The trouble with using DNA tests to determine the missing people in our family tree flares up when we have a bit too many blanks among our ancestors' descendants. Right now, I'm still struggling with the missing parents and siblings of my father-in-law's great-grandmother Anna Flanagan. I do, however, have a very few DNA matches who may well fit into that branch of our family tree. The question is: just how do these living people fit into the puzzle left behind by unnamed ancestral members of the Flanagan collateral lines?
Thankfully, in this Irish Flanagan case from County Limerick, I can reach out for a little help from some genealogy friends. Yesterday, I mentioned reviewing some old notes from one Flanagan match. Following the details provided in those old emails, then combining them with observations gleaned from other Ancestry subscribers' Flanagan trees, I have been able to build out some additional lines for my own tree.
That, in turn, has allowed me to spot surnames of DNA matches who had eluded me in earlier attempts at match-making. Children of a Flanagan daughter now sporting a married surname unknown to me can be just as puzzling as any other Irish descendant—until a genealogy friend points out the connection. That is the value of reaching out and connecting with other researchers. In some cases, those genea-friends can even turn out to be distant cousins.
Now that I've been able to add some married names to my tree (still in a floating branch, as I'm ever the cautious one), it's time to take a fresh look at a handful of DNA matches who have had me stumped. Maybe this time, their results will fall handily into this Flanagan puzzle and help me calculate whether their ancestor was our Anna's sibling, or merely another cousin living in the same Irish townland.
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