Updated Ancestry DNA Results

Ancestry.com updated their regions for me recently. I had taken a 23andMe test as well and found it highly accurate based on my research. Ancestry, not so much. I knew I had no Iberian Peninsula relatives anytime in the recent few hundred years unless there were a bunch on the other side of the blanket.  Not likely.

Anyway, I received my updated map and it is far more in line with what I know to be true. My Danish is typically German or Swedish - as is the case for many Danes. And, Iberian Peninsula is off the map completely.

BEFORE

Iberian Peninsula? I think not.

AFTER

Massively Scandinavian/German/English
with under 1% Ashkenazi Jewish (I still love my pastrami, okay?)

Ancestry DNA and Mystery Solving

I think that many of us, who do this maddening thing, watch at least one of those Ancestry shows on TV. I like Dr. Gates' PBS show best, but they also clearly have a giant staff of paid and trained scientists and genealogists combing through records all over the world on their behalf. I'd like to be famous for just a short bit so I'd be invited on and he'd get some of my own questions answered.

DNA connections keep getting better and better on Ancestry.com. ThruLinesTM, now in Beta, is proving to be quite interesting. Of course, it all depends on how accurate your fellow researchers are, and that has proven to be iffy at best, but I have been able to go down at least two paths I couldn't get down before and at least form a hypothesis where I could not before.

It's also proven connections to specific families where I was not sure, or had nothing to cite to make the connection. I'm sure that will give others license to just accept the information at its face and run with it, which will further screw up sorting it out, but I hope not.

One of my discoveries this month was a definitive connection to Sarah Anne Lindsey, child of

Sarah Anne Lindsey Dorathy
(in a classic Lindsey/Linsey look)

Harvey Lindsey and Peace Macumber/Macomber. They lived in New York state and were the parents of my 2GG Oscar Lindsey who pioneered by way of Indiana to Whiteside County, Illinois, and then to Benton County, Iowa. I knew Oscar had an unmarried sister, but was not aware he had at least one other sister, Sarah, who married a Dougherty (later Dorathy) and had a gigantic family who stayed in the Whiteside area and another group of whom moved to Nebraska. It was quite exciting.

Because of DNA, I know I am related to that group and can make the connection at last. It also brings me to my next questions - because of the age difference between Sarah (who was likely one of the older children of Harvey and Peace) and Oscar (likely one of the younger). Are there more siblings out there we don't know about? I'm betting there are and time will tell. I just hate waiting.

What about you? What's been your big discovery this month?