There is a free public workshop sponsored by Archives of Ontario which I am watching at the moment - just on lunch break. The name of the workshop: Genealogy and Genetics.
I must admit my initial concern when we tested in 2006 was what would these results be used to look at. It was about six months before we actually did the National Genographic Test and submitted it. I have nothing to hide but taking the test implies on my part that I think this is a good idea to do DNA testing. As it has turned out the advent of DNA testing did a great deal towards teaching us that we are all a subset of African diversity; our footprint in Africa still shows up 60,000 years after our ancestors are said to have left Africa.
The database that is used by National Genographic has samples from indigenous groups from many many parts of the world. They particularly took DNA samples from groups of people who were static; i.e. had been in their location for thousands of years by their known history. It was such testing that let National Genographic create the haplogroup charts for yDNA and mtDNA showing the changes from the oldest samples to the modern samples found around the world although primarily in 2006 the purchased samples were from North America and Europe (including the British Isles). It was a gift to be able to see one's trek out of Africa and now, twelve years later, that trek is for the most part unchanged from the original map which we received with our results.
The introduction of autosomal testing though has brought to the forefront a dilemma with regard to who we are by our ethnicity. Having testing at all of the testing companies I can say quite assuredly that none of them are the same. They all use different comparison databases. Our personal ethnicity doesn't change but the way that they are calculated based on different reference points results in a variable ethnicity between companies. The reference points can and will become more or less precise. That is the amazing part of genetics and DNA studies. As you accumulate a greater number of samples than the chances of introducing another ethnicity from these new sample takers increases rather than decreases the number of ethnic origins because we are a migrant people. We keep moving; perhaps not in each generation but over time our people have moved.
When I started to work on genealogy, I had no idea on the birth places of my ancestors past grandparents except in the case of my Blake direct line and my Pincombe direct line. The other two lines were mired in stories partly to conceal and partly speculation generated by discussion of my parents with their parents in their childhood. It wasn't that that sent me to genealogy; rather it was my cousin who needed me to write a bio for the Westminster and Delaware History Books (published in 2005). He tried to get my sister to write it and she redirected him to me because Ed (my husband) does genealogy. As resistant as I was to becoming involved in genealogy a trip to Europe had stirred just a little of that interest. The suggestion that my grandfather had owned a grocery store on Wharncliffe Road (it was my uncle, his son) was enough to spur me onward to write the bio. I took 43 courses at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies (best couple of thousand I have spent in a while!) and while taking the courses I did the needed research and produced the bio in time for publication (with the help of my siblings and Pincombe cousins that my cousin brought together for a research day). The information still stands as being correct even after 13 years of publication which I think might be amazing given the possibility of making a mistake in moving backwards in time.
Once into genealogy though I could not leave it alone. It has occupied my waking hours now for fifteen years and the fascination increases rather than diminishing. Have I solved all the problems? Absolutely not; nor will I in my lifetime. DNA has pointed out more possibilities than family lore ever did. The Ethnicity results have given credence to that family lore.
The misuse of ethnicity though is always in my thoughts. Living next door to the United States I am very conscious of what can happen in a society when one group decides it is better than another based on colour. It is a scary thought actually; one we must avoid at all costs. We are all equal under the sun.
Showing posts with label mtDNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mtDNA. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2018
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Matches with mitochondrial DNA
I just had an email requesting that I forward information on individuals who had tested within a subclade of H11 which I had created. My only response to this ever is to contact the individuals who match you at FT DNA (or elsewhere but my H11 haplogroup project is at FT DNA). All of the matches that are within a reasonable closeness to you shown in the project will be listed by FT DNA.
There are 269 members in the project and almost every subclade mentioned in the phylotree (2016 update) is included in the project. In general the rules for administering a project are pretty straight forward. We must protect every member's privacy and I do attempt to ensure that I do do that.
Mitochondrial DNA can be a very helpful tool to some (for instance my mutations bring me to Argyllshire/Ayrshire Scotland or Ireland - thus far no exceptions in my many matches included in the project. That can be very helpful to some. However, it does not tell me the name of that distant ancestor. I am still stuck in Birmingham in the mid 1800s. I do have a possibility. That possibility in several generations does not lead me to Scotland or Ireland. Family Lore helps a little but nothing substantial from that either. My matches and my Living DNA results do point to my having a Irish/Scot connection but I do have 2 3x great grandparents with a Scot surname although rather distant back. I have no perfect matches other than my siblings and ten one step away. Also having this lovely person with the surname of Taylor adds to that challenge.
My husband on the other hand has over a dozen perfect matches to his mtDNA. The only item he has learned from all of that is a match with someone in England whose line has been in England back to the 1700s at least is a perfect match. Looking at this individual there is a possibility that her ancient ancestor was from Denmark/The Netherlands. He can trace his line back to 1654 when Margaret was baptized in Newport Rhode Island but no further for sure. No one else in that particular maternal line has tested that can trace back to Margaret Carr or her sisters.
There are 269 members in the project and almost every subclade mentioned in the phylotree (2016 update) is included in the project. In general the rules for administering a project are pretty straight forward. We must protect every member's privacy and I do attempt to ensure that I do do that.
Mitochondrial DNA can be a very helpful tool to some (for instance my mutations bring me to Argyllshire/Ayrshire Scotland or Ireland - thus far no exceptions in my many matches included in the project. That can be very helpful to some. However, it does not tell me the name of that distant ancestor. I am still stuck in Birmingham in the mid 1800s. I do have a possibility. That possibility in several generations does not lead me to Scotland or Ireland. Family Lore helps a little but nothing substantial from that either. My matches and my Living DNA results do point to my having a Irish/Scot connection but I do have 2 3x great grandparents with a Scot surname although rather distant back. I have no perfect matches other than my siblings and ten one step away. Also having this lovely person with the surname of Taylor adds to that challenge.
My husband on the other hand has over a dozen perfect matches to his mtDNA. The only item he has learned from all of that is a match with someone in England whose line has been in England back to the 1700s at least is a perfect match. Looking at this individual there is a possibility that her ancient ancestor was from Denmark/The Netherlands. He can trace his line back to 1654 when Margaret was baptized in Newport Rhode Island but no further for sure. No one else in that particular maternal line has tested that can trace back to Margaret Carr or her sisters.
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.
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!
