DNA Testing. Why I did it and what I did with it. Part Two - Cousin Matching

This past week I've spent some time with the the cousin matching at the three sites, AncestryDNA, FTDNA and MyHeritage.  I concentrated only on 2nd - 3rd cousins matched with a total CM of 130 or greater.  These are considered to be fairly strong matches with fairly recent common ancestors.

I've now sent messages or exchanged emails with all of those people.  There are only 13 people with this close of a match.  My sister and a first cousin have tested as well and show up as expected.  Of the 13 people contacted I have heard back from 6 of them.  One I have actually met.  However, none of them have been able to help with my family history research.

I don't regret all of the testing and it was an interesting experience but I believe my interest really lies in the research area not so much the DNA.  However, it is out there now and perhaps someone in the future will contact me.

The only thing that has truly helped is the Varner surname project on FTDNA.  I have taken a Y-67 test on FTDNA and joined the surname project.  Based on my ydna it was confirmed that my paternal Varner family line is indeed part of the larger Varner family line that has immigrated from Germany.

DNA Testing. Why I did it and what I did with it. Part One - ethnicity

A couple of years ago I decided to get my DNA tested.  There were several reasons for this but chiefly among them were:

• Looking for cousin matches to further my family history research
• Learning my ethnicity
• Verify the assumptions that I have made in my family tree

So l did the following testing.

• AncestryDNA;  Autosomal only.
• Family Tree DNA; Autosomal, Y-DNA and MT-DNA.
• MyHeritage; uploaded AncestryDNA autosomal test only.
• Gedmatch Genesis; uploaded AncestryDNA autosomal test only.

My ethnicity results varied some by company, but not much.  Grouping's of countries are a little different but the actual breakdowns is fairly consistent. 

The results are;

Ancestry
England, Wales & Northwestern Europe  73%
Ireland & Scotland  17%
Germanic Europe  6%
Norway  2%
Sweden  2% 

Family Tree DNA
 British Isles 83%
 East Europe 5%
 Southeast Europe 5%
 Middle Eastern 3%


MyHeritage
North and West Europe  95.2%
             English  81.8%
             North and West European  13.4%
South Europe  4.8%
             Greek  2.8%
             Italian  2.0%

In my next post I will review the cousin matching effort.