About Roberta Estes

Scientist, author, genetic genealogist. Documenting Native Heritage through contemporaneous records and DNA.

Elizabeth “Probably Not Webb” Estes (1715/1720-1772/1782 ), Wife of Moses, 52 Ancestors #86

Moses Estes Sr. did us a huge favor.  Both of his wives were named Elizabeth, so when he was an old man, he didn’t have any “jealous wife” memory type issues when he mistakenly used his first wife’s name in a fit of pique (or a fit of whatever) when talking to his second wife.  That’s a good thing, because indeed, he was an older gentleman when he married the second Elizabeth, Elizabeth Talbot, a widow, and he had a lot of years experience having said “Elizabeth.”  The favor he did was to tell us when, exactly, he married the second Elizabeth.  In 1782, they had a prenuptial agreement which was filed with the court.  How’s that for ahead of your time!

However, it’s the first Elizabeth I’m interested in, the mother of Moses’s children and specifically, my ancestor, Moses Estes Jr.

Was Elizabeth a Webb?

We’re actually fortunate that we know the first Elizabeth’s first name.  It’s her last name that is in question.  However, if you take a quick look at the Ancestry trees for Moses Estes, born in 1711 and who died in 1787, you’ll find that the majority of those trees list Webb as her last name, or mistakenly list Elizabeth Jones Talbot, Moses’s second wife.

Those same trees will list another tree as a source…and so it goes.  Around and around.  For the record – we don’t know the first Elizabeth’s last name.  It’s a myth – but a myth that might have a source.  You see, there was a reference to a record…someplace.

I have to confess here, I’ve never seen the original record, BUT, someplace, I have seen a researcher’s notes referring to a land record that included Moses Estes and a male Webb.  That researcher had made the “connection” that because Moses Estes bought or leased land from the Webb male, that the Webb male was Moses’s wife’s father.

A leap of faith you say?  Yes, a leap of something, that’s for sure.  But, it could be true and it’s a place to begin further research…if I could only find that doggone reference.

But the problem is that I’ve lost the reference and I don’t remember where I saw it…other than it was in someone’s handwritten notes years ago.  I remember thinking to myself “that’s it??!!!”  That’s how someone connected some extremely tenuous dots that Elizabeth’s surname was Webb?  I remember being incredulous and thinking that there was surely more.  Then, in the 1980s, a historical novel was released that included the Estes family, and Elizabeth’s name in that novel was Webb too.  The deck was stacked at that point, and in the annals of mythology, and online trees, Elizabeth’s surname became Webb and took on a life of its own.

I’ve pulled every record I have in this house, and didn’t find that reference.  Now I’m doubting myself.  Did I even see it?  Did I dream it?  Does it exist at all – even the researcher’s note?  And if that researcher’s note exists, does the real record exist?  As many Virginia records as I’ve extracted, I’ve never come across an Estes/Webb transaction and neither has my cousin, the retired lawyer who extracted half of Virginia for Estes names.  OK, that’s an exaggeration, probably not half, just the early counties, but still, she doesn’t have it in her records either.  Of course, not everyone extracts EVERY record by that surname.  Some people are sane humans and only extract their own line’s records.  So, if that happened, maybe Moses’s record was overlooked by other researchers.

So, if you happen to come across any Virginia land record of a Webb and an Estes – or any other record, for that matter, of a Webb and an Estes between about 1730 and 1770 or so, please, PLEASE send it to me complete with the reference and source.  I promise, I will never, ever, lose it again.

Because, you know, Elizabeth’s surname actually might be Webb, but I can’t research it any further until I find that doggone slippery reference that I know I saw at one time or another.

So, if we don’t know Elizabeth’s last name, what do we know about her?

Life in Virginia

We first find Moses Estes as an adult in Hanover County in 1734.  He would have been age 23 at that time, and he was purchasing land jointly with his brother Robert and his other brother John served as a witness.

In 1736, Moses patented land adjoining his brother’s land.

In general, men did not purchase land before they married, so it’s quite likely that Moses was married about 1734 to a local gal from Hanover County, the area that would become Louisa and then Amelia as new counties were formed.

Elizabeth’s son, William was born sometime between 1735 and 1740, so Elizabeth was probably born in 1715-1720 or maybe even slightly earlier.

In 1742 Louisa County was formed and the Estes lands fall into this county.  That’s a very fortunate turn of events, because Louisa County records exist where most of Hanover’s have been destroyed.  Unfortunately, the Hanover records that might include a marriage document, or estate documents for Elizabeth’s parents, are gone.

We know, due to later deeds, that Moses lived in an area between Contrary and Northeast Creeks in Louisa, later Amelia County, between the red arrows.  It was here that Elizabeth had her children and raised her three young boys.

Louisa Northeast Contrary Creeks

1742 is also about the time that Elizabeth’s son John was born.  Son Moses Jr. was born about that time as well. Elizabeth and Moses were probably just like all other pioneer couples and had a child every 18-24 months for as long as the female was fertile, which would have been until about 1755-1760 for Elizabeth.  However, we only know of three sons.

The transaction that tells us Elizabeth’s first name is a land sale in Amelia County in 1751 in which Elizabeth, wife of Moses, relinquished her dower right in the land.  Dower right in Virginia meant that if a man died, his wife was entitled to one third of his estate by right of dower.  The husband could not relinquish his wife’s dower rights, so she had to sign to relinquish those.  Typically, the wife was “examined separately” from her husband, so the husband could not influence her answer.  Of course, she had to go home with her husband, so I’m not sure how effective asking the wife privately if she relinquished her dower actually was.  Can’t you just imagine that ride home, had the wife said, “no” that it wasn’t by her own will that she was signing away her dower rights?  How many ways can you spell ugly??

A great many deeds don’t have this additional signature, and I know of one case where the man sold his land and died a couple years later.  The wife then sued the purchaser for her one third of his land and won.  Not only that, but she got the third with the house in which she was living at the time.  One gets the idea that maybe she didn’t know her husband sold the land they were living on, especially since it was a mortgage that defaulted, which is how the sale came about – through the default to the mortgage holder.  In that place and time, the mortgagee signed a deed that the mortgage holder redeemed if they defaulted.  That kind of situation, is, of course, exactly the reason that the wife had to sign, and woe be unto the buyer that doesn’t see to that detail.

In 1758, Elizabeth and Moses are living in Amelia County and the French and Indian War is in full swing.  The House of Burgesses passed an act for the defense of the frontier and we find Moses, John and William Estes of Amelia County on the roster.  These young men are probably still living at home, as they were late teenagers or in their early 20s and not yet married.

This list suggests that perhaps Moses Jr. was the youngest of the three sons and not quite old enough to serve with his father and older brothers.  He probably felt very left out and I’m sure he did not want to be left at home with his mother as his father and brothers got to ride off to war and do all of those “exciting” grown-up manly things – at lease from Moses Jr.’s perspective.

I’m sure Elizabeth was glad to have a son remain at home.  He may have been too young to ride with the men, but he was certainly old enough to provide some protection, farm labor and partnership to his mother.

Moses Sr. is mentioned in the court minutes and deed books from time to time, but another decade would pass before we hear from Elizabeth again.  In 1768, Moses Jr. sells the land he had purchased from his father-in-law, John Combs’, estate and that sale is witnessed by his father and mother, Moses Estes Sr. and Elizabeth.

By 1768, Elizabeth had attended the weddings of all three of her sons, had gained three daughter-in-laws and had at least half a dozen grandchildren to enjoy.

An Uncomfortable Juncture

In 1769, Moses Sr. filed suit in Amelia County against his brother, Elisha, surrounding his father, Abraham’s, estate distribution – never mind that Moses’s father died more than 48 years earlier.  This may be the worst case of procrastination I’ve ever seen.  Or maybe, a long-festering boil erupted between the brothers.

I suspect that when one person in a household does something that dramatic, it is reflected via the domino effect to the rest of the family members too.  This was probably a highly emotional time, with depositions, threats and high drama.  It’s hurtful to think or know that your sibling betrayed and cheated you.  Whether it was true or not, it surely appears that Moses believed it to be true.  Elisha, in essence, in court documents, called Moses a liar, another upsetting turn of events.  Moses surely paced and swore and cried, if he let Elizabeth see his tears.  It’s hard to be the one betrayed.  And either he was the one betrayed, or he was the betrayer.  Either way – a family ripped apart.  You know Elizabeth’s household was in a state of upheaval as these unpleasant events unfolded like layers of an onion.

Elizabeth’s three sons were married and had families of their own by this time.  They may have been living with Moses and Elizabeth, or on their property, or nearby.  If Elizabeth and Moses had other children, they would still have been at home.  Elizabeth probably tried to function normally, attending church and other normal social functions of the day.  But, assuredly, Elisha’s wife and children were there too.  Not only would this suit have divided the family, it likely divided the community as well.

Maybe this court suit and the level of discomfort it caused had something to do with why Elizabeth and Moses moved to Halifax County, taking all three of their grown sons and their families along.  Maybe they were trying to put the lingering past behind them with a new beginning.

On to Halifax County, VA

By 1771, the family was moving to Halifax County and Moses Sr. bought land just west of South Boston on the Pole Bridge Branch of Miry Creek.

Moses Estes land aerial

In 1771, Moses sells his land in Amelia County and once again, Elizabeth relinquished her dower rights and signs with an X, which tells us that she could not write – and probably could not read since the two tend to go together.

However, they may not have moved right away, because in January of 1772, Moses (of Amelia County) sells to William Estes (of Amelia County) 100 acres of his land in Halifax County.  Elizabeth signs this document as well.

We know that Moses was living in Halifax County by this time or very shortly thereafter, because in March of 1772, the court authorized paying him as a road hand for building a bridge across Burches Creek, near his land.

Later in October of 1772, Moses sells the balance his land in Halifax County to his 3 sons and Elizabeth does not sign, so her death may have occurred between January and October of 1772. Given that we know that Moses owned the land on Pole Branch, and he is buried there himself, it’s very likely that Elizabeth is buried in the Estes Cemetery on that land as well.

Estes cem box elders

Or, did Elizabeth not sign because the deed was to her sons and she (and they) saw no need for her to go to the courthouse to sign?

Given that Elizabeth’s death seems to have occurred after Moses sells his Amelia land, it’s most likely that Elizabeth did make it to Halifax County, but possibly, just barely.  Did she ever get to live in this house that Moses built?

Estes Osborne home

We don’t know for sure that Elizabeth died in 1772, but we do know for sure she had died by 1782.  Elizabeth was not an old woman.  If she was born in 1715, she would have been 57-67 and if she was born in 1720, age 52-62.  She may still have had older children at home.  If there were no other living children, then she had likely buried 6 or 7 of her children, or maybe more – and then left their graves behind when she moved to Halifax County.  I can’t even begin to imagine that heartache.

Elizabeth may have lived long enough to see the Revolutionary War which began in 1775.  In 1778, the focus of the fighting shifted to the south, including Virginia.  She certainly lived through the ramping up process that led to that war which was focused on resistance to taxes imposed by England on the colonies which the colonists felt were unjust.  All men paid taxes and I’m sure it was the hot topic of conversation for months and maybe years before the war actually began.  Halifax County was involved in the fighting by 1780 and 1781, and it’s quite likely that Elizabeth’s son Moses’s land was used as an encampment by soldiers.  Elizabeth’s grandson, George fought in that war.  Did he come to tell his grandmother goodbye before he left, if she was still living at that time, or did he visit her grave one last time?

If Elizabeth didn’t die before 1780, she would have buried her adult son, William, in the family cemetery on Grubby Road in Halifax County.  About that same time in 1780, son John left with his family for the Holston River in what is now Tennessee.  At that time, Tennessee was not yet a state and that area was unsettled and wild frontier, with settlers still skirmishing with the Indians.  Once a family left, it was forever.  No one came back.

I hope that Elizabeth did not have to bury her son.  1780 would have been a year of terrible loss for her.  When a grown child left for parts unknown, not only did they leave, but they took with them the grandchildren and the only form of communication was an occasional letter – if that – assuming people could read and write.

