Paris and a Trip Down the Seine

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Roberta Estes

I lived in Europe in 1970 for a few months. During that time, I visited Paris for an extended stay, and as a student, loved it. I was so looking forward to going back an visiting, with an adult perspective, and maybe seeing some of my old haunts along the Seine River.

Since then, I have also discovered that one of my ancestors was born in Paris as well – Jacques “dit Beaumont” de Bonnevie. You’ll meet him in a future article. I was connected to Paris ancestrally and couldn’t wait to revisit with that in mind. I had been looking forward to this port since we first booked the trip.

The day finally arrived and began before sunrise in the quaint Port of LeHavre, above, the closest port location to Paris for big ships like the Carnival Legend.

Hmmm, not really sure what this is. A warning to invaders maybe?

Some areas were extremely foggy, creating some very interesting early-morning effects. Perhaps something like this is what my ancestors saw in the French countryside. Difficult to photograph from a moving bus though.

The ride to Paris was a long one, several hours, so I decided I was going to enjoy the beautiful French countryside. Except, it wasn’t remarkable. It looked much like the Midwest in the US – just kind of nondescript. We didn’t pass through any villages because we were of course on the major road that bypassed villages. Eventually, I fell asleep, looking forward to arriving in Paris. And in fact, when I woke up, we were greeted with a view of the iconic Eiffel Tower. How’s that for a wake-up call!

Our first stop was not at the Eiffel Tower, per se, but at a location where you could get a photo of the tower. The tower is so large that you can’t take a photo of the tower at the tower. Unfortunately, we only had 15 minutes and no opportunity to visit the tower itself. Disappointing.

From there we went on a driving tour of Paris.

Having visited Paris for some time in 1970, many of the places looked familiar, but a lot has been updated as well.

One thing unique to Paris is the marquis type of structures on the streets. Movies, plays and sometimes just local or neighborhood events or signs are posted here. In 1970 – lost dog, need a guitar player on Friday night for a pickup band and beer on sale from 4-7 in the local beer gardens. On a good day, in 1970, the band and the beers on sale were in the same place and some handsome young man was flirting….but I digress. Ah, I loved Paris in 1970. For that matter, I loved all of Europe in 1970, but that’s a story for another time. And, in case you’re wondering, I was STUDYING there. Yes, studying. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Here’s a more contemporary marquis.

Photos were difficult due to the glass and glare in the bus windows. The good news is that we did have sun, not rain, but the down side is that it created glare.

The Arc de Triomphe celebrates French victories and honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

The Fountain of River Commerce in La Place de la Concorde, a plaza rich with French history, and the Obelisk of Luxor in the distance.

The Louvre, with its contemporary pyramid, which wasn’t built yet in 1970. I understand that the entry line for the palace is hours long. It is a fantastic art museum and I would highly recommend a visit if at all possible.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stop at any of these locations.

And the traffic, did I mention the traffic??

The Eiffel Tower is ever-present in Paris. The city’s tallest structure, you can orient yourself if you can find this structure on the skyline. We did that a lot in 1970. Paris’s streets are not laid out in a grid, and it’s easy to get lost.

For example, here is a satellite view of the streets radiating from the Arc de Triomphe.

Erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World’s Fair, the Eiffel Tower was initially criticized by some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world.

We were told the story of one Parisian man who disliked the tower, felt that it was not warm and charming but cold and ugly. He went and had coffee underneath the tower every day. When asked why he did that, since he hated the tower, he replied that when sitting under it, you can’t see it, but everyplace else in Paris, it’s on the horizon someplace.

One of the things I didn’t get to do as a student in 1970 was to take one of the Seine River boat rides. It was just out of my financial reach at that time. But this tour included a river cruise and lunch. You can see one of the cruise boats plying the waters of the Seine below. This photo is just so quintessentially Paris – the river which is the heartbeat of Paris, bridges and church spires in the distance.

We boarded the boat and we were fortunate enough to actually get a seat for the lunch where we had access to a window. Unfortunately, this boat wasn’t one that you could go upstairs where there was no glass between you and the sights. I couldn’t escape glare on the glass.

When I was in Paris before, I loved Notre Dame – just loved it. May of the students hung out on the rather bohemian left bank, La Rive Gauche, with its artists, cafes and booksellers, just across from Notre Dame. The cathedral was open all the time and welcoming of visitors, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. I suspect it still is, but seeing it again was like seeing an old friend. I so longed to walk over the bridge to the cathedral and visit again. But time ashore wasn’t included in the day’s itinerary.

Above, Notre Dame from the river just below the cathedral. It’s quite in imposing structure and considering that it was built beginning in 1163, amazing indeed.

One thing of note is that the French were extremely, exceedingly rude. We had been warned about this, but I hadn’t experienced it in 1970 and I figured it was probably exaggerated. It wasn’t exaggerated and it was very pronounced. I was very surprised. This is not something we have experienced on our side trips before and I suspect Carnival strives to avoid anything like that. But on the boat, the waiters couldn’t be described as anything else.

So basically, we ignored them and had fun anyway. We were fortunate enough to have a lunch partner couple who were also camera bugs and he took a good photo of Jim and I. Jim enjoyed the wine. I didn’t so he sacrificed and drank mine for me!

Paris is a city known for her bridges. It’s a city bisected by the Seine river so bridges every few blocks are a must.

Each bridge is unique and beautiful, and a good photo catches a nesting effect of 3 or 4 on down the river.

Art is everyplace, even beneath contemporary bridges. Paris is an incredibly interesting eclectic mixture of old and new with exciting morsels hidden in the most unlikely places – all yours for being observant.

This bridge is quite interesting. Look at the railings.

Some of the bridges in Paris have mesh type railings and they have become iconic locations for lovers to visit and then add a padlock as a type of “forever” symbol of their love. You can see the couples above. The lock is often inscribed with their initials and the key thrown away, symbolizing unbreakable love. The river bottom is probably lined with lock keys.

Here’s a closeup of the Pont des Arts bridge, above, compliments of Wiki.

Unfortunately, the combined weight of these locks on a structure that wasn’t intended to support it has caused the collapse of part of the structure in some places.

The Seine in Paris has a very social element. There are walkways and stairs all along, and they are regularly used. In 1970, we sat, drank coffee and tea, talked and read by the river. We strolled and chatted, visiting merchant shops and stalls. Sometimes we walked alone and people-watched. Paris is and was extremely cosmopolitan. It looks like people are doing much the same things today.

You just never know who you’re going to see riding by…maybe an ancestor…

The perspective from the river is certainly different than anyplace on land. This is much more authentic to what our ancestors would have seen – minus the cars and hubbub that the walls block.

As we return down the Seine, we see Notre Dame in the distance again.

In the center of Paris is an island, Île de la Cité, the heart and origin of Paris. You can see the islands on the right and the location of the Eiffel Tower, at left, as well.

A this point, the river splits and flows on either side of the island. Of course, Notre Dame is on the left.

I have no idea about the orange building…but it was very interesting and creative, and you can’t miss it. No question about directions either – “go to the orange building and turn left.”

Coming full circle now.

Back to the Eiffel tower.

France is culturally different than any of the other countries in Europe. It feels different. The people are different. One aspect that stands out, other than their obvious dislike of tourists, are their laws about DNA testing.

Any paternity testing without a court order is banned, due to the official desire to “preserve the peace” within French families, with the French government citing psychologists who state that fatherhood is determined by society rather than biology. French men apparently don’t agree and often circumvent these laws by sending samples of DNA to foreign laboratories, but risk prosecution if caught. The maximum penalty for carrying out secret paternity testing is a whopping one year in prison and a €15,000 fine.

This argument for preserving the peace is in direct conflict with why people undertake paternity testing elsewhere. And not to be undone by the law, there has been a boom in DNA testing on kits from France in adjacent countries.

Of course, DNA testing for genealogy (as does medical testing) certainly has the potential to indicate, quickly and easily, if a father and son are not related, both utilizing the Y tests and the autosomal tests – even if that’s not the intended purpose. Therefore today, in genetic genealogy, we rely on those who have moved away from France or are the descendants of a group like the Acadians to represent French families. For people having French heritage, this is a very frustrating situation.

So if your matches map at Family Tree DNA has a big blank spot with no or few balloons in France – don’t presume that there’s a message about your ancestors. The message could well be a modern one having to do with French laws and not ancestral migrations.

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Stop and Smell the Flowers

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Some days DNA is just such fun. My cousin, Marja, Facebooked me and suggested that I check and see if I carried the Neanderthal SNP for heightened smell. Now, being a DNA junkie, of course, I had to do just that.

It turns out that our DNA location Rs6591536, if coded with G, increases our odor sensitivity – a characteristic shared by our Neanderthal cousins.

I would certainly think that heightened smell would enhance chances of survival. Although, in contemporary society, I’m not sure heightened smell is that much of a blessing. Floral is fine, some others odors aren’t and heightened sensitivity to smell knows no boundaries. To me, some smells are simply overwhelming – like a candle or potpourri shop, or someone who took a bath in perfume, for example. On the other hand, there is just nothing that compares to lavender.

To find out, I checked my raw data files. In fact, I checked both mine and my mother’s raw data files. Let’s take a look.

This shows that Mom carried nucleotides AA and I carry AG. G provides me with the enhanced odor sensitivity. Clearly, Mom didn’t have a G to give me, so this tells me that I received this trait from my father, not my mother. So something I share with my Dad.

Hmmm, now that I think of it, the flowers on my desk have passed their prime….I can tell by the way they smell!

Marja is preparing a presentation related to Neanderthal DNA. I love this type of exploratory science. I hope that she will present her findings in November at the Genetic Genealogy Conference in Houston. It’s fun getting to know yourself, your parents, and your Neanderthal cousins.

Curious about how much and which specific DNA locations you might carry from our Neanderthal ancestors? You’re in luck, courtesy of Marja and SNPedia….here’s a list.

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Elisabetha Mehlheimer (c1800-c1851) and Her Scandinavian Mito-Cousins, 52 Ancestors #24

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Roberta Estes

We know very little about Elisabetha Mehlheimer. Were it not for her daughter’s children’s christening records, we wouldn’t know anything at all.

What do we know? Elisabetha was born probably about 1800, judging from the fact that she had her daughter, Barbara (possibly Maria Barbara), on December 12, 1823. Elisabetha could have been born as early as 1780 or as late as 1810.

We know that Elisabetha lived in Goppsmannbuhl in 1823, because that is where Barbara was born.

We know Elisabetha was dead by 1851.

In the christening record of her daughters second child, born in 1851, Elisabetha is listed as “the former day laborer in Goppsmannsbuhl,” which indicates she is deceased.

We know she was a day laborer. What was a day laborer?

From FamilySearch, we learn the following:

The social hierarchy of a village was determined by the size of farmland and personal property. People with little or no property found themselves at the bottom on the social ranking. These were the sons and daughters of farmers who were not entitled to inherit the farm. The number of people in such predicament grew steadily after the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). They had to work as day laborers or seasonal workers and had to be very creative to make ends meet.

Priests during that timeframe wrote of the deplorable conditions in which day laborers lived. Often, they slept on hay in the corner or loft of a peasant’s home. They have few or no belongings, and lived at only a subsistence level. If they did live in a separate “house,” it was often a poorly made shack on the periphery of the village. Their children left home as quickly as possible to work for themselves or to marry.

There was an entire underclass of day laborers, a significant social notch below peasants who tended to live on and work the same homestead generation after generation. Sometimes day laborers were younger children who stood to inherit nothing. Day laborers often moved from place to place, so can be especially difficult to track genealogically.

Wonderful, just wonderful – Germanic cultural gypsies.

Perhaps Barbara Mehlheimer’s status as a servant was a step up from her mother’s status as a day-laborer. No wonder opportunities in America looked so wonderful.

We know Elisabetha was never married.

In that 1851 christening record, Elisabetha’s surname is listed as Mehlheimerin which indicates she never married and she gave her daughter her maiden name. In German naming practices, the “in” is appended to show a maiden name. Since her daughter’s surname was also Mehlheimer, we know that Elisabetha was not married, at least not when she gave birth to Barbara.

Elisabetha’s daughter, Barbara, was an unmarried servant, so it’s not an unlikely stretch that Elisabetha was in the same social structural class.

The only other clue we have to any possible family connection is that the witnesses to the christenings of Barbara’s two children born in Germany were Barbara Krauss of Windeschenlaiback (today probably Windischeschenbach) and Margaretha Kunnath of Berneck.

Barbara Mehlheimer also was not married at the time she gave birth, so it’s likely that these women were related to her and not to the child’s father. They may have been her sisters, aunts or first cousins. Barbara ultimately immigrated to the US, with both children and did marry the father, George Drechsel (Americanized to Drexler.)

The State Archives in Amberg, Germany, found in a record for the administration of the upper Palatinate that Barbara Mehlheimer of Goppmansbuhl am Berg received permission to emigrate with her two illegitimate children, as well as Georg Drechsler from Speichersdorf, on April 18, 1852.

If Barbara’s mother, Elisabetha, had died, Barbara would have had no reason to remain in Germany when opportunity in the US beckoned.

George Drechsel and Barbara Melhheimer were married shortly after their arrival in the US, on the same say George Drechsel applied for US citizenship. They must have been very happy.

According to the Reverend who found these christening records for me in the church in Wirbenz, Germany, Barbara and George probably had to immigrate to be allowed to marry. He commented on how brave this young couple must have been. In Germany, a young man had to prove he could support his family before he was allowed to marry. Immigrating to America at that time was the social equivalent of eloping. George would have had to work long and hard enough to save enough for both his and her passage, and those of their two children. This was likely their only opportunity, and they seized it, marrying at their first opportunity. Marriage is a right we take for granted today, but one they risked their lives and fortunes to obtain.

This could also explain why Elisabetha never married. Her child’s father couldn’t prove he could support a family.

There were no further records pertaining to Elisabetha in the church in Wirbenz where Barbara’s children’s records were found. The church in Wirbenz is the church closest to Goppsmannbuhl.

I was unable to find any record of either Barbara Krauss or Margaretha Kunnath, but I was able to find both locations mentioned. They seem to be about equidistant in either opposite directions from Goppmansbuhl.

You can also see Speichersdorf, located just beneath the Goppmansbuhl label.

Here is the little village of Goppmansbuhl, today, via satellite and thanks to Google Maps.

In the image below, Goppmansbuhl is at the top, and the little village of Wirbenz, about a mile away, is at the lower right. To put things in perspective, the village of Wirbenz is only about 1000 feet from side to side.

Here is the church in Wirbenz where Barbara’s children were baptized.

Photo by grafuse. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1769873

Did Elisabetha’s view of the church look something like this?

Photo by G. Zapf http://www.panoramio.com/photo/99865838

These are slim pickings for an ancestor – very slim pickings. Perhaps as more records are digitized and transcribed, more information will emerge. We’re dead ended right now, as the church records in Wirbenz don’t provide us with any direction further back in time.

Mitochondrial DNA

The only other thing we know about Elizabetha Mehlheimer is her mitochondrial DNA. Fittingly, it’s just as elusive.

I carry Elisabetha’s mitochondrial DNA, through my mother, and through all females between Elisabetha and me. My children also carry her mitochondrial DNA, but my son’s children carry his wife’s mtDNA and my daughter’s children would continue the line of Elisabetha.

We know that our full haplogroup is J1c2f. We know that haplogroup J, Jasmine, was born in the Middle East some 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. Jasmine’s descendants traveled from the Middle East about the age of the spread of agriculture – and over time, that 4 distinct subgroups, J1, J1c, J1c2 and finally, J1c2f emerged. Dr. Doroh Behar in his paper “A ‘Copernican’ Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA Tree from its Root,” places the age of J1c2f at about 1900 years plus or minus 3000 years. In reality, that means that anything between relatively recently and about 5000 years ago.

This map shows the grouping in the haplogroup J project of J1c (and subgroup) participants. You can see that there are a few in the Middle East, but very few, so most of J1c and her descendants look to be in Europe today.

My own full sequence matches tell a bit of a different story.

My two exact matches aren’t in Germany, they are in Norway. My matches that are one mutation different are found in Sweden, the Czech Republic and Russia. My two mutation match is found in Sweden.

This is confusing. What happened? What is going on?

In total, I have 9 full sequence matches, although not all of them provided the geographical location of their most distant matrilineal ancestor. One individual does not have e-mail, so I can’t exactly ask them.

Of these matches, 3 are exact, 4 have one mutation difference and 2 have two mutations difference. I’m very curious to know which mutations we don’t share. I have to wonder if there is a mappable pattern to the mutations that would infer sublines. I wrote to my mito-cousins and asked if they would share their mutation information. Two responded, the rest did not. Frustrating. This means that I can’t work from the mutation mapping angle.

Time to find a different approach.

Let’s Go Fishing!

There has to be some type of historic connection between Germany and Norway, or the Scandinavian region. Normally, when dealing with Y DNA, we think of warfare. We look at the history of wars and invasions, because soldiers did leave their DNA sprinkled around the countryside where they visited – if they didn’t outright settle there. But mtDNA is different. Women aren’t soldiers and one can’t just leave mtDNA scattered in quite the same way that Y DNA gets left behind. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from the women to all of her children, and is only passed on by the female children. So, generally, where you find the children, you also find the mother – they don’t deposit their DNA and then go back home.

So, let’s poke around and utilize Google and Wiki, our friends. In other words, let’s go fishing and see what we catch.

Bayern aka Bavaria

Bayern, also known as Bavaria, comprises the entire southeast portion of Germany. It borders The Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland along with 4 other German states. Bavaria is divided into 7 regions. Bavaria is one of the oldest continuously existing states in Europe; it was established as a stem duchy in the year 907.

The Bavarians as a people emerged in a region north of the Alps, originally inhabited by the Celts, which had been part of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum.

The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, probably did not migrate from elsewhere. Rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, Heruli. The name “Bavarian” (“Baiuvarii”) means “Men of Baia” which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520. Saint Boniface completed the people’s conversion to Christianity in the early-8th century. Bavaria was, for the most part, unaffected by the Protestant Reformation that happened centuries later.

Wirbenz, Goppmansbuhl and surrounding areas are located in Upper Franconia whose capital is Bayreuth. Upper Franconia was annexed to Bavaria in 1815 and borders the Czech Republic and the German states of Saxony and Thuringia. With more than 200 independent breweries which brew approximately 1000 different types of beer, Upper Franconia has the world’s highest brewery-density per capita. A special Franconian beer route (Fränkische Brauereistraße) leads along popular breweries.

Bavarians tend to place a great value on food and drink. In addition to their renowned dishes, Bavarians also consume many items of food and drink which are unusual elsewhere in Germany; for example Weißwurst (“white sausage”) or in some instances a variety of entrails. Oh yum…

At folk festivals and in many beer gardens, beer is traditionally served by the litre in a Maß, a glass beer mug that holds exactly one litre.

Bavarians are particularly proud of the traditional Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, initially established by the Duke of Bavaria for the City of Munich in 1487 and the duchy in 1516. According to this law, only three ingredients were allowed in beer: water, barley, and hops. Bavarians are also known as some of the world’s most beer-loving people with an average annual consumption of 170 litres per person, although figures have been declining in recent years.

