Ancestry.com
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DNA matches confirm documentation
When I looked at my DNA matches, I realized my cousin had also completed a DNA test. I got the impression it was a gift to him from the kids/grandkids and our family has always been about the children!!!. In general, my family has always been more private and guarded. What lead me to Ancestry was the fact that Ancestry's main business model is helping people find their family tree and DNA is fairly new tool an arsenal of many. (For other companies DNA is their main business.) I was also looking for confirming documentation of a connection to relatives in a time when the documentation was sparse. I was only able to obtain a few documents, but none that proved a relationship with my grandfather’s brother. When I looked at my DNA results, I found cousins that were direct descendants of my grandfather's brother, my grand uncle. It was a confirmation of some of the family stories. I was also able to confirm the connection to my great grandfather’s mother's family. I had located a census that had my great grandfather, his mother and his half-sisters. I knew he was married later in the same city as the census. What was difficult was reaching back to his mother's family, other than the census document’s I was able to find. I found a last will and testament by one of my great great grandmother’s sisters, with all of her sister’s names. I reached out to the Surrogates Court I was able to obtain the documents that proved my great grandmother was part of that family. The DNA was a bonus! I am genetically related to my great great grandmother’s sister's family. It was a confirmation! My only wish is that people who have their DNA done take a moment to put together a tree. Yourself, your siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. I can assure you living people’s names, as long as you make sure the toggle for living is on, do not show up on another person’s site, even if you have a public profile. I checked!!! I put my sibling’s names in and my cousin checked her Ancestry and, on her site, it showed “private” for living people. The more people in a family that add a tree with the people they know, the more everyone in the family can connect back to their ancestor's!