Question of the Week: What surprises did you find from DNA testing?

Question

Did a DNA test reveal any surprises for you or your family? 

Tell us about them with an answer below! You could also answer on Facebook or use the question image to share your answer with friends and family on social media.

Answer 1

Where do I start? Other than the surprise from a couple years ago, I'm trying to solve a DNA mystery of mine. I was surprised to find out that a 170something cM match to my mom was a 720 cM match to a known second cousin. The cousin and I are trying to figure things out as we have no idea who this lady is save for the fact that she clearly descends from my 2nd great-grandparents Antoine Legault and Lucie Cadran. 

This case perplexed me so much that I wrote a blog about it, too: https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2023/06/52-ancestors-week-26-slow.html

Since that blog was posted, a first cousin of my 2nd cousin tested and we're all trying to figure out who the lady is. Full details in the blog. We have no idea who she is and she's not responding to messages!

Answer 2

My late husband had 2 children he never knew about.

Comments

Oops.  Thanks for sharing.

Answer 3

I am French-Canadian with a dash of early New England. Also, I have 2 gateway ancestors (Anne Couvent and Marie Catherine Baillon) that connect me with European rulers. But, imagine my shock when I started to find a lot of genetic matches to the Arpad, Gepid and Hunyadi dynasties, the rulers of Hungary. To possibly be related to Atilla the Hun. To see your WikiTree come alive with DNA segment matches to history. Science is amazing!

Answer 4

I truly feel related to the world as a result of my DNA test.  I have about 15,000 matches of 4th cousin or closer at ftdna's site.  On WikiTree, however, I am not related to anyone outside the profiles I have entered here and my only connection is across about a half dozen marriages, which puts me between 30 and 50 steps from most everyone here.

Of course, that pretty much makes my ability to find valid DNA matches completely null - could you picture trying to write to even the 4,000 or so that are 2nd cousin or closer?

Comments

Hi Gaile.  Like you, I thought that I'd never connect here on WT but then the first wife of my GGGGGF connected big-time to a New Netherland Descendant (1674-1776) in a famous line (Rosenkrans).  He married her after her Dutch husband had been killed by Indians leaving her with an infant son.  Just like that, I was connected to 80% of WikiTree!  And the connections have kept coming, e.g., a former president of the Mormon Church who had lived in the small town I went to a Presbyterian boarding school in during 9th grade.  That may have picked up the missing 20%. BTW, we're only 29 steps.  Good hunting!

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Hello Gaile, You have 12 autosomal DNA and 27 X chromosome matches in WikiTree.  To see them, follow these examples but use your GEDmatch ID and limit the number of matches to 3000:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1NgD9b3s0Gs

And

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoJppPcI6k

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Peter, that is really neat!  THANX for showing me - I haven't gone to gedmatch in a long time and didn't realize that it now integrates with WikiTree that way.  I also benefitted from your video - THANX for that, too.

The only thing is that I don't understand where you got 12 AU matches from.  Following the video instructions, I only found 6 AU matches there, of which 2 were different tests for the same person.  2 others were cousins I already knew about and am responsible for getting them into WikiTree.  

The 3 that are new to me AU match between 83.5 and 73.3 cm.  Although not very close, I will set off now to see if I can find a paper relationship to them.  At least, you got me narrowed down to WikiTree members, who I presume will be interested in tracing a relationship with me.

X matches are a complete mystery to me.  Of my known cousins, I would not have expected an X match to Dick Orkin, whose maternal grandfather was a brother to my paternal grandmother. My AU match to him is 228.3 cm and he's also my largest X match, at 56.2.  My other known cousin, Perri Guest-Rappel, has a maternal grandfather who was half-brother to my maternal grandfather (they had same father but different mothers) and we have AU match of 97 cm and X match of 9.2.  The matches that are new to me X match between 20.4 and 16 cm.