Ok, so now we know that Bavarians aren’t migrants, but the original people of the region and they not only love beer, they are very good brewmeisters.

Bayern is part of Upper Franconia, so…

Who were the Franconians?

Franconia is named after the Franks, a Germanic tribe who conquered most of Western Europe by the middle of the 8th century. Though one might assume that Franconia was the homeland of the Franks (indeed in German, Franken is used for both modern day Franconians and the historic Franks), this is not the case. Until the 6th century AD, the region of today’s Franconia was probably dominated by Alamanni and Thuringians. After the Frankish triumphs over both tribes around 507 and 529–534, most parts were occupied by the Franks.

Ok, so Franconians could be Alamanni, Thuringians or Franks.

The Frankish Empire (at its greatest extent around the year 800) included most of modern Franconia, which was situated at its easternmost borders. The vast majority of ethnic Franks, divided between Salians and Ripuarians, were confined respectively to the Low Countries, the northeastern tip of modern France and the Rhine river banks all the way down to near the Main and Hesse areas. However, there was a Frankish elite which was dispersed all across the empire, and it is from this elite that Franconia derives its name.

Hmmm, I wonder where else they might have been dispersed to…

Around the 9th century Frankish identity gradually changed from an ethnic identity to a national identity. The original ethnic Franks ceased to be called by others and themselves Franks, whereas certain groups of people who were not Franks but were mostly ruled by Frankish nobility now began to use it as a term to describe their respective land and people. At the beginning of the 10th century a Duchy of Franconia (German Herzogtum Franken) was established within East Francia, which comprised modern Hesse, Palatinate, parts of Baden-Württemberg and most of today’s Franconia. These areas had been dominated and settled by the Burgundians and the Alemanni before being removed and resettled much further south around Switzerland. The vacuum left may have been resettled then by some Frankish nobles with some more or less numerous retainers from their original core area.

A vacuum? I wonder who actually did settle there. This is an opportunity and possibility for how Elisabetha’s mtDNA got to Germany.

While Old Bavaria is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, Franconia is a mixed area. Lower Franconia and the western half of Upper Franconia (Bamberg, Lichtenfels, Kronach) is predominantly Catholic, while most of Middle and the eastern half of Upper Franconia (Bayreuth, Hof, Kulmbach) are predominantly Protestant (Evangelical Church in Germany).

Elisabetha’s records were found in a Protestant church.

Now we know more about this region of Germany, and there does seem to be some opportunity for resettlement here around the year 1000, and we also see that some Franks were settled elsewhere, in particular, the elite. But still, that doesn’t connect us to Scandinavia.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of historical Scandinavia, in particular, the locations where my mtDNA matches are found.

Loten, Norway

There has been traffic from east to west through Løten, throughout all recorded periods of history and archeological evidence supports earlier trade along this route.

When King Christian IV of Denmark prohibited the importation of German beer in the early 17th Century, distillation began in Norway. In 1624, distilled alcohol was prohibited at weddings, and by 1638 King Christian forbade the clergy the right to distill in their own homes. The corn-growing districts of Løten, Vang (the former municipality in Hedmark), and Romedal all became famous for their distilleries.

Within Løten lies the “border” between cultivated farmland and the winderness. It begins with the wheat fields of the lower eastern Norway, continues around and south of lake Mjøsa, and borders the taiga, the boreal coniferous forests that stretches from eastern Norway until Siberia. The moorland Hedmarksvidda lies in the north.

So, Loten was a trade route, and Norway imported beer until in the 1600s. This timeframe would have been during the 30 Years War in Germany. Now that beer connection is quite interesting, because it tells us that trade between the two locations was indeed healthy and prosperous, at least until 1624. And we already know that Bayern was the heart of beer production in Germany.

Let’s look at Christian IV, King of Denmark.

Christian IV – King of Denmark

Christian IV was King of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death in 1648.

He was quite interested in the Thirty Years’ War in Germany where his objectives were twofold: first, to obtain control of the great German rivers— the Elbe and the Weser— as a means of securing his dominion of the northern seas; and secondly, to acquire the secularized German Archdiocese of Bremen and Prince-Bishopric of Verden as appanages for his younger sons. He skillfully took advantage of the alarm of the German Protestants after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, to secure coadjutorship of the See of Bremen for his son Frederick (September 1621). A similar arrangement was reached in November at Verden. Hamburg was also induced to acknowledge the Danish overlordship of Holstein by the compact of Steinburg in July 1621.

Interesting, but this all took place in the northern part of Germany, so probably not relevant to Bavaria which is located in the southwest quadrant of Germany.

Sweden

Sweden, however, was another matter. In 1631, Sweden invaded Bavaria. Over the following months, they decimated Germany, destroying up to 2000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns. That’s equivalent to one third of all German settlements. While this was a horrific development, it doesn’t explain how Scandinavian mtDNA might have arrived in Germany. There is no record that the soldiers brought any women with them. It did however, prove extremely disruptive to the region and may have opened the door for new settlers in some locations.

Let’s take a look at the next location where a full sequence match is located.

Inderoy, Norway

The municipality is primarily an agricultural community, but also has some industry.

The municipality is named Inderøy which comes from the Old Norse form of the name: Eynni iðri, meaning is “the inner island”, probably referring to the peninsula which sticks out into the fjord.

During the Middle Ages Inderøy was called Eynni iðri, meaning the inner island, which is still the meaning of the word Inderøy. Saurshaug (now Sakshaug) was an important political centre until the 20th century. In the Middle Ages it was the centre of the county

During the late Middle Ages and until the breakup of the union between Sweden and Norway Inderøy was the seat of the Governor, Judge, and Tax Collector of Nordre Trondhjems amt, thus it was the county capital of what now is known as Nord-Trøndelag. The Trondhjems, shown below in red, is an area that abuts Sweden and divides Norway in half, north to south. It was important prior to and in the Viking age, but was almost entirely depopulated during the 1300s. The Sami people and others repopulated this region over the next two centuries. All of my Scandinavian matches, except one, are in proximity to this region.

Just as this article was ready to go to press, I received another full sequence match and it is also found in this region, in Nesna, just above the red area, in the fjords, on an island. This is just beneath the Arctic Circle.

We know that haplogroup J1c2f is not Sami, so this is not the source of our ancestors.

Let’s take a look at the areas in Sweden where my matches are found.

Strand, Strom, Sweden (Stronsund)

Strand is a very small village in Sweden whose claim to fame is that it has the largest population of black bears.

Laxsjo, where my second Swedish match’s ancestors are located is too small to even be called a village. Both are located in Jämtland, which was originally an autonomous peasant republic, its own nation with its own law, currency and parliament. However, Jämtland lacked a public administration and is thus best regarded as an anarchy, in its true meaning.

Jämtland was conquered by Norway in 1178 and stayed Norwegian for over 450 years until it was ceded to Sweden in 1645. The province has since been Swedish for roughly 350 years, though the population did not gain Swedish citizenship until 1699.

Historically, socially and politically Jämtland has been a special territory between Norway and Sweden. This in itself is symbolized in the province’s coat of arms where Jämtland, the silver moose, is threatened from the east and from the west. During the unrest period in Jämtland’s history (1563–1677) it shifted alignment between the two states no less than 13 times. These historical and cultural bonds to Trøndelag and Härjedalen have expressed themselves in the name Øst-Trøndelag, in addition to the fact that the Jamts historically never considered themselves to be Swedish Norrlanders.

Jämtland’s name derives from its inhabitants, the Jamts. The name can be traced back to Europe’s northernmost runestone, the Frösö Runestone from the 11th century. The root of Jamt (Old West Norse: jamti), and thus Jämtland, derives from the Proto-Germanic word stem emat- meaning persistent, efficient, enduring and hardworking.

Aha, so the work Jamtland has a Germanic origin.

A Jamtish Neolithic culture emerged during late Roman Iron Age (about the year 400) in Storsjöbygden, although the hunter-gatherers had come in contact with this lifestyle long before they settled down themselves. Since the hunts were rich and successful in Jämtland, it took a long time before a change occurred.

During the Viking age, the settlement in the province grew. This confirms the sagas written by Snorri Sturluson, where he narrates about the Vikings who fled from Harald Fairhair and Norway in about the year 900 and took residence in Jämtland, just like many Norwegians at the same time fled and colonized Iceland.

This makes me wonder if some of them fled into Germany as well.

Religiously the Jamts had abandoned the indigenous Germanic tribal religion in favour of the Norse faith. Aha, so apparently the Jamts themselves were descendants of Germanic tribes.

As the population continued to grow, the Jamts established an Thing (assembly), just like other Germanic tribes. Jamtamót, the assembly of Jamtland, came into existence shortly after the world’s oldest parliament, the Icelandic Althing, which was instituted in 930 CE.

Norse religion is a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe.

Knowledge of Norse religion is mostly drawn from the results of archaeological field work, etymology and early written materials.

The literary sources that reference Norse paganism were written after the religion had declined and Christianity had taken hold, so it wasn’t painted in a positive way. The vast majority of this came from 13th century Iceland, where Christianity had taken longest to gain hold because of its remote location.

Many other ideographic and iconographic motifs which may portray the religious beliefs of the Pre-Viking and Viking Norse are depicted on runestones, which were usually erected as markers or memorial stones. These memorial stones usually were not placed in proximity to a body, and many times there is an epitaph written in runes to memorialize a deceased relative. This practice continued well into the process of Christianization. Most, but not all of the runestones are found in Sweden. Many runestones tell of the demise of an individual in England, probably on raids.

Like most pre-modern peoples, Norse society was divided into several classes and the early Norse practiced slavery in earnest.

Slavery – I wonder if a female slave could have been brought from Germany at some point.

One of the first things Tacitus mentions in his work Germania is that the Germanic people treasure their animals above all else. Tacitus also concludes that the Germanic people found cultivation repulsive. Instead, he states, the Germanic people devote themselves to food and sleep and besides that they prefer to remain idle. All of this, to certain extents, applied to Jämtland. When the people of Jämtland settled down they relied mostly on pastoralism. Their animals were the source of wealth and they were therefore loved by their owners.

It looks like the original people of this region were Germanic. However, my closest matches aren’t in Germany, where Elisabetha was found, but in Scandinavia.

Did the Vikings later raid and perhaps settle in the Bayern region of Germany?

The Vikings

The Vikings seem to be everyplace in Europe – and they were – so long as there were rivers. This part of Germany seems to have escaped most of the Viking’s wrath – so it’s unlikely that the mtDNA in Germany is a result of a Viking excursion.

Conversely, it’s certainly possible that a Viking took a shine to one of his prisoners and took a nice German girl as a slave or wife – and back to Scandinavia with him.

It appears the Vikings are an un likely migration source relative to Bavaria/Bayern/Franconia.

So, if the Scandinavians were Germanic people, who were the Germanic peoples?

Germanic Peoples

The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic, Suebian or Gothic in older literature) are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic starting during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

The term “Germanic” originated in classical times, when groups of tribes were referred to using this term by Roman authors. For them, the term was not necessarily based upon language, but rather referred to tribal groups and alliances who were considered less civilized, and more physically hardened, than the Celtic Gauls living in the region of modern France. Tribes referred to as Germanic in that period lived generally to the north and east of the Gauls.

In modern times the term occasionally has been used to refer to ethnic groups who speak a Germanic language and claim ancestral and cultural connections to ancient Germanic people. Within this context, modern Germanic peoples include the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, Germans, Austrians, English, Dutch, Afrikaners, Flemish, Frisians and others.

This confirms that Scandinavians are considered Germanic.

Prior to the Middle Ages, Germanic peoples followed what is now referred to as Germanic paganism: “a system of interlocking and closely interrelated religious worldviews and practices rather than as one indivisible religion” and as such consisted of “individual worshippers, family traditions and regional cults within a broadly consistent framework. It was polytheistic in nature, with some underlying similarities to other Indo-Germanic traditions.

Many of the deities found in Germanic paganism appeared under similar names across the Germanic peoples, most notably the god known to the Germans as Wodan or Wotan, to the Anglo-Saxons as Woden, and to the Norse as Óðinn, as well as the god Thor – known to the Germans as Donar, to the Anglo-Saxons as Þunor and to the Norse as Þórr.

While the Germanic peoples were slowly converted to Christianity by varying means, many elements of the pre-Christian culture and indigenous beliefs remained firmly in place after the conversion process, particularly in the more rural and distant regions.

In Scandinavia, Germanic paganism continued to dominate until the 11th century in the form of Norse paganism, when it was gradually replaced by Christianity.

Gamla Uppsala, the center of Norse worship in Sweden, with three “royal” mounds representing the three Gods, Thor, Odin and Feyr, is shown below.

Below, the same mounds are shown about 1700.

Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Proto-Indo-European speaking Battle-Axe peoples migrated to Norway bringing domesticated horses, agriculture, cattle and wheel technology to the region.

During the Viking age, Harald Fairhair unified the Norse petty kingdoms after being victorious at the The Battle of Hafrsfjord in the 880s. Two centuries of Viking expansion tapered off following the decline of Norse paganism with the adoption of Christianity in the 11th century. During The Black Death, approximately 60% of the population died and in 1397 Norway entered a union with Denmark.

This may be our answer, but was there back immigration into Germany? Exact matches should indicate a common ancestor in a time frame closer than 5000 years ago, according to the haplogroup age estimates of Dr. Behar.

Norway and The Netherlands

During the 17th and 18th centuries, many Norwegians emigrated to the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam. The Netherlands was the second most popular destination for Norwegian emigrants after Denmark.

Loosely estimated, some 10% of the population may have emigrated, in a period when the entire Norwegian population consisted of some 800,000 people.

The Norwegians left with the Dutch trade ships that when in Norway traded for timber, hides, herring and stockfish (dried codfish). Young women took employment as maids in Amsterdam.

Barbara Melhleimer was a servant in the mid-1800s where her children were baptized.

Young men took employment as sailors. Large parts of the Dutch merchant fleet and navy came to consist of Norwegians and Danes. They took Dutch names, so no trace of Norwegian names can be found in the Dutch population of today.

The emigration to the Netherlands was so devastating to the homelands that the Danish-Norwegian king issued penalties of death for emigration, but repeatedly had to issue amnesties for those willing to return, announced by posters in the streets of Amsterdam. Increasingly, Dutchmen who search their genealogical roots turn to Norway. Many Norwegians who emigrated to the Netherlands, and often were employed in the Dutch merchant fleet, emigrated further to the many Dutch colonies such as New Amsterdam (New York).

Genetics

According to the paper, “Different Genetic Components in the Norwegian population revealed by the analysis of mtDNA and Y Chromosome Polymorphisms” by Passarino (2002), both mtDNA and Y chromosome polymorphisms showed a noticeable genetic affinity between the Norwegian population and other ethnic groups in Northern and Central Europe, particularly with the Germans. This is due to a history of at least a thousand years of large-scale migration both in and out of Norway. Norwegian and Swedish Y and mtDNA is closer to Germans than any other European region. The authors expressed the following opinion relative to haplogroup J.

Haplogroup J, possibly brought to Europe by Neolithic farmers coming from the Near East is found at a frequency of 10% in our sample. It has also been reported elsewhere at 7% in Norway. Given its frequency in Northern and Central Europe, it is likely it has been brought by the Germanic migrations to Norway. As previously noted, the distribution of this haplogroup throughout Northern Europe indicates that during the spread of agriculture women moved throughout Europe, crossing group and cultural barriers more so than men. In addition, any asymmetric cultural factors that reduce the effective population size of men relative to women would influence the geographic patterns of mtDNA lineages relative to Y haplotypes.

Positive selection is also a possible influence. The presence of mtDNA haplogroup J in our sample, and elsewhere in Northern Europe shows that its frequency in Norway is even higher than in those areas from where it probably arrived. It would be intriguing, although very speculative, to hypothesise that the climate of Northern Europe may have played a selective pressure where the uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation and the consequent higher production of heat in J individuals may have led to an advantage, as previously suggested for the European groups during the glaciations.

Glory be, hot flashes might have been good for something after all!

In Summary

I compared the raw results in the Passarino paper with my own results. Of the mutations included in that paper, which did not include any coding region mutations, I carry only two, 16069 and 16126. These were reported in every haplogroup J result, where the other 9 mutations were only found in a maximum of two participants each.

It looks very likely, barring new evidence, such as church records that say that Elisabetha Mehlheimer, or her mother, were from Scandinavia and immigrated in the 1600s or 1700s, that we’re going to have to assume the common ancestor of Elisabetha Mehlheimer and my matches lived in Germanic Europe. Given the match below, she may have even lived in Russia, between the Black and Caspian Seas, and her descendants may have migrated to the region now known as Germany, with a subgroup moving further north into Scandinavia.

If this is the case, that means that there have been no mutations in this ancestral line since that migration occurred, at least in the case of the two exact matches in Norway, as long as 5000 years ago.

While this does indeed sound unlikely, I have seen this phenomenon in client’s DNA before.

A second possibility is that someone from Norway returned during the migration of the 1600s and 1700s, adopted a Germany surname, and we are none the wiser today. Given that my only exact matches are in Scandinavia, this seems the most likely scenario.

We may never know for sure. In fact, we’re not likely to know. However, on the KISS scale, where the simplest, easiest, least complex answer is likely to be the right one, the population migration to Norway scenario comes out on top with the remigration in the 1600-1700s second. Both of those events had many opportunities for people to move, and we know for certain that many did. Other scenarios, such as the beer trade, are certainly still a possibility, but on a much smaller scale. Of course, that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. We can only deal here with history as we know it, possibilities and probabilities.

Elisabetha Mehlheimer’s ancestry and her Scandinavian mitochondrial matches may forever remain shrouded in mystery. However, I at least understand the possibilities. It’s no wonder that those fjords in Norway brought me such joy.

Part of me seems to be there.

Hmmm…I think I’ll go and have one of those nice German beers and ponder the situation.

______________________________________________________________

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Ancestry Kit Mixup

Posted on June 13, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Every genealogists worst nightmare. A DNA kit swap. You unknowingly receive the results from someone else, and that equally in-the-dark unknown person receives yours. And you’ll never know unless you recognize the signs and take action to see if it’s your bad luck or overactive imagination, or the answer really is a kit swap or lab error of some sort.

I’ve just spent three months unraveling this exact situation that occurred at Ancestry.com. The person to whom this happened would like to share her story with you. We are hoping that if something similar ever happens to you, that you’ll be able to recognize the signs and know what steps to take to figure out if this indeed has occurred.

Let me also say that a kit swap or similar lab error is really quite rare, and in most other instances when people believe their kits have been swapped, they haven’t been, although this certainly is not the first time this has happened. CeCe Moore reported on another Ancestry.com case in 2012.

We’ll call the lady Jane. Jane’s father agreed to have his Y DNA tested some years ago at Ancestry.com. Jane submitted his DNA for him and noticed that he had no matches to his rather common surname. She didn’t really think anything of it at the time, other than being disappointed. His haplogroup was estimated by Ancestry to be R1b.

As time went on, she ordered Ancestry.com’s autosomal test too for her father. Ancestry sent another sampling kit, and her father is receiving matches to people who, at least according to their trees, share common ancestors with her father.

