Trying to find ancestors using DNA matching
One of my brick walls on my husband's side of the family is starting to crumble, and it's giving me lots of experience using Ancestry's DNA matching. My husband's 2nd great grandfather, Isaac Ketchum first shows up in records in about 1837, living in Marshall and Maury counties in Tennessee. Online family trees that have him in them generally give his parents as Joel Anderson Ketchum and Eleanor Tinsley. And this had a certain appeal, because he is living very near some of their other children in the 1840-1850 time frame before he moved to Missouri and Illinois, and even owned land adjacent to the land of their son, Thomas Tinsley Ketchum.
In fact, my theory was that Isaac was their son, and I was hoping to prove it by matching his DNA with DNA of some of their numerous descendants. I built out their family tree in the hopes that I could find a DNA match. I was frustrated that nothing showed up, but two other names kept showing up in the shared matches: Edward Ketchum and his wife Mary Reasor. They were already in my tree as in-laws of some other ancestors, so I just added their DNA match children to the tree as I went along looking at my husband's matches. This week, I finally had the time to look at the Ketchum/Reasor family in more detail. Now that I have done this, it appears that (other than Isaac's descendants) the descendants of Edward Ketchum and Mary Reasor are the closest Ketchum surname matches to my husband. No other Ketchum ancestors show up in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th-6th cousin matches, and only one or two in the highest distant cousin matches.
Edward Ketchum was the father of at least 8 children, born between 1786 and 1809. Of those 8 known children, my husband matches more than 20 descendants of 6 of the 8 children. In addition, he matches at least three descendants of Mary Reasor's brother, Daniel. This makes me confident that he is related to this family, not just on the Ketchum side, but on the Reasor side as well. However, the Reasor matches to my husband do not share any of his known descendants of Isaac Ketchum matches so there is a possibility that he is related to the Reasors via another line.
I then built a "theoretical" tree with Isaac as one of Edward and Mary's children. With that assumption I came up with the following information: (#IKSM is the number of known descendants of Isaac Ketchum that this person matches, other than my husband)
Children of Edward/Mary whose descendants share DNA with my husband:
Martha** - five descendants
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM Relationship
J.B./0 4th cousin, 2x removed 32 cM/1 segment 4th-6th cousin High
J.R./0 4th cousin, 2x removed 20.2cM/1 segment 4th-6th cousin Good
J.M/0 4th cousin, 2x removed 15.6 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Good
F.M/0 4th cousin, 2x removed 15 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Moderate
Joseph** - three descendants
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM Relationship
B.K./0 4th cousin 1x removed 20.9cM/1 segment 4th-6th cousin Good
K.W./2 4th cousin 1x removed 19.8cM/1segment 5th-8th cousin Good
Peter Reasor - one descendant
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM Relationship
Christopher - two descendants
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM
D.D./0 4th cousin 2x removed 19.9 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Good
Elizabeth - three descendants
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM
B.M./0 4th cousin, 1x removed 16.9cM/2 segments 5th-8th cousin Good
C.D./0 4th cousin 16.1 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Good
Z.R./0 4th cousin, 3x removed 13.8 cM/2 segments 5th-8th cousin Moderate
Luther Henderson -seven descendants
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM Relationship
E.T./2 4th cousin 61cM/ 4 segments 4th-6th cousin Extremely High
S.U./4 4th cousin, 1x removed 56 cM/4 segments 4th-6th cousin Very High
A.T./2 4th cousin 54 cM/4 segments 4th-6th cousin Very High
J.S./3 4th cousin, 2x removed 38 cM/2 segments 4th-6th cousin High
J.B/4 4th cousin 29.4 cM/2 segments 4th-6th cousin Good
Z.B./7 3rd cousin, 1x removed 14.6 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Moderate
P.P./1 4th cousin 14.1 cM/2 segments 5th-8th cousin Moderate
J.S./3 4th cousin, 2x removed 38 cM/2 segments 4th-6th cousin High
J.B/4 4th cousin 29.4 cM/2 segments 4th-6th cousin Good
Z.B./7 3rd cousin, 1x removed 14.6 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Moderate
P.P./1 4th cousin 14.1 cM/2 segments 5th-8th cousin Moderate
Shared matches with Daniel Reasor, brother of Mary
Match/ Theoretical Relationship Shared DNA Predicted DNA Confidence
#IKSM Relationship
S.B.*/0 4th cousin, 1x removed 41 cM/2 segments 4th-6th cousin High
R.L./0 5th cousin 1x removed 16.6 cM/2 segments 5th-8th cousin Good
R.W./0 5th cousin 14.4 cM/1 segment 5th-8th cousin Moderate
* Also has known shared ancestors on another branch of the tree
**some theorize Martha and Joseph may not be the children of Mary Reasor, but of a 1st wife of Edward Ketchum
My problem at this point is that the family of Edward Ketchum is poorly documented. Most trees online just reference other trees. I have not been able to find a lot of documents from the areas where he reportedly lived in the mid to late 1700's.
I am 90% convinced that Isaac is the son of Edward Ketchum. Then the questions begin to arise:
1) If he is the son of Edward, why doesn't he show up in any of the Edward Ketchum family trees?
2) If he is the son of Edward, why isn't he listed with the "known children" in the probate documents for his brother Jacob - where all of the other children were listed?
3) If he is the son of Edward, why is he hanging out with Joel Ketchum's family?
4) Could he have been the son of Edward and someone NOT his wife?
5) If he is the son of Edward, why was he born in Virginia when Edward's children his same age were born in Tennessee, supposedly?
Onward with the research!
