Category Archives: History

The Mystery of the Blue Fugates and Smiths: A Study in Blue Genes and Pedigree Collapse

Posted on by
11

The story of the Blue Fugates, an Appalachian family, is quite interesting, from a genetic perspective, a genealogical perspective, and a genetic genealogy perspective.

Who Are the Blue Fugates?

Martin Fugate, supposedly an orphan from France, and his bride, Elizabeth Smith, who had married by 1840, have long been attributed as the progenitors of the Blue Fugate Family of Troublesome Creek, in and around Perry County, Kentucky.

Their descendants were known as “The Blue Fugates” and also “The Blue People of Kentucky” because some of their children and descendants carried a recessive autosomal genetic trait, Methemoglobinemia.

Methemoglobinemia causes the skin to appear blue due to an oxygen deficiency in the red blood cells. Some people only exhibit this characteristic, or even just blue tinges in their fingernails and lips, when they are cold or agitated, such as when infants cry. Yet others are very, very blue.

Inheritance

In order for someone to exhibit the autosomal recessive trait of blueness due to Methemoglobinemia, they must inherit a copy of the gene from BOTH PARENTS. That’s why this trait is so rare.

  • If the parents have only one copy each, they are carriers and will not have the condition themselves.
  • If one parent carries either one or two copies, and the other parent does NOT carry a copy, their offspring CANNOT carry two copies of the mutation and will not be blue.
  • If both parents carry a copy, and both parents pass their copy on to their offspring, the offspring will probably exhibit some level of blueness – from just a tinge when they are cold, ill or or upset, to very, very blue.

I’m not a physician, so I’m not delving into the medical specifics of Methemoglobinemia, but suffice it to say that levels of 10-20% of methemoglobin in the blood produce blue skin, higher levels can produce more severe medical conditions, and levels beneath that may not be visually detectible.

What’s important for the genealogy aspect of this story is that both parents must carry a copy AND pass their copy on for the condition to express in their offspring.

We’ve learned a lot since the 1800s when this was first observed in various members of the Fugate family in Perry County, KY, and since the 1960s when this phenomenon was first studied in the Fugate family and their descendants. To be clear, there are also references to the blue Combs and blue Ritchies in and around Perry County – but the common factor is that they have ancestors that descend from the Fugate family AND the Smith family ancestors, both.

During my research, I’ve proven some of what was initially accepted as fact was incorrect – and I’d like to correct the record. Bonus points too, because it’s just such a great genealogy story!

My Interest

I’ve been inordinately interested in the Fugate family for a long time – but not because of their famous blueness.

The Fugate family has been found for more than 225 years alongside my Cook, Claxton, Campbell, and Dobkins families. First, in Russell County, VA, where Josiah Fugate was granted land along Sword’s Creek in 1801 that adjoined Harry Smith, Richard Smith, and others, including my brick-wall ancestor, Joel Cook. Keep in mind that we have never discovered the birth surname of Joel’s wife or Joel’s parents.

Joel’s daughter, Sarah, married James Claxton about 1799 or 1800 in Russell County, and in February of 1802, James Claxton and Zachariah Fugate, among others, were ordered to view and lay out a new road. They were clearly neighbors, living on the same road, and knew each other well. We don’t know who James’ parents were either.

The Fugates first lived adjacent to the Cook, Riley, Stephens, and Claxton families on Mockason Creek in Russell County, then later migrated with the same group of families to Claiborne County where they lived along the Powell River near the Lee County, VA line, and are very closely associated with the Dobkins and Campbell lines.

Sometime between 1802 and 1805, several Russell County families moved 110 miles down the mountain range and settled together on the Powell River in Claiborne County, TN.  About the same time, others from the same cluster moved to what would eventually become Perry County, KY.

In 1805, the Fugates were ordered as road hands on the north side of Wallen’s Ridge in Claiborne County, the part that would become Hancock County in the 1840s, along with James Claxton and several Smiths.

In 1808, James Claxton witnessed a deed to Henley Fugate and John Riley.

The unsubstantiated family rumor, repeated as fact but with no source, has always been that William Fugate married the sister of my John Campbell. If that were true, tracking the Fugates would help me track my Campbells – yet another brick wall. Hence, my early interest in the Fugate family. Until now, I’ve never solved any part of that puzzle.

In 1827, in Claiborne County, Henry Cook, road overseer, is assigned John Riley, Henly Fugate, William Fugate, Fairwick Claxton (son of James who had died in 1815), and others. These families continued to be allied, living close to each other.

In 1842, William Fugate (1799-1855), born to William Fugate and Sarah Jane Stephens in Russell County, is involved in the estate of John Campbell, born about 1772, who had died in 1838. John Campbell was the husband of Jane “Jenny” Dobkins, daughter of Jacob Dobkins (1751-1835).

William Fugate of Claiborne County signed a deposition in 1851 saying he came to Claiborne County, TN, in 1826. Claiborne County is rugged terrain, located on the south side of the Cumberland Gap, where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky intersect.

In 1853, both William Fugate and Jehiel Fugate are neck-deep in lawsuits surrounding the estate of Jacob Dobkins, who died in 1835, lived on Powell River, and whose daughters married John Campbell and his brother George Campbell

I recently discovered that this William Fugate was born about 1799 in Russell County, VA, and according to his son’s death certificate, William’s wife was Nancy Riley, which makes a lot of sense, given the proximity of these families. I must admit, I’m glad to solve this, but I’m also disappointed that he wasn’t married to John Campbell’s sister.

So, why does any of this matter in the Blue Fugate story?

In part, because I knew decades ago that Martin Fugate, of the Kentucky Blue Fugates, was not an orphan from France who had somehow made his way to the eastern shores of Maryland, then to Perry County, KY by 1820 when he supposedly received a land grant. That land grant date doesn’t square with Martin’s birth year of 1820 either, nor his marriage about 1840, both of which are substantiated by the census.

You can see from the information gleaned from Russell County that the Fugate family was there well before 1800. In fact, a Martin Fugate is shown on the 1789 tax list and other Fugates were there earlier, as early as 1771, according to extracted Russell County records in the book “The Fugate Family of Russell County, Virginia” by David Faris. The Fugate descendants continued to press on westward from there. Fugate, unlike Smith, Cook, and even Campbell, is not a common surname.

“Orphan” stories are often early ways that people said “I don’t know”, without saying, “I don’t know where he came from”, so they speculated and said “maybe he was an orphan.” Then that speculation was eventually passed on as fact.

That might have been happening in Perry County in the 1960s, but in Claiborne County in the 1980s, family members were telling me, “Martin waren’t no orphan,” and would roll their eyes and sigh with great exasperation. You could tell this was far from the first time they had had to combat that story. To be clear, the Fugate family lived down along Little Sycamore Creek with my Estes, Campbell and other ancestral families. In the 1980s, I was finding the oldest people possible and talking to them.

Some records in Russell County, where the Fugates of Perry County, KY, and the Fugates of Claiborne County, TN, originated, did and do exist, so could have been researched in the 1960s, but you would have had to know where to look. No one back then knew that the Perry County Fugates originated in Russell County, so they wouldn’t have known to look there. Research wasn’t easy. If they had known to look in Russell County, they would have had to travel there in person to review records. Early records exist in Perry County, too, but in the 1960s, not even the census was available, and people simply didn’t remember back to the early to mid-1800s.

Truthfully, no one would ever have doubted those early stories that had been handed down. They were revered, in all families, and treated as gospel. Those stories were the only connection they had to their ancestors – and the generations inbetween who passed them on. Nope, no one was going to question what Grandpa or Uncle Joe said.

