I finally got all of my ancestry accounts up to date with DNA matches. A couple of new and interesting ones that continue to point to my Buller line and likely the X chromosome. I do not know these people at all but do know their ancestry from their trees. There is one portion of the X chromosome that has come directly to all of us from Sarah (Cheatle) Welch who was my 3x great grandmother. Her daughter Ann (Welch) Buller) married Henry Christopher Buller and they had eleven children Ann's X chromosome was passed to my maternal grandmother intact from her father hence the strong matches on the X chromosome. Interesting that such a good length passed from a 3x great grandmother to us. But only some of us of my seven siblings only five have tested and only three have inherited this rather interesting length which varies between 18 cM and 28 cM with most around 25 cM. Occasionally one of the Ancestry customers posts their DNA to Gedmatch but I also have matches at 23 and Me and FT DNA just to give me a rather well rounded look at the DNA and its ancestry back to Sarah Cheatle. Sarah's mother is also named Sarah and may be Sarah Bonnell who married a William Cheatle 7 Jan 1752 at All Saints Loughborough, Leicestershire.
Showing posts with label atDNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atDNA. Show all posts
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Ancestry matches
Monday, August 28, 2017
Pincombe family one name study
The Pincombe family one name study is quickly gathering in a lot of autosomal DNA matches. I have cousins from two of my great grandfather William Robert Pincombe's siblings and perhaps another one or two not yet determined. I also have results from descendants for four of the siblings of my 2x great grandfather John Pincombe's. William Robert Pincombe was one of five siblings and John Pincombe was one of eight siblings. Going back one more generation I have results from descendants for three of my 3x great grandfather Robert Pincombe's siblings. Robert Pincombe was one of six siblings. The next generation back there were three siblings in that family and it would be very interesting to find descendants of both this level and the level one back from John Pincombe married to Grace Manning.
What is the value in all of this matching? For me it is the possibility of phasing my grandparents' DNA. It is a project which I started last year and it has gradually permitted me to fill in several chromosomes completely with a good deal of accuracy and to do possible arrangements on all of the rest of the chromosomes. Recently I had a strong match with an individual that included an X chromosome match. Because the X chromosome has been completed with a good deal of accuracy I was able to eliminate three of my grandparents and hone in on the particular grandparent with whom we shared a match. I hope especially to be able to do that with my maternal grandmother as her maternal line has a mysterious aspect to it. I have, by examining the paper trail, determined possible parents for her but finding matches would quite cement that fact.
Living DNA has pointed to my great grandmother, Ellen Taylor mother of my maternal grandmother, being of Northern Ireland/South West Scotland ancestry. This I had found in paper trails using our mitochondrial DNA matches. That doesn't give me surnames though and tracing Thomas Taylor back into Ireland does not prove to be particularly easy! I am fairly sure that his wife Ellen Roberts has a fairly long history in the Warwickshire area and that does show up in the percentage of DNA attributed to Northern Ireland/South West Scotland which is 4.8%. A great grandmother would share a variable amount between 0% and 12.5% with an average of 6.25%. Thomas Taylor was born in Birmingham (my possible 2x great grandfather) but the birthplace of his father Samuel Taylor is not as well known although he married in the Birmingham area where likewise the ancestry of his wife may or may not be from Ireland. I must admit I await the possibility of matching at Living DNA with a lot of enthusiasm if they ever do go that route as many of their customers are possibly from the British Isles.
What is the value in all of this matching? For me it is the possibility of phasing my grandparents' DNA. It is a project which I started last year and it has gradually permitted me to fill in several chromosomes completely with a good deal of accuracy and to do possible arrangements on all of the rest of the chromosomes. Recently I had a strong match with an individual that included an X chromosome match. Because the X chromosome has been completed with a good deal of accuracy I was able to eliminate three of my grandparents and hone in on the particular grandparent with whom we shared a match. I hope especially to be able to do that with my maternal grandmother as her maternal line has a mysterious aspect to it. I have, by examining the paper trail, determined possible parents for her but finding matches would quite cement that fact.
