“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” ~ Alexander Graham Bell
This is my 10th year doing the Ancestor Score on Valentine’s Day. I first read about this way of keeping tabs on genealogy research progress on Barbara Schmidt’s blog Connecting the Worlds in 2014.
Sorry folks but there will be no scoreboard as no new ancestors were found since Valentine’s Day last year.
The past year was spent reviewing the posts about my paternal line – all US ancestors. After reviewing, citing, checking for new sources, and updating information in my database, little time remained to pursue new ancestors.
My children’s ancestors are known and well-researched to their 6th great-grandparents. A little more than 87% of their ancestors in generation 9 are known, 223 of 256. These numbers drop significantly in the next generation with less than half of the 512 ancestors being known. Still, overall, 70% of their ancestors are known to their 7th great-grandparents.
More importantly, the first eight generations of my children’s ancestors are nearly 96% known. I’ve written about all of them except for their 5th great-grandparents Henry TREADWAY and Sarah JOHNSON in the pink section (a post that has long been in the works but is still not ready to share).
While the green and yellow ancestors are complete one set of 5th great-grandparents in the blue section is unknown. In the pink section – their US ancestors – there are still several unknowns. The names of the parents and grandparents of their 3rd great-grandfather William A. W. DEMPSEY haven’t been found. Their 5th great-grandmother Levina DOSS had her children with an unknown man leaving a blank in the chart. Their 4th great-grandfather John COOLEY’s parents are also eluding my searches.
The Ancestors, a page with links to all posts on this blog, can be found here.
I’ve been thinking of discontinuing this way of keeping track of the ancestors for some time. For many of the more distant ancestors, reasonably exhaustive research still needs to be conducted. There is no longer a thrill in counting them. The pleasure comes from finding new records that add meaning to the lives they lived which, in turn, makes them more interesting to write about.
This is my 9th year doing the Ancestor Score on Valentine’s Day. I first read about this way keeping tabs on the progress of genealogy research on Barbara Schmidt’s blog Connecting the Worlds in 2014.
Last year I cut off the ancestors after the 10th generation. This year I’m bringing back the full scoreboard with comparisons to even years only since the chart was getting too large.
My Ancestor Score
In generation 6, I’m still missing the parents of William A. W. DEMPSEY. I wonder if this generation will ever hit 100%. The increase in generation 7 was an ancestor I discovered last year.
While researching 5th great-grandparents in my maternal line, parents and grandparents of the persons of interest were discovered increasing the numbers in generations 9 and 10. At least one record confirming the names was found and reasonably exhaustive research still needs to be conducted.
In the early generations, the numbers fluctuate when I find a branch that needs a bit of pruning. More often than not, when I prune a branch it starts sprouting new shoots.
My Children’s Ancestor Score
My children’s ancestor score seems to have an error in generation 10. I think I may have miscounted back in 2020 and carried it over in 2021.
Their first eight generations are nearly 96% known. They have all been written up except for Henry TREADWAY and Sarah JOHNSON (5th greats) and the living persons in the first three generations.
How do you keep track of your ancestors?
And what does your Ancestor Score look like? Do you keep track of your ancestors differently?
We would not be here without the ancestral couples who came before us. What better day to feature them than on Valentine’s Day. Nearly all of my ancestors were married, some cut it close, and two ancestresses never bothered to marry.
I’ve been writing about The Ancestors since I began blogging, going back one generation at a time. Generations 2 through 7 are complete except for one set of 4th great-grandparents. The 8th generation is off to a good start with nearly a dozen couples’ stories already written. Vital statistics, spouses, children, residence, occupation, ownership, military service, and miscellaneous biographical information were used in the stories.
There are close to 400 known ancestors in the next four generations – many have baptism, marriage, and burial records, some have more biographical detail, while others may only be names gleaned from their children’s records.
In the past, I’ve kept track of the ancestors back to the earliest known ancestor in the 21st generation. This year I decided to count only the ancestors back to my 7th great-grandparents.
My Ancestor Score
Nearly 90% of my ancestors are known up to generation 8. The numbers go down significantly in the next two generations due to the brick walls in my paternal lines in the US.
New Names in the Family Tree
The name of Henry TREADWAY’s first wife was found this past year in a book with a series of sketches on early families of Steubenville and Jefferson County, Ohio, written by Mrs. Mary Donaldson Sinclair (1862-1940) in the early 1930s, and published at that time by The Steubenville Herald-Star. The article included not only Henry TREADWAY’s wife’s name but also her parents’ names and where they were from. Three new names in the family tree (generations 7 and 8) need to be researched. Perhaps they will firm up the assumption that Henry TREADWAY and Sarah JOHNSON were the parents of my 3rd great-grandmother Sarah Ann TREADWAY. DNA matches to descendants of three other children of Henry have been found in one cluster and are the reason I’ve taken a closer look at available publications.
Henry TREADWAY and his wife are the 4th great-grandparents I mentioned above that have not yet been featured on my blog. I plan to take time to review the research I’ve done and, finally, write about them sometime this year.
I learned this way of keeping tabs on the progress of genealogy research on Barbara Schmidt’s blog Connecting the Worlds in 2014. This is my 8th year doing the Ancestor Score on Valentine’s Day.
This year I planned on spending more time working with my brother’s AncestryDNA results and sharing discoveries here but…
The census analysis I’m doing for James SIMS and his sixteen (16) children for the Rewriting the Biography series is taking a lot more time than I had expected. I normally give myself a break the day after a post is published to look over new matches on AncestryDNA. OK, I admit I find myself checking more often than the day following a post.