Men, in that timeframe, did not remain single for long – so it’s possible that Elizabeth did live to see 1780 – and it may have broken her heart.  She was assuredly resting in the cemetery, beside son William, by 1782.

In 1782, Moses remarried (with that prenuptial agreement) and 5 years later, Moses was dead, probably buried beside his first wife Elizabeth and his son, William, in the cemetery on his property.  In fact, it appears that Moses second wife predeceased him, so it’s entirely possible that Moses lies between the two Elizabeths. If a man ever had to behave, he does!

I found Moses’ land in the early 2000s when I visited Halifax County several times, working on the various genealogy records in the courthouse.  Based on the land records and following them forward in time, I was able to locate Moses’s original land, with the help of a couple of wonderful cousins, an incredibly patient and generous landowner and some unimaginable good luck.  I think Moses and Elizabeth were helping me!

Moses Estes cemetery

I wonder how long Elizabeth lived on this land.  Did they live in the house Moses built, or did she die while they would have been living in a cabin.  Was the cabin they lived in first the cabin that sat back on the hill where John, Moses and Elizabeth’s son, eventually lived before he headed out for the frontier in 1780?

Estes clearing

There are so many questions and so few answers.

Elizabeth’s Children

Elizabeth had the following known children.  I’ve always suspected that she also had some daughters, but to date, none are known.

Elizabeth’s sons are as follows:

1. The oldest son born to Moses and Elizabeth was probably John, born between their marriage and 1742, or so. We don’t know the year for sure, but what we do know is that John’s eldest son, Abraham, born in 1764, gave the following testimony when applying for a Revolutionary War pension.

“I, Abraham was born in Amelia County, Virginia.  My father moved from there to Halifax, Va. where he lived until the fall of 1779, where he moved to the Holston River until 1780.”  After that they removed to Warren Co., KY.

John Estes married Elizabeth Chism, daughter of John Chism and Elizabeth Gillington.  She was remembered in her grandfather, Nicholas Gillington’s will in Halifax County in 1772.  John Estes died in 1824 in Warren Co., KY.

2. Another son, Moses Jr., was born about 1742 or maybe slightly earlier, married Luremia Combs about 1762, whose father, John Combs also lived in Amelia County. Moses Jr. bought land in Lunenburg County from his brother-in-law after John Combs death, but moved with his father, Moses Sr. to Halifax County about 1770 where they both spent the rest of their lives.  He died in 1813 with a will.

Moses had a son, Moses (the third), who was born between 1775 and 1780 in Halifax County and died in 1875 in Smith County, TN, per the probating of his will in 1875.  And no, those dates are not typos.  He married Selah Palmer.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the only grandchild of Elizabeth whose photo we have.  Most of her grandchildren died before the camera was in wide use, after the Civil War.  Moses (the third) lived to be over 100, as did his brother George Estes as well as George’s son, John R. Estes.  Longevity runs in this family.  I look at this man and wonder if he looks anything like Elizabeth and Moses Sr.

Moses Estes 1779-1875 m Selah Palmer

John R. Estes, my ancestor, below, would have been this man’s nephew.  John R. and his father, George, both also lived to be around 100, as have several of their descendants.

John R. Estes restored

3. The third son of Moses Sr. and Elizabeth, William Estes, was also born in the same 1735-1740 timeframe. William married Mary Harris.  He died in 1780 and his estate was probated in Halifax County, VA.  Family legend says that he was a drover of horses and drove them to the East coast being gone for long periods of time.  He apparently had what was probably an appendicitis attack and became very ill.  His wife was sent for, but she was days away and did arrive, but William had already died.  Mary brought his body home and buried him in the family cemetery.

DNA

Unfortunately, DNA won’t help us with Elizabeth in this circumstance, at least not directly or immediately.

It’s ironic that the one trait that has a huge potential to affect my life, that of longevity, is most likely genetic, yet, we can’t identify that gene (or genes), nor do I know if I carry it.  We do know that several people downstream of Moses and Elizabeth lived to the age of 100, and a few slightly older.  Two of my aunts and my grandfather are in that group – so I potentially could carry the Estes longevity gene.  We also don’t know where it came from – meaning from Moses’s or Elizabeth’s family.  All I do know is that Moses’s father’s line does not seem to be responsible for the longevity gene – but we know nothing about Moses’s mother nor Elizabeth’s family.

Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA is dead to us unless she had daughters that we don’t know about – and they turn up “proven” in some fashion.  I do find it hard to believe that only three sons survived from a marriage that would have produced children for more than 20 years – so at least 10 children and quite possibly more.

Of course, another avenue to find Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA would be through her sisters, or her mother’s sisters, if they have any descendants through all females – but of course – I’d have to know who her parents were to identify her siblings, or her mother’s siblings.

I have looked at my autosomal DNA results for Webb, but without knowing the name of the man I’m looking for, I can’t pinpoint anything obvious.  Perhaps I should create a “Webb” tree out of my matches trees and see what turns up the most “close” to me since I carry less of the ancestor’s DNA than the generations that are further upstream than I am.

Although since I’m not even sure I have Webb ancestry, those people with Webb in their tree could be solely circumstantial.  Webb is not an uncommon surname and it is a Virginia family in close proximity with all of the other early colonial Virginia families – so possibly and probably intermarried.

Right now, my only hope against hope is for an Ancestry NAD – New Ancestor Discovery.  As upset as I was that Ancestry gave me an ancestor that wasn’t mine who hung around for months before disappearing, and has now reappeared, I’d be very interested in a Webb NAD – because that might be possible and I could then at least attempt to convince my relevant NAD matches to download their result to GedMatch where I can view the matching DNA segments to see if they triangulate.

Having said that, it would be my luck that I’d get a NAD that really looked to be “real” but wasn’t.  However, it I had a NAD, I could at least then attempt to work with the results.

However, regardless of how much I wish for a Webb NAD, it’s probably too far back time.  Initially Ancestry was planning to reach back 10 generations in time.  Elizabeth’s parents would be 9.  However, when the NADs and Circles were released, Ancestry was only reaching back 6 or 7 generations.  In some cases, for DNA Circles, I believe this has been expanded by maybe one generation or two, but not to 9 or 10 – at least not yet.  But I’m still hoping that Ancestry reaches back more generations as they become more confident and refine their new features.  I’m also hoping for a Webb NAD and praying for Ancestry to add a chromosome browser so I don’t have to try to convince my matches (it’s so unbecoming to beg) at Ancestry to transfer to Family Tree DNA and/or download to GedMatch.

While I’m wishing, I’d like for Family Tree DNA to add tree matching as well.  They already have the chromosome browser feature and trees, so tree matching would be a very logical follow-on step.  And from there, maybe ancestor predictions???

We are truly DNA and genealogy junkies aren’t we!  Anything to find those elusive ancestors.  I just want to know if Elizabeth is a Webb, and if not, who is she???

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Native American Haplogroup C Update – Progress!!

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Haplogroup C-P39 is the Native American branch of Y DNA paternal haplogroup C.  It’s rare as chicken’s teeth.  Most Native American males fall into haplogroup Q, making our haplogroup C-P39 project participants quite unusual and unique.  So are the tools needed to identify branches on the Native American haplogroup C tree.

Last week, Family Tree DNA added a group of 9 SNPs found in haplogroup C to their product offering.  This was done without an announcement and without any fanfare – but it’s really important.  Without the ongoing support of Family Tree DNA, we wouldn’t have the Big Y test, nor the refining SNP tests that can be added to the Big Y in areas where the results are ambiguous.  Individuals who don’t want to purchase the Big Y can purchase these haplogroup defining SNPs individually as well.

The Native defining SNP for haplogroup C is P39.  People who test positive for C-P39 will then want to test Z30750 and Z30764.

  • Z30503
  • Z30601
  • FGC21495
  • Z30750
  • Z30764
  • PF3239
  • Z30729
  • FGC263
  • FGC31712

However, because haplogroup C-P39 is so rare – and to date – we have found several new SNPs in every man who has taken the Big Y test – and because those new, never before discovered SNPs are the bread crumbs that we need to follow to discover how our ancestors settled and dispersed across the Americas – we strong recommend the Big Y test at Family Tree DNA for all C-P39 men.  The Big Y test doesn’t just look at known SNP locations, it scans the entire Y chromosome for mutations.  Therefore, it’s both a genealogy and a research tool.

To that end, we very much want to fund this testing from the project coffers where necessary to advance our understanding.  Just to whet your appetite, we have participants now across Canada and also in the American Southwest.  We desperately want these men to take the Big Y test so we can get a much clearer picture of how they are related, and how many mutations they have individually – but don’t share – because that is how we estimate when they last shared a common ancestor.  In other words, the mutations build the branches of the tree.

This week, we’ve ordered another new C-P39 Big Y test.  If you are C-P39 – Native American haplogroup C – and have not yet taken the Big Y – please consider doing so.

If you are Native American and haplogroup C – please join the C-P39 and the American Indian projects.  You can do so from your home page at Family Tree DNA by clicking on the “Projects” tab at the upper left of your personal page, then on “join projects.”  You can search for the word “Indian” in the project list to find the American Indian project and scrolling down to the Y haplogroup projects and clicking on C will take you to the C-P39 link.

project join

If you can contribute to funding these Big Y tests, please do – even small amounts help.  The link to donate directly to the C-P39 project is: https://www.familytreedna.com/group-general-fund-contribution.aspx?g=Y-DNAC-P39

Each individual who takes the Big Y test is also encouraged to upgrade to 111 markers.  We need as much information as we can get.

Marie Rundquist and I are co-administrators of the C-P39 project, and she wrote the following verbiage in honor of the 5 year anniversary of the first discovery of what is now C-P39 in the Native Community.  We, as a community, have come a very long way in just 5 years!

It was in 2010, five years ago, when Keith Doucet first tested for the C P39 Y DNA (formerly C3b) Native American DNA type in the Amerindian Ancestry out of Acadia Family Tree DNA study — with numbers of Doucets (and Doucettes!) having the same, Native American, C P39 Y DNA result.  It’s amazing when you think of our journey and how much this research has benefitted our knowledge of our history in North America!

Who can ever forget Keith Doucet’s discovery? http://www.familyheritageresearchcommunity.org/doucet_dna.html

Or Emile Broome’s Y DNA discovery, also from 2010? http://www.familyheritageresearchcommunity.org/broome_dna.html

…and the subsequent discoveries of related Doucets and Doucettes and other project members from all regions of the US and Canada who tested in our project and whose results showed the same Native American C P39 Y DNA haplogroup type?

There is great similarity among the DNA test results for our C P39 Y DNA candidates despite differences in geographic locations and surnames, with testers from across the United States, including the American Southwest, the North East, the South, and Canada compared.  Initial Big Y DNA test results for project members have shown remarkable similarity as well.  Additional Big Y test results for tests underway and the availability of 9 new SNPs for our project members help us discover whether this trend is amplified by the additional tests or if we (the C P39 Y DNA project) can distinguish downstream uniqueness among our participants. The C P39 Y DNA test has received the generous support of its members, Family Tree DNA leadership and scientists, product managers, and volunteer administrators in establishing our superior C P39 Y DNA baseline and we are grateful for your support.

Visit the C P39 Y DNA project site to learn more. https://www.familytreedna.com/public/ydna_C-P39/

Thank you to our project members for your continued participation!  And thank you to Family Tree DNA for their ongoing dedication, research and support.  Collectively, we discover more of our history every day!

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Naughty Bad NADs Sneak Home Under Cover of Darkness

Welcome back to the soap opera!

5 bad nads

Those Bad NADs…they’ve done it AGAIN.  Yep, they’re back.  You remember…it was right after April’s Fool’s Day and Ancestry gifted me with two New Ancestor Discoveries that weren’t – Diedamia Lyon and John David Curnutte.  Then, a couple months later, ungrateful houseguests that they were, they disappeared one night, never to be seen again…well…until now.

