D is for DNA

A few posts ago, I made some provocative statements about finding a new relative. Of course there were questions about what the rest of the story was. I can't tell a lot of it because it's not my story to tell, but I'll try to explain what I can.

In short, through DNA and Ancestry.com, I got a new close relative. Below are the details. Or as many as I can tell. Feel free to skim or skip ahead.

My sister, let's call her Mary Ellen, had been researching our genealogy for several years and as part of that, she had her DNA tested and the results entered into to the Ancestry.com data base. In general, testing provides a breakdown of ethnicity, e.g., Irish-20%, Native American--20%, etc,. and tells you how likely it is that you are related to someone else who is in the data base. For example, your notice could say that a certain person is a 3rd or 4th cousin of yours with high confidence, or low confidence. However it's up to the parties involved if they want to be in contact with each other and share any information. One will contact the other through Ancestry and if the other party is interested, they will respond.

This picture is part of both the past
and present stories.

One day Mary Ellen received a notice that there was a very high confidence that someone was closely related to her. Up until this point, she had been able to figure out how different notices of both distant and close relatives fit into the family trees. But this one was a mystery. Mary Ellen didn't know who they were, so she contacted the other party, let's call them Cathy, to get more information.

As it turns out, Cathy was administering the information for someone, let's call him Abraham, whom she was convinced was related to her because of the many things they had in common. Cathy had Abraham take a DNA test to confirm this.  It turned out that Abraham was not related to Cathy at all, but he was related to us. Mary Ellen starting sleuthing to figure out what was going on. She talked to close and distant family members as well as studying all of her old notes. When my sister thought she might have the answer, she convinced another one of our relatives, let's call her Beatrix to take a DNA test to test her hypothesis. And Mary Ellen was right.

Or in short, a man we thought was our grandfather wasn't, and some other stranger was.

Suddenly, many things from the past became a lot clearer. Big things and subtle things we had never noticed before, now made sense. It took a while for all of us to process this new data. Our family story that we had identified with forever was now different. It was a strange feeling.

In the midst of readjusting our thinking, I realized something important. Colon cancer was no longer in our family history and we could have colonoscopies on a regular schedule now instead of an accelerated one. That was certainly an unexpected blessing.

The whole story is much more complicated than I have explained here, But that's what I've got to share at this point in time.

Have you had any surprises in your family history?