I have been doing a bit of genealogy in the evenings this week. I am working on tracing a few branches of my family and want to capture some data before Ancestry.com makes an update to their DNA matching algorithm. They will be improving their matching, but in the process are increasing the amount of shared DNA needed to show a match. I want to capture some of the crumbs in the lower DNA matches so that I can retain the clues they might hold.

One of the branches I am working on is my Bolin family. I am hoping that the new matching algorithm will help make sense of some of the data. Can I figure out why I am getting matches with the Jefferson, Bolling, Kennon and Blair families? The DNA is not exactly following the paper trail, but there are many inaccurate family trees in Ancestry for these families.

Will I finally sort out Mahana Bolin Row’s ancestry?

I am thinking of other ancestors as I wade through my DNA matches. I am also trying to find out more about the ancestry of my great grandmother Sarah Adeline Leeper Braman. I think of this picture often as my hair gets thicker and thicker while sheltering at home.

Her mother Adeline Baker Leeper also had thick dark wavy hair. She is the one on the left in this picture. It is her ancestry that I am trying to find out more about.

This is one of our older family pictures. Here is my third great grandfather David Darling. I have found some recent clues to his ancestry and am verifying them to see if they are correct. This could be another branch tracing back to 1621 in the Plymouth Colony.

I have also been tracing the main branch of my Leeper family. This is my favorite Leeper picture. This is my 4th great grandfather Absalom Leeper who was an early Restoration Movement preacher in Iowa. He actually moved there before it became Iowa Territory, so it could be said he was one of the first Iowans 🙂

Now back to some research,

Steven