Last year, Jane decided to transfer her father’s Y DNA to Family Tree DNA. The markers from Ancestry.com were transferred, and Jane still didn’t have any surname matches at Family Tree DNA.

Jane then ordered the Geno2.0 test for her father. The results were returned with haplogroup I, terminal SNP I-L22, which were at odds with Ancestry’s haplogroup R1b estimate.

About the same time, Jane upgraded her father’s STR markers as well, and the haplogroup project administrator noticed that while Jane’s father’s lower panels, meaning the ones tested at Ancestry matched haplogroup R1b, his upper panels didn’t match R1b subgroups at all.

Obviously something was wrong, very wrong, someplace. But what, and where? Jane contacted me and asked if I would help unravel this puzzle.

I checked Jane’s father’s page at Family Tree DNA, and when she transferred his Geno 2.0 results to his FTDNA page, apparently the transfer confused the software at FTDNA because his results reported both I-L22 and R-M269 as positive, which is impossible since I-L22 is in haplogroup I, only, and R-M269 is only found in haplogroup R.

Unfortunately, this only added to the confusion.

At this point, I downloaded the raw data file from the Geno 2.0 test and verified that indeed, M269 was absent and L22 was present.

Family Tree DNA, thankfully, stepped up to the plate and ran a SNP test on Jane’s father’s second vial. That SNP test also came back as positive for haplogroup I, matching the Geno 2.0 results.

Just to be absolutely positive, Family Tree DNA sent Jane’s father a third vial and tested the same markers that Jane had transferred from Ancestry. You can see for yourself – the results are very different. The results are unquestionable. Either there was a kit swap or a lab error of some sort at Ancestry where the wrong markers were posted for Jane’s father’s results. He has been tested three times, from separate vials, at Family Tree DNA with all of the results providing evidence that the Ancestry results were in error.

Marker	Ancestry	FTDNA
DYS438	12	10
DYS391	10	11
DYS392	13	11
DYS426	12	11
DYS439	13	11
DYS445	12	11
GGAAT1B07	10	11
DYS444	11	12
DYS446	13	13
DYS462	11	13
Y-GATA-A10	13	13
DYS437	15	16
DYS441	14	16
DYS458	17	16
DYS463	24	21
DYS635	23	21
DYS452	30	31

In an overabundance of caution, Family Tree DNA is going to rerun the entire test, all markers and the backbone SNP, from yet another (fourth) new vial being sent to Jane’s father. Thank heavens Jane’s father is still available for testing and not entirely discouraged.

Jane is ecstatic, because now, she is actually receiving surname matches and in her father’s words, “we just wanted to know who we are.” And just in time for Father’s Day!

Signs and Signals

How might you know if a kit swap has happened to you? As we know, Ancestry has discontinued their Y and mitochondrial DNA testing and will be destroying the data base, so this won’t be an issue at Ancestry with new Y DNA kits, but it could be an issue for results already delivered, like Jane’s, and for autosomal tests. This is one reason why retesting might not be a bad idea, even though the $19 or $58 Y DNA Ancestry to FTDNA transfer price is quite attractive. Here are some of the signs that might tip you that there is a problem:

If Y DNA, you don’t receive any surname matches, even to those you believe that you are in related to. This is one of those sticky-wickets, because if you don’t match your first cousin, for example, the most likely situation is that you have an undocumented adoption in one of the lines. My suggestion in this situation is to submit an entirely new test under a new kit number. If your first and second kits match each other, then the answer is the undocumented adoption.
If autosomal DNA, and you have no matches to anyone you believe you should match, especially close relatives, submit your DNA to one of the other three testing companies – Family Tree DNA, 23andMe or Ancestry.com. The approach gives you the benefit of fishing in multiple ponds along with verifying that your results match each other. When you receive the results from both companies, download the raw data files from both to www.gedmatch.com and then match them to each other. They should match almost exactly, although there will be some small differences in terms of areas tested and possibly no-calls – but they should match very closely.

Let’s hope this never happens to anyone else. The sad thing is that whoever, at Ancestry, received Jane’s father’s Y DNA results likely has no idea they are incorrect.

Thank you Family Tree DNA for going above and beyond to resolve this very distressing situation for Jane and her father.

______________________________________________________________

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Family Tree DNA Surpasses the Million Test Mark

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Family Tree DNA, the genetic genealogy arm of Gene by Gene, announced today in a press release that it has processed over 1,000,000 DNA test kits results for genealogy and anthropology purposes.

This historic amount includes Family Tree DNA’s tests as well the processing of public participation samples for National Geographic’s Genographic Projects genetic testing partner.

The million-test milestone was reached this week during the company’s Father’s Day sale, which includes the Family Finder test currently discounted to the price of $79 and the Big Y at $595. So if you purchased one of these tests this week, you could have been that historic millionth person!

The press release goes on to say:

Family Tree DNA offers the widest range of DNA testing services in the field of genetic genealogy. The company prides itself on its commitment to the practice of solid, ethical science. Family Tree DNA has the largest database in the world for matching purposes, which means increased chances of finding long lost relatives. In that regard, Family Tree DNA is an important resource for the three million people in the United States who either were adopted or descend from adoptees.

Founded in 2000, Gene By Gene, Ltd. is a CAP-accredited and CLIA-registered genetic testing company that serves consumers, researchers, and physicians. Gene by Gene offers a wide range of regulated clinical diagnostic tests, as well as research use only (RUO) tests. The Family Tree DNA division of Gene by Gene is a pioneer and leader in DNA testing for genealogy and ancestry. The company operates the largest genetic genealogy database in the world and has provided more than 5 million discrete genetic tests.

It seems like only yesterday that I ordered kit 6656, but it was December of 2002, nearly a dozen years ago. On New Year’s Eve of 2005, right at midnight, I ordered kit 50,000. The genetic genealogy community was very excited at that milestone as well. Eight and a half years later, one million. It took Family Tree DNA 3 years, from 2002 to 2005, to sell 43,000 kits, or about 14,500 kits per year. Between 2005 and today, they have sold another 950,000 kits, or just over 100,000 per year, on average.

The 5 million number also suggests that the average client has purchased 5 different tests or upgrades, per kit. In my case, that’s true because I began purchasing when only the HVR region of mtDNA was available, so I’ve upgraded several times and purchased every test or upgrade Family Tree DNA has ever offered. All in the unquenchable thirst to learn more about my ancestors.

Congratulations Family Tree DNA on this historic and important milestone. May your second million happen quickly and include a lot of my relatives:)

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Stavanger, Norway, Land of Misty Fjords

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Roberta Estes

We’re nearing the end of our DNA trip, only a couple more stops to make. Today, we find ourselves in Stavanger Norway, enjoying her misty fjords.

Today is our only day in Norway, and we were determined to have fun regardless of the rain. The harbor is right in the town and is a beautiful mixture of old and new. Very clean, and Norway is a very wealthy country. Prices in the one open shop (it’s Sunday) attest to that. I know this is a first, and rather unbelievable, especially to my husband, but I bought nothing.

One of the first things that struck me is how different the houses and city looks as compared to the rest of Europe. The houses are almost entirely white, are not connected, and are kind of scattered about in a quaint mixture of haphazard and planned.

It was raining of course. Rain seemed to be the theme of the DNA trip.

When selecting “side trips,” in advance, you, of course, have no idea if it’s going to be raining on a given day. We had selected a boat trip into the fjords. I know, I know, another boat trip for someone who gets motion sick. However, they have drugs for that, AND, this is the opportunity of a lifetime and I wasn’t about to miss it.

Having said that, upon arrival, I had some serious doubts about the choice, but we discovered that they get rain here about 150 days a year, so it seems authentic and fitting.

Norway is confusing to me. I don’t know whether this is an ancient homeland to me or not.

Looking at my mitochondrial DNA matches, you can see that my closest full sequence matches are indeed in Norway. One, in fact, is located right on a fjord.

Given that my closest matches are Scandinavian, in Norway and Sweden, does this mean that my maternal line is ancestral TO that location, meaning my line came FROM there, or does it mean that the Scandinavian matches are descended from a common ancestor with my ancestor, Elisabetha Mehlheimer who lived in Goppsmannbuhl, Germany? In other words, did the Scandinavian matches come FROM Germany, originally? I don’t know the answer to this, hence, my confusion. But rest assured, I’m working on this.

So, for today, I’m going to make the assumption that indeed, my line does descend from this beautiful country – and I’m making the journey into the fjords as if they hold my family history. I don’t know whether my ancestors saw these fjords or not, of if it’s only my cousins, descendants of a common ancestor who saw and see these – but one thing is for sure – my family, maybe distant, but family all the same, is here today.

This land speaks of contrasts and conflicts. People versus the elements – both the land, the rocky mountainous land, and the sea. It also speaks not of conquest, but of compromise – finding the soft spots and making a life there – not in conflict with nature – but in harmony. There seems to be a place for everyone in this tiny village nestled snugly on the edge of the sea, but always in the shadow of the mountain.

Sheltered, or trapped here? I guess that would be a matter of perspective relative to the time in history. And whether or not you had a boat.

All along the fjord are summer homes nestled wherever they can find any flat or semi-flat place to put them.

In addition, they have boat garages which are often stone combined with some bright paint, and partly underwater because the fjords, of course, are tidal.

The red one, above, is actually on an island. In the photo below, you can barely see it, but it’s there.

This is assuredly the land of rocks and islands, some inhabited, some not.

All stunning in their misty beauty.

Can you see the boat garage nestled in the photo below?

Some islands have no trees, some just one lone tree, growing either in peril or triumphantly, one or the other.

I particularly like the photo below, even if it is a bit tilted – so was the boat. (I had to wedge myself between things and in corners to be “steady” enough take photos.) You can clearly see the layers of bedrock as it has been pushed up from the sea over millennia. The forces of earth at work.

As we moved on down or up the Lysefjord, named for the Norse word for light, further from the sea, we began to see much taller walls and waterfalls Now had it not been raining, these falls probably wouldn’t have been carrying water – so the rain was a gift in this way.

Each set of falls was different.

It was difficult to get photos of these. First of all, I was on the very top of the boat where it was extremely wet. My lens kept getting water spots and I was running out of dry spots on my clothes to wipe the lens. Finally the woman beside me and I came up with an innovative compromise. We couldn’t reach the dry backs of our own t-shirts, so we traded off and used each other’s. In addition, the boat was rocking of course, and there were a few other diehards up there too. Plus, we were actually too close to get much of a composite photo. These falls are a couple thousand feet and in many ways, remind me of the tropics, well, except for how cold it is.

This is what I call the definition of opportunity, and perhaps optimism as well.

At one location, the crew hand jumped onto land and put some food into a feeding trough for the mountain goats Here’s a photo of the goats beside the falls.

One entire massive wall was a series of bridal veils falls, the tops entirely hidden in the mists, gives the entire scene an unreal, ghostly, ethereal quality.

The tops of the mountains seems lost in the clouds. By afternoon, the sun may peek through in some places.

The boat was extremely close to the wall as we neared the end of the fjord where we approached the granddaddy of fjord waterfalls.

This was no small falls – the closer we got – the more we realized just how massive this falls was. And the noise was almost deafening. It reminded me of the awe I felt at Niagara Falls when I was 12 years old.

But wait until we get even closer.

And closer…

At this point, the boat passed so close that we got a fjord shower.

Most of the sane people had gone downstairs between the driving rain and the temperature, but there were a few diehards upstairs, me and 2 or 3 other women. Jim and the other man, below went below. You can see the waterfalls in the photo, at right.

We shot pictures until we couldn’t and as the water hit us, we all screamed Woo-Hoo together. Jim said they could hear us downstairs even above the roar of the water. It was definitely a “living life to the fullest,” “once in a lifetime” moment. What an unforgettable opportunity. Laughing and freezing with my sisters of heart. Makes me wonder, are they connected there too? Do these ancestral places speak to our spirits in ways we don’t understand?

My husband stuck his head out from below deck and got this great shot leaving the falls. My camera was too wet and my hands were too slippery and numb. But I was exceptionally happy and joyful! I hated to see the falls disappear into the distance. What an unexpected gift!

We sailed back to Stavanger and stopped on the way to have hot coffee, waffles, “cream,” which is like a very thick whipped cream and jam. It’s a Norwegian thing. If you’d like to give it a try, here’s a great recipe. They taste just as good as they look, too.

http://anothermealdown.blogspot.com/2011/09/norwegian-waffles.html by Alice Galipp

Back to the ship and to dry clothes. I had on a raincoat and hat, but they can only do so much and I was soaked to the skin. I was grateful for warm, dry clothes, but certainly wouldn’t have traded the experience!

No towel guy picture today, because we didn’t buy one thing today and towel guy doesn’t want wet clothes:)

What an adventure today – but I’m STILL hoping for sunshine and dry weather for our last port – the gateway to Paris, in two days.

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DNA Analysis of 8000 Year Old Bones Allows Peek Into the Neolithic

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Roberta Estes

In the paper, “Ancient DNA Analysis of 8000 B.C. Near Eastern Farmers Supports an Early Neolithic Pioneer Maritime Colonization of Mainland Europe through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands,” by Fernandez et al, published June 5, 2014, we find a report on the analysis of ancient skeletal remains that sheds light on the Neolithic area before expansion from the Fertile Crescent into Europe.

It was about 8000 years ago, give or take 1000 years, when 63 people died in what is now Syria. They were buried in three separate locations, and recently their skeletal remains were exhumed and DNA tested. Of those, 15 yielded mitochondrial DNA results.

Haplogroups revealed were:

R0 (3)
K (6)
L3
U*
N*
H (2)
HV

Of course, there were only 15 skeletons with viable DNA, but conspicuously missing is haplogroup J, long believed to have diffused to Europe in the Neolithic.

Haplogroups I, T and V are also missing, but are much less prevalent in Europe than haplogroup J.

The authors also provided an updated map of the Neolithic diffusion into Europe, with projected dates, indicating they believe the expansion was initially through the Mediterranean via Cyprus, Crete and the Aegean Sea.

The author abstract and summary are provided below and you can read the entire article at PLOS Genetics.

Abstract

The genetic impact associated to the Neolithic spread in Europe has been widely debated over the last 20 years. Within this context, ancient DNA studies have provided a more reliable picture by directly analyzing the protagonist populations at different regions in Europe. However, the lack of available data from the original Near Eastern farmers has limited the achieved conclusions, preventing the formulation of continental models of Neolithic expansion. Here we address this issue by presenting mitochondrial DNA data of the original Near-Eastern Neolithic communities with the aim of providing the adequate background for the interpretation of Neolithic genetic data from European samples. Sixty-three skeletons from the Pre Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) sites of Tell Halula, Tell Ramad and Dja’de El Mughara dating between 8,700–6,600 cal. B.C. were analyzed, and 15 validated mitochondrial DNA profiles were recovered. In order to estimate the demographic contribution of the first farmers to both Central European and Western Mediterranean Neolithic cultures, haplotype and haplogroup diversities in the PPNB sample were compared using phylogeographic and population genetic analyses to available ancient DNA data from human remains belonging to the Linearbandkeramik-Alföldi Vonaldiszes Kerámia and Cardial/Epicardial cultures. We also searched for possible signatures of the original Neolithic expansion over the modern Near Eastern and South European genetic pools, and tried to infer possible routes of expansion by comparing the obtained results to a database of 60 modern populations from both regions. Comparisons performed among the 3 ancient datasets allowed us to identify K and N-derived mitochondrial DNA haplogroups as potential markers of the Neolithic expansion, whose genetic signature would have reached both the Iberian coasts and the Central European plain. Moreover, the observed genetic affinities between the PPNB samples and the modern populations of Cyprus and Crete seem to suggest that the Neolithic was first introduced into Europe through pioneer seafaring colonization.

Author Summary

Since the original human expansions out of Africa 200,000 years ago, different prehistoric and historic migration events have taken place in Europe. Considering that the movement of the people implies a consequent movement of their genes, it is possible to estimate the impact of these migrations through the genetic analysis of human populations. Agricultural and husbandry practices originated 10,000 years ago in a region of the Near East known as the Fertile Crescent. According to the archaeological record this phenomenon, known as “Neolithic”, rapidly expanded from these territories into Europe. However, whether this diffusion was accompanied or not by human migrations is greatly debated. In the present work, mitochondrial DNA –a type of maternally inherited DNA located in the cell cytoplasm- from the first Near Eastern Neolithic populations was recovered and compared to available data from other Neolithic populations in Europe and also to modern populations from South Eastern Europe and the Near East. The obtained results show that substantial human migrations were involved in the Neolithic spread and suggest that the first Neolithic farmers entered Europe following a maritime route through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands.

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Marcus Younger (c1740-1816), Mystery Man, 52 Ancestors #23

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Roberta Estes

The Younger story starts with Marcus Younger. It shouldn’t but it does, because we don’t know who his parents were. We may never know, because Marcus Younger’s Y chromosomal, paternal, DNA doesn’t match the rest of the Younger line to whom he is obviously related. Why obviously? You’ll see. This story reminds me a bit of a soap opera and an onion – unpeeling one layer at a time – slowly and painfully over the past 20 years or so.

In 2007, I began the Younger DNA project. I fully expected Marcus’s descendants to match on the Y chromosome to the descendants of Thomas Younger, a man who lived very close to Marcus in Halifax County and who many believed was Marcus’s father. Even if he wasn’t Marcus’s father, the he was likely his uncle. One thing is for sure – we fully expected them to descend from a common paternal male line – but we were wrong.

Not only did the men not match, there is no possibility on their Y (paternal) line that they are distantly related. In other words, this isn’t a questionable match, it’s a flat out no-match. They are in different haplogroups, with Thomas’s line being in haplogroup R and Marcus’s line in haplogroup I. These men’s paternal ancestors weren’t related in 10s of thousands of years. Well, that was a “stop me in my tracks” revelation. So now what?

So let’s start with Marcus and tell as much of our Younger story as we know. We have made some remarkable breakthroughs recently, compliments of autosomal DNA technology.

Marcus Younger

Marcus Younger was born probably in Essex County, VA and probably around 1730, based on his son’s 1760 birth. He died in January 1815 in Halifax County, Virginia. He married Susannah, possibly Hart. Anthony Hart sold land to Marcus Younger before he moved to Halifax County. Marcus was also taxed under Anthony. We don’t know who Marcus’s parents are, but given recent autosomal DNA evidence, we suspect that he was the illegitimate son of a daughter of Alexander Younger and Rebecca Mills. Alexander Younger mentions no son, Marcus, in his will. Alexander’s son, Thomas Younger, moved to Halifax County earlier than Marcus who arrived about 1785. They lived close to each other, Thomas on Terrible Creek and Marcus on Yellow Bank Creek on the Banister River. Thomas died in 1791 and his will was witnessed by both Marcus and Marcus’s son, John Younger. This implies strongly that Marcus was not Thomas’s heir, as heirs typically did not witness wills. It also suggests that they were very close.

