Check more than one index and read the full page!

A salutory reminder to not just latch onto the first apparently relevant entry on a source page, nor to believe what you find, or don't find, in indices - ie check images thoroughly - and to scroll down! 

Background:

I've been researching deeper into a Miller / Millar family in Kippen, Stirlingshire to try and make sense of the DNA match clusters that have begun appearing. As a result, the mystery of my 2*great grandmother Amelia Millar's parents seems to be inching a little closer to having a chip out of that very long standing brickwall. 

Just this week a new DNA match popped up, a descendant of a Charles Ferguson and Jean Miller, where Charles was shown variously as born Fintry or Gargunnock. Jean had previously been determined to belong to the family of David Millar and Elizabeth Weight of Kippen, so of high interest to me as potential ancestors of my Amelia, where other hints also led to assorted connections to Fintry.*

As I investigated the clusters of shared matches a satisfying number added DNA to the papertrail down from at least two sons of Charles and Jean, but with the very intertwined families in the area, could this be pushed back further to eliminate Charles and leave only Jean's line?

So I set too exploring the records I could find for Charles Freguson born about 1800-1802 Fintry or Gargunnock.

Which is where indices and original images led me on a merry trail of conflicting, and missing, information.

The exploration of records and indices:

ScotlandsPeople searches only netted me a Charles Ferguson baptized 29 Apr 1800 Gargunnock, to a John Ferguson and Janet Morrison, the image showing page 450 of the register, first entry on the page shows John as labourer in the Village, spouse Janet Morrison did indeed have a son Charles baptised. (see below)

FindMyPast, from their Scotland, Parish Births & Baptisms 1564-1929 collrction, however showed two Charles in 1800 in Gargunnock over four entries, only two of which entries had an archive reference.

FamilySearch gets even more confusing:

The source attached to the birth of Charles Ferguson, married to Jean Miller, shows 29 Apr 1800 parents John Ferguson and Margaret Stirling, BUT is indicated as a retired duplicate

where the duplicate referred to is to a baptism the same date and place for a Charles but with parents John Ferguson and Janet Morrison

So why the discrepancy between FindMyPast and FamilySearch as to the date of this baptism, Apr vs May? (The actual entry may have been interpreted in a quick look as May not April, but on balance, it looks like April to me.)

And how come both the references above on FindMyPast refer to the same page of the register but only one appears in ScotlandsPeople?

Scrolling down answered the FindMyPast two entry appearance in the OPR issue. Further down the page, sure enough, there is indeed a separate entry, squashed in between entries for the 3rd and 18th of August, for another Charles baptised the same 29 Apr 1800 date with the parents expected from his 1872 death cert., John Ferguson and Margaret Stirling.

Now to figure out, and report if necessary, how come the second entry does not appear in ScotlandsPeople.

As to why one census shows Charles as born Fintry and another says Gargunnock, from baptism indices alone it looks as if the Margaret Stirling family did shift to Fintry where the birth of the last son is recorded, so a case of apparent accuracy in one census and a "where I was brought up memory" for the other census.

Are they really two separate families?
FindMyPast and ScotlandsPeople do show several baptisms to both couples, with remarkably similar names and dates. But the 1835 Male Heads of Household indices do show both a John Ferguson in Village, Fintry and a John Ferguson, labourer in Village, Gargunnock, so on balance, yes.

* there's also a very intriguing DNA connection between this new match and a descendant of a separate Miller/Millar line who hints at a connection across two separate clusters of interest, potentially linking the families of John Miller and Roseanna McGeoch and the above David Millar and Elizabeth Weight to the  mystery ancestry of our Amelia Millar (b. 1817 Kippen). The slow progress and potentially connected families that are on WikiTree may appear there under my WikiTree Brickwall Category.

The Update

ScotlandsPeople have agreed there is a missing index entry and are remedying it, although it may take a while to make it into what we seen on the site.

For FamilySearch: As there seemed to be no way to unretire the "duplicate" I also contacted the the FamilySearch email to see if I was missing a way to do so as the Edit button was greyed out.

The response: "We suggest you ignore the retired message it may be AI being over efficient. .."

I have put notes on the source but not yet checked where they become visible.

jan 2023 Stocktake

Firstly, a big thank you to all of you have humoured me over the years by testing your DNA, and those who help this Genealogy & DNA obsessive - yes I'm still obsessed!

