Ancestral Trails You’re Currently Unfolding

**CordedWhelp** · 09-29-2023, 12:10 AM

What are some parts of your ancestry that you’re still in the process of working out? Genealogical brick walls? Curious genetic results that you’re trying to make some sense of?

For me at the moment it’s trying to reach deeper into my Eastern Euro side of the family...so many records destroyed by the Russians in the past have made things difficult. Furthest I can go back is my immigrant Polish ancestors who are listed as having come from NW Belarus, northern Minsk region. Add to confusion, when I asked an aunt if they knew anything about the Polish side , they thought they remembered hearing that they were from Warsaw. Who knows.

**Beowulf** · 09-29-2023, 12:13 AM

My Mallorcan Great Great Grandfather Pedro Juan Durant Serra who had a French surname wich i also use im trying to discover who were their parents i barely got nothing apart of to much French matches for my maternal grandpa, and im still waiting for his records but the process is very very slow

His Y-DNA(also my maternal grandfather's one) specific clade is more common in NW France and England

**calxpal** · 09-29-2023, 07:36 AM

Definitely my Ukrainian grandmas side which has had much less information that other sides of my family. I did find a family photo recently which could be of use or not, and I did find some new names but searches for them didn't reveal anything. I believe many of their records were likely destroyed sadly.

My mom's Irish side also doesn't go back that far until the information is uncertain ):.

I have started rebuilding my family tree recently and with Ancestry's hints and FamilySearch I've been able to refill the information I lost access to years ago, and I've also made some intriguing new finds on my dad's French Canadian side but I'm not going to mention all the specifics on here unless if someone is really interested.

I've also been using a combination of chromosome paintings (mainly 23andme) and chromosome browsers to draw conclusions about DNA matches and the likely origin of the ancestor in common. And I've been browsing trees of matches on websites where It's free and I have been able to find a few common ancestors which is very cool. I heard there's a tool on Gedmatch where you can upload tree info and it will try to identify the common ancestor you have with matches, idk if that's true but I wanna try it when I have more time

if anyone's used it before let me know!

I also made the discovery a few years ago that my mom's mother lied about her Dutch ancestry being directly from The Netherlands. Her mothers Dutch grandparent was discovered to be Dutch American still largely of Dutch origin, but I'm still unsure of the reason why they said otherwise whether it was intentional or simple confusion about their grandparent's origins. It is not the first oral story I heard that was wrong though. I was also told at some point I was descended from French royalty lol which is BS I think, and that my grandma's ancestors were from Kiev (my grandma even admitted this was untrue and wrong when I asked lol) and she even admitted she didn't like the area where she was actually from.

So yeah I'm trying to break through the walls of a lack of available information as well as prove or disprove oral stories lol.

**MandM** · 09-29-2023, 12:17 PM

Mostly on my fathers male side,we know they are from Romania, and I might have even finde the Village our ancestors came from, but there is the Aromanian mistery, if our ancestors realy were it or not, i have many on MyHeritage and 23andme who are Aromanian or partial, and one on ftdna that i have Y 111 match with one Aromanian from Costanta, and it would be interesting also were from Romania my Mother side also hale from, yeah thats about it i guess

**Boudin** · 01-08-2024, 07:27 AM

Originally Posted by calxpal

I also made the discovery a few years ago that my mom's mother lied about her Dutch ancestry being directly from The Netherlands. Her mothers Dutch grandparent was discovered to be Dutch American still largely of Dutch origin, but I'm still unsure of the reason why they said otherwise whether it was intentional or simple confusion about their grandparent's origins. It is not the first oral story I heard that was wrong though. I was also told at some point I was descended from French royalty lol which is BS I think, and that my grandma's ancestors were from Kiev (my grandma even admitted this was untrue and wrong when I asked lol) and she even admitted she didn't like the area where she was actually from.

So yeah I'm trying to break through the walls of a lack of available information as well as prove or disprove oral stories lol.

My DNA results and genealogy have actually proven all my family's oral stories true in every detail. Even the Indian Chief one, and a convoluted story about an Italian ancestor who changed his surname for a German one and married a French woman. These two I was most sceptical about.

**calxpal** · 01-08-2024, 09:37 AM

I have been doing pretty well with my Acadian and French Canadian trails and have found new things, but my Ukrainian side has still been having tough luck I've tried contacting close-ish DNA relatives related to that side for help but no luck so far. My mom's side has been going alright but I do want to find out more about her Irish grandparent other than just the oral story I was told.

**hazmatnik** · 01-12-2024, 02:27 AM

Pretty much all my sides.
Paternal side before 1800. is mistery, maternal before 1880.
Trying to solve at least something i put matches over 20cm (23andme and Ancestry only) on map and i believe im able to identify at least general areas from where some of my ancestors came. Did the same for my aunts in order to try to separate maternal and paternal ancestors origins and to include parts of DNA i didnt inherit.

**Anglo-Celtic** · 01-12-2024, 03:42 AM

I'm encountering too many "unknown father"s. It was too bad that Maury Povich wasn't around back then.

**Melkiirs** · 01-12-2024, 04:15 AM

I have yet to identify the parents of this individual, my Scots-Irish ancestor:
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree...50992708/facts
He was probably born in Pennsylvania before settling in Delaware.

I have not fully traced back the colonial English ancestry just because of common surnames rather than any true brick wall. The Kinsey Welsh line is traced to Montgomeryshire, though.

There is also the possibility of relatively recent Lipka Tatar ancestry on my father's paternal grandfather's side who lived near a large Tatar population. If my father's cousin from that side has an even higher East Eurasian admixture (Father already clearly above average for any Ashkenazim group) than my father I would be more confident although there are not records to prove it explicitly.

**hazmatnik** · 01-23-2024, 12:51 AM

I put closest matches from Ancestry and 23andme and got clue from where my ancestry mostly stem:

Did same for paternal aunt:

And maternal aunt:

Unfortunately, most of these areas didn't have stable surnames before late XIX century so only path i could take is Y test of all of my grandmas, great grandmas and great great grandmas families, which is not possible.

Looks like majority of our ancestry cames from Shopluk and Brda / Malesia.