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, May 16, 2014
H11 haplogroup - half yearly discussion
Last post on H11: http://kippeeb.blogspot.ca/2013/11/h11-haplogroup.html
The H11 project continues to grow from the 82 members in this earlier post. There are now 88 members who have done the Full Genetic Scan of the mitochondrial DNA and a total membership of 101 individuals. I have, on occasion, inserted people into their likely subclade but without a full genetic scan it is impossible to say that such placement is correct.
When I did the Gen 2.0 test (Genographic Project) on our mitochondrial DNA, the "heat map" or "resting spot" for H11a2a1 was located in Middle to Eastern Europe extending from Slovakia through Poland and into the Ukraine/Russia/Georgia/Ossettia. I have mentioned earlier that my line has good matches in Ossettia although these matches lack 16092 and 16140 (ours have these mutations). I am left to wonder if 16092 and 16140 provided our ancestors with some sort of protection in their new environment which tends to be in the northern areas of the British Isles but also located along a migration path which extends from Ossettia into Europe and thence into the British Isles and also across the Scandinavian archipelago and possibly into the northern areas of the British Isles since the frequency of my matches are in this area.
It would be interesting if others who belong to H11 would comment on this post giving their earliest known resting spot for their furtherest back ancestress. H11 is a small grouping and I think there is a potential that as a group we could add to the knowledge of our haplogroup simply by recording our known history in a systematic fashion. It is a thought that I will mention to any readers.
I have now verified my own line by doing my brother's full genetic scan. The Gen 2.0 test and the BritainsDNA had verified it but did not provide all the mutations so I did take that one step further to complete that testing. Although doing the Full Genetic Scan was thought to be a path to greater discovery for people with regard to their female ancestress the mutation rate is very very slow thus rendering a lot of our close matches but not exact matches to a thousand years in the past and making linkages difficult. So doing the full genetic scan and having perfect matches may bring us closer to paper records time frame in that it is estimated (by FT DNA) that a perfect match can show a relationship in the past six hundred years or 16 generations in 90% of people. Few people can trace their female line that far back but matches could be closer and it is necessary to take the match and trace backwards as far as one can and then bring that ancestress' children down. A long and meticulous effort but could bear fruit paticularly for anyone who is stuck in the 1700s or 1800s or 1900s!
The best matches for my brother and I but always 1 mutation less are in Ireland and Scotland and particularly in those areas where population exchange occurred across the Irish Sea between Ulster in Ireland and Ayrshire/Argyllshire in Scotland. When the ice sheets still existed north of the British Isles these two would have been joined and hence the population characteristics would be quite similar for anyone with ancient lines in these areas. Unknown to us is how our furtherest back ancestress arrived in the Midlands of England by the middle of the 1700s - a direct route down through Cumberland or a crossing from Ireland? It is anyones guess actually and I await that day when someone tests, not in our family line, that is an exact match!
An interesting very early paper on H11 : http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/11/2012.full.pdf+html
More information to follow.
The H11 project continues to grow from the 82 members in this earlier post. There are now 88 members who have done the Full Genetic Scan of the mitochondrial DNA and a total membership of 101 individuals. I have, on occasion, inserted people into their likely subclade but without a full genetic scan it is impossible to say that such placement is correct.
When I did the Gen 2.0 test (Genographic Project) on our mitochondrial DNA, the "heat map" or "resting spot" for H11a2a1 was located in Middle to Eastern Europe extending from Slovakia through Poland and into the Ukraine/Russia/Georgia/Ossettia. I have mentioned earlier that my line has good matches in Ossettia although these matches lack 16092 and 16140 (ours have these mutations). I am left to wonder if 16092 and 16140 provided our ancestors with some sort of protection in their new environment which tends to be in the northern areas of the British Isles but also located along a migration path which extends from Ossettia into Europe and thence into the British Isles and also across the Scandinavian archipelago and possibly into the northern areas of the British Isles since the frequency of my matches are in this area.
It would be interesting if others who belong to H11 would comment on this post giving their earliest known resting spot for their furtherest back ancestress. H11 is a small grouping and I think there is a potential that as a group we could add to the knowledge of our haplogroup simply by recording our known history in a systematic fashion. It is a thought that I will mention to any readers.
I have now verified my own line by doing my brother's full genetic scan. The Gen 2.0 test and the BritainsDNA had verified it but did not provide all the mutations so I did take that one step further to complete that testing. Although doing the Full Genetic Scan was thought to be a path to greater discovery for people with regard to their female ancestress the mutation rate is very very slow thus rendering a lot of our close matches but not exact matches to a thousand years in the past and making linkages difficult. So doing the full genetic scan and having perfect matches may bring us closer to paper records time frame in that it is estimated (by FT DNA) that a perfect match can show a relationship in the past six hundred years or 16 generations in 90% of people. Few people can trace their female line that far back but matches could be closer and it is necessary to take the match and trace backwards as far as one can and then bring that ancestress' children down. A long and meticulous effort but could bear fruit paticularly for anyone who is stuck in the 1700s or 1800s or 1900s!
The best matches for my brother and I but always 1 mutation less are in Ireland and Scotland and particularly in those areas where population exchange occurred across the Irish Sea between Ulster in Ireland and Ayrshire/Argyllshire in Scotland. When the ice sheets still existed north of the British Isles these two would have been joined and hence the population characteristics would be quite similar for anyone with ancient lines in these areas. Unknown to us is how our furtherest back ancestress arrived in the Midlands of England by the middle of the 1700s - a direct route down through Cumberland or a crossing from Ireland? It is anyones guess actually and I await that day when someone tests, not in our family line, that is an exact match!
An interesting very early paper on H11 : http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/11/2012.full.pdf+html
More information to follow.
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."
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Gen2.0 and Alleles 67 to 111 for Blake
Along with doing BritainsDNA Chromo2 which included both Fatherline and Motherline as well as All Your Ancestry (this last is still to come), I also did Gen2.0 from National Genographic DNA project and increased the Alleles from 67 to 111 for my Blake line. I am still awaiting the results from Gen2.0 (at 40% for a couple of weeks now) and the increase in alleles has just been batched at FT DNA for delivery mid January. This does appear to be the year for looking at the deep ancestry of my Blake yDNA and my mtDNA line following back through the mother line which on paper does not go back very far (my great grandmother Ellen Taylor died in 1897 at the age of 37 years and then family lore back another three generations to Mary Hudson baptized 1753 at Corley, Warwickshire but is this correct does tend to haunt me and so I have this broken line back before Ellen Taylor) but the mutations takes me back to the west coast of Scotland in the Blood of the Isles database and before that crossing Doggerland to prehistoric Britain and before that wintering at Ukraina during the last great ice age 15,000 years ago.
