Saturday

DNA PROVES I actually do have cousins

I initially did my DNA with 23 and me. The results were confusing to me and quite honestly not much help with my genealogy. I uploaded the results to My Heritage. Sort of throwing a wider net?
Where are all MY cousins?


 My genealogy ancestry already was documented back to the late 1600's on most lines. Although I worked hard at it, if I am honest it is more due to my great luck in being half Norwegian and half Swedish.  I have to say "Thank you" to the wonderful parish and national records of Norway and Sweden.  I really did not feel DNA would contribute to finding additional ancestry. But why did I not have any cousin matches? Well, I did have quite a few but they were all possible 4th, 5th and more remote "cousins".
 My Mexican son in law also tested and immediately had first cousin and oodles of second cousin matches. What's the deal? Goofy/prejudiced/biased? thoughts went through my head. Mexicans have larger families than Scandinavians? Maybe. My son in laws mother did have 13 siblings. Scandinavians are too cheap to pony up a few bucks to check their DNA? Maybe. I can be pretty tight with a buck myself. For sure.


Being a passionate family historian I already had hunted down and harassed most of my first and second cousins into revealing themselves but yesterday.....finally.....DNA came through with some hits! I now have four matches! Three of those folks names I already had on my family tree but it was cool to see scientific "proof" that we were truly related.  Descended from my Norwegian great great grandfather Gunder Andreas Nielsen was a third cousin. Descended from my Swedish great grandfather Robert Albin Abrahamsson was a first cousin once removed and also a second cousin once removed. Descended from my Swedish great grandfather Karl Teodor Andersson Källman was another second cousin.


Maybe I have changed my mind about DNA research.
Ummmmm, maybe.



your cousin also?
check out your Scandinavian DNA,





* If you care to see my DNA breakdown and my previous musings about the results; 
you can click on "DNA in Genealogy" in the search box to the right of this blog post.