DNA follow-up

As part of the 'Family Tree DNA' website you can check on the number (and names) of people who match with your own DNA. You can choose matches where differing numbers of chromosomes have been matched. It seems not worth checking when people have only 12 recorded. For me there are well over 2000 of them! I have therefore checked for 25 and 37 (you can go up to 67 and 111). Clearly the most significant matches are going to be at 37 and for me there is only one and he happens to be my third cousin once removed who lives in Canada. It would be great if more male members of our clan would agree to have their DNA analysed so that we can get more comparisons and therefore probably make more family tree links, where the paper trail hasn't yet allowed us to do so. If you are interested, or think you can persuade someone, do please get in touch with me.

Next you look for people whose DNA is nearest to your own. For me there is just one person with 37 less 3 (=34) matches. His surname is Brown, a name he can take back to 1765. His haplogroup is R1b1a2 (R-M269), which is not the same as mine. At Y-DNA 25 he is recorded as not a match for me, which is something I confess I do not understand. In addition to my Canadian cousin there is just one person who is an exact match to me at Y-DNA 25. His surname is Smith and like Brown his haplogroup is R1b1a2 (R-M 269). At one step away (so scoring 24 matches) there are four other men. Two have chosen to keep their haplogroup private, though they don't match mine (names Kendall and Todd). One of the four, named Jacks, also is in the R-M 269 haplogroup. There is however one man whose name is Cox, who can take his name back to 1790, who has the same haplogroup as mine, R1b1a2a1a1b4 (R-L21). If we now move to people who are two steps away from me (23 matches) there are 20 more names of which 17 are in the M269 haplogroup and 3 are in another, R-U152.

To sum up, of all the many thousands of people whose DNA is recorded there are just four men who at the present time have significant matches to me, one McIlhagga, one Brown, one Smith and one Cox.