My DNA Test Kit Results – Part 2

Have you been wondering when I’d post more about my dna testing? I’m finally taking some time to explain some more information about what I learned from my results. If you haven’t read the first part of this post you can go do that when you have a moment. It’s pretty cool stuff, but not nearly as cool as this part, in my opinion.

stock photo by nevodka

When you get your results back from the testing with 23andMe, you get a list with your DNA connections (among other things). These are your relatives based on other people from around the world who have also had their DNA tested. My results showed more than 1000 connections or relatives. The majority were considered to be more distant relatives (4th cousins and higher). However, there were lots of second to third cousins. You can choose to send messages and connect with these people if you like.

One of the most interesting parts of this whole process for me was not recognizing but a handful of the names before me. This leads me to dig deeper and use some of the tools provided on this and other sites to try to figure out “how” I’m connected to these different people. This completely fascinates me because I grew up not knowing many relatives at all. In fact, my dad was an only child and his parents both passed when he was a teen so I had no cousins or grandparents to grow up with on his side. My mother had one sister who had two sons, so I grew up with these cousins. That’s it. Fortunately, I did grow up knowing a few of my more distant cousins. Now here I am discovering over 1000 cousins! What a welcome surprise!!

Within days of getting my results from the DNA test I also started receiving emails from different connections trying to figure out how we’re related. A few people told me that they were either adopted or had other family members who were adopted. Long story short, I have helped someone else discover their ancestry that they had been searching for their whole life. It turns out that my great grandmother had a baby in 1899 who she gave up for adoption. Nobody ever knew because it wasn’t a topic of conversation back then. The secrets were buried with the souls who knew them. Lucky me though, because of modern technology I now have some cousins who I communicate with online weekly and we plan to have a meetup soon.

I’m still working on figuring out more of my DNA connections. More to come soon…

Have you done one of these DNA test kits?