Happy Belated D N A Day

 

National DNA Day has come and gone, and I didn't even take the time to wish you a happy one this April 25. Some genetic genealogy companies chose to celebrate the occasion by offering sales through the weekend on their testing products. As for me and my house, we opted to celebrate by taking a walk on the beach. No reason in particular, though perhaps being close to the ocean has been bred into my genes. Oh, and my husband did wear a genetic genealogy T-shirt to breakfast at the hotel, a little gift from a long-past conference hosted in Houston by Family Tree DNA.

Right now, the fact that my husband's autosomal DNA test has yielded me over twenty thousand DNA matches to sort through and catalog, I confess I'm in need of a vacation. Granted, the only DNA matches who really count are those hovering around the fourth cousin mark or closer. For those, I struggle with only 1,420 matches—and not all of those are connected to my mother-in-law's lines.

Granted, the 265 DNA matches who are specific descendants of her second great-grandfather Nicholas Snider are the ones concerning me this month. And even though those matches are laid out clearly by Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool—only fifty one more to go!—it can be a slog to run through each name and accurately document that match's relationship.

Now that I'm trying out Ancestry's Pro Tools, that ThruLines project is only the start. Next will be a thorough examination of the shared matches revealed by Pro Tools to see if there are any other clues to dig through on this family's hidden mysteries from generations back. Yet, with only four more days to go in this month, this appears to be a daunting project. And I still don't know much more about Nicholas Snider's roots than I did when I started this month.

There are some months when the selected project from my Twelve Most Wanted for the year reveal the answers I've been seeking. Other months, well, I have to make concluding notes and button up the task for another year's attempt at solving the mystery. Though it is clear that learning more about the local history of Adams County, Pennsylvania, may be enlightening, this may turn out to be a belated situation of more project than month in which to accomplish it.