But because Ancestry must have thought I was lonely, they assigned me three additional bad NADs to take their place.  Now, the good news was that while these three were indeed Bad NADS and not actual new ancestor discoveries – there was a silver lining to this cloud.  Even though these NADs aren’t my ancestors – at least I was able to document some ways to figure out why and how bad NADs are assigned – so hopefully you can work through your NADS too.

But apparently, John and Diedamia weren’t at all happy with the accommodations where they were residing after disappearing in June, so they snuck back sometime overnight.  Yep, they’re back.  I woke up, and there they were, staring at me, just like they had never been gone.  When I was a kid, on the farm, anything that showed up like this was always pregnant.  Diedamia, do you have something to tell me???

The guest room is getting quite full now…with 5 Bad NADs in residence – all impostors – claiming to be related to me.  Why, you’d think I had won the lottery or something…

I took a look, again, at Diedamia and John, utilizing the same tools that I used to determine that John Larimer and Jean Larimer weren’t my ancestors – nor was Robert Shiflet.  But given that I have only two actual DNA matches with descendants of Diedamia and John, and we don’t show any other common family links that I can discern – I was unable to figure out why I have a DNA link to two of John and Diedamia’s descendants.  Perhaps there is a common ancestor upstream someplace that will become evident one day.  Or, maybe it’s like Robert Shiflet and I’m descended through the wife’s siblings, or like the Larimers where my McKee matches also match the Larimer line.  One thing is for sure, Diedamia Lyons and John Curnutte are not my ancestors.  How I’m related to them, if I’m related to them, is yet to be determined.  Maybe that will be a future episode of the soap opera.  What shall we call this mini-series?  As the NADs Return???

It will be interesting to see how long John and Diedamia, and for that matter, my other bad NADs, hang around this time.  Seems like I have a bit of a NAD revolving door.  One thing is for sure….it’s interesting to see who is waiting for me every day.

So, let’s update the NAD Scoreboard:

  • Ancestry – 0
  • Bad NADs – 7

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

4 Generation Inheritance Study

I’ve recently had the opportunity to perform two, 4-generation, inheritance studies.

In both of these cases, we have the DNA of 4 generations: grandmother, parent, child and grandchild or grandchildren.  I’ll be using the second study because there are two great-grandchildren to compare.

Let me introduce you to the players.

4 gen pedigree

I wanted, with real data, to address some assertions and assumptions that I see being made periodically in the genetic genealogy community.  We need to know if these hold up to scrutiny, or not.  Besides that, it’s just fun to see what happens to DNA with 4 generations and 5 people to compare.

What kinds of information are we looking to confirm or refute in this study?

1 – That small segments don’t occur within a couple generations, meaning that that DNA can’t be or isn’t broken into small segments that quickly.

2 – That small segments can never be used genealogically and are not useful.

3 – That DNA is most of the time passed in 50% packages.  While this is true in the first generation, meaning a child does receive half of each parent’s DNA, they do not receive 25% of each grandparent’s DNA.

4 – That segments over a certain threshold, like 5 or 7 cM, are all reliable as IBD (identical by descent.)

5 – That segments under a certain threshold, like 5 or 7 cM are all unreliable and should never be used, in fact, cannot ever be used and should be discarded.

6 – That there is a rule that you cannot have more than two crossovers per chromosome.

All individuals tested at Family Tree DNA and we’ll be using the FTDNA chromosome browser for comparisons.

First, let’s look at the amount of expected DNA matching versus the actual amount of DNA matching, per generation.  The entire number of cM being measured is 6766.2, per the ISOGG Autosomal Statistics Wiki page.

Expected vs Actual Inheritance Chart

This chart compares the expected versus actual amount of DNA shared between person 1 and person 2,

Person 1 Person 2 Expected DNA Match cM/% Actual DNA Match
Grandmother Parent (grandmother’s child) 3383.1 / 50% 3384.03 / 50.01%
Grandmother Pink Child (grandmother’s grandchild) 1691.5 / 25% 1670.64 / 24.69%
Grandmother Blue Grandchild (grandmother’s great-grandchild) 845.775 / 12.5% 704.84 / 10.39%
Grandmother Green Grandchild (grandmother’s great-grandchild) 845.775 / 12.5% 842.64 / 12.45%

Chromosome Data

Now, let’s take a look at our chromosome data.  Keep in mind, everyone is being compared to the oldest generation – in this case – the great-grandmother’s DNA.

Legend

  • The background chromosome belongs to the great-grandmother of the youngest generation – meaning everyone is being compared to her.
  • Grandparent = orange – because the child receives 50% of each parent’s DNA, the orange child of the great-grandmother will match her DNA 100%.
  • Grandchild = pink – since the grandchild is being compared to the grandparent, and not their parent, we will see how much of the grandmother’s DNA the pink child received. The dark spaces are the “ghost image” of the grandfather’s DNA – identified by the lack of the grandmother’s DNA in that location.
  • Oldest great grandchild = blue
  • Youngest great grandchild = green

The two great grandchildren are full siblings.  None of the parents involved are related to each other or to other generational spouses.  This has been confirmed both by genealogy pedigree chart and by utilizing the tools at GedMatch for comparisons to each other as well as the “are your parents related” tool.

The first comparison, below, shows the 4 individuals compared to the great grandmother’s DNA at the Family Tree DNA with the match default set at 5cM

4 gen ftdna default

The image below, shows the same individuals after dropping the match criteria to 1cM.  Several small colored segments appear.

4 gen ftdna 1 cm

I downloaded all of the matching data for these individuals into a spreadsheet so that I could work with the actual chromosomal data.  I’m not boring you with that here, but I have used the raw matching data for the actual comparisons.

Crossover

Let’s talk about what a crossover is, because understanding crossovers are important

Crossover example 1 – A crossover is where you start/stop receiving DNA from one grandparent or the other.  This is easy to see if we look at chromosome 1.

4 gen crossover

In this example, the parent is orange and the child is pink but they are both being compared to the grandparent of the pink person, the mother of the orange person.

What this means is that while the orange person will always match the grey background chromosome of their mother, the pink person will only match their grandmother on the portion of the DNA they received from their mother that was from their grandmother.  The pink person received their grandfather’s DNA in some locations, and not their grandmother’s.  Where that transition happens is called a crossover and it is where the colored segment stops, as noted by the arrows above, and the back background begins, indicating no match to the grandmother.

You can see that the matches span the center of the chromosome where the grey area indicates there is no data being read.  There is also a second small grey area to the right of the center.  Ignore these grey areas.  They are in essence DNA deserts where there isn’t enough DNA to be read or useful.  Family Tree DNA (and other vendors) stitch the data on both sides together, so to speak, and matches on both sides of this area are considered to be contiguous matches.

You can see that the pink person has two crossover areas where they stopped receiving DNA from the mother’s mother (background chromosome being compared against) and instead started receiving DNA from the mother’s father.  How do we know that?  There only two people who contributed the orange parent’s DNA that the pink child inherited.  If the pink child did not inherit the orange parent’s Mom’s DNA on this segment, then the pink child had to have inherited the orange parent’s Dad’s DNA.

Crossover example 2 – A second kind of crossover is where you are still receiving DNA from the same parent, but from different ancestors on that parental line

I’ve created a chart to illustrate this phenomenon

The names in the charts at the bottom are the people who tested today.  All of these individuals are known cousins who are from my mother’s side.  The name at the top is the common ancestor of all of the testers.

In the first situation, in locations 1-5, Me, Charlie and David match.  None of the three of us match our cousin, Mary on those locations.  However, moving to locations 6-10, Me, Charlie and Mary match each other, but not David.  Looking at our pedigree charts, we can see that the cousins are matching on different ancestral lines.

4 gen generational crossover

Me, Charlie and David share a wife’s line, Sally (wife of John), that Mary does not share.  Me, Charlie and Mary share common DNA from George, a male further upstream in that line.  George’s son John married Sally.  Mary descends from George through a different child, which is why she does not match any of us on the segments we received from Sally, John’s wife.

Location Me Charlie David Mary
1 Sally Sally Sally No match
2 Sally Sally Sally No match
3 Sally Sally Sally No match
4 Sally Sally Sally No match
5 Sally Sally Sally No match
6 George George No match George
7 George George No match George
8 George George No match George
9 George George No match George
10 George George No match George

If you’re just looking at the question, “do Charlie and I match?” the answer would of course be yes, but until we look at a broader spectrum of cousins, we won’t know that our match is actually from two different people in the same descendancy line and that we have an ancestor crossover between locations 5 and 6.  However, we’re still receiving our DNA from the same parent, but which ancestor of that parent contributed the DNA has switched

How prevalent are crossovers?

Number of Crossover Events

These are all parent/child crossovers where the DNA donor switched.  We can only determine that this happened because we can compare generationally against the grey background great grandmother to the youngest generation

  • Orange parent to Pink child – 49
  • Pink child to Blue child – 47
  • Pink child to Green child – 39

The most segmented chromosome, chromosome 1, has 5 separate matching segments for the blue great grandchild (as compared to the great-grandmother), or 10 crossover events (because neither end was at the beginning or end, although start and end numbers are sometimes “fuzzy”).  You can see where a crossover event occurs when the DNA goes from matching to non-matching.

4 gen chr 1 crossovers

Results

I downloaded all of our matching data into a spreadsheet so that I can work with the segment matches individually.

Looking at the data, there are a few things that jump out immediately:

  • On chromosomes 4 and 14, the pink child received none of the orange grandmother’s DNA. That means that the pink child had to have received the grandfather’s DNA for all of chromosome 15. So, if anyone thinks that the 50% rule really works uniformly across generations – here’s concrete proof that it doesn’t. Furthermore, this occurred for an entire chromosome – twice out of 23 chromosomes, or 8.7% of the time.
  • On chromosome 11, the exact opposite happened. The pink child received all of the grandmother’s chromosome, but barely gave any to their blue child. The blue child received their mother’s DNA in that location. On chromosome 13, the pink child received almost all of the grandmother’s DNA.
  • Please note that while the averages of expected versus inherited DNA work out pretty closely, when averaging across all 23 chromosomes, as shown in the Expected vs Actual Inheritance Chart, the individual chromosomes and how much of which grandparent’s or great-grandparent’s DNA is inherited varies wildly from none to 100%.
  • There are several locations on 10 different chromosomes where the DNA has been passed generationally intact 2 or 3 times, without division.
  • Several small segments have been created within 3 transmission events.There are small green and blue segments on several different chromosomes which reflect very small amounts of the great grandmother’s DNA inherited by the green and blue great-grandchildren. This conclusively dismisses the theory that small segments aren’t ever created within a couple of generations.
  • Chromosome 10 is very choppy, including small blue and green grandchild segments that match the orange grandparent and the great-grandmother without having matches to the pink child. This means that those unconnected blue and green small segments are either identical by chance or there is a read issue with the pink person’s DNA on this chromosome.
  • There are a total of 31 small segments, meaning under 7cM. Of those, a total of 10 do not triangulate, meaning they match the grandmother but they do not match their parent.  The 7 pink segments appear to triangulate, but without another generation of transmission (like the blue and green great-grandchildren), or without the grandfather’s DNA, or without triangulation with a known relative on that segment, it’s impossible to tell for sure. Therefore, 14, or 45% are valid segments and do triangulate.
  • There are a total of 92 chromosomal transmission events that took place, meaning that 23 chromosomes got passed from the background person to their orange child, 23 from the orange child to their pink child, 23 from the pink child to the blue grandchild and 23 from the pink child to the green grandchild.
  • Furthermore, based on this limited study, at least 32.26% of the small segments do not triangulate and are not IBD, but are instead identical by chance.
  • In three instances, the exact DNA (from the great grandmother) was given to both the green and blue great grandchildren. In eight other events, the same DNA, without division, was given from a parent to one child.
  • There are several instances, on chromosomes 3, 4, 9, 14, 15, 16, 20, and 22 where the pink child passed none of their grandmother’s DNA to their child, even though they inherited the grandmother’s DNA.

Individual Chromosomes and Their Messages

I’d like to walk through several chromosomes and chat a little bit about what we’re seeing.