I started doing genealogy after the computer age had already entered into genealogical research. In particular, DNA was starting to become a useful tool for genealogical research and it was this idea that indeed using my own DNA I could look backwards through the mists of time and learn more about my lines because the paper trails for the most part will only take most people back to the mid 1500s if you are descended from the British as I am and perhaps a little further with the manor records and wills which includes my Blake line back into the late 1400s and perhaps a little earlier still as I get around to reading those ancient documents.
Watching my husband research his lines these past 45 years, I have marveled at his patience going through all those books and documents both paper and film. I used to look up items for him before our children arrived but I could never really get into doing my own lines. Knowing all the migration stories of my ancestors, knowing all their places of birth back a number of generations I just couldn't acquire the interest necessary to get me to do genealogy way back then.
But seeing the explosion in DNA suitable for genealogical discovery quite swung the balance with me and along with that the desire to follow that paper trail. So now I am an avid genealogist with 42 courses to my credit from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies in Methodology, British and Canadian Studies. A graduate in both British and Canadian Records along with Methodology in 2007 I look back these six years now and I am amazed at how valuable all that course work has been to me. Granted I could have just listened to the lists but the tools of genealogy, the methods in particular have proved absolutely invaluable to me as I hunted down elusive points in order to more clearly show the lines hidden by time.
Now into one name studies of my Blake (fatherline) and Pincombe (motherline) families, I can see the years ahead of me continuing to transcribe all of these myriad of documents that I have acquired by traveling, by suggesting that instead of buying me that item that you think I would really like buy me wills instead from the county record offices for Christmas! I have years and years worth of transcription already at my fingertips and as I become more deeply entrenched in my daily occupation of transcription I am slowly drawing away from any commitments that take me away from my beloved transcriptions. But occasionally through the email a document reaches me that quite catches my interest and I set aside my planned transcription in favour of tasting this new piece of information.
For me it is as much about who I am when I busily transcribe these documents maintained by my Church (I am Anglican or Church of England in Canada as it was known) as it is about the discovery of Blake or Pincombe and who they all were. I can feel and sense the power of God in all of this but particularly in the older wills where one first satisfied one's duty to God before all else. The depth of the belief that our ancestors had in God and Jesus Christ made their lives so much more meaningful to them.
Happy Thanksgiving to our American neighbours as they share around the table of family this evening.
I started doing genealogy after the computer age had already entered into genealogical research. In particular, DNA was starting to become a useful tool for genealogical research and it was this idea that indeed using my own DNA I could look backwards through the mists of time and learn more about my lines because the paper trails for the most part will only take most people back to the mid 1500s if you are descended from the British as I am and perhaps a little further with the manor records and wills which includes my Blake line back into the late 1400s and perhaps a little earlier still as I get around to reading those ancient documents.
Watching my husband research his lines these past 45 years, I have marveled at his patience going through all those books and documents both paper and film. I used to look up items for him before our children arrived but I could never really get into doing my own lines. Knowing all the migration stories of my ancestors, knowing all their places of birth back a number of generations I just couldn't acquire the interest necessary to get me to do genealogy way back then.
But seeing the explosion in DNA suitable for genealogical discovery quite swung the balance with me and along with that the desire to follow that paper trail. So now I am an avid genealogist with 42 courses to my credit from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies in Methodology, British and Canadian Studies. A graduate in both British and Canadian Records along with Methodology in 2007 I look back these six years now and I am amazed at how valuable all that course work has been to me. Granted I could have just listened to the lists but the tools of genealogy, the methods in particular have proved absolutely invaluable to me as I hunted down elusive points in order to more clearly show the lines hidden by time.
Now into one name studies of my Blake (fatherline) and Pincombe (motherline) families, I can see the years ahead of me continuing to transcribe all of these myriad of documents that I have acquired by traveling, by suggesting that instead of buying me that item that you think I would really like buy me wills instead from the county record offices for Christmas! I have years and years worth of transcription already at my fingertips and as I become more deeply entrenched in my daily occupation of transcription I am slowly drawing away from any commitments that take me away from my beloved transcriptions. But occasionally through the email a document reaches me that quite catches my interest and I set aside my planned transcription in favour of tasting this new piece of information.
For me it is as much about who I am when I busily transcribe these documents maintained by my Church (I am Anglican or Church of England in Canada as it was known) as it is about the discovery of Blake or Pincombe and who they all were. I can feel and sense the power of God in all of this but particularly in the older wills where one first satisfied one's duty to God before all else. The depth of the belief that our ancestors had in God and Jesus Christ made their lives so much more meaningful to them.
Happy Thanksgiving to our American neighbours as they share around the table of family this evening.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
H11 haplogroup
Still taking a break from transcription although wills should start to appear again a week tomorrow.
I did work on the H11 haplogroup project that is at FT DNA and with 82 participants the project has grown considerably in the past two years (doubling in size). Many of the new testers are from Europe adding a good mixture to the earlier group that was primarily American.
The phylotree most used to look at the maternal dna was produced by Kayser M. Van Oven in 2009 with a number of updates with the latest build being Number 15 released 30 September 2012. *A new build has been released as of 20 Feb 2014 and it is Number 16. I will post another item of H11 haplogroup shortly (21 Feb 2014).
http://www.phylotree.org/tree/main.htm
H11 is distinguished by T8448C, G13759A, T16311C
H11a is distinguished by T961G A16293G (A16293G reverts to original in H11a2a1 in some samples)
H11a1 is distinguished by C8898T C16278T
H111a2 is distinguished by A14587G
H11a2a is distinguished by T16092C T16140C
H11a2a1 is distinguished by A3145G
H11a2a2 is distinguished by G5585A T15670C A16265G
H11a2a3 is distinguished by C9521T
H11a3 is distinguished by T16243C
H11a4 is distinguished by 5899.XC C16111T
H11a5 is distinguished by C15040T
H11b is distinguished by T13572C
H11b1 is distinguished by T7645C
Percentages in the study:
H11 13 samples 16%
H11a 20 samples 24%
H11a1 21 samples 26%
H11a2 4 samples 5%
H11a2a 2 samples 2%
H11a2a1 7 samples 9%
H11a2a2 1 sample 1%
H11a2a3 1 sample 1%
H11a3 2 samples 2%
H11a4 2 samples 2%
H11b 1 sample 1%
H11b1 8 samples 11%
Between H11a and H11b there are a total of 70 samples and 61 belong to H11a and 9 to H11b.