So, in the 1960s, when the Blue Fugates in Perry and adjacent Breathitt County, KY were first studied by Dr. Cawein and his nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, they gathered oral family history and constructed a family pedigree from that information. They documented who was blue from first-hand eye-witness accounts – which would only have stretched back into the late 1800s, best case.

It probably never occurred to anyone to validate or verify earlier information that was provided. Plus, it would have been considered rude. After all, they weren’t genealogists, and they were trying to solve a medical mystery. The information they collected did not conflict with what was known about the disease and how it was transmitted, so they had no reason to doubt its historical accuracy.

The Mystery of the Blue Fugates?

The Blue Fugates were a family renowned for their blue skin – at least some of them had blue skin. That’s part of what makes this story so interesting.

Originally, it was believed that only one progenitor couple was involved, Martin Fugate and his wife, Elizabeth Smith, but now we know there were two. Maybe I should say “at least two.”

Martin Fugate and his bride, Elizabeth Smith, whose first known child was born in 1841, according to the 1850 census, are progenitors of the Blue Fugate Family of Troublesome Creek, but they aren’t the only progenitors.

Martin was not shown in the Perry County, KY 1840 census, but two Zachariah Fugates are present, 8 Fugate families are found in neighboring Breathitt County, more than a dozen in Russell County and surrounding counties in Virginia, and four, including two William Fugates, in Claiborne County, TN. The younger of the two lived next door to John Dobkins, son of deceased Jacob Dobkins.

Martin Fugate (c1820-1899) of Perry County and his second cousin, Zachariah Fugate (1816-1864), who each married a Smith sister, are both progenitors of the Blue Fugates through their common ancestor, their great-grandfather, Martin Fugate, who was born in 1725 and died in 1803 in Russell County, VA.

Obviously, if Martin (c1820-1899) had a Fugate second cousin who also lived in Perry County, Martin wasn’t an orphan. That knowledge is due to more recently available information, like census and other data – and that’s part of what I want to correct.

In 1948, Luke Combs, from Perry County, KY, took his sick wife to the hospital, but Luke’s blueness caused the medical staff to focus on him instead, thinking he was experiencing a medical emergency. He wasn’t. His skin was just blue. In 1974, Dr Charles H. Behlen II said, ‘Luke was just as blue as Lake Louise on a cool summer day.’ The Blue Fugates were “discovered” by the rest of the world, thanks to Luke, but they were nothing new to local people, many of whom did not welcome the notoriety.

In the 1960s, hematologist Madison Cawein III, with the assistance of Ruth Pendergrass, studied 189 members of the extended Fugate family, treated their symptoms, and published his findings. He included a pedigree chart, but not everyone was keen on cooperating with Dr. Cawein’s research project.

The Fugate family history collected for the study was based on two things:

  • Personal knowledge of who respondents knew was blue
  • Remembered oral history beyond the reach of personal knowledge.

That remembered oral history reported that Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith’s youngest son, Zachariah Fugate (born in 1871), married his mother’s (older) sister, Mary Smith, (born about 1820), and had a family. I’ve added the dates and information in parentheses, or they would have immediately known that marriage was impossible. Or, more directly, even if they married when Zachariah was 14, Mary would have been 70 years old, and they were certainly not going to produce offspring. This is the second piece of information I want to correct. That marriage never happened, although people were accurate that:

  • Martin Fugate and his wife, Elizabeth Smith, did have a son named Zachariah Fugate
  • One Zachariah Fugate did marry Mary Smith, sister of Elizabeth Smith

It’s just that they were two different Zachariah Fugates, born 75 years apart. Same name confusion strikes again.

I constructed this census table of Martin Fugate with Elizabeth Smith, and Zachariah Fugate with Mary Smith. They lived next door to each other in Perry County – and it seemed that every family reused the same “honoring” names for their children – and had been doing such for generations.

In the 1960s, when the information was being compiled for Dr. Cawein, the census and other documents that genealogists rely on today were not readily available.

Furthermore, genetically, for the mystery Dr. Cawein was attempting to solve, it didn’t really matter, because it was still a Smith female marrying a Fugate male. I know that it made no difference today, but he wouldn’t have known that then. To track down the source of the blueness, he needed to identify who was blue and as much about their ancestors as possible.

The Zachariah Fugate (1816-1864) who married Elizabeth Smith’s sister, Mary Smith, was Martin Fugate’s second cousin by the same name, Zachariah. Both Martin (c1820-1899) and his second cousin, Zachariah (c1816-1864), married to Smith sisters, had blue children, which helps cement the fact that the responsible genes were passed down through BOTH the Fugate and Smith lines, and weren’t just random mutations or caused by environmental or other factors.

Proof

In case you’re wondering exactly how I confirmed that Martin and Zachariah did indeed marry Elizabeth and Mary Smith – their children’s birth and death records confirmed it. These records correlate with the census.

Unlike most states, Kentucky has some pre-1900 birth and death records.

Wilson Fugate’s birth in February, 1855 was recorded, naming both of his parents, Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith.

Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith’s son, Henley or Hendley, died in 1920, and his death certificate gave the names of both parents. Betty is a nickname for Elizabeth.

On the same page with Wilson Fugate’s birth, we find a birth for Zachariah Fugate and Mary Smith, too.

Hannah Fugate was born in December 1855.

Zachariah Fugate and Mary Smith’s son, Zachariah died in 1921, and his death certificate gives his parents as Zach Fugate and Polly Smith, a nickname for Mary.

There are more death records for children of both sets of parents.

Both couples, Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith, and Zachariah Fugate and Mary Smith, are progenitors of the Blue Fugate family.

Of Martin’s 10 known children, 4 were noticeably “blue” and lived long, healthy lives. At least two of Zachariah’s children were blue as well.

Some people reported that Martin, himself, had deep blue skin. If so, then both of his parents would have carried that genetic mutation and passed it to him.

Unfortunately, color photography didn’t exist when Martin (c1820-1899), lived, so we don’t know for sure. For Martin’s children to exhibit blue skin, they would have had to inherit a copy of the gene from both parents, so we know that Martin’s wife, Elizabeth, also inherited the mutation from one of her parents. Ditto for Zachariah Fugate and Mary Smith. The chances of two families who both carry such a rare mutation meeting AND having two of their family members marry are infinitesimally small.

Dr. Cawein’s Paper

In 1964, Dr. Cawein published his findings, but only with a pedigree chart with no names. What was included was an explanation about how remote and deep the hills and hollows were, and that out-migration was almost impossible, explaining the propensity to marry cousins.

Legend:

  • Measured – Found to have elevated methemoglobin
  • Measured – Found to have decreased methemoglobin
  • Not measured – Reported to be “blue”
  • Measured – Found to be normal

Cawein further stated that data was collected by interviewing family members who personally knew the individual in question and could say if they were actually blue.

Cawein erroneously reported that “Martin Fugate was an orphan born about 1800, landed in Maryland, obtained a land grant in Perry County, KY in 1820, and married a local gal. From 1820 to about 1930, the population consisted of small, isolated groups living in creek valleys and intermarriage was quite common.” Bless his heart.

Later, geneticist Ricky Lewis wrote about the Blue Fugates, sharing, among other things, the provenance of that “blue” family photo that circulates on the internet, revealing that it is a composite that was assembled and colorized back in 1982. She also erroneously stated that, “after extensive inbreeding in the isolated community—their son married his aunt, for example—a large pedigree of “blue people” of both sexes arose.” Bless her heart too.

Dr. Lewis is incorrect that their son married his aunt – but she’s right that intermarriage between the families is responsible for the blue descendants. In colonial America, and elsewhere, cousin marriages were fairly common – everyplace. You married who you saw and knew. You saw your family and neighbors, who were generally your extended family. No left-handed apology needed.