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2023.

Time for the snapshots.

Progress over the last couple of years?

Have I actually made any progress on my main goals?

Progress is never as much as hoped but this one takes my prize as most unexpected:
Unexpected half 2nd cousins were added to my rather sparse Davidson tree from the Scottish Borders, and sort of as a result, along with previously unplaced DNA matches, my tree gained some ancestors.

Lurking in (almost) plain sight.

Tree Completeness stats snapshot

Now (Jan 2023) compared with Jan 2021 (left) and March 2020 (right) (from DNAPainter Ancestry Trees).

Brickwall status?

With half of the John Davidson brickwall being demolished, the closest brickwalls are, or remain:

3*great grandparent "holes" or questions

1. Who was John Davidson's father

2. Who were Amelia Millar's parents?

3. Is (Amelia's husband) James Henderson's father really Archibald Henderson?

4* great grandparent "holes"

4. Where did William Clinton spring from?

5. Who was Jemima Parker's father?

6. Anything about John & Ann Robison, parents of the Agnes Robison who married John Fairbairn.

7. Eleanor Scott's parents.

  

Amelia Millar brickwall review

 

Cracking this brickwall was one of my main aims for entering DNA testing way back in 2007.
And still is.
I've never been brave enough to tally up the $$ for kits I've sponsored for descendants over the years, particularly as the initial tests were so much more expensive than now.
Many of these people are no longer with us, but their DNA lives on in our match lists to provide excellent clues for the more recent generations.

Test the relatives in your earliest generations NOW before it is too late.

My four-pronged approach towards cracking this brickwall is covered under the following headings, which I do admit make this all sound rather more systematic than I am in reality.

1. Review of research into likely families 
2. mtDNA match review
3. atDNA matches likely to be from Amelia
4. Recreation of the DNA of Amelia

1) Review of research into likely families 

Genealogy and DNA go hand in hand. 

Most of us "working" the DNA for all the clues we can mine spend a LOT of time researching / checking / creating the trees of our matches to see if the DNA is coming from where we hope/think/are being hinted at it being.  

To which every so often I add general research into Millar/Miller, Chrystal families in the right areas (Kippen, Gargunnock, Kilmadock, Fintry) "just in case" something I've missed now makes more sense with any additional information acquired.
Those more likely looking candidates usually get "tidied up" on the FamilySearch tree, and added to WikiTree, potentially being included as a link to my WikiTree Amelia Millar Brickwall page there via a "category" link.

One day someone will pop up with family information on the missing link(s).

 

2) mtDNA match review

From our one mtDNA tested descendant we believe Amelia Millar's mitochondrial haplogroup to be T2e.

FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) sends notifications when a new match is found.
Although the chances of a relevant, close, genealogically significant match popping up un-prompted are slim, I always check to see how close, what they have entered as their most distant maternal ancestor, or what can be determined about their tree.

To date we have no exact matches (Genetic Distance of 0).

 

If you have tested either y- or mt- DNA do please make sure that you have completed the details on your profile under

Account Settings > Genealogy > Earliest Known Ancestors

where there are places to record both your Direct Paternal and Direct Maternal Ancestors

These are respectively your father's father's father's .... father

and your mother's mother's mother's ... mother

and must be male and female respectively.

eg

  

you'd be amazed at how many show their most distant maternal ancestor as male!

The entry here is what shows on the public mtDNA results pages for any projects you have joined (if you have elected to share your results), and is what your matches see about you on their match list.

 

The hope here is that one day I'll track down a direct female line descendant of the most likely families (hopefully a Chrystal) and they'll turn out to be haplogroup T2e to add to any additional evidence from autosomal matches and research eg.

3) atDNA matches likely to be from Amelia

We have a large number of  tested descendants of James Henderson and Amelia Millar and thus a large number of shared matches to work with, but as yet no real way of reliably separating the matches between the two given that 3 out of 4 of the parents of this couple are puzzles* and the fourth known branch is getting a bit far back to reliably get strong autosomal matches that can be proven to be from the McEwan DNA.

We do have some however, so, as always, I live in hope.

 

It doesn't help that this area of Perthshire/Stirlingshire has fairly inter-connnected families.