Unfortunately people belonging to H11 did not known the resting spot for their furtherest back ancestor prior to emigration to the Western Hemisphere although all three that did know recorded North West Europe (Finland, France, and England being named).
H11a had more information with all members who gave a resting spot being in Europe and that was a total of 10 members; breaking this down as recorded there were eight from North West Europe (Ireland, Germany, Finland England, Scotland and Norway) and two from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland).
H11a1 had fourteen members reporting and there were nine from northwest Europe (Finland, Scotland, Ireland, with a high number from Finland) and there were 5 from Eastern Europe (Slovakia, Russia, Hungary) and one from southern Europe (Croatia).
The other groups are too small to do such a breakdown.
In total 35 reported NW Europe, 11 from E Europe and 4 from S Europe. Paying attention to immigration numbers at this point might explain the large portion from NW Europe although with more European testers this would have less impact.
Fifty two members of the group had personal mutations and there was some overlap which would appear that within this group some people have perfect matches. There weren't any mutations that particularly stood out as being commoner than others. Many of the mutations were unique to the individual making it easier to find the common ancestor if matches are found.
I do not comment very often on H11 and probably will not again for six months.
I did work on the H11 haplogroup project that is at FT DNA and with 82 participants the project has grown considerably in the past two years (doubling in size). Many of the new testers are from Europe adding a good mixture to the earlier group that was primarily American.
The phylotree most used to look at the maternal dna was produced by Kayser M. Van Oven in 2009 with a number of updates with the latest build being Number 15 released 30 September 2012. *A new build has been released as of 20 Feb 2014 and it is Number 16. I will post another item of H11 haplogroup shortly (21 Feb 2014).
http://www.phylotree.org/tree/main.htm
H11 is distinguished by T8448C, G13759A, T16311C
H11a is distinguished by T961G A16293G (A16293G reverts to original in H11a2a1 in some samples)
H11a1 is distinguished by C8898T C16278T
H111a2 is distinguished by A14587G
H11a2a is distinguished by T16092C T16140C
H11a2a1 is distinguished by A3145G
H11a2a2 is distinguished by G5585A T15670C A16265G
H11a2a3 is distinguished by C9521T
H11a3 is distinguished by T16243C
H11a4 is distinguished by 5899.XC C16111T
H11a5 is distinguished by C15040T
H11b is distinguished by T13572C
H11b1 is distinguished by T7645C
Percentages in the study:
H11 13 samples 16%
H11a 20 samples 24%
H11a1 21 samples 26%
H11a2 4 samples 5%
H11a2a 2 samples 2%
H11a2a1 7 samples 9%
H11a2a2 1 sample 1%
H11a2a3 1 sample 1%
H11a3 2 samples 2%
H11a4 2 samples 2%
H11b 1 sample 1%
H11b1 8 samples 11%
Between H11a and H11b there are a total of 70 samples and 61 belong to H11a and 9 to H11b.
Unfortunately people belonging to H11 did not known the resting spot for their furtherest back ancestor prior to emigration to the Western Hemisphere although all three that did know recorded North West Europe (Finland, France, and England being named).
H11a had more information with all members who gave a resting spot being in Europe and that was a total of 10 members; breaking this down as recorded there were eight from North West Europe (Ireland, Germany, Finland England, Scotland and Norway) and two from Eastern Europe (Russia and Poland).
H11a1 had fourteen members reporting and there were nine from northwest Europe (Finland, Scotland, Ireland, with a high number from Finland) and there were 5 from Eastern Europe (Slovakia, Russia, Hungary) and one from southern Europe (Croatia).
The other groups are too small to do such a breakdown.
In total 35 reported NW Europe, 11 from E Europe and 4 from S Europe. Paying attention to immigration numbers at this point might explain the large portion from NW Europe although with more European testers this would have less impact.
Fifty two members of the group had personal mutations and there was some overlap which would appear that within this group some people have perfect matches. There weren't any mutations that particularly stood out as being commoner than others. Many of the mutations were unique to the individual making it easier to find the common ancestor if matches are found.
I do not comment very often on H11 and probably will not again for six months.
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.
Monday, October 3, 2011
On the train to Ottawa and reading Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane
For all those who avidly follow DNA and genealogy, the book by Nick Lane published in 2005 by Oxford Press is a most interesting reading. Amazingly we have moved on from his thoughts of 2005 but only to refine it somewhat. His careful survey of the literature over a fourty year period is a very instructive look at mitochondrial (and nuclear) DNA.
Although I will do a book report as well on the book in my other blog the book also deserves some thought on my genealogy blog. My own mitochondrial DNA appears to be located in a fairly small geographic area in the deep past with my matches being found as descendants of the 1772 migration from County Antrim in Northern Ireland of a large group of mostly Scots (planters from Scotland itself in the mid 1600s) to the Carolinas in America. A second group of matches remain in Ireland to this day and lately I have also discovered a small group (including my own possibly who are also in the Midlands) who trace their ancestry back from the Midlands to Cumberland and before that Argyllshire/Ayrshire in Scotland. Interestingly some of the people who migrated to the Carolinas were also from the Argyllshire/Ayrshire area of Scotland.
The book itself talks about the emergence and evolution of the Eucaryotic cell (as compared to evolution of bacteria). The various hypotheses for the eventual cell which in mammals contains a nucleus and cytoplasm containing mitochondria are detailed through the 321 pages of the book. Very interestingly he also discusses ageing as a result of mitochondrial changes and why he believes that the answer to ageing lies in looking at mitochondrial changes and not the particular diseases of ageing themselves.
But what did I find so interesting that I absolutely couldn't put the book down except for the pressing needs of going to Homecoming at Western University in London Ontario and also visiting with one of my brothers? The science was heavy and the reading of the first 20 pages was a slow process as I relearned all of the biological terms but once past that I fairly flew along in reading the book. The science is heavy so be forewarned but the rewards of reading the book are great. Perhaps it helps me to understand evolution even better. Being a late comer to evolution; I tend to simply absorb as much information as I am able whenever a good book comes along on evolution. Although I am still a deeply religious person I do not find that incompatible with a belief in evolution. Although Nick Lane in his book clearly sets religion aside as being totally uninvolved in the creation of mankind he does allude to a cataclysmic event that resulted in the formation of a cell that was capable of moving on to an eventual evolution that gives us the intricate and diverse flora and fauna which we find on earth today. When you see the intricacy of life; I find it hard to accept that there isn't a God above all of us who was there at the beginning and will be there at the end of the Universe if such an end ever does occur.