In 1780, Marcus Younger aided in the American Revolution in King and Queen County as documented by the Public Service Claims. He provided 1 gallon, 2 quarts and a half brandy worth 39 pounds, 1 shilling and 3 pence. He probably didn’t have any choice about this, because then the army needed (or wanted) supplies, it needed supplies. They gave you a receipt with the idea that someday you could turn it in for reimbursement. In actuality, people did that, which is why we have the records today. He’s lucky that’s all they took. They were known for impressing horses, but then again, maybe Marcus didn’t have a horse to impress.

Marcus was in Essex County in 1782 and 1785, taxed under Anthony Hart, but is in Halifax County by December 1786 when he signs the marriage bond for his daughter, Mary, to marry George Estes, suggesting she is under the age of 21.

Interestingly enough, George Estes’s father, Moses Estes lived beside William Younger, born about 1740, wife Patience, whose parentage is also unknown. William Younger is in Halifax County as early as 1760 when he was assigned to a road crew on Reedy Creek. He apparently lived on Reedy Creek in South Boston for the rest of his life. Reedy Creek abutted the land purchased by Moses Estes Jr. and today Younger Street is the street that runs perpendicular to Estes Street, both of which now lead to the city dump, and is no place remotely close to Terrible Creek or the Banister River.

In 1795, Moses Estes, George Estes, his son who married Mary Younger in 1786, and William Younger, neighbors, all signed a petition.

I have always wondered if there is a previous pre-Halifax County connection between the William Younger and Moses Estes families. I have often suspected that Moses Estes Sr. had daughters who would have been the perfect age to have been Patience, the wife of William Younger. Conversely, we don’t know who the wife of Moses Estes Sr. was, only that her name was Elizabeth.

Regardless, these two families owned land that is very close to each other on the border of Essex and King and Queen Counties in northern Virginia prior to coming to Halifax County. This is detailed in the unpublished document, “Estes of King and Queen County.” An excerpt is provided below.

King and Queen and Essex County, Virginia

Using various hints, tips and what few records do still exist, we were able to locate fairly reliably the land of Abraham Estes, the original immigrant in the Estes line. As luck would have it, we also discovered the Younger holdings in that area as well.

My cousin Wilma, long time Younger genealogist, posted the following information on the Younger rootsweb list in 2002.

Recently I have come into possession of a map which was the project of a Woman’s Club started in 1937 and published in 1972. It attempts to located the early tracts of King and Queen County. Unfortunately some very significant pieces of the map were omitted. I’m referring to the various hundreds and parishes which would better pinpoint a known location.

That said, I studied the map first, for familiar names. I found the name Boulware not far from Caroline County. Many of you will remember that a Boulware was a business associate of John Younger (from Whitehaven, England) in Caroline County which adjoins King and Queen directly to the north. A Boulware also married the daughter of John Price and Ann Younger, daughter of Alexander. [Note: Alexander is the proven father of Thomas Younger who moved to Halifax County.]

The next name is a little more disconnected but it caught my attention. The name of the property was Fleetwell. Thomas Younger’s daughter by his first wife married a Fretwell and her father (apparently) was prominent in transferring property to Thomas. This Fleetwell certainly may have no relevance but, as I said, it did catch my eye.

Then there was Armistead Hill. Now we all can agree that Armistead is not a very common given name but it has been repeated throughout the Virginia family. I cannot say for sure but I suspect this piece of property was not far from Alexander’s in Essex and King and Queen (to be explained below).

I also noted the name Aylett and remembered having seen it before. I checked Alexander Younger’s notes and found that in 1716 a Robert Farish of St. Stephen’s Parish, King and Queen County bought 100 acres lying in both Essex and King and Queen Counties upon the head of the Dragon. The land adjoined Maj. Aylett’s Quarter and also adjoined the land of Alexander Younger.

I had thought Alexander Younger’s son Thomas had left Essex County (perhaps in anger that his mother had remarried so soon) and had gone to King and Queen. He was known to be in King and Queen County in 1751/2. [Note – based on a merchant’s account book.] Thomas Younger sold his property to his mother and step-father and it was noted that the property he sold was adjoined by John Farish and Capt. William Aylett.

The man I believe to be the father in law of Thomas Younger, (William Fretwell) obtained the property in question from the mother and stepfather and resold it to Thomas Younger.

No record of any other purchase by Thomas Younger has as yet come to light so one can assume (I hope) that half of the land left to Susannah by her father Thomas was the same described property. The other half was willed to Samuel also without a description. The subsequent lawsuit among the heirs did not deal in property but delineated money instead.

This little exercise put things a bit into perspective for me. It is amazing somehow that maps can be so enlightening – even incomplete ones.

I now suspect that the Younger’s lived fairly close to the border between Essex and King and Queen Counties and being located at or near the head of the Dragon, they were also not terribly far from Middlesex County which accounts for some of the Younger records there.

I took Wilma’s information and ran with it and in doing so, using contemporary maps, I located the approximate location of both the Estes and the Younger land.

Abraham Estes’s land in 1783 abuts the Hoskins and Grymes land. Today this marker resides on 360 East of St. Stephen’s Church.

Going with the info from the various locations to my trusty atlas, I find that in King and Queen County, on 360 where it crosses 14 and then East on 360 from that location, we have an intersection with 631 and 621 before getting to Miller’s Tavern. Miller’s Tavern is too far East, It looks like this land is between Bruington which is at the intersection of 14 and 621 as one point on the triangle, 621 itself as another point on the triangle, and probably St. Stephen’s church as another point. You also see Dogwood Fork which surely is connected to Dogwood swamp. Abraham Estes’s land seemed to be on the NE quadrant of this land, so probably nearer to 621. In a much larger sense, it’s between the Rappahannock and the Mattaponi, but nearer to the Mattaponi.

Essex County Land Grants

June 22 1722 – Grant of Robert Farish described as 775 acres in the Counties of King and Queen and Essex. Beg. of Silvester Estice standing in Thomas Cranes line; thence &c. on the south side a branch of Mattapony River. And then 775 acres in the Counties of King and Queen and Essex adjoining the land of Silvester Estice, Thos. Crane &c. on the south side of a branch of Mattapony River and crossing several branches of Rappa: River.

Here are 3 transactions that position Alexander Younger’s land in this same area:

Essex County Deed Book 22 (1738-1742), Pg 215
3 Dec 1740

Thomas Younger of St Stephen’s Parish, King and Queen County, VA to Timothy Driscoll [sic] of Southfarnham Parish, Essex County VA for 5000 lbs of tobacco and cash, all interest now or hereafter in 100 acres in Essex in the Parish of Southfarnum adjoining John Farish, Capt. William Aylett and John Croxton it being all that tract purchased by his father, Alexander Younger, dec’d of Richard Jones and Leonard Hill

Witnesses – Thomas Barker, John Croxton, Henry Brown
Acknowledged 17 Mar 1740 at a court held for Essex County at Tappahannock

3 Dec 1740

Know All Men by these presents that I Thomas Younger of King and Queen County stand indebted to Timothy Driscoll in the sum of ten thousand pounds of good tobacco and cash. The condition of the above obligation is such that Thomas Younger at all times upon request of Timothy Driscoll his heirs sufficiently grant all that parcel of land now in the tenure of Timothy Driscoll clearly aquitted and discharged from all manner of former bargains and incumberances whatsoever done by Thomas Younger then this obligation to be void otherwise to remain in force.

Signed: Thomas Younger
Witnesses: John Croxton, Henry Brown

Then received the full sum of thirty pounds current money, it being the full consideration.

Essex County VA Deed Book 24, Pg 354 and Virginia Colonial Abstracts, p.353
10 Aug 1749

William Fretwell of Southfarnham Parish, Essex County VA to Thomas Younger of Drisdale Parish in County of King and Queen County for 30 pounds, all interest now or hereafter in 100 acres in Essex, purchased of Thomas Younger by Timothy Driscoll and by him conveyed to William Fretwell

Signed: William Fretwell
Witnesses – Thomas Barker, Richard Hodges
Acknowledged 19 Sep 1749.

Another set of records that involved Thomas Younger also positions this family on the Mattaponi.

Thomas Younger was still living in King and Queen County in 1751-1752. (King and Queen Merchants Ledger 1751-1752. Accession #25110, Virginia State Library, Pg. 49). He made purchased in both 1751 and 1752.

Thomas Younger Mar 1751
Thomas Younger July 1752

An Index – Magazine of Virginia genealogy, Vol 29, Number 3, Aug 1991

The King and Queen County merchant’s account book has been abstracted and is identified in the Virginia State Archives by Accession number 28893.

Ledger A covers 25 Feb 1748-21 May 1750 and the unpaid accounts on the latter were transferred to Ledger B as opening balances. Ledger B covers 23 May 1750 to 16 Mar 1751. Balances on 16 Mar 1751 were transferred to Ledger C which covers 19 Mar 1751-4 Aug 1752. These ledgers came from the store of Nininan Boog, factor for Buchannan and Hamilton, Liverpool Merchants. Boog’s King and Queen store was apparently located at Todd’s on the Mataponi about a mile above Aylett where state route 628 now ends.

Name A B C

Thomas Younger 68 104 49

Alexander Younger in America

We know very little about the origins of Alexander Younger before his arrival in Virginia. There is a parish register entry in Lanark, Glasgow, Scotland showing an Alexander Younger christened on May 2, 1681. We don’t know if that record is for our Alexander, but it could be, especially given the 1699 court record which indicates his age as 18 years of age.

There are at least four possibilities for his importation records which begs the question of what happened to these other Alexander Youngers.

1. Old Rappahanock County, VA Order Book 2 1698-1699, Pg 148

10 June 1699 – Deposition – Alexander Younge (r), a servant of Edward Rowzee, said to be eighteen years old.

2. General Index to Court Orders, Essex County VA 1684-1714

11 Oct 1704 – An Alexander Younger imported by Thomas Dickinson 0-3-124

10 May 1705 – An Alexander Younger imported by Ralph Rowze 0-3-164

Considering that Alexander was a servant in a Rowze household it seems plausible that he immigrated in 1705.

These first two records cause me to wonder if Alexander went back and forth a couple of times. That was not unheard of, especially if he was the personal servant to a wealthy man.

We do know that Alexander Younger wrote his will in 1725, designating his wife and son, Thomas to be his executors. His son would have had to have been born very shortly after his arrival. If Alexander was a indentured servant, it’s unlikely that he would have been allowed to marry for the requisite 5 or 7 years to complete his indenture. This record says he is a servant, but it does not say that he is indentured, but it certainly does imply that he is.

3. From angelsmurfholly2@aol.com on Genforum under the Younger forum:

Alexander received 100 acres of land for transporting himself and his servants, James Morrison, to Somerset Co., Maryland. He later signed it over to Henry Bishop, a planter from Maryland. From G. Spades “The Early Settlers of Maryland”. Alexander came to York Co., VA in 1680. As per Virginia Colonial abstract #9. Essex Co. will and deeds of 1714-1717 Alexander Younger was sold 100 acres of land for 3250 pounds of tobacco in the Parish of Southfarnham, Essex Co. Record Book 15 page 359.

I question whether the records above are for the same person. We know that “our” Alexander was in Essex County, but I would like to see some documentation that ties the Maryland Alexander Younger with ours in Essex County, VA.

Alexander witnessed wills in both 1706 and 1707, suggesting that he was not an indentured servant at that time.

Virginia Colonial Abstracts, p. 155 (Essex County)

Will of Richard Matthews of Essex County
Written 12 Jan 1705/6, Pro 11 Feb 1705/6

To eldest son Richard a Bible. To youngest son Giles and daughter Elizabeth. the balance of the estate for their maintenance. To Ann a cow.

Exec. John Boulware, John Mottlin
Witnesses: John X Williams, Robert Parker, Alexander Younger

Essex County VA Records, Abstracted by John Frederick Dorman,

p. 36,37 – 18 Jan 1707 – Will of Daniel Browne of Essex County VA witnessed by Alexander Younger

p. 224 – Jean Browne wife of the deceased Daniel Browne, Sr. of Southfarnum Parish gave her interest in her 1/3rd to son Henry.

Witnessed by Alexander Younger

4. General Index to Court Orders, Essex County VA 1684-1714

10 Aug 1708 – Alexander Younger grants 50 acres of land for his own importation 0-4-47 – 10 Sep 1708

This record actually suggests that Alexander Younger was not indentured, as the person who paid for his transportation would have been the person to claim his 50 acres. However, if the land were part of his agreement, and he arrived in 1799, and was indentured for 7 years, he would have been freed in 1706, in time to witness the 1706 will.

Alexander Younger’s Land

Records show that in 1715, Alexander Younger purchased 220 acres of land in South Farnham Parish, Essex County, VA (Virginia Colonial Abstracts #9, pp. 319-320, Essex County VA Wills and Deeds Bk 14, p 359)

By 1716, Alexander had land and we know where it was, near the head of the Dragon Branches.

Records of Essex Co, VA, No 15, p. 1
18 and 19 Mar 1716

Deed and Release

Casper Coston, smith, and Mary his wife, of St Anne’s Parish, Essex Co, sell to Robert Farish of St Stephen’s Parish, King and Queen Co, for 48 pounds, 250a, part of 100a granted to Richard Jones and George Turner, 8 Feb 1672, lying in Essex and King and Queen Counties, upon the heads of the Dragon, Ashnamscot and Piscatua branches adj a marsh at the head of one of the Dragon branches, by Maj. Aylett the Quarter formerly known as Goodrich’s land, the land of Sheffells old field, Alexander’s house and the head of a branch of Fisher’s mill. Also Capt Brerton’s land “descending to me Mary Coston as being heir at law to my only sister Sarah Shipley, late dec’d, which was left by will of George Boyce to my sd sister, (adj land of Major Aylets Quarter formerly known by the name of Goodrich land, and also adjoining the land of Alexander Younger. Also Capt Brereton’ land)

Witnesses: John Bates, John Boughan, Thomas X Shipley

(Extracted from Virginia Colonial Abstracts, Vol II, Beverly Fleet, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, MD, 1988, p.83) SW: Sheffield

This is apparently Mary Cosston, sister of Keziah. The second entry of this record on p. 179 of this same source states Jasper Coston, not Casper, Goodrick, not Goodrich. Third record on p. 296 (filed under King and Queen Co) states “the head of Kissells old field, Alexander Youngers house, branch of Fishers mill, etc.” George Boyce record not yet located.

By 1725, Alexander had died, fairly young, and with young children. His son John died in 1733 and Alexander’s estate funds were used to bury John as well. In 1732, his 3 youngest daughters were still under age and Thomas was appointed their guardians.

Alexander was impaneled as a juror several times. But then, in 1724, it was his turn to face the jury.

Essex County VA Order Book 1723-1725, p. 107 – 19 Mar 1723

The suit brought by John Bagge against Alexander Younger is dismissed.

p. 138 – 20 May 1724

Alexander Younger of the Parish of South Farnham for not frequenting his Parish Church according to Law. Presented by the Grand Jury and therefore ordered the Sheriff to summon all said persons to appear at the next court for this County to show cause if any they have why they should not be fined according to Law.

p 161, 17 June 1724

The presentment of the Grand Jury agt. Alexander Younger is dismissed.

The 1724 presentment against Alexander for not attending church was dismissed. Obviously, he wasn’t attending. The question is why. Given that he made his will in 1725, it causes me to wonder if he wasn’t ill by 1724 and not attending church for that reason.

p. 167, 17 Jun 1724

In the action on the case brought by Nathaniel Sanders against John Griggs it is ordered that James Edmondson, Alexander Younger and John Haile or any two of them audit and settle the accounts between the plaintiff and the defendant. and make their report to the next court.

Given this court order, Alexander must not have been ill at this time.

p. 172 – 18 Jun 1724

The action of debt brought by John Bagge vs Alexander Younger is continued. The Plaintiff’s Attorney being absent.

On July 18, 1727, Alexander’s will was probated. He would have been less than 50 years old.

Essex County Wills, Bonds and Inventories, Part 2, pg 222 1722-1730

Will Book 4, pp 222-223
Written 11 Aug 1725, Probated 18 Jul 1727
Virginia State Library

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN…The eleventh day of Aug 1725, I, Alexander Younger of the County of Essex, being sick and weak of body yet in perfect sense and memory thanks be to God for the same I do make and constitute ordain and declare this to be my last will and testament and no other first being point out and sorry from the bottom of my heart for all my sins past most humble begging God forgiveness and remission of the same through the alone merits of my dear redeemer and only savior, Jesus Christ. I commit my soul into the hand of Almighty God, my savior and only redeemer through the merit of whose death and passion I hope to have full and perfect remission and forgiveness of all my sins. My body to be decently interred by my executors hereafter named in hopes of a happy resurrection at the last day and my soul and body to enter into perfect joy and felicity forevermore. And for the settling and disposing my temporal and such goods and chattels as it hath pleased God to bestow upon me I do order give and dispose as follows, that is to say, first all those debts and duties as I owe in right or custom to any person whatsoever shall be well and truly contented and paid within convenient time after my decease by my executors hereafter named. First I will and bequeath to the three poorest objects of pity in the parish thirty shillings in such things as may answer their wants to be paid within one year after my decease by my executors.

Secondly I will and bequeath to my son Thomas Younger that piece of land that I bought of Mr. Hill and Richard Jones, a young heifer called Fairmade and her female increase and if she happens to be barren and not a breeder then to have a young cow out of my own proper stock of chattels and if she should die then to have another young cow in her room out of my own proper stock and six pounds currency and that gun which I bought of Captain Welch.

Thirdly I will and bequeath to my son John Younger that piece of land which I bought of Mary Newton, two young cows out of my proper stock, six pound currency and his choice of my other two guns.

If either of my two sons Thomas or John die without issue then their land, money and gun to fall to the eldest female then alive only my will is that the child in whose hands any of the boy’s land falls to, the other part of

their estate shall be equally divide among the rest then alive. They themselves that have the land having one equal part thereof. It is my will that the two eldest then alive of the female kind if the male be all dead should inherit the land. Also my will is that after appraisement made that my estate be equally divided among my other six children to wit: James Younger, Elizabeth Younger, Ann Younger, Mary Younger, Jannett Younger, and Susannah Younger, and further it is my will that if any one of them died without issue lawfully begotten of their body that their part be equally divided among the rest then alive and it is my will concerning every one of my children’s parts of the estate if they die without issue lawfully begotten of their body to be still equally divided among the rest then alive and further it is my will that if my well beloved wife, Rebecca Younger, should happen to join in wedlock state after my decease it is my will that the boys should be for themselves at the age of seventeen years old and if she continues my widow then to remain till the year of twenty one and if it should please God to whom all things are subject to remove all my issue by death then it is my will that my land and personal estate be secured for my next heir in Scotland of my brother Andrew’s only wife to have the liberty of the same all her days in a moderate way to live upon without control of any person whatsoever.

The executors whom I order and appoint is my well beloved wife Rebecca Younger and my son Thomas Younger to see the same truly appointed and fully performed. In witness whereof I have affixed my seal and set my hand the day and year first above written.

Signed: Alexander Younger
Witnesses: John Haile, Bryant Edmondson, Francis Haile (his mark)

At a court for Essex County on Tuesday the 18th of July 1727, the within last will and testament of Alexander Younger, dec’d, was proved by the oath of Rebecca Younger, his executrix and being further proved by the oath of John Haile and Bryant Edmondson, two of the witnesses thereto was admitted to record.