Chromosome 1

4 gen chr 1

First, I’d like to illustrate the difference between chromosome matches at the default level (the first chromosome, above) and at the 1cM level (the lower chromosome.)  At the lower match threshold, you will see additional small segment matches that are not shown at the higher threshold, noted by red arrows.

Let’s take a look at the messages held by our individual chromosomes.

On all of these chromosomes, you’ll see that the orange child matches thier mother, the background person being compared against, exactly, on every location that is measured.  Half of everyone’s DNA comes from their mother, so all of their DNA will match to her on any given chromosome.  Remember, we are only measuring matching DNA (half identical segments) – so the other half of the person’s DNA that matches their father is not shown.

I have left the orange segments in the graphics, even though they all match on the entire chromosome length, so you can see the continuity from generation to generation.  Pink is the orange person’s child, so you can see that the pink child inherited part of the DNA the orange person inherited from their mother, but not all.  The part that is black in the pink row, as compared to the orange segment, means that the pink child inherited that DNA from their grandfather at those locations – and not the grandmother being compared against

In one instance, on chromosome 1, the pink child gave their grandmother’s DNA to both of their children.  You can see that to the far left with the red arrow.

4 gen chr 1 grandmother transmission

You can also see that the blue grandchild only received a small part of their great grandmother’s DNA, but the green grandchild received a much larger segment.

In one area, the pink child clearly received their grandmother’s DNA, but didn’t give any of it to either the blue or green grandchild, shown below at the red arrow.  There is no blue or green matching the great-grandmother’s DNA.

4 gen chr 1 no transmission

To the right of the arrow, top, above, you can see where the pink child contributed their grandmother’s DNA to their blue child, but not to the green child.  The pink child contributed their other parent’s DNA in that instance, bottom, above, because their child does not match their orange mother – so that DNA had to come from the grandfather.

On the chromosome match that includes the smaller segments, below, you can see there are a total of 5 segments not shown with the higher threshold.

4 gen chr 1 small segments

The first two arrows, on the left, point to small segments shared by the blue and green grandchildren with their great-grandmother and their pink parent – so these triangulate and they are fine.

The third arrow, on the right hand side pointing to the green segment that does not match with the pink parent indicates a match that is identical by chance.  We’ll talk more about this in chromosome 3.

The fourth arrow, at the far right, shows a small segment of orange DNA that was passed to their pink child, but the pink child did not pass it on to either of their children.  This segment could be a legitimate segment by descent, but it could also be by chance.  We’ll talk about that more on chromosome 8.

Chromosome 2

4 gen chr 2

Chromosome 2 shows two small segments.  You can see that the pink child gave a significant portion of their grandmother’s DNA to the blue child, but only two small segments to the green child in that region, at the red arrows.  They do triangulate though, because they match their parents.  See how nicely the DNA stacks up between all of the generations.

Chromosome 3

4 gen chr 3

The pink child inherited very little of the grandmother’s DNA in this region.  Of the small amount the pink child did inherit, the pink child gave even less of it to their children.  One small piece to the green grandchild, shown at right, and none to the blue grandchild.

Why, then, is there a lonely blue segment on this comparison chromosome showing that the blue great-grandchild matches their orange grandmother and their great-grandmother, but not their pink parent?  This is the first example of an identical by chance segment (or a read error in the pink parent’s file).

4 gen chr 3 small seg

Three Kinds of DNA Match Segments

There are three kinds of DNA segment matches.

  1. Identical by descent (IBD) where you receive the segment from your ancestors and we can track it as far back up the tree as we have living people. This is the example where the small segment of the great-grandchildren (blue or green) match their parent (pink), their grandparent (orange) and their great-grandmother’s background chromosome being compared against.
  2. Identical by state (IBS) which sometimes is used to mean not identical by descent. What it actually means is that you can still match and receive the DNA from your ancestors, but the segment may be very prevalent in a specific community or ethnic group. An alternative explanation is that the DNA ‘state’ is so common that everyone in that area has it, so it’s virtually useless in identifying ancestors, because you can’t really tell which lines it came from. So IBS does triangulate, because it did come from a common ancestor, but you may match a large number of people at this location. Portions of chromosome 6 are known to fall into this category.  More often than not, I hear IBS used to indicate that there is a match, but the common ancestor isn’t known or hasn’t yet been identified.
  3. Identical by chance (IBC) is where a specific DNA combination is a match, but it’s not a match because it was handed down ancestrally, but simply by the luck of the draw.  Because everyone carries the DNA of both parents, sometimes people can match you by zigzagging back and forth between your father’s and mother’s DNA.  These matches aren’t ancestral, but just by luck or chance.  Shorter matches, meaning small segments, are much more likely to be identical by chance than longer matches. When you have both parents DNA, you can easily eliminate IBC segments because they won’t triangulate – as we have just demonstrated on chromosome 3.

You can read more about this here and here.

Chromosome 4

4 gen chr 4

Chromosome 4 is particularly interesting because the orange person matches their background mother, of course, but apparently their pink child inherited this entire chromosome from the pink person’s grandfather – because the pink person does not match their grandmother – there are no pink matching segments to the background grandmother.

Chromosome 5

On chromosome 5, the pink child matches the grandmother on almost the entire chromosome, except for a small part to the left of center.

4 gen chr 5

You may notice that there is a segment of blue that appears to extend beyond the pink bar at the left arrow – which would mean that the blue area matches the great-grandmother without matching the pink parent.  The segments on the chromosome map are not exactly to scale, and the beginnings and ends are sometimes what is referred to as fuzzy.  This means that they are not exact measurements but that they in essence the absence or presence of DNA in a bucket of a specific size.  If any part of your DNA is in that bucket, then your start or stop segment are the edges of that bucket.  In this case, the entire match is 47.51cM for the pink child and 49.82 for the blue grandchild, so the difference may or may not be relevant.

Although this actually is a small matching segment, or non-matching segment, you would never notice this if you were just looking at the blue grandchild matching to the great grandmother.  It’s only with the introduction of the parent’s pink DNA that you notice that the blue great grandchild’s DNA match with the great grandmother extends beyond that of the parent.

Chromosome 6

4 gen chr 6

Chromosome 6 is rather unremarkable except that the orange person seems to have had a read or file error of some sort.  The orange results are shown in two separate pieces, but we know that the orange person must match their mother 100%.  We know this issue is in the orange person’s file, because their pink child and both of the blue and green grandchildren match the background person, the orange persons’ mother, with no break in their DNA.

Chromosome 7

4 gen chr 7

Chromosome 7 shows another example of 5 generations matching with the stacking of orange, blue, green and pink against the background person’s chromosome, at right.  It also shows another example an identical by chance match, with the blue grandchild showing a match to their great-grandmother but no match to their pink parents, near the center at the red arrow.

Chromosome 8

4 gen chr 8

Chromosome 8 shows another example of the pink child having inherited a small segment of their grandmother’s DNA, but not passing it on to their children.

How do we know if this is a legitimate IBD segment, or if it something else?  Since the pink child will match their mother 100%, and they didn’t pass it on tho their children, how can we prove that the small pink segment where they match their grandmother is  IBD.

How could we prove this one way or the other?

First of all, it probably doesn’t matter, except as a matter of interest – or unless of course this one segment is THE one you need to identify that colonial ancestor.  If this was a normal match, we could just see if the match matched the child and the parent too, which would immediately phase the match against their parent – but we can’t do that when matching to a grandparent because the child will always match their parent 100%.

If you have the grandfather’s DNA at Family Tree DNA, you could compare the pink grandchild to their grandfather. On chromosome 8, the grandfather’s DNA in the pink row is identified by the dark grey – because it’s where the pink grandchild does not match their grandmother – so they must match their grandfather on that segment because their orange parent only had two pieces of DNA to give them, the piece from their mother or the piece from their father.

Therefore, if this is a valid segment, then you won’t see at match in the grandfather’s DNA on same portion of the segment.  If you see a match to both the grandmother and the grandfather, it’s likely that the small segment match to the grandmother is not identical by descent –  you but really don’t know for sure.

How could that be?  I asked David Pike that question and he pointed out that in one case, he discovered that the grandparents both shared the same DNA segment.  The child inherited it from one parent or the other, and passed it on to their child, but since the mother’s and father’s DNA was identical, there is no way to tell which grandparent the segment actually came from.  And in this case, the segment would match both grandparents.  That is a trait of endogamy and of IBS, or identical by population.  If you’re saying, BOO, HISS, about now, I totally understand.

After talking to David, I also realized that if your DNA at those locations just happens to be all homozygous, for example, all Ts, on both sides, for a run of SNPs in a row, and if your parents and grandparents have Ts in either location, you will match them…and anyone else who does too.

So here we have an example of a match that could be IBD if it truly is a small segment by descent and you don’t match the other grandparent at that location.  It could be IBC or IBS (by population) if you match both of your grandparents on this segment – but it might be IBD.  It’s IBD from one and IBC/IBS from the other – but which one is which?

However, since I don’t have the grandfather’s DNA at Family Tree DNA, my only other alternative is to move to GedMatch and create a phased kit for the grandfather by subtracting the grandmother’s DNA from her orange child, which will give me the DNA the orange child received from their father.  Then I can compare the pink grandchild to the grandfather’s phased kit – which is the father’s DNA that the orange child received.  This is fine, even if it is only half of the grandfather’s DNA – it s the half that the pink child’s mother received and passed a portion to the pink child.

I would suggest doing this entire exercise on either Family Tree DNA or on the GedMatch platform, and not jumping back and forth between the two.  The start and stop segments aren’t exactly the same, and sometimes the segments read differently, creating more segments at GedMatch than at FTDNA.  I’m not saying that is wrong, just that it isn’t consistent between the two platforms and when you are dealing with small segments, in particular, you need consistency.

Chromosome 9

4 gen chr 9

On chromosome 9, the pink child received little of the grandmother’s DNA, and gave none of it to their green child.  And yes, if you have a good eye the blue child’s right boundary is slightly beyond the their pink parents – so – you already know what that means.  Either a fuzzy boundary or a slight piece of DNA that happened to match with the great-grandmother identical by chance (IBC.)

Chromosome 10

4 gen chr 10

This chromosome is incredibly interesting because it’s comprised of all small segments.  In fact, this is the exact reason why you NEED to look at the 1cM range.  At the default setting, if there are no matches except the orange person to their mother.  It looks like none of the grandmother’s DNA was passed to the pink child, but in fact, may not be the case.  There are three segments passed to the pink child, although the pink child did not pass these on to either of their children.  See the discussion on segment 8 about how to tell for sure, if you need to.

The blue and green segments, since they do not match their pink parent are not IBD but are instead IBC.  The really interesting part of this is that in one case, the blue and green grandchildren’s DNA matches the orange grandmother on the same segments exactly, but does not match the pink parent.

How can this possible be, you ask, barring a file read issue?  Good question.  Remember, each child inherits half of their parent’s DNA.  In this case, both children apparently inherited the same DNA from both parents, but it wasn’t the orange DNA, but that of the pink child’s father.

It just happened, when the blue and green children’s DNA combined with that of their mother, it just happens to read as a match, for a small segment.  You can read about how this might happen in the article, “How Phasing Works and Determining IBD Versus IBS Matches.”

Unfortunately, all these comparisons can do is to tell us simply what does and does not match – they can’t tell us why.  Sometimes, based on other comparisons, like phasing and triangulation, we can figure out the “why” part of the puzzle – and sometimes, we can’t.

Chromosome 11

4 gen chr 11

On chromosome 11, the pink child inherited all of the grandmother’s DNA through their orange parent, but gave less than half to their green child and a small segment to the blue child.  The pink child gave the exact same segment in the center to both their blue and green children.

Chromosome 12

4 gen chr 12

On chromosome 12, the pink child inherited little of their grandmother’s DNA, but passed every bit of what they inherited to both of their children, shown by the nice stack at right.  The start and stop locations are exact between the three.

However, in addition, we have three small segments where the green and blue grandchildren match their orange grandmother without matching their pink parent – so those are IBC.

