The other day I got an email from Katy, a new close cousin match for my Dad at family tree DNA, a 2nd to 4th cousin. I went and looked at where she matched Dad and saw two quite large segments, 34.47 cM and 18.87 cM. So I added those segments to Dad’s master spreadsheet and saw that the smaller one overlapped an 11.9 cM match with a known 3rd cousin on my WOLD line. But he was tested only at 23andme so I could not compare them. However because I am tested at both, as well as Dad, I could use the comparison with me to determine if they matched each other (see my post on alternate triangulation) and yes we all matched. So I wrote Katy back that she looked to be related on my WOLD line and she replied oh yes, my grandmother was a Wold!
My great-great-grandparents Jorgen and Anna Wold
Her grandmother was the granddaughter of my great-great-grandparents whose pictures are shown above. So they are her gg-grandparents too, making us 3rd cousins and my Dad her 2nd cousin once removed. I had received these photos from another 3rd cousin some time ago. My family no longer had those pictures. One delightful thing about finding new 3rd and 4th cousins is that they often have photographs and stories of ancestors that are new to you.
Her grandmother, Anna Wold Larum
And as it turns out my new cousin has many more pictures, including the ones above, and will be sending them to me. As well as more stories. So I logged into ancestry.com and found the emigration records for Anna and her family. I sent those records to Katy and added all that information to the page for her family branch on my family history site. Plus I put her in contact with her second cousin who had originally sent me all these pictures. Yet another benefit was all those shaky green leaves once I added Anna’s husband and children to my ancestry tree which put me in touch with yet another cousin on that line!
So my next task is to contact all the people who match her on that other large segment and figure out where their common ancestor is on that WOLD line. Note that the 34.47 cM segment does not match me at all, only my Dad and my brother.
Thanks to the research of several other more distant cousins we have the WOLD lines back fairly far so I am quite hopeful.
Interesting story, I will have to look at your updated family file to see how she fits into my wife’s tree…..Always nice to see yet another case of DNA research helping with real world genealogy…….As You and I are aware DNA alone won’t solve the questions, it is a hint that says ” look at your paper genealogy records to find HOW this DNA match came about”. So many that are having DNA tests today think the end result will be a filled out family tree, yet without the paper trail a DNA match just remains a mystery.
Am very happy for your new connection. I asked Katy to take test her DNA as part of a chromosome mapping project for another (not-related to you) line, intending to use your segment matching tool. It will be even more fun now, knowing that my very first genealogy cousin and you are related. Am a big fan of you and your blog–cheers!
Millie thank you so much for getting Katy to test! This is an exciting breakthrough for our WOLD line and she is matching a number of other cousins. I hope to meet her someday!