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Hello Gaile, GEDmatch’s One-to-many has a “With this limit” default of 50.  You can change the limit to 100, 1000, or 3000 if you are using the free version of GEDmatch.  Change the limit to 3000.  That should allow you see your 12 AU matches.

Everyone would benefit if they encouraged their closest matches (not yet in WikiTree) to join WikiTree and add their GEDmatch ID (to their DNA Tests page in WikiTree).

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Oops - sorry - I had followed the video instruction to change it to 1,000 and not noticed that your previous answer said to use 3,000.  THANX!

I have never found a match on my own - the 2 cousins I know both found me, one through DNA match and the other by seeing his relatives that I had added to WikiTree.  I got both of them to join and fully agree with you that it would be great to bring others here ... if only I could find some!

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Hello Gaile, You and Dick Orkin are X-DNA descendants of Ida Grek-85.  You both could have inherited portions of your X-DNA.  

Login to GEDmatch and then click on 

https://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Grek-85/890#X

It will display Ida Grek’s X-DNA descendants and show which tested their X-DNA. Then click on the [compare] link to the right of Dick Orkin’s GEDmatch ID and click on the [compare] link to the right of your GEDmatch ID.  Then click the COMPARE button.  It will take you to GEDmatch’s One-to-one X-DNA Comparison page.  Scroll down and click on GEDmatch’s COMPARE button and you will see what X-DNA segments you both inherited from Ida Grek. 

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Hello Gaile, You noted that X matches are a complete mystery to you.  Greg Clark’s fan chart app can highlight which of your ancestors could have contributed to your X-DNA.

Go to https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/clarke11007/fan.php

Enter Gordon-4080 as the Primary Person

Click the CREATE FAN CHART button

Click on Colour Options and select Hilite X Chromosome

Then click the CONTINUE AS FEMALE button

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I clearly don't understand X-DNA.  I thought Dick would have his mother's on his X chromosome, but his mother would not have anything from her father on the X chromosome she passed to Dick.  On my end, I thought the X chromosome I got from my father could have been what Ida Grek passed to her daughter (my father's mother), if that's the one she passed to my father.

I just did it and see what looks like a VERY significant X match between me and Dick Orkin

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Females inherit X-DNA from both parents.  Males inherit X-DNA from their mother.

Answer 5

Surprise 1: Y-DNA identified my dad's dad, a Finnish politician and all-around cad who impregnated my young grandmother (among a number of others, it seems) who, after giving birth to dad, fled to the USA.  There's much more to this story.

Surprise 2: Y-DNA again. My older sister gave birth to an unknown son when a teenager.  I think I met the father decades ago when I was a kid; he was a young black airman she dated to tweak our parents during her rebellious stage (which she never grew out of).  BTW, he was a nice guy who threw the football with me.

Surprise 3: Autosomal DNA showed 0.9% Asian on dad's otherwise 100% Finnish lineage.  Y-DNA identified Genghis and Batu Khan.  Seems 1 in 200 Finnish men descend from Genghis... and dad was one of them.

Surprise 4: mtDNA hasn't yielded anything to get my heritage past mom's Norwegian GGGM except illusive hints across the border in Sweden that I haven't yet been able to connect.  Heaps of "cousins" with unpronounceable names, though.

Surprise 5: a Viking skeleton with dad's Y-DNA and two with mom's mtDNA were found buried in separate 8th-century Viking ships in Salme, Estonia (Salme ships - Wikipedia).  Paternal Viking was in the lower class ship and maternal Vikings in the rich ship with the king (one was a thegn and the other a dreng).  Did dad's ancestor serve mom's, or did they fight on opposite sides?  If only bones could talk.

Answer 6

1) My paternal grandfather was not the son of his father. I have found the family he belongs to and I'm pretty confident in which son of this family I descend from. It changed all of the research I had done on my Sayers family for over 20 years. Bummed me out as well at first because my sisters and I were the only male-line descendants of our 2nd great grandfather and we proudly carried the Sayers name which happens to be on a Historical Marker on his farm. After a year, I finally decided to start researching my new family surname.