Living DNA has pointed to my great grandmother, Ellen Taylor mother of my maternal grandmother, being of Northern Ireland/South West Scotland ancestry. This I had found in paper trails using our mitochondrial DNA matches. That doesn't give me surnames though and tracing Thomas Taylor back into Ireland does not prove to be particularly easy! I am fairly sure that his wife Ellen Roberts has a fairly long history in the Warwickshire area and that does show up in the percentage of DNA attributed to Northern Ireland/South West Scotland which is 4.8%. A great grandmother would share a variable amount between 0% and 12.5% with an average of 6.25%. Thomas Taylor was born in Birmingham (my possible 2x great grandfather) but the birthplace of his father Samuel Taylor is not as well known although he married in the Birmingham area where likewise the ancestry of his wife may or may not be from Ireland. I must admit I await the possibility of matching at Living DNA with a lot of enthusiasm if they ever do go that route as many of their customers are possibly from the British Isles.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Triangulation of autosomal DNA results
To really determine if the matches that you see are real you need to triangulate the results and I finally have a set of results where I can do that.
My Pincombe family which has been slow to work on in terms of DNA has proven to be my first family where I can triangulate results. This is an interesting family and it is also one of my one name studies so I have been looking at the paper/microfilmed records since 2006. The study was first begun in the 1930s by a young family doctor in England who was in the mid 1990s approaching his mid 90s and had to give up his research due to failing eyesight. But in 65 years he collected a lot of material including making abstracts of the Pincombe/Pinkham wills located at the Devon Record Office prior to the bombing of that office during World War II. Even better he deposited that material at the Society of Genealogists where a fourth cousin of mine (Pincombe) made copies of his charts and sent them off to me (she was not aware of the will abstracts at that time, I found them on a visit to the SOG library in 2013). His premise along with another researcher from the United States was that the Pincombe and the Pinkham family shared common ancestry and looking at the family charts that he produced this does appear to be the case where Pincombe and Pinkham were used interchangeably in several of the these families' trees. My own line at Bishops Nympton/South Molton/North Molton and area used the Pincomb/Pincombe spelling with no exceptions thus far. Although here in Canada my great grandfather and his family were recorded on the census as Pinkham once. I think that must have brought a sharp rebuke on his part as it was considered to be extremely important to get the spelling of this name right and that carried on right down to my mother and her brother - essential to spell the name Pincombe!
The story really begins in Bishops Molton Devon where Richard Pincombe (son of William Pincombe and Emotte Snow) first appears in the parish registers there baptizing his son William along with his wife Anne. The next appearance is the burial of his wife and a young daughter and all of this occurring between 1598 and 1601. Richard remarried at Bishops Nympton and it is these two lines of his that form the Pincombe families that are found in Bishops Nympton right up to the middle of the 20th century. My mother knew her family line back to John Pincombe and Grace Manning who married at Bishops Nympton 20 Mar 1725 and baptized three children there:
William Pincombe baptized 20 Jun 1727 and married to Grace Smyth 13 Jun 1758 at North Molton (Grace's parents were John Smyth and Grace Shapland). They had one son William who was 21 years of age when he died and his parents both died in 1783.
John Pincombe baptized 13 Feb 1728 and married to Mary Charley/Charlie 8 Nov 1767 at Bishops Nympton. They had six children. Mary is perhaps the daughter of Hugh and Mary Charley of Kentisbury or of Richard and Joan Charley of Comb Martin (the second one is a new possibility suggested to me by a cousin (by DNA testing). All of their children married and the lines at Bishops Nympton come from these children or from the children of John Pincombe and Johane Blackmoore who married 25 Sep 1655 also at Bishops Nympton.
Grace baptized 7 Mar 1732 and married to John Butcher 31 Mar 1755 at Bishops Nympton. They had four children with two dying as infants and Grace herself was buried 16 Jun 1763 at Bishops Nympton.
I decided that to do a good job on this one name study I needed to understand my family very well and that has been a good tactic for me. Others go into one name study to find their family lines but in my case my lines were known to me in both Blake and Pincombe for centuries back. Hence I could provide material that could help people to either belong to my lines or eliminate all of them and concentrate in another area. Then DNA became the tool of the day and I decided to try and use it to look at the one name study for the Pincombe/Pinkham family.
It was an almost immediate failure as the yDNA of known long standing Pinkham lines did not match the yDNA result of my fifth cousin in Australia. I moved back from looking at yDNA but then autosomal DNA became more interesting and available and I suddenly had a couple of cousins that I could triangulate results to give me sections of chromosome that I could label Pincombe. That has moved along somewhat and I would now like to separate those "Pincombe" areas into "Rew," "Rowcliffe," and "Charley/Charlie." That will require more matches but I wanted to be ready to do that and so I charted the common areas thus far in our joint Pincombe ancestry.
