Apart from four of my cousins who have kindly had their DNA tested for me, the closest matches I usually get popping up on the various testing sites are second cousins and their children. Imagine my surprise when a few months ago a closer match turned up - let's call him "Austin" (international man of mystery :) ). Austin shared 264cM with me, approx. 4% of my DNA. Our common ancestor(s) aren't too far away! And given I am confident in my family tree, with confirmed DNA descendants much further out than our shared ancestors would be, I set about trying to find out who Austin was.
I could see right away that Austin was related to me on my maternal side, as he shared DNA with the two maternal cousins of mine who have tested. To narrow the specific line I had to look and see what other matches we shared and it was obvious that Austin was descended from somebody on my maternal Anderson line. Austin had a family tree and luckily only one of his grandparents' lines were Scottish, the others being Italian. The one Scottish line linked at his grandmother's level to Cambusnethan Parish, in Lanarkshire, the parish of my own maternal grandparents!
Using the information on Austin's tree, I tried to do some research into his grandmother's family and I found his grandmother's birth certificate from 1909, with her parents, Thomas O'Connor and Janet O'Neill. I recognised neither of these surnames. So I checked for Thomas and Janet's marriage certificate, knowing that their parents would be listed on that and therefore take me back a further generation, but I was unable to find a marriage certificate for them anywhere in Scotland. I checked census records - and, there in 1911, I found his grandmother, Catherine aged 2 with Thomas, born in Ireland, who is listed as a widower along with a Jeanie - who is only listed as a housekeeper! Jeanie had the same surname as Janet which gave me a few questions to ponder. Were Janet and Jeanie one and the same person? Or could they have been sisters and Janet be the spouse that had died? Checking various records brought me no closer to solving this.
It was time to contact 'Austin' to see if he could shed any light on the mystery. Unfortunately he couldn't - but he has proved very helpful. He told me what he knew about Catherine his grandmother (the girl born in 1909), how she had been brought up in Cambusnethan in Scotland, how she was brought to Pittsburgh in the USA in 1914 by Thomas and Jeannie, how she had been married around the age of 14 but stayed with her father until she was 17. But nothing to shed any light on our connection.
It was now time to research the DNA link in more detail.
The amount of DNA my first cousins and I share with him suggest he would be a 1/2 first cousin once removed or even a second cousin, meaning our common ancestor would be at the grandparent or great grandparent level. Looking at our shared matches and how much DNA 'Austin' shares with them, it became increasingly likely that I had to consider the possibility that Catherine was not Thomas O'Connor's child, but that her father was someone on the Anderson line in my tree. My great grandfather and his brother could likely be ruled out due to their age, leaving their sons as possibilities - my grandfather John, his brother David and their male cousins. Of my grandfather's male cousins, only one, George (28), was in the right place at the right time, as were both my grandfather, John Anderson (34) and his brother David (27).
Looking closer at the DNA matches it was clear that the higher matches to 'Austin' fell down my direct line, not totally ruling out cousin George, but making him a less likely candidate. I then turned to the What are the odds? tool and input all the information I had with the amounts of DNA shared between people to see what hypotheses could be highlighted in answer to the question 'Who is Catherine's father?".
WATO highlighted two hypotheses with the data I have at present and both involve my own grandfather John Anderson. 
Hypothesis 4 highlighted the fact that I have no data for any descendants of David and that if I could find some DNA matches descended from him, that could change things. So I cannot yet rule David out with the data I have at present. However........
I do have some 'background tales' that could strengthen the case and provide circumstantial evidence that my grandfather, John, was Catherine's father. Catherine was born in April 1909. My Aunt Meg, John Anderson's first child with my grandmother was born the same year in July. At the time my grandparents weren't married, yet John Anderson is named on my aunt's birth certificate as the father. She was subsequently brought up by her mother, Margaret Adams, and her mother's parents until the year my own mum was born.
My mum was born in the June of 1915, again with John Anderson being named on the birth certificate as the father - but this time the birth was legitimate, as John and my grandmother Margaret had married two months previously!
I've heard a family story that my grandmother's parents did not approve of John Anderson. They certainly didn't pressurise him into marrying their daughter Margaret when she was expecting their first child. Could it be because they knew that he was 'a bit of a lad' and had fathered another woman's child?? Maybe they actively prevented him from marrying her at that time - he was also ten years her senior and they might not have liked that, despite the fact she was 25 when my Aunt Meg was born.
But in the end, with another baby due, some six years later, they did marry. What had changed??
Well ... Margaret's father had died the year before, in 1914 and maybe with that the opposition to the marriage died. Or maybe John finally decided he wanted to settle down and be a family with Margaret, Meg and a new baby. I'll never know for sure. John and Margaret went on to have another three children in the years that followed.
I never knew my grandfather. He died in 1946 and my grandmother lived another 17 years, so I do vaguely remember her. My mum's generation are also now all gone, so there is no-one left who can fill in any blanks.
However, with the data I have at present and the circumstantial evidence I have, John Anderson being Catherine's father and thus 'Austin's' great grandfather is my theory in progress and 'Austin' is my newly discovered half cousin once removed!
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