2) My maternal grandmother was also not the daughter of her father. Her father was away serving in WWI when she was conceived and born. Another brother, born one year before her, was also the result of an affair by another man. The brother was adopted out but my great grandmother kept my grandmother. When her husband came home from the war and discovered my grandmother, he divorced my great grandmother. I found her family rather quickly when an half great uncle showed up on FTDNA. Other 1st and 2nd cousins found on Ancestry. Found a photo of her new father and she looks just like him.

I don't think either of my grandparents knew of their situations. I'm not even sure my paternal great grandfather knew he wasn't the father of my grandfather. But they are all long gone so it is water under the bridge.

Comments

Hi Shonda.  Wow!  What a tangled web you've unraveled.  It shows the value of persistence in family research.  I think it was probably at least ten years before I started seeing a few breakthroughs, but when the penny drops it can seem worth the effort.  Thanks for sharing.

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Hi Ray. Yes, I tested all the way back when Ancestry first offered the tests. I was waiting and waiting for any Sayers names to pop up and they never did. Then I went to Virginia with my late husband in 2015 and met up with cousins I had met on Ancestry. I passed out DNA kits to those cousins who wanted them, and I matched none of them. That is when I knew something was amiss. But it took a while longer as I needed more testers to see a clear picture of what family I belonged to.

Answer 7

My 2nd great grandparents George Miller and Margaret Farriage are my major brickwall. http://wikitree.com/wiki/Miller-56488 George Miller was born in 1809 in Poughkeepsie, New York and moved to Ontario, Canada as a young man.  My DNA matches 7 descendants of four of a Reuben Miller's children.  Reuben was born about 1805 in Poughkeepsie. Likely they were brothers.  Other known descendants match some of these people too.

The only other person who cares about researching George Miller and his first wife who died young, Margaret Farriage, is my 2nd cousin (1X) in Ontario.  We email each other, send records.  Right now were working on the Farrage family in Northumberland, England.  

I add these people to WikiTree.  Reuben Miller is hooked up to the big tree, but I don't say he is a brother of George.  I say he is a possible brother due to DNA and provide a link between Reuben and George's profiles.  I'm adding the Farrage family to WikiTree.  No links yet to Margaret.  

So apart from the surprise of the DNA matches to Reuben Miller descendants when I still can't prove on paper that George and Reuben were related, is the shocker that my Ontario cousin and I are not related according to Ancestry, which would be very unusual for 2nd cousins (1X).

Answer 8

I'm a lot less German than I thought I was. My maternal great grandfather was born in Chemnitz, Germany, but I have more Norwegian and Danish in me than German. I even have German on my father's side. But I have Norwegian the most, from my maternal great grandmother.

Comments

DNA ethnicity estimates look at where your ancestors were about 500 years ago. Back then, many countries didn't have mapped lines back then and many people traveled more than we think. Plus, ethnicity estimates are just that, an estimate.

Answer 9

DNA testing has started to help solve the mystery identify of my grandmother's biological father.

I have narrowed it down to a leading candidate amongst 3 brothers and DNA tests being processed now will hopefully allow me to say case closed.

The real surprise was his family had deep roots in the New England area and that, when confirmed, I have a Mayflower Passenger as an ancestor. I previously thought all of my ancestors that came to the US immigrated post-1880's.

Answer 10

Did DNA testing reveal any surprises?

Sure did. The man named on my birth certificate and who helped raise me for the first eight years of my life, was not my bio father. Quite the shock at age 72!

Comments

Wow... that is a shocker for sure. I know what that feels like. Four years ago at the age of 56, I discovered that the man I had always thought was my father actually was not. Half my family tree was wiped out instantaneously, and I'd been working on it for 25 years. This led to an interesting conversation with Mom, I can tell you...

