AncestryDNA Tester

The AncestryDNA test kit has been utilized.  The donor of the DNA sample was adopted in New Jersey in 1936.  Although the original birth certificate is not available, the court records are public.  [A 1940 statute sealed future adoption records.]  The documents are housed in the Essex County Hall of Records and are not indexed, but I had a date and adoptive parents' names to work with, so I found the correct papers easily.

I have the name of her mother, but no other identifying information, such as her age.  I do not know if this is the mother's birth name or a married name.  No father is mentioned.  Even though I know the name of the person I am seeking, I cannot be sure that I found her.

The traditional paperwork research reveals that there were a few families using this last name or a variant in Essex County, New Jersey, and many more families of this name if the search is expanded to neighboring counties.  The first name of the birth mother was popular in every branch, with most family units naming a baby girl this way, and many men marrying a woman of this name.  The result was many eligible candidates with nobody alive today to confirm which one was the mother.

We shall see what the test tells us.

Autosomal DNA Matching: A Diagram

When you test your autosomal DNA, you reveal bits of your DNA from any one of your ancestors.  Your genetic distant cousins in the database are a match with you because you share the same identical little segment of the same ancestor.  The trick is to figure out which ancestor you both have in common.  The common ancestor could be along any of your lines and any of their lines and could be many generations ago.

People without extensively documented trees may have a problem making connections to their genetic distant cousins.  This should not hold you back from testing your DNA and may be the only way of discovering otherwise elusive lines.  DNA testing does not replace "traditional" genealogical research of original documents, census entries, cemetery records, etc.  DNA testing can also reveal ancestry for people who are adopted and, if a close match is in the database, can reveal the family of origin.

DNA Matching: Autosomal versus Y-DNA

When my DNA results produce matches at 23andMe, I look at two factors to try to figure out the most recent common ancestor, or the source of the little identical segments of DNA.  The first source is common surnames and the second is common geographical areas.  Both options pose their own problems, but you need to try some path to make the match.  Surnames change over the generations.  People move around, from state to state and continent to continent.  Someone may not uncover all areas that their ancestor called home.  Autosomal DNA testing reveals the little segments of DNA that you still carry from your distant ancestors.  Some other descendants of these same ancestors still carry the same segments, producing a "match."  The trick is identifying which ancestor or ancestors you have in common with your genetic match.

I have a few matches where I can't say for sure that we have uncovered the common ancestor, but we seem to have good leads.  One is the surname Rockefeller.  Henry Oscar Rockefeller compiled a family genealogy in the early 1900s, focusing mainly on this line, the immigrant Diell Rockefeller (died New York 1769), but also discussed some of the other Rockefeller lines in the area.  I descend from Diell Rockefeller through my father's mother.  At 23andMe, we both match a man who is descended from another immigrant, Johann Peter Rockefeller (died New Jersey about 1766).

The Transactions of the Rockefeller Family Association by Henry Oscar Rockefeller, 1910.
[Viewable through Google Books or Ancestry.com]
A line descended from Diell Rockefeller merged with a line descended from Johann Peter Rockefeller.
My line descends from Diell's son Simon [red] through another daughter, Margaret.
Our genetic "Distant Cousin" descends from Johann Peter's son Peter [blue] through another son, Henry.

23andMe.com
Autosomal DNA comparison of the descendant ("Distant Cousin") of Johann Peter Rockefeller to my father and me.
We match on a small segment of Chromosome 12.

It is not known if Johann Peter and Diell were related.  Does the above DNA comparison show that the two Rockefeller immigrants Johann Peter and Diell were related?  Not necessarily.  We could have other ancestors in common that we do not know about that are causing the match.

The DNA testing that could show if both Rockefeller immigrants were related is Y-DNA testing.  Direct male descendants of both men could compare their Y chromosomes.  The Y chromosome is passed almost unchanged from father to son and then to his son as so on down the line of descent.  Neither my father nor our "Distant Cousin" here can participate in such a test because the last Rockefeller in both of their lines was a female, hence breaking the Y chromosome inheritance.