I have had the most fabulous few days in that I have had several cousin connections! I can’t even begin to go in-depth on all of them, but in brief:
- a third cousin of mine, Nafeesah, emailed me after searching online for more information about her family and finding my family genealogy site. She and I share Anthony & Martha Jane (Baker) Walker of Washington County, NC as our 2nd great-grandparents. I spoke to Nafeesah tonight and had a great conversation. I cannot wait to speak to her sister tomorrow.
- via the 23andMe account of a cousin Devon, we found another cousin — Katrina. Katrina, like Devon, is also a descendant of Thomas & Phillis Holloway of Craven County, NC. Katrina is my 3rd cousin once removed. I was excited to learn that her grandparents live about an 90 minutes away from me and her grandfather went to high school with my grandfather. I am now making plans to go visit her grandfather as soon as I can. She matches me at a different segment than she matches Devon – so, I now have two separate DNA segments that I can trace back to our common ancestral couple.
- via 23andMe, I made contact with a genetic cousin, Eric but we do not yet know how we are related. Such a small world though because Eric is an active member of the African-American Genealogical Society of North California – the same group which my hubby’s genetic cousin, Nicka Smith, is involved. Eric has been doing genealogy for well over 30 years and I was the first person he’s chosen to connect with on 23andMe – he said he could tell I was serious about my business. Eric and I share .76% of our DNA and 23andMe predicts us to be 3rd-5th cousins. That may not sound like a lot, but here is the order of percentage shared from largest to smallest at the top of my Relative Finder list – my mother (49.6%), my sister (54.5%), my uncle (25.2%), my 3rd cousin Devon mentioned above (.80%), and Eric! I spoke with Eric Friday night and we are both excited about the potential to find our connection.
In addition to these wonderful connections, my uncle and my stepfather’s DNA results came back from 23andMe on Friday so now I get to sort through their relative matches. I hope I get more relatives from my uncle’s results!
This is so awesome! I can’t wait to do my other DNA tests. I recently sent away for an admixture test to figure out what my ancestral breakdown comes out to be. I want to verify or disprove what I have been told about Native American heritage. Now I am excited to find out about the rest. Great post.
Andrea – it has been so illuminating. 🙂 I do hope you’ll share what you learn on your blog. Thanks for the comment! You mentioned “other” DNA tests – what have you had done already?
Awesome news! I hope to one day make a connection!
This is so great! Finding cousins is the best. I’ve been pretty disappointed with my connections on 23 and me. I’ve only met cousins who are so far back we can’t find any point of connection. The two closest matches won’t get in touch!
Hi Kristin,
It can be disappointing indeed to not be able to make connections, but I hope you will persevere! I am in the process of putting together some tips I hope will be helpful for others. If you’d like to discuss your results further, just let me know. thanks!