Helping Myrie – via the DNA Trail

There has been amazing progress in the field of genealogy over the years. The internet has put the world at our fingertips! With the stroke of a few keys we can find records, photos…information on our ancestors that would have taken years to gather before modern technology intervened! Now, there is something even more exciting. DNA and all the doors that it can open and sometimes even unlock.

 On May 2, 2016, I was contacted by a young lady. She was writing to let me know that we were somehow related. The problem was she had no clue how. She had just discovered that the man who raised her wasn’t her father. She had taken the DNA test to find her mom’s biological family (her mom was adopted) and realized that she did not have any matches to her dad’s family. She confirmed this by having a paternal 1st cousin test and the outcome was that they weren’t related.

As she studied her matches on Ancestry.com and uploaded her DNA results to third party sites, she began to see a few surnames that were repetitive. Third party sites are websites which are started to aid in various areas of DNA…some give medical information, some help by providing a chromosome browser so you can find which chromosomes you share with someone. I had matched Myrie on several websites and the consensus from those sights were that she and I are 3rd cousins once-removed. She asked for my help and I was eager to help if I could!

I contacted her and found out that the man that raised her was military and that he and her mother were stationed at Barksdale in 1969 – 1971…Myrie was born in Shreveport in 1970. Her maternal side had no ties to Louisiana so any matches that she had to people here were going to be her paternal side…

The first thing that I did was look up my match to her on Ancestry. When you take a DNA test you not only find out your various ethnicities…but on several of the sites you are given a list of people that match your DNA with an estimate of what their relationship to you is. The test through Ancestry.com also provides a list of people that you and your match share. I’ve been working with my DNA for a few years now and I knew several of our shared matches and exactly how I was related to them.

 I devised a spreadsheet that list our matches and our relationship. Then I added a column for Myrie, showing her as a 3rd cousin 1x removed match to me. This showed me that she was most likely the descendant of one my great grandmother Alabama Mooney’s siblings,

My next step was to contact two of our shared matches. Terry T. is my 2nd cousin 1X removed through my paternal grandfather’s sister and Milly M. is my 3rd cousin 1X removed through my paternal grandfather’s Mooney/Pearce lines. We all looked at the matches and came to the conclusion that Terry and I were a closer match to Myrie than the Pearce cousins. BUT, there was a surprise in the mix…

These matches are all from a small community where sometimes people can be related through 2 or more family lines. When I contacted Terry, she informed me that she also had matches with Myrie on her Burke/Wheat families. So with this knowledge I started looking into the descendants of my great grandmother Alabama’s sister Addis. Addis Mooney married Robert Steward and they had five sons. 

 As I searched their tree, I eventually found a marriage that would combine the Mooney/Pearce families with the Burke/Wheat families. That was the marriage of James Tom Steward and Annie Burke. At this moment I was pretty sure I that I had just found Myrie’s great grandparents. I then went through their children and determined that there was only one Steward family residing in Shreveport, LA when Myrie was born.


Myrie’s possible father is one of four brothers. Several family members have been contacted but no one in the family has agreed to take a DNA test, including the most likely candidate.  Even the rest of his family feels he is most likely the father. So, we wait. Hoping that at some point in time, another sibling shows up and we can confirm that Myrie is indeed a member of this family. 

 Please feel free to comment or ask questions! I'd be happy to share or point you in the direction to go with your search for family.

Happy Hunting!
Ruth

Comments

  1. PinaholicMyrieSeptember 13, 2016 at 9:25 PM

    I am one of the luckiest people ever to have found such an amazing cousin! I am SO happy you opened your heart to a complete stranger & helped me travel this journey. I am forever grateful to you & Terry!!! I have some of the most awesome cousins ever #blessedbyfamily #thankyou

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