It's the Little Things that Count

 

When using DNA to connect with matches who share second great-grandparents, those distant cousins share very little genetic material in common. But when the goal is to push beyond the brick wall ancestors just one more generation, it's the little things that count. As I mentioned yesterday, third cousins can share under two hundred centiMorgans—and the number can slide far lower than that. It's that little amount that is consuming my research time lately.

Anyone who might be related to Anna Flanagan through, say, an as yet unknown sibling, would share a very small amount of genetic material with her direct descendants, indeed. With that in mind, I conducted yet another hunt to see whether I could find a potential match among the many who share as low as ten, twenty, or thirty centiMorgans with my husband.

I used the approach of creating a custom cluster on Ancestry.com, naming one specific match as my key target. Keep in mind that, though this match has the Flanagan name in her tree, I don't yet know for sure that she is related to the same Flanagan line in County Limerick, though our email discussions over the past few years have led me to believe this could be a possibility.

I created the custom cluster to have, at its lowest amount, a centiMorgan count far smaller than the usual clusters offered at Ancestry. The result of my request provided forty one matches. Oddly enough, two of that group matched my husband on his maternal side, rather than the expected paternal side. I set those two results aside and did not consider them, though I have seen some matches in the past in which the wrong side of the family had been attributed as the nexus. I also know that, reaching back that many generations among American descendants can sometimes produce other lines in which someone from the paternal side coincidentally also ended up marrying someone from my husband's maternal side.

From that point, I went one by one through the remaining thirty nine matches produced by this custom cluster request. Where I could determine through viewing each candidate's "shared matches" option which branch of my father-in-law's Irish roots might claim each candidate, I eliminated those from other branches from my search.

In the end, I was left with...nothing. None of that grouping seemed to indicate roots either linked to Flanagans or descended from the Ballyagran area of County Limerick. There was, however, a surprise: a few matches who had the surname Lee in their roots. Lee, I had found out from prior years' experience, was the married name of a niece of Anna Flanagan who had also emigrated from Ireland to the Chicago area of the United States.

While none of these Lee matches were the same as the Lee family I had researched, they also were Irish immigrants who hailed from the Chicago area, the same area where Anna Flanagan had settled, prompting me to revisit that Lee connection I had found from so long ago. We'll take a look at that tomorrow, especially because there is one issue nagging at the back of my brain: there don't seem to be any DNA matches pointing to my husband's Flanagan-Lee side of the family.

What we Don't Have in Common

 

Perhaps in wrestling with a research problem, we struggle so much that we end up on the far side of reasonable conclusions. Perhaps, after comparing and contrasting DNA matches over and over today, I've reached that far end. But the thought this day left me with might have some validity, despite the mental exhaustion. I'm wondering whether it might be far more productive for me to partner with Flanagan cousins whose matches have nothing in common with my family, as far as DNA goes. What we don't have in common may provide the answer we seek.

I'm searching for DNA matches who share genetic material with my husband and a common heritage in County Limerick with his Flanagan ancestors. Other than close relatives descended from the very same second great-grandmother as my husband claims—Anna Flanagan—I've found very little to work with. If I search for DNA matches whose family tree includes Flanagan surnames, I end up with matches whose ancestors hailed from County Cork, or even County Mayo, not County Limerick.

Trying to find DNA matches with another descendant of a second great-grandparent would mean finding a third cousin, at the closest. At that point, it is quite possible that two such cousins would share absolutely no genetic material in common, despite both being descended from the same ancestral couple. In other words, the shared centiMorgans might amount to an absolute zero.

If what I am actually trying to accomplish is to push back even beyond that second great-grandmother, it would mean finding descendants of a third great-grandparent, thus looking for fourth cousins. At that level, it would be even less likely to find someone who shares the same Flanagan genetic signature as my husband.

In other words, the more distant the relationship, the less likely that two such cousins would share any genetic material at all. 

But what genetic Flanagan signature my husband might not share with his own DNA matches could very well be the exact segment that a Flanagan cousin might share with a different family member. In other words, rather than reading the ProTools results for cousins who share DNA with my husband's test and a match in common, I need to find the matches of our matches who share different Flanagan DNA segments with their own matches—not in common with my test, but in common with other Flanagan cousins.

While that might sound reasonable in theory, in practice, it would take cooperation between cousins who are willing to share their data. Perhaps a letter writing campaign might convince candidates to join up to solve this Flanagan mystery. On the other hand, at a third cousin level, the greatest amount of genetic material any one match set could share would be 234 centiMorgans—a small amount, indeed, but also an amount which shows us how much variability there is between what one third cousin could inherit versus another third cousin descended from the same second great-grandmother.

In other words, I'm looking for someone with DNA in common with my husband's Flanagan ancestor who has other Flanagan matches who do not share the Flanagan segments that match shares with my husband. Perhaps there's someone out there who inherited all the Flanagan genes that my husband did not. I hope that person took a DNA test and posted the results, along with a complete family tree. At least, I can dream.

