The further back we delve into our family’s history, the greater the chance that there has been a ‘non-paternity’ event somewhere in our chain of great great grandparents and that one of our ancestors, child of Mrs X, was not the genetic offspring of Mr X, despite what the baptism register would have us believe. In fact, historically, the child of a married woman was always considered to be the progeny of her husband, however compelling the evidence to the contrary. I have heard of baptism entries reading along the lines of ‘…. son of William and Mary X, the husband was transported two years ago.’

I am a great believer in tracing not just blood parents but also those who have taken on parental responsibilities, such as adoptive or step-parents. These people’s values and attitudes will be passed on every bit as much as genes, so they are important. Nonetheless, most family historians do have a particular interest in their genetic line. How ever much we look like other members of our family, there is always that niggling doubt that one of our great great grandmothers may have strayed and we may not be who we think we are.

Next month marks the 40th anniversary of my first forays into real genealogical research, as opposed to just absorbing what my family members already knew. I was interested in all my blood lines but my direct paternal line fascinated me the most, mainly because I knew so little. I visited what was then the Public Record Office (PRO). I looked at the 1871 census returns (the most recent then available) on microfilm at Portugal Street (remember that?). I purchased my first certificates, for I believe £4.50. This confirmed that my family did indeed originate from a small Cornish village on the banks of the River Tamar, as I had been told.

At the age of twenty one I took a solo trip and visited Cornwall for the first time. I arrived at the nearest railway station on a Saturday evening. I stayed in a lovely B & B, which sticks in my memory because the proprietor was obsessed with recounting how her late husband had worked for the electricity board. On the Sunday, I obviously wanted to go ‘home’. The village was seven miles away and there was no public transport. Undaunted, I set off to walk. Since then I have firmly held the belief that Cornish miles are longer than those elsewhere. The local shop, which bore the family surname, was shut. I eventually wandered in to the local pub, not the easiest thing for a lone female in the rural Cornwall of 1977. I asked for relatives and met several fourth cousins. For the first time I saw someone of my own generation from my father’s side of the family. Despite being a clone of my mother and maternal grandmother, others perceived a physical resemblance. I was, naturally, very excited.

Although I research all branches of my ancestry, I suppose I have most emotional investment in my Braund line because it has been the subject of one-name research since 1982. We hold extended family reunions every year, I belong. What if I wasn’t really a Braund? I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter, that I have borne the name and I am a Braund in all that counts. Despite having encouraged others who have taken DNA tests and received the results that do not match, with those words, ‘it does not matter’, I had a horrible feeling that I might be devastated if it turned out that my genetic roots lay elsewhere.

Someone from my branch of the family had already had a non-matching Y DNA test result but that was done because there were doubts about parentage in that line. So far, I didn’t match other Braunds who had done autosomal DNA tests but I had been convincing myself that that was ok because the paper trail showed that any connection would be very remote and date back to the seventeenth century or earlier. Within my first year of research I had traced back to my 6 x great grandfather Samuel Braund, thirty seven years later I added another generation but were these Braund ancestors really mine? Could DNA prove my genetic line? Apart from the lack of matches with other Braunds so far, my 3 x great grandfather was born out of wedlock to a Mary Jeffery. Ok, so he was named James Braund Jeffery, later took the surname Braund and appears to have been brought up by the Braund family but there were a few misgivings regarding how honest Miss Jeffery may have been.

If you have been following along with my weird and wonderful life you will know that I recently took an autosomal DNA test. My closest matches were in the 2nd-4th cousin range and one of these had a surname that I recognised as marrying in to the Braund family in my 4 x great grandfather’s generation. This person had the largest segment of common DNA of any of my matches. I emailed a tentative enquiry. The response confirmed that we were fourth cousins twice removed. My 5 x great grandparents were his 3 x great grandparents, thus confirming the genetic pedigree back to a couple who married in 1766. So I am sorry I cast aspersions on poor Mary Jeffery. I don’t even know what happened to her. I believe that she may have died in childbirth. Maybe one day I will find an autosomal match with a member of the Jeffery family. For now, I am relived that the DNA match has confirmed the pedigree that was crafted from 40 years’ of documentary research.

Warning – this post contains something resembling maths but does include jewellery if you persevere. As regular readers will know, I have recently been following the documentary evidence and seeking out my third cousins, in the wake of receiving my autosomal DNA results. This was thrown into particular focus last week when I met with my full complement of second cousins (6) for the first time in seventeen years. Although, inevitably, we were meeting for a sad occasion, a funeral, this was exciting for me as these are my only relatives in my own generation. But back to the third cousins (people with whom you share a great great grandparent).

I was surprised to find that 7 of my 8 sets of great great grandparents married within a thirteen year window 1852-1864; the final set married a little earlier in 1841. Ok, I’ll be honest, one set don’t seem to have married at all but I can estimate a ‘marriage’ date as falling between gg granny having a child by someone else and having a child by gg grandad. What I therefore wanted to know was how many, on average, great great grandchildren might a couple who married in the UK in the mid nineteenth century be expected to have.

