Latest DNA update

[Phoenix]

Hmm. I don't suppose you ever persuaded your Mum to do a test?

I always felt bad at persuading Audrey, as she hardly gave informed consent, but there were nursing home staff with her at the time, so it wasn't underhand. Nobody could ever doubt I am my father's daughter. We once did a - match the committee member to family - quiz. I chose a photo of the battiest of his great aunts, and was unerringly matched by everyone.

[ElizabethHerts]

Originally Posted by Merry

Of the people I have matched with, I have no idea who any of them are!

That's not unusual.

I have lots of "quick and dirty" trees on Ancestry trying to establish a link.
I always look at Shared Matches as that can quite often solve the problem of which ancestral branch they fit into.

[Merry]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Hmm. I don't suppose you ever persuaded your Mum to do a test?

No. During the period she might have still been considered ok to give consent (pretty questionable really) she would probably have said No, because she wouldn't have properly understood and most of that time was the period where she 'hated' me anyway and wouldn't have wanted to do anything that I wanted. After that I could easily have got a sample because she dribbled a lot and we were often alone, but it felt wrong. Now I wish I had just done it anyway.

[Merry]

Originally Posted by ElizabethHerts

That's not unusual.

I have lots of "quick and dirty" trees on Ancestry trying to establish a link.
I always look at Shared Matches as that can quite often solve the problem of which ancestral branch they fit into.

My main problem is most people I match with either have no tree at all or have a tree of US people going back to the Pilgrim Fathers, but I have no one on my tree I'm aware of who was on the Mayflower!! Or they say their roots are in Ireland and I have no Irish heritage either through my research or via my ethnicity.

[Merry]

I did have a shared match pop up for one person where the connection seemed to be a girl who died aged 6 and who is one of my brickwalls! I have yet to work out how this child managed to marry and have a family when she was no longer living? It could be perhaps that the vicar wrote the wrong name in the burial register, but I feel very uncomfortable suggesting that and then claiming the additional ancestors that would give me .

[JBee]

One ancestry tree (which has been copied) has my bf dying aged 6 in the US -needless to say that tree is wrong.

Could it be Merry that no-one who is a close relative has done a DNA test

[Merry]

Originally Posted by JBee

One ancestry tree (which has been copied) has my bf dying aged 6 in the US -needless to say that tree is wrong.

Could it be Merry that no-one who is a close relative has done a DNA test

Well, people I would have expected to come up in my matches say they have tested and have trees on Ancestry.

I suppose I should look again, but knowing I'm going to be confronted by masses and masses of info frightens me off!

I think I'm not good at learning new skills!

Originally Posted by Merry

Well, people I would have expected to come up in my matches say they have tested and have trees on Ancestry.

I suppose I should look again, but knowing I'm going to be confronted by masses and masses of info frightens me off!

I think I'm not good at learning new skills!

Yes you are, you are brilliant at family history research and that takes a lot of patience and concentration. Go and have a look at your DNA matches.

[Merry]

lol Maggie! The skills I have picked up for FH were learned years ago and I've only had to tag on a few extra bits here and there over the decades.

Part of the trouble is, I don't really know what I want from it (I think I did suggest something up thread, but can't have meant it as I don't remember what I said!), and I don't really understand why I would care if I share a tiny bit of DNA with someone when I read on here it can be accidental?? I think I know I couldn't really care less about discovering I am related to someone I don't know. Most contacts I've had in the last ten years haven't brought me any joy really, they just take my research and vanish!! lol

I don't really research my own tree any more, so it would be good if looking at DNA matches galvanised me to do more research. <<<< Maybe this is what I want from it??

I was a bit shocked to discover last week I'd forgotten how to work my offline tree program, it's been so long since I've added anything!

[Olde Crone]

I share Merry's feelings about both DNA and my own tree research. Any progress made on my tree in the last few years has been made by Merry, lol, not by me and although I am thrilled she has knocked down two of my biggest brick walls, only she and I care in the end. My family are not interested and my few contacts seem to only want the nice side of family history. The last distasteful fact I posted on an open tree on geni resulted in me being blocked - an illegitimacy in 1861 apparently not acknowledged as worthy of inclusion in "a full family history" despite the fact that the illegitimate one went on to modestly great things and has many living descendants. I lose patience with this kind of silly attitude, apart from anything else, how hurtful for those descendants if they ever try to make contact in the interests of family history.

There are more mysteries in my tree which might be solved by DNA but when my brother tested we had only four close matches, three of whom we already had contact with. The fourth had a tree of 22,000 people, only one common surname, no common areas and was full of 100 year old mothers and 6 year old grandfathers. I lost interest at that point and banished DNA into the too hard cupboard. Of course I can't even access that anymore since my brother died and I somehow lost the link I had to the DNA results.

OC