Signed W. Beverly, C.C.

18 Jul 1727

Bond of Rebecca Younger as Executrix of Alexander Younger. Unto William Dangerfield, Benjamin Robinson, John Taliaferro and Nicholas Smith, Gent., Justices. For L 300 sterling

Securities: Thomas Covington and Richard Jones

It is ordered that James Edmondson, Henry Boughan, John Haile and William Gatewood or any three of them appraise the estate of Alexander Younger, dec’d and return their proceedings therein to the next court.

Appraisers were typically the largest debtor, someone from the wife’s family and a totally disinterested party.

Essex County VA Will Book 5, p. 152,153 – 1727

Account for the administration of the estate of Alexander Younger

This account provides the information that by later in 1727, Alexander’s son John has died, his daughter Elizabeth has married John Dillard and the widow Rebecca has remarried Timothy Driscoll, although it is odd that she signs her name as Rebecca Younger on this document. Actually, she signed with a mark so maybe the clerk wrote her name as Rebecca Younger instead of her new married name. The only reason Timothy Driscoll would sign this is if he had an interest and his only interest would be as her husband.

Essex County VA Court Wills #5
1727

Total Valuation L 157.12.10 including one Negro man valued at 25 pounds.

The estate of Mr. Alexander Younger, dec’d

To funeral expenses for Mr. Younger
To Dr. John Haile
To John Leach a legacy left by Mr. Younger
To Thomas Barber for sundry writing for the estate
To John Taylor (no reason given)
To Pitman Grandoff (no reason given)
To the appraisers of the estate (not named)
To the probate of Mr. Younger’s will
To Mr. ? Carter
To registering the death of the sd Younger
To registering the death of a negro
To registering the death of John Younger
To rolling Mr. Younger’s tobacco
To tobacco charged in the inventory due in his lifetime not received by the executors
To tobacco charged for clerks, secretarys and parsons
To John Dillard for his wife’s part of the estate being 1/8 of 127 pounds, 13 shillings, 4 1/2 pence.

Signed Timothy Driscoll (his mark)

Rebecca Younger (R)

At a court convened and held for Essex County on 22 Aug 1833

Timothy Driscoll and Rebecca, his wife, Executors of the last will and testament of Alexander Younger, dec’d produced their vouchers and made oath that this was a just and true account of the sd deceased estate and all the articles therein being allowed by this court, on the motion of Timothy the same is admitted to record.

Essex County VA Will Book 5: 119,120
15 Jan 1732

Thomas Younger made guardian of Mary and Ann, infant orphans of Alexander Younger, dec’d. Samuel Gatewood and John Ferguson were bondsmen with Thomas. The document continues to reveal that he is also guardian to James Younger.

Essex County VA Will Book 5: 115,116
19Dec 1732

Thomas Younger made guardian of James, Jannett and Susannah stating that they are orphans

I have to wonder why he was not appointed prior to this time. His father has been dead since 1727. Marcus was born sometime prior to 1740, likely to one of these sisters. I thought at one time that perhaps his mother died at this time, but according to later deeds, she did not. Something clearly happened during this time to precipitate this legal action. But what?

Essex County Deed Book 22 (1738-1742), Pg 215
3 Dec 1740

Witnesses – Thomas Barker, John Croxton, Henry Brown
Acknowledged 17 Mar 1740 at a court held for Essex County at Tappahannock

3 Dec 1740

Signed: Thomas Younger
Witnesses: John Croxton, Henry Brown

Then received the full sum of thirty pounds current money, it being the full consideration.

Essex County VA Deed Book 24, Pg 354 and Virginia Colonial Abstracts, p.353 10 Aug 1749

Signed: William Fretwell
Witnesses – Thomas Barker, Richard Hodges
Acknowledged 19 Sep 1749.

There are no records in subsequent Deed Books of Essex County, VA of Thomas Younger selling this land. There are no tax records of Essex County until 1782. It is also known by probate records that William Fretwell was the son-in-law of Thomas Younger.

Unfortunately, the records of King and Queen County have been burned, so while there were very likely more records that pertain to Thomas, they were destroyed. The next time we see Thomas after the 1751/1752 merchant’s account record is in 1765 in Halifax County.

Essex County, Virginia, Summary

The deeds and land transactions tell us that the Estes and Younger families probably knew each other long before they came to Halifax Co. Notice below that the head of Dragon Run is almost exactly on the county border between King and Queen and Essex county which is highlighted in yellow. The purple arrow is pointing to this general area, but slightly on the Essex side. The Younger’s lived on the Essex side and the Estes lived just across the road, right about where the “620” is printed on the way south from Miller’s tavern.

It is exceedingly frustrating for me not to be able to connect our Marcus Younger back to his father. There were other early Younger men who also came to Halifax County, like William Younger. Were they also from Essex county? Was our Marcus related to them? He was clearly associated very closely with all of the Youngers of that time in Halifax County, as they witnessed deeds and such for each other and the Estes family. Marcus and Thomas Younger were neighbors, as were William Younger and Moses Estes Jr.

Given the DNA results, Marcus did not share a paternal line with Thomas Younger or James Younger, both sons of Alexander Younger and Rebecca Mills. The Y DNA of Thomas and James descendants matches each other, but Marcus’s Y chromosome does not, and one of the people (Seay) he matches closely also doesn’t match the DNA of his surname family. The Marcus Younger line also matches one single Rolland male.

Halifax County, Virginia Younger Families

The Halifax County research had two goals. One, to piece the various Younger families together, learning and much as possible about them and second, to find the land and cemetery where Marcus Younger lived.

The following information is extracted from the deed, will, court order, and chancery suits and is combined with census and tax list information in order to assemble families. This is not intended to be exhaustive, but to provide an overview in summary form of the results of the research in Halifax. I have removed almost all of the detail for the Thomas and William Younger families, leaving only what might be relevant for Marcus.

In a nutshell, we have connected all of the early families into three distinct groups that apparently do not connect together in Halifax, meaning they are not father-son groupings. They may well be otherwise related, but we just don’t know yet.

Ironically, it was neither William, Marcus nor Thomas who first appeared in Halifax County, but James Younger in 1758 who is mentioned as providing blacksmith services in the estate management for the children in the estate of Capt. James Hill. Halifax Will Book 0-46. This James never reappears. Two years later, William Younger followed. In 1765 Thomas Younger arrived. Marcus doesn’t appear in any records until 1785.

Marcus Younger, born before 1740, died 1815, wife Susannah

Halifax County records for Marcus Younger begin in 1785.

1785 – Markus Younger is listed on the tax list with 1 white, 1 slave, no horses and 2 cows.

1785 – Marcus Younger is listed on Berryman Green’s list with 1 white tithe, 2 slaves and 1 horse. A different records show him with 1 white, 1 slave, no horses and 2 cows.

1785 – John Younger, son of Marcus, is listed with 1 white, no slaves, no horses and 2 cows.

1786 – On December 19, Mary Younger marries George Estes, her father Marcus Younger and George Estes sign, William Martin is a witness and Daniel Parker is surety.

George signs his marriage bond, above. Below, Marcus signs for Mary to marry George.

1787 – Markus Younger on the tax list shows 1 white, 2 slaves, 3 horses and 2 cows.

1787 – John Younger on the tax list shows 1 white, 1 slave, 3 horses and 6 cows.

1788 – Halifax County VA Deed Book 14, Pg. 276

7 Mar 1788 Mark Younger from Meador Anderson and wife Sarah
100 acres on Branch of the Bannister River

1788 – Halifax County VA Deed Book 14, Pg. 281
7 Mar 1788
John Younger from Meador Anderson and wife Sarah
100 acres on Branch of the Bannister River for 60 pounds.
(John is the son of Marcus)

1788 – Tax list Markus Younger 1 white, 0 slaves and 3 horses.

1788 – Tax list John Younger 1 white, 1 black, 3 horses.

1789 – Marcus witnessed the will of Thomas Younger and also was on the tax list with 100 acres and tithed with one white male, no slaves and 2 horses.

1790 – Marcus Younger has 100 acres every year until 1814 when his land drops to 93.5 acres and then in 1815 to 43.5 acres and is then noted as a life estate instead of held in fee simple. This would be his daughter’s share, I would think. Marcus has no slaves until 1794 when he has 3, then none in1795, 1 in 1796 and each year until he acquires a second slave in 1800 and has 2 until his death. He has no horses in 1790, but acquires 2 in 1796 and then has 4 in 1802, dropping back to 2 in 1809 and 1 in 1810.

1790 – Marcus’s son John Younger has 100 acres and maintains that land until 1812 when he adds another 3.5 acres from his father. He has one slave until 1794 when he acquires a second and has two throughout the record period until 1817.

1795 – John Younger, road hand along with George Estes.

Note: This road hand assignment confirms that George and Mary Younger Estes indeed were living in the north part of the county, probably on the Marcus Younger land. Given this, the Marcus Younger farm is probably where John R. Estes, their son and also my ancestor, born in 1787/1788 was born. There are also several spaces for children “missing” who would have been born in the 1790s, nor were any children named after George’s parents, Moses and Luremia. I suspect those children are buried in the cemetery on Marcus’s land.

1799 – Marcus Younger is listed as a road hand.

1799 – John Younger is listed as a road hand on Terrible Creek along with George Estes.

Note: Further confirmation that George and Mary Estes Younger were living among the Youngers as late as 1799.

1805 – Marcus wrote his will, but he did not pass away until 10 years later, in 1815. Generally in this timeframe in Virginia, people did not write a will until they thought they were going to pass away, so he must have had a scare 10 years before he died.

1810 – Halifax County Tax list. Marcus is taxed with 2 whites, meaning two adult white men, George Estes is not listed on the tax list, which means he was taxed under someone else, and Moses Estes, George’s father, is only taxed with one white male. George and Mary Estes Younger are very likely living with Marcus Younger.

1811 – Halifax County VA Deed Book 23, Pg.197
20 May 1811
Mark Younger to John Younger
6 1/2 acres on Bannister River adjoining Younger’s land.
Witnesses: Benjamin and William Landrum, James Powers

Marcus’ will, written 23 Jun 1805, Probated 25 Jan 1815:

To daughter Susannah 50 acres of land where my house stands during her natural life. Also one Negro girl (Fanny), one mare, one bed, and furniture, one cow and calf. To grandson Younger Wyatt one mare. The rest of my estate to be equally divided among my four children namely, John Younger, Elizabeth Clark, Mary Estes and Susannah Younger together with my forenamed grandson Younger Wyatt.

Marcus and Susannah Younger’s children:

John born April 11, 1760 in Essex County, married Lucy Hart, had 9 children, inherited his father’s land and lived in Halifax County. His son Joel owned the Younger land after John’s death in 1817 as well as the old Younger store. John’s land is where the cemetery is today.
Elizabeth married William Clark, had 5 children, but was dead by March 1816.
Mary Younger married George Estes in 1786 and died after her sister Susannah in 1831, but before 1842.
Sally Younger married a Wyatt and had Younger Wyatt. She was probably deceased by 1805.
Susannah apparently never married and died about 1831. She had a will and in her will she left her clothes to her sister Mary Estes and Mary Wyatt, and then she freed her negroes Fanny and Henry “to be released and given $15”. Fifteen dollars at that time was a significant amount of money. Susannah had inherited Fanny when Fanny was a child when Marcus died in 1815. By 1831, Fanny had presumably married Henry, or perhaps Henry was her son. Neither a Fanny nor Henry Younger are found in the Halifax County region in either 1840 or 1850.

Page 568 July 1815

Land of Marcus Younger (heirs listed) decd to John Younger with agreement of all parties to make survey to Susannah Younger who becomes entitled to the part allocated her under the will of Marcus, tract on the draught of Bannister River beginning at a post on John Younger’s line.

1816 – Marcus Younger’s estate was inventoried. Slaves Joshua, Harry (boy), Phoebe, Ceily (girl), Jacob (boy), Ben (boy), Sampson (boy), Dicey (girl), mare and sorrel colt, Fanny given by will to Susannah Younger, cow, 3 feather beds and furniture also to Susannah, one yoke oxen, cow, cow and yearling, yearling, one stack tops, two clade stacks, two vat stack, cart, 2 ploying, panel of plank, 2 head sheep, 3 fatted hogs, 1 cutting box, parcel of nubings.

I love estate inventories because they tell us so much about what the person did, and didn’t, have. This man was not wealthy by any stretch, but with three feather beds and 8 slaves, although several were children, he also wasn’t a pauper. The slave records hurt my heart and make me sad. I hope they were considered part of the family.

In 1816, Marcus’s estate transferred 62 acres on Banister Creek. Deed Book 25-568.

1816 – Susannah Younger’s land laid off. Susanna Younger, Younger and Polly Wyatt, Thomas and Peggy Clark, William Clark, John and Sarah Henderson, Edmund and Elizabeth Henderson, John and Polly Landrum and George and Mary Estes to John Younger – prompt distribution of Marcus Younger, decd – survey to Susanna Younger part allocated to her under will of Marcus, land sold for 12 months credit $420.60 on the draughts of Banister 62 acres bounded by John Younger line, Bruce’s line, Sights corner, Susanna Younger laying off allotment of land he bequeathed her. Halifax Deed Book 25-568

1817 – Halifax County VA Deed Book 26. Pg. 572
16 Jul 1817
John Younger, Sr. and wife Lucy to Thomas P. Anderson
107 acres on the head of Yellow Bank Branch for $700
Witnesses: Anthony Younger, George Estes, John Younger and James Bruce

1817 – Will: Halifax County Will Book 11, Pg 50 – John Younger (son of Marcus)
Written 17 Jul 1817, Probated 29 Oct 1817

Names wife Lucy – tract she lives on, furniture, stock, all my Negroes
Children:

John Younger – $500 to be raised by executors 12 months after my decease
Elizabeth, wife of Thomas P. Anderson – $500
Joel Younger – 170 acres adjoining Thomas Anderson
Anthony Younger – 100 acres on Big Creek on which he resides lying on the waters of Rye Creek (Bye Ck)
Thomas Younger- land lent to his mother after her death or marriage
Robert Younger – land previously given as his share (100 acres north side of Bye Creek apparently)
Sally, wife of Joel Anderson – $500 beds, furniture & bridles
Polly – $250 for each of her children
Nancy – $500 beds, furniture, horses $ bridles
Polly & children – $125 ea; Bazoil and Betsy P. Ray – 1/2 land she lives on, the children, the other half

Execs: sons Robert and Anthony Younger
Witnesses: James Bruce, Daniel Mills, George Estis and Mary Estis, her mark (daughter of Marcus)
Security: Joel Tucker, Edward Carlton

Note: The fact that George and Mary Estes, sister to John, witnessed his deed indicates that they were close to John and trusted family members. Also note that Mary Younger Estes cannot write.

John (son of Marcus) died in 1817. His wife was Lucy Hart and he was obviously already married when he came to Halifax. His children were:

Robert S who married Mary Polly Moore and died in 1870
Joel who married Lucy Cain and then Fentel Hart
John who married Elizabeth and lived in Pittsylvania Co.
Thomas married Elizabeth Willingham
Nancy married Vincent Carlton
Sally married Joel Anderson
Elizabeth married an Anderson and then Thomas Andrews
Anthony who married Nancy Carrell and sells land in 1824 to James Bruce, by 1830 they live in Franklin Co., VA
Polly who was widowed by a Ray and then marries Samuel Younger (son of Thomas). She has children by Ray, Bazrael (wife Jane) and Elizabeth Ray.

Joel (son of John, son of Marcus) died in 1877 and had the following children:

- Samuel W. (presumed Younger)
- Vincent B. (presumed Younger)
- Harriett F. Carlton
- Matilda E. Tune
- Louise E. Younger
- Martha B. Younger
- Joseph G. Younger
- Thomas L. Younger

This was the last Younger family to own the original Younger land. It was sold in 1906.

Robert, (son of John, son of Marcus) married Mary Polly Moore (William D. Moore brother, James D. Moore nephew), and died in 1870. They had the following children:

- Philip A. Younger
- William Polard Younger
- Peter Palmer Younger
- John Marcus Younger (Methodist Minister) buried in Pittsylvania Co.
- William Younger
- James Younger
- Betsy Light Younger
- Martha F. Younger marries Thomas Bradley

It’s quite interesting that the theme of the Methodist religion runs through these families. This may indeed be the tie that binds many together, especially in situations where they don’t appear as close neighbors, but the children are still intermarrying. Their connection could well be through their church. At this time, the only approved State church was the Anglican church, and everyone was required to attend and to pay tithes to support the church. Methodists and Baptists were considered “dissenting religions.” Around the Revolutionary War, Halifax County authorized three dissenting ministers to perform marriages. William Moore was one of those ministers, and his daughter, Nancy Ann Moore would marry John R. Estes, the son of George and Mary Estes, in 1811. The Rice and Henderson families were also known to be dissenters, and the Younger family married into the Clark family who married into the Henderson family, who was already married into the Moore family.

In 1842, a chancery suit involving Marcus’s estate was settled. The suit claimed that when the heirs of Marcus sold 52 acres to Thomas Clark, the heirs had received the purchase money, but that the whole of them had never conveyed to him clear title, although he was in possession of the land. All of the children of Marcus Younger were listed, and if Marcus’s children were dead, their children as heirs were listed. This suit was invaluable in reconstructing the family of Marcus Younger and in particular, his grandchildren. However, the mystery of his parents, remains.

Marcus Younger Chancery Suit

Suit 1842-057, Halifax Co. Va. – extracted in June 2005 by Roberta Estes

The worshipful county court of Halifax in chancery sitting: Humbly complaining sheweth unto your worships your orator Thomas Clark that a certain Marcus Younger died many years ago leaving a small tract of land containing about 53 (58?) acres to his wife Suckey Younger (see note) for life and at her death to be divided amongst his children. That after the death of the said Suckey Younger, the rest of the children of the said Marcus Younger (the wife of your orator being one) sold the said land to your orator, put him in possession of the same and have received from them the whole of the purchase money, but have not as yet conveyed to him the legal title. The names of the said renders(?) are John Henderson and Sally his wife, John Landrum and Sally his wife, Edward Henderson and Betsy his wife, Robert Younger and Mary his wife, Samuel Younger and Mary his wife, Thomas P. Anderson, Joel Younger and Fental his wife, Vincent Carlton and Nancy his wife, Joel Anderson and Sally his wife, Thomas Younger and Betsy his wife, William Estes and Rebecca his wife, James Smith and Polly his wife, Susanna Estes, Marcus Estes, William Clark and Mary his wife, Anthony Younger and Nancy his wife, John Younger and Betsy his wife, Younger Wyatt and Polly his wife, John Estes and Nancy his wife, Thomas Estes and Sally his wife. In tender consideration of the promises and in as much as your orator is remedyless therein at last?. To this end therefore that the above named renders? be made parties to this suit and required to answer the allegations herein contained under oath. That in consequence of the said partys being numerous and widely dispersed in the United States that the said court decree that the legal title to the said land be conveyed to your orator and that the parties to the said contract as vendors? be required to do so and unless they shall do so within a reasonable time that the court appoint a commissioner for that purpose and grant all other recipients relief. May it please the court to grant the Commonwealths writ of subpoena.