But back to genealogy and my thoughts as a result of reading the book. I was surprised somewhat that he considered the lifetime of a surname to be but a few hundred years although the 400,000 surnames on the 1881 census of the UK is now only 270,000 names by the 21st century. A demise of 40% in just 120 years.
My own surname Blake (for my line) I can trace back to the late 1400s but it does end with my generation; none of my four brothers has a son and so the name ends with us in my great grandfather's line. I found his thoughts on male surnames to be most interesting actually. As well he talks about the references made in the literature to the demise of the male sex but has assurances that this is unlikely to happen. But interestingly, he too (along with a couple of other authors that I have read) sees the real definition of human descent as mitochondrial DNA since all the children of one female will inherit her mitochondrial DNA. Interesting!
Although I will do a book report as well on the book in my other blog the book also deserves some thought on my genealogy blog. My own mitochondrial DNA appears to be located in a fairly small geographic area in the deep past with my matches being found as descendants of the 1772 migration from County Antrim in Northern Ireland of a large group of mostly Scots (planters from Scotland itself in the mid 1600s) to the Carolinas in America. A second group of matches remain in Ireland to this day and lately I have also discovered a small group (including my own possibly who are also in the Midlands) who trace their ancestry back from the Midlands to Cumberland and before that Argyllshire/Ayrshire in Scotland. Interestingly some of the people who migrated to the Carolinas were also from the Argyllshire/Ayrshire area of Scotland.
The book itself talks about the emergence and evolution of the Eucaryotic cell (as compared to evolution of bacteria). The various hypotheses for the eventual cell which in mammals contains a nucleus and cytoplasm containing mitochondria are detailed through the 321 pages of the book. Very interestingly he also discusses ageing as a result of mitochondrial changes and why he believes that the answer to ageing lies in looking at mitochondrial changes and not the particular diseases of ageing themselves.
But what did I find so interesting that I absolutely couldn't put the book down except for the pressing needs of going to Homecoming at Western University in London Ontario and also visiting with one of my brothers? The science was heavy and the reading of the first 20 pages was a slow process as I relearned all of the biological terms but once past that I fairly flew along in reading the book. The science is heavy so be forewarned but the rewards of reading the book are great. Perhaps it helps me to understand evolution even better. Being a late comer to evolution; I tend to simply absorb as much information as I am able whenever a good book comes along on evolution. Although I am still a deeply religious person I do not find that incompatible with a belief in evolution. Although Nick Lane in his book clearly sets religion aside as being totally uninvolved in the creation of mankind he does allude to a cataclysmic event that resulted in the formation of a cell that was capable of moving on to an eventual evolution that gives us the intricate and diverse flora and fauna which we find on earth today. When you see the intricacy of life; I find it hard to accept that there isn't a God above all of us who was there at the beginning and will be there at the end of the Universe if such an end ever does occur.
But back to genealogy and my thoughts as a result of reading the book. I was surprised somewhat that he considered the lifetime of a surname to be but a few hundred years although the 400,000 surnames on the 1881 census of the UK is now only 270,000 names by the 21st century. A demise of 40% in just 120 years.
My own surname Blake (for my line) I can trace back to the late 1400s but it does end with my generation; none of my four brothers has a son and so the name ends with us in my great grandfather's line. I found his thoughts on male surnames to be most interesting actually. As well he talks about the references made in the literature to the demise of the male sex but has assurances that this is unlikely to happen. But interestingly, he too (along with a couple of other authors that I have read) sees the real definition of human descent as mitochondrial DNA since all the children of one female will inherit her mitochondrial DNA. Interesting!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Interesting quandry - Gray
The Gray family has suddenly thrust itself forward after sitting dormant in my mind for quite a while. Meeting another researcher studying the line gives me a lot of ideas on my own line. They appear to be farmers (not well to do just small farmers I expect). They rent Glebe land I think as the Owner is a priest. They move about somewhat from Cherry Burton to Etton over a period of 140 years which is maybe not a lot of moving. Where they are before Cherry Burton is a mystery that reading all of the parish records can only solve. I need to look at Skerne and Watton for the name Gray as well. I know my ancestry for my Gray line back from my great grandmother who was a daughter of the emigrant Robert Gray Junior and my first Canadian born ancestor in 1839. Robert's parentage was known in my family as my mother knew that Grace's parents were Robert Gray Junior and Mary Routledge and that Robert's parents were Robert Gray and Elizabeth. She also knew that the Gray family was from Cherry Burton. This family lore proved to be true when I investigated the land records/parish registers for Cherry Burton and Etton. The Holme on the Wold registers are quite small (Robert and Jane only appear to have had two children). It is curious why they were baptized at Holme on the Wolds and not Cherry Burton. Robert was the only baptism in 1774 on the Bishops Transcripts (father listed as Robert Gray Husbandman). There were five baptisms in 1771 when Ellen (older sister to Robert) was baptized. I will continue to investigate as I did not find Robert Gray at Holme on the Wolds in the tax lists. My cousin wrote up the family in the 1970s and has the baptism for Robert Gray (our mutual ancestor) as Holme on the Wolds. Robert indicated on the census that his birthplace was Holme.
My youngest daughter started her clinical year at the hospital. She has wanted to be a physician since she was a young child and I have listened to her talk about it all these years. My personal preference for my daughter was that she do a Ph.D. like her older sister (she did do her MSc). However, I have only hinted at that, encouraged the idea of research and supported her every tendency to follow an academic/research career. But in the long run her main interest has always been healing. I am happy for her that she is doing that. Canada has a desperate need for physicians which will still be with us for another ten years or so simply because it takes a long time to graduate doctors (4 years of medical school, minimum of three years of residency for Family Medicine and longer for other specialties). It is a full time career really having worked in medicine in the 1960s and again in the 1990s-up to mid 2006. The difference in medicine between the 1960s and the 1990s is amazing. I worked in the lab in the 1960s and the miracles of the 70s, 80s, 90s and on into the present have created an enormous difference in the ability of medicine to solve problems and give people a longer lifespan where it would have been much shorter. They haven't cured everything but the inroads they have made into debilitating diseases is tremendous.
