Gent Family


DNA - Revisited

August 24, 2018

I now have 219 DNA matches predicted to be fourth cousin relationships or closer; my brother has 204. I regularly check new names and meticulously chart them on a spreadsheet, colour-coding the entries and grouping blocks of share matches to determine which belong to my maternal lines and which are paternal.

Just this morning I got my twenty second "share ancestor" leaf. Granted, three of those matches are my brother, my father and an uncle - but that still means I (well, my DNA sample results and software algorithms) have uncovered 19 living people with whom I share ancestors. This latest match is a seventh cousin; our shared ancestor is John IMPETT born in Ash, Kent in 1736. It's amazing, really.

And while it’s gratifying to have science confirm research done decades ago, and while I am pleased to see matches who connect to my mother’s Fletcher, Sutton and Culmer lines I can’t help but wish that tearing down brick walls was more easily accomplished through DNA testing. Who are all these matches living in every corner of the world? How do they link to me? Are their family trees accurate? Are mine? I am willing to put in the work but it might be helpful if people responded to messages left on Ancestry or, at the very least, entered the names and places connected to their lineage at least back as far as their great-grandparents.

I’d like a match who descends from my maternal Hardie family who can help me find my way back to Scotland. Please. Or a match whose ancestors are Brigdens from Sussex, and who has run to ground our link to eighteenth century Germany. And don’t get me started on my complicated paternal branches!

Right – hand me that spreadsheet!


 

Shared Matches on Ancestry DNA

June 23, 2017

To paraphrase a famous advertisement:  Document gathering – hundreds of dollars. Genealogical research – thousands of dollars. Ancestry DNA –  priceless.

It does work! That is, assuming I and two other Pope descendants have done the research thoroughly.

For years, I’ve believed that my POPE line originated in Bosham in the late 1600s. But I’ve not been able to prove it to my own satisfaction. My three times great-grandfather William POPE married Elizabeth SAVAGE at Westbourne in 1...


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Ancestry DNA

December 4, 2016

In November I bit the bullet and sent away for an Ancestry DNA kit – I’d been pondering the idea for nearly and year, and finally decided it might well be a means of breaking through some brick walls. The kit, mailed from the States, arrived within a week and I ‘did the deed’ the next day, spitting into a test tube, mixing the blue solution thoroughly, and posting it that morning in the pre-paid envelope.

I checked the DNA tab on the Ancestry website regularly – and on the 15th of...


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Just an Update

September 4, 2013

No, I have not joined my ancestors, as someone recently wondered. I simply have not found the time to do much with my website in months. For that matter, I've done very little, genealogically speaking. I've been living in my new house for fourteen months now and it's finally at the point where I feel I can devote my attention to other interests ... like my family history and my work as the online parish clerk for Stourmouth! Stay tuned....


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Brick Walls

July 24, 2012

I read an article today which made me spring to the keyboard. We genealogists complain bitterly about our brick walls and how some ancestors are just impossible to trace. We mutter darkly about how people will be easier to track in the future.  But is that really the case? Will technology enable our great great grandchildren to learn more about our comings and goings? Will they even be able to locate us?

I’m not very old (or so I tell myself). Yet learning where I come from and what I’ve...


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On the Road Again

June 30, 2012

This month, I moved. The distance involved was not far, about 40 kilometres over the county line, but the effort required months of planning and a very large cube van, accompanied by three pickup trucks and my own car. At the other end, we began the process of arranging furniture and artwork, and unpacking more than 50 cardboard boxes. How can two people own so much stuff?

I started thinking of my ancestors. I can’t think of one who lived in the same house their entire adult life, although...


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Almost Famous

May 1, 2012
I enjoy watching genealogical programs such as Who Do You Think You Are – but I’m beginning to wonder if you have to be a celebrity in order to have “interesting” antecedents?  A stroll through my ancestral house results in a forlorn nodding of the head, and mutterings like “twist of fate” and “always the bridesmaid, never the bride”.

Last month marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  Joseph Bruce ISMAY 1862-1937 was involved with the White Star Line an...
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Getting Started?

April 7, 2012

I had three genealogical goals for 2012:  get organized, stay organized, and write a semi-monthly blog.  I’ve failed miserably at the first two but I think I can at least start – yes, it’s already April – on the third.  But what to use as a title?  Some quick Internet research later, and I’ve come up with Genealogical Gallivanting.

ge·ne·al·o·gy

  1. an account of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or from older forms
  2. regular descent of a person, family,...


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