Note: This mention of his wife Suckey Younger drove me to distraction for years. During one of the visits to Halifax County, I saw a form for a lawsuit and realized that often, forms or standard language were used at that time as well. The standard verbiage here would be wife and not daughter. The next sentence in fact says, “the rest of the children” and the subsequent suit and deeds all reference Susannah not as the wife of Marcus, but his daughter. Unfortunately, in this case, the fact that his wife and the daughter who died without marrying and without heirs shared the same first name.

Next document:

The joint answer of John Henderson and Sally his wife, John Landrum and Polly his wife, Edward Henderson and Betsy his wife, Robert Younger and Mary his wife, Samuel Younger and Mary his wife, Thomas P. Anderson and Betsy his wife, Joel Younger and Fental his wife, Vincent Carlton and Nancy his wife, Joel Anderson and Sally his wife, Thomas Younger and Betsy his wife, William Estes and Rebecca his wife, James Smith and Polly his wife, Susanna Estes, Marcus Estes, William Clark and Mary his wife, Anthony Younger and Nancy his wife, John Younger and Betsy his wife, Younger Wyatt and Polly his wife, John Estes and Nancy his wife. Thomas Estes and Sally his wife to a bill of complaint exhibited against them in the county court of Halifax by Thomas Clark – These respondents saving? Do say that the allegations of the complainants bill are true and having answered pray to be hence dismissed.

Next document

This cause came on this day to be heard on the bill of chancery and answered and was argued by counsel and consideration and decise? that Jonathan B. Stovall who is hereby appointed a commissioner for that purpose do by proper deeds convey the lands in the proceeding mentioned to Thomas Clark in fee simply with special warranty.

Two attached pages in file as follows:

Page 1

Marcus Younger left 83 acres for life to Sukey Younger for life and at her death to be divided among his children. Note – after this statement, in a different handwriting, begins the list of his heirs.

Elizabeth Clark, Sally Wyatt, John Younger, Mary Estes, children of Marcus
Thomas, Sally Henderson wife of John Henderson, Polly Landrum wife of John Landrum, Betsy wife of Edward Henderson, William Clark, Children of Elizabeth Clark (inferring that she is deceased).
Younger Wyatt child of Sally Wyatt
Robert, Polly wife of Samuel Younger, Anthony, Joel, Betsy wife of J. P. Anderson, Nancy wife of Vincent P. Carlton, John, Thomas, Sally wife of Joel Anderson – children of John Younger.
John Estes, William, Susannah, Sally wife of T. Estes, Polly wife of James Smith and a grandchild name Mark Estes – children of Mary Estes.
Elizabeth Clark’s children are entitled each to 1/5 of 1/4^th
Younger Wyatt entitled to ¼th
John Younger’s children are each entitled to 1/9 of 1/4^th
Mary Estes children are entitled each to 1/6 of 1/4^th
Mary Estes grandchild is entitled to 1/6^th of 1/4^th

Thomas Clark and Peggy his wife – Halifax
John Henderson and Sally his wife – Halifax
John Landrum and Polly his wife – Halifax
Edward Henderson Jr. and Betsy his wife – Halifax
William Clark and Mary his wife – Patrick County
Robert Younger and Mary his wife – Halifax
Samuel Younger and Mary his wife – Halifax
Anthony Younger and Nancy his wife – Franklin
Thomas P. Anderson and Betsy his wife – Halifax
Joel Younger and Fental his wife – Halifax
John Younger and Betsy his wife – Pittsylvania
Vincent Carlton and Nancy his wife – Halifax
Joel Anderson and Sally his wife – Halifax
Thomas Younger and Betsy his wife – Halifax
Younger Wyatt and Polly his wife – Rutherford County Tennessee
John Estes and Nancy his wife – Rutherford Co Tennessee (actually ditto marks and John was actually in Claiborne by this time it is believed)
William Estes and Rebecca his wife – Halifax
Susannah Estes – Halifax
Thomas Estes and Sally his wife – Montgomery County Tennessee
James Smith and Polly his wife – Halifax
Marcus Estes (son of Mark) – Halifax

(Note – Marcus Estes the son of George and Mary Estes died in 1815 shortly after his marriage. Susanna Y. Estes, the daughter of George and Mary Estes, who never married, also had a son Marcus Estes, not to be confused with this Marcus, the son of George and Mary Estes.)

Thomas Younger, born before 1806, died in 1791, wives unknown

Thomas Younger had to have been born before 1706 if he was administering his father’s estate in 1727. His father, Alexander wrote his will in 1725. If Thomas was 21 at that time, he would have been born in or before 1704.

Thomas Younger was in Halifax County by 1765 when both Thomas and William appeared on different tax lists.

1781 – Halifax County – Revolutionary War Public Claims from Thomas Younger. 22 diets #1-7-6, 15 do, 15 forages#1-10, 54# mutton 11s-3, .5 bu corn 1s-3, 4 gal brandy #2, .5 bu oats, 17 diets #1-2, 100# fodder 3s, 56# fodder, 1 bu corn, 2 bu oats 7s-1.75, 200# fodder 6s, 6 forrages, 1 qt brandy, 3 diets 9s-9, 5 pts brandy 6s-3 cont

Thomas owned land on Terrible Creek adjacent his son William who died in 1801. This relationship is proven in one of the many chancery suits that follow regarding Thomas’s will and his daughter Susannah who had land for her life. Upon her death, the heirs filed suits to determine how her assets were to be divided. Thomas Younger’s children were:

Susannah who never married and inherited land
Samuel who married Polly Younger Ray
James who could not be found for an estate distribution when Susannah dies but then suddenly shows up, causing yet another chancery suit
John
Joseph
Thomas (of the half blood)
Mary Fretwell Scudders (of the half blood)
Jesse who dies in 1805
William who owns land on Terrible Creek and died in 1801 (see below)
Elizabeth who had the child (John G. Younger) by Rev. Gordon and marries John LeGrand
Nancy (Nanny) Smallman
Katey Brown
Dolly Light
Lucy who married George Winn
Rebecca married John Franklin
Rachel

It doesn’t help in the confusion factor that both Marcus and Thomas have daughters Susannah who never marry.

The Younger Store

The old store below is all that is visibly left of the family on the main road, 501, the L.P. Bailey Memorial Highway. This building is about equidistant between the two families, Thomas and Marcus. Brownie, Thomas Younger’s descendant, who took the photo about 2002, believes it was run by Joel’s family, who would have been Marcus’s grandson. You can see that at one time this was probably an early gas station, with the cars pulling under the roof area. This building still stood in 2008.

The Marcus Younger Graveyard

The old Younger family graveyard is located on the original Younger land upon the North side of Banister River located off of current road 610, Murphy Grove Road, on land that included part of Yellow Bank Creek, according to early deeds. This land passed from Marcus Younger to his son John and then to John’s son Joel. I understood that this land was sold in about 1892 to Walter Tune, so I originally thought it could still be in the Tune family, especially given there is an “old Tune house” in that vicinity.

I found records indicating that the graveyard was apparently in the woods near the Tune house, but without a local who knew the area, locating it was going to be very difficult.

In the spring of 2008, with the help of lots of people, I eventually located and visited the original Younger cemetery. I wrote the following story about it at the time. The first part is written in 2007 when I first attempted to locate the cemetery, and the second part in 2008 when I finally found it with the help of one very generous farmer, the current land owner, and my cousin, Audrey.

Meeting Marcus Younger – 1740-1816

Yes, indeed, I met Marcus, just last week…..but not as you might think.

Two or three years ago when I was visiting the Halifax County, Virginia courthouse, extracting records in the damp dusty basement, a gentleman came in and began talking to Lawrence Martin, the gentleman who works in the historical records there. This visitor’s interest was veterans of the various wars who lived in Halifax County, but in particular, those who died in service.

Later in that week, I met with my cousin to do some genealogical spelunking for the Estes and Younger surnames, and she mentioned a gentleman named Doug who might know about the Younger line, as he too is a descendant. Yep, it was Doug who was in the courthouse and I had already exchanged e-mails with him.

Doug and I compared notes. I had discovered an old document in the library in Danville in a prior visit that mentioned an old Younger cemetery on the original Marcus Younger land. The individual who wrote the document had visited it many years ago, years as measured in decades, probably between the 1930s and 1960s, as best I could tell. Clearly her address was no longer valid and her phone number only had 5 digits. All I had were her cryptic directions, based on landmarks of that time and road names that had since changed. Oh yes, and a new major road was put in too, but I didn’t know that it hadn’t always been there. The old woods had been logged, and the well that was supposed to be there apparently wasn’t…..but I’m getting ahead of my own story.

Doug and I communicated for a few months, but then Doug grew very ill. His recovery took a long time and he faced many challenges. In one of his e-mails, he mentioned that I should call a lady named Audrey, that she might know more about the cemetery and such, that she also descended from the Youngers.

Now I hate to make phone calls, especially cold calls, but I’d do just about anything to find my ancestors, so I put off the call as long as possible, but eventually, call Audrey I did. Audrey was very nice when I finally made that call in August of 2007. I was going to NC on business and planned to be in Halifax County for one day on the way back. For a researcher who had spent weeks in Halifax, one day was little opportunity to get anything done, but one day was better than nothing, and I was looking forward to meeting my new cousin, Audrey, who was going to take a DNA kit to one of her male Younger cousins on the Marcus Younger line.

Audrey said she thought she could get us to the cemetery based on the directions in the old letter. She knew it existed, but she had never been there herself. In fact, she had a list of some of the people buried in the cemetery, provided by an elderly relative years ago, which she gave me and are listed below. My identification notes as to how they connect are in parenthesis.

Louise Younger Tune Younger (daughter of Joel Younger who married first a Tune (who was killed in the Civil War) and then her first cousin, Patrick (also shown as Phillip) Andrew Jackson Younger, son of Robert H. Younger, Joel’s brother)
Patrick A. J. Younger (Louise’s husband & 1st cousin)
Kate Younger (Louise’s unmarried sister, daughter of Joel Younger)
Tom Younger (Louise’s unmarried brother, son of Joel Younger and Civil War Veteran)
Nathan Younger (Louise’s unmarried brother, son of Joel and Civil War Veteran)
Walter Tune’s father (Louise’s first husband, his first name unknown, killed in the Civil War)

These turned out to be the children of Joel Younger, grandson of Marcus, so this did in fact confirm we had the right family cemetery.

Audrey and I set out to find the cemetery. We visited the old “Tune House”, now called “Breezy Hill”.

This house clearly is not old enough nor the correct style to be the original Marcus Younger home built around 1788 when he first purchased land here. However, this does fit exactly with the directions we found at the library, and with what Audrey knew from her lifetime of living in this area.

The Tune House in 1982, compliments of Johnny and Donna McKinney, the current owners.

According to the old directions in the library in Danville from the folks who found the cemetery years ago, this is exactly what we should find:

“Route 610 to a dirt road on the left and follow to end of public maintenance where you see a large white farmhouse. Near the house towards the back on the right is a farm road leading down to the creek through a gate. Drive across the creek and you will find an old rock lined well now covered by a concrete slab. Near the well is an area slightly sunken covered by English Ivy. Follow the road on the right about ½ mile beyond the creek. There is a large graveyard in the woods, completely overgrown with trees and a groundcover of periwinkle.”

Route 610 to a dirt road on the left and follow to end of public maintenance where you see a large white farmhouse. Near the house towards the back on the right is a farm road leading down to the creek through a gate. Drive across the creek and you will find an old rock lined well now covered by a concrete slab. Near the well is an area slightly sunken covered by English Ivy. Follow the road on the right about ½ mile beyond the creek. There is a large graveyard in the woods, completely overgrown with trees and a groundcover of periwinkle.

How on earth would we find this in 2007?

We obtained permission from the current owners to drive on back on their property to find the old cemetery, so off we went. They were aware that it was there, but did not know its exact location.

After a false start going down the wrong farm lane, we indeed found Yellow Bank Creek, although the name has been lost to the current generation. Looking at the yellow clay, the reason for the name is obvious. However, the gate was gone and we didn’t expect such a large “dip” in the “road”, shown below.

Audrey was getting a bit nervous. My cell phone didn’t work and she clearly did not want to be the laughing stock of the county for getting stuck in the woods with her northern cousin. I got out and walked across the creek, determining that there was gravel in the bottom and we’d be fine so long as we didn’t tarry and maintained a good speed when crossing. I got back in and told Audrey to hold on, and off we went across the creek in the Jeep. She was truly a good sport, although she periodically looked terrified.

Looking across the creek below, we initially went to the right on a little road only visible by a small clearing in the trees and then determined that this must not be the way, then followed the visible tracks, although it turns out the first overgrown road was the old road we wanted. This turned to the left and then the ground became somewhat soft and we drove on a raised burm until the washouts made us turn back. It was pretty rough back there, even for a Jeep, with quite deep well-hidden (with underbrush and overgrowth,) unforeseen gulleys that could easily swallow a car.

We looked, but the area was so over grown that we could not see any well or anything that looked like a well had ever been there. But then again, we weren’t quite sure what we were looking for either.

Little did we know that the well as actually about just past the clump of trees across the creek on the right, to the right of the road about where the dirt mound is showing. I would discover that this year (2008), but we were painfully close last fall.

Audrey and I decided that we really needed to abandon our plans since we could not get to the cemetery the way we were going and it was getting into the late afternoon and it was getting more difficult to see those gulleys.

On the way out, I took photos of the creek upstream in the little pond and downstream as well, as I knew full well this was the place. However, I desperately wanted to find the cemetery where Marcus and his family, my family, rested.

Audrey mentioned that she knew a farmer who could take us to the land, but he had recently sold it to another gentleman. She called the farmer in question, but he wasn’t home, and besides that, he would need to chat with the current property owner before taking us back to the cemetery from the “front side”.

My visit was coming to a close, so Audrey and I parted and agreed to try this trip again in the spring of 2008 when the brush was less dense and when we could find the right people to show us where the cemetery was located. It had become obvious that without knowing where you were going, you weren’t going to find it.

Above, Yellow Bank looking downstream. Below, Yellow Bank looking upstream.

I left and came home, and Audrey began to pursue the people we would need to help us locate the cemetery. She told me that the new land owner, a man named Dennis, was building a house there and had actually rented from Larry Younger, a Thomas Younger descendant and local veterinarian, while he was getting settled. What a small world.

What a string of coincidences, or maybe Marcus was helping.

To put things in perspective, this is the location where we were traveling.

The topo map below was provided by Denny and the yellow highlighter shows the location of the cemetery. There is a second smaller cemetery near the main road due north of the cemetery on the old road shown that enters from the main road. This road is now defunct, but a small cemetery remains beside this road. The third cemetery, which we now know holds the remains of the Street family, is marked on this map near what is now Younger road. Denny’s land is penciled.

Note Terrible Creek just across the main road on the map above. That’s where Thomas Younger owned land and the Younger store is on the main road between the two locations

Trying to coordinate between the schedules of several people in the spring of 2008 presented some challenges, plus the challenge of not exactly knowing where the cemetery was located. Discussions with Denny, the current land owner, several days in advance disclosed that there wasn’t just one, not two, but three different cemeteries on his property, and that he had purchased his property in segments from different people. To confuse matters even more, there is a 4^th cemetery near his land, between his land and the Banister River, which houses the grave of Hawkins Landrum, a very early dissenting preacher in that area who died about 1804. The local folks tell of the time that his “people” came from Texas to see the grave and there are probably only 1 or 2 people still living who know where that cemetery is located. We have determined that it is not on Younger land.

Denny was kind enough to contact the title companies involved and they did produce some helpful documentation, which I was able to use as a baseline to work from in my courthouse research. My first day was spent at the courthouse in an attempt to track Denny’s various land purchases backwards in time to meet Marcus Younger’s descendants coming forward in time.

What an interesting exercise that was!

Fortunately, we had isolated the land to that just north of the Horseshoe Bend in the Banister River, which was a readily recognizable landmark. You can see the bend on the map below, at the bottom. The approach we took in 2007 shows up in white, and you can see where it crosses Yellow Bank Creek, about an inch to the left of where the white line ends.

On the map below, you can see Younger Road and Bessie Marion Trail as well.

The Yellow Bank Creek crossing is shown by the red arrow. Here is a closer view. The cemetery is between the house and barn and the Creek crossing. Below, you can clearly see Dennis’s new construction.

Here we are, in 2008, back at the infamous creek crossing. But this time, I’m on the right side of the creek with someone who knows where they are going.

You can see the yellow clay and can tell why it was named Yellow Bank Creek.

Cemeteries, especially abandoned pioneer cemeteries and homesteads are often marked by daffodils and periwinkle in the spring. This one was no different. These flowers are often wonderful guides. Marcus Younger or maybe his wife may have planted these.

In the earlier directions, a well was mentioned. Dennis knew exactly where it was. This is probably the original house well that Marcus Younger used and he perhaps dug the well himself. The original stones are there but it was shored up in later days and then of course, the well was eventually abandoned.

The area behind the well shows evidence that it had once been a homestead. Daffodils were getting ready to bloom in a wide area. This is probably where the original log cabin was located and where Marcus lived.

Was this the original step to the house?

The current owners of the Tune House, Donna and Johnny McKinney, contacted me a couple years after this original article was published. Donna and Johnny who are researching the history of the property, indicated that they believe this well was associated with the original Tune home that had burned, prior to the current one being rebuilt. The clump of trees below is believed to be the location of the original Tune home, as told to them by Walter Tune’s great-grandson, Doug Tune. These trees can be seen in the background of the photo of the Walter Tune family, shown earlier.

Johnny located another foundation, about 600 feet from the well, which he believes to be the original Younger cabin, with the cemetery sitting directly up the hill maybe 300 feet from the remains. He promises to take some photos as soon as the winter weather lets up!

Dennis, the current Younger property owner, knew exactly where the cemetery was. It is, like the original records said, located in the woods. I could not help but think how difficult these graves would have been to dig.

Many graves are still marked by fieldstones, hidden under the leaves and periwinkle.

None of the graves are actually marked with contemporary stones, all have simple field stones.

This cemetery is not small. Among this family must surely be Marcus and his wife, Susanna and their unmarried daughter, also Susanna. Another daughter, Sally, died young, after having only one child, and she is probably here too. Marcus’s son John, who inherited this land, died only a year after his father at about age 57 and assuredly is buried here. John’s wife, Lucy Hart, died 17 years later, in 1834, and probably rests here too. Any of their children who died would also be buried here, surrounded by their parents and grandparents.

Marcus and his wife only had 5 documented children. They were married their entire adult life to each other, as best we know, having had son John in 1760, probably their first child. They could have been expected to have 10-12 children during a normal reproductive marriage, which implies that 5-7 children died. Some may be buried here, some back in King and Queen or Essex Counties. How hard it must have been for Susanna to leave the graves of her babies.

If Susanna married Marcus Younger at approximately age 20 and had her first child, John, in 1760, we could expect that she would be bearing children for approximately the next 25 years, or until 1785. We know she was dead by 1805 when Marcus made his will, as was her unnamed daughter who married the Wyatt.

