I’ve been researching my family history on and off for 12 years or so. I’ve had a dna test and get updated results periodically. It’s been interesting and helpful and I’ve discovered reasonably close members of my family as a consequence of dna matches.
Yeah, I did it about 4-5 years ago whilst looking for some cousins I’ve never met who were raised in USA. Thinking they might have also taken the test. I didn’t find via the dna 🧬 test, but did find them by some good old detective work.
The result of my test showed me I had a cousin I never knew about ( this turned out to be 8 cousins). With some investigation, we think that my grandfather had fathered a daughter in his teens, long before he met my grandmother. I left it there as he didn’t appear on my cousin’s dna test, which I expected.
Other members of my family ( son of a cousin) have done and he has a cousin that no one seems to know about it or ain’t saying anything.
It could open a can of worms that once opened can’t be closed.
Originally, my results said I was 100% Irish, it now says 92% Irish & 8 % Scottish (Southern) / Northern Ireland as they improve their testing. This falls in line as my grandmother came from Antrim.
Started doing it many moons ago - just my father's side. Hit lucky in finding out a distant cousin (unknown to me) had been doing the same thing and my history went from 1830'ish all the way back to the 14th century.
I was watching Long Lost Family with my son where they rely more and more on DNA.
I said, 'Just imagine son, suppose you had a bit of a fumble in Southend back in 74. You put your name on the database and up pops a son or a daughter'.
Did my tree and subsequently DNA, nothing earth shattering on the DNA front, a bit of Norway, 25% Irish (which I knew), no mysterious children came out of the woodwork!
I did find out why I had sea legs though, all my family from great grandfather back were lifeboat men. Answers why when coming back over the bay of Biscay in a force 9 it was only me and the chef (out of about 3,000 people) who weren't in their room, including the Dr!
Weirdly a little village in Norfolk that we've holidayed at maybe 15 times happens to be where they are all from and buried. I dint know until about the 10th visit!
my father my dad did this during lockdown - just through records etc. amazing how much you can find if you put in the time.
not wishing to get all Acworth-Waldegrave over this but he traced our family back on his mothers side to Lady Anne Leonard who happens to be the daughter of king Charles II Who in turn was the son of King Charles
its quite fascinating stuff but there also were some names elsewhere in the teee who were proper wrong’uns 😀
I started researching my family tree in around 2010 and took an Ancestry DNA test about 5 years ago. One brick wall was my great grandmothers father on my dad’s side. She was illegitimate and was given the middle name Green, presumably her father’s surname.
I tried to build out family trees of DNA matches who had a link to the town that I couldn't fit into my tree. There was a small group of fairly distant matches who appeared to share an Italian ancestor who came to England in the late 1700s. He went on to have three English wives and lived into his 90s. This was interesting as I only knew of ancestors from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland but I couldn't see how they linked to my family.
At the same time I looked up all Green families on the 1901 census in the town she was born who had potential fathers. I'm not sure why but one stuck out to me, they were a family of six brothers. Their father was illegitimate so I was unable to trace their tree back further. After playing around on Ancestry for a while I was surprised to find his mother had married a few times and her maiden name was the Italian surname. Green was the surname of her first husband who had died years before, so had things turned out slightly different another surname could have been used and made my job a lot harder or easier.
This seemed to be the connection from my family to the DNA matches. Digging into it further I found the Green family lived around the corner from where my great grandmother was born. I also realised the 1939 register shows one of the brothers lived next door to my great grandmother and her family, including my grandmother. He had a son who may well have played with my grandmother and her sister who perhaps never realised he was related. Was he the father keeping an eye on his daughter, or the uncle doing so in the absence of the father, his brother?
Aside from DNA testing another favourite source of mine is the British Newspaper Archive which you can access directly on its own website or via FindMyPast. I've found a range of stories on there, the positive, others funny and some very sad. One of the more recent ones I've found was the latter, the suicide by drowning of who I believe is my great x 4 grandmother mentioned above. She had moved to Sheffield where she lived with her second husband. The story mentions her neighbour tracing her footsteps in the snow to the water side where her shawl was found on the railings. In a very Victorian style she was described as committing suicide while in a state of temporary insanity. Having lost her first husband and then having an illegitimate born in a workhouse it doesn't seem unlikely that she suffered with her mental health for years without the support and understanding available today.