Just how much that is impacting the match lists is starting to become even more apparent now that Ancestry is actually showing us how much they have down-weighted matches below 90cM by applying their Timber** algorithm to remove the DNA that they've determined is less genealogically significant from the displayed match strength.

Where I could check Ancestry matches on other sites they were generally coming up at least slightly larger elsewhere.

But where I couldn't check elsewhere I was completely in the dark - until now.

 

So it can be a tad hard to separate out the matches relating to Amelia's DNA from that of James'.

 

*James' father is documented as Archibald Henderson but we have a yDNA discontinuity between the 3 (matching) yDNA tested descendants of James and the single yDNA tested descendant of the only one of his paper trail brother's that I've managed to find and convince to test.

 

** The "Timber" algorithm is explained in detail in the Matching White Paper that is available under Ancestry's DNA help - click on the ? top right on your DNA Matches box on the DNA home page.

 

Which pre-amble leads to 4).

4) Recreation of the DNA of Amelia

This aspect of the search is making me feel like an archaeologist digging up mammoths and trying to create a living one from their DNA. I do so hope Amelia would be amused!

So it's time to make all those DNA tests work even harder (payback time <g>).

Cue Borland  Genetics.

I'm in the process of publicizing to tested descendants of James and Amelia (Millar) Henderson that they can help this endeavour by uploading their DNA file to BorlandGenetics from wherever they tested and to let me know they have done so.

I can then invite them to a private Henderson-Millar project there for their DNA to be used in this reconstruction of the DNA of our shared ancestors.

Hopefully with enough in the pool we will get a reasonable amount of DNA that can be used to begin creating ancestral DNA profiles, AND also be able to use the output for use on Genetic Affairs and/or DNAGEDCOM for  clustering reports of the resultant matches.

The site offers you matching as well as advanced tools such as the above, which I've only just begun exploring.
Have a read.

If you are comfortable with the terms and conditions, and privacy aspects outlined on the site, contribute your DNA and we'll see how far we can get creating DNA profiles for James and Amelia.

It would be good to narrow down some options for her parents / ancestry.

Summary

Join me in this fascinating, and very frustrating but absorbing, journey

-  by testing your oldest generations of Henderson/Millar descendants and 

- upload to sites where their DNA can be compared across companies - ie GEDmatch and BorlandGenetics

- extend the connected pedigrees on the very DNA friendly collaborative WikiTree (see my Amelia Millar brickwall category page with some families of interest)

One day we WILL know who Amelia's family was.

I do so love a mystery or three....

... particularly when it looks like a new lead may have appeared.
 
My one remaining brickwall mystery at the 2* great grandparent level is William Austin (this page will get updated hopefully soon as it reflects an old theory that is looking to be supplanted by the following, even though the mother's suggested name of Caroline is still possible, just not the one currently shown.

Courtesy of DNA matching it is looking rather like that mystery may now have some chinks in it.
Which all look to have some fairly stubborn brickwalls behind them!

On this page:

• The DNA
• The Research
• The Theory
• The Update

The DNA

I have to caution myself that as yet I do NOT know that the match is definitely from the line of my match's paternal grandmother's ancestry that appears to be "of interest", but it is looking increasingly possible.

I've ruled out it being from her maternal side thanks to an overlapping sizable segment of DNA she has with a known maternal 1st cousin and my aunt who does not match the 1st cousin, so different ancestral sides for that bit of DNA (thank you GEDMatch for the ability to compare across sites for those uploaded to there).

Her closest match on MyHeritage looks to be from her paternal grandfather's side and none of my kits there match him/her.
But nor does their DNA overlap "ours" at any point, so inconclusive.
Added circumstantial evidence however is that it appears my match may have a crossover point between paternal grandparents on chromosome 10, as one of our matches abuts a segment from the above closest match.

(chr 10 DNA Painter segment to be inserted here, but seems a bit reluctant to do so)

Regardless of where the DNA eventually proves to be on her ancestry it is still a new clue to someone on mine as this is our closest unidentified match and we are all very near the top of her match list, so there is definitely a connection somewhere yet to be identified.

The research

Enough of the DNA, what about the research that has to go hand in hand with it?

As mysterious families go the family of William AUSTIN and Emma Parker CLINTON have thrown a few curlies into my research over the years.

Daughter Caroline Emma AUSTIN's name and origins being the first one.

I've used her as a case study in a study session or two as to the traps official records may set us.

