Strange Match from Russia

[PDHOTLEN]

I got a new match from Russia; Russian email address; short tree in Russian alphabet. Her last name in latin alphabet starts with a German-looking half. Maybe related through Volga Germans or etc. 38/9 cm. According to FTDNA My Origins, I din't have any eastern Europe in my results.

[Biblioteque]

I recently received a 17.7 cMs match from a woman in Sweden whose ancestors have been documented back to the 1600s, all in Sweden . I am primarily Colonial America, but do have German ancestors, father and son, who were German mercenaries who the British brought to American to fight for them in the Revolutionary War; and then they settled in America. I studied the military history of Sweden and found they had a long history of using German mercenaries. Perhaps one of my German mercenaries was in Sweden (before migrating to the US), and produced a child who my match is descended from. I would then be descended from the wife of the mercenary in the US. So our MRCA would be the father only. Farfetched.........? But, I do have a surprising and puzzling number of pure Swedish matches.

In the same week, I had a 60 cMs match with a woman in England. That turned out to be a "GI Joe" who was stationed in England during WWII. He is now 95, and much to his distress several of his "left behind" children are contacting him.

So, geography, and travel, can sometimes be important in trying to put matches together.

[Biblioteque]

PDHotlen: And so, it could be helpful to look at Russia's geographic involvement in WWII.

[Miamio]

I get those all the time. Russian matches in Russian. I do have Russian ancestory,however, they are usually not a good match in calculations.