I was in Sheffield for the away game against Wednesday in early 2011 and had no idea at the time I had an ancestor who lived there, never mind being of Italian descent and who suffered to the point she took her own life.
Yes I've done mine. Found 8 previously unknown half siblings, but not through the dna side as none have done it but through being a persistent git. Met three of them and their Mum too.
I've traced my Mums side extensively. My biological fathers side in as much as I've traced his mother, my Grandmothers side of the family back as far as 1400 or thereabouts.
Lots of dna relatives proven and tested.
My biological fathers, father, yeah I have the info but I've no dna relations at all... zero so im pretty sure either my grandfather or at the very least his mother aren't from the family lineage that they take there name from. Basically my Grandmother or Great grandmother were playing away or they had kids with a 1st cousin. And I've got some of those in my past.
Up to about 1400 relatives now and they are all verified unlike the yanks who name collect and claim they have 4-10k relatives.
Did my tree and subsequently DNA, nothing earth shattering on the DNA front, a bit of Norway, 25% Irish (which I knew), no mysterious children came out of the woodwork!
I did find out why I had sea legs though, all my family from great grandfather back were lifeboat men. Answers why when coming back over the bay of Biscay in a force 9 it was only me and the chef (out of about 3,000 people) who weren't in their room, including the Dr!
Weirdly a little village in Norfolk that we've holidayed at maybe 15 times happens to be where they are all from and buried. I dint know until about the 10th visit!
Ever wondered why you keep being drawn to a place but don't know why?
I did a bit of genealogy when my dad died. The interesting thing for me was finding out stories from my mum and my uncles about stuff that had gone on within a generation or two of their lifetimes. Wish I'd have started earlier so I could have asked my dad and grandparents.
I've never done DNA stuff though, for one thing I didn't have any desire to get in touch with distant relatives, for another I find the 5% this, 20% that stuff pretty meaningless if you've no idea who the actual people were. Anyway, by the time you get back 800 years you're related to more or less everyone on the planet anyway. That said, I'm going to contradict myself a little here, I do like the idea that I have Swedish heritage and consequently adopt the Swedes as my second team when watching football tournaments and the like.
I've done mine on both Ancestry DNA and 23 & me and got two completely different results so take it all with a pinch of salt. I have one Irish and one Danish Grandparent. On ancestry I get 25% Scandi and 2% Irish. 23 & me gave me pretty much the opposite (quarter Irish and hardly any Scandi).
The main reason I wanted to do it is because my Granddad was born into an Irish Traveller family and is quite dark skinned so I was curious to see if anything suggested this. I did end up with small parts of North African and Nigerian which was certainly something unknown to me.
My wife bought a kit too and got the most boring result possible. 100% South Chinese (she's from Hong Kong). Money well spent
I think Stig makes an important point here. It’s so important to talk to older relatives and ask questions because once that resource is gone, so too will be all of their knowledge and anecdotes. The problem though is that generally you don’t become curious enough to do any of that when you’re youngish and by the time you want to find out these things it’s often too late. Serious message there for any younger lifers reading this.
We use the my heritage site and it’s fascinating. I’m from so many different genealogies it’s quite confusing. The largest was ashkernazi jews from the polish Ukrainian border. My Father in laws cousin was murdered at sea in the 1950’s aged 20. A few months ago we got contacted by this Dutch lady who had no family left in Holland and she was the illegitimate daughter of the murdered seaman. She came over and met my FIL. Both in their 80’s. It was a good day. She is a huge feyernoord fan and has invited us over there.
joined a while back, traced my father's line back to the 1600s, mothers only as far as the mid 1840s
I have literally hundreds of 3rd/4th cousins, mostly in England, Australia, USA and Canada and even a few in Germany and Norway. I have given up compiling a family tree but still get emails from the websites naming distant relations
Done mine a few years ago and was toying with the idea of tracing the family back , i have 5 sisters and 3 brothers so a big family , spoke to most of them over the years but none have much they can tell me about apart from bits about my Grandparents ( they were alive when i was a toddler but never met them ) i suspect there are somethings in my family past that no one knows or wants to speak about . I Do know that my Dad was a Grenadier Guard in the war and when he past his Dad was listed as a Royal Marine . Anyway heres mime .
