need help in finding dna matches

Question

i have found most of my Harris relatives, the one that i need help with is my paternal grandmother, Mary Lee Coker, born June 29, 1871 Boone/Marion County, Ar. She was orphaned at an early age, and parents names are unknown. How do i use DNA au test to try and find Coker Relatives with Wikitree? Is beyond me as to how it is done,,sure could use some help with this,,thanks..James Harris

Comments

Hi James, we are related! My gedmatch is A972717  on Ancestry my username is Lptxmom1 

Answer 1

Do you have any close family members who have tested to be able to compare to?  Are there any of your fathers siblings still alive?  They would be the best to test for Mary Lee  It would help to be able to narrow down your matches in the first instance to just your paternal side.  Your fathers siblings would all share the same mtDna with Mary.  So if any are alive get them to do the Family Finder and Full sequence mtDNA Test at FTDNA.  AncestryDNA doesn't offer mtDNA anymore.

The other thing you can do is search Cokers who have tested and compare your results to theirs using the one to one search at GEDMAtch. Here is a thread on it http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/297877/did-you-see-the-new-dna-test-connections-on-search-results

Answer 2

James, since you don't know Mary Lee Coker's parents, you aren't going to find them on Wikitree.  Wikitree only tells us of others that have done DNA tests that share a common ancestor.  Even then, it doesn't tell us if we share DNA with those other people.  You have to use another site to do that.

I see you've uploaded to Gedmatch and that you tested with ancestry.com.  Have you searched your matches on ancestry looking for others that have the Coker surname in their lineage?  There's a Chrome add-on you can get that can help you.  It's free:  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ancestrydna-helper/hjflmfphflaeehhpdiggobllgffelfee  Download that, read about how to use it, and it can help you look for Coker matches.

Have you uploaded your family tree to Gedmatch?  If not, do that so people can find matches.  Also, you can use the tools on Gedmatch to look for others with a Coker in their database.  You use the 'Search all Gedcoms' feature on the right side of the screen.

Best of luck to you!

Comments

James, I started looking for information on your grandmother using census records.  I located a James William Coker, born 4 June 1849 in Arkansas, died 16 April 1873 in Boone, Arkansas.  His wife was Mary.  James's parents were Hardin Coker (1811-1859) and Mary Ann "Polly" Orr (1827-1898).  James is on the 1850 census with his parents in Marion, Arkansas (ref: Year: 1850; Census Place: Marion, Arkansas; Roll: M432_28; Page: 321A; Image: 30).  He's on the 1860 census with his mother & siblings in Union, Marion, Arkansas (ref: Year: 1860; Census Place: Union, Marion, Arkansas; Roll: M653_46; Page: 550; Image: 23; Family History Library Film: 803046).  There's a James on the 1880 census in Buffalo Fork, Marion, Arkansas, married, wife Mary; with a daughter Mary age 5 (ref: Year: 1880; Census Place: Buffalo Fork, Marion, Arkansas; Roll: 51; Family History Film: 1254051; Page: 67B; Enumeration District: 110; Image: 0141).  Census records are known to have inaccurate information as to ages...

This seems like something you might want to look into as possibly being your grandmother's family...  The father died whenTry to locate others that descend from one of these families (Coker or Orr) and see if you share DNA with them.