Our ancestor who was Marcus and Susanna’s child was Mary Younger who married George Estes in 1786, roughly two years before Marcus Younger purchased this land on Banister River. In fact, this was before George’s father, Moses Estes Jr. had bought the land abutting William Younger in what is now South Boston. The first records of George Estes are in the north part of the county, possibly living and working on the Younger land. Thomas Younger lived here long before Marcus first bought land. George Estes and Mary Younger may also have children buried here. Mary died sometimes after 1831 and before 1842 and we’ve always presumed she was buried in the Estes cemetery, now under the landfill, in South Boston. If she is not buried there, then she is surely buried here.

Joel Younger, son of Marcus’s son John Younger and his wife Lucy Hart, inherited the Marcus Younger land and died in 1877. Joel’s first wife, Lucy Caine, died in 1818, probably in childbirth, only 4 years after their marriage and a year after Joel’s father, John died, the year after Marcus died. The Younger family visited this sacred burying ground often.

Joel’s second wife, Fentel Hart, died in 1862, during the Civil War. Where else would Joel and his wives be buried? Other family members could well be buried here as well. Many children died young and we don’t even know their names. After the census began to be recorded for every family member in 1850, complete with ages, we know these children existed because there is a gap in the living children of the exact spacing for one who died. It’s certain that many are buried here with their parents, grandparents and siblings.

When property passed out of the hands of the original owners, the new family often started a new family cemetery elsewhere on the property. This land did not pass from the Younger family hands until in the 1900s and according to the list provided by Audrey, several of the Tunes are buried here as well. The Tunes were Younger descendants through Joel’s daughters Louisa and Matilda who both married Tunes. Louisa’s husband, William R. Tune was taken prisoner during the Civil War, and died, but their only child, a son, Walter T. Tune, born in 1864, would own and live on this land. Louisa’s second husband was her first cousin, Phillip A.J. Younger, son of Robert, brother to her father, Joel. This means that Louisa’s name was Louisa Younger Tune Younger. Louisa and Phillip lost at least 4 children who are recorded in Audrey’s note as having been buried here as well. Walter T. Tune died in 1945 and is buried in the McKendree United Methodist Church Cemetery, located just down the road, the first generation not to be buried in this Younger family cemetery.

There are abandoned buildings on the property. I think this building below is too new to be the original home. Dennis said this is an old barn.

Dennis said the photo below may have been the original house. I question that because it’s not a log cabin, but maybe planks were made by the 1780s when Marcus moved to Halifax County. Although the original house/cabin would have been very close to the well and this one is not. Some building was located by that well and the daffodils near Yellow Bank Creek. It’s certainly possible that at one time both Marcus Younger and his son John both lived on this land, along with possibly other families as well, such as George and Mary Younger Estes. Multigenerational family farms were not uncommon. Later generations, such as Joel, may have built a “new” house too.

The second cemetery on the property is shown below.

Did someone lovingly plant this daffodil on their family member’s grave?

The property owner, Dennis, showed me a second cemetery on the property as well. He believes this may be a slave cemetery. It is much smaller and many fewer graves, above and below. The graves are marked with the same kind of field stones as the larger cemetery.

The 2008 visit was just wonderful, to find and stand on the land that Marcus owned and to visit his grave, someplace in that cemetery, nearly 200 years after his death.

Reflections Upon Marcus’s Parents

While there are many records we don’t have for Halifax County’s early residents, such as birth and death records, there are also many that do exist. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for King and Queen County, Virginia, whose early records are entirely lost.

By combining all of those juicy tidbits, we discover that there is actually a lot of information, in bits and pieces, about Marcus Younger as well as the other Younger families found in Halifax County, even though we still don’t know how they are related. We are provided with a glimpse into Marcus’s life and the lives of his children. We know where he lived and died, and where his daughter, Mary lived after she married George Estes.

Who was the father of Marcus Younger? Speculation abounds, but no genealogical hints have been forthcoming at all. Y DNA tests test males of the same surname and can determine if they share a common ancestor. They don’t tell you which common ancestor though, just if you match others of the same last name. Originally, this was the extent of DNA testing available. Today, in 2014, autosomal DNA testing that matches both male and female cousins is also available. People from both the Thomas and James Younger lines, both sons of Alexander match the descendants of Marcus Younger utilizing autosomal testing, so he appears to be descended from the Younger family, just not through the paternal line. Given all of the evidence available, it’s likely that he descends through an illegitimate birth by one of Alexander Younger’s daughters.

Currently, the Marcus Younger Y-line matches a Seay and a Rolland. Autosomally, we know that Marcus is descended from the Younger family, and he carries the surname, so by process of elimination, it must be through a female, because it is clearly not on the paternal male line.

The Promise of DNA

There are two types of DNA testing that is relevant to the Younger family in terms of sorting out who Marcus’s family and parents were.

The first is Y DNA testing, in which the father contributes the Y chromosome to only his sons. That DNA is not mixed with any DNA from the mother, so it is passed unchanged from male generation to male generation, all carrying the same surname, Younger. Therefore, when we Y DNA test two Younger men, if their Y DNA matches, we know they share a common paternal (surname) ancestor, and if it doesn’t, then no common paternal ancestor.

There is no question that the male Younger descendants of Marcus Younger don’t match the male descendants of either Alexander Younger or his son, Thomas Younger. However, the descendants of Alexander Younger do match each other, through two different sons, Thomas and James. Therefore, we know what the “true” Younger line looks like, and which of these is the “undocumented adoption.”

The second type of DNA testing is autosomal testing. This test differs from that of the Y, because it tests all of your DNA that is contributed by both Mom and Dad’s lines, equally. Therefore, in each new generation, the autosomal DNA that you received from your ancestors is divided in half as the next generation is created by combining the DNA of mother and father together. Half of the DNA of each parent is used, in effect roughly halving the DNA of each ancestor passed on to the child.

Several generations downstream from any given ancestor, descendants carry small amounts of DNA from that ancestor. You carry half of your parents DNA, roughly 25% of the DNA of each grandparent, 12.5% of the DNA of each great-grandparents, until eventually, in the 7^th generation, or your 4^th great-grandparents, you carry about 1% of their autosomal DNA, and so do all of their other great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Marcus is in fact my 4^th great-grandfather, so I carry about 1.5% of his autosomal DNA.

Comparing our autosomal DNA is how we identify cousins. By matching, we know we share a common ancestor, and by comparing genealogy, we figure out which common ancestor we share. When we have three or more descendants that share a common piece of DNA, we can then identify that DNA segment as belonging to that specific ancestor, and anyone else who matches us on that same segment is confirmed to have come from that ancestral line in some fashion. For example, if someone matches me and two Younger cousins on the same DNA segment, we know they are either descended from the Younger line or the line of one of the Younger wives upstream, genealogically, from our common ancestral match.

Let’s say that three Younger descendants match autosomally: me who descends from Marcus, someone who descends from Thomas, son of Alexander and someone who descends from James, son of Alexander. This tells us that all 3 of us either match through the Alexander Younger line, or his ancestors, or though Alexander’s wife or Alexander’s ancestor’s wives lines. Of course, Alexander’s ancestors become Alexander’s line, but his wife’s line becomes his children’s biological line.

This is important to understand because Alexander’s wife was Rebecca Mills. It’s certainly possible that we will match Mills cousins who have no Youngers in their line, because our common ancestor with those Mills cousins through Alexander Younger’s children was not Alexander, but his wife.

To shed light on the Younger family connections, we’ve utilized both Y line and autosomal DNA.

The DNA Evidence

Descendants of Thomas Younger and of Marcus Younger both took the Y DNA test some years ago, and we were absolutely stunned to discover that their Y DNA did not match. We have two descendants of John, the only son of Marcus, and they do match each other, but no other Youngers. It is possibly that Marcus did match the Alexander Younger line of DNA, but his son John, did not. However, given that John’s descendants match Alexander’s descendants autosomally, that virtually eliminates that possibility. If that were the case, that John was not Marcus’s biological son, he would not match the Younger line at all on autosomal tests, because his mother was not genetically a Younger.

The several descendants of Thomas Younger match each other and also the descendants of Alexander’s other son, James. So Marcus seems to be related to the family, carries the surname, but does not share a direct paternal ancestor on his father’s side.

Our candidates for his parents are quite limited.

Barring a totally unknown Younger person, we have the following candidates.

John Younger, son of Alexander – but that would also mean that John was not the biological son of Alexander but did share a mother since Marcus’s descendants autosomally match this line today. Since Alexander’s estate paid to register the death of John, that implies that John was not yet married at the time of his death and responsible for himself. This effectively eliminates John as a possibility. If Marcus was John’s illegitimate son, he would not carry the Younger surname.

The other alternative is that Marcus is the illegitimate child of one of Alexander’s daughters. His daughters were named Ann, Mary, Janet, Susannah and Elizabeth. Unfortunately, three of those names are repeated in Marcus’s daughters, but it could effectively eliminate Janet and Ann, unless Marcus had a child with that name that died young and he did not reuse the name as so many people did at that time. As it turns out, Ann and Janet married about 1732, which would probably eliminate them since Marcus appears to have been born about 1740 – but it doesn’t completely eliminate them as possible mothers as Marcus could have been born earlier. We have no information on the other 3 daughters, Mary, Susannah and Elizabeth other than they were minors at their father’s death in 1727 and Thomas was appointed their legal guardian in 1732, indicating they were still minors at that time, so born after 1711.

This scenario, that Marcus was the child of one of Alexander’s daughters would fit what we do know about this family both genetically and genealogically.

The DNA Jackpot

This brings us to December 2013. Until then, none of the descendants of Marcus Younger autosomally matched the descendants of Thomas Younger, at least not on large enough segments to be counted as a match at the testing companies.

I manage the kit of one of the descendants of John Younger, Marcus’s son. We’ll call him Larry.

I received a query from someone about matching Larry autosomally. I sent the note that I always do, with some basic genealogy info. What I received back was a pedigree chart screen shot from the match, David, that included Thomas Younger as his ancestor. He descended from Thomas via a daughter.

Once again, I was stunned, because here was the link we had sought for so many years…a genetic bond between Thomas and Marcus.

Of course, the first thing I did was to ask about other lines as well through which Larry and David might be related. There were none.

Then I turned to DNA. Larry matches me and Larry matches David, but I don’t match David. This could well be because we don’t have any segment matches above the match threshold of approximately 7.7cM at Family Tree DNA, but since we both match Larry, I could look at Larry’s matches and then drop the comparison level to below the matching threshold to see all of our common matches between the three of us.

Below are our default 5 cM matches on chromosome 1-10. We show a match on chromosomes 1, 4 and 10, but no common segments between the three of us. There were no matches on chromosomes 11-22, so they are not shown.

I am orange. David is blue. Larry is who we are being compared against and is represented by the black background chromosome.

Dropping the cM matching threshold level to 1 shows us that golden nugget we have searched for so diligently on the following graph. In this case, with the matching threshold lowered, we now have matches on chromosomes 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 15.

Look at chromosome 1. All 3 of us match on a small segment of DNA. That DNA is Younger DNA. And that little orange and blue segment proves that indeed, Marcus and Thomas were related, because all 3 of us match on the exact same segment of the chromosome. In other words, that segment comes from a common ancestor of all 3 of us, and there is only one common line, the Youngers.

This also means that there will be others who fall into this “too small to be a match but hugely relevant small segment” scenario. In order to take a look, I triangulated all of the matches for my cousin Larry and David, and there were a total of 15 individuals.

But here’s the amazing part.

There are 16 people in total, including Larry and David who match.

I compared them in the chromosome browser, and downloaded all of them. I then sorted them by chromosome and start/end segment. Here is that oh so beautiful “proof” match on chromosome 1.

There are a total of 191 individual segments across all chromosomes where these people match Larry.

Of those 191 segments, there are also 94 segments on which one or more of us also match each other. Those are shaded green above for chromosome 1.

Of those 94 segments, only 8 were large enough to be above the matching threshold. That means that there were a total of 86 segments that were below the matching threshold but that were useful genealogically. On chromosome 1 above, only Larry and I would have been over that threshold, and we were already matching.

Looking at those 8 large segment matches, some were between known relatives on both sides, like me and Larry on chromosome 1, but until there was someone who connected the dots and matched someone on both sides, like David, on a segment large enough to be counted as a match, the connection wasn’t there and the other matches weren’t meaningful to the question and answer of whether Marcus and Thomas were related.

David matches Larry on a large enough segment to be counted as a match on chromosomes 4 and 10, neither of which is a match to me in that location.

The golden “proof” egg, in this case, for the three of us, was hidden in a very small segment on chromosome 1 that would have gone entirely unnoticed and unreported because it was not over the vendor match threshold.

Are We Done?

Of course, we’re not “done.” Genealogists are never “done” because as soon as you find one more ancestor, there are two more needing to be discovered, their parents. I’d still like to know where the Younger family originated overseas before we find them in Glasgow, Scotland, although that could be before the advent of surnames. I’d like to know who Marcus’s paternal line is and I’d like to identify the surname of his wife. For that matter, I’d also like to know who his mother was and the circumstances surrounding his birth. You know there has to be a story there and probably some scuttlebutt too.

Given that we do now know that Marcus is descended from the Alexander Younger line, even though we don’t know exactly how, let’s take a look at what we do know about this Younger line.

Glasgow, Scotland, the Younger Ancestral Home

There’s a lot we don’t know about the Younger line, but there is a whole raft of information that has been discovered, that tells us about the lives of our Younger ancestors and their descendants. Halifax County is rich with Younger family history beginning around the time of the Revolutionary War. Prior to that, the Younger family was found in Essex and King and Queen Counties, in Virginia.

We know that Alexander Younger was married to Rebecca Mills around 1700 in Essex County and that their son was Thomas Younger. We know that Marcus and Thomas are related, in some way. I’ve speculated that Marcus’s mother was a sister of Thomas Younger, and if this is correct, then Alexander Younger would be the grand-father of Marcus Younger. DNA tells us that they are related. We just don’t know how.

The identity of Marcus’s wife as a Hart is also suggested by DNA testing, but needs additional matches to be confirmed, although I’m fairly confident at this point.

What we do know is this. Alexander Younger was born probably around 1675 in Scotland. We know that because his will, after immigrating to America and having children with Rebecca Mills, stated that if his entire family died, his estate was to be left to his brother Andrew, in Scotland.

From this point, we move to the Scottish records, but we can’t prove beyond a doubt that the Alexander in the 1681 Glasgow baptismal records is ours.

Alexander Younger’s father, born January 15, 1652 in the High Church in Glasgow, Scotland, is believed to be one Thomas Younger who married Anna Smith. We have no way of knowing whether or not the Alexander who immigrated to America and married Rebecca Mills is the same Alexander who was born to Thomas Younger and Anna Smith, although three of Alexander’s children carried the same first names as the children of Thomas Younger and Anna Smith: Janet, Mary and Thomas. Mary and Thomas aren’t unusual, but Janet is rather rare. Thomas Younger and Anna Smith also had a son named Andrew, which aligns with Alexander Younger’s 1725 will which leaves his estate, if none of his children survive, to his brother Andrew in Scotland.

According to the book, Scottish Church Records, Thomas Younger and Anna Smith’s children were christened in the High Church in Glasgow, as follows:

Janet Younger – Feb. 25, 1673
Jean Younger – Oct. 18, 1674
Agnes Younger – March 11, 1678
Alexander Younger – May 2, 1681
Andrew Younger – Nov. 13, 1683
Mary Younger – Feb. 16, 1690

Thomas Younger’s father, reportedly Alexander Younger was born about 1608 is a weaver and a burgess. He married Margaret Steinson (Steinsoun) and was listed in the guild records as follows:

The Burgesses and Guild Brethren of Glasgow, 1573-1750
This is the roll of the parish of Portpatrick above “tuelve yeirs of age”
1639
County: Lanarckshire
Country: Scotland
Younger, Alexander, weaver, B., as third son to dec’d William Younger, burgess (G.B., as mar. Margaret, dau to dec’d Neill Steinson. B. and G.B., 24 Sep 1646) 31 Oct. 1639

Here’s a carving of 16^th century burgesses from Glasgow. Burgesses were free men, often in a guild. Therefore all guild members were by default burgesses in the earliest meanings of the word. Eventually, it could mean an elected official of the municipality.

Although the guild note referring to Alexander Younger is dated 1646, there is a marriage record for Alexander Younger and Margaret Steinsoune Feb. 9, 1632 and their first child was christened in January, 1633.

This record gives us his father’s name, as well as his home location of Lanarkshire, where Glasgow is located. From this, we know that his father was William Younger and he is deceased in 1639, meaning that he would have been born before 1590 and probably earlier.

In summary, this gives us the following generations:

William Younger, burgess, born before 1590 and died by 1639
Alexander Younger, born circa 1608, married Margaret Steinson
Thomas Younger born before 1653, married Anna Smith
Alexander Younger born May 2, 1681, immigrated to America, married Rebecca Mills, will probated July 1727, Essex Co., VA

What do we know about Glasgow? Who was living there, how was it settled and what was occurring during this timeframe that might have affected the lives of the residents?

The present site of Glasgow has been used since prehistoric times for settlement due to it being the furthest downstream fording point of the River Clyde, at the point of its confluence with the Molendinar Burn. After the Romans left Caledonia the settlement was part of the extensive Kingdom of Strathclyde, with its capital at Dumbarton 15 mi (24 km) downstream, which merged in the 9th century with other regions to create the united Kingdom of Scotland. The origins of Glasgow as an established city derive ultimately from its medieval position as Scotland’s second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries as the site of this bishopric, reorganized by King David I of Scotland and John, Bishop of Glasgow.

There had been an earlier religious site established by Saint Mungo in the 6th century.

Glasgow grew over the following centuries, the first bridge over the River Clyde at Glasgow was recorded from around 1285, giving its name to the Briggait area of the city, forming the main North-South route over the river via Glasgow Cross. The founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451 and elevation of the bishopric to become the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1492 served to increase the town’s religious and educational status, and landed wealth. Its early trade was in agriculture, brewing and fishing, with cured salmon and herring being exported to Europe and the Mediterranean.

Following the Reformation and with the encouragement of the Convention of Royal Burghs the 14 Incorporated Trade Crafts federated as the Trades House in 1605 to match the power and influence in the Town Council of the earlier Merchants Guilds who established their Merchants House in the same year. Glasgow was subsequently raised to the status of Royal Burgh in 1611.

This was about the time that William Younger would have been a young man. For William’s third son, Alexander, to marry in 1646, at the probable age of between 25 and 30, he would have been born between 1616 and 1621. We know for sure he was over the age of 12 in 1639, so definitely born before 1627. His father, William, therefore, to have Alexander as his third son would have therefore been born before 1580 and probably before 1570.

Glasgow is today’s largest city in Scotland, but in the early 1600s, Glasgow was a relatively young and undeveloped city, as we can see by various maps.