Pedigree collapse, sharing the same ancestors in multiple places in your tree, is quite common in genealogy, as is endogamy among isolated populations.

Today, things have changed somewhat. People move into and out of an area. The younger generation moves away a lot more and has for the past 100+ years. Most people know their first cousins, but you could easily meet a second or third cousin and never know you were related.

While early stories reported that Martin Fugate (c1820-1899) was an orphan from France, mysteriously appearing in Kentucky around 1820, later genealogical evidence as well as genetic research proves that Martin Fugate was actually born about 1820, in Russell County, VA and his ancestors, over several generations, had followed the typical migration path across Virginia into Kentucky.

We’ve also proven that Martin’s son, Zachariah (born 1871) was not the Zachariah who married Elizabeth Smith’s sister, Mary, who was 50 years old when Zachariah was born.

What else do we know about these families?

The Back Story

Compared to the Smith story, the Fugate story was “easy.”

Don’t laugh, but I spent several days compiling information and charting this in a way I could see and understand in one view.

I hesitate to share this, but I’m going to because it’s how I think. I also put together a very basic Fugate tree at Ancestry, here. Many children and siblings are missing. I was just trying to get this straight in my mind.

Click to enlarge any image

This spreadsheet is color-coded:

  • The text of each lineage has a specific color. For example, Fugates are blue.
  • Some people (or couples) are found in multiple descendants’ lines and are duplicated in the tree. Duplicated people also have a cell background color. For example, Mahala Richey (Ritchey, Ritchie) is highlighted yellow. James and Alexander Richey have green text and apricot background because they are duplicated.
  • The generation of parents who had blue children is marked with black boxes and the label “Blue Kids.”
  • Only the blue kids for this discussion are listed below those couples.
  • The bluest person was Luna Fugate (1886-1964).
  • While Luna’s husband, John Stacey, also descended from the Smith/Combs line, only one of their children expressed the blue trait. That child’s lips turned blue when they cried. John and Luna were actually related in three ways. Yes, my head hurts.
  • The last known “blue” person was Luna Fugate’s great-grandchild, whose name I’ve obfuscated.

Ok, let’s start with the blue Fugates on our spreadsheet. You’ll probably want to follow along on the chart.

Martin Fugate (1725-1803) and wife Sarah, had several children, but only two, the ones whose grandchildren married Smith sisters are known to have had blue children.

On our chart, you can see that Martin (1725-1803) is blue, and so is Son 1, William Fugate and Sarah Stephens, along with Son 2, Benjamin Fugate and Hannah Devers. Both William and Benjamin are mentioned in Martin’s estate in 1803 in Russell County, VA.

Two generations later, Martin Fugate (c1820-1899) and Elizabeth Smith had four blue children, and Zachariah Fugate (c1816-1864) and Mary Smith had at least two blue children. Furthermore, Zachariah Fugate’s sister, Hannah (1811-1877), married James Monroe Richie.

The Richey’s are green, and you can see them on both the left and right of the chart. Hannah’s husband descended from the same Richey line that Elizabeth Smith did. It was no surprise when their child, Mahala Ritchie (1854-1922), married Levi Fugate, to whom she was related three ways, they became the parents of a blue child. Their daughter, Luna Fugate, was known as “the Bluest of the Blue Fugates.”

Mahala Ritchie (1854-1922) could have inherited her blue gene (or genes) from either her mother Hannah Fugate, or her father, James Monroe Ritchie, or both. We don’t know if Hannah was blue or not.

We do know that Mahala married Levi Fugate, her third cousin through the Fugate line, and her third and fourth cousin also through the Richie and Grigsby lines, respectively. This is the perfect example of pedigree collapse.

You can see the purple Grigsby lines in the center and to the right of the pedigree chart too, with Benjamin Grigsby, highlighted in blue, being common to both lineages.

Zachariah Fugate (1816-1864) and Mary Smith had at least two blue sons, but I am not tracking them further. Suffice it to say that Blue John married Letha Smith, his first cousin, the granddaughter of Richard Smith and Nancy Elitia Combs. Lorenzo, “Blue Anze”, married a Fugate cousin, so it’s no surprise that Zachariah and Mary were also progenitor couples of the Blue Fugates.

Martin’s son, Levi Fugate, married Mahala Ritchie, mentioned above, and had Luna Fugate who would have been personally known to Dr. Cawein. Luna, pictured above, at left, was known as the bluest of the Blue Fugates.

Luna married John Stacey who some thought wasn’t related to Luna, so it was confusing why they had one child that was slightly blue. However, John turns out to be Luna’s second cousin, third cousin once removed and first cousin once removed through three different lines. His great-grandparents were Richard Smith and Nancy Combes. Since one of their children had a slight blue tinge, John, while not visibly blue himself, clearly carried the blue gene.

Where Did the Blue Gene Come From?

The parents of Elizabeth Smith and Mary Smith were Richard Smith and Nancy (Eletia) Combs. His Smith ancestors include both the Richeys and Caldwells.

James Richey (1724-1888) married Margaret Caldwell (1729-1802) and his father, Alexander Richey (1690-1749) married Jeanne Caldwell (1689-1785). While the Caldwell females weren’t closely related, Jeanne was the daughter of Joseph Alexander Caldwell (1657-1730) and Jane McGhie, and Margaret Caldwell (1729-1802) was the great-granddaughter of that couple. The Caldwells are shown in magenta, with both Richey/Caldwell couples shown as duplicates. The Richey are highlighted in apricot, and the Caldwell’s with a light grey background. It was difficult to show how these lines connect, so that’s at the very top of the pedigree chart.

When just viewing the Smith-Combs line, it’s easier to view in the Ancestry pedigree.

The Smith, Richey, Combs, Grigsby, and Caldwell lines are all repeated in different locations in the trees, such as with Hannah Fugate’s husband. These repeated ancestors make it almost impossible for us to determine where in the Smith ancestral tree that blue gene originated.

We don’t know which of these ancestral lines actually contributed the blue gene.

Can We Figure Out Where the Blue Gene Came From?

How could we potentially unravel this mystery?

We know for sure that the blue gene in the Fugate side actually descends from Martin Fugate who was born in 1725, or his wife, Sarah, whose surname is unknown, because their two great-grandchildren, Martin (c1820-1899) and Zachariah (1816-1864) who both married Smith sisters had blue children. For those two intervening generations between Martin Fugate (1725-1803) and those two great-grandsons, that blue gene was quietly being passed along, just waiting for a blue Fugate gene carrier to meet another blue gene carrier. They found them in the Smith sisters.

None of Martin (1725-1803) and Sarah’s other children were known to have had any blue children or descendants. So either they didn’t carry the blue gene, or they didn’t marry someone else who did – that we know of.

We can’t tell on the Smith side if the blue gene descends from the Smith, Richey, Grigsby or Caldwell ancestors, or maybe even an unknown ancestor.

How can we narrow this down?

If a Fugate in another geographic location married someone from one of these lineages, say Grigsby, for example, and they had blue offspring, and neither of them shared any of the other lineages, then we could narrow the blue gene in the Smith line to the Grigsby ancestor.

Unfortunately, in Perry and surrounding counties in Kentucky, that would be almost impossible due to intermarriage and pedigree collapse. Even if you “think you know” that there’s no connection through a third line, given the deep history and close proximity of the families, the possibility of unknown ancestry or an unexpected parent is always a possibility.

Discover

While the blue gene is not connected to either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, we do have the Fugate’s Y-DNA haplogroup and the Smith sisters’ mitochondrial DNA.

