I have too many things going on sometimes. I just can’t keep track, I get distracted and hop from one task or hobby to another.
Genealogy is one of my favorite hobbies, and now adding DNA studies into the mix makes it even more time consuming, rather than less.
10 years ago I submitted my first sample for Y-DNA testing, and built on that when new developments came along. It opened a few interesting doors, including some rather eye-opening discussions with my father before he passed away.
The along came Autosomal DNA matching, a way to trace not just my fathers, fathers, fathers line with Y-DNA, or Mitochondrial DNA which traces the Mothers mothers, mothers line… both of those only went up the outside branches of the tree, but with atDNA we could start looking at potential matches in the middle. We can now find people we share bits and pieces of DNA with, inherited from both parents, or grandparents, etc… you can find a bit of explanation about it by clicking HERE, they do a far better job of explaining than I could.
All this testing, and matching brought a lot of results, but enough that I have gotten some leads on places and people to look at for more information, and it has led to some useful information, such as finding the Mexican War enlistment records for my Great-Great Grandfather, who I really had no information on prior to his marrying my GGGrandmother before I found those papers.
One of my fathers cousins got hooked on genealogy research, she blames me, but I’m okay with that. Her atDNA testing opened some doors for possible connections, and my own testing then confirmed her matches, although we have no hard paper trails yet, we know we are looking in the right direction.
Some cousins on my mother’s side are now looking into doing some testing as well, which I hope will lead to more discoveries. In the meantime, I have already had one brother sampled and tested (that led to the discussions with my father I mentioned before) and I plan to talk to my half-brother soon and see if he’ll submit a sample if I cover the costs. That will give us a the triangulation to confirm a few things.
I have found some other cousins on the Williamson line that I need to talk into this as well, and perhaps we can start to fill in the blanks…
If you’re interested in genealogy, and haven’t started yet, look around, there’s plenty of options, or drop me an email, I’ll make what suggestions I can.