Another DNA Match . . . sort of
I got notification of another DNA match.
Remember the guy I said I matched on 36 out of 37 markers? The one whose last name — Hamilton — was not any where near “Osborne” but whose ancestors did live in Wake County, North Carolina, in the same neighborhood during the same time period as my ancestor Christopher Osborne? The one whose ancestor had 3 sons out of wedlock? Well, this match is another one of that family, and their surname matches his — Hamilton — and we match 25 markers out of 25. Supposedly, this means that we have about an 85% chance of sharing a common ancestor within 8 generations. Christopher Osborne, my earliest known ancestor, is my 4th great-grandfather, which I think means he is 7 generations from me. I don’t know if he fathered those children, or one of his brothers or other relatives did–but I sure would like to know.
As I said in my original DNA post, my hope was that DNA testing would answer some of these long standing questions, but it has instead generated more. There are some other matches with differing surnames, and I may be off the track by believing that this Hamilton match merits more attention because of the geographical proximity. But I had the opportunity to ask geneatology guru Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak when she was here last year and she said it was worth pursuing if the haplotypes matched and we matched at the 37 marker level. My guess is she would say we should go ahead and pursue the now-available 67 marker test available. It’s only money. (She wouldn’t say that last part–she’s much too nice.)