I hear all the time that people will skip those DNA matches who have unlinked or small trees. Well, I found both with one of my matches.
My match wasn't close, it was estimated at 4th to 6th Cousin with less than 1% shared DNA. However, it was on my Maternal Grandfather's side and thus I was determine to figure out as many matches as I could on that side of the family.
The tree had three people with very little facts, however I was determined.
I had two Christensen's in my tree a David and a William. My David was married to Ethel Mullenger and I recognized that name to be on my Paternal Grandfather's side. So I turned next to an Ancestry search, if Chester was born in 1928, I should find him in a 1930 US Census Record. I do an advance search and put Chester's name and birth year, along with his father "David" and mother "Ethel".
I find the 1930 US Census for this family along with Chester's Find a Grave Index. Chester's Find A Grave only has brief burial information and no suggested links to his parents. So on the 1930 US Census page, I click on his mother and find a Find a Grave Index for her. Her index shows her parents and this confirms that this is my family.
Ethel's Find A Grave has four of her children linked to her and those children are also on the 1930 US Census Record.
I do a search on Newspapers.com for Chester's obituary and it doesn't list his parents, but does list his four sons and one of those son's names matches my DNA matche's name.
The biggest bonus was Ethel's parent's Find a Grave page, because it listed the two children who died in infancy. I figured out based on the 1900's US Census that Ethel's mother, Sadie had two children that died before 1900. I love it when I can give Unknown children their facts. I have names, birth and death years, plus burial information.
Moral of the story, as you probably guessed, don't leave any stone unturned, or in my case Don't Ignore Unlinked Small Trees with your DNA Matches. I am so busy on this branch of the family that I am adding so many names, between Find A Grave, Census Records and Obituaries that I will be busy for a couple of days. I am hoping that some of the women in this branch of the family will lead me to new surnames and help me determine other DNA matches and how we are related.
Oh, by the way, my match above is exactly my 4th Cousin and our Most Recent Common Ancestors are Peter Tyler (1798-1883) and Sarah Anderson. Plus the Mullenger line is where my 3rd Cousin Once Removed Donna Belle Mullenger is on, she is better known as Donna Reed.