Chromosome 13

4 gen chr 13

The pink child inherited almost all of their grandmother’s entire chromosome, except for a very small bit at the far right end.  The pink child passed almost their entire chromosome 13 to their green child, but only a small amount to the blue child.

Chromosome 14

4 gen chr 14

This story is easy.  The pink child inherited their grandfather’s entire chromosome 14 because they do not match their grandmother’s DNA at all.

Chromosome 15

4 gen chr 15

This is a very “normal” chromosome.  The pink child inherited about half of their grandmother’s DNA and gave about half of what they inherited to their green child.  Of course, their blue child got left out altogether – but that looks to be a lot more “normal” than we once thought.

I am skipping chromosome 16-22, because they are more of what you’ve already seen and is, by now, quite familiar  Plus, you can take a look at the full chromosome comparison graphic and do your own analysis.

X Chromosome

The X chromosome is a bit different, and I’d like to take a look at that.

4 gen X

The X chromosome has special inheritance properties that other chromosomes don’t have.  In particular, women inherit an X just like they inherit their other chromosomes from 1-22 – one from Mom and one from Dad.  Men, however, only receive an X from their mother.  Therefore, there are relatives that you cannot inherit any X DNA from.  I wrote about this here and here along with examples and charts.

In this example, the inheritance path is such that it does not affect what can and cannot be inherited since we are comparing to a great-grandmother, but in other situations,  this would not be the case.

One last observation about the X chromosome.  I have found matching on the X to be particularly unreliable, and have found several situations, where, due to those special inheritance properties, we know beyond any doubt that the common ancestor on the X cannot be the same ancestor as has triangulated on the other chromosomes.  So word to the wise – be very vigilant and hesitant to draw conclusions from X matching.  I never utilize the X without corroborating autosomal matches and even then, I’m very reticent.

In Summary

On the average, we do inherit about half of our DNA from in each generation from each ancestral generation.  But the average and the actuality of what happens is two entirely different things.  Averages are made up of all of the outliers, and if you are one of those outliers, the average isn’t really relevant to you.  Kind of reminds me of “one size fits all” which really means “one size fits almost nobody well” and “everyone is some shade of unhappy.”

I wrote about generational inheritance and how it doesn’t always work the way we think, or expect.  It’s very important to pay close attention to your own DNA and not rely on averages unless you have absolutely no other choice – and only then understanding the averages are likely wrong in one direction or the other – but it’s the best we’ve got, under the circumstances.

So what can we apply to our genealogy from this little experiment.

  1. Some of the small segments across 4 generations are valid, meaning identical by descent or IBD.
  2. At least one third of the small segments aren’t valid and are identical by chance, or IBC.
  3. Without some form of triangulation or parental phasing, it’s impossible to tell which small segments are and are not valid, or identical by descent.
  4. Small segments are indeed formed within a 2 or 3 generation span, so they are not always a results of many generations of dividing.
  5. However, the further back in time your ancestor, the more likely that they will only be represented in your DNA by small segments, if any.
  6. Many small segments are valid and are not a result of IBC.  However, most are not and one needs to understand how to recognize signs of an IBC vs an IBD match.
  7. Disregarding small segments uniformly is like throwing away the only clues you may have to your most distant ancestors – which are likely your brick walls.
  8. The largest segment that was not valid was 3.14cM and 600 SNPs.
  9. The smallest valid segment was 1.25cM and 500 SNPs.

Getting the Most Out of Your DNA Experience

There is a lot more information available to us in our DNA results than is first apparent.  It takes a bit of digging and you need to understand how autosomal DNA works in order to ferret out those secrets.  Don’t discount or ignore evidence because it’s more difficult to use – meaning small segments.  The very piece or breadcrumb you need to solve a long-standing mystery may indeed be right there waiting for you.  Learn how to use your DNA information effectively and accurately – including those small segments.

You need to test every cousin you can find and convince to swab or spit.  It’s those cousin matches that help immensely with triangulation and confirming the validity of all DNA segments, matching them back to common ancestors.  You are building walkways or maybe pathways back in time, with your DNA as the steppingstones.  Genetic genealogy is not a one person endeavor.  It takes a village, hopefully of cousins willing to DNA test!

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Bryan Cranston – Who Do You Think You Are – “A Dissipated Man”

You may know actor Bryan Cranston from his roles in “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Breaking Bad.”  The Bryan you’ll see on Who Do You Think You are on Sunday, August 23rd, on TLC is completely different.

Bryan Cranston and Christopher look over a document.

Bryan Cranston and Christopher look over a document – courtesy TLC.

Bryan Cranston describes his childhood growing up in Los Angeles as a happy one… until the day his father, an unsuccessful actor, left the family when Bryan was 11. Even though he eventually reconnected with his dad, Bryan has always been curious whether there are trace elements of men who don’t meet their familial responsibilities that have filtered down from generations.

Bryan travels to his father’s hometown, Chicago, and meets with a local genealogist to help him jump-start his search. A 1930 census reveals two things that Bryan did not know: his grandfather Edward was a World War I veteran – and his grandmother Alice was NOT his grandfather’s first wife!

Digging deeper, Bryan sees that on Edward Cranston’s WWI draft card, he indicated he had a wife and child – confirming he was not only married once before, but he had a daughter – an aunt Bryan never knew existed. To find more information on the wife and child, Bryan looks through divorce records, and discovers a filing for an Irene Cranston vs. Edward Cranston. Through this document, Bryan learns the name of his aunt: Kathleen. He’s saddened to see that Irene accused Edward of abandoning her and their 8 year old daughter – the first sign that this is indeed a pattern in the Cranston line. Curious about the fate of his aunt, Bryan discovers that Kathleen died of tuberculosis at just 16.

Knowing that Edward fought in WWI, Bryan heads to the Illinois State Archives in hopes he will find some more WWI documents pertaining to his grandfather. There, he pores over a copy of Edward’s Honorable Discharge Record from WWI. Bryan learns that Edward was not drafted, but enlisted; choosing to leave his family and go to war.

Edward served as an engineer and endured intense conditions as he constructed bridges while under heavy shelling and gunfire from the Germans. As Bryan peruses his grandfather’s record, a couple entries catch his eye. First, Bryan is surprised to see that under “vocation,” Edward’s profession states “actor”! Second, Bryan is taken aback to see his grandfather has listed himself as “single,” which he knows is not true. Bryan is disappointed to learn that Edward may have done this to prevent the government from automatically taking money out of his paycheck and sending it to his wife and daughter, which was standard at the time to provide for the families back home.

Wanting to know about Edward’s own roots, Bryan finds a 1910 census which shows his grandfather Edward at 5 years old living with Bryan’s great-grandparents, Daniel and Margaret Cranston. Bryan is relieved to see they were married for 41 years – a break in the cycle of desertion! Daniel was born in Canada and Margaret in Ireland. This confirms the rumor Bryan has heard that the Cranston clan came through Canada. But where in Canada did he come from? For more information about his great-grandfather, Bryan consults a 1937 Death Certificate for Daniel Cranston. Not only does Bryan see that Daniel was born in Montreal, but he also learns the names of he 2x great-grandparents, Henry Cranston and Sarah McLeod. The Irish in Montreal were largely Catholic, meaning it is very likely that baptismal records exist there for Daniel. Bryan heads to Montreal to find out more about the Cranston clan.

At the Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal, Bryan discovers the baptismal record for his great-grandfather, Daniel James Cranston, from 1849. The record is brief, but does tell Bryan that Daniel was baptized “of the legitimate marriage of Joseph Cranston, carpenter, absent, and Sarah McLeod of this parish…” Absent! Is this the right Cranston? It’s puzzling that Daniel’s father is listed as Joseph, but the historian points out that this is the only Cranston/McLeod family at the time with children, so it is likely this is the correct family.

Investigating further, Bryan looks at a 1861 Canadian Census and sees an entry for “D. Cranston” living in the “Ladies Benevolent Institution,” an orphanage. Orphanage records indicate Daniel was given to the orphanage because his mother had to go to work as a servant because his father was a “dissipated man.” Joseph had indeed abandoned his family, and was the 3rd generation of Cranston men to do so.

Next, Bryan finds a record for “1882 US National Home for Disabled Veterans Register for Joseph H. Cranston.” This lists Joseph, Bryan’s 2x great-grandfather, as having served in the Civil War, and then being admitted into the Veterans home in 1883 and passing away there in 1889. The military home in Dayton, Ohio still exists today, and Bryan heads there to see what Joseph’s life, and death, there may have been like.

At the Veteran’s Soldier home in Dayton, Bryan finds a newspaper article about his great-grandfather’s death. The article outlines Joseph’s final evening and reveals that Joseph and a pal from the Veteran’s home were on a night out, “becoming more or less intoxicated,” and paid for a hotel room. When they didn’t wake in the morning, the landlord went to the room and “found the room full of gas and the two men lying on the bed in a lifeless condition.” Bryan discovers that his 2x great-grandfather is buried opposite the soldier’s home and visits his ancestor’s grave.

Bryan Cranston in the cemetery.

Bryan Cranston in the cemetery – courtesy TLC.

In the cemetery, Bryan reflects on the Cranston men. Of the 3 relatives he’s found, only one seems to have stayed with his family, including his father. The others seemed to shirk all family responsibilities, and dedicated themselves to being a soldier instead.

However, Bryan can take comfort in knowing he was able to reconnect with his father, and in being committed to his own wife and children – something other Cranston’s weren’t able to do.

I really felt for Bryan in this episode.  It’s difficult to find ancestors and find their behavior and choices so personally disappointing.  Thankfully, Bryan broke that cycle.  I do find it interesting that at one point, Bryan asked, “is there something in the DNA.?”  I’ve wondered that myself on more than one occasion.

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Ethnicity Testing and Results

I have written repeatedly about ethnicity results as part of the autosomal test offerings of the major DNA testing companies, but I still receive lots of questions about which ethnicity test is best, which is the most accurate, etc.  Take a look at “Ethnicity Percentages – Second Generation Report Card” for a detailed analysis and comparison.

First, let’s clarify which testing companies we are talking about.  They are:

Let’s make this answer unmistakable.

  1. Some of the companies are somewhat better than others relative to ethnicity – but not a lot.
  2. These tests are reasonably reliable when it comes to a continent level test – meaning African, European, Asian and sometimes, Native American.
  3. These tests are great at detecting ancestry over 25% – but if you know who your grandparents are – you already have that information.
  4. The usefulness of these tests for accurately providing ethnicity information diminishes as the percentage of that minority admixture declines.  Said another way – as your percentage of a particular ethnicity decreases, so does the testing companies’ ability to find it.
  5. Intra-continental results, meaning within Europe, for example, are speculative, at best.  Do not expect them to align with your known genealogy.  They likely won’t – and if they do at one vendor – they won’t at others.  Which one is “right”?  Who knows – maybe all of them when you consider population movement, migration and assimilation.
  6. As the vendors add to and improve their data bases, reference populations and analysis tools, your results change. I discussed how vendors determine your ethnicity percentages in the article, “Determining Ethnicity Percentages.”
  7. Sometimes unexpected results, especially continent level results, are a factor of ancient population mixing and migrations, not recent admixture – and it’s impossible to tell the difference. For example, the Celts, from the Germanic area of Europe also settled in the British Isles. Attila the Hun and his army, from Asia, invaded and settled in what is today, Germany, as well as other parts of Eastern Europe.
  8. Ethnicity tests are unreliable in consistently detecting minority admixture. Minority in this context means a small amount, generally less than 5%.  It does not refer to any specific ethnicity. Having said that, there are very few reference data base entries for Native American populations.  Most are from from Canada and South America.

In the context of ethnicity, what does unreliable mean?

Unreliable means that the results are not consistent and often not reproducible across platforms, especially in terms of minority admixture.  For example, a German/Hungarian family member shows Native American admixture at low percentages, around 3%, at some, but not all, vendors.  His European family history does not reflect Native heritage and in fact, precludes it.  However, his results likely reflect Native American from a common underlying ancestral population, the Yamnaya, between the Asian people who settled Hungary and parts of Germany and also contributed to the Native American population.