I think Stig makes an important point here. It’s so important to talk to older relatives and ask questions because once that resource is gone, so too will be all of their knowledge and anecdotes. The problem though is that generally you don’t become curious enough to do any of that when you’re youngish and by the time you want to find out these things it’s often too late. Serious message there for any younger lifers reading this.
Yeh, that is so true. I am fortunate that my 91 year old mum is still with us, but I have learned more family history from her in the last 3 years, than the previous 60+ put together, or is it that I never took it in when I was younger. She has also imparted some fascinating tales of Woolwich in the 1930's and her experiences as a schoolgirl in wartime Woolwich
My elder brother spent a fortune researching our family history and another fortune to cover it up
Seriously, he got back to mid 17th century and we learnt a lot about our family and it's roots which coincidentally come from about 2 miles from where I live now. Fascinating stuff and I'm hoping one of the younger generation in our family will keep it going.
I love how precise they can identify communities, this is from my uncle’s results. My Irish ancestors married within the area the test picked out, South Central Cork.
I love how precise they can identify communities, this is from my uncle’s results. My Irish ancestors married within the area the test picked out, South Central Cork.
Which service did you use. I’ve done 23&me here in the US, and it was good on my mothers side of the family, but quite a bit off on my father. It rank Cornwall as 9th possible area. Apart from the fact he was from Devon, which didn’t get a mention at all, we know his parents and grandparents were all from the same small town.
It did get me thinking about genealogy, and spend a day going down a rabbit hole. Knew my mothers side, but very little about my father. We knew he’d been married twice - it turns out it was three times. I knew he had a brother - in fact he had two and a sister. And following that I found out my now deceased cousin via the unknown brother was a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and for a time Commodore of Devonport Naval Base.
I love how precise they can identify communities, this is from my uncle’s results. My Irish ancestors married within the area the test picked out, South Central Cork.
Which service did you use. I’ve done 23&me here in the US, and it was good on my mothers side of the family, but quite a bit off on my father. It rank Cornwall as 9th possible area. Apart from the fact he was from Devon, which didn’t get a mention at all, we know his parents and grandparents were all from the same small town.
It did get me thinking about genealogy, and spend a day going down a rabbit hole. Knew my mothers side, but very little about my father. We knew he’d been married twice - it turns out it was three times. I knew he had a brother - in fact he had two and a sister. And following that I found out my now deceased cousin via the unknown brother was a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and for a time Commodore of Devonport Naval Base.
That was from Ancestry.co.uk. You can also download your results and upload them to other sites such as MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA.
Comments
The result of my test showed me I had a cousin I never knew about ( this turned out to be 8 cousins). With some investigation, we think that my grandfather had fathered a daughter in his teens, long before he met my grandmother. I left it there as he didn’t appear on my cousin’s dna test, which I expected.
Other members of my family ( son of a cousin) have done and he has a cousin that no one seems to know about it or ain’t saying anything.
Originally, my results said I was 100% Irish, it now says 92% Irish & 8 % Scottish (Southern) / Northern Ireland as they improve their testing. This falls in line as my grandmother came from Antrim.
Got bored then!
I said, 'Just imagine son, suppose you had a bit of a fumble in Southend back in 74. You put your name on the database and up pops a son or a daughter'.
He seemed to think I'd given far too much detail
I did find out why I had sea legs though, all my family from great grandfather back were lifeboat men. Answers why when coming back over the bay of Biscay in a force 9 it was only me and the chef (out of about 3,000 people) who weren't in their room, including the Dr!
