Sometimes my genealogy adventures intersect with someone else’s and it thrills me to no end! About three weeks ago I received an email from a distant cousin who identified people who share DNA with her mother and grandmother on either the 1st or the 2nd chromosome. I am one of the latter. About 30 people received her “plea for help” email. She found us using the DNA data we’ve all uploaded onto Gedmatch.com. She asked each of us to take a look at her family tree on Ancestry.com to try to identify our “MRCA” – Most Recent Common Ancestor. This is right up my alley so I naturally had to jump in – much to the detriment of this blog unfortunately.

A savvy researcher on the email quickly identified the most probable MRCA of those sharing DNA on the 1st chromosome as a “Mendenhall”. Those of us who share DNA on the 2nd chromosome are still searching and researching.

My father, who did not receive the initial email, does not share DNA with her mother on the 2nd chromosome but DOES share DNA with her on the the 5th chromosome. Zoinks! I did not inherit this segment of DNA from him. That means her mother is a distant cousin to both my father and my mother. This is not the first time I’ve come across this. Lets face it – if your ancestors lived in the same general part of the country – for me that’s Virginia and North Carolina except for the Germans – and you go back far enough, eventually family trees will intertwine. Just last night, in researching my Haines tree branch, I discovered a distant Haines cousin who married a distant Hollingsworth cousin – both on my father’s side.

Yesterday, one the folks researching the 2nd chromosome MRCA connection sent us the table that follows – he’s taken the DNA analysis to the next level and isolated the exact locations on the 2nd chromosome where our shared DNA overlaps. I removed the last names to protect the innocent.

This is some serious research. So far, I’ve been no help whatsoever in identifying our MRCA connection. It must go back a ways. Nevertheless, if we’re able to identify the person or persons whose DNA courses through our collective veins, I’ll update this post.