Love Match

I have recently started using the search option on AncestryDNA matches and instantly solved the question of a great grandmother’s parentage, which had puzzled me for a few years.

I then noticed that one of my matches (Joshua Guy, fourth to sixth cousin) had an ancestor, Elijah Vance, who, on further research, seems to be a son of Abner Vance. While I was not aware of any people with that surname in my family, my American daughter-in-law Pamela does have Vance ancestors, including Abner, who was hanged for murder and is famous from The Abner Vance Song. He was also great grandfather of Devil Anse Hatfield, well known in history for his involvement in the Hatfield–McCoy feud, about which there is a TV miniseries featuring Kevin Costner.

Looking further, I found that Joshua Guy is also a DNA match for her (fifth to eighth cousin). And it seems that many of my other DNA matches have the Vance name in their trees. So, while Pam and my connection to Joshua could easily have come from different ancestors, it seems quite possible that one of our distant lines meet.

So, it seems that my son, having met Pam in an online game and moved to Kentucky to marry her, may actually be her distant cousin. I realise that, once we get to fifth to eighth cousins, there are a vast number of relations, but this does seem a very strange coincidence. Martin Cobham, by email EDITOR REPLIES: Thanks Martin.

I suspect that DNA testing will uncover many such inter-family connections!