Y-DNA – Post2: The Test, Results, & Roberts Connection

I was excited to get the test. I did the cheek swabs and sent it back the
following day.  Then the long wait – It seemed like months. but was probably only a few weeks.  I don’t recall when I sent the swab in, but
in November 2008, I receive the results. They determined I am haplogroup R1b – who Ancestry calls “The Artisans”.  Basically, they are the folks from what is now the British Isles, France, and the Iberian Peninsula.  No surprise there, I always figured I was of Northern European descent as my skin is quite light, I was blond as a kid, and had a lot of red in my beard as a young man. (It is grey now.)

Then click to see matches.  My closest match was a person with whom I shared a common ancestor ten generations ago. His last name was “Roberts.”  Assuming there weren’t any sideways name changes (like mine), it might be that I was fathered by someone with the surname of Roberts.

Now, I could tie my ancestry to a possible name.  Of course, in my excitement of finding a possible connection, I didn’t realize that over ten generations there were likely thousands of male offspring.  Although he
had 11 generations of male ancestors in his tree, if I started at that tenth
generation ancestor and each generation had two boys, then there would be over2000 potential father candidates, assuming I could follow each of the
lines.  I became dejected,  but I hoped to persevere in the long run.  I
connected with Mr. Roberts and exchanged trees with him to this day.  Ancestry has updated their database, and he now shows as sharing a common ancestor with me 14 generations ago.

Another two men with the surname Roberts have shown up as sharing a common ancestor within ten generations.  I haven’t contacted them yet but probably will do so in the near future.

Then the most amazing thing occurred.  A person popped into the DNA matches with whom our MRCA (most recent common ancestor) is only 3 generations away.  Wow!  He too is a Roberts.  Finally, someone whosedejec tree I can work with to determine a possible father.  I contacted him, and he agreed to share trees with me. Of course, Ancestry’s MRCA determination isn’t quite as clean as you might think.  It is really complicated, but basically, there is a 50% chance that this person and I share a common ancestor within 3 generations.  I looked at his tree closely, but nothing jumped out at me, no one lived in the right city at the right time.  More importantly, none of his three ancestor generations could be candidates nor any of their offspring.  So, based upon his known tree, I’ve begun a Roberts Notional tree wherein I’m going back to his fourth, fifth, and sixth ancestral generations then following each of the male offspring looking for someone who might be the right Roberts at the right place and time.  I’m afraid I might need to wait another ten years until the 1950 census comes out to find out the answer.  Certainly, the family tree can wait for a few
more years.