Better Tools for Digging Up Dead Relatives

 

by Pa Rock

Family Historian

Having been involved in the meddlesome hobby of digging up dead relatives (genealogy / family tree research) for over half a century, I have acquired more than just reams of information on my ancestors.     I have also learned how to research families through newspaper files, school records courthouse records, and even cemeteries.  

I have mastered the use of microfiche readers, communicated with other researchers with everything from hand-written letters along with stamped, return envelopes, to email and text messaging, navigated computer databases, and learned to search the internet..  Over the last few years I have even learned how to access and use DNA to make and verify familial connections.  Keeping up with the technological and scientific advances has been as challenging and exciting as discovering a new family line to research.

As science and technology advance, so too does the reach and accuracy of family tree research, and nothing illustrates that more than the blossoming field of DNA research.

Today there are several large companies which maintain DNA databases for the primary purpose of genealogy research.  I've had my DNA analyzed and entered into the systems of two of those companies, and they have informed me of biological connections to other individuals as they registered with them.  Some were first cousins whom I have known all my life, but gradually connections to strangers located further out on branches of the family tree began emerging.   

The list of relationships expanded as more people registered their DNA - and they widened as DNA research became more sophisticated.  Where I once received notifications of the existence of specific first or second cousins, today notifications are likely to reveal relationships to people who are much farther out on the family charts - and show their relationship with surprising specificity.

As an example, yesterday I received an email notice from Ancestry.com that I am related to a man who recently submitted his DNA sample to that company, one of the places where my own DNA is registered.  Because we both chose to be registered as "public" on the company's database, the email gave me the individual's name, our kinship status, and a way to message him.  It also had a brief bit of his family tree which showed no connections to my own.

But the reason I am mentioning all of that is the kinship status that the email revealed.  The other man and I are related in one of two ways according to our 3% of shared DNA:  we are either "half 1st cousins two times removed" or "2nd cousins one time removed."  How's that for specificity!

Here's me showing off:  The first scenario, that we are "half first cousins two times removed," means that we share one common ancestor, and that person had at least two children by two different mates  Those children were half-siblings, and their children would be half-first cousins between the two families.   The relationship indicated by the DNA results I received would be between one of those half first cousins and the grandchild of another half first cousin.  (Two times removed means two generations apart.  Since I am seventy-eight years old, the other fellow would undoubtedly be the grandson of one of my half first cousins.)

Now, since I am unaware of having any half first cousins, one of my grandparents could have "fathered" or "mothered" a child who didn't appear in the official family chronicle, or . . . 

The fellow and I could be related the alternative way that Ancesttry.com presented:  "2nd cousins one time removed."  That relationship would involve one set of ancestors in common.  Their children's children would be first cousins, the children of those children would be second cousins, and if one of the second cousins had a child, that child's relationship to the second cousins of his parent would be "second cousin one time removed."  Again, because of my age, chances are good that I would be the second cousin and the other fellow would be the child of one of my second cousins.  The ancestors which we had in common would be a set of my great-grandparents who would also be a set of his great-great grandparents.

Simple. huh?  I told you I was showing off!  

The art of digging up dead relatives is becoming as much about science and technology as it is about library reading rooms, courthouse storage basements, and, of course, cemeteries.  It still requires a lot of digging, but the tools are getting better!