I have recently added my Mum's DNA sample to our family group. So I am working my way through her 340 close matches. There are 3 very large groups - one is her mother's Creek relatives (originally from Cambridgeshire) the other two belong to her Kerr and Laurie families from Dumfries and Lanarkshire.
Others though, I have no idea where the DNA match comes from, they have no common matches and few family trees.
Sometimes I look at a small family tree and if I can find a name and birth or death date, I will do a little investigating. Mostly I fail to achieve any results - the name is too common, the dates seem wrong, or I cannot find any trace of the person, or their ancestors in a census. You would think that I could find a name in the Freebmd index and then use the GRO index to find the mothers maiden name. Then I could find a marriage and work back from there - no, not usually, or after 3 generations, there are no common surnames or places or the family thread becomes lost.
Dad has a large group of people who match with his DNA and each other, but very few of his other matches - his match and one other known match lead me to believe they are related to his paternal line, but not one of them can show me anyone born outside the USA. Another large-ish group of his matches related to a Wakefield family in the US - but I traced them back to Ireland, but as far as I know Dad has no Irish ancestors.
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