You’re making great progress. You’ve added new ancestors to your family tree. But everything grinds to a halt. You can’t find that elusive connection. Scotland’s People comes back with no results, no matter how many different ways you spell names or widen dates. The Ancestry website is no better. Hints there are only hints, not truths. You back away from them. Is this scenario familiar? I’ve been there many times. When the breakthrough comes, and it often does, I’m elated. Off I go again on my journey back in time…until I arrive at another locked door. That’s what family research is like. You have to be resilient. Sometimes it can take years to get the breakthrough…but that’s part of the fun.

One way to unlock doors is through DNA analysis. Who knew spitting into a little tube could solve so many mysteries? I took the plunge a few years ago. Although the results weren’t quite what I was expecting, I have had some remarkable successes.

When you receive your results, it takes a few weeks, there are three distinct sections to the information. Discovering your origins will cause you some excitement. You will be presented with a colourful pie chart. It shows the areas of the world your DNA suggests are your ancestral origins. Remember to use a little pinch of salt. The science behind this is still improving. Over the years, the percentages of my ethnicity have changed. For a while I was delighted to have a small percentage of Swedish DNA. Now that’s gone. More recently, I have become more Irish. This stands at 30% at the moment. It’s quite shocking to discover I’m not as Scottish as I thought I was!

You will then want to look at your DNA matches. These are people who share a small amount of your DNA. I was expecting to be matched with people who had family names on my tree. On first looking, I couldn’t see any connection to my family. Using the filter option, I soon found how to identify our shared ancestor. This information began to make sense. My greatest discovery to date is finding the daughter of my father’s cousin. The two boys were close as they grew up, but after emigrating to Canada, my dad lost touch with him. It was wonderful to make contact and share information and photographs.

There is also a bit of fun that might interest you. DNA Traits provides an indication based on the analysis of your DNA. It reveals a range of skills and attributes that you have inherited. It’s quite amusing. From my father, I inherited a higher-than-average birth weight. From my mother I have inherited a competitive nature. At the moment, there are eighty-four traits to amuse you. I particularly like the result that says I am more likely to take naps.

The other night, I was scrolling through the DNA matches of people that share one of my ancestors. More people are added all the time. To my delight, I found a woman in Canada. She is also a descendant of my 4x great grandfather, Walter Ballantyne. I’ve been researching Walter for a long time. You can find his story elsewhere on this website. But I was unsure if my Walter married a third wife, Georgina Mackay. This marriage supposedly happened when he was in his sixties. Walter Ballantyne is a fairly common name, especially around the Scottish Borders in the nineteenth century. Walter and Georgina married in Evanton in Ross & Cromarty. This area is not far from where he had lived and worked earlier in his life. The marriage certificate also stated he was a shepherd, which would be correct. But I was missing that definite proof.

Much to my delight, the woman from Canada shares my DNA and our common ancestor is Walter. The real excitement was discovering she is descended from one of Walter and Georgina’s three children. Around 1901, their daughter Margaret and her husband William Slater left Scotland’s shores and headed to Canada. They had twelve children together – a new dynasty!

I can now definitely say that Walter had three wives and at least fifteen children. Their descendants are scattered around the world. Quite a legacy for a shepherd from Selkirk.