and I have his log in details, such that I could only see his Ethnicity results. I had to transfer Management of his DNA kit to myself to be able to log in under my user info and I could then view his results so now I have access to all the DNA matches he has of which those via his Mum, my Sister-in-Law is the research area of interest in expanding this side of our family tree.
Thanks. As we all know DNA can rubber stamp paper trails but also can disprove them. We can get strong circumstantial evidence of a father of an illegitimate child through poor law records or he says he was the father on the baptism or birth cert but only DNA testing will prove or disprove it.
-
Yes Coombs that is right.
Just because a Certificate list the parents it does not necessarily mean that that they are.
Probably they are correct, but there for me will always be a but, in that I have to have DNA matches linking via the person names on the certificate.
BTW
I am seeing Ancestry DNA tests listed on our account at £59 + postage.
-
Yes Coombs that is right.
Just because a Certificate list the parents it does not necessarily mean that that they are.
Probably they are correct, but there for me will always be a but, in that I have to have DNA matches linking via the person names on the certificate.
BTW
I am seeing Ancestry DNA tests listed on our account at £59 + postage.
£59, that is quite a bargain.
-
Postage costs from USA always have to be added to that . & There can be a long wait for delivery then an even longer wait for results to come in
Coombes I bought 4 in one go to save on postage costs for a cousin.sister + brother in law & one for a friend
My sister decided not to take hers so
I actually have a spare if you'd like it for £60 plus whatever it costs to post from UK
They are very light and smaller than the boxes 10 years ago
-
Postage costs from USA always have to be added to that . & There can be a long wait for delivery then an even longer wait for results to come in
Coombes I bought 4 in one go to save on postage costs for a cousin.sister + brother in law & one for a friend
My sister decided not to take hers so
I actually have a spare if you'd like it for £60 plus whatever it costs to post from UK
They are very light and smaller than the boxes 10 years ago
Thanks for the offer for the £60, I need time to think about it though.
-
And also add anyone interested in family history but doesn't have their DNA tested probably inherited the Silly Gene. Family history without DNA is like watching a film without sound.
Before the pandemic, I belonged to my local U3A Family History Group. I was the only one of the 6 of us who had taken a DNA test. None of the others (including the leader) had any interest in taking one themselves and thought that I was very peculiar in having resorted to DNA rather than "rely" on the paper trail.
-
I've just submitted a test sample. What prompted it was the revelation that along with his wordly goods, my late dad (appears) to have left my siblings and I a half-sister (b 1949) . (whoops!)
She had managed via cousin-matching DNA to zero in on her great-grandparents, then her/our grandparents. A first name matching dear old dad was in the adoption paperwork, and theres a limited pool of grandkids to choose from...
so if this is yes/no question (can it be done), i'm going to have to say, yes
-
And also add anyone interested in family history but doesn't have their DNA tested probably inherited the Silly Gene. Family history without DNA is like watching a film without sound.
Before the pandemic, I belonged to my local U3A Family History Group. I was the only one of the 6 of us who had taken a DNA test. None of the others (including the leader) had any interest in taking one themselves and thought that I was very peculiar in having resorted to DNA rather than "rely" on the paper trail.
I also am a member of my local U3A and have given a couple of presentations specifically on DNA.
I did ask a series of questions before I started and a good proportion of the attendees had taken a DNA test, so I had a very keen audience for the last one.
I’m laid up at present but when I do go to meetings there are usually multiple DNA related questions asked by Group members.
DNA is not a subject that can be covered in one session, to do the subject justice then at least three presentations are required.
-
A distant cousin on Ancestry says that he has found out the origins and maiden name of our female ancestor Martha (c1720-2778) and got her maiden name through DNA testing in his words "I've gone through my, and my First Cousins, DNA matches and assigned them to my four Grandparents lines. Then for my Parental side I've listed all of the "Shared Matches" for each DNA match. From the Shared Matches I then can group together DNA matches. One of these Groups had people related to Abel and people related to Clinkard (from my notes there were 10-12 people in this grouping). The DNA matches tell me there was a marriage between the Abel and Clinkards."
Martha was born c1720 and died in 1778 and I have never before been able to find her maiden name due to not being able to find a marriage record. There was a Martha Clinkard born in 1722 in Garsington, Oxfordshire as well. Not sure what to think or take of the finding, can you connect links that far back?
-
A distant cousin on Ancestry says that he has found out the origins and maiden name of our female ancestor Martha (c1720-2778) and got her maiden name through DNA testing in his words "I've gone through my, and my First Cousins, DNA matches and assigned them to my four Grandparents lines. Then for my Parental side I've listed all of the "Shared Matches" for each DNA match. From the Shared Matches I then can group together DNA matches. One of these Groups had people related to Abel and people related to Clinkard (from my notes there were 10-12 people in this grouping). The DNA matches tell me there was a marriage between the Abel and Clinkards."
Martha was born c1720 and died in 1778 and I have never before been able to find her maiden name due to not being able to find a marriage record. There was a Martha Clinkard born in 1722 in Garsington, Oxfordshire as well. Not sure what to think or take of the finding, can you connect links that far back?
What the distant Cousin has done is use The Leeds Method as a base and if I have followed the text correctly they have extrapolated the results back into matches where there is likely to be very low levels of shared DNA.
To use data from my own tree my 5xGGP’s were born around the time of the Martha quoted in the text. At this Grandparental level I have zero reliable DNA matches.
Where there is 10cM and below shared DNA with a match whilst the shared level might be right it might also be a false positive.
Personally if I am researching a DNA match where the shared cM level is below 20cM I will always have a degree of doubt in the accuracy of the relationship.
Finally yes I do have low cM matches that link back to MRCA’s born in the early 1700’s but these do have a paper trail to support the DNA results.
Do note that in my posts I tend to use the term validate, on its own DNA cannot give the answer to more distant relationships it can only offer probabilities.