Here's a monthly recap on progress for my research questions. As with last month, it's been a mix of progress and stall, with a flurry of movement in the past week.
My Paternal Side
1 - Looking for parents of my Irish 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget. I am continuing to work on chromosome mapping using my Dad's results. I also took the leap and submitted yet another DNA kit, this time to 23andme in the hopes of finding some O'Brien/Bridget matches that only tested there. While I did find matches in common to the James O'Brien group there, I'm so far struggling to see any potential matches to Bridget's side of the tree. I have some new information from St. Patrick's Church in LaSalle, Illinois, but this deserves its own post...coming Sunday.
2 - mtDNA matches in the same mitotree path for Sarah Westall and Elizabeth Thornhill Jones. Cousin Lynn shared some information on a 1 step match located in Australia. Doing some digging, I think there's a possible maternal line connection who was born in the UK and placed on a convict ship to Australia in 1786. Perhaps our Westall maternal line connects back to the UK in the past with this match, how far back, we're not certain yet.
3 - Jones YDNA. No further movement since last month.
My Maternal Side
1 - Working with Portillo matches. Surprise movement at the end of the month following my 23andme results. I can see several familiar names connected to the Portillo side of the tree. This will be an area of emphasis in May.
2 - Analyzing mtDNA matches in the maternal line path of Maria Jesus Vasquez. Cousin Joe's mtDNA results arrived, giving us more matches to compare with cousin Catherine.
3 - Campuzano YDNA. Still waiting on cousin Garry's Big Y result to give us a closer-in-time branch point to compare with cousin Greg.
Allison's Sides
1 - mtDNA results in the maternal line path for Dorothea Sophia Gagelmann. Finally results arrived at the end of April.
2 - Separating out maternal and paternal line matches on FTDNA. Not much progress this month.
3 - Analyzing XDNA matches on Allison's side of the tree. I've added some XDNA matches to the spreadsheet, and have been noting which family group I think these matches might belong to.
Future RootsTech Talk
I have made some progress here, building the bones of the talk into a presentation and pulling together the timeline graphics. I probably have half of the talk built in the presentation and the overall outline and themes are done. More to follow in May, and I suspect there may soon be a call for presentations for RootsTech 2027.