Y-DNA

The Big Y-700 haplogroup for the Martin Fugate (c1820-1899) line is R-FTA50432, which you can see, here..

You can see the Blue Fugate Family by clicking on Notable Connections.

If you’re a male Fugate descendant who descends from anyone other than Martin Fugate (c1820-c1899), and you take a Big Y test, you may well discover a new haplogroup upstream of Martin (c1820-1899) that represents your common Fugate ancestor.

If you descend from Martin, you may find youself in either of the two haplogroups shown for Martin’s descendants, or you could split the line to form a new haplogroup.

We don’t have the mitochondrial DNA of Martin Fugate (c1820-1899), which would be the mitochondrial DNA of his mother, Nancy Noble. We also don’t have the the mtDNA of Mary (Polly) Wells, the mother of Zachariah Fugate (c1816-1864). If you descend from either of these women in a direct matrilineal line, through all women, please take a mitochondrial DNA test and reach out. FamilyTreeDNA will add it as a Notable Connection.

We do, however, have the mitochondrial DNA of Elizabeth and Mary Smith

Mitochondrial DNA of Elizabeth and Mary Smith

The mitochondrial DNA of both Elizabeth and Mary Smith follows their mother’s line – Nancy Combs through Nancy (Eletia?) Grigsby. Nancy’s mother is unknown, other than the possible first name of Margaret.

Nancy Grigsby’s descendant is haplogroup K1a61a1, which you can see here.

The Blue Fugates show under Notable Connections.

The Smith sisters’ haplogroup, K1a61a1, tells us immediately that their ancestor is European, eliminating other possibilities.

The time tree on Discover is quite interesting

Haplogroup K1a61a1 was formed about the year 1400. Descendants of this haplogroup are found in the UK, Scotland, England, several unknown locations, and one person who selected Native American, which is clearly in error. Haplogroup K is not Native American.

By focusing on the haplotype clusters, identified by the F numbers in the elongated ovals, our tester may be able to identify the mother of Nancy Grigsby, or upstream lineages that they can work back downstream to find someone who married Thomas Grigsby.

This story is far from over. In fact, a new chapter may just be beginning.

If you’re a Fugate, or a Fugate descendant, there’s still lots to learn, even if autosomal DNA is “challenging,” to say the least, thanks to pedigree collapse. Testing known females lineages can help us sort which lines are which, and reveal their hidden stories.

Other resources if you want to read more about the Fugates: The Blue People of Troublesome Creek, Fugates of Kentucky: Skin Bluer than Lake Louise, Those Old Kentucky Blues: An Interrupted Case Study, and Finding the Famous Paintings of the Blue People of Kentucky.

_____________________________________________________________

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me 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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Discover’s Ancient Connections – How Are You Related?

Posted on by
Reply

When FamilyTreeDNA released the new Mitotree, they also introduced their new mtDNA Discover tool, which is a series of 13 reports about each haplogroup, including one titled Ancient Connections.

Ancient Connections shows you ancient relatives from your direct matrilineal line through a mitochondrial DNA test or through a Y-DNA (preferably Big Y-700) test.

Ancient Connections help you connect the present to the past based on archaeological excavations around the world and DNA sequencing of remains. Ancient Connections links you through your DNA to ancient people, cultures, and civilizations that would be impossible to discover any other way. You don’t have to wonder if it’s accurate, or which line it came from, because you know based on the test you took. Discover’s Ancient Connections track the journey of your ancestors and relatives.

Ancient Connections can be very exciting – and it’s easy to get swept away on a wave of jubilation.

Are those people your ancestors, or relatives, or what? How do you know? How can you figure it out?

So let me just answer that question generally before we step through the examples, so you can unveil your own connections.

  • You are RELATED to both Ancient and Notable Connections. Notable Connections are famous or infamous people who have lived more recently, and their relatives have been tested to identify their haplogroups.
  • It’s VERY unlikely that Ancient Connections are your direct ancestors – but someone in the line that you share IS your ancestor.
  • Many factors enter into the equation of how you are related, such as the haplogroup(s), the timeframe, and the location.
  • The sheer number of people who were living at any specific time makes it very unlikely that any one person with that haplogroup actually was your direct ancestor. They are much more likely to be your distant cousin.

Factors such as whether you share the same haplogroup, similar locations, and the timeframe make a huge difference. Everyone’s situation is different with each Ancient Connection.

Ok, are you ready for some fun???

Let’s find out how to leverage these tools.

Ancient Connections

Ancient connections are fun and can also be quite useful for genealogy.

In this article, I’m going to use a mitochondrial DNA example because full sequence testers at FamilyTreeDNA just received their new Mitotree haplogroup. mtDNA Discover was released with Mitotree, so it’s new too. However, the evaluation process is exactly the same for Y-DNA.

Everyone’s results are unique, so your mileage absolutely WILL vary. What we are going to learn here is a step-by-step analytical process to make sure you’re hearing the message from your ancestors – and interpreting it correctly.

To learn about your new mitochondrial DNA haplogroup and haplotype, read the articles:

Radegonde Lambert

Let’s start with an Acadian woman by the name of Radegonde Lambert. She’s my ancestor, and I wrote about her years ago in the article, Radegonde Lambert (1621/1629-1686/1693), European, Not Native.

At the time, that article caused a bit of a kerfluffle, along with the article, Haplogroup X2b4 is European, Not Native American, because Radegonde’s X2b4 haplogroup had been interpreted by some to mean that her matrilineal ancestors were Native American.

That often happens when a genealogical line abruptly ends and hits a brick wall. What probably began with “I wonder if…”, eventually morphed into “she was Native,” when, in fact, she was not. In Radegonde’s case, it didn’t help any that her haplogroup was X2b4, and some branches of base haplogroup X2 are in fact Native, specifically X2a, However, all branches of X2 are NOT Native, and X2b, which includes X2b4, is not.

The Acadians were French people who established a colony in what is now Nova Scotia in the 1600s. They did sometimes intermarry with the Native people, so either Native or European heritage is always a possibility, and that is exactly why DNA testing is critically important. Let’s just say we’ve had more than one surprise.

I always reevaluate my own work when new data becomes available, so let’s look to see what’s happening with Radegonde Lambert now, with her new haplogroup and mtDNA Discover.

Sign on and Identify Your Haplogroup

You can follow along here, or sign on to your account at FamilyTreeDNA.

The first step is to take note of your new Mitotree haplogroup.

Your haplogroup badge is located near the bottom right of your page after signing in.

The tester who represents Radegonde Lambert has a Legacy Haplogroup of X2b4 and has been assigned a new Mitotree haplogroup of X2b4g.

Click Through to Discover

To view your personal Discover information, click on the Discover link on your dashboard.

You can simply enter a haplogroup in the free version of mtDNA Discover, but customers receive the same categories, but significantly more information if they sign in and click through.

You can follow along on the free version of Discover for haplogroups X2b4 here, and X2b4g here.

Clicking on either the Time Tree, or the Classic Tree shows that a LOT has changed with the Mitotree update.

Each tree has its purpose. Let’s look at the Classic Tree first.

The Classic Tree

I like the Classic Tree because it’s compact, detailed and concise, all in one. Radegonde Lambert’s new haplogroup, X2b4g is a subgroup of X2b4, so let’s start there.

Click on any image to enlarge

Under haplogroup X2b4, several countries are listed, including France. There are also 7 haplotype clusters, which tell you that those testers within the cluster all match each other exactly.

It’s worth noting that the little trowels (which I thought were shovels all along) indicate ancient samples obtained from archaeological digs. In the Discover tools, you’ll find them under Ancient Connections for that haplogroup. We will review those in a minute.

