My recent blog posts have been about my Australian family links although I have wandered a bit far afield as I followed the military career of William McKay. Given the current state of the world and, in particular, international travel, it has proven to be enjoyable to follow the McKay family's travels as I sit at home stuck in front of my computer. The posts about the McKays will lead back to Australia in the end.
My quest began with Australia, in particular with the sketchy family tree that Harold Chambers sent to his daughter when he and his wife, May, were on a cruise that took in a fair chunk of the world. It was an ambitious tour for the early 1950s. Travel in the days before big cruise ships was interesting in itself but it was the family tree that really caught my notice.
What has this got to do with DNA? Well, my plan was to confirm the births of the children in that sketchy family tree before bringing the family lines forward. As most of the children were girls, that would mean finding out their married names as the family tree had no last names, or dates. As I said, it was sketchy. I'm still working on my plan to expand the family tree with a view to identifying genetic cousins.
In the meantime, Ancestry sent out an email about their updated DNA communities. This time they were concentrating on Asia, Africa and Russia. Also included was Oceania, and Australia is a part of that geographic area. There it was, proof that I had an Australian connection. Maye this would be a short cut to the work I had been doing to find my Australian cousins?
Not so fast! Out of the three predicted fourth cousin matches that Ancestry says I have in the "Australian Capital Territory, European & British Settlers", a preliminary check of the one with a tree and common ancestor showed a link to another family line on my paternal rather than maternal side; definitely not a link to the Chubb/McKay family. The other two fourth cousin matches either didn't have a tree or had a very small tree with a handful of people on it. A check of shared matches and a search for English places in common showed one more probable paternal line link and another possible maternal line link. There appears to be some promise in these known Australian matches, but what appeared to be a short cut seems to be another rabbit hole. I think I'd do better if I stick with my original plan.
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