Family Found through DNA Testing

This is part of a paper I typed recently. I edited a few things, and changed the name of my new cousin to protect his identity.


In July 2016, I purchased an AncestryDNA kit from Ancestry.com.  After getting some surprising results, I decided to have my parents tested to see which one of them gave me that high Italian/Greek heritage, according to the test (my dad.)

Because both of them were tested, I can look at my DNA matches - and then filter that through theirs, seeing which relatives belong to my dad, and which belong to my mom.

I’d seen a few known cousins show up on the appropriate lists, and I’d contacted others in the 2nd to 4th cousin range who verified that they were daughters to such and such great-uncle, and “how are Helen and her family doing anyway?” 

So, I had pretty high confidence in that part of the test - matching families - being accurate.  Still not sure about the Italian/Greek thing, though.  😄

Periodically, I’d check the DNA matches, and Bob* had a picture associated with his profile (many do not), and I noticed he had a rather-sizable public family tree. Oh, great!  Let me see how we are related.  His profile says he’s from California (where I knew I had Truax connections) plus he’s in the close matches to my mom, and he looks like a Truax: thus I concluded confidently that we would have matches there.  But, nope, no one! 

After a few weeks of wondering, I decided to message him through Ancestry’s message system. A few days later, he replied about a story concerning his father’s birth certificate, we exchanged messages, I asked questions of an Los Angeles-area cousin, I told Bob of shared DNA matches we had with Wilkinson and McDaniel family members (who are related to Charles C. Truax’s wife, Jessie Margaret Wilkinson).  After Bob found evidence of his grandmother and Arthur living in close proximity several times, we were confident that his grandfather was, in fact, Arthur Kenneth Truax who died in 1991 in Los Angeles at age 90.

Arthur was the younger brother of my great-grandfather, Edgar Allen Truax, who died in 1974.  Which makes our relationship like this:

Charles and Jessie Wilkinson Truax -- married
Edgar and Arthur -- siblings
Dan and Bob's dad-- 1st cousins
Sharon and Bob -- 2nd cousins  (which was Ancestry DNA’s “extremely confident” conclusion)
Susanne (me) and Bob's kids -- 3rd cousins



 You can see pictures of Edgar, Arthur, and their parents and siblings on my post from last week.


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Have you met any new family members through AncestryDNA - or any other DNA testing service?  Bob said he did the DNA test thinking it would help with his research. Instead he found a whole new family he knew nothing about. 




* not his real name