In Mitotree, haplogroup X2b4 has now branched several granular and more specific sub-haplogroups.

Radegonde Lambert’s new haplogroup falls below another new haplogroup, X2b4d’g, which means that haplogroup X2b4d’g is now the parent haplogroup of both haplogroups X2b4d and X2b4g. Both fall below X2b4d’g.

Haplogroup names that include an apostrophe mean it’s an umbrella group from which the two haplogroups descend – in this case, both X2b4d and X2b4g. Apostrophe haplogroups like X2b4d’g are sometimes referred to as Inner Haplogroups.

You can read more about how to understand your haplogroup name, here.

In this case, haplogroup X2b4d’g is defined by mutation G16145A, which is found in both haplogroups X2b4d and X2b4g. Both of those haplogroup have their own defining mutations in addition to G16145A, which caused two branches to form beneath X2b4d’g.

You can see that Radegonde Lambert’s haplogroup X2b4g is defined by mutation C16301T, but right now, that really doesn’t matter for what we’re trying to accomplish.

In descending order, for Radegonde, we have haplogroups:

  • X2b4
  • X2b4d’g
  • X2b4g

Your Match Page

Looking at the tester’s match page, Radegonde’s haplotype cluster number and information about the cluster are found below the haplogroup. You can view your cluster number on:

  • Your match page
  • The Match Time Tree beside your name and those of your matches in the same haplotype cluster
  • The Scientific Details – Variants page

I wrote about haplotype clusters, here.

Click on any image to enlarge

On your match page, which is where most people look first, you are in the same haplogroup and haplotype cluster with anyone whose circle is also checked and is blue. If the little circles are not checked and blue, you don’t share either that haplogroup, haplotype cluster, or haplogroup and haplotype cluster. If you share a haplotype cluster, you will always share the same haplogroup.

Haplotype clusters are important because cluster members match on exactly the same (but less stable) mutations IN ADDITION to haplogroup-defining (more stable) mutations.

However, you may also share an identifiable ancestor with people in different haplotype clusters. Mutations, and back mutations happen – and a lot more often at some mutation locations, which is why they are considered less stable. Normally, though, your own haplotype cluster will hold your closest genealogical matches.

In Discover, you can see that Radegonde’s haplotype cluster, F585777, displays three tester-supplied countries, plus two more. Click on the little plus to expand the countries.

What you’re viewing are the Earliest Known Ancestor (EKA) countries that testers have entered for their direct matrilineal ancestor.

Let’s hope they understood the instructions, and their genealogy information was accurate.

Notice that Canada and France are both probably quite accurate for Radegonde, based on the known history of the Acadians. There were only French and Native women living in Nova Scotia in the 1600s, so Radegonde had to be one or the other.

The US may be accurate for a different tester whose earliest known ancestor (EKA) may have been found in, say, Louisiana. Perhaps that person has hit a brick wall in the US, and that’s all they know.

The US Native American flag is probably attributable to the old “Native” rumor about Radegonde, and the tester didn’t find the Canadian First Nations flag in the “Country of Origin” dropdown list. Perhaps that person has since realized that Radegonde was not Native and never thought to change their EKA designation.

The little globe with “Unknown Origins” is displayed when the tester doesn’t select anything in the “Country of Origin.”

Unfortunately, this person, who knew when Radegonde Lambert lived, did not complete any additional information, and checked the “I don’t know this information” box. Either Canada, or France would have been accurate under the circumstances. If they had tracked Radegonde back to Canada and read about her history, they knew she lived in Canada, was Acadian, and therefore French if she was not Native. Providing location information helps other testers, whose information, in turn, helps you.

Please check your EKA, and if you have learned something new, PLEASE UPDATE YOUR INFORMATION by clicking on the down arrow by your user name in the upper right hand corner, then Account Settings, then Genealogy, then Earliest Known Ancestors.

Don’t hesitate to email your matches and ask them to do the same. You may discover that you have information to share as well. Collaboration is key.

Radegonde’s Discover Haplogroup

First, let’s take a look at Radegonde’s haplogroup, X2b4g, in Discover.

The Discover Haplogroup Story landing page for haplogroup X2b4g provides a good overview. Please READ this page for your own haplogroup, including the little information boxes.

The history of Radegonde’s haplogroup, X2b4g, is her history as well. It’s not just a distant concept, but the history of a woman who is the ancestor of everyone in that haplogroup, but long before surnames. Haplogroups are the only way to lift and peer behind the veil of time to see who our ancestors were, where they lived, and the cultures they were a part of.

We can see that Radegonde’s haplogroup, X2b4g, was born in a woman who lived about 300 CE, Common (or Current) Era, meaning roughly the year 300, which is 1700 years ago, or 1300 years before Radegonde lived.

  • This means that the tester shares a common ancestor with everyone, including any X2b4g remains, between now and the year 300 when haplogroup X2b4g was born.
  • This means that everyone who shares haplogroup X2b4g has the same common female ancestor, in whom the mutation that defines haplogroup X2b4g originated. That woman, the common ancestor of everyone in haplogroup X2b4g, lived about the year 300, or 1700 years ago.
  • Your common ancestor with any one individual in this haplogroup can have lived ANYTIME between very recently (like your Mom) and the date of your haplogroup formation.
  • Many people misinterpret the haplogroup formation date to mean that’s the date of the MRCA, or most recent common ancestor, of any two people. It’s not, the haplogroup formation date is the date when everyone, all people, in the haplogroup shared ONE ancestor.
  • The MRCA, or most recent common ancestor, is your closest ancestor in this line with any one person, and the TMRCA is the “time to most recent common ancestor.” It could be your mother, or if your matrilineal first cousin tested, your MRCA is your grandmother, and the TMRCA is when your grandmother was born – not hundreds or thousands of years ago.
  • Don’t discount mitochondrial DNA testing by thinking that your common ancestor with your matches (MRCA) won’t be found before the haplogroup birth date – the year 300 in Radegonde’s case. The TMRCA for all of Radegonde’s descendants is about 1621 when she was born.
  • The haplogroup birth date, 1700 years ago, is the common ancestor for EVERYONE in the haplogroup, taken together.
  • Mitochondrial DNA is useful for BOTH recent genealogy and also reveals more distant ancestors.
  • Looking back in time helps us understand where Radegonde’s ancestors lived, which cultures they were part of, and where.

There are two ways to achieve that: Radegonde’s upstream or parent haplogroups, and Ancient Connections.

Parent Haplogroups

X2b4g split from X2b4d’g, the parent haplogroup of BOTH X2b4d and X2b4g, around 3700 years ago, or about 1700 BCE (Before Common (or Current) Era).

Looking at either the Classic Tree, the Time Tree (above) or the Match Time Tree, you can see that haplogroup X2b4g has many testers, and none provide any locations other than France, Canada, the US, unknown, and one Native in the midst of a large haplotype cluster comprised of French and Canadian locations. Due to the size of the cluster, it’s only partially displayed in the screen capture above.

You can also see that sister haplogroup X2b4d split from X2b4d’g around the year 1000, and the ancestors of those two testers are reported in Norway.

Many, but not all of the X2b4g testers are descendants of Radegonde. Even if everyone is wrong and Radegonde is not French, that doesn’t explain the other matches, nor how X2b4g’s sister haplogroup is found in Norway.

Clearly, Radegonde isn’t Native, but there’s still more evidence to consider.

Let’s dig a little deeper using Radegonde’s Ancient Connections.

Ancient Connections

While ancestor and location information are user-provided, Ancient Connections are curated from scientifically published papers. There’s no question about where those remains were found.

