OK last friday I mentioned having a 1st to 2nd cousin DNA Match (at FT DNA) for whom I could not find any names in common, and Cornwall, county in England was the only place we had in common. And Laura Bozzay said that maybe there was an NPE. Turns out there was no NPE - other than my mother.
But since I am looking for a missing grandfather I have no idea where he came from at all.
This 1C-2C DNA Match was descended from a certain Irish couple who emigrated from Ireland to NZ in 1876 along with his parents, his siblings and his children. Lets call her Mary.
She also had a second cousin also descended from this same irish couple, and was also showing up on my matches list - and he was in the top 10. We can call him Larry.
In the back of my mind, there is a voice that says, please dont be irish, please dont be irish, please dont be irish... Ireland is not one of my favourite countries.
So I uploaded my DNA data to my heritage and the top match was a 1C1R to 4th cousin. We can call him John.We shared 440 cM of DNA - the biggest shared amount I have seen yet. When I looked at his tree - guess what!! He too was also descended from this same irish couple who emigrated to NZ in 1876.
It looks like my missing grandfather was irish or part irish anyway.
John has put up a pretty good tree.
If John is a 1C1R from me, then it stands to reason that he is 1C to my mother right?
So Johns descent from the Irish family who emigrated to NZ was through one of their daughters. Her name was Ellen. Ellen had married and had 3 sons and 6 daughters herself. Most of this generation has now passed, but their children - my mothers generation, are still alive albeit getting older. My mother is in her 80s and John was listed as being in his 70s.
So, now we are waiting for my mothers DNA kit to arrive. It was procured by me from the DNA Quest pro-bono program being run by My herotage for adoptees.
IF mums results come back as 1C to John, then one of his uncles was my grandfather. The location and age are all correct. 2 of Johns uncles were married and had children. I dont think they would have had an affair. The 3rd uncle never married, and could be my grandfather.
I am thinking that if we can get one child from each of the other 2 brothers to test, and if they come back as 1C to my mother then we know the unmarried uncle was my grandfather. If one of them comes back as a half-sibling, then I swear, all hell will break loose.
We will then have 2 possible reason for why my grandfather did not marry my grandmother. 1 - that family are catholics, and my grandmothers family was protestant, and never the twain shall meet. 2 - my grandfather was already married and thus unable to marry my grandmother.
It would be helpful to have these tests done to hopefully eliminate the married brothers.
So now we are in limbo. Cannot do anything further until we get my mothers DNA results back.
I have put the irish family (who emigrated to NZ) on wikitree, creating several profiles.