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I know what you mean about wiping out half of the tree. And I had painstakingly added it all to Wikitree. My mom had already passed away when I learned the DNA results. Have you searched for your bio father? I know who is likely my bio father, he's deceased, but cannot get any of his children or grandchildren to test to verify it 100%

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Similar story here. Welcome to the club!

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At least you had the opportunity for a discussion.  Imagine finding out that your father was not your father, but a friend of the family, and of yours until he died when you were 20, was your actual father.  The presumed father died 1968, the real father died 1972 and mother died 1992.  At 69 I just found this out 11 months ago.  Any and every one that might have had any info whatsoever has long been dead.  My real father never married and until someone else does a DNA test in the future that turns out to be another child of his I am his only one!  The closest relative that I have through his line is a second cousin, that I grew up with not knowing that we were actually related. Her mom, my first cousin, passed about 20 years ago.  So many questions that will never be answered.  Did anyone know about it?  In 1952 & 1953 there wasn't any testing that could price DNA as it is now.  Did my mother suspect that I wasn't my father's child?  Did my team father suspect that I could be his child? So many scenarios to consider as possibilities while knowing that I'll never know.

Answer 11

I did my first DNA test at Ancestry quite a few years ago now. I didn't have lots of matches and none that I knew. I had a woman at an 800+ cM match that I had no clue about. We corresponded and exchanged trees. The only connection I could find was that she was born two months later than I was in the same town and hospital. But her family had only lived there briefly while her "father" was in the military.  At that point I knew what the situation was. I wasn't sure how to approach it. But felt I needed to let her figure things out and then contact me. My father had six siblings but only one ever lived in the city I grew up in.

She did contact me and had come to the correct conclusion. I shared whatever information I knew about my uncle as he had passed a few years earlier. I also put her in touch with his only surviving half-sister. It was a difficult situation. But I'm glad it happened early. It made me very sensitive to how people's lives could be impacted by a simple DNA test.

Answer 12

Having used all the kinds of commonly available DNA testing for genealogical purposes ( of which there are 4 by my count [autosomal, mitochondiral, STR Y-DNA and SNP Y-DNA]) over the last 15 years, I've made a list of major discoveries in my research, most of which wouldn't be possible otherwise:

1. My Lamberson ancestors are a distinct genetic group from the two other major Lamberson families and likely descend from someone named Howard in Maryland in the 1600s who was from Ireland;
2. My Carroll ancestors are definitely descendants of the Carrolls of Duplin and Sampson Counties in North Carolina during the late 18th century. These Carrolls are also distinctly separate from other Carroll families found in the US;
3. James Mason Carroll's wife Frances was almost certainly a daughter of Joshua Bass of Sampson County, NC and the nearby area;
4. My Moore ancestors, starting with Isaiah Moore, descend from Bela Moore son of Samuel Moore of Vermont and Azubah Moore Wilcox Moore Holcomb, daughter of Jehiel Wilcox;
5. My ancestor, Timothy Lamberson, was the father of both the Northeast Missouri Lambersons and the Oregon/Washington state Lambersons and did indeed have two sons named Timothy by two wives;
6. My ancestor Susannah Dunnegan was not sister of Kitturah Dunnegan as often asserted but instead daughter of Ezekiel Dunnergan and wife Lydia Brown;
7. My Reeves family is indeed the ancient Reeves family whose ancestor migrated to England from France and Italy in the Middle Ages and carried a Middle Eastern/North African paternal lineage (haplogroup E);

In helping other people with their research I've made the following discoveries, among others:

1. Two Henderson families from early 1800 in Washington County, New York are indeed the same family and are distinct from two other Henderson families in the same area at the same time;
2. A person I've worked with now can identify her biological father purely from DNA research.

DNA testing using all the available methods is an invaluable set of tools. I look forward to further advances in the field as well as innovations here at WikiTree regarding how to document and benefit from DNA testing which has been completed.