Trying This, That, the Other

Some days, the research path leads in circles. Yesterday was one of those days. With plans to review Flanagan results at four of the DNA companies where my husband has tested, I ended up trying a little bit of this, a smattering of that, and some more of the other, and came up with...nothing. If I found Flanagan matches, they lived elsewhere. If I found County Limerick connections, they didn't merge with the Flanagan family. It was a zero sum day.

I tried every data manipulation combination I could think of, checking for matches in common with my husband and either of two sisters who had tested, plus matches shared with some of their children. Nothing led to the hoped-for connections.

However, spending hours being thorough must have put me in the mood to keep checking through other Flanagan files. I not only have made it a habit to check back through the fifteen years' history of this blog, but whenever I received a useful comment on a post, or an actual email, I saved it for future reference. In addition, as I found pertinent links for specific family lines, I'd save them in a set of electronic file folders delineated by surname. My Flanagan e-file has several gems saved over the years, some of which I had nearly forgotten about. It was good to review all those notes—some of which contained details I need to make sure to add to the right places in our family tree.

While the pursuit of DNA leads didn't, um, lead anywhere, it occurred to me to try a slightly different approach. While comparing matches linked to siblings can produce some insights—in the Flanagan case here, unfortunately, it didn't—it occurred to me that widening the circle might yield a more useful set of details. Over the years, I've kept in touch with distant cousins who also research their family lines. We've compared notes from time to time. Now might be just the right time to reach out and see whether those cousins have Flanagan matches where my husband's test just doesn't have the genetic details that would point to that side of his family. It's certainly worth the try.

Our Siblings' Side of the Family Story

 

One problem with using DNA for family history research is that we find silver bullet strategies often come crashing down. We put so much hope into such tests, but it turns out that DNA match lists may not contain the magic potion we've assumed would bring down those impenetrable ancestral brick walls.

There is a way around such disappointments, as I've found. It's in using DNA testing in combination with a lot of hard research work and testing strategies that can produce more useful results. One key is to test siblings. Where one sibling's DNA results may match the target test subject on certain chromosome segments, the other sibling may yield far different results, yielding another side of the family story. Perhaps this is the cause behind the red-headed step-child accusation, where one of several siblings doesn't seem to have the same appearance as the rest of the family, and yet is, indeed, a child of the same parents. Sometimes a hidden characteristic from a grandparent makes itself known in only one grandchild—and that can be the family quirk that leads us to a hidden ancestral story.

In my husband's case—as he is the proxy for my father-in-law's genetic profile—he has two sisters who were willing to test their DNA to help me with a class project I had, years ago, for a workshop taught by Blaine Bettinger at a genealogy conference. I'll call them Sister #1 and Sister #2. As I worked through the genetic differences that could be spotted between the three siblings, it was clear that Sister #2 had matches not shared by the other two subjects. Her matches, some of them quite distant relationships, all descended from her family's ancestors from County Tipperary in Ireland. I was able to confirm connections as distant as fifth cousin from specific matches which she did not share with her two siblings.

On the other hand, Sister #1 had matches from the more southern counties in Ireland. At the time when I had first realized this, I was working on connecting DNA matches from Sister #2 to the family's Tully and Flannery roots in County Tipperary and, while overjoyed to have discovered such a handy connection there, I gave little thought to the value of the other sister's DNA connections.

Now, as it turns out, Sister #1 may have the key to unlock at least some of the doors leading to Flanagan and Malloy answers from County Limerick. Because both siblings had tested at Family Tree DNA, rather than at the more popular Ancestry.com, this will mean working with a smaller universe of results, but it will also mean working with a company which, over the years, has focused on marketing directly to Irish residents at annual genetic genealogy conferences of the prior decade.

Hopefully, at least some of those many Irish DNA-testing subjects will have a useful match with Sister #1. The most likely approach will be to seek matches who are not "in common with" my husband's results at Family Tree DNA. However, I already did spot one Flanagan match from my husband's own results who leads back to a possible relative of Anna Flanagan.

Back at Ancestry.com, their ThruLines results show only seven matches connected to Anna Flanagan. All of those, unfortunately, are close cousins whom we already know. No secrets unlocked there. And though I had already prompted the system to find a father, simply labeled by his surname "Flanagan," the ThruLines system hasn't yet uncovered any more distant cousins, despite my father-in-law's tree including Flanagan descendant Johanna Flanagan Lee and her descendants down to the level of third great-grandchildren.

In addition, there are test results at MyHeritage and 23andMe, though these are only for my husband's results, not his siblings, so there is no way to compare or contrast those results, only to find matches with the rather common surname Flanagan.

Still, having DNA test results does provide one additional way to chip away at that Flanagan brick wall story back in County Limerick. Now that we're finally at the beginning of August—the official start of researching Anna Flanagan, number eight of my Twelve Most Wanted for 2026—perhaps these updated DNA matches, especially from Sister #1, will provide some answers about Anna Flanagan's roots in County Limerick.