Occasionally people ask me (I always think it a bit rude to be honest) when we are going to have grandchildren but honestly there are enough children in the world and if my daughters decide never to have children they have my 100% support. Both of them are in full time careers that require a full time commitment and having children is not a particularly easy option. In the case of my youngest I can not even begin to say how proud I am of her taking on health care even if I would rather she was doing academia/research. Physicians are so desperately needed. They also have my 100% support if they decide to have children but that would be for them with me helping if they need help. The idea that one must have children is somewhat foreign to me. My husband and I enjoy our children now adults but no driving need here for grandchildren. We both have absolutely oodles of cousins/siblings all having children/grandchildren. I already have 4 neices, 3 nephews, 5 great nephews on my side and they are just starting into their child bearing years most of them. Five great nephews from my oldest neice and nephew alone already!
Although we are home all the time and could help out 100% we keep very busy bringing together our genealogies to pass on to our siblings and their descendants; our cousins and their descendants. I have proven back to all of my 3x great grandparents (with the problem discussed below) and I am in the process of proving the 4x great grandparents ( I am now down to missing the full names of 5 and the surnames of 2 of my 4x great grandparents in 7 of my great grandparents lines and for the eighth one (my maternal grandmother) I am missing three but need to find paper proof for the link between my great grandmother Ellen Taylor and the likely parents Thomas Taylor and Ellen Roberts - once that is resolved and if I am correct then I need to find 3 4x great grandparents)). Solving my maternal grandmother is a slowly evolving situation. I have my mtDNA Full Genetic Scan done and still no perfect matches. That may be my clue back along with paper data. I am working on family lore at the moment and where it was easy to locate the information I have accumulated it but do not want to make great expenditure on lines that are not mine.
Just back from an 11.6 km bicycle ride. It is starting to rain now so we were lucky that we went early. Now to bake the cakes and cupcakes for tomorrow. I will wait until tomorrow to ice them so that they have dried out a little but will still be tasty.
Cakes all baked and cooling. The day has passed quickly.
Tomorrow I will ice the cakes and that might just occupy quite a bit of my day.
My youngest daughter started her clinical year at the hospital. She has wanted to be a physician since she was a young child and I have listened to her talk about it all these years. My personal preference for my daughter was that she do a Ph.D. like her older sister (she did do her MSc). However, I have only hinted at that, encouraged the idea of research and supported her every tendency to follow an academic/research career. But in the long run her main interest has always been healing. I am happy for her that she is doing that. Canada has a desperate need for physicians which will still be with us for another ten years or so simply because it takes a long time to graduate doctors (4 years of medical school, minimum of three years of residency for Family Medicine and longer for other specialties). It is a full time career really having worked in medicine in the 1960s and again in the 1990s-up to mid 2006. The difference in medicine between the 1960s and the 1990s is amazing. I worked in the lab in the 1960s and the miracles of the 70s, 80s, 90s and on into the present have created an enormous difference in the ability of medicine to solve problems and give people a longer lifespan where it would have been much shorter. They haven't cured everything but the inroads they have made into debilitating diseases is tremendous.
Occasionally people ask me (I always think it a bit rude to be honest) when we are going to have grandchildren but honestly there are enough children in the world and if my daughters decide never to have children they have my 100% support. Both of them are in full time careers that require a full time commitment and having children is not a particularly easy option. In the case of my youngest I can not even begin to say how proud I am of her taking on health care even if I would rather she was doing academia/research. Physicians are so desperately needed. They also have my 100% support if they decide to have children but that would be for them with me helping if they need help. The idea that one must have children is somewhat foreign to me. My husband and I enjoy our children now adults but no driving need here for grandchildren. We both have absolutely oodles of cousins/siblings all having children/grandchildren. I already have 4 neices, 3 nephews, 5 great nephews on my side and they are just starting into their child bearing years most of them. Five great nephews from my oldest neice and nephew alone already!
Although we are home all the time and could help out 100% we keep very busy bringing together our genealogies to pass on to our siblings and their descendants; our cousins and their descendants. I have proven back to all of my 3x great grandparents (with the problem discussed below) and I am in the process of proving the 4x great grandparents ( I am now down to missing the full names of 5 and the surnames of 2 of my 4x great grandparents in 7 of my great grandparents lines and for the eighth one (my maternal grandmother) I am missing three but need to find paper proof for the link between my great grandmother Ellen Taylor and the likely parents Thomas Taylor and Ellen Roberts - once that is resolved and if I am correct then I need to find 3 4x great grandparents)). Solving my maternal grandmother is a slowly evolving situation. I have my mtDNA Full Genetic Scan done and still no perfect matches. That may be my clue back along with paper data. I am working on family lore at the moment and where it was easy to locate the information I have accumulated it but do not want to make great expenditure on lines that are not mine.
Just back from an 11.6 km bicycle ride. It is starting to rain now so we were lucky that we went early. Now to bake the cakes and cupcakes for tomorrow. I will wait until tomorrow to ice them so that they have dried out a little but will still be tasty.
Cakes all baked and cooling. The day has passed quickly.
Tomorrow I will ice the cakes and that might just occupy quite a bit of my day.
Friday, April 3, 2009
DNA studies
I spent most of yesterday working on updating my various DNA studies that I do either by myself or in a group. The latest phylogenetic chart which was published is quite interesting and I am sure the academic world is now reviewing it with regard to their bank of data. The struggle to reach back and understand time is quite fascinating. I have three perfect coding matches with my mtDNA but I have two mutations in the control region that they do not have and they have two that I do not have. Since these matches are in Ossetia it would appear that we are separated by thousands of years which is most interesting and adds more thought to my hypothesis that my ancestors left the Ukraina Refuge likely as the ice retreated and made their trek across to Scotland via the grassy plain that is now the North Sea. Quite fascinating to contemplate but a recent match HVRI and HVRII with a female line that descends from Scotland traveling to Carlisle cumberland and then Manchester Lancashire before emigrating to Utah is quite fascinating. My own line is brickwalled in the Midlands of England.
I am still contemplating where to begin once again with my data that I brought back from Salt Lake City and will make a decision on that today. I want to have a good deal of this work transcribed by the end of the summer. Then I can return to my fiche that I have purchased in the last year and begin transcription of that material. My tree doesn't grow too much any more but not surprising given that I am working back at the 4x great grandparent level. The progress back will be much slower.