My first official cert. purchased was for her marriage in 1882 to Matthias ROWE, reasoning that as the first she would be the source of the info for, and should know her parents.
She didn't even know her name (or age), let alone her father!
Caroline Emma Austin GIBSON, daughter of William Austin GIBSON, laborer, and Emma CLINTON.
By the time she died, the informant for her barely legible death cert. provided the information that Emma ROWE was the daughter of __ AUSTIN, labourer, (step father John GIBSON) and mother Emma GIBSON maiden name unknown.

The murk didn't clear much further with her mother's 31st Dec 1855 marriage cert. to Capt John GIBSON in Melbourne.
Emma CLINTON obligingly stated she was single and had no children from any former marriage (Caroline Emma was already 1 by this point).
Back in Feb 1853 before emigrating to Victoria Australia on the "Roxburgh Castle", Emma CLINTON of full age, daughter of William CLINTON had married William AUSTIN, porter, no father shown.
Beyond this cert. and the baptism of Caroline Emma in Feb 1854, Parish of St James, Melbourne to William and Emma AUSTIN, I have no further sightings of William AUSTIN.
No 1841, no 1851 census, no death.

Perhaps that's a "had", no further sightings?

Keep an eye on the developing thread on RootsChat re
William Edward Sinclair Fitz AUSTEN b. 1869 Mile End Old Town
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=808750.msg6682101#msg6682101
son of William Mallars Fitz AUSTEN / AUSTIN (and looking increasingly to be aka William Mallars FITZAUSTEN) and wife Sarah BIGGS formerly BLAKE
(historical RootsChat thread continued in the above)

The main mysteries here being William Mallars Fitz AUSTEN / AUSTIN / FITZAUSTIN's whereabouts prior to the 1869 marriage and birth of son William Edward Sinclair Fitz AUSTEN and his parents.

See also the matching family being developed /summarized on WikiTree
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Austin-1468
Also on the FamilySearch tree
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G9QT-L4F

Both of these latter two are collaborative, free to use trees.
Feel free to add any research you have to either, with sources.

The Theory

My current theory from all of this is that William, like Emma, had re-married, but William put a bit more distance between his old and new lives by heading back to England, whereas Emma merely crossed the ditch to New Zealand.

If true and can be proven this makes the DNA match that prompted all this a half 3rd cousin to myself (and 1st cousins), and half 2nd cousin once removed to my aunts, and the amounts of DNA shared fits well with the observed stats on the DNAPainter interface to the shared cMs project

Given I'd never found a death for William AUSTIN I've always called Emma my bigamous 2xgreats granny, much to my father's disgust.
This makes it look like what was sauce for the goose was also sauce for the gander.

When I rang home many years ago to update my parents with the above find re Emma's marriage cert. to Capt John GIBSON saying she was single, with no children, my Dad tut tutted
"oh, you don't want to find out that sort of thing" he said.
"That's half the fun Dad why would you care?
It was back in 1855 - and Mum's side of the family"

The Update (Jun 2019)

Additional weight for my above theory is developing in the form of a new match to all of us on MyHeritage.
A 2nd cousin once removed to our initial match, so shared common ancestors are William Edward AUSTEN and Alice Maud CARTER.
With a fully triangulated segment on chromosome 10 for my family and theirs so we all still have a common ancestor who gave us that bit of DNA at least.
Now to rule out the CARTER ancestry and avoid confirmation bias!
We await a test from Ancestry which should show patterns for this latter.

Aug 2019

Ancestry results now in do not show any shared CARTER ancestry matches with the few kits we are able to compare on Ancestry. In addition, the sole close-ish CARTER cousin that is easily identifiable as also being on GEDmatch, and has no matches to any of the relevant AUSTIN kits, so AUSTIN is looking even better.

Not a lot of tested cousins on these lines for any of us makes it harder to draw solid conclusions here but I think I'm now convinced I know what happened to my 2*great grandfather William AUSTIN, after his arrival in Melbourne, so that's my last brickwall at the 2*great level declared demolished.

Archibald Henderson brickwall hints?

It may have been Amelia's turn, but somehow Archibald seems to be getting more attention as a result.

Keep an eye on my Archibald Henderson brick wall  page on WikiTree for updated info on potential connections, including links to the trees of interest where they are also on WikiTree.