Summer Slowdown

 

I have often wondered whether the reasons some genealogical societies always chose to "go dark" for the summer might now be outdated. After all, with a major demographic in such organizations weighted heavily towards those who are now retired, who needs summer for a vacation? Extended travel can be done at any time.

This past week, I had my own personal proof that summer travel is still a reality: I spent the week in Minnesota. As you can guess, I gave very little thought to family history research. In fact, with today marking my biweekly review of progress, the numbers confirmed that summer slowdown for me.

Granted, I had an additional excuse for a less than stellar biweekly report: looking for clues about brick wall ancestors from Ireland can bring any search to a screeching halt. To package the slowdown entirely under that umbrella, though, would not be a fair representation. I was busy doing what people often do in the summertime.

With that in mind, I did add fifty one more names to my father-in-law's tree, which now includes 44,259 ancestral relatives. I managed to add two more to my own tree, to boot, though that tree is trailing at 41,959 documented names. That surprise addition on my tree was thanks to the discovery that twelve more DNA matches were added to my side of the family, which rounded out one branch by an additional generation.

DNA matches on my father-in-law's side have not increased by quite so much. For this biweekly span, there were only two new matches; the previous two weeks yielded zero. Perhaps not as many are testing from the Irish roots side of the equation, leaving me without answers where I need them the most.

Whether the DNA slowdown can also be attributed to a summer slowdown, I can't really say. Still, with the start of a new week, I'll be taking a long look at whatever can be gleaned from those matches I've already spotted, to see whether any new additions will help point me in the right direction for my Flanagan question, back in County Limerick.

With a Little Help From Family

 

An emailed note I recently received reminded me of another resource to use as I struggle to piece together Anna Flanagan's story. While my father-in-law, Anna's descendant, has long since passed away, I not only have his son's DNA test at Ancestry.com to rely on for potential Flanagan matches, but two additional children had also tested, using another of the four testing companies which we had used for my husband's test. With a little help from family members' DNA results—not to mention, a review of results at the other companies we had utilized—perhaps it will be easier to zero in on the closest Flanagan connections.

One thing I had noticed by testing three siblings is the variety of DNA matches linked to only one of the siblings. The matches' ancestors seemed to cluster around different geographic regions of Ireland. One test matched many of the lines from County Kerry and County Limerick, while the other sibling's matches pointed farther north to County Tipperary.

Admittedly, this was an effect I had noticed for more distant cousin matches—say, around third cousins—but that is exactly what is needed for this question about Anna Flanagan. Anna would be the second great-grandmother for all three of the siblings who tested, so any same-generation matches would register at about the third cousin level.

Since each sibling seemed to have a different set of matches at that distant relationship level, it may help me zero in on the one test which seemed more likely to match the Flanagan side, with its roots in County Limerick.

I hadn't looked at those siblings' test results for years. I had originally asked each of them to test as part of a project for a DNA class I was taking, and each candidate had kindly allowed me to serve as the administrator for their test results. Though that project was undertaken years ago, many more matches have been added over the years. I'm curious to see whether that geographic signature still holds for each sibling's DNA test results, and whether there might be any new matches who connect with our Flanagan line.

It will take some time to review it all, but hopefully by Monday, I'll see some new possibilities.

Picking up Where we Left Off

 

One of the challenges facing those of us who only have limited time available for research is batching our time in such a way that we can pick up where we last left off. When I was teaching school full time, that meant summers and winter holiday seasons provided my only "free" time for research.

Now, thankfully, I have chunks of time sandwiched into my schedule on a more regular basis—plus, we have the luxury of computer-assisted search prowess which is expanding all the time. Still, every time I set aside a research project, I need to leave myself notes for where I need to pick up, the next opportunity I have to pursue a specific ancestor.

As we enter the month of August, my formidable goal will be to massage all those incomplete Irish governmental and church records to coax them into giving up their secrets on my father-in-law's great-grandmother Anna Flanagan Malloy. I already know, mostly from private letters preserved by pack-rat family members, that she and her brother William originated in County Limerick. According to those family records, their Catholic parish was known as Ballyagran.

If we turn to government records from that area in the time period before the two siblings' emigration, a possible townland might be Cappananty. There, at least according to Griffith's Valuation, our William Flanagan might be the one recorded in the assessment document.

So, what do we need to find next? There, exactly one year ago, according to the recap after my last attempt at searching for the Flanagans, my plan for revisiting this research issue included

• looking for additional governmental records which may have come available online, even for the time periods long after Anna and William's departure for Chicago, to seek records of possible cousins still in Ireland
• finding additional resources in Ireland to explore for this research problem
• building out the family tree to identify other descendants of not only Anna, but her unnamed mystery Flanagan brother in Chicago—and possibly back in Ireland
• reconnecting with any Flanagan cousins contacted in past years to compare research notes since the last time we talked.

For a quick first stop, tomorrow we'll look at four DNA companies where my husband has tested to see whether any new Flanagan connections have since uploaded their results, and to review whether any old connections at Ancestry.com in particular can lead to new insights, thanks to last year's addition of the ProTools subscription.