The two individuals that I have so far with known Pincombe ancestry with respect to mine are a fourth cousin and a third cousin once removed. In all cases my siblings match these two individuals better than I do. The advantage to testing siblings is becoming more and more apparent as autosomal testing begins to dominate family studies other than straight line back yDNA studies. I know that Chromosome 6 and Chromosome 11 both contain matches with three sets of people (where my siblings and I constitute one set) and we know that we all share the same common ancestry from Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe who married at Bishops Nympton 7 Jun 1803 and Robert was a son of John Pincombe and Mary Charley/Charlie mentioned earlier. Robert and Elizabeth had eight children and one of these children emigrated to the United States, two emigrated to Canada (a third also emigrated but was lost in the sinking of the Bark John in 1855 along with his entire family), one emigrated to Australia but his family remained in England, two others remained in England with one marrying and the eighth died at fifteen years of age. The Canadian family is mine and one of the sons of one of the emigrant families married a daughter of the other emigrant family thus creating a rather good set of Pincombe results for DNA investigation to compare with descendants which may enable the marking of sections as mentioned above (the wifes of these Pincombe men).
More results are coming so I should soon be able to report on this triangulation effort and assist other Pincombe descendants who suspect they may be related to this particular Pincombe line. Since I have for the most part traced down all of the lines from Richard first at Bishops Nympton in 1598, I am able to help people link to my line. I would like to do the same with other Pincombe families who also emigrated to Canada as I suspect they are descendant of the Bishops Nympton/North Molton/South Molton Pincombe families. This will be a rather interesting tool I think but needs more people to test their autosomal DNA who have Pincombe ancestry.
I also have Pinkham autosomal results and knowing that this surname was not used in my line by the holders throughout the centuries it is not likely that we will find common points of ancestry between us and that is the case thus far but some of the Pincombe/Pinkham lines did use the surname interchangeably so these lines may be assisted by autosomal testing once we have built up a large enough set of data to utilize in that regard. The test though is limited to fourth cousin or less for largish chunks of autosomal DNA to match but there could be over time smaller chunks of DNA that could be attached to particular surnames although I like to work with 10 centimorgan lengths but time will tell just how small a chunk could be labeled. DNA is a new field and evolving rapidly. When my husband and I first tested back in 2006 it was a novelty. I did it to see my route out of Africa for both my maternal and paternal lines (my brother kindly tested for me).
My Pincombe family which has been slow to work on in terms of DNA has proven to be my first family where I can triangulate results. This is an interesting family and it is also one of my one name studies so I have been looking at the paper/microfilmed records since 2006. The study was first begun in the 1930s by a young family doctor in England who was in the mid 1990s approaching his mid 90s and had to give up his research due to failing eyesight. But in 65 years he collected a lot of material including making abstracts of the Pincombe/Pinkham wills located at the Devon Record Office prior to the bombing of that office during World War II. Even better he deposited that material at the Society of Genealogists where a fourth cousin of mine (Pincombe) made copies of his charts and sent them off to me (she was not aware of the will abstracts at that time, I found them on a visit to the SOG library in 2013). His premise along with another researcher from the United States was that the Pincombe and the Pinkham family shared common ancestry and looking at the family charts that he produced this does appear to be the case where Pincombe and Pinkham were used interchangeably in several of the these families' trees. My own line at Bishops Nympton/South Molton/North Molton and area used the Pincomb/Pincombe spelling with no exceptions thus far. Although here in Canada my great grandfather and his family were recorded on the census as Pinkham once. I think that must have brought a sharp rebuke on his part as it was considered to be extremely important to get the spelling of this name right and that carried on right down to my mother and her brother - essential to spell the name Pincombe!
The story really begins in Bishops Molton Devon where Richard Pincombe (son of William Pincombe and Emotte Snow) first appears in the parish registers there baptizing his son William along with his wife Anne. The next appearance is the burial of his wife and a young daughter and all of this occurring between 1598 and 1601. Richard remarried at Bishops Nympton and it is these two lines of his that form the Pincombe families that are found in Bishops Nympton right up to the middle of the 20th century. My mother knew her family line back to John Pincombe and Grace Manning who married at Bishops Nympton 20 Mar 1725 and baptized three children there:
William Pincombe baptized 20 Jun 1727 and married to Grace Smyth 13 Jun 1758 at North Molton (Grace's parents were John Smyth and Grace Shapland). They had one son William who was 21 years of age when he died and his parents both died in 1783.
