I'm feeling rather pleased with myself...

I know I have been grumbling a bit about how I can't access my Ancestry.com dna information on my pc (it has been since before the holidays!) - and all I get is this:

;-[

Luckily for me, I enjoy cuddling up with my iPad and a cup of coffee in the mornings to read the various blogs I subscribe to. A few days ago, after reading my favorite blogs, I meandered over to my Ancestry.com app to see what havoc I could cause trying to add records to my tree from the shaky leaves. 

[A note to Ancestry.com - I'm sorry, but I do not like the way information is added from records on the app. Much to my dismay, and way more often than not, the result is I get duplicate ancestors. How about a nice little YouTube video on how to add records within the app, without compromising what is already properly placed in the tree?]

So, I was sitting there by the wood stove, generally enjoying life in New England in winter, when I went to Ancestry.com and, before it actually loaded all my information, I was thinking, hummmm, I wish the app had my DNA information so I could at least look at the new dna information that I just received an email about. The app opened, as usual, with the last shaky leaf hint for one of my Ives relatives - one I didn't want to add. So, in trying to figure out how to back out of it, I spied a most wonderful surprise!  

Not only do I get to see the dna matches, but I can sort them. By shaky leaf! Do you know what that means? In most cases, the shaky leaf means we share an ancestor! For sure! Except the bogus one I got that matched "Joseph" instead of Joseph Ives. The matching tree didn't have anyone with the Ives surname at all, which leads me to wonder, once again, how the matches are really made.

The really exciting news however, are the matches themselves. I am slowly working my way through the list of matches. Here is the product of a few days work.

1st Cousin match: 

No surprise here - it's my cousin who lived next to me growing up. Needless to say, we share my mother's and her father's side of the Stoddard family.

4^th cousins:

father's side - Johan Frederich Hahn, Eva Maria Hahn/Hamm –  4^th ggp

father's side – William Kelly Cohoon, Elizabeth Gallop 5^th ggp; 

                       possibly Eliza Mehlman 1813-1905

mother's side – Samuel Ives, Ruth Atwater,6^th ggp; 

                        Mary Yale 7th ggm; Ruth Peck 7th ggm

Distant cousins:

mother's side - Eliakim Stoddard, Joanna Curtis 6th ggp

mother's side – Samson Stoddard, Susannah Nettleton 4^th ggp

father's side – Samuel Mack, Lydia Brainerd 4^th ggp

mother's side – Samuel Hawley 6^th ggf,  but different ggm

father's side – Abner West, Jane Look Cottle  7^th ggp

father's side – Aaron Huntley, Deborah DeWolf 6^th ggp

father's side - Aaron Huntley, Deborah DeWolf 6^th ggp;

                      John Mack, Sarah Bagley 6^th ggp

mother's side - Frederick Dyckman, Ann Chapman Sturges 5^th ggp

father's side – John Mack, Sarah Bagley 6^th ggp

father's side – John Philip Spannagel, Anna Maria 5^th ggp

mother's side – John Stoddard, Mary Atwood 5^th ggp

mother's side – Samuel Hawley, Patience Nichols 6^th ggp

mother's side – Rev. Anthony Stoddard, Prudence Goodrich Welles 7^th ggp

mother's side – Samuel Hawley, Patience Nichols 6^th ggp 

father's side – David OKilley, Anna Bills 7th ggp

mother's side - bogus leaf match "joseph"

A good haul, if you ask me!

I know I have a ton of distant cousins in the queue to go through. If you don't hear from me it's because a) you don't have a family tree; b) you only have a few people, and the ones that are not listed as private do not match anyone in my tree; or c) I can't see if we have matches because your tree is private; or d) we really are not dna related - as far as today's technology is concerned.

So, thanks to the cousins that are sharing their information! You are enriching both of our genealogical experiences.

Now, I do have a question. I did the mitochrondial dna test with Ancestry.com, so why do I get father side matches? Are these based more on shaky leaf rather than actual dna matches - in essence, simply coincidence? It isn't that I am not pleased with the results - I am very pleased. But what about all the people who haven't taken dna tests that do have shared shaky leaves? Couldn't we be matched with them as well? Perhaps outside the dna forum? The DNA thing is confusing enough, without clouding the issue with shaky leaves. In combination though, I do have very good results, so I wouldn't dare advise Ancestry.com to not do it anymore. Just wondering if they could also match shaky leaf people as a general rule without the DNA.