We received results from my grandfather’s autosomal DNA test from Ancestry.com about a week ago. We never knew the identity of his biological father. I was hoping someone very close in the tree had taken the test. We don’t have any answers to the mystery of his biological father. To be honest, I was hoping we would have some big clues but I tried to keep in my head that there wouldn’t be a “smoking gun” type of evidence that would reveal itself.
While the test did let us know of his father’s potential genetic makeup, we also had over a dozen “Extremely High” genetic matches with potential 4th-6th cousins. What this means remains for me to be seen. I don’t have a subscription to Ancestry.com right now so that is making it more complicated.
I did upload his results to GEDMatch.com and FamilyTreeDNA.com as well. FTDNA is much like Ancestry where you have to pay to have full access to some of the results and family trees. Unlike Ancestry, to even message someone at FTDNA, you have to have a subscription. GEDMatch has been helping me bridge a little bit of my insecurity and unfamiliarity with genetic DNA testing.
While there are plenty of videos on YouTube explaining different benefits of DNA testing and the web sites, I couldn’t find information that would just explain to me how it worked and what I should look for in layman’s terms. I found a great three part videos by Heather Collins of Young & Savvy Genealogists. Finally, a lot of this information was starting to make sense to me. I will keep plugging away, hoping to gain more insight. Hopefully I will solve the riddle of my grandfather’s father someday.
My Damn Family 