John Pincombe baptized 13 Feb 1728 and married to Mary Charley/Charlie 8 Nov 1767 at Bishops Nympton. They had six children. Mary is perhaps the daughter of Hugh and Mary Charley of Kentisbury or of Richard and Joan Charley of Comb Martin (the second one is a new possibility suggested to me by a cousin (by DNA testing). All of their children married and the lines at Bishops Nympton come from these children or from the children of John Pincombe and Johane Blackmoore who married 25 Sep 1655 also at Bishops Nympton.
Grace baptized 7 Mar 1732 and married to John Butcher 31 Mar 1755 at Bishops Nympton. They had four children with two dying as infants and Grace herself was buried 16 Jun 1763 at Bishops Nympton.
I decided that to do a good job on this one name study I needed to understand my family very well and that has been a good tactic for me. Others go into one name study to find their family lines but in my case my lines were known to me in both Blake and Pincombe for centuries back. Hence I could provide material that could help people to either belong to my lines or eliminate all of them and concentrate in another area. Then DNA became the tool of the day and I decided to try and use it to look at the one name study for the Pincombe/Pinkham family.
It was an almost immediate failure as the yDNA of known long standing Pinkham lines did not match the yDNA result of my fifth cousin in Australia. I moved back from looking at yDNA but then autosomal DNA became more interesting and available and I suddenly had a couple of cousins that I could triangulate results to give me sections of chromosome that I could label Pincombe. That has moved along somewhat and I would now like to separate those "Pincombe" areas into "Rew," "Rowcliffe," and "Charley/Charlie." That will require more matches but I wanted to be ready to do that and so I charted the common areas thus far in our joint Pincombe ancestry.
The two individuals that I have so far with known Pincombe ancestry with respect to mine are a fourth cousin and a third cousin once removed. In all cases my siblings match these two individuals better than I do. The advantage to testing siblings is becoming more and more apparent as autosomal testing begins to dominate family studies other than straight line back yDNA studies. I know that Chromosome 6 and Chromosome 11 both contain matches with three sets of people (where my siblings and I constitute one set) and we know that we all share the same common ancestry from Robert Pincombe and Elizabeth Rowcliffe who married at Bishops Nympton 7 Jun 1803 and Robert was a son of John Pincombe and Mary Charley/Charlie mentioned earlier. Robert and Elizabeth had eight children and one of these children emigrated to the United States, two emigrated to Canada (a third also emigrated but was lost in the sinking of the Bark John in 1855 along with his entire family), one emigrated to Australia but his family remained in England, two others remained in England with one marrying and the eighth died at fifteen years of age. The Canadian family is mine and one of the sons of one of the emigrant families married a daughter of the other emigrant family thus creating a rather good set of Pincombe results for DNA investigation to compare with descendants which may enable the marking of sections as mentioned above (the wifes of these Pincombe men).
More results are coming so I should soon be able to report on this triangulation effort and assist other Pincombe descendants who suspect they may be related to this particular Pincombe line. Since I have for the most part traced down all of the lines from Richard first at Bishops Nympton in 1598, I am able to help people link to my line. I would like to do the same with other Pincombe families who also emigrated to Canada as I suspect they are descendant of the Bishops Nympton/North Molton/South Molton Pincombe families. This will be a rather interesting tool I think but needs more people to test their autosomal DNA who have Pincombe ancestry.
I also have Pinkham autosomal results and knowing that this surname was not used in my line by the holders throughout the centuries it is not likely that we will find common points of ancestry between us and that is the case thus far but some of the Pincombe/Pinkham lines did use the surname interchangeably so these lines may be assisted by autosomal testing once we have built up a large enough set of data to utilize in that regard. The test though is limited to fourth cousin or less for largish chunks of autosomal DNA to match but there could be over time smaller chunks of DNA that could be attached to particular surnames although I like to work with 10 centimorgan lengths but time will tell just how small a chunk could be labeled. DNA is a new field and evolving rapidly. When my husband and I first tested back in 2006 it was a novelty. I did it to see my route out of Africa for both my maternal and paternal lines (my brother kindly tested for me).
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!
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!
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Ethnicity Estimate - Tests at FT DNA, Ancestry and 23 and Me compared
I now have three Ethnicity Estimates looking at my autosomal DNA.
