Category: DNA Genealogy

I posted about my AncestryDNA results when they came in last year. Now Ancestry is releasing an update to their DNA Database. I won’t pretend to understand exactly what has changed. Only that instead of analyzing the DNA once, they now do it 40 times!

The Facebook page says this update is on a roll out release. That means not everyone will have it at the same time. I hate that, but I got really lucky. When I went into my results this week, I was able to go into the Ethnicity 2.0 preview! Well, now I’ll share it with you!

Old DNA results from August 2012

My old results gave a very high 70% Scandinavian and 30% Eastern European, both surprised me. The only reason the Eastern European surprised me was because I’ve found a lot of German roots on my father’s side, I was thinking more West than East really. Maybe I just don’t know enough about the region, which is entirely possible!

My new results are much more inline with what I was expecting. Most of my research has led to England and Scotland. I have a little bit of Irish with the Moores, and there is German spread in among my Dad’s New Jersey roots.

Clicking on each of the ethnicities gives you more information about that particular group. I haven’t looked much into it yet but I sure am excited to!

Over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to finally get in touch with my DNA matches on Ancestry.com. I’ve been really lazy with this. I’ve always answered those who wrote to me, but now it’s time to throw away my shyness and get to answering the rest! I’m a little worried that I’m not going to get anything new from any of these matches, since the initial glances don’t show a lot of promise.

I’m not sure if the lack of matching surnames is that I haven’t finished entering my tree, or maybe I just haven’t researched far enough back yet. Either way, it’s all very interesting. Most of the matches do end up coming through Virginia and Kentucky, which is definitely consistent with my mother’s side of the family tree. My closest DNA match, is actually on my father’s side though, which I found interesting! It was even a Thorward, so that makes it even better for me, since Thorwards aren’t that common.

I’m feeling most anxious about how to word my emails. Maybe I’ll come up with a basic template and make changes depending on the information for each person. If anyone has any tips or help, I’d be glad to hear it!

Above you can see some of my DNA matches from my recent results. The only 2nd cousin match that shows is a definite match. I know that because I’ve been in touch with the person who administered that test for years now. That actually hits right on the head. If my guess is right (I have to email to be sure), the person she administered the test to was my Grandpa Moore’s first cousin. In that case it would be my first cousin, twice removed. If it’s the second person I suspect, it would be my 2nd cousin, once removed. So either way, I’d say the DNA test pegged that one. The interesting part was seeing the differences in the DNA results between the two of us. I think DNA is just fascinating anyway. It’s becoming a little bit of an addiction for me. Sometimes I find myself saying, “Why didn’t I become a geneticist?” Umm. Yeah. Haha!

You’ll see that I starred the match I already knew and after looking at all the 4th cousin matches, I starred only one more. I starred that one because after looking at that tree, I saw both Quesinberry and Slusher, which I became VERY familiar with in my Family File Cleanup. I haven’t found the link up yet, but again hopefully after an email, I’ll be able to.

I’m really wishing now I had saved enough money to do my parents in addition to me. If I had their results the out of left field matches would be a bit easier to narrow down. Most of the matches also seem to share the Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky areas of trees. Since my father’s family were mainly in New Jersey and New York straight off the boat, I’ve got to assume that these matches are on my mother’s side. Unless of course, there are siblings from my immigrant ancestors who went their own ways. I’m still looking for entry points/time for some of them, William Moore and George Thorward/Yohn being the biggest headaches.

Overall, I think this was a fun and exciting first foray into genetic genealogy. I’ll try and follow up on those leads and see where that takes me. In the meantime, we’ve started saving money for even more DNA tests, because now we’re addicted!

Above you can see some of my DNA matches from my recent results. The only 2nd cousin match that shows is a definite match. I know that because I’ve been in touch with the person who administered that test for years now. That actually hits right on the head. If my guess is right (I have to email to be sure), the person she administered the test to was my Grandpa Moore’s first cousin. In that case it would be my first cousin, twice removed. If it’s the second person I suspect, it would be my 2nd cousin, once removed. So either way, I’d say the DNA test pegged that one. The interesting part was seeing the differences in the DNA results between the two of us. I think DNA is just fascinating anyway. It’s becoming a little bit of an addiction for me. Sometimes I find myself saying, “Why didn’t I become a geneticist?” Umm. Yeah. Haha!

You’ll see that I starred the match I already knew and after looking at all the 4th cousin matches, I starred only one more. I starred that one because after looking at that tree, I saw both Quesinberry and Slusher, which I became VERY familiar with in my Family File Cleanup. I haven’t found the link up yet, but again hopefully after an email, I’ll be able to.

I’m really wishing now I had saved enough money to do my parents in addition to me. If I had their results the out of left field matches would be a bit easier to narrow down. Most of the matches also seem to share the Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky areas of trees. Since my father’s family were mainly in New Jersey and New York straight off the boat, I’ve got to assume that these matches are on my mother’s side. Unless of course, there are siblings from my immigrant ancestors who went their own ways. I’m still looking for entry points/time for some of them, William Moore and George Thorward/Yohn being the biggest headaches.

Overall, I think this was a fun and exciting first foray into genetic genealogy. I’ll try and follow up on those leads and see where that takes me. In the meantime, we’ve started saving money for even more DNA tests, because now we’re addicted!

Unfortunately I’ve been so caught up in streaming the Olympics or watching the Olympics, that I haven’t had a chance to get the next RMC entry written up. I do have some good news though!

It’s been exactly 4 weeks since the lab received my DNA sample and the results are now in! I’ve got to say I’m really quite shocked.  However, my shocking results have made everyone in the family curious and now we’re all starting up DNA  test funds! For my mother’s side, I still haven’t connected an entry point into America. I just know I’ve traced most of them to Virginia at some point.

My father’s side comes from all different kinds of places so far, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany. So imagine my surprise when none of those places were on my ethnicity results! I’m not an expert on that area of the world, so my next step is obviously to research that part of the world and the places I’m already aware of. I’ve been meaning to study them anyway, this just gives me the motivation to do it!