Nearly two years ago, I wrote about the 6 AncestryDNA Notes for Easier Comparison and How I Use and Manage AncestryDNA Notes. Since writing those posts not much has changed with the content of the notes or how I use them. But there is one neat Chrome extension I can no longer do without – and I hadn’t heard about it when I wrote the posts in 2016.
A Time-Saving Chrome Extension
MedBetterDNA has an option you can check to “always show Notes” of your matches on AncestryDNA (see link at the end of this post for more information about this extension). All notes made for matches will show on the page you are viewing without you having to click each to open them. You see all your notes! And this simple trick is helping me to feel like a DNA rock star!
Take this match, for example. When she first turned up there was no tree linked to the DNA. She had a public tree that was viewable but it did not have a paternal side. Public trees you can see do not necessarily have to have the match as the home person or the match’s tree.
Update: This extension was removed from the Chrome Web Store on 2022-06-18
Shared Matches on AncestryDNA
When I looked at the Shared Matches (SM) with all the notes open, I saw a pattern that indicated the match was coming from a particular line. Right off I could tell she is a paternal match for my brother. I use an emoji of a bride for maternal matches, a groom for paternal matches, and a leaf for Shared Ancestor Hints (SAH). The groom was showing up in many of the notes for the Shared Matches.
The first cousin is a paternal match, i.e. points to DEMPSEY or ROOP. There are no shared matches with second cousins. The two 3C matches are cousins who share Alexander CLONCH, the grandfather of my paternal grandmother, Myrtle Hazel ROOP.
The first two matches in the 4th cousin category have Alexander CLONCH as the MRCA or most recent common ancestor. The next two have William CLONCH and Mary “Polly” DOSS, Alexander’s parents.
The next four 4C matches have as MRCA, the CLONCH-DOSS couple or Alexander CLONCH.
The next four of five 4C matches have the CLONCH-DOSS couple as the MRCA. One match has no tree and their name is not familiar to me. However, this test has a match with a cousin who also shares the CLONCH-DOSS couple as the MRCA.
There are 22 more predicted 4C shared matches (Possible range: 4th – 6th cousins). Nearly half of these do not include trees and an MRCA has not been determined. Seven have the CLONCH-DOSS couple. One match is a double 4C1R through Dennis CLAUNCH and Nancy BEASLEY (parents of William) AND through Levina DOSS (mother of Polly DOSS) – which will make for interesting chromosome comparisons. Four matches are at least 5C1R and have Jeremiah CLAUNCH (father of Dennis) as the MRCA.
Taking a Look at The Big Picture
Viewing the shared matches’ notes at the same time makes this part of “guessing” where the match may be sharing DNA much easier. In this case, I was able to assume she must have a connection to Martha Angeline CLONCH, a daughter of Thomas Eli CLONCH and granddaughter of William CLONCH and Polly DOSS. This may not be obvious from the above notes. I have access to one of Martha Angeline’s descendant’s tests (one of the shared matches above) who is a much higher 3C match to this lady. The Shared Matches he has also point to this area of the family tree.
And Then A Tree Was Linked
Now for the ta-dah moment. Early in July while checking out the DNA matches I noticed the match now had a tree attached. She’s on the first page (top 50 matches) with 60 cMs on 4 segments which made it easy to spot when all notes are open. Skimming through the notes I noticed that a match who had No Family Tree or a Private Tree mentioned in their notes is now showing an attached family tree. When I viewed the public tree she’d linked to her DNA results I saw it included her paternal side which was missing in the public tree I had viewed.
Cropped screenshot of her tree in the area I suspect the match.
Who did I see as her great-grandfather? Thomas Eli CLONCH, the son of William and Polly and the father of Martha Angeline. Her grandmother Fanny was Martha’s sister. Her great-grandfather Thomas Eli was my 2nd great-grandfather Alexander CLONCH’s brother.
Can you imagine my excitement [insert genealogy happy dance here] at finding our match is exactly where I thought it would be? I shortened the note to read: 60 cMs 4 segs. 3C1R thru William CLONCH and Mary E. “Polly” DOSS. MRCA found 9 July 2018. Need to follow up with a message.
I sent a message on July 22 including the link to my post, Dear Cousin – We Have a DNA Match, Now What? and received a reply less than 48 hours later followed quickly by a second with her Gedmatch kit number. She matches known cousins descended from the CLONCH-DOSS couple on Gedmatch on chromosomes and segments which can now be attributed to the couple.
We’ve shared a few more messages. She’s given me permission to use her match, without identifying information, as an example. To help others understand how they can use Shared Matches on AncestryDNA – to figure out which part of the family tree the match is coming from or to zoom in on the possible most recent common ancestor.
How This Helps in the Long Run
Rebecca Jane CLONCH is the mother of my paternal grandmother Myrtle Hazel ROOP.
The fourth cousin shared matches to DNA matches who are related through one of the CLONCH ancestors are going to be the keys to open the doors in several brick walls. Both sets of grandparents of my 2nd great-grandmother Tabitha Ann COOLEY, wife of Alexander CLONCH, are unknown. The father of my 3rd great-grandmother Mary “Polly” DOSS, “wife” of William CLONCH, is also unknown. Matches are also showing up for people who descend from siblings of Dennis CLAUNCH whose mother’s name is unknown.
MedBetterDNA can do more than always show notes. Click here to see more filtering options.
I’d love to hear about the methods you use to help work with your AncestryDNA results. Anything which makes this complicated subject easier is always welcome.
P.S. My apologies to my followers who receive notifications per email. The post was inadvertently published on the day I began writing it instead of the moment I hit the publish button.
More importantly, the first eight generations of my children’s ancestors are nearly 96% known. I’ve written about all of them except for their 5th great-grandparents Henry TREADWAY and Sarah JOHNSON in the pink section (a post that has long been in the works but is still not ready to share).
Opening Doors in Brick Walls 