Elmer and Elmore Recruiting for Y DNA tests

One of my Y matches has had a great idea and some early success. In my Elmore results post  I talked about our latest addition of another tester on the line from Edward Elmer's son John and comparing his results to the Elmers and mine.

We've decided to try to get men down the other lines too, so we can see how close they get.

Edward Elmer's son Edward has several descendants that move through New York. Placing them really well to be related to the New York Elmers. Since I appear to be a different version of them at this point, Edward2 would also be a target person for me.

Edward Elmer's son Samuel is very active on the east coast and elsewhere and I believe we may have a lead on a good candidate for him. Hopefully we'll be able to find a few more, because you never know..they could be that 100% match everyone is looking for.

We've been scouring family trees, census records and obituaries to try to find living descendants of these Elmers and Elmores to test. It's a real struggle.

First, they don't know who we are, so it's really hard not to come off as a sales call. Add to that that we're offering a free test and it gets a little harder for them to accept. People are right to be suspicious. There are real weirdos out there, so someone who wants to collect your spit and pay to have it analyzed is kind of in that category.

The second issue, is that it has to be a man at this point. The odds should be even, but we keep finding that several of these lines pinch down to only one son in a family or that they have multiple childless sons and only one son has any children. We can pretty easily get responses from women or from men related to Elmer and Elmore grandmothers and great grandmothers, but autosomal testing without a clear Y match would be even riskier than cold calling Y candidates.

The third issue is that from 1640 to now is a pretty long time and anything can happen. So even with the best trees and good research we could end up with an Elmer or Elmore who doesn't match the others. That would be my inverse I think.

We've got to try anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So far we've been turned down flat three of four times, although we do have one bright spot who hasn't totally cut off communication on the Edward2 side. So that is hopeful. We also have that decent possibility for Samuel too which would be great to get.

We'll also be continuing to push those New York lines to see if we can find yet more living men there too...fingers crossed.