When signed in to your account, if you’ve taken the mtFull Sequence test, clicking on the Ancient Connections tab in Discover shows a maximum of around 30 Ancient Connections. If you’re viewing the free version of Discover, or you’ve only tested at the HVR1 or HVR1+HVR2 levels, you’ll see two of your closer and one of your most distant Ancient Connections. It’s easy to upgrade to the mtFull.

In Discover, the first group of Ancient Connections are genetically closest to you in time, and the last connections will be your most distant. Some connections may be quite rare and are noted as such.

Please keep in mind that oldest, in this case, Denisova 8 and Sima de los Huesos, will never roll off your list. However, as new studies are released and the results are added to the tree, you may well receive new, closer matches. New results are being added with each Discover update.

It’s very exciting to see your Ancient Connections, but I need to say three things, loudly.

  1. Do NOT jump to conclusions.
  2. These remains are probably NOT YOUR ANCESTORS, but definitely ARE your distant cousins.
  3. Ancient Connections ARE wonderful hints, especially when taken together with each other and additional information.

It’s VERY easy to misinterpret Ancient Connections because you’re excited. I’ve done exactly that. To keep the assumption monster from rearing its ugly head, I have to take a breath and ask myself a specific set of questions. I step through the logical analysis process that I’m sharing with you.

The first thing I always want to know is where the genetically closest set of remains was found, when, and what we know about them, so let’s start there. Keep in mind that the closest remains genetically may not be the most recent set of remains to have lived. For example, my own haplogroup will be the closest genetically, but that person may have lived 2000 years ago. An Ancient Connection in a more distant haplogroup may have lived only 1000 years ago. The closest person genetically is NOT the same as the person who lived the most recently.

Our tester, Radegonde’s descendant, has no Ancient Connections in haplogroup X2b4g or X2b4d’g, but does have two in haplogroup X2b4, so let’s start there.

Discover provides a substantial amount of information about each set of ancient remains. Click on the results you want to view, and the information appears below.

Radegonde’s first Ancient Connection is Carrowkeel 534. The graphic shows the tester, the Ancient Connection being viewed, and their shared ancestor’s haplogroup. In this case, the shared ancestor haplogroup of Carrowkeel 534 and the tester is X2b4, who lived about 5000 years ago.

It’s very easy to look at Carrowkeel 534, become smitten, and assume that this person was your ancestor.

By Shane Finan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35098411

It’s especially easy if you WANT that person to be your ancestor. Carrowkeel 534 was buried in a passage tomb in County Sligo, Ireland. I’ve been there.

However, don’t let your emotions get involved – at least not yet.

This is the first example of the steps that determine that these remains are NOT YOUR ANCESTOR.

  • Carrowkeel 534 was a male, and we all know that males do not pass on their mitochondrial DNA. Well, that’s an inconvenient fact.😊
  • There are two sets of X2b4 remains in Ancient Connections. Carrowkeel 534 remains are about 4600-5000 years old, and your common ancestor with them lived about 5000 years ago. However, Radegonde was French and migration from Ireland to France is not typical.
  • The other set of X2b4 remains, Ladoga 16, lived more recently, between the years of 900 and 1200 (or 800-1100 years ago), but they are found in Russia.
  • Radegonde’s parent haplogroup, X2b4d’g was born about 3700 years ago, which excludes the Russian remains from being Radegonde’s direct ancestor.
  • Radegonde’s common ancestor with both these sets of remains lived about 5000 years ago, but these remains were not found even close to each other.

In fact, these remains, if walking, are about 3299 km (2049 miles) apart, including two major water crossings.

  • Given that Radegonde is probably French, finding her ancestor around 5000 years ago in an Irish passage tomb in County Sligo, or in a location east of St. Petersburg, is extremely unlikely.

What IS likely, though, is that X2b4d’g descendants of your common ancestor with both sets of remains, 5000 years ago, went in multiple directions, meaning:

  • Radegonde’s ancestor found their way to France and along the way incurred the mutations that define X2b4d’g and X2b4g by the year 1600 when she lived, or about four hundred years ago.
  • Another X2b4 descendant found their way to what is today Ireland between 4600 and 5000 years ago
  • A third X2b4 descendant found their way to Russia between 800-1100 years ago, and 5000 years ago

If any question remains about the genesis of Radegonde’s ancestors being Native, Ancient Connections disproves it – BUT – there’s still an opportunity for misunderstanding, which we’ll see in a few minutes.

Ancient Connections Analysis Chart

I’ve created an analysis chart, so that I can explain the findings in a logical way.

Legend:

  • Hap = Haplogroup
  • M=male
  • F=female
  • U=unknown

Please note that ancient samples are often degraded and can be missing important mutations. In other words, the tree placement may be less specific for ancient samples. Every ancient sample is reviewed by FamilyTreeDNA’s genetic anthropologist before it’s placed on the tree.

Ancient samples use carbon dating to determine ages. Sometimes, the carbon date and the calculated haplogroup age are slightly “off.” The haplogroup age is a scientific calculation based on a genetic clock and is not based on either genealogy or ancient burials. The haplogroup age may change as the tree matures and more branches are discovered.

I’m dividing this chart into sections because I want to analyze the findings between groups.

The first entry is the earliest known ancestor of the current lineage – Radegonde Lambert, who was born about 1621, or roughly 400 years ago. I’ve translated all of the years into “years ago” to avoid any confusion.

If you wish to do the same, with CE (Current or Common Era) dates, subtract the date from 2000. 300 CE= (2000-300) or1700 years ago. With BCE dates, add 2000 to the BCE number. 1000 BCE= (1000+2000) or 3000 years ago.

Connection Identity Age Years Ago Location & Cultural Group Hap Hap Age Years Ago Shared Hap Shared Hap Age Years Ago
Radegonde Lambert (F) 400 France or Canada -Acadian X2b4g 1700 X2b4 5000
Carrowkeel 534 (M) 4600-5100 Sligo, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Ladoga 16 (M) 800-1100 Ladoga, Russia Fed – Viking Russia X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
  • Age Years Ago – When the Ancient Connection lived
  • Hap Age Years Ago – When the haplogroup of the Ancient Connection (X2b4) originated, meaning was born
  • Shared Hap Age Years Ago – When the Shared Ancestor of everyone in the Shared Haplogroup originated (was born)

In this first section, the haplogroup of the Ancient Connections and the Shared Haplogroup is the same, but that won’t be the case in the following sections. Radegonde Lambert’s haplogroup is different than her shared haplogroup with the Ancient Connections.

Let’s assume we are starting from scratch with Radegonde.

The first question we wanted to answer is whether or not Radegonde is European, presumably French like the rest of the Acadians, or if she was Native. That’s easy and quick.

Native people crossed Beringia, arriving from Asia someplace between 12,000 and 25,000 years ago in multiple waves of migration that spread throughout both North and South America.

Therefore, given that the first two samples, Carrowkeel 534 and Ladoga 16, share haplogroup X2b4, an upstream haplogroup with Radegonde Lambert, and haplogroup X2b4 was formed around 5000 years ago, the answer is that Radegonde’s X2b4 ancestor, whoever that was, clearly lived in Europe, NOT the Americas.

According to Discover, Haplogroup X2b4:

  • Was formed about 5000 years ago
  • Has 16 descendant haplogroups
  • Has 29 unnamed lineages (haplotype clusters or individuals with no match)
  • Includes testers whose ancestors are from 23 countries

The Country Frequency map shows the distribution of X2b4, including all descendant haplogroups. Please note that the percentages given are for X2b4 as a percentage of ALL haplogroups found in each colored country. Don’t be misled by the relative physical size of the US and Canada as compared to Europe.

