DNA doesn’t lie but I’ve learned that it doesn’t always tell the complete truth. In last year’s DNA testing frenzy, I uploaded my autosomal DNA results onto several websites including one called Gedmatch.com. One of their cool tools tells you whether or not your parents are related. According to this tool, my parents are not related. LIAR! They may not have DNA in common but they certainly have genealogical pedigrees in common. The results should have said that my parents are not closely related.

I’m no expert in DNA but I know enough to know that we inherit half of our DNA from our father and half from our mother. With each generation it splits. Thus we have have 25% of our grandparent’s DNA, 12.5% of our great grandparent’s DNA and so forth. Traveling back 10 generations the amount of DNA that we would have inherited from a distant ancestor is beyond minuscule. In essence, the DNA works itself out. (My explanation would not pass the muster of most geneticists!)

I’ve already determined that my parents probably have a common ancestor whose last name was “Holland”. Recently I started noticing that many of my father’s DNA matches have the surname “Turner” in their family trees. And that lots of these “Turner” DNA matches also match his sister and cousins who’ve been tested. I have no shortage of “Turner” DNA in me. My mother’s maternal grandmother was a “Turner”. But it appears I’ve received a dose of “Turner” DNA from both sides. Unlike most DNA quandaries I pose on this blog, this one is solved.

Bridget Turner, my 7th great grandmother, is my father’s ancestor. Born in Virginia, she married Samuel Rust around 1737-ish. After a bunch of begat-ting, Samuel and Bridget’s descendant Isadora (Sims) Trantham came along. She’s my paternal 2nd great grandmother.

This explains why my aunt and I share DNA matches that my father and I do not. My aunt, like my father, is my mother’s distant cousin.

Bridget Turner’s ancestor was likely Richard Turner who came to America from England as an indentured servant. Some Turner family researchers say he may have been a criminal who was sentenced into servitude. That’s a fun fact if true. This Richard Turner is the same terminal Turner ancestor on my mother’s side. That puts my parents in the 10th to 11th cousin range.

That means I am an 11th or 12th cousin to myself and that my siblings are 11th or 12th cousins. Good grief.

Kenfolk: Tranthams and Utlauts
Relation: Distant cousins
Common ancestors: Turners