My Biggest Ever Breakthrough in 20 years thanks to DNA
 

This week I made my biggest ever breakthrough on my tree, when I managed to solve a 20 year brickwall, thanks to the powers of DNA. For 20 years I have had one 'missing' great great grandfather.

Of my 16 great great grandparents, one has always been listed as 'unknown father', well not anymore!!!!!

If I said it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, well before, I didn't even know which haystack to even look in!!!!

http://chiddicksfamilytree.com/2020/...in-a-haystack/

I'm a bit confused, Chiddicks - in your blog, you say that your great-grandmother Marguerite Longland Lukes had an unknown father, and that you now believe that John William Longland was her father, but then you say that he is your great-grandfather? Shouldn't that be great-great-grandfather?

If you have found the right person, then you would want to find other descendants of John William Longland who have taken DNA tests, and see if they share the right amount of DNA with you - if they are the same generation as you they would be your half 3rd cousins and would be expected to share anywhere between 0 and 175 cM's. It might be more useful if you can find any who are of earlier generations than you are, since obviously the low end of that range isn't very useful.

Your screenshot shows that Thrulines has found four DNA matches descended from James Longland 1723 - 1779 who share between 10 cM's and 38 cM's of DNA with you. It says 5th great grandfather so I assume that James was the great-grandfather of John William Longland? The possibilities for 38 cM's shared DNA go as far down as 5th cousin (which would mean shared 4xg-grandparents), so I would not say that you have proved for sure that John William Longland was your direct ancestor, just that someone on his line was. Could be him or a brother of his, or a cousin of his. Sorry.

As a comparison, I managed to figure out who the biological father of my great-grandmother was because I found a DNA match with whom I shared 129 cM's.

Can you find any DNA matches on John William's mother's side?

Hi Kiterunner, sorry only just seen your post.

You are correct and good spot, John William Longland would be my great-great grandfather, at least it proves that somebody reads what I write! Thanks for that, have corrected the error now, I think in all the excitement I got lost amongst the generations!

Also you are correct in what you say about the DNA links I posted, but there are two other factors that swing the decision that I was unable to post at the time.

You are exactly right, a match on John William's mother side does help prove that only John William Longland can be the Father, I do have a match on this line, but due to the 3rd party having a NPE involved with this, they didn't want me to publish any details which of course is fully understandable. John William also had children from a marriage and I have matches to one of his three daughters.