Reviewing Recent Common Ancestor Matches at Ancestry

I look at my Common Ancestor Matches very often at Ancestry. However, I do not often look at them sorted by which ones are the most recent. When I choose my most recent Common Ancestor matches, I get this list:

I see that none are very recent as the most recent is two months ago. However, I am interested in Melissa. I wrote a Blog on her here, but did not add her to my Clarke DNA Tree.

Adding Melissa to the Clarke DNA Tree

Here is the tree I have now:

There is a Melissa on my tree, but it is a different Melissa.  Here is what Ancestry shows:

Ancestry correctly shows Melissa and me as half third cousins. That is because the first Spratt wife of Thomas Clarke died (in childbirth, I believe) and he remarried a Henderson. Melissa descends from Jane Henderson and I descend from Jane Spratt. Here is this Melissa added:

I tried to put this Melissa’s line in a different color to differentiate the relationship. What I find interesting is that matches with Melissa should be related only on the Clarke side Matches with other than this Melissa could be Clarke or Spratt. Another confusing aspect is that Celia Clarke married a McMaster and I am also related to the McMasters. That adds an extra level of confusion. Actually, Catherine Clarke married a McMaster also.

My Mother’s Recent Common Ancestor Matches

Donna and Derek did not look familiar, but I did write a Blog on Derek in 2023. So let’s look at Donna:

Here is the Baker DNA Tree that I created:

I already have George Slater, so I just need to link Donna back to him.

Donna and Gladys

Here is Donna’s father in 1950:

They are in Bridgeton, New Jersey in a three generational household.

This is interesting because it is Lawrence’s grandmother that I am looking for. She was born in Pennysylvania. One tree I saw had this record:

This adds a twist with the Lent name.

Apparently, Mary also went by Sarah?

Here is the family in 1940.

Sara’s father was a stationary engineer. Mary was born in Pennsylvania.

Mary lived at East Venango Street, Philadelphia in 1900:

Findagrave ties in the loose ends:

Here is how my Ancestry Tree looks now:

At the right side is George Lentz, perhaps where the Lentz name of this Blog came in?

Summary and Conclusions

  • The method of looking for recent common ancestor matches seems to be successful
  • I updated my Clarke and Baker DNA trees
  • It appears that Donna’s ancestor with a middle name of Lentz suggests a reference to the Baker/Lentz Connection that I descend from
  • Donna should have a shared match with Annette, but Annette tested at MyHeritage so Annette does not show on Donna’s Ancestry Shared Matches.

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