Making DNA work FOR YOU
JANICE WRITES: Dear Karen, I had been recommended to look at Family Tree by an acquaintance on Ancestry. We are not related but were researching on behalf of people who are actually 2nd cousins, and over the lockdown era our pen-friendship developed into a more personal exchange. It was this person who recommended that I take a DNA test, which I did a few months ago.
My interest in family history developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s after my father’s brother revealed that their father, my grandfather, Joseph Cyrus William White, was born to Agnes Emma Isabella White on 15 June 1885 at The Railway Tavern, Stroud Road, Woodside in Croydon, Surrey. Since that time, I have done lots of research and had much joy in discovering so many facts about my family and even more joy in helping my friends discover more about their families.
The advent of DNA (which as I’m in my 73rd year and remember the discovery of this fascinating field) to me has not meant the discovery of ‘who I am’ but more of ‘who I am not’! I really don’t understand the technicalities of DNA research but would like to try to progress.
Although I have over the years built up a very plausible paper trail tree. I knew my paternal grandfather’s father to be a complete mystery, but I did at least know that my greatgrandmother was Agnes Emma Isabella White, born to Jane Hillier Davis and Isaac White in Burbage, Wiltshire on 3 June 1865.
But wait,
