If you have any interest at all in your family history I suggest that you start talking to the older members of your family, they will be the one best sources of your family history. Along with talking to family members and using the tools available on the internet such as websites and computer programs, also try the DNA. If you do try the DNA besides doing the test on yourself you might want to get others in your family tested. I got my mother a test after I did mine and her results are a good bit different from mine. I was able to find several hundred of my ancestors just using the tools on the internet, but when I did the DNA I discovered several hundred more that I didn't have any idea about. I think the test are pretty accurate, several of my relatives have done a test and all of them show up in my results. Right at the top of my list are some first, second and third cousins that I know for sure how I'm related to them.
You could even be like the man on the Ancestry commercial on TV, find out your not from where you thought you were from. That is kind of what happen to me, I've known for years that several of my ancestors from both sides of my family came from Ireland and the United Kingdom, I just didn't know that seventy percent of my DNA was from there. I have found and been in contact with several of my cousins that otherwise would have been hard to find. Some of them live in this area but without the DNA test I wouldn't have known about them or how to contact them.
You may even find that you are related to some famous person from our nations past. In my case that famous person is Sidney Rigdon, I won't go into detail about him here because there is plenty about him on the web. I remember my grandmother talking about him, and my great-grandmother, Nancy Missouri Rigdon being named for him, if you read a little about him you might be able to see how she got her name.
The Ancestry DNA also will show you where your ancesters came from and where they settled in this country to start their new life in the new world. Along with this information are some stories telling about how most people moved about. Most of my people on both sides came to this country through Maryland and South Carolina, then moved south and west mainly to Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. To me the DNA is a new tool to help learn much more than before about your ancestors. Some people have expressed concern over the government using your DNA for other purposes, I feel if they are going to use it, there isn't much you can do to stop them because they will get your DNA from somewhere with or without your knowledge, so why not use it yourself to learn about you. If you do the DNA and check all aspects of it you might learn that your extended family is much larger than you think. When I got to checking on where my people came from and where they settled I found a note that said that I shared DNA with 129,031 people that came to the United States during the time my people came over. It could get interesting to you. The ASHS meets at 6 PM on the third Tuesday of the month at the Leach House Museum at Fourth and Jefferson in Century, please join us.
