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Old 13-03-21, 09:33
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Default Revisiting DNA

I'm only really interested in my maternal grandmother's family. After being told to suck eggs on FB, I have gone back and can find matches (with help from my cousin's DNA) for all my 5th great grandparents save the illegitimate branch (but if Edmund's father WAS the Spanish gipsy the family said - and Grannie was known as Brownie because she was so dark - I'm not getting a flicker from the ethnicity).

I cannot see that DNA will help me find the father of someone born in 1840.

Given that everybody in Norfolk seems to have married their cousins, I'm not really convinced I'm not looking at local rather than family DNA.

Is anyone finding autosomal DNA useful for anything but the very closest of relations?
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Old 13-03-21, 11:16
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When I first did my DNA one of my brick-walls was my 2x GGF born in 1821 in Derby. I knew his father's name, from his marriage certificate but that was all. One of my distant cousin matches was with someone who had this same surname on her family tree (a common name), but not him. However using this as a guide, and the fact that just then Ancestry put Derbyshire parish records on line, I managed to find his baptism and then went back a few more generations. He was a brother to the distant cousins ancestor. So DNA did help me to find his father, as without it I might not have looked at this family, as he was baptised in a completely different place to all of his siblings.
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Old 13-03-21, 11:19
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I managed to figure out who my 2xg-grandfather was from autosomal DNA, so it depends whether you class that as very close or not.
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Old 13-03-21, 13:13
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I was able to talk to people who had known most of my 2nd great grandparents, so I have only been interested with those generations that I had to research myself. (DNA suggests there are a lot of wise children in my family....)
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Old 13-03-21, 13:18
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Oh, my grandfather "knew" who his grandfather was! It's just that it turned out he wasn't his biological one, and that's where DNA came in.
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Old 13-03-21, 14:14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix View Post
I was able to talk to people who had known most of my 2nd great grandparents, so I have only been interested with those generations that I had to research myself. (DNA suggests there are a lot of wise children in my family....)
You are so lucky to have been able to talk to people who knew your 2nd great grandparents. I would have loved to have been able to do that but as all of mine were born in either the late 1700's or the first half of the 1800's there was no chance!
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Old 13-03-21, 18:08
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Crawfie, it amazes me that stories from the 1820s were proved to be true. When I started, there was even a great-great aunt alive. Sadly, we didn't know the first thing about oral history, so I never managed to pump her for everything she knew
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Old 13-03-21, 21:57
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DNA helped me find the father and mother of my 3th great grandfather. He and his siblings were baptised without parents recorded in 1807. According to his death cert. he was born about 1804. Two DNA matches, with attached family trees proved which family it was.

Also another 3rd great grandparents were mysterious, without a marriage, and very common grooms name and three possible bride born within 3 years. Several DNA matches to the 5th great grandparents (born around 1720) showed up and while I know which family, I am still guessing which of the three Elizabeths is the right one - we need some closer relatives to each of the Elizabeths to test their DNA.

It is possible to trace distant (up to 5th great grandparents, on Ancestry) but the matches need to have a tree to study as well, otherwise there are so many branches to investigate, and the names change in one generation on a female line.
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