The genealogy I have found for my husband makes this
result believable. He has ancestors from
all over those islands: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Jersey, and England. However, he has 2 Germanic lines and I have a
feeling are where the unknown bits come from.
Two of his 2nd great-grandmothers on his
father’s side were of Northern European decent.
Augusta Jahnke (last name of step-father) was born in New York City to
German immigrants. Her mother, Maria
Meier, was from Munster but I have not located where her father, Augustus
Heinritz, was from. The other
grandmother, Annie Munsmann, was born in Connecticut to Danish immigrants Henry
Munsmann and Caroline Anderson. These
two women are the only non-English ancestors that I have found in 400 years of
family.
This week I began reaching out to potential cousins that
are likely to be related to him. There
are quite a few in the 4th cousin range, but nothing closer than
that. One of these hints even had a tree
match which makes things so much easier when corresponding with unknown
people. I am still slogging through the possible
connections trying to identify other cousin matches that Ancestry may not know
about. His family had to be difficult with
2 name changes. Sigh.
What are your thoughts?
Do you think that the 4% unknown could possibly be the genetic legacy of
these two women? Could it just be some “junk”
DNA floating in there from an ancestor not identified? Or am I completely off base here….
I think it can be only 6 or 7 generations before you have no genetic link to an ancestor (if you have the "unlucky" mix on each generation). And that does not take into consideration the "purity" of that ancestor. While many populations did not move around, individuals did. Just take one historical war (30 years in Germany for example) -- the whole mercenary army swath of destruction (and rape) that was that war could have left interesting marks. (A lot of those mercenaries were British Islw).es bt
ReplyDeleteHmmm... Good points.
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