I am still contemplating where to begin once again with my data that I brought back from Salt Lake City and will make a decision on that today. I want to have a good deal of this work transcribed by the end of the summer. Then I can return to my fiche that I have purchased in the last year and begin transcription of that material. My tree doesn't grow too much any more but not surprising given that I am working back at the 4x great grandparent level. The progress back will be much slower.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Tennis Elbow improving
I really relaxed the last couple of days and my tennis elbow is rapidly disappearing. I rather think by midweek I will be back at typing again for hours on end! This time I will type for two hours and then take breaks though. I was just so intent on completing the Bishops Nympton Parish Registers :)
Continuing to read and I completed Ann Gibbons book. I found it most fascinating and will continue reading in that vein. Knowing ones ancestors is a marvelous topic to occupy one's retirement days and it is so beneficial to so many. I had an email today from an individual in Tunisia looking for a match on his T2 mtDNA results. I mentioned the FGS study and he is keen to sign up to see what more he can learn. One can not be sure of finding out anything more than one's deep ancestry but sometimes there can be surprises.
Back to reading - I have a book on pilgrimages which I have meant to read for awhile and it too is very interesting.
Continuing to read and I completed Ann Gibbons book. I found it most fascinating and will continue reading in that vein. Knowing ones ancestors is a marvelous topic to occupy one's retirement days and it is so beneficial to so many. I had an email today from an individual in Tunisia looking for a match on his T2 mtDNA results. I mentioned the FGS study and he is keen to sign up to see what more he can learn. One can not be sure of finding out anything more than one's deep ancestry but sometimes there can be surprises.
Back to reading - I have a book on pilgrimages which I have meant to read for awhile and it too is very interesting.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Bishops Nympton Parish Register - 16 February 2009
I continued with the Bishops Nympton Parish Register and have completed the baptisms up to the end of 1824 (three more years (12 pages) until I reach my small block already completed from 1827 to 1837). These are forms now so the information is quite standard although sometimes the priest does name the actual farm that the family lived on - I found my Pincombe line at Park which is where they lived when the four youngest children were born. They lived at West Wood when the four older children were born including my ancestor.
We went skating on the Canal (8 km although we only skated 4.8 km) today and it was a very pleasant day to do so. This is a holiday in Ontario - Family Day so the canal was fairly busy.
I started reading another one of my Christmas books - "The First Human" by Ann Gibbons. Lots of background and I have read the first chapter only. It is interesting reading all of these books in light of the latest revelations with mtDNA and yDNA. Both the maternal and paternal line in my family are fairly unusual making geographic location possible for the mtDNA and somewhat of a mystery for the yDNA although it appears to be a very old English DNA possibly Neolithic. The best matches though are found in the Balkans (9/12) and Poland. But the markers appear to fit in with this very very early branch of I2a as there are others who, like us, do not have any absolute matches.
I am still thinking about my lecture and what I will say. It is just 25 minutes so I will not be saying a great deal. I have to decide if it will be elementary or just a strict look at some family lines. It is difficult to decide although I think I will just do a few family lines since that will interest people who have tested and people who are thinking about testing. This will be my last lecture as I find that it simply takes up too much time being involved with lectures and writing for other people. I want to concentrate on my own research now.
We went skating on the Canal (8 km although we only skated 4.8 km) today and it was a very pleasant day to do so. This is a holiday in Ontario - Family Day so the canal was fairly busy.
I started reading another one of my Christmas books - "The First Human" by Ann Gibbons. Lots of background and I have read the first chapter only. It is interesting reading all of these books in light of the latest revelations with mtDNA and yDNA. Both the maternal and paternal line in my family are fairly unusual making geographic location possible for the mtDNA and somewhat of a mystery for the yDNA although it appears to be a very old English DNA possibly Neolithic. The best matches though are found in the Balkans (9/12) and Poland. But the markers appear to fit in with this very very early branch of I2a as there are others who, like us, do not have any absolute matches.
I am still thinking about my lecture and what I will say. It is just 25 minutes so I will not be saying a great deal. I have to decide if it will be elementary or just a strict look at some family lines. It is difficult to decide although I think I will just do a few family lines since that will interest people who have tested and people who are thinking about testing. This will be my last lecture as I find that it simply takes up too much time being involved with lectures and writing for other people. I want to concentrate on my own research now.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Bishop Nympton Parish Register continued
Another few years of marriages completed for Bishops Nympton to 1790. My word file is now 430 pages long for this entire register. I am slowly converting it to Excel but expect that that task will take me another year. However, I can search on the word file for any queries. It will be next week before I get back to my images from Salt Lake City. Much too busy at the moment.
Submitting my mtDNA to GenBank - I completed it last year but time has slipped by and I am only just now getting it ready to submit. My results have had a profound impact on my entire thinking process with regard to evolution. My matches (coding region since changes occur more rapidly in the control region) are with individuals who currently live in Ossetia. I have two mutations in the control region that they do not have. Given that these same mutations occur in others in the grouping (in several areas in Europe) I am tempted to think that they reverted back. My subgrouping, however, lacks one mutation that is quite common to the group and I wonder if my ancestor left the refuge in Ukraina early on heading for the British Isles via the Scandinavian route since the control region mutations are found in Sweden. Interesting and fascinating as I continue to collect results for my haplogroup.
I started my submission for my Certified Genealogist (CG) to the Board of Certified Genealogists in the United States. I prepared my four generation chart and decided to start with my maternal grandfather as I have collected the most information on this line and it makes for an interesting story. I could do my own four generation chart but I still am lacking sufficient paperwork identification (other than family hearsay) between my maternal maternal great grandmother and her parents. I decided to wait on my application because I am relatively new to the field of Genealogy having just started in 2003 when I decided to take 42 courses from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies in English and Canadian Studies including Methodology. I graduated in English Studies in May 2007 and in Canadian Studies in August 2007. I felt that I needed to visit a few more repositories and do some more case studies before I could go ahead and apply for my CG.
Submitting my mtDNA to GenBank - I completed it last year but time has slipped by and I am only just now getting it ready to submit. My results have had a profound impact on my entire thinking process with regard to evolution. My matches (coding region since changes occur more rapidly in the control region) are with individuals who currently live in Ossetia. I have two mutations in the control region that they do not have. Given that these same mutations occur in others in the grouping (in several areas in Europe) I am tempted to think that they reverted back. My subgrouping, however, lacks one mutation that is quite common to the group and I wonder if my ancestor left the refuge in Ukraina early on heading for the British Isles via the Scandinavian route since the control region mutations are found in Sweden. Interesting and fascinating as I continue to collect results for my haplogroup.
