More family tree 'stuff'...

Regular readers would know that I'm very interested in working on my family tree and to that end, a few years ago I did an Ancestry DNA test. It's the test that 'keeps on keeping on' as, when you least expect it, you find another relative you didn't know you had. 

Last December I was contacted by a cousin whom I had no idea existed. We worked out that her grandmother and my great grandmother were sisters. Shirley lives in Melbourne but has family here in Queensland whom she visits. And so it was that she was visiting them a few weeks ago. It was  arranged that DH and I would pick her up from Brisbane Airport and drive her to her niece's at Glasshouse Mountains. On the way we stopped at Redcliffe; we usually take visitors to The Bee Gees Walk in that city. 

And time for lunch before heading north...

We had a lovely time catching up. And just like the other people I've met who are DNA matches with me, we felt we had known each other for years, despite only just meeting. 

Now last year, thanks to DNA, DH discovered a whole new branch of his family. He found he had 8 half siblings. We've met one of his sisters and last month we met a niece, whose late mother was also DH's sister.

It was a wonderful meet up and both uncle and niece shared family photos. V saw family resemblances with her aunts/uncles/nieces and nephews and even her son, with DH and his children. 

V had a beautiful portrait of her mother on the wall...

And V showed us a photo of DH's biological grandmother ( on the right) on her mother's wedding day...

All too soon our visit was over; it had been wonderful. V was able to give DH quite a bit of information about the family, filling in quite a few gaps and answering some questions but raising others, lol! 

I commented on the patchwork table topper on V's table and enquired whether she had made it. She had, but not only that, she used to own a Quilt Shop and Gift Shop at nearby Dayboro.  

DNA...

Last December, I decided to order a DNA test through Ancestry.com.au. So when the kit arrived I read all the instructions and duly filled the vial with saliva up to the mark. Then the top was screwed on to the vial thus releasing a reagent. 

Then the sample was packaged up and posted. The wait for results is about 6 weeks...

so why was I bothering to do this test? Well probably just because I could! Lol. Maybe just a bit of curiosity of where my 'roots' are?? I'd been brought up to believe that my mother's side through my grandmother, 'were Irish to their bootstraps!' So I expected to see that in my Ethnicity. 

Now my dad was from Sicily, which has a long history of being influenced by those who invaded the island...from Carthage and also the Etruscans played a large role in the history. And then there were the Arab traders...so I was interested to see if what I'd learned in history at school would be reflected in my DNA...and it was; that tiny bit of North African! 

I was surprised to find that I have a relatively small percentage of Irish...much more Great Britain than I expected. 

As well as giving me details of my Ethnicity, Ancestry also gave me a list of those who shared my DNA...( the list is now up to 28)

I'd already traced back a number of generations on my mother's side but had a pitiful amount of detail about my father, so I looked through the list of DNA matches and checked out names that looked Italian. I sent a few messages via Ancestry...and amazingly I found some cousins in Sydney, whom I'd had no knowledge of...the family ( 7 cousins plus their late mother) in the main photo of this collage. 

They are the family of my late cousin, my dad's nephew; he and his wife are in the small photo on the top right. My new found cousins and I started sharing old family photos which has been absolutely wonderful. Ann, the wife of my cousin Frank ( both pictured in the small photo, lower right), is absolutely brilliant at trawling though the Trove resources ( old newspapers) and has found articles about my dad. 

So all this sharing of information, spurred me then to reconnect with other branches of my father's family...cousins I 'd had little contact with for many, many years. One cousin from North Queensland, was going to Sydney and organised to meet one of our 'new' cousins and his wife while she was there...small photo at top left. This cousin has given us a lot of help translating what is written ( in Italian) on the back of old photos.

The other cousin I contacted is in the small photo on the lower left hand side of the collage. She has given us lots of details about our family...and photos too. Carmela was able to tell me about 2 brothers of my father's whom I didn't know even existed! So 4 branches of my dad's family are back in contact again...all hoping to fill in as many gaps in our Family Trees as we can. 

And today DH and I flew to Sydney...

We will be doing lots of 'touristy stuff' but the main reason for the trip is to meet up with some of my cousins. And next Saturday we are meeting up and I'm really looking forward to it.

( I took advantage of a 'special' offered by Ancestry and paid $120 plus $29 P&H. Specials are offered on a regular basis. If you check out DNA testing articles etc online, you would find a number of articles saying that the tests available to the general public are meaningless and useless, but in my case, the results have been wonderful. 

Of course the effectiveness of the results depends on how many people have done the test. I was lucky that a fairly close relative ( 2nd cousin) had taken the test. My other matches are nowhere near that close; those being suggested are 4-8th cousins, so our common ancestors are a fair way back)