Genealogy Jottings

We have had our DNA tested at several of the companies hoping to identify my dad’s maternal grandfather. Last summer we found success when my sister’s test revealed the name that had been elusive for 125 years.

I began research into this man’s line only to encounter a brick wall the next generation back. Now I hope to use our DNA matches to more distant cousins in the same line to learn more about this Irish family.

Many of our matches have Irish surnames. Is one of them the link to breaking down the brick wall? I am going through them, one by one, to look for common ancestors in hopes of creating a family tree.

The DNA research experts who speak to my local genealogical societies have suggested a process for this:

1. Knowing that many DNA test takers are “of a certain age”, one can often locate their names on the 1940 and 1950 U.S. census records. Use this information to begin building family trees for matches of interest.
2. If you cannot find the match’s name on these census records, try searching on sites like Facebook for family tree clues.
3. Look for online obituaries where the match is either the decedent or is named as a survivor. These articles often list previous generations.
4. Use the contemporary information to locate the family on the public trees found on genealogy web sites such as Family Search and Ancestry.
5. Keep working back in time on the match’s tree to look for your own surnames. In my case, these are Hamill, Junk, Lawless, and Ryan.

This week I tried this approach with a 23andMe match to a man in his 80’s who has an Irish surname. His paternal family came from Illinois, the same state where my Irish family lived. This match looked promising. I began to build out his family tree, looking for an overlap to my own.

I learned his father’s full name and his mother’s first name from U. S. census records. Then I found the father’s family tree posted on Ancestry.

Working the lines back to the early 1800’s, I found none of my surnames.

Perhaps the match was related to us through his mother’s family? Was she Irish, too? Again, I checked the posted family trees. Her maiden name was Carter. Uh-oh.

I have Carter ancestors, but they were not part of my unknown Irish line. A family tree comparison showed that the DNA match and I both descend from my English 3^rd great-grandparents, John Carter (1790-1841) and Mary Templeton (1792-1857) of Ashmore, Illinois.

I can check this fourth cousin with an Irish surname off my list.