DNA match helped lead to family reunion

They called it a family reunion, but for most, it was actually their first meeting.

Charlotte resident Vivian Y. Stuart had spent years communicating with cousins across the country she had never met. They discovered as adults they share a DNA match, and their relationships solidified through a mutual love of family history and countless phone calls, emails and Facebook posts.

So last month, Stuart opened her home to six of her distant cousins so they could get to know more about each other and their shared history.

Extended family

Stuart, 65, moved to Charlotte from New York in 2010. A retired clinical laboratory technologist Stuart became interested in her genealogy back in the 80s and is her familys historian.

In 2010, she had a DNA test done to see whether there were any family members she didnt know. The first test was through the National Geographic Genographic Project. But it was through Family Tree DNA that Stuart found a match. She had sent in a cheek swab for the mtDNA test, which uses mitochondrial DNA to find genetic cousins along the direct maternal line.

The match was the Rev. Dan W. Tullis Sr., who lived in California and had DNA on his mothers side that matched Stuarts. She sent an email to establish contact and got a reply from his daughter, Dwainia, that Tullis had died in 2009.

Stuart and Dwainia Tullis, 57, shared an interest in family history and began communicating regularly. Dwainia Tullis had also done a DNA test through the Genographic Project and gotten her results in 2006. The results had already led her to another cousin, Sara McNary, 48, in Atlanta, and cousin Sylvia Payne-Goodner, 62, in Franklin, Ky. While they dont know how closely they are related, Stuart said, their DNA all matches to Dan Tullis.

For the past three years these four family historians have stayed in contact. The more they got to know one another, the more family they found, Stuart said.

Since then, shes been able to connect with three more cousins who also came to visit, all with a DNA match to Dan Tullis Sr., Dwainias father.

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DNA match helped lead to family reunion