A New DNA Match Identifies Melissa King

2 min readJune 12, 2022Published by Amy Hayes

A newly shared AncestryDNA match list expands the project's coverage of Peter King's descendants and strengthens the working identification of Melissa King.

Sending out a huge thanks to the DNA test taker who shared his AncestryDNA match list with me last week. This person descends from Peter and Amanda's daughter, Melissa. The U.S. 1870 Census is the only record I've found that links the family together. I had a few hypotheses about what happened to her, but was not able to corroborate them with anything concrete.

Thanks to DNA from her descendants, Malissia King of Sullivan County, Missouri, now can be linked to Malissa Moffet of Independence, Kansas, wife of William Moffett and mother to their three boys Guy, Hubert, and Roy.

1870 census image for Malissia King — Source: "1870 U.S. Federal Census," Missouri > Sullivan > Pleasant Hill, image 13, household of Peter King, entry for Malissia King, Ancestry.

1900 census image for Malissa Moffett — Source: "1900 U.S. Federal Census," Kansas > Montgomery > Independence > District 0139, image 8, household of William Moffett, Ancestry.

This new base test taker increases the coverage of Peter's DNA in the project by a few percentage points. But there's still quite a way to go to reach the goal of 50 percent coverage.

Return to Home Return to Blog Posts