Sunday, July 26, 2015

DNA and Surname Studies

I gave a Google Hangout on Saturday for The Surname Society on DNA and Surname Studies and promised to share it with my blog. I belong to both The Guild of One-Name Studies and The Surname Society. My world wide one-name studies are at the Guild and my localized one name studies are at The Surname Society.

http://www.kipp-blake-families.ca/TSS-Hangout-25Jul2015-DNA%20and%20Surname%20Studies.pptx

Slide 1
Title Page (PLCGS is an acronym for Professional Learning Certificate in Genealogical Studies which I obtained from The National Institute for Genealogical Studies which was based at the University of Toronto in the Faculty of Information Studies when I graduated in 2007 in English and Canadian Studies).

Slide 2
List of Useful books for DNA and Surname Studies

Slide 3
I find this useful to add as I want people to realize what they may learn from DNA testing and how one should approach this rather novel and progressive way of looking at your genealogy. Personally it was the advent of DNA testing (and my cousin's prompting as he wanted a profile of my emigrant Pincombe family for a local history book) that really brought me into genealogy as I felt that I could actually prove my ancestry.

Slide 4
Useful abbreviations

Slide 5
I like all the testing companies that I have used. I do not have any actual preference as they have all served the purpose that I had in mind when I tested at them.

Slide 6
Getting into the nitty-gritty now, I suggest that if anyone wants to join a project that you manage you should let them unless they really do not carry the surname that you are looking for at all or do not belong to the particular haplogroup of which you are administrator/co-administrator.

Slide 7
My summary of the talk to follow. The first six slides were a warmup to get into the topic itself. From this point the slides assume some knowledge of the different types of DNA although I do give a brief overlook.

Slide 8
List of the DNA that I am going to look at and for the moment is the DNA tested by the companies at which I have tested either myself or my brother.

Slide 9
Y DNA or the Male line in one's ancestry. Our father may be known (as in my case) or unknown to us but the Y DNA which the sons of any particular male carry traces his line back generation upon generation to the first individual who carried that exact genetic signature (although a few mutations could have crept in through the centuries).

Slide 10
Autosomal DNA which is contributed to by all our ancestors although they may not all show up in the resultant set that we receive because that is the luck of the draw one might say. I believe that autosomal DNA is now coming into its own and is quite important in DNA projects.

Slide 11
X chromosome is the mate to the Y chromosome in males and females receive an X chromosome from each parent. In males there are a limited number of people who will match you because your X chromosome is solely from your mother so is entirely her side of the family and excludes her father's father's line. but does include her father's mother's line since that is the exact chromosome which he has passed to his daughters. Perhaps not useful for Surname Studies but could prove interesting on occasion when sorting through matches.

Slide 12
Mitochondrial DNA probably has very little use in Surname Studies but I do mention one and that is geographic location for emigrant ancestors. Really not pertinent if you already know where your ancestors lived but in the case of people whose ancestors emigrated in the 1600s (or long before that actually when one looks at the First Peoples to the Western Hemisphere) as a married couple the mitochondrial DNA might point to a location where the particular haplogroup subclade is found.

Slide 13
Case Studies to be examined include my husband's Kipp/Kip one name study and two of my one name studies Pincombe and Blake.

Slide 14
My husband has been running his KIPP/KIP study at FT DNA for over six years now. His purpose was to find the genetic signature for this rather interesting family. His own line goes back to his 2x great grandfather Isaac KIPP who was born in 1764 likely at Northeast Town in Dutchess County where he is found on the census with his wife Hannah in 1790 living next to or with his father in law Jonathan Mead. Was this KIPP family the New Amsterdam family from the late 1630s (emigrated from Amsterdam Holland) or was it one of the KIPP families that was naturalized in the 1750s coming from the Germanic States. These two groups are the ancestors of many of the KIPP/KIP families in North America.

Slide 15
I then discussed the KIPP study and the members and that the study determined that this was not a singleton surname by the Y DNA results.

Slide 16
A list of the first 12 markers found for the New Amsterdam family and the significance of DYS426 being 13 in this family grouping thus separating this KIPP/KIP family from the other KIPP families in North America. There are differences in CDYa/b which it is hoped will permit separation of the three sons of the original emigrant or perhaps sons of those sons. That is still being worked on as this part of the study slowly grows.

Slide 17
 I summarized the comments above noting that one of the other study groups has similar results in the first 12 markers except for the significant DYS426 which is 12 in that family but they also have other differences which results in a Genetic Distance of 6 or 7 on 37 markers. Hence they are not the same family in a genealogical timeframe. My husband has done a lot of research on Dutch records now and has determined that at least prior to 1600 (and not sure how far back before that time) this family lived in the border area of Denmark/Netherlands/Germany although in the territory known as The Netherlands at that time.

Slide 18
One of my pet recommendations to anyone in a surname group that I am involved with is to encourage them to join the relevant haplogroup project for their surname. The administrators of the Haplogroup projects have been very aggressive in putting together fantastic phylogenetic charts of their members and I include an image that I wasn't able to show yesterday due to technical problems at my end.



This particular chart is for my Blake line (Blayke) and note that CTS4122+ separates my Blayke from Blake beside it. The interesting part of all of this is that my grandfather worked with the ancestor of this tester in the Train Yards at Eastleigh and they wondered if they were related. Probably not in a thousand years one might suspect. But interesting to see how the administrators are putting together their information into charts into a genealogical timeframe.