FT DNA
European 96%
British Isles 51%
Scandinavia 33%
Western and Central Europe 12%
Asia Minor 3%
North Africa 1%
Ancestry
Europe 99%
Great Britain 64%
Ireland 14%
Europe West 11%
Scandinavia 6%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Europe East less than 1% Italy/Greece less than 1% Finland/Northwest Russia, less than 1% Melanesia
23 and Me
European 99.9%
British and Irish 54.2%
French and German 14.4%
Scandinavian 2.0%
Northern European 27.9%
Southern European 0.3%
European 0.8%
Ashkenazi 0.2%
Oceania 0.1%
North Africa 0.1%
Undetermined 0.1%
A bird's eye view of my results says that I have 51%-78% British Isles Ancestry, I have 2%-33% Scandinavian Ancestry, I have 11%-42.5% Northern European Ancestry with the rest all being less than 1%.
The largest ancestry is my British Isles Ancestry and 14 of my great great grandparents were born, lived and were buried in England (two exceptions buried in Canada although both born in England) and their ancestors for the most part going back in time except for two brickwalled lines where I do not know their ancestry. Comments have been made that 23 and Me comes the closest to accuracy with their estimation. A French and German component of 14.4% is huge although compares to 11% Europe West at Ancestry and 12% Western and Central Europe at FT DNA. I think that my results do rather merge together although Ancestry has given me a very high percentage of British Isles at 78%.
Time frame for these estimations would be rather interesting to look at but I do not think it will necessarily break down those brick walls that I have with firstly my maternal grandmother's mother although knowing the mtDNA may one day help with that particular line and secondly my 3x great grandfather Christopher Buller's parents. They are definitely a mystery and quite a formidable brickwall at least they appear to be given the amount of research I have put into that line at London Metropolitan Archives. However, I have a new piece of information that may be helpful the next time we are there.
I can not resist thinking of these brickwalls when I look at these estimates! I do not yet have my matches at 23 and Me. They are to come in the next week or so. But I have already uploaded my Ancestry and my FT DNA Family Finder results to Gedmatch so do not expect to find anything but the database at 23 and Me is huge. It is just that I know all of my American cousins on the Buller line but I do not know if any of them has ever tested.
All in all I am probably finished testing myself unless I do do BritainsDNA. That would be a late fall project as I save up my loonies. Would I really learn anything more? Well, I have done my brother but we are not close matches at FT DNA in terms of shared cMs - we are at the far limit for full siblings which is a good thing because we do not have our parent's DNA results and having a variety of results from siblings can help us to look at what the parents might have been. So doing myself at BritainsDNA might paint a rather interesting picture of our ancestry.
.
FT DNA
European 96%
British Isles 51%
Scandinavia 33%
Western and Central Europe 12%
Asia Minor 3%
North Africa 1%
Ancestry
Europe 99%
Great Britain 64%
Ireland 14%
Europe West 11%
Scandinavia 6%
Iberian Peninsula 1%
Europe East less than 1% Italy/Greece less than 1% Finland/Northwest Russia, less than 1% Melanesia
23 and Me
European 99.9%
British and Irish 54.2%
French and German 14.4%
Scandinavian 2.0%
Northern European 27.9%
Southern European 0.3%
European 0.8%
Ashkenazi 0.2%
Oceania 0.1%
North Africa 0.1%
Undetermined 0.1%
A bird's eye view of my results says that I have 51%-78% British Isles Ancestry, I have 2%-33% Scandinavian Ancestry, I have 11%-42.5% Northern European Ancestry with the rest all being less than 1%.
The largest ancestry is my British Isles Ancestry and 14 of my great great grandparents were born, lived and were buried in England (two exceptions buried in Canada although both born in England) and their ancestors for the most part going back in time except for two brickwalled lines where I do not know their ancestry. Comments have been made that 23 and Me comes the closest to accuracy with their estimation. A French and German component of 14.4% is huge although compares to 11% Europe West at Ancestry and 12% Western and Central Europe at FT DNA. I think that my results do rather merge together although Ancestry has given me a very high percentage of British Isles at 78%.
Time frame for these estimations would be rather interesting to look at but I do not think it will necessarily break down those brick walls that I have with firstly my maternal grandmother's mother although knowing the mtDNA may one day help with that particular line and secondly my 3x great grandfather Christopher Buller's parents. They are definitely a mystery and quite a formidable brickwall at least they appear to be given the amount of research I have put into that line at London Metropolitan Archives. However, I have a new piece of information that may be helpful the next time we are there.
I can not resist thinking of these brickwalls when I look at these estimates! I do not yet have my matches at 23 and Me. They are to come in the next week or so. But I have already uploaded my Ancestry and my FT DNA Family Finder results to Gedmatch so do not expect to find anything but the database at 23 and Me is huge. It is just that I know all of my American cousins on the Buller line but I do not know if any of them has ever tested.