Unreliable can also mean that different vendors, measuring different parts of your DNA, can assign results to different regions.  For example, if you carry Celtic ancestry, would you be surprised to see Germanic results and think they are “wrong?”  Speaking of Celts, they didn’t just stay put in one region within Europe either.  And who were the Celts and where did they ‘come from’ before they were Celts.  All of this current and ancient admixture is carried in your DNA.  Teasing it out and the meaning it carries is the challenge.

Unreliable may also mean that the tests often do not reflect what is “known” in terms of family history.  I put the word “known” in quotes here, because oral history does not constitute “known” and it’s certainly not proof.  For the most part, documented genealogy does constitute “known” but you can never “know” about an undocumented adoption, also referred to as a “nonparental event” or NPE.  Yes, that’s when one or both parents are not who you think they are based on traditional information.  With the advent of DNA testing, NPEs can, in some instances, be discovered.

So, the end result is that you receive very interesting information about your genetic history that often does not correlate with what you expected – and you are left scratching your head.

However, in some cases, if you’re looking for something specific – like a small amount of Native American or African ancestry, you, indeed, can confirm it through your DNA – and can confirm your family history.  One thing is for sure, if you don’t test, you will never know.

Minority Admixture

Let’s take a look at how ethnicity estimates work relative to minority admixture.

In terms of minority admixture, I’m referring to admixture that is several generations back in your tree.  It’s often revealed in oral history, but unproven, and people turn to genetic genealogy to prove those stories.

In my case, I have several documented Native American lines and a few that are not documented.  All of these results are too far back in time, the 1600s and 1700s, to realistically be “found” in autosomal admixture tests consistently.  I also have a small amount of African admixture.  I know which line this comes from, but I don’t know which ancestor, exactly.  I have worked through these small percentages systematically and documented the process in the series titled, “The Autosomal Me.”  This is not an easy or quick process – and if quick and easy is the type of answer you’re seeking – then working further, beyond what the testing companies give you, with small amounts of admixture, is probably not for you.

Let’s look at what you can expect in terms of inheritance admixture.  You receive 50% of your DNA from each parent, and so forth, until eventually you receive very little DNA (or none) from your ancestors from many generations back in your tree.

Ethnicity DNA table

Let’s put this in perspective.  The first US census was taken in 1790, so your ancestors born in 1770 should be included in the 1790 census, probably as a child, and in following censuses as an adult.  You carry less than 1% of this ancestor’s DNA.

The first detailed census listing all family members was taken in 1850, so most of your ancestors that contributed more than 1% of your DNA would be found on that or subsequent detailed census forms.

These are often not the “mysterious” ancestors that we seek.  These ancestors, whose DNA we receive in amounts over 1%, are the ones we can more easily track through traditional means.

The reason the column of DNA percentages is labeled “approximate” is because, other than your parents, you don’t receive exactly half of your ancestor’s DNA.  DNA is not divided exactly in half and passed on to subsequence generations, except for what you receive from your parents.  Therefore, you can have more or less of any one ancestor’s individual DNA that would be predicted by the chart, above.  Eventually, as you continue to move further out in your tree, you may carry none of a specific ancestor’s DNA or it is in such small pieces that it is not detected by autosomal DNA testing.

The Vendors

At least two of the three major vendors have made changes of some sort this year in their calculations or underlying data bases.  Generally, they don’t tell us, and we discover the change by noticing a difference when we look at our results.

Historically, Ancestry has been the worst, with widely diverging estimates, especially within continents.  However, their current version is picking up both my Native and African.  However, with their history of inconsistency and wildly inaccurate results, it’s hard to have much confidence, even when the current results seem more reasonable and in line with other vendors.  I’ve adopted a reserved “wait and see” position with Ancestry relative to ethnicity.

Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder product is in the middle with consistent results, but they don’t report less than 1% admixture which is often where those distant ancestors’ minority ethnicity would be found, if at all.  However, Family Tree DNA does provide Y and mitochondrial mapping comparisons, and ethnicity comparisons to your matches that are not provided by other vendors.

Ethnicity DNA matches

In this view, you can see the matching ethnicity percentages for those whom you match autosomally.

23andMe is currently best in terms of minority ethnicity detection, in part, because they report amounts less than 1%, have a speculative view, which is preferred by most genetic genealogists and because they paint your ethnicity on your chromosomes, shown below.  You can see that both chromosome 1 and 2 show Native segments.

Ethnicity 23andMe chromosome

So, looking at minority admixture only – let’s take a look at today’s vendor results as compared to the same vendors in May 2014.

Ethnicity 2014-2015 compare

The Rest of the Story

Keep in mind, we’re only discussing ethnicity here – and there is a lot more to autosomal DNA testing than ethnicity – for example – matching to cousins, tools, such as a chromosome browser (or lack thereof), trees, ease of use and ability to contact your matches.  Please see “Autosomal DNA 2015 – Which Test is the Best?”  Unless ethnicity is absolutely the ONLY reason you are DNA testing, then you need to consider the rest of the story.

And speaking of the rest of the story, National Geographic has been pretty much omitted from this discussion because they have just announced a new upgrade, “Geno 2.0: Next Generation,” to their offering, which promises to be a better biogeographical tool.  I hope so – as National Geographic is in a unique position to evaluate populations with their focus on sample collection from what is left of unique and sometimes isolated populations.  We don’t have much information on the new product yet, and of course, no results because the new test won’t be released until in September, 2015.  So the jury is out on this one.  Stay tuned.

GedMatch – Not A Vendor, But a Great Toolbox

Finally, most people who are interested in ethnicity test at one (or all) of the companies, utilize the rest of the tools offered by that company, then download their results to www.gedmatch.com, a donation based site, and make use of the numerous contributed admixture tools there.

Ethnicity GedMatch

GedMatch offers lots of options and several tools that provide a wide range of focus.  For example, some tools are specifically written for European, African, Asian or even comparison against ancient DNA results.

Ethnicity ancient admixture

Conclusion

So what is the net-net of this discussion?

  1. There is a lot more to autosomal DNA testing than just ethnicity – so take everything into consideration.
  2. Ethnicity determination is still an infant and emerging field – with all vendors making relatively regular updates and changes. You cannot take minority results to the bank without additional and confirming research, often outside of genetic genealogy. However, mitochondrial or Y DNA testing, available only through Family Tree DNA, can positively confirm Native or minority ancestry in the lines available for testing. You can create a DNA Pedigree Chart to help identify or eliminate Native lines.
  3. If the ancestors you seek are more than a few generations removed, you may not carry enough of their ethnic DNA to be identified.
  4. Your “100% Cherokee” ancestor was likely already admixed – and so their descendants may carry even less Native DNA than anticipated.
  5. You cannot prove a negative using autosomal DNA (but you can with both Y and mitochondrial DNA). In other words, a negative autosomal ethnicity result alone, meaning no Native heritage, does NOT mean your ancestors were not Native. It MIGHT mean they weren’t Native. It also might mean that they were either very admixed or the Native ancestry is too far back in your tree to be found with today’s technology. Again, mitochondrial and Y DNA testing provide confirmed ancestry identification for the lines they represent. Y is the male paternal (surname) line and mitochondrial is the matrilineal line of both males and females – the mother’s, mother’s, mother’s line, on up the tree until you run out of mothers.
  6. It is very unlikely that you will be able to find your tribe, although it is occasionally possible. If a company says they can do this, take that claim with a very big grain of salt. Your internal neon warning sign should be flashing about now.
  7. If you’re considering purchasing an ethnicity test from a company other than the four I mentioned – well, just don’t.  Many use very obsolete technology and oversell what they can reliably provide.  They don’t have any better reference populations available to them than the major companies and Nat Geo, and let’s just say there are ways to “suggest” people are Native when they aren’t. Here are two examples of accidental ways people think they are Native or related – so just imagine what kind of damage could be done by a company that was intentionally providing “marginal” or misleading information to people who don’t have the experience to know that because they “match” someone who has a Native ancestor doesn’t mean they share that same Native ancestor – or any connection to that tribe. So, stay with the known companies if you’re going to engage in ethnicity testing. We may not like everything about the products offered by these companies, but we know and understand them.

My Recommendation

By all means, test.

Test with all three companies, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and Ancestry – then download your results from either Family Tree DNA or Ancestry (who test more markers than 23andMe) to GedMatch and utilize their ethnicity tools.  When I’m looking for minority admixture, I tend to look for consistent trends – not just at results from any one vendor or source.

If you have already tested at Ancestry, or you tested at 23andMe on the V3 chip, prior to December 2013, you can download your raw data file to Family Tree DNA and pay just $39.  Family Tree DNA will process your raw data within a couple days and you will then see your myOrigins ethnicity results as interpreted by their software.  Of course, that’s in addition to having access to Family Tree DNA‘s other autosomal features, functions and tools.  The transfer price of $39 is significantly less expensive than retesting.

Just understand that what you receive from these companies in terms of ethnicity is reflective of both contemporary and ancient admixture – from all of your ancestral lines.  This field is in its infancy – your results will change from time to time as we learn – and the only part of ethnicity that is cast in concrete is probably your majority ancestry which you can likely discern by looking in the mirror.  The rest – well – it’s a mystery and an adventure.  Welcome aboard to the miraculous mysterious journey of you, as viewed through the DNA of your ancestors!

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Department of Interior, Indian Affairs, Hiring a Genealogist

The NGS website announced this week an opening at the Department of Interior, Indian Affairs, for a genealogist in the Washington DC vicinity.  Let’s hope that whoever they hire also understands, and I mean really understands, DNA testing – as they assuredly will be bombarded with questions about how DNA testing pertains to Native people and their descendants.

bia genealogist2.jpg

DNA testing has the potential to be beneficial to applicants in the process of requesting federal recognition.  DNA testing and those results are now a permanent part of the genealogy landscape.  Let’s hope that the new BIA genealogist knows how to utilize them properly when evaluating genealogy.

This looks like a really good career opportunity for someone.  Is that someone you?

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research

Sallie, Sarah or Mary maybe Coates (c1740 – 1782/1787), Mystery Wives of the Reverend George McNiel, 52 Ancestors #85

Sometimes when we get back to these end-of-line females, their genealogy facts become very tenuous, and we find that we are missing more information than we have.

Sarah Coates, at least we think that the names of Sarah and Coates or Coats go together as one person, was married to the Reverend George McNiel.

She may or may not have been his first wife, and for all we know, Sarah and Coates may not have been the same woman.- although we don’t have any reason to think otherwise, well, except for that pesky little death and taxes issue.  Yes, death and taxes still “get you,” even in genealogy!

Let’s take a look at what we do have.

Joyce Dancy McNeil, now deceased, was a cousin to me on two different lines, McNeil by marriage through her husband, historian George McNeil and through the Wilkes County, NC Vannoy lines in her own genealogy.  Joyce was an extremely thorough genealogist and I was so glad to find her early in my searching.  Sadly, by the time I was able to visit Wilkes County in 2004, Joyce had passed on.

Joyce and George had researched the McNeil family extensively.  I was confused because some researchers listed the Reverend George McNiel’s wife as Mary and some as Sarah.  Joyce told me that there was a deed in Spotsylvania County, VA that George McNiel witnessed, as did a Mary McNiel.  Researchers presumed that Mary was George’s wife.  Indeed, she may have been, but there is no proof of that.  It would be interesting by process of elimination to see who else Mary could have been at that time.  Unfortunately, that deed is not included in the book “Spotsylvania County, 1721-1800, Being Transcriptions from the Original Files,” so I have been unable to verify this information.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has completely extracted the Spotsylvania County records for McNiel, and this should be done.

Unfortunately, we don’t know where they lived in Spotsylvania County.

The next information comes from a letter written by George’s grandson in 1898.  In the letter, he says that George McNiel married a “Miss Coats” in Virginia.  Another source, a pamphlet written in 1905 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Reverend George McNiel’s death (and setting of his headstone), says that marriage occurred in Grayson County, which wasn’t formed until 1793, long after George would have been marrying Miss Coats if she is the mother of some or all of his children who were born between about 1757 and 1782.  In the 1750s, when George would have been marrying, that area, now Grayson County, would have been Augusta County.

