The study of family history has been expanded in recent years to include genetic genealogy, which is the use of DNA to verify and find relationships within the family.
Traditionally we have relied on baptism records and birth certificates, but some of these have damaged or never existed. And sometimes parentage was deliberately or mistakenly attributed to the wrong person, for example a different father, or a grandmother or aunt as the mother.
Now, inexpensive DNA testing is available with online access to the resulting matches. DNA can link people with shared ancestors many generations back, depending on the type of test taken and nature of relationships. The exciting thing is that this can fill in gaps in our family tree and find unknown cousins.
With the help of several members, we have been able to confirm that our ancestor Emanuel Hungerford is indeed descended from a line of male Hungerfords that go back at least several generations before him, and that the young man John Knight who arrived on the same ship to Australia, was most likely Emanuel’s son. The DNA of our older family members is rich in connections to the Hungerford, Daunt and Becher families that we have in our traditional family.
In our search for certain connections, we have unintentionally discovered children born outside the known marriages and have branches of descendants we hadn’t known of. We treat the details of DNA analysis and discovery as confidential, to be shared only between the people who collaborate by doing a DNA test, and we treat the feelings and reputations of living people with great care.
We are continuously adding to our knowledge and working on several specific projects using DNA. So, if you would like help using DNA in your genealogy studies or if you would like to help us solve some of our mysteries, please become a member and contact us.
Maximising your DNA Test Results
Here is our checklist of how to get the most matches for least cost…
1. Do an AncestryDNA test (approx $120)
2. Create a family tree going back at least three generations, and link it to your DNA results. Do this immediately with a free trial, then don’t renew, if you don’t want to pay for an Ancestry subscription. If you do subscribe for Ancestry’s huge record collections and tree building, then link all your family’s DNA kits to the one subscription.
3. Download your raw DNA file and family tree (a GEDcom file) from Ancestry and upload them to these sites for free:
- MyHeritage
- FamilyTreeDNA
- GEDmatch.
These sites have tools like chromosome browsers and cluster charts, and other tree reports that Ancestry does not have. Importantly, you will find matches to people who are not in the Ancestry. You might not care about these tools, but we will be using them for some of our projects, and having your DNA uploaded to these sites will help the process.
Have you done a DNA test? Are you on our list?
We are creating a list of all Hungerford and associated people who have done a DNA test, so we can work out who matches are when they appear. This will be stored in our secure HAFS cloud storage – not on the website. For personal reasons, some of you have used a cryptic pseudonym or have no tree attached, but your shared matches indicate who you are related to. You can save us a lot of time if you would send an email to HAFS letting us know which sites you have tested with and what your displayed user name, so we can recognise you. If you have any mysteries or questions, let us know and we’ll get back to you.
| Site | Size of Database | Tools |
| Ancestry | Tests Autosomal DNA | Best tree builder with hints Historical records (by subscription) Shared matches ThruLines (automatically finds possible links) Grouping and tags for your DNA matches |
| FamilyTreeDNA | Tests Autosomal, Y-DNA mtDNA | Tree builder No shared matches Group projects |
| MyHeritage | Tests Autosomal DNA | Tree builder Shared matches Chromosome browser and triangulation marker Autocluster charts |
| 23andMe | Tests Autosomal DNA | Chromosome browser Auto family tree builds a tree based on the DNA matches |
| GEDmatch | Uploads Autosomal DNA X-DNA matches are shown | Shared matches Chromosome browser |