Answer 13

The biggest surprise was finding out that my daddy was not my biological father. Quite a thing to learn at 53 years old! Wow, I just realized it has been almost 5 years since that ‘Revelation Day’ that changed my life forever. It also answered a lifelong question of mine, which was why my mother loathed me. She was assaulted by a family member and thought that I was his spawn. Thankfully, DNA proved that I was not born from that sordid incident. She never accepted that and denied the truth of my conception (a tryst with a sailor) until her death.

The other big surprise is how many people who have been adopted into or out of my family. My maternal grandpa’s family apparently tried to repopulate the planet on their own, especially the entire west coast of the US, and did a pretty good job of it.

I’ve also learned of criminal history, more than I had already known about, thanks to the newspaper research done while trying to figure out DNA matches.

There are surprises all over the place. Answering one question brings fifty more questions. I have so much to sort out with these folks that I won’t have a chance to get bored, well into my golden years.

Comments

I had the same surprise (or shock).

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"Shock" is definitely the more fitting word in this situation.  It nearly did me in.  I hope that you are getting through this hard trauma okay.  I don't think that I have fully recovered yet, or think that I ever will, but I am finally to a point of being able to talk about it without falling into a pool of tears or uncontrollable rage. When was your "Revelation Day"? Mine was 5 Dec 2018.    29 Apr 2020 is the day DNA confirmed my biological father.

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My "Revelation Day" was 25 March 2018. I was 59 years old. The same day of discovery, my newly found half-nephew told me who my biological father was (my bio father was his grandfather). I also found out that I had nine (9) half siblings... four sisters and five brothers. This was the hardest thing that I've faced in my entire life and to top it off, everybody that could give me any answers was already dead.

I'm better now than I was five years ago, but I still have those moments that creep up on me from time to time.

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I am so glad that you were able to find out who your biological father was so quickly! I nearly went insane in the aftermath. There were moments that I thought I would never know my true identity. I thought then, and still think, that this is the worst form of identity theft there is. Money can be replaced, but we can't get back the lives we missed out on, or the "me" that either of us thought ourselves to be.

9 half-siblings! Wow!  I grew up with twin brothers and a sister that I now know are full to each other and half to me, through our shared mother. Through my bio father, I have two half sisters.  My bio father's brother has accepted me as his niece. He's a nice man. That's as close as I'll get and I accept that. What hurts the most is having been robbed of those grandparents and a great-grandmother who lived until 1998, 98 years of age when she passed on. My children, at least the older two, could have had a 2nd great-grandmother in their lives and had memories of her.  But, we were robbed of that.

I was blessed in many ways with the family who raised me, but I wish that I could have had ALL of them in my life and the lives of my children. What a reunion that is going to be in Heaven some day!

I am glad that you are doing better than you were 5 years ago. All we can do is take it one day at a time and keep trying to get through it all. (((Hugs)))

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Thank you. I have to give credit to NPE Friends on FB for helping me to come to a place of peace. No way I could do it alone. Like you and I, everybody on NPE Friends understand the trauma this can cause. Having that support helped me tremendously. (((Hugs)))

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You're welcome.  I agree, those NPE support groups are a lifesaver. I was a participant in several of them, too. I don't have much time for FB these days.  It was awesome to have all those shoulders to cry on and know that they really understood in ways that someone outside of that situation never could. It's very sad that so many people have to deal with such trauma.

Answer 14

A different kind of discovery....I have so many matches where the person does the test but, havs no interest in finding out who they are related to....

Comments

I've only just had my DNA test and I'm mindblown by the amount of people who don't seem to have a tree anywhere so I can even try to start guessing at how we are related.

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Silver lining sometimes Andrew. I have an xdna close match and their tree is no help at all (five generations) and a couple ydna matches where we both have trees back to 1700 but no link.

