MERRY CHRISTMAS! I have good news. What better gift for a genealogists than to find a solution to that nagging “brick wall.” As most you know I have been trying to prove that my ancestor, Sydnor Garrett of Loudoun and Fauquier Counties in Virginia was the son of Henry Garrett.Henry was in both counties for a time. Family tradition suggests this to be the case. I built a convincing circumstantial case that Henry was his father, but no document survived to link the two men as father and son. I had proved that Henry was a son of John and Mary Barton Garrett who wed in 1775 in Loudoun Co., but could not link Sydnor to Henry. There were at least 3 distinct lines of Garretts in Fauquier and Loudoun Counties in late 1700. The thesis was that if I could link him to a major line, then the circumstantial case would be stronger. THE BRICK WALL HAS COME DOWN. This summer I was contacted by a descendant of Sydnor Garrett and shared my files with her. We were both convinced that Henry was the son of John Garrett of Loudoun, son of Thomas Garrett who inherited the land John Garrett patented in 1742. Several years ago a descendant of John Garrett who moved from Loudoun to Pittsylvania Co. about 1799, contacted me and shared information. Frustrated, I said to my Garrett cousin, maybe we could prove that Sydnor was the son of Henry through DNA testing. The light bulbs went off in both our brains at the same time. Her brother Gene Garrett was the sample for Sydnor’s DNA and we contacted Claiborne Garrett in Pittsylvania Co. for a sample of John’s DNA. He had the paper trail to prove his line and a DNA match would show that Sydnor was from the snuff line. The two samples were sent off to Family Tree DNA for a 12 marker test. That was enough to answer the question we were asking. [Was Sydnor a snuff line Garrett?] The results are just in time for Christmas! What a present for a genealogists who has worked for years on this family. There is an exact match. We are descended from the same person within the last 12 generations. While this does not prove Sydnor was Henry’s son it does positively place him in the Garrett snuff line and lend convincing weight to our supposition. Margaret Amundson, CGsm Margaret R. Amundson, CGsm is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by Board-certified associates after periodic proficiency evaluations.