Occasionally, I find an interesting match at MyHeritage. Here is my match with Juris from Latvia:
Fortunately, there is also a tree for Juris:
As my grandfather’s mother was a Gagnus from Latvia, this is clearly a match. Here is the detail from Juris’ tree:
I also have a book on the Gangnus family which should be helpful. The good news is that I found her in the book. She was at the end of a long list of Emmas. Here is her birth record found at Ancestry.com:
I would recommend anyone researching the Gangnus family purchase the book by Gustav Gangnus written in 2003.
Emma’s father was Johann Peter Gangnus. It turns out I already have him in my tree:
He shows as my 2nd great-granduncle. The means that his parents were my direct ancestors. According to the Gangnus book, Johann Jacob had two wives, but Peter and my ancestor Johann Philipp were both from the second wife.
My Gangnus DNA Tree
Next, I will look for my Gangnus DNA Tree. This is the tree of Gangnus descendants that match by DNA:
The chart is quite large, so I show where our common ancestor is.
Matthew’s line comes down from Johann Jacob’s first wife who was a Bohler. I descend from Johann Philipp who was the first child of the second wife who was a Biedermann. I need to add Peter who was a younger brother of Johann Philipp.
Juris is from my late mother’s generation, so that explains why the match is quite close. This shows that Juris and I are 3rd cousins once removed. It makes sense that I would have several matches descending from Johann Jacob as the Gangnus Genealogy book shows that he had 19 children.
Mapping the DNA
I like to map the DNA. I do that using DNA Painter. Here are my DNA matches with Juris as shown by MyHeritage:
Here is my current DNA Painter profile:
This shows overall, I am 54% mapped. Ancestry is not a help in this mapping as they do not tell me where my matches are on the the chromosome. Here is my maternal map:
Here I am only 48% painted. I’ll add in Juris:
Juris did not raise any percentages but did add a large segment on Chromosome 1 where I didn’t have any matches. Notice that I have a separate entry for just Gangnus 1777. That is from the descendant of the first wife, Matthew. As he descends from the first wife, I know that the DNA had to come from the Gangnus side. I also have an entry for just Anna Biedermann. I suppose I must know that from X Chromosome inheritance patterns.
My Late Mom and Juris
These two had a much higher DNA match:
However, some matches were small. By default, DNA Painter maps only the matches of 7 cM and over.
My mom is 39% mapped:
Gangnus is on her paternal side where she is 47% mapped:
Juris adds a lot of DNA but does not get my mother’s percentages above what was already mapped:
Summary and Conclusions
- Due to my previous work, a great Gangnus genealogy book, and a good tree on Juris’ side, I was easily able to place Juris on my tree and find our common ancestors
- With the help of DNA Painter, I was able to add Juris to my profile and my mother’s profile.
- I could also add Juris to my siblings’ DNA Painter profiles but did not