HAPPY DNA DAY

On this DNA day, I sat through a webinar hosted by “Your DNA Guide” and Diahan Southard did warn us that this will have lots of advertising of their products and services. I enjoy her webinars and decided, that was okay I would stay.

She did review her Dot System for sorting matches and how her products/services help along each step of the process. Anyway, she was talking about Best Know Matches (BKM) and how we should identify one BKM for each of our great-grandparents. This is four different people for four different branches. Something just clicked for me.

I decided to look at my matches and see if I can identify a best-known match for each of my great-grandparents. This is a 2^nd Cousin who descends through of the siblings of my grandparents. Since I use the note field on AncestryDNA, I put who my Most Recent Common Ancestor and my actual relationship to this match in that note, it was very easy for me to review if I have such matches.

As I was going through my list, as usual, I became distracted by a match to possibly my 3^rd great grandfather, Johann Wolter. I say possible, because my ancestor, his daughter Dorothea Louise Wolter death certificate listed a Johann Wolter as her father, but I haven’t been able to find anything else about him. Until one of my unknown matches who was matching one of my known Dorothea Wolter descendants, had a male Wolter in his tree.

Dorothea Wolter’s youngest child was born in Beaver Dam, Dodge County, Wisconsin and my matches Wolter was also born in Beaver Dam. I did some old fashion genealogy research to build back my match’s tree. The Wolter in my matches tree, appears to be the nephew of my Dorothea. I say appears to be, because the nephew’s father is a couple years younger than my Dorothea.

When I add the nephew’s father to my tree as the sibling of my Dorothea and then build down the tree to all the twelve matches who are a close relationship to my unknown match; the suggested relationships shown by AncestryDNA matches the actually relationship that my genealogy program says we should be.

Of course, I still need to prove Dorothea’s relationship to this assumed brother.  Some might say that I jumped the gun adding the assumed brother, however, I am hoping that the AncestryDNA system, will help identify more people who are related to this brother and perhaps I will find more siblings.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!

Week 17: DNA (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2025 Version)

The theme for Week 17 is "DNA." DNA has helped countless people make discoveries in their family history – some good and some not. Has DNA helped you solve a genealogical question? (To protect the identities of living people I have keep their identities hidden or used abbreviations). See all 2025 prompts here.

I have used DNA to help solve the mystery of my maternal grandfather, which I have wrote about in the past. This time I am going to talk about the ANCESTRYDNA ProTool of Shared Matches.

I have a group of unknown matches that seem to be related to the famous Daniel Boone. It appears I match through one of Daniel’s other siblings, possibly a sister. Anyway, as I come across these matches, I have been placing them into a color group that I labelled “Possible Boone Connection”. The only thing I have confirmed besides that they are from Daniel Boone’s family tree, they are on my maternal line. Most likely my maternal grandmother’s line.

Today, I decided to bring up my color group and I selected one of my closet matches in this group, a Mr. RW who has a public linked tree of 50 people.

Once I select the SharedMatches, I changed the view listing sort to RW’s close to distant matches. I was able to see his close matches and it was a pleasant surprise. His first match was MW – his daughter, then RW his son, CW another daughter and NW his mother. Then TWW his sister, RS his uncle, EJ his aunt and DS another uncle. Thus, I now know that we are related through his mother’s side.

His next matches are a little more distant. I look at ON his 1C2X and her brother, LS has the same surname as his mother’s maiden name. I now see a common ancestor among these matches of George Alfred Slaugh 1868-1945 and Rachel Maria Goodrich 1872-1921.

Next, I decided to select a different match of mine in this Boone Group a GP who has no tree. Looking at his closest matches, his son, MP has a tree. But I also see GP has a half-brother or nephew and his tree goes out farther than MP’s tree. I find a common couple among this subgroup of John Benjmain Roberts 1889-1956 and Ida M Akin 1890-1969.

Did a descendant of Roberts-Akin marry a Slaugh-Goodrich descendant?

Even through I have not solved my genealogical question of “Am I related to Squire Boone, Daniel Boone’s father?” I now have a starting point to try to discover how this group fits together.

My next step will be to create trees for this group. Many of these people have trees, or their close relatives have trees. AncestryDNA ProTool of Shared Matches is making it easier for me to create these trees. Being able to sort my match’s matches by closet to my match, makes the task a little less daunting.

My next step will also mean I have to do genealogy. To be able to accurately place them into the proper place of this new sub tree.

Remember to have fun and Just Do Genealogy!