Distracted by a match during a DNA webinar

 

                                                                       A snippet from the Welch part of my family tree

I was watching a DNA webinar the other day while idly checking out my DNA matches on Ancestry. Dual screens provide plenty of distractions, sometimes a good thing but not always a great aid to retention for the information originally tuned into. On that occasion, my attention was definitely divided and became more so when I found a new-to-me cousin match. It was high, 179 cm and predicted to be a half 2nd cousin. The match list indicated that my match had a public linked tree but that's not what showed up when I clicked through. It showed one profile picture with private written beside it. That's still what I saw when I clicked through on "view full tree". However, there were two profile pictures on the bottom left of the mostly blank screen and when I clicked on the leftmost of those pictures the actual family tree showed up.

Good thing that it did because I could see right away that my link with my match was through the Welch family, the family of my paternal grandmother. One of the Welch names on the match's tree was even familiar and yes, Benjamin W. Welch showed up in my family connections as well. Then I noticed a complication because Benjamin W. Welch, my match's link to the family, married a woman with the last name of Welch. That might complicate the amount of DNA between me and my match. It also reminded me of a strange connection I found when looking at the military records for one of my George Welches. George wasn't the only Welch listed and I wondered at the time if there was a link between the two Welch names in that military list. I'm not sure if I ever wrote anything about the possible connection between those two recruits or if I explored the possible link further. So I now have another intriguing thing to check out and then there is my DNA match to explore further as well. It never ends, does it?