It’s also reported that George fled into Grayson County, VA for safety in 1771 after scuffling with the Regulators and after the battle of Alamance.  It was additionally stated that he lived in Moore County, settling there in 1745-1750.  Again, Moore County, North Carolina wasn’t formed until in 1784 from Cumberland which was formed in 1754 from Bladen.  The problem is that we have records for him in Spotsylvania County during this time.  In fact, as late as 1775 he was still purchasing land in Spotsylvania County.  He sold his land in Spotsylvania County in 1778, but unfortunately, his wife did not release her dower rights and sign as well.  For us, that’s a significant lost opportunity.

We do know through church records that George was in Grayson County, but that was in 1800 when he was clearly traveling and ministering as a circuit riding minister.

Joyce also said there was evidence that George’s first child was born before his arrival in America.  If this is true, then that child’s mother clearly did not survive until the end of George’s life.  However, if her name was Mary, and she preceded “Miss Coates” who George is reported to have married in Virginia, then this may be true.  The problem is, of course, that we don’t know when George married Miss Coates so we have no idea which of his children might have been by a first wife, Miss Coates, or yet another wife.

The first child we have any record of is Mary, born in 1757, but how that birth date was attributed to Mary, I have no idea since there seems to be very little information about her.  In the book, Genealogy of the McNiel Clan written by the Johnson Hayes, published in 1934, Mary is shown as being born in 1771 and as having married in 1803 to Henry Miller, but no birth date or other information for Mary is given.

What I do know is that our first record of George McNiel is in Spotsylvania County, in 1757, so we know he was here in the colonies by that time.  Whether he was married upon arrival, or if his first child was born before arrival or in transit, we don’t know.  Daughter Mary was reported to have died in 1850, but I can’t find her in the census.

There is reason to think George may have had three wives, or, I hate to even suggest this out loud, because I do NOT want to start a rumor, but George could have had 4 wives.  Let’s look at the evidence and hints.

In 1782, in Wilkes County, there was a bill of sale between John Stubblefield and Jacob Nichols that was witnessed by George and Sally McNiel.

Miss Coates first name may have been Sarah, known as Sally.

On the Wilkes County 1787 tax list, there were categories for a number of things, including the number of white females.  That number was 0 for George, as it was three years later, in the 1790 federal census.  George’s first wife, whatever her name, had died after the birth of her last child in 1782 but before 1787 and George was single for at least three years, from 1787-1790.  He obviously remarried sometime between 1790 and June 1805 when he died, because he had a wife, Sarah, living at the time of his death.

In 1808, William McNiel was administering the estate of both George McNiel and his wife, Sarah McNiel.

So, what do we have here?

  • A possible wife before coming to the US, who could be the Mary who witnessed a Spotsylvania County deed that reportedly exists but that I can’t find.
  • A marriage, possibly in Grayson County, to one Miss Coats.
  • A possible wife, Sally, in 1782.
  • No wife in 1787 or 1790.
  • A wife, Sarah, at George’s death in 1805, who died by 1808.

Clearly, in my case, the woman I’m most interested in is the one who was the mother of my ancestor, William McNiel, born about 1760.  Given that this is before George is apparently preaching and traveling, I’m guessing that William’s mother would likely be Mary in Spotsylvania County, assuming Mary was William’s wife – and I’m not at all sure that is a valid assumption.  It’s no wonder that so many descendants have simply given this woman the name of Mary Sarah” or “Sarah Mary” Coates and let it go at that – never mind that it’s very likely wrong on at least two if not three counts.

One thing is clear, William’s mother is not wife Sarah who died just after Reverend George died in 1805, and whose estate was being probated in 1808 – because this wife Sarah was not married to George in 1787 or 1790.  In fact, George could easily have married a Sarah Coats in Grayson County after 1790 when we know he was in fact there preaching.  But why, if this is the case, would that be the only wife his descendants mentioned and not the mother of his many children?

I surely wish this story didn’t have so many “could haves” and questions – but sadly, that is all that I do have or even might have.

Why didn’t any of George’s descendants think to add this tidbit of information – George’s wife, his helpmate?  Even if George had only two wives, or three, or even four – it’s still remarkable enough to talk about.  I find it rather unbelievable that George’s descendants could not even remember the first name of “Miss Coats.”  Lastly, this woman (or women) deserves a medal, not have their names forgotten, because the wife is the one who maintained everything at home while George was out and about preaching, saving souls and founding new churches.  And that wife, if she was a second or third wife, was likely raising his children from previous marriages in addition to her own.

How many children did she bear in his absence, and was she even able to obtain the assistance of a midwife?  Who would have ridden for the midwife, if George was gone?  While the traveling preacher tends to be venerated, in this case, at least, it’s the name-forgotten wife who stayed at home and held everything together without the assistance of her husband.  She should be celebrated.  She is the unsung heroine of the story.  The fact that her name has been forgotten just makes the irony even greater and the story sadder.

We know that George and his then-current wife had children from around 1757 until the last child was born in February 1782 – although there is a very large gap between Mary born in 1771 and Thomas born in 1782 which could potentially alert us to the death of a wife and a remarriage.  It could also be that several children died, or George was gone much of the time.  It was about 1776 when Baptists began to be allowed to preach freely, which corresponds with the time in which the family legend claims he was ordained a Baptist minister.

We know that George and his wife lived on Lewis Fork Creek, right across the road from where the Elder George McNiel Cemetery is located today.

Elder George McNiel gravesite

This satellite image shows the location in more detail, but the cemetery is not visible from the road and a local person would have to be a guide.

Elder George McNiel gravesite satellite

When historian George McNiel and I visited this cemetery in 2004, George told me that the Reverend George McNiel and his wife lived directly across the road from the cemetery, in a cabin behind the house that belonged to his granddaughter – which was  in ruins with only the chimney standing in 2004, below.

George McNiel land

As we walked George’s land, this misty apparition appeared in a clearing.  Was George or his wife or maybe his granddaughter with us that day?

George McNiel granddaughter land

George’s wife did pass away before 1787, leaving him with this child who was still either an infant or a toddler plus 4 additional underage children, not to mention the older ones still living at home.  This must have been a terribly sad day in the McNiel cabin on Lewis Fork Creek.  George must have wondered what he was going to do.  It’s actually amazing that he did not marry for more than 3 years.  I would wager that his older married children took the younger ones to raise.  He certainly couldn’t do that while visiting, circuit riding and establishing churches throughout the region.  Not to mention, by 1802, George was also the register of deeds for Wilkes County.

Even though her grave is unmarked, George’s wife, mother of his children, probably Sallie, is surely laid to rest in the McNiel cemetery located on George’s land, near where George himself was laid to rest as well, some 20 years later.

George McNiel cemetery2

Today, the cemetery is overgrown and it’s not evident from any distance that it is a cemetery.  At least the cattle aren’t, or weren’t, allowed to graze in the cemetery.

George McNiel cemetery

As you get a little closer, you can make out the ghostly shapes of the abandoned monuments.

George McNiel tombstone

In addition to the Elder George McNiel, whose stone, set in 1905, a hundred years after his death, is shown above, several generations have been buried here as well, including son Thomas born in 1782 and several of Thomas’s children.

However, there is one thing we know, concretely, about George’s wife – she was a Baptist – at least eventually.  We have no records of George preaching in Spotsylvania County, but records abound after 1779 – which is while George’s wife was still alive.  In fact, based on the 1782 deed, her name was likely Sallie.

After all of this thrashing around in the mud is done, we actually know very little.  We’re still not sure of George’s wife’s name.  We’ve introduced even more questions in an already tenuous situation.  No one is going to thank me for this article:)

Aside from extracting the Spotsylvania County records, which is now on my to-do list, how else could we unravel this riddle?

DNA

Finding people who descend through all female lines to DNA test is sometimes difficult due to all of the generational name changes.  However, it has been successfully done in other lines, so it’s not impossible

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to all of their children, but only passed on by the females.  So, anyone who descends from the wife of George McNiel through all females will carry her mitochondrial DNA.  In the current generation, the descendant can be either a male or female.

If we were able to test mitochondrial descendants of the daughters of George McNiel, we could verify that they were all born to the same mother.

Unfortunately, my first problem is that I have no information about the eldest daughter, born in 1757, no information about the children of Elizabeth McNiel and what information I do have about Polly is that she had 4 sons who would not have passed on her mitochondrial DNA.  Not looking good so far, but maybe there is more information to be had, currently unknown – and maybe it will be the descendant families that provide the info.  Fingers crossed.

  • Mary Hillary McNiel born 1757 – no further information and it is unknown if this information is accurate or if this person even existed. If so, Hillary could be a family surname.
  • John McNiel born 1759 married Fanny Cleveland.
  • William McNiel born 1760/1761 died circa 1832 in Claiborne Co., TN, married Elizabeth Shepherd (my line).
  • James McNiel born circa 1763 died August 1834, married Mary “Polly” Shepherd.
  • Benjamin McNiel born 1765 married Elizabeth Lips.
  • Joseph McNiel born 1767 died circa 1855 married Hannah Wilson and Elizabeth Powell.
  • Elizabeth McNiel born about 1767 (per an 1857 deposition where she says she is 90 years old when applying for her husband’s Revolutionary War pension and bounty land in Watauga Co., NC,) married in 1785 to Robert Bingham in Wilkes County, NC. Children unknown.
  • Mary “Polly” McNiel born 1771 married Henry Miller in1803 in Wilkes County. Four known sons.
  • Thomas McNiel born February 1782, died 1865, married Miss Parsons.

George McNiel was a minister.  I can’t believe that his Bible hasn’t turned up in the descendants someplace, complete with a list of wives and children.  You KNOW he had at least one Bible, and probably multiples.  Maybe he wore them out!

Grandchildren

No pictures of George McNiel’s children exist, but there are two photos of his grandchildren.

The Reverend James McNiel, below, born in 1816, was the son of Joseph McNiel and Hannah Wilson.  Joseph was the son of Rev. George McNiel and whichever wife, probably Sallie, he was married to in 1767 when Joseph was born.

James McNiel

A second grandson is also memorialized by a photograph.

George W. McNiel, Sr. was born in 1825 and died in 1914.  He is buried in the Elder George McNiel Cemetery and was the son of Thomas McNiel, born in 1782 and a Parsons woman.  His father, Thomas was born in February 1782, the son of Reverend George McNiel and probably the Sallie who had died by 1787.

George W. McNiel

A third grandson, Elijah McNeill, son of James McNeill is shown below, courtesy of his descendant, William McNeill.

Was George, above, holding a Bible, maybe his grandfather’s Bible? What other book would be important enough to include in a “formal” dress up picture?

Elijah McNeill grandson of rev George

Did any of these grandsons look anything like either the Reverend George McNiel or his wife, whatever her name?

My ancestor, William McNiel, was born about 1760, so he is most likely to share a mother with James McNiel born in 1763 or Joseph McNiel born in 1767 than with Thomas born in 1782 – although all three of these men could clearly have shared the same mother.

We don’t have the answers to all, or even many of these questions today, but maybe, just maybe, someday we will.

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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The Archives of Who Do You Think You Are

This Sunday Evening on TLC, “Who Do You Think You Are?” digs into its archives and features highlights throughout the seasons including triumphs and tragedies, delightful discoveries and sobering moments. This special episode also unveils outtakes and never-before-seen footage from the vault.

In some cases, this is footage we see in the screeners, but never makes it to the final version.  I personally think some of this is more interesting than what does sometimes make it to the production version…but you didn’t hear that from me…didn’t come out of my mouth:)

They explore what motivates celebrities to delve into their roots, including those who want to investigate why they never knew certain family members and uncover the origins of rifts that have torn families apart.  Here’s what WDYTYA has to say about Sunday’s archives special edition.

