Thread:JenniferLNW/@comment-27145139-20160515230551/@comment-27334049-20160518135241

I've done Ancestry and Family Tree DNA. So far, I've done mine and my husband's. I'm planning to do both my mom's parents soon. And I'm doing a much more expensive detailed test on my dad for a surname DNA project...but I've been neglecting my research to play game hacker. LOL.

The biggest problem I see in genealogy is people getting an idea in their head about what they are and trying to make the data fit what they "know" instead of being open minded and following the facts. I've been doing this research on my family for many years and I've helped a lot of others with research as well. I started my husband's tree just to prove we were not related. LOL. And I work on his when I need a break from mine, because mine can be overwhelming since I have to do so much translating of documents to get anywhere, and then I have to research customs and traditions related to each country and time frame. For instance, when I first started working on the Sicilians, I kept getting thrown by my 2x great grandmother being listed by her maiden name. I did not realize when I started that in Italy, women do not take their husband's name when they get married. A friend I've been helping kept talking about a birth record from Germany and the birth mother's parents being listed on it and it not matching the other records she had found. Then it hit me...she kept calling it a birth record and it was not. It was a baptismal record from the Lutheran church and the additional people listed were godparents. Since she was raised Baptist, she wasn't familiar with the baptism/christening traditions of Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, etc.

My husband's DNA showed absolutely no Native American whatsoever....NONE. This only confirmed what I already knew from my research...that a bunch of people related to him refuse to believe the facts. They all have information on someone who if I remember correctly is one of his 2x or 3x great grandmothers. They all claim that she was NA, but there was absolutely nothing that would lead anyone to believe that. There is a picture of her draped in a blanket that COULD be Native American in design, but I can't be sure, nor is that proof of anything. But none of her records or those of her family show anything that would lead you to believe she might have been NA. And when I did my husband's DNA, he had DNA matches with several of these people and they have absolutely NO Native American DNA either....and they still insist this woman was NA.

It really is a lot of fun to have it done and see the breakdown. And it helps keep you from being influenced too much by things family has said. My paternal grandfather's family was always said to be English and the last name is actually in a book of original English names. My maternal grandmother's family was always assumed to be English as well. In the most basic terms I understood as a child, I assumed I was half English. In reality....DNA says 3% Great Britain. LOL