dbunting Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 I just got my results back from ancestry. No real surprises as I read up on the site before hand and knew what to expect. 75% of my "ethnicity" was England / Wales, Northwestern Europe and another 19% Germanic. I was one of those oops babies whose father isn't who my name is. I found out like 30 years ago but the test confirmed it 100%. My strongest match, over 2000 is to a person with the surname I was told. Several others also showed up on that side of the bloodline so there is no doubt there. Like many "American" families were were also told that we had Indian blood, and of course I showed 0 in the test, which is not uncommon. I posted some comments about it and a friend of mine has done family tree stuff before and she jumped right in and had me back to my g-g-g-grandparents on maternal side within a couple of hours and 20 text messages. Furthest back is 1817 birth in Little Rock Arkansas, which also is where the Indian ancestors were supposedly from. However the names as of now don't back that up. We are still digging, well mostly her, I am learning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 5 hours ago, dbunting said: I just got my results back from ancestry. No real surprises as I read up on the site before hand and knew what to expect. 75% of my "ethnicity" was England / Wales, Northwestern Europe and another 19% Germanic. I was one of those oops babies whose father isn't who my name is. I found out like 30 years ago but the test confirmed it 100%. My strongest match, over 2000 is to a person with the surname I was told. Several others also showed up on that side of the bloodline so there is no doubt there. Like many "American" families were were also told that we had Indian blood, and of course I showed 0 in the test, which is not uncommon. I posted some comments about it and a friend of mine has done family tree stuff before and she jumped right in and had me back to my g-g-g-grandparents on maternal side within a couple of hours and 20 text messages. Furthest back is 1817 birth in Little Rock Arkansas, which also is where the Indian ancestors were supposedly from. However the names as of now don't back that up. We are still digging, well mostly her, I am learning. You probably do not have "Indian blood" because most such family legends, especially from the South, do turn out to be false. However, one should also point out that once you get back to the "six greats-grandparents" level, DNA from any Native American ancestor has a 50% chance of having completely "washed out" of your own genome. Once we go back eight generations, all of us are at the point where we have lots of ancestors who have contributed nothing to our DNA profile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gertrude Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 My mom is the genealogist in our family and anyone she can wrangle has sent in their DNA. The breakdown of ethnicities seem to be broadly correct (with our expectations, at least) but it does change as they update their algorithms and gather more data. I've gone from a high percentage of 'Great Britain' to a high percentage of 'German'. I should have both, but the values have varied widely. It's more for finding those DNA connections. My father found a half-sister that no one knew about. It was a high school pregnancy that was hushed up and the child given up for adoption. The sister herself has passed away, but her daughter has contacted us. She's not really interested in getting to know us, and that's fine, but we were both interested in figuring out the connection. It wasn't clear that the match was his sister at first - we had to track down timelines for my grandfather and his sisters to figure out which one of them was the parent. It was quite a mystery for a bit. It's a good tool, but you have to be prepared for surprises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbunting Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 8 hours ago, Ormond said: You probably do not have "Indian blood" because most such family legends, especially from the South, do turn out to be false. However, one should also point out that once you get back to the "six greats-grandparents" level, DNA from any Native American ancestor has a 50% chance of having completely "washed out" of your own genome. Once we go back eight generations, all of us are at the point where we have lots of ancestors who have contributed nothing to our DNA profile. Update, looks like we are now back one more generation. She found my g.g.g. grandfathers obituary and it lists his father in it, Samuel Dale and gives some info on him. Says his parents were Scot / Irish. Looked him up and he is a big name in Virginian history. Nick named the Daniel Boone of Virginia. Also, sadly, it looks like he and his son were involved in the Indian wars so there is that. He also was a courier to Andrew Jackson, and eventually a Brigadier General. My friend who is helping said we need to do some digging to be sure this connection is accurate since obituaries from back then can be misleading. For George W. Dale (my confirmed through marriage certificates g.g.g. grandfather) as a Colonel in the army, someone who spearheaded getting Arkansas back in the union after the civil war(which he was in), also says he had many enemies and that his son was killed by an assassin. So...kinda hard to know what all is real. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gertrude Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 Yeah, the authenticating is important if you're serious about tracing your lineage. On Ancestry people build speculative and easy trees all the time (not sure how your information is being gathered - not casting aspersions on your friend because the obit sound legit). I tried tracing back a Bradford in my line and so many trees had a link to William Bradford who was the governor of the Plymouth Colony, but I couldn't make the dates match up - mothers giving birth at age 10, marriages that didn't line up - things like that. I'm kind of at a wall in one line because it is highly likely that John's wife Mary is the mother of his first child (recognized in a will), but there are no documents connecting the mother and child. It's frustrating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbunting Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 4 minutes ago, Gertrude said: Yeah, the authenticating is important if you're serious about tracing your lineage. On Ancestry people build speculative and easy trees all the time (not sure how your information is being gathered - not casting aspersions on your friend). I tried tracing back a Bradford in my line and so many trees had a link to William Bradford who was the governor of the Plymouth Colony, but I couldn't make the dates match up - mothers giving birth at age 10, marriages that didn't line up - things like that. I'm kind of at a wall in one line because it is highly likely that John's wife Mary is the mother of his first child (recognized in a will), but there are no documents connecting the mother and child. It's frustrating. Yeah my friend is the one keeping me in check, I am quick to just see the name in the obit and trust it. She is going through marriage certificates, obituaries, birth records and death records. She is confident about the George W Dale because she has found marriage and or death certificates with direct links to my maternal Grandmother. The newest one Samuel Dale is where she is telling me to reign myself in a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gertrude Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 hehe - it's tempting though, I get it You see all these sexy names that are important people and you get excited just as you notice that that ancestor's grave is in the wrong state ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbunting Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 And of course she was right, or most likely right. Did a little digging and found another article that states that there is no evidence he was ever married or fathered any children, so that kinda kills it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leofric Posted March 5, 2019 Share Posted March 5, 2019 On 3/2/2019 at 4:53 PM, Gertrude said: hehe - it's tempting though, I get it You see all these sexy names that are important people and you get excited just as you notice that that ancestor's grave is in the wrong state ... When I first started playing around on Ancestry, I was populating a lot of my family tree using other people's existing trees, but as I began noticing children being born 10 years after one or both their parents had died, or woman giving birth in their 70's, and children being born in other states even when there is no indication that their parents ever went more than 10 miles from where they were born, I realized you need to check and confirm everything. Part of the fun is finding these errors and digging out the truth, whether they were just wrong, or they missed a generation and the parents should actually be grandparents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch-MaesterPhilip Posted January 13, 2020 Share Posted January 13, 2020 For some reason yesterday my father wanted to reach out to his Uncle Leo and his wife who he hadn't seen or spoken to in years. His wife is going to try and get me of the copy of the family tree my Great-Uncle Paul's wife made in like 1990. My father had a copy but it was destroyed in a flood. I don't remember much about it except that it went back as far as the early 1600's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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