This guy was my great great great great Grandad;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Haylett
Weirdly a little village in Norfolk that we've holidayed at maybe 15 times happens to be where they are all from and buried. I dint know until about the 10th visit!
not wishing to get all Acworth-Waldegrave over this but he traced our family back on his mothers side to Lady Anne Leonard who happens to be the daughter of king Charles II Who in turn was the son of King Charles
its quite fascinating stuff but there also were some names elsewhere in the teee who were proper wrong’uns 😀
I tried to build out family trees of DNA matches who had a link to the town that I couldn't fit into my tree. There was a small group of fairly distant matches who appeared to share an Italian ancestor who came to England in the late 1700s. He went on to have three English wives and lived into his 90s. This was interesting as I only knew of ancestors from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland but I couldn't see how they linked to my family.
At the same time I looked up all Green families on the 1901 census in the town she was born who had potential fathers. I'm not sure why but one stuck out to me, they were a family of six brothers. Their father was illegitimate so I was unable to trace their tree back further. After playing around on Ancestry for a while I was surprised to find his mother had married a few times and her maiden name was the Italian surname. Green was the surname of her first husband who had died years before, so had things turned out slightly different another surname could have been used and made my job a lot harder or easier.
This seemed to be the connection from my family to the DNA matches. Digging into it further I found the Green family lived around the corner from where my great grandmother was born. I also realised the 1939 register shows one of the brothers lived next door to my great grandmother and her family, including my grandmother. He had a son who may well have played with my grandmother and her sister who perhaps never realised he was related. Was he the father keeping an eye on his daughter, or the uncle doing so in the absence of the father, his brother?
Aside from DNA testing another favourite source of mine is the British Newspaper Archive which you can access directly on its own website or via FindMyPast. I've found a range of stories on there, the positive, others funny and some very sad. One of the more recent ones I've found was the latter, the suicide by drowning of who I believe is my great x 4 grandmother mentioned above. She had moved to Sheffield where she lived with her second husband. The story mentions her neighbour tracing her footsteps in the snow to the water side where her shawl was found on the railings. In a very Victorian style she was described as committing suicide while in a state of temporary insanity. Having lost her first husband and then having an illegitimate born in a workhouse it doesn't seem unlikely that she suffered with her mental health for years without the support and understanding available today.
I was in Sheffield for the away game against Wednesday in early 2011 and had no idea at the time I had an ancestor who lived there, never mind being of Italian descent and who suffered to the point she took her own life.
I've traced my Mums side extensively. My biological fathers side in as much as I've traced his mother, my Grandmothers side of the family back as far as 1400 or thereabouts.
I've never done DNA stuff though, for one thing I didn't have any desire to get in touch with distant relatives, for another I find the 5% this, 20% that stuff pretty meaningless if you've no idea who the actual people were. Anyway, by the time you get back 800 years you're related to more or less everyone on the planet anyway. That said, I'm going to contradict myself a little here, I do like the idea that I have Swedish heritage and consequently adopt the Swedes as my second team when watching football tournaments and the like.
The main reason I wanted to do it is because my Granddad was born into an Irish Traveller family and is quite dark skinned so I was curious to see if anything suggested this. I did end up with small parts of North African and Nigerian which was certainly something unknown to me.
My wife bought a kit too and got the most boring result possible. 100% South Chinese (she's from Hong Kong). Money well spent
I have literally hundreds of 3rd/4th cousins, mostly in England, Australia, USA and Canada and even a few in Germany and Norway. I have given up compiling a family tree but still get emails from the websites naming distant relations
https://jamesseed.blogspot.com/2020/04/01-1895-blackhill-consett-to-whitburn.html
I Do know that my Dad was a Grenadier Guard in the war and when he past his Dad was listed as a Royal Marine .
Anyway heres mime .
I am fortunate that my 91 year old mum is still with us, but I have learned more family history from her in the last 3 years, than the previous 60+ put together, or is it that I never took it in when I was younger.
She has also imparted some fascinating tales of Woolwich in the 1930's and her experiences as a schoolgirl in wartime Woolwich