Families of particular interest that are popping up in assorted DNA matches to descendants of James Henderson and Amelia Millar:

• Robert Buchanan and Janet Monteith (married 1738 Logie, Perthshire lived Kincardine by Doune, Perthshire))
• Peter Junkine/Jenkins and Mary Buchanan (married 1781 Port of Menteith, Perthshire)
• Donald Eadie and Jean Faichney (married 1788 Crieff, Perthshire, lived Muthill)
• William Faichney and Jean Innes (married 1795 Dunblane, Perthshire)

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Amelia's turn

Haven't posted for a while so you'll have to believe me that I've been busy behind the scenes, just not publishing.

For nigh on the last two years we've been working on a Mystery Grandfather case that took a few twists and turns, throwing up a few curve balls along the way, particularly in the tree of one of the closer matches which resulted in the case being extended to two Mystery Grandfathers.
With that now behind us, case solved as best it can be, it's time to return to my own brickwalls, particularly given the demolishing of the Jane GIBSON brickwall last October.

So now I'm trying to concentrate on Amelia MILLAR born Kippen, Stirlingshire, see suggested, rather empty, pedigree below, and follow progress of research on DNA suggested connections at my WikiTree page for this brickwall.
It could take some time, particularly as it is often not yet clear if the DNA matches being investigated come from Amelia's DNA or James' - which latter can be consigned to a subsequent investigation.
My main problem - staying focused!!

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Maternal side Chromosome Map update

I see that my Paternal side chromosome map was last published Dec 2016.
The intention was for the companion Maternal side map to follow shortly thereafter, but 2017 had other plans.

Click to enlarge

A quick reminder for myself of the maternal brickwall ancestors that I hope DNA will one day aid in cracking (see embedded WikiTree Widgets below for each of my maternal grandparent's pedigrees):

• Jane GIBSON: supposedly born Martock, Somerset in 1812, married Simon ANDREWS in Martock, 1840 and emigrates to New Zealand on the "Timandra", arriving 1842.
• William AUSTIN: husband of Emma Parker CLINTON - disappears after arrival in Australia;  Emma remarries as a spinster with no children!
• William CLINTON: married Jemima PARKER in London, 1810 - and had the above daughter Emma Parker CLINTON

Way too many unknown grandparent segments as yet - but I hope that visual phasing* of my 3 first cousins' DNA will reduce that.
*Visual phasing links:

• https://isogg.org/wiki/Visual_phasing
• http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2016/11/21/visual-phasing-an-example-part-1-of-5/
• https://genealogylady.net/2017/05/02/down-the-dna-rabbit-hole-visual-phasing-with-two-siblings/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neB4oFlwJHA
  a hint: to mark who owns each crossover instead of the technique shown I used the owner's letter in a simple right justified cell which positioned the owner right next to the line.

My maternal grandfather's pedigree (WikiTree) - if you are a descendant of any of these PLEASE upload your autosomal DNA file (eg FamilyFinder from FamilyTreeDNA, Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andme) to GEDMatch.com and contact me.
Every little clue helps.

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

 My maternal grandmother's pedigree (WikiTree)

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Chromosome Map review

Time to see if I'm progressing.

"Progress" here is defined as having formed all my segment matches into groups, and hopefully assigned to a "side".
This assignment is either directly because of a match to a known relative at the same position on a chromosome, or by deduction via a lack of a match to the known relative, at the same position with the smaller segment matches checked at GEDMatch.com where possible.

Last review was back on the 8th  of January (see "How far have I got?"), which chromosome map took all segments of whatever size (usually down to 10cMs).
This time I restricted myself to those 12cMs and above - on left - with the Jan 2016 version on the right

So why am I doing this (I need to remind myself of this every so often!)?
To find those segments that I (or my other tested cousins) potentially inherited from the brickwall ancestors* that got me/us into DNA testing in the first place.
That pretty picture has yet to be produced, but those are the segments I should be focussing on to work with the matches at those spots to find any commonality for hints as to further research into  potential connections.

* the main brickwall ancestors are listed on the 8th January post linked above

There's a very satisfying decrease in the yellow ungrouped, Group A and Group B segments, primarily because of an increase in tested relatives who are starting to pop out of the woodwork faster than I can keep up these days.
The yellow bits are generally singletons - no other matches at the spots concerned to be compared against, but large enough not to be Identical by State (IBS) aka simple coincidental arrangements of DNA that "matches".
The latter two (A and B) are those matches that have been able to be grouped into segments definitely sharing a common ancestor, somewhere/somewhen, but with no ability to compare against known relatives at that spot.
This could be either because none of the known relatives match at that spot, or because different testing companies were involved with no ability to compare at GEDMatch.com.