All in all I am probably finished testing myself unless I do do BritainsDNA. That would be a late fall project as I save up my loonies. Would I really learn anything more? Well, I have done my brother but we are not close matches at FT DNA in terms of shared cMs - we are at the far limit for full siblings which is a good thing because we do not have our parent's DNA results and having a variety of results from siblings can help us to look at what the parents might have been. So doing myself at BritainsDNA might paint a rather interesting picture of our ancestry.
.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
St Breock baptisms
St Breock baptisms prior to the mid 1800s are on Find My Past and I extracted about 100 of them. Now that I have so much information for the Bodmin/St Breock area I think my next step should be to do the rest of the parishes in the area of these two parishes and then merge families. Carrying on in too logical a fashion could create a lot of work for me later sorting items and finding duplicates. Whenever I get a large centre now in Cornwall I shall do that.
There are a number of distinct families in these areas through more than one hundred years of parish registers and they are using similar forenames so need to have a good look at them to see if I can find a founding family for them. That is the intent of all this effort after all. Now just need to get someone to test their yDNA for the Blake line in this area!
I still think yDNA hasn't sold itself yet in the British Isles. I suspect people are more interested in the autosomal DNA as it helps to relate collateral lines coming down from a common ancestor. The yDNA though is still I think the best test to do. I have to agree with the speaker at Roots Tech 2015 on that one for sure. She put yDNA as first, atDNA as second and mtDNA comes in a weak third. Do mtDNA if it interests you in finding out your deep ancestry was her comment. Since that was my original purpose in doing DNA in the beginning I certainly belong in that category - wanting to know the route out of Africa for my mtDNA and of course our yDNA through my brother's testing.
There are a number of distinct families in these areas through more than one hundred years of parish registers and they are using similar forenames so need to have a good look at them to see if I can find a founding family for them. That is the intent of all this effort after all. Now just need to get someone to test their yDNA for the Blake line in this area!
I still think yDNA hasn't sold itself yet in the British Isles. I suspect people are more interested in the autosomal DNA as it helps to relate collateral lines coming down from a common ancestor. The yDNA though is still I think the best test to do. I have to agree with the speaker at Roots Tech 2015 on that one for sure. She put yDNA as first, atDNA as second and mtDNA comes in a weak third. Do mtDNA if it interests you in finding out your deep ancestry was her comment. Since that was my original purpose in doing DNA in the beginning I certainly belong in that category - wanting to know the route out of Africa for my mtDNA and of course our yDNA through my brother's testing.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Technologies of Kinship: Genetic Genealogists and Origin Stories
Thank you to Carleton University's Department of Sociology and Anthropology for a very interesting lecture on Technologies of Kinship: Genetic Genealogists and Origin Stories by Dr Scout Calvert, UCLA Irvine.
A rapid fire lecture that covered the field of genealogy and the emergence of DNA as a genealogical tool and discussed origin in that context. I very much enjoyed the talk and did ask one question at the end. One that has always interested me and for which I have my own answer but was curious what discussion would ensue if I asked it. Unfortunately, I asked it a bit late as we had to depart whilst it was still being discussed but hopefully someone else might blog on the further discussion.
I queried whether DNA, as the "new kid on the block" or traditional paper trail genealogy would ultimately be the "decider" on family genealogy. My answer is that the archival documents will always be more important that the genetic genealogy of a family. It really comes down to what determines family - is it the genetic composition that passes from father and mother to child or is it the logical flow of events that precede and follow that event where they can be documented. You can not change wills that have named children or the baptismal registers that have named parents. In the long run, family is determined by these paper documents and not by the DNA that runs through our veins.
I think perhaps the most exciting part of genetic genealogy is the deep ancestry that you learn about yourself because you test your family line and if female then having a brother to do all the testing for you (of course who can resist also testing oneself just to see especially in the autosomal results where you match each other!). There spread out before you is the history of your genes as they traveled through time from thousands of years ago. Having tested my brother at National Geographic phase 1 and Geno 2.0, FT DNA and Britains DNA I have a collage of interesting charts and data to look at. All of these tests have complimented each other and provide unique as well as common pieces of information.
Knowing that my paternal line was within 2 miles of Andover, Hampshire, England from the mid 1400s to the mid 1900s on paper provides me with a paper trail which is also verified with the DNA results but going back before the earliest paper records for this family is the knowledge that this yDNA is an ancient pre-historic British Isles group so the paper trail both proves and is proved by the genetics. But the family stories of origin were what directed me to look for this family line where I did. Indeed the yDNA population study for the particular haplogroup places this group most commonly in southern Ireland which wouldn't have helped me at all. Especially in this case as the surname Blake is very common in the area of Ireland.