Walking in your ancestors’ footsteps can make a journey especially powerful. We revisit moments with Jason Sudeikis, as he goes deep underground in a coal mine and learns how his great-grandfather died in an explosion; Cynthia Nixon, who stands in the same prison in which her 3X great-grandmother was incarcerated and learns her ancestor became pregnant while serving time; and Rosie O’Donnell, who experiences the horrible living conditions her destitute great-great-grandparents and their children endured in 1850’s Ireland.

Next, we highlight one of the most powerful tools available in ancestry research: the census.

One of the biggest rewards in researching your roots can be finding heroes. Some of our stars have been lucky enough to find great men and women in the family who did the right thing, no matter the consequences. In this section, we review Zooey Deschanel reading a first hand account of how her 4X great-grandmother helped fugitive slaves escape via the underground railroad; and in never-before-seen footage, we watch Julie Chen learn that her great-grandmother was kidnapped and killed by bandits, which motivated her grandfather to establish a school to educate citizens in order to reduce crime.

The only thing more interesting than finding a hero in your past is finding a villain. Our celebrities have come across all manner of scoundrels, scamps, and lowlifes. Here, we see Sean Hayes discovering that his great-great grandfather sued his children in court for assaulting him in a variety of ways, and we follow Sarah Jessica Parker as she investigates whether her 10X great-grandmother was a witch-hunter – or one of the innocents accused – during the Salem Witch Trials.

Next, we put the spotlight on online newspaper databases and microfilm collections at the library, which can be a treasure trove of salacious details.

As we go deeper into the best of “Who Do,” we turn our attention to one of the most painful things anyone can face in a family’s past: slavery. Our celebrities have confronted this horrifying part of American history from both sides of the issue. In this section, Blair Underwood finds that his 4x great-grandfather, a freed slave, owned slaves himself; but Blair discovers that he had to buy his own family members to keep them together. Emmitt Smith is disturbed to hear that his 4x great-grandmother Mariah was possibly a child of rape whose father was the family’s white slave owner, making him Emmitt’s own 5x great-grandfather. Finally, Reba McEntire finds that her slave-trading ancestor bought a fourteen-month-old baby.

War has ravaged family histories since the beginning of time, and our celebrities’ ancestors have been affected by battle in way they could never have imagined. Here, we revisit Rob Lowe searching for proof that his 5x great-grandfather fought as a Patriot in the Revolutionary War – but instead finds he served as a Hessian, fighting against George Washington; Spike Lee discovering that in an ironic twist, his 3x great-grandfather, a slave, was forced make guns for the Confederates during the Civil War; and Lisa Kudrow learning of the horrifying atrocities of which her Jewish great-grandmother was a victim during World War II.

Making a connection to history’s big names is the brass ring of genealogy. Some of our stars have been lucky enough to have ancestors who crossed paths with greatness: Josh Groban finds that his 8x great-grandfather was recognized by Sir Isaac Newton, and Jim Parsons uncovers his 6x great-grandfather’s profession: architect to King Louis XV. And in rare cases, some of our celebrities discover direct royal lineage. Brooke Shields touches her ancestor Henry IV’s heart in a jar, and marvels at her connection to him. And in never-before-seen footage, Valerie Bertinelli is astonished to see an elaborate family tree which illustrates her lineage reaches back through Edward I, William the Conqueror, and theoretically on up through Jesus and God.

Next, we highlight remarkable moments throughout the years of our celebrities discovering information on their journeys that is so surprising, it reduces these great speakers to a single word: “Wow.”

Call it coincidence or fate, we’ve witnessed incredible moments of synchronicity. In this section, we revisit Emmitt Smith realizing that an important piece of information about his ancestor lies within deed book number #22, which was Emmitt’s number throughout his football career; Gwyneth Paltrow finding a parallel with her great-great-grandfather, who was a master in Kaballah, which Gwyneth studies; Josh Groban uncovering information that his ancestor taught music and sang; and Spike Lee discovering that his great-great-grandfather’s name was Mars, which was the name his grandmother suggested when he told her he was stumped on what to call his iconic character from “She’s Gotta Have It.”

Some of the most entertaining moments on “Who Do” happen behind the scenes. Here, we feature our favorite outtakes.

The journey through a family’s past is a treasure hunt, and no find is more exciting than something your ancestor held in his or her own hands. Jason Sudeikis and Christina Applegate reveal how old photos in particular bring you face to face with your past; Bill Paxton is awestruck seeing a personal account written by his relative; and America Ferrera breaks down in tears as she sees pictures of her long lost father as a young man for the first time.

Anyone who goes on a quest to know their ancestors emerges a little bit changed. Here, some of our stars express how going on their journeys – and what they’ve learned – has changed their perspectives and lives. Some of them even reunite with long-lost relatives, finding roots in places far from home. We watch as Lisa Kudrow and Blair Underwood come face to face with newly discovered family, and Rita Wilson has an emotional first-time introduction to her 96-year-old uncle.

Throughout the years, this series has helped celebrities solve mysteries and uncover truths they never dreamed possible – in some cases changing everything about who they think they are.

In my own case, after watching the Valerie Bertinelli episode, I whined that I was envious that Valerie had found what is known as a gateway ancestor, one who connects solidly to a royal line.  Once connected, you can tie into already completed genealogy – so finding that gateway ancestor is the clue.  Just a few days later, I realized that I too had a gateway ancestor, I had just never recognized them as such.  Plus, I discovered that Valerie and I are distant cousins – not that Valerie knows or cares.  But how inspiring and what fun for me.  That discovery launched me on a brand new journey!  It always pays to pay attention and keep digging.  You just never know who you’re going to dig up.

king edward i

King Edward I of England

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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The Logic and Birth of a Bad NAD (New Ancestor Discovery)

Ancestry gave me another bad NAD today, or a New Ancestor Discovery, who is absolutely, positively, unquestionably, not my ancestor.  But this time, they did me the huge favor of assigning someone that was immediately familiar to me, and I can share with you the “logic” of how this erroneous connection happened.  You can then use this same process to work on unraveling your own New Ancestor Discoveries – now that you know what to look for.

Let me first say that genetic genealogy based on inferences has the ability to give you hints you would not otherwise have, like with DNA Circles and NADs, but these inferences that Ancestry arrives at by a process they call “network theory” can also lead you badly astray – like the logic that says your ancestor’s sister’s husband is your ancestor.  Of course, I am assuming here that you are not double descended – and I know positively that I’m not.  I went through the proof process with the first bad NAD that Ancestry gave me, although I never figured out the logic of how I was assigned that original Bad NAD couple, who is now gone.

Blaine Bettinger recently explained Ancestry’s network theory quite well in his blog, “Creating DNA Circles – Exploring the Use of Genetic Networks in Genetic Genealogy”.

Ancestry has consistently refused to provide us with the triangulation tools we need, via a chromosome browser, and we are left to do the best we can with genetic networks and other inference methods.  Triangulation confirms descent from a common ancestor, while network theory connects people who are related to each other, suggesting common ancestors – like my new bad NAD.

My new bad NAD is Robert Shiflet, the husband of Sarah Clarkson/Claxton, the sister of my ancestor Samuel Claxton.  Both Samuel and Sarah share parents, Fairwick Claxton and Agnes Muncy.  However, Robert Shiflet is not related to me by blood, but of course, his children are – through his wife.

This chart, below, shows how all of the people we’ll be discussing in the bad NAD group descend from common ancestors, Fairwick Claxton/Clarkson and Agnes Muncy.  You can see that three groups descend from Sarah Clarkson and Robert Shiflet through son Fairwick Shiflet and daughters Elizabeth and Rhoda.  I descend through Samuel Clarkson, brother to Sarah.

Shiflet NAD chart

Here’s Robert Shiflet, my newly arrived bad NAD, at Ancestry.

Robert Shiflet NAD

By clicking on the New Ancestor, you can see how I connect to the people that Ancestry has used to determine that Robert Shiflet may be my ancestor.

NAD Circle

The NAD circle is made up of three family groups, where several closely related individuals have tested, so they are counted as “one” and not as separate matches.

There are two individuals in each of the three family groups.

All of these people descend from Sarah Clarkson/Claxton and Robert Shiflet.  Ironically, Sarah, who is not listed as a NAD, is the daughter of my ancestor.

In fact, as irony would have it, two of these same groups ARE in the Fairwick Clarkson/Claxton DNA Circle and along with me, these are the only two other members of that circle that I match.

Fairwick circle

So, if you’re judging from the number of connections only, the NAD circle, with 3 groups totaling six people looks stronger than my Fairwick Clarkson Circle with only 2 groups totaling 4 people.  I checked each tree of each individual within the Shiflet Circle and have summarized the results below.

Participant Family Group Sarah Listed? Fairwick Listed Fairwick Circle
CT Martha Patsy Yes, as Sarah “Sallie” Clarkson Yes, Fairwick Claxton Group is in circle
Charlene Martha Patsy Yes, as Sarha Clarkson Shiflet No Group is in circle
DL DL Yes, as Sarah A. Claxton No No
JL DL Yes, as Sarah A. Claxton No No
DB Barbara Yes, as Sarah “Sallie” Clarkson Yes, as Fairwick Claxton Group is in circle
DJ Barbara Yes, Sarah H. Clarkson Yes, as Fairwick Clarkson Group is in circle

Please note that in this case, the spelling of Sarah’s name was quite different.  It was spelled Clarkson, Claxton and in one tree, she was listed as Sarah Clarkson Shiflet, with Shiflet as her surname.  Her first name was misspelled in one tree.  This could be why Sarah was not listed as a NAD along with Robert, whose name was consistently spelled the same way.

Still, because two of these family groups are members of the Fairwick Claxton/Clarkson Circle, one would think that it would be immediately evident that since we DO share an upstream ancestor, when utilizing our trees, that the husband of my ancestor’s sister is not my ancestor – but I am related to his descendants by virtue of his wife’s parents – so of course I match the DNA of his descendants.  That does NOT mean I descend from him.

The linchpin that may have triggered Ancestry to create a NAD may have been that I match one set (family group) of Robert Shiflet’s descendants that aren’t in the Fairwick group.  The reason the DL group is not in Fairwick’s circle, if you look at the trees, is because the DL group does not list any parent for Sarah – so they can’t be in Fairwick’s circle because Fairwick isn’t listed in their tree.  It would make a lot more sense for Ancestry to give the DL group Fairwick as a NAD than to give me Robert Shiflet as a NAD.

So, take all NADs with an extremely large grain of salt – in fact – the whole shaker would be appropriate here or maybe something the size of rock salt.

Keeping Score

So far, the NAD score, out of 5 that have been assigned to me, 3 are proven to be incorrect.  Two, the Larimers, the jury is still out – well, sortof.

Larimer NAD

The jury isn’t entirely out on the Larimer’s actually, because when I look at the group of people in the Larimer NAD circle, I discovered all 5 people who I match on my Andrew McKee line. Hmmm….

These people ALSO connect to John and Jane Larimer – on a completely separate line from Andrew McKee.  In another group, I find another ancestral surname where I connect with the entire group.  So, I’m guessing that it’s circumstantial that all of these people descend from John and Jane Larimer – and that John and Jane have nothing to do with me just because I match their descendants through two of my other known lines.  I don’t actually match anyone else in that group – although a lot of them match each other.  As it turns out, all of this “network theory” matching is a red herring this time – because of intermixed multiple family lines.

Can I prove positively that I don’t share any ancestor upstream with John and Jean Larimer?  Nope, I can’t, but given the trend that I do see, it looks like the NAD was based on other family connections that circumstantially are connected to the Larimers as well.  And I can tell you, from what I do know about my genealogy, that I don’t descend from Jean and John Larimer.  There is no vacancy in my tree that fits their ages, so they are not my ancestors.

So, I guess that really makes the score:

  • Ancestry – 0
  • Bad NADs – 5

The sad part is that it also makes my score 0 – and leaves me begging for the chromosome browser that we so desperately need and would eliminate all of this tail-chasing.  A chromosome browser wouldn’t leave us guessing about whether the Larimer segments were the same segments as the McKee segments.  We would know positively whether they were or not – no guessing, tail chasing or network theory needed.

dog chasing tail

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Disclosure

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Transfers

Genealogy Services

Genealogy Research