Joan gave permission to have her 23andMe success story posted on my blog. With every success story, interested genealogists can learn the importance of DNA testing and researching your lines in a wide path as you go back in time. Just knowing your direct line is not not very useful in finding cousins whether DNA testing or not.
I advise researchers to track their direct line to at least three generations on either side of it. That is, know the grandchildren of your ancestors as well as the spouses' parents and grandparents. It is a task, but greatly rewarding when you find common ancestors with complete strangers in the matter of hours.
Thank you Joan for sharing your story ... she wrote:
My closest match through the Relative Finder at 23andme is a probable 3rd cousin (no further back than 5th cousins) with whom I share a whopping 1.03% total DNA match. We've compared notes and proven that we are, indeed, 3rd cousins. Our great-grandmothers are sisters. Our match comes through channels that wouldn't have been findable through mtDNA or any other genealogical testing. The match is X and autosomal DNA.
What is really striking is that we share more than 90% of our X chromosomes. Our relationship is through his mother's father's mother and my father's mother's mother. These are lines not traceable through traditional genealogical DNA tests. We also share a segment of chromosome 2. Our match comes through the single X chromosome he inherited from his mother and the X chromosome I obviously inherited from my father.
What is also interesting is that we both have another unidentified (as yet) match with (apparently) the same other person who may turn out to be another match on the same line -- he hasn't come forward yet. This other person shares .78% DNA with me and is identified as a probable 3rd cousin and no further back than 4th cousin. The Relative Finder shows that we share FIVE half-identical segments!
Since we found each other we've been sharing family photos, and there is a great resemblance. His mother (who would be my 2nd cousin once removed) had no interest in all this when her son was originally tested with 23andme, but since we found each other she is now interested and has been tested -- should be interesting to see if we match even more closely when she gets her results.
We are building quite a little family here since I had already met another cousin (through traditional research) who descends from the same family -- another sister of my great-grandmother.
This was an interesting line to research and it is even more interesting to find proven DNA cousins in this line!
Joan
Dec, 2009
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