The table view shows the total number of self-identified locations of the ancestors of people in haplogroup X2b4 and all downstream haplogroups.

The Classic Tree that we looked at earlier provides a quick view of X2b4, each descendant haplogroup and haplotype cluster, and every country provided by the 331 X2b4 testers.

For the X2b4 Ancient Connections, we’ve already determined:

  • That Radegonde’s ancestors were not Native
  • Carrowkeel 534 is a male and cannot be Radegonde’s ancestor. It’s extremely likely that Carrowkeel 534’s mother is not Radegonda’s ancestor either, based on several factors, including location.
  • Based on dates of when Ladoga 16 lived, and because he’s a male, he cannot be the ancestor of Radegonde Lambert.

Radegonda’s haplogroup was formed long before Ladoga 16 lived. Each Ancient Connection has this comparative Time Tree if you scroll down below the text.

  • Both Carrowkeel and Ladoga share an ancestor with our tester, and Radegonde, about 5000 years ago.

Think about how many descendants the X2b4 ancestor probably had over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

  • We know one thing for sure, absolutely, positively – X2b4 testers and descendant haplogroups live in 32 countries. People migrate – and with them, their haplogroups.

What can we learn about the genealogy and history of Radegonde Lambert and her ancestors?

We find the same haplogroup in multiple populations or cultures, at different times and in multiple places. Country boundaries are political and fluid. What we are looking for are patterns, or sometimes, negative proof, which is often possible at the continental level.

X2b4, excluding downstream haplogroups, is found in the following locations:

  • Bulgaria
  • Canada (2)
  • Czech Republic
  • England (2)
  • Finland (2)
  • France (3)
  • Germany (4)
  • Portugal
  • Scotland (2)
  • Slovakia (2)
  • Sweden (2)
  • UK (2)
  • Unknown (11)
  • US (2)

Note that there are three people in France with haplogroup X2b4 but no more refined haplogroup.

Looking at X2b4’s downstream haplogroups with representation in France, we find:

  • X2b4a (none)
  • X2b4b (none)
  • X2b4b1 (1)
  • X2b4d’g (none)
  • X2b4d (none)
  • X2b4g (24) – many from Radegonde’s line
  • X2b4e and subgroups (none)
  • X2b4f (none)
  • X2b4j and subgroups (none)
  • X2b4k (none)
  • X2b4l (1)
  • X2b4m (none)
  • X2b4n and subgroups (none)
  • X2b4o (none)
  • X2b4p (none)
  • X2b4r (none)
  • X2b4+16311 (none)

I was hoping that there would be an Ancient Connection for X2b4, X2b4d’g, or X2b4g someplace in or even near France – because that makes logical sense if Radegonde is from France.

All I can say is “not yet,” but new ancient sites are being excavated and papers are being released all the time.

Ok, so moving back in time, let’s see what else we can determine from the next set of Ancient Connections. Haplogroup X2b1”64 was formed about 5050 years ago.

Connection Identity Age Years Ago Location & Cultural Group Hap Hap Age Years Ago Shared Hap Shared Hap Age Years Ago
Radegonde Lambert (F) 400 France or Canada X2b4g 1700
Carrowkeel 534 (M) 5100-4600 Sligo, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Ladoga 16 (M) 800-1100 Ladoga, Russia Fed – Viking Russia X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Parknabinnia 186 (M) 5516-5359 Clare, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050 years ago
Rössberga 2 (M) 5339-5025 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 29 (M) 5366-5100 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker and Early Plague X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 38 (M) 5340-5022 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Monte Sirai 797263 (U) 2600-2400 Monte Sirai, Italy (Sardinia) – Phoenicians X2b35a1 3350 X2b1”64 5050
Bogovej 361 (F) 1000-1100 Lengeland, Denmark – Viking Denmark X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 5050
Ladoga 410 (M) 800-1000 Leningrad Oblast, Russia – Viking Russia X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 5050

Our first group ended with haplogroup X2b4, and our second group consists of haplogroup X2b1”64, the parent haplogroup of X2b4. X2b1”64 is a significantly larger haplogroup with many downstream branches found throughout Europe, parts of western Asia, the Levant, India, and New Zealand (which probably reflects a colonial era settler). The Country Frequency Map and Table are found here.

X2b1”64 is just slightly older than X2b4, but it’s much more widespread, even though they were born about the same time. Keep in mind that haplogroup origination dates shift as the tree is developed.

  • These seven individuals who share X2b1”64 as their haplogroup could be related to each other individually, meaning their MRCA, anytime between when they lived and when their haplogroup was formed.
  • The entire group of individuals all share the same haplogroup, so they all descend from the one woman who formed X2b1”64 about 5050 years ago. She is the shared ancestor of everyone in the haplogroup.

One X2b4 and one X2b1”64 individual are found in the same archaeological site in Russia. Their common ancestor would have lived between the time they both lived, about 800 years ago, to about 5000 years ago. It’s also possible that one of the samples could be incomplete.

A second X2b1”64 Ancient Connection is found in the Court Tomb in County Clare, Ireland, not far from the Carrowkeel 534 X2b4 site.

However, Monte Sirai is fascinating, in part because it’s not found near any other site. Monte Sirai is found all the way across France, on an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

It may be located “across France” today, but we don’t know that the Phoenician Monte Sirai site is connected with the Irish sites. We can’t assume that the Irish individuals arrived as descendants of the Monte Sirai people, even though it would conveniently fit our narrative – crossing France. Of course, today’s path includes ferries, which didn’t exist then, so if that trip across France did happen, it could well have taken a completely different path. We simply don’t know and there are very few samples available.

Three Ancient Connections are found in the Rössberga site in Sweden and another in  Denmark.

Adding all of the Ancient sites so far onto the map, it looks like we have two clusters, one in the northern latitudes, including Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, and one in Ireland with passage burials, plus one single Connection in Monte Sirai.

If I were to approximate a central location between all three, that might be someplace in Germany or maybe further east. But remember, this is 5000 years ago and our number of samples, as compared to the population living at the time is EXTREMELY LIMITED.

Let’s move on to the next group of Ancient Connections, who have different haplogroups but are all a subset of haplogroup X2.

Identity Age Years Ago Location & Cultural Group Hap Hap Age Years Ago Shared Hap Shared Hap Age Years Ago
Radegonde Lambert (F) 400 France or Canada X2b4g 1700
Carrowkeel 534 (M) 5100-4600 Sligo, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Ladoga 16 (M) 800-1100 Ladoga, Russia Fed – Viking Russia X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Parknabinnia 186 (M) 5516-5359 Clare, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Ross Rössberga 2 (M) 5339-5025 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 29 (M) 5366-5100 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker and Early Plague X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 38 (M) 5340-5022 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Monte Sirai 797263 (U) 2600-2400 Monte Sirai, Italy (Sardinia) – Phoenicians X2b35a1 3350 X2b1”64 5050
Bogovej 361 (F) 1000-1100 Lengeland, Denmark – Viking Denmark X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 5050
Ladoga 410 (M) 800-1000 Leningrad Oblast, Russia – Viking Russia X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 5050
Barcin 31 (M) 8236-8417 Derekoy, Turkey – Neolithic Anatolia Ceramic X2m2’5’7^ 9200 X2b”aq 13,000
Abasar 55 (M) 500-800 Abasár Bolt-tető, Abasar, Hungary – Medieval Hungary X2m1e 5350 X2b”aq 13,000
Gerdrup 214 3779-3889 Gerdrup, Sealand, Denmark – Middle Bronze Age X2c1 3400 X2+225 13,000
Sweden Skara 275 800-1100 Varnhem, Skara, Sweden – Viking Sweden X2c1 3400 X2+225 13,000
Kopparsvik 225 950-1100 Gotland, Sweden – Viking Sweden X2z 5650 X2+225 13,000
Sandomierz 494 900-1100 Sandomierz, Poland – Viking Poland X2c2b 1650 X2+225 13,000
Kennewick man 8390-9250 Kennewick, Washington – Native American X2a2’3’4^ 10,450 X2 13,000
Roopkund 39 80-306 Roopkund Lake, Uttarakhand, India – Historical India X2d 13,000 X2 13,000

The next several Ancient Connections have haplogroups that are a subgroup of haplogroup X2. These people lived sometime between 500 years ago in Hungary, and 8390-9250 years ago when Kennewick Man lived in the present-day state of Washington in the US. Kennewick Man merits his own discussion, so let’s set him aside briefly while we discuss the others.