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Wholly support your experience wrt DNA tested "no-shows" but also find the number of "me only" entries in Wikitree coming up against names in my search list - no minimum initial  facts like country/age/any relatives that might help select/eliminate whether worth following up possible relative.  The same deficiency in matches by the commercial companies where minimal tree depth and !Private! defeat any hope of finding a meaningful branch to research further,

Answer 15

My biggest surprise was finding out that my great great grandfather John Love Keyston's father was not who I had assumed it to be for many years. There were several clues suggesting that his father was a blacksmith named John Love but mine and other family member's DNA results show that his father was most probably a farmer named Richard Garley. 

Answer 16

DNA SURPRISES, YES. 

I was very surprised when I found a 4th cousin who is a well -known Christian speaker, and author. It took me several years to figure out how we are related. She and I have emailed each other and it’s been very nice. 

This DNA match was shocking. I was scrolling through my Matches on Ancestry and stopped short at the picture of my ex-sister in-law! She and her twin sister did a DNA test and they are a match with me. I was married to their brother. Their DNA is 90% Italian, no Northwestern European. I am 12% Italian, and 49% NE with a mixture of others ie. Swedish, French…. I have been trying to find where we may have crossed paths…

Then there’s ex-hubby mom Marcy. She was adopted when she was 3 days old in 1927. Marcy found her birth mother when she was in her 20’s. Marcy’s mother told her that her birth father was a guy named Bud. That was all she knew. Marcy spent decades wondering what her father looked like. I had a bit of info on “Bud” and found a picture of him! Marcy was 89 years old when I gave her the picture. She was overjoyed! We had her do a DNA test to confirm her father’s identity. Oh boy, I started seeing matches from a totally different family who lived in the same town as “Bud”! Long story short, Bud was not her father. Her father was a married man who had an affair with Marcy’s mother.That man’s family couldn’t believe that grandpa did what! We chose not to tell Marcy that the picture she held so close to her heart wasn’t her father. She died during COVID at 92. I did get a picture of her biological father and she looked exactly like him!

Life…

Answer 17

The father my dad grew up with wasn't his biological father.  He had a number of high matches to one particular family which helped figure it out.  There were 5 brothers and I'm pretty sure which one it was, but will probably never know for sure.  He was around 85 when I discovered this.

Answer 18

My initial DNA showed me primarily Scottish, English, and Irish and I opted for the Family Tree DNA 700 which is as deep as one can go I found my main origin was Norse. Further investigation was an Orr came to Southwestern Scotland somewhere between 800AD -1100AD. I am now trying to trace the Norse connection and I have hit a dead end so far. DNA is wonderfully exciting and wonderfully frustrating!

Answer 19

1. My mother is an NPE.

2. An uncle is an NPE.

3. My wife's great-grandfather had a previous, large family. He just upped and left this family, moved to the next state over, changed his last name slightly, remarried and had a whole new large family that my wife descends from. The first family never knew what happened to him. We still don't know why he did this. I still haven't been able to contact any descendants from the first family yet.

Comments

Eric, what is NPE?  Probably something I should be familiar with, but I just cannot guess. Thank you.  Interesting #3 story.  Would be interested to know what did happen.  I love these mysteries.

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NPE = Non Parental Event

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Not Parent Expected - I think.

Answer 20

I don't really have a DNA surprise as I knew growing up that I was adopted. I would say the surprise was when I learned that I could use my DNA matches to find out who my biological parents were. I did find them. My biological father died in 1981 and never knew about me. I have met my biological mother and her family. I do have biological cousins here on WikiTree but we have never made contact which makes me sad.

Comments

The good news is that on Wikitree you have LOTS of cousins! Hello 9th cousin (twice removed)!

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Hello cousin!

Kathy and Missy are 9th cousins once removed 

Kathy (Urbach) Nava and Missy Berryann are both descendants of Jonathan Sparrow (abt.1629-1706).