Chatting with my mother last night, she mentioned that she had seen a new close relative that she didn’t know on a DNA service we both have used in the past. Color me intrigued, mostly because my mother knows distant relatives intimately, so it seems impossible that a close match could avoid her knowledge.
The short version of this tale, for those who don’t know, is that my maternal grandfather is a bit of a mystery. He was not involved, nor interested in being involved, in my mother’s life before or after she was born. The name he used at the time makes only a few brief appearances in any records, and he doesn’t appear to have been born, fathered anyone, performed military service, or died. Based on some statistics-based DNA research, it appears that he or his parents may have arrived in the US as immigrants from the far northern part of Norway, Sweden and/or Finland. I can find some relatives from the area, but I do not know how they relate aside from sharing maternal DNA.
I checked the hit this morning while eating my breakfast at the workplace. Mom had said close, but holy hell she didn’t quite emphasize just how close: the person is my first cousin once removed or my half-first cousin. And the matches for those regions of Europe are almost exact.
She may be the “missing link” that could help me answer a lot of questions that I have about my ancestry. Provided she is interested in lending a hand, that is.
I sent “AK” a message this morning, going light on the details about my grandfather (lighter than what I suspect or know about him), asking if she would be up to sharing information. By the nature of our relationship, this person must be related by my mother’s half-sibling. It feels less like groping in the dark and more like a solid hit at that point.
It may be that my grandmother had another secret child (my mother recently met her niece from an unknown half-sibling), but the regional match comes closer to what my grandfather would have had to contribute, so it seems likely this new relative is related to him.
Fingers crossed. It would be nice to not run up against another brick wall with my grandfather…
3 responses to “A close hit”
Fingers crossed here that this is the missing link for which you’ve been searching. 🙂 Incidentally, I’ve just read and liked a lot of your posts because I realised I hadn’t seen anything from you for a couple of days. Checking found that I’d become unsubscribed from your site. I’ve had this happen with other people at times with WordPress – assuming that you all haven’t had enough and cast me adrift – and it’s annoying to say the least. Whatever. I hope you won’t disappear again – and good luck with the new connection. 🙂
🫤 I wasn’t responsible for that. I only ever eliminate people who feel a need to steal content or be abusive. And spam. If someone uses an obvious bot to comment, I dump them. You’re only allowed to use “interesting post” so many times in so many places before I gather you’re not really reading my content and won’t miss me.
🤣🤣🤣 I’ll make sure to avoid saying that! Nice to be back. 😊