Just when I thought I’d have nothing notable to report this week, my Ancestry DNA test results came in! I did tell you I was doing that, right? No? Hm-m-m, musta had another senior moment. And I promise NOT to become a DNA snob.

So here’s the poop. Ancestry was really quick to deliver the DNA collection kit and I was quick to return it a little over three weeks ago. Lessee, by my calculations, that’s a results turnaround time of, oh, a little over three weeks.

When I logged on to see the HUNDREDS of potential matches a couple of days ago, there was… nothing. I resisted the urge to pick up the phone and scream bloody murder, knowing that science (and technology) doesn’t necessarily move at the speed of genealogy. Or maybe it does. At any rate, it takes a few days for the matches to start showing up.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Of the 250 potential matches that’ve turned up so far, only ONE is actually named “Leonard.” Given that I took a paternal DNA test, which only traces those genes that males pass to males, that’s an awful lot of unexplained “paternal events.” Then again, the results show that all of those events happened at least 60 generations (roughly 1500 years) ago.

Getting to the point now… the ONE result that was the closest match (we have all but one marker in common) is a gentleman that I actually traded email with last year. He and I have a Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) nine generations ago. The test doesn’t tell us specifically who it was, but it means we’re probably connected through one of Benjamin Leonard’s sons.

I’ll let him decide if he wants to “out” himself to our little group here, but I can tell you there’s one WHALE of a story in his family’s fairly recent past. (No, not that kind of whale.)

He’s hit a brick wall and could use some help if you have any Leonard connections in the state of New York. For me, that’s a complete blind spot. I know there are/were Leonards there, but I’ve never had a reason to track them down. Now I do.

The only other match considered “close” by DNA standards is a gentleman who appears to be related via an ancestor fifteen generations back, which pre-dates Solomon, but not by very much. It might’ve been a great uncle or grandfather. I’m looking forward to comparing notes with that contributor.

None of this means there are no more Solomon descendants out there, it simply means there aren’t a lot of samples to compare. It also means I’m more closely related to all of you than to anyone involved in DNA testing at this point. Brad Leonard tells me there are a few more Solomon descendants over on that other DNA service, so I’ll be connecting with them in the coming weeks.

In other news, we made decent progress in untangling a BUNCH of Nancy Leonards this week, Allan and I are hot on the trail of the old Burt Bible (it may be hiding in Washington County), and I joined the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). All in all, not a bad week, I’d say. And if you have any ancestors or connections in the state of New York, speak now… or something bad will happen later.