I belong to the San Diego Genealogical Society and it's Facebook page. A recent post was about the little golden nugget found on Ancestry DNA Matches. In the upper right hand corner and on the same title bar as your Hints/New/Starred/Regions is a little button that says, "Matches Map." When the button/link is clicked it takes you to a map and it shows you a map of the world, if widened enough. When I click I immediately see a map of the USA. It then shows me my matches up to 4th cousins.
The idea is that you can see where your DNA matches live and if any live close enough to you. I found a match very close in proximity to myself! The initials are CC and when I click the tear-dropped shape it tells me who it is and their relationship to me. This match happens to be a 4th cousin. I live very close to the Barona Indian Reservation, and recognized the last name immediately. It is the maiden name of one of my friends and is well known in the community.
It turns out they are from my paternal great-grandmother's side. My great-grandma was Susie Kregear and CC's mom was a Kregear. She was from Michigan as is my Kregear family. We corresponded back and forth a little bit and plan on meeting in person soon.
I had previously figured out that there were some other family members here in San Diego, but I hadn't figured out how we were related. Now I know.
It just goes to show that what you know could really valuable to someone else. If the poster on Facebook had not posted that I would never have taken the time to figure this out. Hopefully they'll have some photographs or wonderful bits of information on our Michigan family. I'm also happy to know other people who share a very distand past with me.
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