Morning all!
I finally got round to completing my 23andme DNA test (had bought it last year but with one thing and another didn't do my test tube spitting till recently), with the idea mostly of finding out about my genetic ancestry, but also confirming a few health details.
All well on the health front, which after all only reports on tendencies from huge cohorts of people, and slightly disappointed that my genetic ancestry is solidly a) UK/Irish (nearly half), b) French/German (I think my recent Belgian ancestry will come in that) and a smidgen of interesting Scandinavian stuff which entered apparently 18th and 19th century - ooh, what was going on there?
Nothing more exotic.
I would perhaps have done another brand of test if I'd realised that the raw data wouldn't be allowed to be updated to Ancestry (boo!) where my tree is. But there you go.
So I first of all looked at my DNA relatives on 123and me, and also uploaded the data to Gedmatch and sure enough there are remote-ish relatives to be seen. Not close, but 3/4 cousin sort of thing.
I've been in contact with two potentially 3rd cousins.
I was really naive here, I see now.
I thought I knew most of my gx2 grandparents, and therefore common surnames would pop out of our conversations.
Two things have happened.
1. I did a table of my gx2 grandparents, gx3 grandparents and gx4 grandparents, and found that actually I didn't know as many of them as I had previously thought (they mount up, don't they).
2. Neither of the two contacts who've replied to me have any matching surnames AT ALL.
One has done a lot of research, but all the results are from Suffolk and Norfolk (I have none from there)
One hasn't done much at all, so to find the link I have to do it all for him.
My results so far are that I've got to try and think how to take my East End of London ancestors with very common surnames back a couple more generations, just to see where they came from if other than London......
Although on the other hand, I've done a large family tree for the other contact for one part of his ancestry - 200+ names - though without finding any commonalities, apart from the fact that, tantalisingly, the geographical location in Kent is very close to some of my ancestors.
Who knew it would be so difficult? And if your contacts are people who aren't so keen on research, or so familiar with techniques (though I'm far from as expert as some of you guys here), you find yourself researching for other people.
Aaaaargh!