In Glasgow, there are two churches referred to as High Church, Inner High Church at St. Mungo’s cathedral and Outer High Church or St. Paul’s. The Glasgow Cathedral is called the “High Kirk” of Glasgow and is located between High and Cathedral Streets, also referred to as St. Mungo’s. It was originally the Roman Catholic mother church before the Scottish Protestant Reformation in 1560.

William’s parents and grandparents would have lived through the Reformation , and William, depending on exactly when he was born, could have been baptized either Catholic or Protestant. By the time Alexander came along, he would definitely have been baptized or christened as Protestant.

The Younger timeline in Glasgow, Scotland, as best we can reconstruct it, is shown below.

1560 – Protestant Reformation
1560 -1580 – William Younger, shown as a burgess, deceased in 1639, his third son Alexander is over the age of 12 at that time.
1600 -1612 – Alexander Younger (Sr.), son of William, born. In 1639, he is over the age of 12 and in 1646, he marries Margaret Steinson.
1632 – Alexander Younger married Margaret Steinsoune and in 1633, their first child is christened.
1639 – Burgesses and Guild Brethren roll list Alexander Younger (Sr.) as over the age of 12 and his father, William, as deceased, with Alexander being his third son.
1646 – Note in guild roll indicating Alexander Younger (Sr.) married Margaret Steinson.
1652 – Thomas Younger, born in 1652.
1656 – Alexander Younger is shown in the guild records as a weaver.
1665 – Alexander Younger is shown in the guild records as a weaver.
1672 – Thomas Younger married Anna Smith based on the christening of their first child in 1673 in the High Church in Glasgow.
1681 – Alexander Younger (Jr.) born to Thomas Younger and Anna Smith and christened in the High Church in Glasgow, Scotland.
1687 – Alexander Younger (Sr.) dies in Glasgow.
1695 – Thomas Younger died in Glasgow. His wife, Anna died in 1690.
1699 – Alexander Younger (Jr.) is found in Virginia records and said to be 18 years old, which would place his birth in 1681.
1704 – Alexander’s son, Thomas Younger, born about this time based on the fact that when Alexander wrote his will in 1725, he indicated that Thomas was to be his executor which indicates that Thomas was 21 years of age.
1725 – Alexander Younger (Jr.) writes his will in Essex Co., VA, referring to his brother Andrew in Scotland.
1727 – Alexander Younger’s will is probated in Essex Co., VA.

This engraving, below, shows the High Church in Glasgow in 1693. This would have been about 100 years after William Younger lived, given that he was born sometime before 1580, and not far removed from the time that William’s son, Alexander and his grandson, Thomas, died in Glasgow, in about 1687 and 1695, respectively. This is also likely the church where their funeral rites were carried out, and it is likely where they are buried as well, although their gravestones, if they ever had one, surely don’t remain today.

The next generation, Alexander, the immigrant was born, probably in Glasgow, probably in 1681, so this is what Glasgow would have looked like about the time he left for America.

The following photo is of the College of Glasgow in the late 1660, with Blackfriars Church on land granted to them in 1246, shown on the right. Alexander, born in the early 1600s and his son, Thomas born in 1652 would have looked upon this very scene.

Below, engraving of Glasgow Cathedral and neighborhood in 1811.

Here is the Glasgow Precinct in 1574. Later maps all show graveyards by the churches and in fact that may be what the “Yairds” are.

This undated engraving shows a communal washing green near the Cathedral, shown in the background. Our ancestors surely visited this area and did just that.

The front of the Cathedral today from Cathedral Square.

The history of the cathedral is linked with that of the city, and is allegedly located where the patron saint of Glasgow, Saint Mungo, built his church. The tomb of the saint is in the lower crypt.

This crypt and the remains of St. Mungo were a much venerated pilgrimage site, so our Younger ancestors would have been very aware of this heritage held within their church.

Below, the Crypt of Glasgow Cathedral where Glasgow University was founded.

Built before the Reformation from the late 12th century onwards and serving as the seat of the Bishop and later the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Cathedral is a superb example of Scottish Gothic architecture. It is also one of the few Scottish medieval churches (and the only medieval cathedral on the Scottish mainland) to have survived the Reformation not unroofed.

Today, the church stands majestic and intact, shown below with the Royal Infirmary, the Cathedral and the Necropolis.

Someplace on these lands, the bones of our ancestors surely rest, as our family brought new life into the world, were baptized and married in this church and laid their dead to rest here as well. It’s from here that our family sprang and Alexander Younger would leave on a ship, from the port of Glasgow, below, about 1700, sailing past the port, Grennock, shown below, to settle in Virginia. I visited Grennock in the fall of 2013, and it assuredly looks much different today.

Ponderings In Closing

Sometimes just putting things in order helps to straighten them out and makes otherwise obscured patterns emerge.

One pattern, of note, is the repeated name of Janet in the daughters of the Younger family beginning with Alexander Younger and Margaret Steinson and continuing for the next three generations through Alexander Younger and Rebecca Mills children. Unfortunately, neither Thomas nor Marcus continued that tradition, or if they did, those children did not survive, but the name Janet does help us connect Alexander Younger in early Virginia with the Younger families in Glasgow, Scotland. The names of Thomas and Alexander also repeat, as does the name Susannah as a sister to Thomas Younger and a child of both Thomas and Marcus Younger.

From the evidence we have, it appears that the Glasgow Younger family is indeed ours.

Another pattern that emerges is of family groupings moving from the Essex/King and Queen County area of Virginia to Halifax County about the time of the Revolutionary War. This includes both the Estes and Younger families as well as the Harts, Fergusons and Landrums.

A third pattern seems to be one of belonging to a dissenting religion, in this case, Methodists. This tale is told by the fact that two of the 3 dissenting ministers in Halifax County were marrying family members of the various Younger families. This is true of the Marcus, Thomas and William Younger family lines, even though we still don’t know exactly how they are connected. Hawkins Landrum, one of those dissenting ministers, is buried next to the Marcus Younger land. The Landrum family also came from Essex County.

A fourth pattern is the connection between the South Boston Younger and Estes families whose lands abut, with the Banister River and Terrible Creek Younger families, some 12 miles distant. This connection likely reaches back to their common location on the Essex/King and Queen County borders. Mary Younger and George Estes were married before George’s father, Moses (Jr.), purchased land abutting William Younger, and before we find records of Marcus Younger, Mary’s father, In Halifax County. In addition, it now appears that George Estes and Mary Younger, daughter of Marcus may have lived on Marcus’s land from the time of their marriage in 1786 until when either Marcus Younger or Moses Estes died, in 1813 and 1815, respectively. In 1810, they appear to be living with Marcus.

After Marcus Younger’s death in 1815, his land went to son John and in life estate, to daughter Susannah. George Estes was the eldest son of his father, Moses (Jr.), who died in 1813 and George stood to inherit significantly from that estate. We do know that later in his life, from at least 1820 on, George and Mary Estes Younger unquestionably did live on the Estes land in South Boston. On the map below, the path from Estes Street in South Boston is shown to Younger Road, running through and north of Halifax, where the courthouse stands.

Additional records that could well illuminate the Hart connection to this family may be available in Essex County. I checked the chancery suit index at the library of Virginia for Essex County, and no Younger, Hart or Estes suits are old enough to be relevant to these families. It does, however, beg the question of who these Youngers in Essex County in the 1800s belong to, since Alexander had only 3 sons and we know the location of all 3. Thomas moved to Halifax County, John died shortly after his father, and James went to Chatham Co., NC.

As with many things in life, and all things genealogy, answered questions beget new ones. We answered quite a few questions recently, including the long-burning question of whether Thomas and Marcus Younger were related. They were in some way. We also have DNA evidence that indicates that Marcus’s wife, Susannah, was a Hart, or related to the Hart line.

With this information, of course, we have simply substituted new burning questions for old ones. We still don’t know who Marcus Younger’s father was, nor his mother, and we may never know. We do know that the men who his Y DNA matches also don’t match their family, or anyone else for that matter. I can’t help but think of a traveling salesman, or in that timeframe, the peddler or maybe an itinerant minister. Were it not so frustrating, it would be quite humorous really. I’m sure our ancestors, who, of course, know the answers, are all having a good chuckle!

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Bennett Greenspan – The Future of Genetic Genealogy

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Bennett Greenspan, one of the founders of Family Tree DNA, spoke about “The Future of Genetic Genealogy” at the Southern California Genealogy Society conference this week. The SCGS has been gracious enough to provide a video of the livestream.

High points of Bennett’s presentation include:

There will be a new Y SNP matching capability released in the next few days.
“Regulatory issues are larger issues than the science.” Bennett discusses “armwrestling with the FDA.”
If prices of SNP chips that test over 2 million locations don’t drop substantially in the next couple of years, then genealogy testing likely will not utilize the next generation of SNP chip, but will move directly to full genome sequence testing. This may happen in the 3-5 year range but will, for sure in the 5-10 year range.

Bennett talked quite a bit about privacy and what privacy is in this technology era, expectations and how privacy expectations may affect future DNA testing. Be sure to watch the video. It’s always interesting to hear Bennett, functionally the father of genetic genealogy, speak about this industry and the future.

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Edinburgh Castle and a Penannular

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Roberta Estes

This morning we awoke to a sunrise over the sea outside of Queensferry which is where the port for Edinburgh is located.

Oh yes, and Edinburgh is not pronounced Edinborough, it’s pronounced Edinburg, or at least similarly with the Scottish brogue. The Scottish brogue is comforting, homey. It feels like the language of the people.

Today began with tendering into the port. That means that the ship can’t get close enough to actually dock. So they took 3 or 4 lifeboats and lowered them, amongst much swearing in languages I don’t understand, but it was still quite recognizable as such. When they had trouble getting the flag raised on those boats, it didn’t do much to instill confidence. In any case, we did get to port, eventually, but we were an hour late for our tour to begin. Here’s our Carnival cruise ship, anchored beyond the bridge and we are standing in port

We were greeted one final time in port by bagpipers. I’ve enjoyed those greetings so much. Music touches the soul in ways nothing else can. This ancestral music is ingrained in the lives of my ancestors, and therefore, in me.

The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area is from Cramond where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp-site dated to circa 8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have been found on Castle Rock, Arthur’s Seat, Craiglockhart Hill and the Pentland Hills. People have been here for a very long time.

By the time the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, they discovered a Celtic Britonnic tribe whose name they recorded as the Votadini. At some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its exact location has not been identified, it seems more than likely they would have chosen a commanding position.

“Edin”, the root of the city’s name, is most likely of Brittonic Celtic origin, from the Cumbric language or a variation of it that would have been spoken by the earliest known people of the area. It appears to derive from the place name Eidyn mentioned in the Old Welsh epic poem Y Gododdin.

In 1603, King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England in a personal union known as the Union of the Crowns, though Scotland remained, in all other respects, a separate kingdom. In 1638, King Charles I’s attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Subsequent Scottish support for Charles Stuart’s restoration to the throne of England resulted in Edinburgh’s occupation by Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth of England forces – the New Model Army – in 1650.

In the 17th century, the boundaries of Edinburgh were still defined by the city’s defensive town walls, which you can see, along with the castle, in the drawing from 1670 by Wenceslas Hollar, above. As a result, expansion took the form of the houses increasing in height to accommodate a growing population. Buildings of 11 stories or more were common, and have been described as forerunners of the modern-day skyscraper. Most of these old structures were later replaced by the predominantly Victorian buildings seen in today’s Old Town.

By the first half of the 1700s, despite rising prosperity evidenced by its growing importance as a banking centre, Edinburgh was being described as one of the most densely populated, overcrowded and unsanitary towns in Europe. Visitors were struck by the fact that the various social classes shared the same urban space, even inhabiting the same tenement buildings; although here a form of social segregation did prevail, whereby shopkeepers and tradesmen tended to occupy the cheaper-to-rent cellars and garrets, while the more well-to-do professional classes occupied the more expensive middle storeys.

A census conducted by the Edinburgh presbytery in 1592 recorded a population of 8,003 adults spread equally north and south of the High Street which runs along the spine of the ridge sloping down from the Castle. The population rose rapidly, from 49,000 in 1751 to 136,000 in 1831, primarily due to migration from rural areas.

In the second half of the 1700s, Edinburgh was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment, and had become a major intellectual center, earning it the nickname “Athens of the North” because of its many classical buildings and reputation for learning, similar to Ancient Athens. The University of Edinburgh was established by royal charter in 1583 preceded by the Royal College of Physicians in 1506.

My ancestor, George McNiel and his two brothers were supposed to have studied at the University of Edinburgh for the ministry before sailing for America where they arrived about 1750. He was born about 1720, so if this is true, he would have been in Edinburgh between about 1735 and 1750, or so. Below is an engraving from about 1753, so this would have been what George McNiel would have seen, if he was in Edinburgh.

We arrived in Edinburgh about half an hour after leaving the port and drove through the city to the old town to visit the castle. Edinburgh castle was a heavily fortified castle built on a massive granite hill in the center of the city.

Surrounding the city are actually 3 volcanoes, dormant now, but giving great height and character to the city itself. One rises in the middle of the city.

In this photo of old town from above, you can see one of the volcanoes as well.

The castle itself holds, among other things, the Scottish crown jewels. I love mysteries, and there is a good one that goes along with the crown jewels. In 1707, the crown jewels were sealed in a box. I don’t remember the political problem at hand, but in 1818, Scotland’s sovereignty was restored and the box was opened. When it was opened, there was the crown of course, and the sword and the scepter, but there was also another scepter that they have absolutely no idea why was included. Personally, I think it was Merlin’s!

The oldest part of the castle and indeed, the oldest building in Edinburgh is St. Margaret’s chapel at the very top built by one of the earliest monarchs to honor his mother who died in 1097. Very old and very small but so very full of history.

This is probably where Alexander Campbell said his final prayers in this lifetime. I don’t know if he was my direct ancestor, but I do know that he was my relative.

The Kings were Celtic, but some of the wives became Christian and started bestowing names like Richard, James and Alexander on the sons instead of traditional Celtic, pagan, names.

Mary Queen of Scots gave birth here to the eventual King James I of England in the room known as the Mary Room or the Birth Chamber in June of 1566, which caused me to wonder about the DNA of the royal family and royal houses.

As I’ve traveled throughout the British Isles and learned about the history of the monarchy, it has become apparent that while the British monarchy was considered well, British, “the monarchy” as a whole was much more. In fact, the monarchs of the various countries and regions made it a point to marry strategically so that politics and power would come and go with spouses. So, I had to wonder, has anyone actually looked at and identified the DNA of the various “houses” of European royalty? How closely related are they? I’ll make it a point to do some research on this when I return home.

This castle was extremely well fortified. It had 6 different gates at different levels, draw and drop bridges, a mote of course and it sat on top of a huge granite mountain, to begin with. Here’s the castle from another angle.

And a view across all of Edinburgh, from the castle compound.

All of the heads of the clans would come here to meet. I know my ancestors were here. The Campbells would assuredly have been included. They would have arrived for important meetings and walked on these very cobblestones where we step today.

It’s easy to see through their eyes in a place like this as I walk in their footsteps.

We know, beyond a doubt that the Campbells were here, because the portcullis gate, the main entrance, above, is situated beneath the state prison, better known as Argyll’s Tower, as the 9^th Earl of Argyll, Archibald Campbell, the Marquis of Argyll, was imprisoned there prior to his execution in 1685 by “the maiden.” I didn’t know this until after my visit when I was doing research on the history of Edinburgh castle. Amazing that I was in the right place and literally walked where my ancestors had been, and didn’t even know it.

Below, the Earl and his second wife, Lady Anne Mackenzie. His first wife was Lady Mary Stuart who was the mother of his 7 children, including son, Archibald, the 10^th Earl and first Duke of Argyll. You can see the Campbell pedigree chart here.

The Earl was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, ironically, within view of the Castle (in the background, below) where he met his demise.

From the castle, we walked down High Street, the old town, now known as the “miracle mile” which is where all of the shopping is located.

Jim and I found a Starbucks and had a nice coffee and then did some shopping. I bought myself something very Scottish, a penannular. This brooch or pin is used to pin and hold wool scarves. Mine is antique and beautiful. This one is from the National Museum of Scotland.

Below, a contemporary penannular at CeltArts (which is available to purchase) shows how a penannular is used. By the way, these aren’t just for women. Men wear them with the scarves slung over their shoulders.

One of my favorite things in old cities is the little alleyways between buildings that are connected above the alleyway. They weren’t alleyways originally, but now they are both too narrow and too steep for anything but foot traffic. I took pictures of several. Many are just wide enough for a person.

In Edinburgh, there are several private schools for children and there is a lot of academic competition to be admitted. There are two from which it’s believed that the inspiration for Hogwarts was derived.

It’s a beautiful city and the ultimate in what it means to be Scottish. It’s not unusual to see men walking around in kilts as a business suit, complete with kilt, coat and tie, or sometimes kilts and sweatshirts. Kilts, here, are the ultimate in manly. For those who want to see what I mean, here’s a link for you. Yes, it’s family friendly, but word of warning, you’ll change your mind about kilts forever.

I had to laugh, because in Scotland, I’m reminded of this cartoon about restroom confusion.

On the return trip, our guide talked about history and then we were back at the docks. The bridges here are very interesting and artful. One, the suspension bridge at left below, reminds me of the bridge connecting the lower peninsula of Michigan with the upper peninsula at Mackinaw City and could be its twin.

Our towel guy tonight wears a celtic tartan scarf with the beautiful penannular I purchased in the wonderful little antique shop below Edinburgh castle as we wandered. I don’t know why these penannulars enchanted me so, but they did. Probably because these reach back in time, probably to the beginning of Celts and shawls, to hold them in place. They aren’t contemporary and they have character already. They are quintessentially Scottish as well, and are heirlooms. The shop had a few new ones too, and they are shinier and unscathed, but the antique ones had character. My ancestors wore penannulars, certainly, and now, so will I.

Our towel guy also has a little book from Edinburgh Castle chapel and a small contemporary watercolor painting of the castle.

British Monarchy’s DNA

After I returned home, I set out to see if anyone had done any genetic work on the DNA of the British monarchy.

The answer, it turns out, is yes. In August 2013, Bradley Larkin published a paper about the Y DNA of the British Monarchy in honor of the birth of the Prince of Cambridge.

Bradley said: “A review was made of existing genetic genealogy findings that infer characteristics of the Y-DNA of members of the British Monarchy. Nine sustained Y-DNA lineages since the year 927 CE were noted as dynastic groups. Haplogroup and haplotype characteristics of three of the dynasties were presented with two more dynasties noted as testable but unpublished. Cultural and geographical origins of these dynasties were considered as context for their DNA haplogroups. Specimen candidates for further testing were identified noting that some will require Ancient DNA (aDNA) recovery and analysis.”

Bradley identified the dynasties of the British monarchy beginning in the year 927 and ending in 2013, as shown below.

Mountbatten/Romanov
Hannover
Windsor
Stuart
Tudor
Plantagenet
Blois
Wessex
Norman
Knytlinga (Viking)

Bradley then researched each dynasty and lineage. If lines have been tested, he provides the results. Several lines have no male descendants, so for those, we would need ancient DNA. The connections and interconnections are fascinating.

To view the detail and summary data about each dynasty, read Bradley’s paper here, especially the summary table near the end.

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