Slide 19
A second case study and this one for my PINCOMBE/PINKHAM one name study. This slide talks about some of the people who have tested and how these results looked. As a result of the first two items I decided to set the Y DNA study aside for several years. The third bullet item brought it back to life again and the fourth bullet item provides a short historical reference to a will that I have transcribed and how it might work into the story of bullet three.


Slide 20
This is my PINCOMBE family tree from my grandfather back to his furtherest back known ancestor (lived at North Molton, Devon). The black arrow marks the most recent common ancestor for the PINCOMBE tester in Australia and myself. John PINCOMBE (b 1808 Bishops Nympton, Devon) is my emigrant ancestor.

Slide 21
I talked about the problems that I had with this PINCOMBE/PINKHAM single surname study. Mostly it is the small group of testers and no matches. My history of this family is known back to about 1485 but the other testers are looking at the latter part of the 1600s for their furtherest back ancestor. I found some interesting earlier history for the PENCOMBE (spelling used by the earliest PINCOMBE at North Molton, Devon) family in Herefordshire in the 1300s. At the time of the mismatch I also noted that the surname PINKHAM was found in Devon/Cornwall earlier than 1485.

Slide 22
My PINCOMBE/PINKHAM study was an inherited one from an earlier researcher to whom I am not
related as far as I know. The earlier study had been deposited at the Society of Genealogists, London, England, UK and the original researcher Dr Richard PINKHAM (Gloucestershire) had begun this study prior to WWII when he first collected his information including abstracting the wills at the Devon Record Office (bombed in WWII and all records destroyed). I do not want to undo 50+ years of research; I do not mind incorporating new material into the existing study. So I adopted a wait and see attitude as my method of resolving the conflict mentioned in Slide 19.

Slide 23
Resolving such a difficulty may not occur very quickly and there are several other ways to look at a study anyway so I continued (and still continue) collecting documental evidence for the PINCOMBE/PINKHAM family. I blog about the Pincombe family and with my own success with Family Finder and PINCOMBE/PINKHAM really encourage any female PINCOMBE/PINKHAM to test with Family Finder and join the project. Then luck enters into the equation and the match in Sweden is certainly very very interesting especially as his haplogroup is not very common in Sweden (more common in the British Isles).

Slide 24
Autosomal DNA has played a role in the PINCOMBE/PINKHAM study as I have two different matches one with a known fourth cousin and one with a known third cousin once removed with our common ancestor being in the PINCOMBE family. I mention that finding a descendant of the John PINCOMBE and Johane BLACKMOORE family would add greatly to the study and prove this line although the paper proof is probably more than adequate (I have transcribed the entire set of parish registers at Bishops Nympton) the DNA verification is always exciting as well.

Slide 25
The BLAKE/BLEAK study is the final case study in this presentation looking at Y DNA principally with a little autosomal mentioned. The actual Y DNA study is administered by Bill BLEAK although I am a co-administrator along with two others. This study although begun in 2004 is still in its infancy. Interesting results are coming out of it but more testers are needed. With such a large surname 50+ testers is not enough to really draw a lot of conclusions. I publish the Blake Newsletter four times a year and report on the DNA progress of the study there.

Slide 26
A little background on the Blake one name study.

Slide 27
This Case Study looks at the descendants of a group of families - PARLEE/ALLEN/FOLKINS and I mention GedMatch as being a good site to enter your results and collect your matches by surname if possible or at least by matches.

Slide 28
More on the PARLEE/ALLEN/FOLKINS families and they descend from United Empire Loyalists brought to New Brunswick by the British following the American Revolution. I propose that as you put known cousins into the Chromosome Browser start marking portions of the Chromosome as belonging to a particular surname if possible. As you acquire more and more members it may be possible to find particular areas that are specific to a surname and then when unknown but likely related people join you can predict their lineage by their matches. An interesting way to look at surname projects I think.

Slide 29
Talked about mitochondrial DNA project and I am involved in two - the T haplogroup project and the H11 project. both at FT DNA.

Slide 30
H11 Haplogroup phylogenetic chart (build of February 2014). I have over 100 members in my study with their full genetic scan and a couple of these subclades appear to belong to particular areas in Europe (Europe includes both East and West). My own haplogroup H11a2a1 appears to be NorthWestern Europe and primarily the British Isles). The haplogroup H11a2a2 is primarily an Eastern European group. H11b1 appears to be mostly Eastern Europe extending into Central Europe.

Slide 31
Mitochondrial DNA is not really useful in Surname studies except perhaps that a location of an emigrant couple might be discovered.

Slide 32
X chromosome studies is again the least useful in Surname Studies. Males have limited matches so might prove useful on occasion.

Slide 33
Quick review of the benefits and drawbacks to Y DNA studies although I think that testing your paternal line is absolutely essential and any drawbacks are really very unimportant. How to attract members is always a problem but publicizing your study is the best means.

Slide 34
A query slide with my email but I should mention my knowledge of DNA is limited to the above.

Slide 35
List of suggested books and I do own them all and find each of them to be most useful.

Slide 36
Thank you for reading this far!



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