I found my family through a DNA test

When Australian Kerry Farmer decided to take a DNA test it was in the hope that it might shed some more light on her family history. She tells Cassie Mercer what she discovered.

An avid genealogist, Kerry had already traced her family tree back many generations, but a DNA analysis offered another avenue to try to find more of her family.

“I wanted to find extra relatives where the paper trail – documents and records – had run out, Kerry says. “I wanted to know if I had living relatives who I wouldn’t be able to find by any means other than by a DNA test.”

Kerry decided to try a DNA test using an AncestryDNA kit. AncestryDNA provides an autosomal test, which means it is available to both males and females, and can test for relationships between all branches of ancestors, not just the all-male or all-female line.

She sent a small saliva sample off to the Ancestry lab, and within eight weeks had her results. It revealed her ethnicity estimate – from what countries her ancestors had most likely originated – which was fascinating in itself. Kerry was advised that her ancestors were probably about:

•  27% Irish
• 23% Great Britain
• 18% European Jewish

…plus four more regions. But more importantly for Kerry, the results revealed 29 possible “4th cousins or closer” matches with other people sharing her DNA.

“We started corresponding and compared our family trees to see where any names coincided,” Kerry explains. “I found that there was in fact a marriage between one of their family surnames, and one of mine. The shared ancestor meant that they were my mum’s 4th cousin, or to me, my 4th cousin once removed. It was so exciting, as I’d not even been aware of them before this test, and probably would never have found them because it was not a branch I was actively researching.”

As well as the 29 possible matches that Ancestry’s automated search had found, it also revealed ‘1 shared ancestor hint’. This meant that Ancestry was suggesting that Kerry and another person on the Ancestry database each had the same person in their tree. “And yes this was correct!” Kerry says. “We did have the same ancestor. So that is another new cousin – this time a 3rd cousin – that the DNA test found for me.”

“Having an AncestryDNA test has opened up branches of my family tree that I otherwise would not have discovered,” Kerry says. “I’ve met new cousins for the first time; now we are sharing information and I’m helping them with their own family history research. And I’ve made contact with three other possible matches. I’m looking forward to finding more living cousins and filling in more branches of my family tree.”

Discover more about your family through AncestryDNA.