As a starter, my mother was born in Mississippi; her mother’s side was Mississippi/Louisiana tracing back to Acadian roots. On her father’s side, he was from Kansas with his father from Ohio and his grandfather from Pennsylvania. On my father’s side, he was born in Virginia, but his parents were born in North Carolina. Same for many their ancestors who were from North Carolina. On my mother’s father’s side, there were a lot of migrations to various states since the mid-1750s.
A few days ago, I received an e-mail from someone on 23andMe who did the research and found we had common ancestors on both my parents’ sides. I expected at some point this would happen. My father’s line mostly stayed in the North Carolina/Virginia although I am sure some of the family members moved elsewhere. I have a not too distant cousin I determined was related on our fathers’ sides as we didn’t share X-DNA, ruling out being related on our mothers’ sides. Her father was from Texas and my father has Virginia/North Carolina ties.
Many of the men on both sides of my parents’ lines joined the military and easily wind up in different parts of the country over time. That’s not including those who had wanderlust and moved to other parts of the country just because they could. My maternal grandfather moved from southeast Kansas to south Mississippi as did his youngest brother.
I thought the hardest state to find a connection would be Hawaii. My mother’s brother was stationed in Hawaii and one of his daughters was born there. Haven’t found an Alaska connection, but with the size of that line, it’s only a matter of time. I easily have 1/2 of the states with just my mother’s ancestors and siblings up the line. At some point, I will see exactly how many states I can connect to both sides of my parents.
