Venting about the Ungrateful DNA Testers

I try to link my DNA matches to my tree. If I cannot figure out how we are connected and there is no tree from them to work with, I often reach out to the person. Very often I do not hear back. People typically take these tests just wanting the ethnicity profile and then they disappear. (By the way, the ethnicity profile is the least useful aspect of the test results, but anyway...) Sometimes people are actually working on a tree. I am, of course, willing to share all the information I have gathered. My tree is public, etc., etc., etc.

If they do reply, sometimes I get back some of the most confounding messages, like this one:

"...With the upmost respect, I am asking please to not add me or anyone you might believe is directly linked to me.

...we are extremely far apart as relations.

...be kind and respectful in return.

...your research and the immense family tree you have built is so impressive!

...I am an extremely private person..."

I simply told them that if they do not want to share information, they should take down their DNA or they will likely be contacted by others trying to figure out the connection.

But what I really wanted to say:

1. Telling me to be kind and respectful when I have been nothing but kind and respectful is not only unnecessary, it's fucking rude. I shared all my research information with you. You be kind and respectful. Say thank you!

2. We are not "extremely far apart." Trust me. 3rd, 4th, even 5th cousins is not extremely far apart. If we were extremely far apart, my tree would not have been useful to you.

3. I'll put whoever I damn well please into my tree.

4. I am happy to keep you out of my tree but you're not the only person ever born of an affair. Ease up there, unicorn.

5. If you are "an extremely private person", don't take a DNA test.

Grrr. It makes me so mad that people want the answers to their mystery but are not willing to share their findings. You want to know what you want to know and you used me to find it but now you won't share the discover. 

Take your DNA down. 

...and the word is utmost.

52 Ancestors Challenge Week 1: "Start at the Beginning" - This Year's Research Goal and Who Lured Me into This Kind of Research

My genealogy goal for this year is to write brief biographies on each of my direct ancestors back to at least my great-great grandparents.

Every summer I teach a genealogy course through a graduate program to pre-service librarians, those pursuing a masters degree in library and information science. I give them the assignment to write a brief biography on one of their ancestors, typically they choose a great grandparent. They need to use resources to substantiate names, dates, locations, and relationships in their ancestor's story. So now I am going to try it for 30 of my ancestors (2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great-great grandparents). 

I have been at this genealogy thing for a long, long time now; about 40 years and it is high time that I put my work to words on paper for future generations of my family to inherit in some digestible format. I love documents but looking at a heap of them doesn't really explain what I have learned from all that I have gathered. So in addition to picking up the 52 Ancestor Challenge again, I've set my own time table to write these biographies. Basically I plan to write one every 2 weeks, give or take a day. I hope to share some of them. Although, any that includes information about the living will not make it onto my blog.

I plan to write about direct ancestors, but it isn't a direct ancestor who lured me into my genealogy research journey. I share this story often, every time I give a presentation, in fact. This is how I got started.

When I was a pre-teen, I attended a family reunion for my paternal grandfather's mother's family, the Losee Family. While we were there my paternal grandMOTHER's brother, Richie, and his wife, Jeannette showed up. I thought that odd because they weren't Losees, they were Henrys. I thought maybe the invitation was sent to extended family members as well but my grandma explained that Aunt Jeanette was born a Losee. That kind of blew my mind and I couldn't quite get my head around it. How were we related? At the time, neither my Grandpa Earle or Aunt Jeannette couldn't explain the connection. And that is what began my research. I had to figure out how Aunt Jeanette was related to Grandpa Earle.

To make the matter even more puzzling, I asked my grandmother who introduced who to their current spouse. "Oh no," she replied and proceeded to tell me that it was after she had married my grandpa that her brother Richie got engaged to Aunt Jeannette. Grandma's parents threw them an engagement party at the Henry home so that everyone could meet Jeannette. While there Grandpa asked Jeannette her last name. When Jeannette replied "Losee" my grandpa stated his mother's maiden name was Losee.

Now this reunion was back before the Internet so my research process began with a trip to the Freeport Memorial Library in Freeport, New York with the knowledge that the Losees had lived in Freeport for a very long time. While there my grandmother and I were taken into what they called the Memorial Room and up on the wall there was a plaque explaining that the library was a memorial to those in the community who had died in the American Civil War. Among the names was Benjamin F. Losee. 

After resolving that Grandpa and Jeanette were second cousins, they had great grandparents in common, I was then lured into figuring out who Benjamin F. Losee was and how I was related to him. (He's my great-great-great grandfather's brother, by the way.)

If you have been doing genealogy research for any period of time you know first hand that once you resolve the answer to one question, several more pop up. It is a never ending quest to piece together a puzzle that has no edges.