I had already found that wiser folk than I estimate that the ‘average’ person has 175 third cousins (people with whom you share a great great grandparent) but nowhere amongst my Googling (other search engines are available) can I find data about the likely numbers of great great grandchildren. We are obviously dealing in averages here and clearly there will be wide deviations from the average; different cultures will have very different experiences. Maybe this is why this is a discussion that does not seem to have been aired very often in family history circles but it is interesting nonetheless. Yes, our families will not be ‘average’ but you would think that, if we look at all eight sets of our great great grandparents, prolific families would be counterbalanced by those with few children and things would even themselves out.

If I am expected to have 175 third cousins, on average, each pair of great great grandparents will have produced roughly 22 of them and me of course. If you have complete data for descendants of any of your great great grandparents I would be really interested to know how many people there are in your own generation, alive and dead, (not the total number of descendants) who are the great great grandchildren of one couple, especially if they married in the mid-nineteenth century. How close is it to 22? Do we have a vaguely accurate figure for first world countries here? How much difference does it make if you are a different generation to me, so your great great grandparents married in the 1820s or the 1890s?

I am confident that I have identified all the descendants of three of my eight sets of great great grandparents. My results for the number of people in my own generation (remembering to include myself in each case) are 5, 7 and 10, far short of the figure I have come up with of 22. So, how do you compare?

Caroline Jessie Leighton 1874-1965

Now the pretty jewellery bit, which also involves cousins. My grandmother had five cousins on her father’s side, sisters whose father was a silversmith. Each girl was given a heavy silver locket that their father made, which was inscribed with their initials. Only one of the girls married and she had no children. The family story was that the five lockets passed to the five girls in the next generation (my mother and her four cousins). The tale of who was given which locket has proved to be incorrect but as a result of last week’s funeral, we are currently investigating where the lockets are now. Two down, three to go! This is important to me. The original recipients have all been dead for fifty years or so. They have no one but us to keep their memories alive. So here is Caroline Jessie and here is her locket. Now you can get back to counting cousins.

Well, here we are, 2017. Who knows what the year will bring? This time last year I am sure few could have predicted the seriously scary political machinations and plethora of celebrity deaths that accompanied 2016. So far this year I have learned that it is possible for a memory stick to survive being vacuumed up along with Christmas tree prickles.

I would also like to share an incident from the lacuna that is that gap between Christmas and New Year during which the descendants descend. The phone rings at 7am. A phone call at this time of day normally means bad news – or that your daughter has arranged for T****s to deliver food to your house later in the day. I am a T****s delivery virgin; I know not how these things work. Having the food delivered was deemed easier than having my personal shopper struggling to identify various ‘modern’ ingredients on the list. We do not know our humus from our quinoa sadly – even spell checker doesn’t recognise quinoa, so we are not alone. The main challenge for the T****s delivery driver will be finding the house. If he uses his satnav he is doomed. It turns out, for some reason that he tried to justify, he was expecting to be delivering to a building site. The justification involved my house name – any suggestions anyone? He had a list of what had been ordered. What would a building site do with several dozen nappies of a suitable size for a two year old?

The DNA results arrived sneakily early, before I had finished restoring the house to a semblance of normality and before I had made any discernable impression in the mountainous pile of post-Christmas laundry. This means that I still haven’t completed my documentary trail hunt for third cousins, so more on that when I get the chance. What have I learned from my results? To be honest, not a lot. Sadly, no previously unknown half-siblings have climbed out of the woodwork. I have 788 matches. Big deal, or not, actually. Eleven people are predicted to be related in the range 2nd-4th cousins. Sorry FTDNA, unlikely I think. I know these people are not my second cousins (or second cousins with a few removes). I think it is very unlikely that they are my third cousins, so that leaves fourth cousins. Three of these matchees (it’s ok, I just invented that word) do not provide any surnames apart from the one they now carry. To be honest I don’t blame them. It was a bit of a learning curve working out how to add these. I have included the surnames of all my great great grandparents and will be adding those for the previous generation when I get a minute (like in about 2031).

As expected, most of the testees have families trees that seem to still be rooted in the US and the only surname that is common with any of my ancestors is Smith and I really don’t think this is the same Smith. What is slightly worrying is that there appears to be no commonality with members of the Braund family who have done this test, although, to be fair, our likely relationship is more distant than 5th cousins. This didn’t stop me from hoping for a remote cousin match. Two of the eleven 2nd-4th cousin matches have uploaded a family tree. I guess that this is the next challenge for me to tackle. No areas of commonality here either. There is one match that looks possible, although it wouldn’t be at 4th cousin level. He does at least have Cornish ancestry and a surname that appears on my family tree, although not amongst my direct ancestors. I know I am supposed to do something with my centimorgans. Maybe we don’t share enough of them. I will await instruction. I had a play with the chromosome browser. The most likely match and I share seven segments. I am not sure why therefore they are identified as a closer relative than someone with whom I share 18. I clearly need someone to explain the significance of this in words of half a syllable.

What other fun can I have with these results? I am 99% European, no surprises there then. This is allegedly Britain, Scandinavia and Western Europe, although not Iberia. As regards my ancient origins, I am 10% a Metal Age Invader. What does that even mean? I am 40% Farmer, which seems to mean I may have origins in Aleppo. Excuse me, I’m just off for a bit of hunter gathering, in line with 50% of my ancient origins.