Episode 352 - Connecticut Man’s DNA Shocker and the Strange DNA Match That Could Have Led to the Wrong Conclusion, Ancestry’s Thanksgiving Gift

Host Scott Fisher opens the show with David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org. The guys begin with a salute to our veterans on this Veterans Day week. David then tells the story of the oldest living American vet. Hear who he is, his ridiculous age, and where and when he served. Next, a possible survivor camp for the early settlers of Roanoke may have been located. Catch the evidence for this intriguing site. Then, a man who obtained ten century old letters from an abandoned post office has gone to work to deliver them to living descendants. Plus, Psychology Today writes about why Americans are obsessed with family history… as if we need an explanation!

Fisher then visits with Crista Cowan from Ancestry.com, one of our show sponsors. Crista talks about how Ancestry.com is going to help us all through our socially distanced Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, with free access to stories about your ancestors. Hear how it’s done and how you can get to the information!  Crista Cowan, Ancestry's corporate genealogist, has worked at Ancestry since 2004. You can find Crista as The Barefoot Genealogist, hosting videos on Ancestry's social channels YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

Tom Kelly from Shelton, Connecticut joins us next. Tom received a Christmas gift a while back that gave him an odd ethnicity result. With the help of Legacy Tree Genealogists (also one of our sponsors) he learned the truth about his parentage. But the full story might well have been missed because of an unusual DNA match.

Paul Woodbury, DNA specialist at Legacy Tree, picks up Tom’s story and talks about the match that could easily have led to the wrong conclusion. Paul explains why it didn’t.

Then, David returns for Ask Us Anything. The guys first deal with a question about 19th century “dead mail,” and then another about military commissions.

That’s all this week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show!