If you have tested autosomal DNA at any of FamilyTreeDNA (their FamilyFinder test), or Ancestry or 23andme, PLEASE consider maximising your investment in DNA testing by uploading your resulting file to GEDMatch.com.
It has a wonderful range of tools and gives us all the ability to run comparisons to find matches tested at the other companies. All of which helps all of us find our shared ancestry.

How far have I got?

New year, review time.
Thought it was time to produce some chromosome map snapshots and remind myself why I'm having all this fun (and frustration).
The following illustrates the match coverage on my 23 pairs of chromosomes that has been identified as to which side of my ancestry the match "fits" - maternal or paternal.

The predominance of the pink over the blue makes it rather obvious that I do not have any close living paternal relatives available to test. My two maternal aunts still alive (both in their 90s) have however done their bit to humour their niece, and seem to attract the lion's share of the matches.

Why am I doing this?
To break down, or at least chip, several brickwalls.
Have I succeeded?
Not a lot as yet, but then I never really make time to stop and analyse the gaps in the above and then focus on the matches that have to be related to the ancestors that are causing this descendant so many problems tracking where they came from.

Who are they?
Archibald HENDERSON, a blacksmith at the Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire.
Where did he come from?
Y-DNA testing has as yet not produced any matches, atDNA has thrown up some intriguing matches that may well lead somewhere eventually.
Amelia MILLAR, mother supposedly a Miss CHRYSTAL. From Kippen in Stirlingshire.
We do have a fascinating match with a family that includes both MILLARs and CHRYSTALs but we need to confirm that this is the line that the matching DNA comes from.
Any descendants of David MILLAR and Elizabeth CHRYSTAL out there willing to try their luck to see if we can prove that.
Jane GIBSON, born Somerset, mother supposedly a Jane GIBSON. Where did she come from?
Although we have a reasonable amount of identified DNA segments from Simon ANDREWS an Jane GIBSON, we don't currently know which bits come from the ANDREWS side and which from the GIBSON side. Any descendants of Simon's siblings out there and willing to test to see what we can learn?
John DAVIDSON, born Chirnside, Berwickshire to an Ann COLLINS. Whereas we have quite a bit of FAIRBAIRN DNA identified from John's wife, specific DAVIDSON segments are hard to identify. Any descendants of any of John's children tested? The New Zealand contingent is fully represented - me, unless others ended up here, as I'm the last living descendant of Adam. His brother James and sister Helen had no known children.
Not forgetting the potential Irish connections of:
William AUSTIN who mysteriously disappeared in Australia presumably before his wife/widow married her ship's captain saying she was single with no former children (so much for my great grandmother who was nearly 2 by then!). My only hope here is to be able to identify more of the DNA inherited from the CLINTON/PARKER side of the family, so I would love to hear from any descendants of William CLINTON and Jemima PARKER who may be intrigued enough to help out here.
William CLINTON above. Someone must know where he came from.

The above are the problem ancestors that stop me completing the rows of ancestors at 3* and 4* great grandparents, the "lines of 32 and 64".
But until then I will continue having fun contacting and working with matches, forming triangulated groups that share an ancestor somewhere/when and seeing where that leads.

With kits either in process or en route to the lab several other theories may well be dis/proven, so there's always something fun to do.

Love to hear from you if any of the above look familiar, especially if you hold the key to the puzzle.

The atDNA tests involved here are either that offered by Ancestry DNA - provided you then upload your resulting raw data file to at least GEDMatch.com (free, donations accepted) and also preferably FamilyTreeDNA ($39US to transfer the file from Ancestry) - or simply directly with FamilyTreeDNA using their FamilyFinder test.
(I've currently gone off using 23andme, their website has been "in transition" for weeks and isn't that useable at the moment, with no current signs of improvement)

If a descendant of any of the above and you do end up on FamilyTreeDNA, do apply to join my autosomal DNA project there, FFLornaHen.

Look forward to making 2016 the year the breakthroughs happen - with YOUR help.