Which extraordinary DNA ancestor are you most closely connected to?

Question

Following our recent WikiTree Challenge in partnership with mitoYDNA.org, this week we're looking at profiles with extraordinary mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA lines, starting with Katherine Swynford. She was a wife of John of Gaunt, and great-grandmother of Richard III.

Here are other ancestors to check your connection to:

• Renée Breau
• Jane Coles
• Gofraid of Lochlann
• Ivar II of Waterford
• Ocaan Ro
• Michele Sauvagie
• Catherine Strutt
• John Thorpe
• Charibert von Neustria
• Katharina von Pfannberg

Which one is most closely connected to you? If you're one of the 29.5 million of us who are connected to each other on our big tree, you can check with the Connection Finder.

In addition to the above and our many Featured Connections, you can check your connections to any category on WikiTree, such as mtDNA Haplogroup H and WikiTree Challenge Guest Stars. Click the green MyConnections button in the upper right hand corner of the category page.

Let us know how you're related below. If you want to share your connection on social media with cousins and friends, click the "get shareable image" below the results, e.g. King Charles III and Katherine Swynford. Then just upload it along with the URL of your direct connection. (Please refrain from sharing your connection on the featured profiles themselves, though. It clutters conversations on research and collaboration. Thanks!)

Help us find and improve the profiles for next week's Gordon Lightfoot and Co. feature.

Comments

I see that Charles III has 349 direct descents from Katherine Roet in Wikitree. (I have 3.) He has 1757 direct descents from her father in law Edward III. (I have 1.)

An exercise like that puts things in perspective and helps explain why having one Edward III descent is not so unusual.

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Here is my list. It's odd for me as most of these ties aren't DNA direct related. (Dispite the title)

 They are related through my one of my step grandfathers. (Grandma married 5x) 

I am also still trying to figure out the degrees to generations deal.

•  22 degrees from Katherine Swynford 
•  18 degrees from Renée Breau 
• 19 degrees from Jane Coles
• 36 degrees from Gothfraid Of Lochlann
• 33 degrees from Ímar of Waterford 
• 36 degrees from Ocaan Ro
• 19 degrees from Michele Sauvagie
• 19 degrees from Catherine Strutt 
• 19 degrees from John Thorpe 
• 44 degrees from Charibert von Neustria
• 27 degrees from Katharina von Pfannberg
• 24 degrees from Betsy Ko

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Katherine Swynford is my 18th great grandmother through my paternal grandmother. Exciting!

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Katherine Swynford is my 17th great grandmother through my paternal great grandmother, Cornelia (Sterling) Seymour - Sterling-2655

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I am 20 degrees from her.

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Charibert von neustria is my 43 great grandfather. Which also included Pepin the short a descendant.

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Bonnie: it would be very unusual, perhaps impossible, to find a DNA match to people this far back in time UNLESS it was through a direct male or female line (Y DNA or mitochondrial DNA). I think they were selected because there are claims of such modern matches via a pure male or female line?

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What makes these particular lines so "extraordinary"?  What does WikiTree mean by that?

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Andrew: Okay. Though some like me are said to be related, but if you look at the path it's not at all a direct path. I have more connections via marriage then DNA, even close to me on WikiTree.

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I'm not sure only having one isn't very unusual, as opposed to ordinary, however considering the royal family essentially would have had their trees mapped for them, and having had it done so for a very long time, as it is central to the nature of what they do, in order to even do something equivalent, it requires mapping ancestry and other lines that aren't always going to be immediately evident.

I guess it depends on the gateway ancestry - my own is the Staffords (Grafton) to Audrey Barlow - and there is another Stafford with not much history in Britain that married into the same family after arriving in New England in the 1600's.

I've read about it not being uncommon to have multiple gateway ancestry when someone has a fair number of early ancestry in New England (in my case it is all Great Migration -not Mayflower) -but I haven't found any other than Audrey Barlow (Almy).

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Katherine (Roet) Swynford 19th ggm through both my mother and father;

Gofraid 31st ggf through my father, 34th ggf through my mother

Ivar (Ímar) of Waterford 28th ggf 

Charibert (Neustria) 39th ggf through my dad, 42nd ggf though my mother

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We share the same ggf information. So, I looked, and we are 9th cousins through the Magruders.

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Debra, I am pleased to learn of another cousin.

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Hello Judy,  They are extraordinary due their presence on a direct paternal (or maternal) lineage spanning numerous generations, and having a direct descendant with their DNA profile featured on mitoYDNA.org.

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OK, that is what I thought. The message was a little confusing without this missing information. :) I wonder how many people replying understood it that way?

Answer 1

I continue to be amazed that I have direct connections to so many:  Here are mine: Gothfraid of Lochlann - I am the 35th grand-daughter - through my paternal side;  Imar of Waterford 29th Great Grand-daughter - through my maternal  side; Catherine Strutt 13 grand-daughter through my paternal grandmother; Chairbert von Neustria 41 Great Grand-daughter through my paternal grad-father.

As for Kathryn Roet Swynford I am 20 degrees away from her but have no direct kin.

Sharon

Answer 2

If the extraordinary ancestor should be picked from the list, you should add their Y-hg and mt-hg. One man from by family is quite extraordinary. He was a hunter gatherer who lived 10000 years ago and is now on display in the British Museum: the Cheddar man! My Y-hg branch (I-L38) is mutated from his Y-hg which means we have the same biological lastname.

Answer 3

The degrees to generations deal.

• 26 degrees from Katherine Swynford 
• 10 degrees from Renée Breau 
• 17 degrees from Jane Coles
• 35 degrees from Gothfraid Of Lochlann
• 32 degrees from Ímar of Waterford 
• 34 degrees from Ocaan Ro
• 13 degrees from Michele Sauvagie
• 18 degrees from Catherine Strutt 
• No connection 0 degrees from John Thorpe 
•  41 degrees from Charibert von Neustria
• 26 degrees from Katharina von Pfannberg

Answer 4

Katherine Swynford- 21 degrees and my 19th GG.

    Renée Breau- 19 degrees. 0 relation
    Jane Coles- 18 degrees. 0 relation
    Gofraid of Lochlann- 36 degrees. 36th GGF
    Ivar II of Waterford- 33 degrees. 31st GGF
    Ocaan Ro- 34 degrees. 0 relation
    Michele Sauvagie- 17 degrees. 0 relation
    Catherine Strutt- 18 degrees. 0 relation
    John Thorpe- 0 and 0
    Charibert von Neustria- 43 degrees. 42nd GGF
    Katharina von Pfannberg- 25 degrees. 0 relation.