I bit the proverbial bullet and purchased a membership at Ancestry.com. For a month. I want to see if I’m really going to use it much after looking at all my dna matches. I do other genealogy research besides family, so it might be worth having, but I think I will activate my membership as needed. Of course, Ancestry wants me to build a family tree on their site, which I will have to pay for forever should I want to access it. Nah. That is why I am doing this website. I want my family to be able to learn about their history without having to pay continually for it.

Today, I am starting on page 8 of 43 of my DNA matches. At times, I feel like looking at all the different lineages is redundant. The names and dates are starting to blur together. Looking for a familiar connection is kind of like putting a single drop of purple dye in a large swimming pool and then trying to separate the red molecules out so that the water is blue. But then I find that one nugget and it makes it all worthwhile.

My closest match was to my cousin’s kid. That was easy. I have identified two of the next three matches. One is the child/grandchild of my mother’s cousin, Ralph Westgate. Ralph is the son of my grandfather’s (John Roetman) sister Lenora. I have sent a message to this person with the hopes to share pictures and information that I have about the family. Looking at their lineage on Ancestry, I am not sure this person even realizes that Lenora was adopted and the lineage they think is theirs, really isn’t.

The next match is Apsey family. It is one of the offspring of my Gr. Grandfather’s (John E. Apsey) sister, Isabelle Slater. There isn’t much information in this person’s tree. Its probably an insignificant branch. I was frustrated to see family names misspelled, which tells me that they haven’t vetted their information.

I have no idea which family line the last close DNA match could be from because they have no family tree. I sent an email in an attempt to find out. I did some online research of the immediate family, and while there is a lot of information about them, I’m not getting the family connection.

So far, in addition to the above, I have identified currently living family from Joseph Apsey (son of Malachi), Jim Jager, and Edmund Apsey (son of Malachi). There have been some lines with family names of Corman and Doornbos, but what their exact connection is, I do not know.

The Gold Nuggets though are the DNA connection to Soule [from the Mayflower], Brewster, and Howland. I also found a family connection to Hampton, NH and Portsmouth, NH. Some of the very people that I have been researching on a different project, not knowing they were in my DNA. Maybe that is why I was so drawn to live here. Family ties are strong.