I started my submission for my Certified Genealogist (CG) to the Board of Certified Genealogists in the United States. I prepared my four generation chart and decided to start with my maternal grandfather as I have collected the most information on this line and it makes for an interesting story. I could do my own four generation chart but I still am lacking sufficient paperwork identification (other than family hearsay) between my maternal maternal great grandmother and her parents. I decided to wait on my application because I am relatively new to the field of Genealogy having just started in 2003 when I decided to take 42 courses from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies in English and Canadian Studies including Methodology. I graduated in English Studies in May 2007 and in Canadian Studies in August 2007. I felt that I needed to visit a few more repositories and do some more case studies before I could go ahead and apply for my CG.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 9 Dec 2008
Reading Adam's Curse by Bryan Sykes proved to most interesting and I have completed almost half of the book now. Little summaries of the Seven Daughters of Eve and Saxons, Vikings and Celts appear throughout the book and are most helpful otherwise I would have had to sit there with all three books since he does refer back to his earlier research whilst bringing in later research work. I have the good fortune to have two perfect matches at the HVRI level on his Blood of the Isles Database and these two individuals are located in Argyll Scotland. On the Oxford Ancestors Database I have three similar matches and these individuals (2 female, 1 male) are all located in Ireland. Matching me at both the HVRI and HVRII level I have four individuals who all trace their ancestry back to the Scot-Irish migration to the Carolinas in 1772 from County Antrim Ireland. The one ancestress was Rebecca Martin who married Alexander Pedan and so her ancestry from that point downward is well recorded. The Pedan family were Scot Irish but the Martin family appears in Ireland and Scotland. The leader of the trip was the Reverend William Martin but any association between these two people is unknown at this point in time. Another match that I have interestingly enough is with an individual known to have been in Sweden for centuries. Then with my Full Genetic Scan I have two individuals who match me (except for two in the Control Region) perfectly and they are in Ossetia. Not matching in the Control Region is interesting because this is where change occurs and one wonders if my group left before a particular mutation occurred which, if provable, would give one a peak into the past with regard to the migration of their ancestor to Neolithic Britain. I co-administer the H11 project at FT-DNA and we have over 1/3rd of our people with completed FGS - no matches for me yet but interesting results for others.
Today I continue with transcribing the Chittlehampton Parish Registers that I photographed at Salt Lake City. The Pincombe information is most interesting to me but I decided to build an excel file of all the pages that I photographed although it is not complete. It will give me a birds eye view of the parish in several time periods and, at a later date, I can purchase the parish registers for Chittlehampton if I feel it is warranted.
Today I continue with transcribing the Chittlehampton Parish Registers that I photographed at Salt Lake City. The Pincombe information is most interesting to me but I decided to build an excel file of all the pages that I photographed although it is not complete. It will give me a birds eye view of the parish in several time periods and, at a later date, I can purchase the parish registers for Chittlehampton if I feel it is warranted.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 26 Nov 2008
Returned to work on my images from Salt Lake City and transcribed ten of the Protestation Returns for Eskdale Ward in Cumberland. I approached the Cumbria Journal newsletter editor and she is interested in publishing these lists over time. I sent her the Lanercost list for her perusal. It is especially interesting because the parish records for Lanercost begin in the 1660s and this particular list of names takes you back to 1641-42. Along with the manor records it is possible to go back further in this parish. My images have been quite good and the transcription is fairly satisfactory. I continue proofreading all the documents transcribed thus far. I still have several to do including Brampton which is particularly large.
I also have spent time on FamilySearch transcribing. I am working on the 1916 Canadian census. The images are quite good but the handwriting is particularly dreadful especially with the non-English names. I am following WYSIWYG though and I will try to do at least five census pages a week. I want to get back to doing my FreeBMD transcriptions as well. This past year has played havoc with my "work."
The French Canadian ancestry proved to be most interesting and I just need to get some verification of what I found so that I know that I am on the right track. It is interesting working on ancestry where the records are all there at your fingertips on Ancestry or other websites. These families have been on this side of the Atlantic since the early to mid 1600s.
Updated my T2 haplogroup DNA study although can not get into the server to upload the new pages to my personal webpage. My husband has two perfect matches of his full genetic scan and one of them is from England and this family has remained on the other side of the Atlantic so nearly 400 years separate their two lines - mtDNA is very very slow moving and this is yet another proof of that. There is a possibility that the line in England was originally in The Netherlands in the early 1700s which would be quite interesting. My husband's maternal line is brick-walled in Newport Rhode Island in 1654. No idea yet whether the wife of Robert Carr was from England or somewhere else as he emigrated (with his brother) to the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1635. They had a falling out with the Puritan group there and moved on to Rhode Island for freedom of religion in the mid 1640s and he likely married there. The possibility of marrying someone from other than England remains quite high although she could have been English. This match may be a ballpark answer - remains to be seen. His other match the line was in New Jersey which is where his ancestress lived as an adult (all of her family - sisters included - moved on to New Jersey in the late 1600s).
I also have spent time on FamilySearch transcribing. I am working on the 1916 Canadian census. The images are quite good but the handwriting is particularly dreadful especially with the non-English names. I am following WYSIWYG though and I will try to do at least five census pages a week. I want to get back to doing my FreeBMD transcriptions as well. This past year has played havoc with my "work."
The French Canadian ancestry proved to be most interesting and I just need to get some verification of what I found so that I know that I am on the right track. It is interesting working on ancestry where the records are all there at your fingertips on Ancestry or other websites. These families have been on this side of the Atlantic since the early to mid 1600s.
Updated my T2 haplogroup DNA study although can not get into the server to upload the new pages to my personal webpage. My husband has two perfect matches of his full genetic scan and one of them is from England and this family has remained on the other side of the Atlantic so nearly 400 years separate their two lines - mtDNA is very very slow moving and this is yet another proof of that. There is a possibility that the line in England was originally in The Netherlands in the early 1700s which would be quite interesting. My husband's maternal line is brick-walled in Newport Rhode Island in 1654. No idea yet whether the wife of Robert Carr was from England or somewhere else as he emigrated (with his brother) to the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1635. They had a falling out with the Puritan group there and moved on to Rhode Island for freedom of religion in the mid 1640s and he likely married there. The possibility of marrying someone from other than England remains quite high although she could have been English. This match may be a ballpark answer - remains to be seen. His other match the line was in New Jersey which is where his ancestress lived as an adult (all of her family - sisters included - moved on to New Jersey in the late 1600s).
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