But ultimately those of us with British Isles ancestry came from somewhere else eight to ten thousand years ago and the mtDNA leads my family through my mother back to the shores of the Black Sea. The trek they took towards the British Isles can be followed north through the Scandinavian Penninsula and thence to Scotland. The yDNA pictorially at Gen2.0 tells me that my line is an Eastern European line P37 trekking into Poland but the work of Dr Ken Nordtvedt shows that a group of these hunter gathers made the trek across Doggerland into the British Isles and some (not mine it would appear) kept going all the way to present day Ireland. Because this group is a small one compared to its big brother R1b and even I1, the number of testers is small both at Gen 2.0 and at Britains DNA where only 11 people have tested in their very large database. But what about all those people inbetween, these testing companies do autosomal testing and have different mapping techniques to show you the admixture to be found in those genes. It is a fascinating tale; probably the best story time tale ever!
DNA is a new and exciting tool but we must not lose sight of the need to find the documents that pertain to our families and encourage the preservation of all those documents. We could get misled using only DNA results.
Although I find it interesting that Lineage Societies will now accept DNA results I am not surprised that they have taken their time moving to this acceptance. Direct line y-DNA or mtDNA descendant with triangulated proven ancestry for the lineage ancestor does seem to be a reasonable proof but there are still legions of descendants who may or may not show autosomal ancestry but still on paper be descendant. The blending of DNA testing with paper trail ancestry is a real bonus to genealogy but in the long run it will be, I rather think, the stories of origin passed down in a family and proven with paper documents that really determine one's "family."
A rapid fire lecture that covered the field of genealogy and the emergence of DNA as a genealogical tool and discussed origin in that context. I very much enjoyed the talk and did ask one question at the end. One that has always interested me and for which I have my own answer but was curious what discussion would ensue if I asked it. Unfortunately, I asked it a bit late as we had to depart whilst it was still being discussed but hopefully someone else might blog on the further discussion.
I queried whether DNA, as the "new kid on the block" or traditional paper trail genealogy would ultimately be the "decider" on family genealogy. My answer is that the archival documents will always be more important that the genetic genealogy of a family. It really comes down to what determines family - is it the genetic composition that passes from father and mother to child or is it the logical flow of events that precede and follow that event where they can be documented. You can not change wills that have named children or the baptismal registers that have named parents. In the long run, family is determined by these paper documents and not by the DNA that runs through our veins.
I think perhaps the most exciting part of genetic genealogy is the deep ancestry that you learn about yourself because you test your family line and if female then having a brother to do all the testing for you (of course who can resist also testing oneself just to see especially in the autosomal results where you match each other!). There spread out before you is the history of your genes as they traveled through time from thousands of years ago. Having tested my brother at National Geographic phase 1 and Geno 2.0, FT DNA and Britains DNA I have a collage of interesting charts and data to look at. All of these tests have complimented each other and provide unique as well as common pieces of information.
Knowing that my paternal line was within 2 miles of Andover, Hampshire, England from the mid 1400s to the mid 1900s on paper provides me with a paper trail which is also verified with the DNA results but going back before the earliest paper records for this family is the knowledge that this yDNA is an ancient pre-historic British Isles group so the paper trail both proves and is proved by the genetics. But the family stories of origin were what directed me to look for this family line where I did. Indeed the yDNA population study for the particular haplogroup places this group most commonly in southern Ireland which wouldn't have helped me at all. Especially in this case as the surname Blake is very common in the area of Ireland.
But ultimately those of us with British Isles ancestry came from somewhere else eight to ten thousand years ago and the mtDNA leads my family through my mother back to the shores of the Black Sea. The trek they took towards the British Isles can be followed north through the Scandinavian Penninsula and thence to Scotland. The yDNA pictorially at Gen2.0 tells me that my line is an Eastern European line P37 trekking into Poland but the work of Dr Ken Nordtvedt shows that a group of these hunter gathers made the trek across Doggerland into the British Isles and some (not mine it would appear) kept going all the way to present day Ireland. Because this group is a small one compared to its big brother R1b and even I1, the number of testers is small both at Gen 2.0 and at Britains DNA where only 11 people have tested in their very large database. But what about all those people inbetween, these testing companies do autosomal testing and have different mapping techniques to show you the admixture to be found in those genes. It is a fascinating tale; probably the best story time tale ever!
