In real life and in fiction, DNA is used to solve crimes that have stumped investigators for years or even decades. But what if the cold case you are trying to solve isn’t a crime, but rather a family history mystery that is hundreds of years old? What if you have already pored through available records sources to no avail? Many of us have these types of mysteries in our family trees, often referred to as “brick walls.”
Do you have an ancestor whose origins are difficult to trace due to them being an immigrant, an orphan, or not leaving many records of their life? If so, DNA may be able to help you crack your genealogy cold case.
Genetic Evidence Case Study: The Mysterious Gerry Mathews
One of our Legacy Tree clients spent years trying to identify the origins and family of his second great grandfather, Gerry Mathews. Gerry, who was born in about 1820, came to St. Louis, Missouri around 1860, where he married and had children. Gerry died in St. Louis in 1877.
Census and other later records on Gerry’s children provided conflicting information on his birthplace, indicating New York, Connecticut, or Boston, Massachusetts as possibilities. Entries for Gerry were located in some New York City directories prior to his move to St. Louis, but this did not answer the question of where he was born and who his parents were. It was discovered that in 1865 Gerry underwent Catholic baptism in St. Louis. His baptism record identified his parents as Charles and Mary Mathews. However, these names were so common that this clue was not particularly helpful, especially without an exact location to search.
We informed our client that DNA testing might be able to help us identify Gerry’s family.
Five tips for success when using DNA to break through your brick walls
Many of the following strategies were employed in our research on the origins of Gerry Mathews, leading to the identification of his correct parents.
1. Test older generations.
While you may be a second great grandchild of the ancestor of interest, they could have great grandchildren living, such as your parent, aunt or uncle, or a cousin of your parent. These older generation descendants of your ancestor often inherit a larger portion of your ancestor’s DNA, making their DNA more useful for historical research than yours.
Because of this, older generation descendants are likely to have closer and more numerous DNA matches to your shared ancestor’s family, providing better clues about their identity.
For a more in-depth discussion of some targeted DNA testing strategies, including testing older relatives, see this article:
http://www.legacytree.com/blog/seven-strategies-to-set-up-your-dna-testing-plans
2. Test or collaborate with descendants from other branches of your ancestor’s family.
Just like children inherit different traits from their shared parents (hair or eye color, height, health conditions etc.), other descendants of an ancestor inherit different pieces of that ancestor’s DNA, and thus have matches of interest to that ancestor’s family that you do not.
This article describes how this can occur in greater detail: http://www.legacytree.com/blog/genealogical-genetic-family-tree-inheritance
Your third or fourth cousins may also have helpful clues in the form of documents or family stories that were not passed to your branch of the family, which could be key to breaking through your brick wall.
And if your research question concerns a male ancestor’s paternity, consider Y-DNA testing a direct male line descendant of that ancestor within your extended family. The Y chromosome is the male sex chromosome and is passed from generation to generation in a pattern of direct-line patrilineal inheritance. Only males inherit a Y chromosome. Therefore, it follows the same inheritance pattern as surnames in many western civilizations. This quality makes it particularly useful for answering questions regarding paternity or shared paternal ancestry.
Not sure how to invite genetic cousins to collaborate with you? We have some ideas!
http://www.legacytree.com/blog/five-tips-for-contacting-genetic-cousins
3. Have a clear understanding of the other portions of your family tree.
If you don’t know who your other ancestral families are, it can be difficult to tell if unfamiliar DNA matches you discover represent the family of the ancestor you are seeking, or a different unrelated ancestor’s family. Along with researching all of your ancestral lines (not just your brick wall line), it may be necessary to DNA test relatives from other parts of your family tree to break through your brick wall. Testing representatives of other branches of your family can help quickly sort out DNA matches not relevant to the search for your target ancestor’s family.
4. Watch for patterns of surnames and locations, especially if they are unexpected.
While your ancestor with unknown origins may have the last name Smith and lived in Indiana, his married sisters, cousins, and other relatives (and their descendants) could have used other surnames and lived in a variety of locations. Unexpected surname changes also sometimes occurred in families due to immigration, blended families, or for other reasons. Don’t discount new clues that don’t line up with what you already know about your family! New clues are exactly what you need when trying to break through a brick wall.
5. Know that DNA alone is usually not enough to break through a brick wall in your family tree.
DNA evidence can provide new clues for your research, but you will need to follow up on these clues with thorough records research on the families or locations of interest to accurately place your ancestor within their family of origin.
Genetic Evidence Case Study (continued): Identifying the parents of Gerry
As we reviewed the client's autosomal DNA results, we worked to exclude groups of matches not related through his direct line back to Gerry Mathews (in this case, the client's direct paternal line). These included matches related to the client's maternal family, as well as matches related through the spouses of our client’s direct patriline.
We then analyzed the small group of matches that remained, but did not observe any clear patterns that might suggest specific parents or ancestors for Gerry. However, we noted that while our client's father was deceased, his father’s first cousin (a generation older than our client) had already done DNA testing and was a match to our client. This cousin agreed to allow us access to her results, and as we analyzed them, we noted she had many matches descended from a woman who died in Kansas named Mary Augusta Read.
Further investigation revealed Mary was born in Connecticut (probably in the town of Milford), and that her maiden name matched Gerry’s surname. We suspected Mary might be a sister of Gerry, a fact that was confirmed when we discovered the following details in a book on the early families of Milford, Connecticut.
Susan Woodruff Abbott, comp., Families of Early Milford Connecticut, 1st edition (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., and Connecticut Society of Genealogists, Inc., 1979), p. 119, Google Books. (https://books.google.com/: accessed 6 October 2023).
This list of children born to “Polly” (a nickname for Mary) Sanford’s second marriage helped confirm that she and her husband Charles Mathews were the correct parents of George “Gerry” Mathews. Subsequent research showed that Mary “Polly” Sanford’s ancestral lines are well documented, but that almost nothing is known about the origins of her husband Charles Mathews.
Future DNA and records research may yet identify Charles’s family. One exciting clue (based on our client doing Y-DNA testing) is that he has many Y-DNA matches to members of a Bean family with roots in colonial New Hampshire. It is possible there was misattributed paternity or a surname switch somewhere in the direct line of Charles Mathews. Breaking through one brick wall in your family tree often leads to new mysteries to unravel!
If you’d like help using DNA to break through your genealogy brick walls, reach out to us here!
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