Sadly, Ancestry.com has announced they will soon be removing all our DNA matches who share less than 8 cM of DNA with us.
We are told that about half of our 7 cM matches are false. But, that also means that about half of them are true!
And, though some of these matches will be distant relatives, others are closer and easier to work with. Sometimes, these very small matches provide valuable clues that lead to wonderful discoveries. They can even help us break through our brick walls.
My friend, John, was working with his paternal matches last weekend and found a 7 cM match – through ThruLines – that had a well-documented tree. This tree included sources that helped him trace his line back to Italy and extend his tree another generation!
Finding His Family’s Village in Italy
Finding our immigrant ancestors’ village of origin can be difficult.
John knew that his great grandparents, Vincenzo Beatrice and Angela Valente, were both born in Italy. Growing up in different towns in central Italy, they met and were married in the U.S.
Their 1903 Massachusetts marriage record listed both of their parents. Angela’s parents were Vincenzo Valente & Carmina Rossi.
Before last weekend, John had never seen an Italian record for this family. But, while working with some of his very small matches who appeared in his ThruLines, he found a match’s tree which identified the Italian town for this family. Even better, it included documents from the Italian Stato Civile – the Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths in Italy.
Using FamilySearch, he found the birth record for his great grandmother, Angela Valente. And, he found the birth and marriage records for his 2x and 3x great grandparents. He also found the names of his 4x great grandparents!
Excitingly, when a person was born and married in the same town, the clerk made a notation of the marriage in the margin of the birth record. So, John was able to easily piece his family together!
Before finding this well-documented tree through a very small, 7 cM match, John only knew for certain the names of his great, great grandparents based on U.S. records. He was uncertain of their town of origin. But now he has wonderful records tracing this family line back to his 4x great grandparents.
Connections & Discoveries
The fact that John made this great connection doesn’t prove that those 7 cM of DNA are real or that this match was real. However, the connection was real and John made incredible discoveries.
Without this match, John hopefully would have eventually found these records. But, he found them now – and a new cousin connection – because of a very small match that exists today. But very small matches like these will soon be deleted by Ancestry.
If you want to learn more about how you can save your matches, read my post here.
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