DNA is a new and exciting tool but we must not lose sight of the need to find the documents that pertain to our families and encourage the preservation of all those documents. We could get misled using only DNA results.
Although I find it interesting that Lineage Societies will now accept DNA results I am not surprised that they have taken their time moving to this acceptance. Direct line y-DNA or mtDNA descendant with triangulated proven ancestry for the lineage ancestor does seem to be a reasonable proof but there are still legions of descendants who may or may not show autosomal ancestry but still on paper be descendant. The blending of DNA testing with paper trail ancestry is a real bonus to genealogy but in the long run it will be, I rather think, the stories of origin passed down in a family and proven with paper documents that really determine one's "family."
Sunday, March 17, 2013
1000th Post
A poignant moment in time for me as I publish my 1000th post on what was to be my historical memory that I would use to remind me of particular items that I had worked through in the past.
This is now my fifth year of blogging (my blog began following our trip to Salt Lake City in 2008) and I have found it quite valuable to me. I have looked back at items that I have worked on but primarily to make my blog more meaningful to those who have decided to follow me and all those who have decided to read my blogs which on occasion are rather lengthy (hence the references back within the blog although I too find them meaningful).
I hope that others have found my information useful to them and I have appreciated the twenty five comments that have come back to me. Several of them broke down brick walls for me or at least errors that had crept into the ascentry of a couple of my lines that were published. I have been able to assist others with their linking back.
As I complete the Buller wills and return once again primarily to my Blake and Pincombe one name studies, I will be quite content to be doing my daily rotation through my families and those of our son in law as I assemble records and collect copies of records (limited to two hours per day). They are more of a housekeeping routine as tracing back our son in laws family has been fairly straightforward although still a few brick walls (shared by others apparently). For my own "other" family lines I remain interested but have decided not to pursue them as actively as I once did where any particular day might see me look at seven or eight different lines. Although interesting I was finding that I really needed to go to the record office in England for each of those lines. Perhaps one day I may do that for some of them but for the moment my work will be to transcribe the material that I have collected for them making that available for people in that particular family grouping to either eliminate my line from their research or join me in trying to push it back further.
St Patrick's Day has come once again and it always signals spring to me but I can walk on the metre high snow in our back yard so that is with us awhile yet. Perhaps one big change in my life through all of this information gathering is realizing that my 100% English ancestry is becoming less defined and probably includes some Scot ancestry, some Irish ancestry, some French ancestry by yDNA and mtDNA studies and then all those matches that I have with people who have only Germany ancestry on my atDNA. There is much to come from genetic testing in the future. I think we have only lightly brushed the surface in that regard and I look forward to more information.
This is now my fifth year of blogging (my blog began following our trip to Salt Lake City in 2008) and I have found it quite valuable to me. I have looked back at items that I have worked on but primarily to make my blog more meaningful to those who have decided to follow me and all those who have decided to read my blogs which on occasion are rather lengthy (hence the references back within the blog although I too find them meaningful).
I hope that others have found my information useful to them and I have appreciated the twenty five comments that have come back to me. Several of them broke down brick walls for me or at least errors that had crept into the ascentry of a couple of my lines that were published. I have been able to assist others with their linking back.
As I complete the Buller wills and return once again primarily to my Blake and Pincombe one name studies, I will be quite content to be doing my daily rotation through my families and those of our son in law as I assemble records and collect copies of records (limited to two hours per day). They are more of a housekeeping routine as tracing back our son in laws family has been fairly straightforward although still a few brick walls (shared by others apparently). For my own "other" family lines I remain interested but have decided not to pursue them as actively as I once did where any particular day might see me look at seven or eight different lines. Although interesting I was finding that I really needed to go to the record office in England for each of those lines. Perhaps one day I may do that for some of them but for the moment my work will be to transcribe the material that I have collected for them making that available for people in that particular family grouping to either eliminate my line from their research or join me in trying to push it back further.
St Patrick's Day has come once again and it always signals spring to me but I can walk on the metre high snow in our back yard so that is with us awhile yet. Perhaps one big change in my life through all of this information gathering is realizing that my 100% English ancestry is becoming less defined and probably includes some Scot ancestry, some Irish ancestry, some French ancestry by yDNA and mtDNA studies and then all those matches that I have with people who have only Germany ancestry on my atDNA. There is much to come from genetic testing in the future. I think we have only lightly brushed the surface in that regard and I look forward to more information.
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