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.

Cousins meeting and John F & Julia J Breshears family

I have been pleasantly sidetracked the last couple of weeks.  Due to a new DNA match on Ancestry I have been corresponding with a newly found second cousin.  We are related through the William Carroll Green Breshears line.

This past Saturday we were able to meet.  Julia, my second cousin and her parents (her mother is my first cousin once removed) met with my sister and myself and we visited the cemeteries in the Breshears valley of Missouri.  We were also able to meet up with some other Breshears cousins (from the state of Oregon) while we were there.  They were vacationing with other relatives here in Missouri.  It was a beautiful day for our outing and we were able to visit for some time.

In preparation for the outing I have been working on the John F and Julia J Button Breshears family this past week.  This was the line that cousin Julia came from.  I tried to put as much information together for her in the time that was available.  I have updated my Ancestry working tree and matched with Family Search.  Much work on this family is still needed in Family Search.

DNA testing and cousin connections

I have taken the atDNA test from Ancestry and the ydna and mtdna tests at FTDNA.  Loaded my atdna test results to FTDNA, MyHeritage and Gedmatch.  From this I have had hundreds of matches. Very slowly working through some of the closer ones.

Within the last few days I have actually been in contact with a couple of cousins.  One, a second cousin once removed on the Varner side.  The other was a cousin from the William Carroll Green Breshears line.  Unfortunately her Breshears relative died as a younger adult and she did not have much information on the Breshears line and nothing on the Green Breshears connection.

I'm feeling optimistic that we may be able to collaborate on the Varner line but will probably have no help on the Breshears line.

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.

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.