You never know what might turn up in DNA test results. People may hide secrets or even outright lie, but DNA tells the truth. My own test results have been boring, no surprises and, as I shared last week, I haven’t been able to find the common ancestress with my exact mtDNA match, in spite of getting back into the early 1700s.

It seems everyone else I know is making these neat finds. One friend discovered that her dad was adopted, although he passed away long ago and apparently never knew. Another friend discovered a half brother from a father’s relationship with someone else before their parents married.

My husband’s test results have even been more interesting than mine. His mtDNA test brought no close matches, which I was hoping for, but his Family Finder test with Family Tree DNA has introduced two new relatives.

First, his dad’s immediate family is quite small, as he only had one sister who had two children. However, their father, my husband’s grandfather, was one of fourteen children so there are many extended family members out there. Many, but not all, are still based in Oklahoma.

His mom’s side of the family has many more close relatives, as she was one of seven children. Her siblings and their descendants have lived in many places.

When Dave’s Family Finder results came in, I eagerly checked them out. To my surprise, this was the top match:

And the name that went with it was someone that neither Dave nor I nor his brother’s family recognized. Nor did a cousin on his mom’s side, who is the family historian. It turns out that this young person (in their 20s) was a descendant of a branch of the family that had lost touch with current relatives. That was fun, as this person excitedly shared that they learned so much about their family in just one day. (I’m purposely using “they” for one person!)

The next three matches were also persons unknown to us:

These also turned out to be fun discoveries as they were descendants of some of Dave’s paternal grandfather’s thirteen siblings.

Now, we have a different kind of mystery. MyHeritage brought a new match:

MyHeritage estimates that my husband and this person are 1st cousins once removed to 2nd cousins. This is a much tougher nut to crack as this person is in their 20s. We have been in touch, but haven’t found any common links.

Dave has about 20 first cousins and I’ve collected most of the information about them, any spouses and children, who would be Dave’s first cousins once removed. I’ve built out his family tree well past his 2X great grandparents, which would bring in second cousins.

I also built out this other person’s tree to the 2X great grandparents.

There is not one single surname that is in common with this cousin, who shares 344.7 cM of DNA with Dave.

I think we’ve met our first non-paternal event, or an adoption,  in the family tree.  Since this person’s roots are in Texas, I tend to think the tie in is on Dave’s mom’s side of the family since they have multiple links to that state. We’ll have to see if we can get this figured out!