Granddad Daniel Grant Varner

Granddad Daniel Grant Varner
Daniel Grant Varner (front, far right) and siblings with spouses

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Still looking for birth parents for WILLIAM CARROLL GREEN BRESHEARS - DNA tests taken

We have taken DNA tests in hopes of finding additional cousins that may help us unravel the mystery  of our GGGranfathers birth parents.  My sister, Janet and I have both tested with AncestryDNA.  We have numerous cousin matches.  I have been in contact with some of the second - third cousins and we are trying to find our common ancestors now.  So far no luck in breaking through our William Carroll Green brick wall.

 Don's AncestryDNA ethnicity results
Janet's AncestryDNA ethnicity results

In addition to Ancestry, I have loaded mine to FTDNA and gedmatch.  I also took a Y-DNA37 test at FTDNA for the Varner surname project.  My dna matches closely to some of those on the Varner surname project so that part of the family tree I'm fairly confident on.  Also lot's of Breshears matches on Ancestry.

I really need to do a lot of studying on this dna matching process.  Fairly complicated and very involved.  I'm sure I am missing lot's of things that are staring me in the face simply because I don't know how to compare my results with others.  Matching distant ancestors on our trees is extremely difficult.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Drowning in DNA and Record Match results ~ I have been working on the family history

I really have been working on the family history the last several weeks.  I probably took on too much at one time though.  I have been deluged with record hints and emails.  It was an interesting series of events.

First I had my DNA tested at Ancestry.com.  I spent a lot of time working my cousin matches and emailing potential cousins.  Most never responded but a few did.  We are not really having much luck identifying out common ancestors.

I then uploaded my Ancestry DNA results to Family Tree DNA and Gedmatch.com.  FTDNA has shown many cousin matches and I've been emailing several people.  So far we are still at the stage of trying to identify the common ancestors.  None have yet been identified.  Gedmatch.com has been a disappointment.  The system is severely overloaded,  They were simply not equipped to handle the number of people that have uploaded their DNA.  I have not worked with Gedmatch.com hardly at all.  At this point I cannot even attached my dna kit number to my gedcom file I uploaded.

I need to educate myself on dna.  I need to learn how to decipher my results and how to use the tools provided on each site to match with others.  I have watched a few YouTube videos but I need to do more.

Then I upgraded my RootsMagic program to version 7.  This update provided record matching from Family Search and MyHeritage.  I was following the record hints that were coming up for MyHeritage and found some good stuff.  Because of this I decided to get a membership (both a data and a site membership).  So I uploaded my gedcom and created the Varner Family Website.  I have over 1150 Smart (family matches) and 900 record matches.

So that's what I've been up to.  I will soon be posting some of the results of these endeavors.