The important information to be gleaned here isn’t when these people lived, but when Radegonde shared a common ancestor with each of them. The shared haplogroup with all of these individuals was born about 13,000 years ago.

Looking at the map again, and omitting both X2 samples, we can see that the descendants of that shared ancestor 13,000 years ago are found more widely dispersed.

Including these additional burials on our map, it looks like we have a rather large Swedish and Viking cluster, where several of the older burials occurred prior to the Viking culture. We have a Southeastern Europe cluster, our two Irish tomb burials, and our remaining single Monte Sirai Phoenician burial on the island of Sardinia.

Stepping back one more haplogroup to X2, which was born about the same time, we add a burial in India, and Kennewick Man.

The Migration Map

The Migration map in Discover provides two different features.

  • The first is the literal migration map for the various ancestral haplogroups as they migrated out of Africa, if in fact yours did, culminating in your base haplogroup. In this case, the base haplogroup is X2, which is shown with the little red circle placed by FamilyTreeDNA. I’ve added the red squares, text and arrows for emphasis.
  • The second feature is the mapped Ancient Connections, shown with little brown trowels. Clicking on each one opens a popup box.

After haplogroup X2 was formed, it split into haplogroups X2a and X2b.

The X2a group, Kennewick Man’s ancestors, made their way eastward, across eastern Russia to Beringia where they crossed into the Americas.

They either crossed Beringia, follow the Pacific coastline, or both, eventually making their way inland, probably along the Hood River, to where Kennewick Man was found some 2,800 years later on the banks of the Kennewick River.

The X2b group made their way westward, across western Europe to a location, probably France, where Radegonde Lamberts’ ancestors lived, and where Radegonde set sail for Nova Scotia.

After being separated for nearly 13,000 years, the descendants of the single woman who founded haplogroup X2 and lived someplace in central Asia around 13,000 years ago would find themselves on opposite coasts of the same continent.

So, no, Radegonde Lambert was not Native American, but her 600th matrilineal cousin or so, Kennewick Man, absolutely was.

Radegonde Lambert and Kennewick Man

Here’s where confirmation bias can rear its ugly head. If you’re just scanning the Ancient Connections and see Kennewick Man, it would be easy to jump to conclusions, leap for joy, slap a stamp of “confirmed Native American” on Radegonde Lambert, and never look further. And if one were to do that, they would be wrong.

Let’s work through our evaluation process using Discover.

Radegonde Lambert and Kinnewick Man, an early Native American man whose remains were found Kennewick, Washington in 1996, are both members of the broader haplogroup X2. Kennewick Man lived between 8290 and 9350 years ago, and their shared ancestor lived about 13,000 years ago – in Asia, where mitochondrial haplogroup X2 originated. This is the perfect example of one descendant line of a haplogroup, X2 in this case, going in one direction and a second one traveling in the opposite direction.

Two small groups of people were probably pursuing better hunting grounds, but I can’t help but think of a tundra version of the Hatfields and McCoys and cousin spats.

“I’m going this way. There are better fish on that side of the lake, and I won’t have to put up with you.”

“Fine, I’m going that way. There are more bears and better hunting up there anyway.”

Their wives, who are sisters, “Wait, when will I ever see my sister again?”

One went east and one went west.

X2a became Native American and X2b became European.

Looking back at our information about Kennewick Man, his haplogroup was born significantly before he lived.

He was born about 8390-9250 years ago, so let’s say 8820 years ago, and his haplogroup was born 10,500 years ago, so about 1680 years before he lived. That means there were many generations of women who carried that haplogroup before Kennewick Man.

Let’s Compare

Discover has a compare feature.

I want to Compare Radegonde Lambert’s haplogroup with Kennewick Man’s haplogroup X2a2’3’4^.

The Compare tool uses the haplogroup you are viewing, and you enter a second haplogroup to compare with the first.

The ancestral path to the shared ancestor, meaning their shared haplogroup, is given for each haplogroup entered. That’s X2 in this case. Then, from the shared haplogroup back in time to Mitochondrial Eve.

I prefer to view this information in table format, so I created a chart and rounded the haplogroup ages above X2.

Hap Age – Years Ago Radegonde’s Line Shared Ancestors and Haplogroups Kennewick’s Line Hap Age – Years Ago
143,000 mt-Eve
130,000 L1”7
119,000 L2”7
99,000 L2’3’4’6
92,000 L3’4’6
73,500 L3’4
61,000 L3
53,000 N
53,000 N+8701
25,000 X
22,500 X1’2’3’7’8
13,000 X2 – Asia
13,000 X2+225 X2a 10,500
12,900 X2b”aq X2a2’3’4^ 10,400 Kennewick Man born c 8800 years ago
11,000 X2b
5,500 X2b1”64
5,000 X2b4
1,900 X2b4d’g
Radegonde Lambert born c 1661 – 400 years ago 1,700 X2b4g

More Ancient Connections

Radegonde Lambert’s matrilineal descendants have an additional dozen Ancient Connections that are found in upstream haplogroup N-8701. Their shared ancestors with Radegonde reach back to 53,000 years ago in a world far different than the one we inhabit today. I’m not going to list or discuss them, except for one.

Identity Age Years Ago Location & Cultural Group Hap Hap Age Years Ago Shared Hap Shared Hap Age Years Ago
Radegonde Lambert (F) 400 France or Canada X2b4g 1700
Carrowkeel 534 (M) 5100-4600 Sligo, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Ladoga 16 (M) 800-1100 Ladoga, Russia Fed – Viking Russia X2b4 5000 X2b4 5000
Parknabinnia 186 (M) 5516-5359 Clare, Ireland – Neolithic Europe X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 2 (M) 5339-5025 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 29 (M) 5366-5100 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker and Early Plague X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Rössberga 38 (M) 5340-5022 Vastergotland, Sweden – Funnel Beaker X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 Before 5050
Monte Sirai 797263 (U) 2600-2400 Monte Sirai, Italy (Sardinia) – Phoenicians X2b35a1 3350 X2b1”64 5050
Bogovej 361 (F) 1000-1100 Lengeland, Denmark – Viking Denmark X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 5050
Ladoga 410 (M) 800-1000 Leningrad Oblast, Russia – Viking Russia X2b1”64 5516-5259 X2b1”64 5050
Barcin 31 (M) 8236-8417 Derekoy, Turkey – Neolithic Anatolia Ceramic X2m2’5’7^ 9200 X2b”aq 13,000
Abasar 55 (M) 500-800 Abasár Bolt-tető, Abasar, Hungary – Medieval Hungary X2m1e 5350 X2b”aq 13,000
Gerdrup 214 3779-3889 Gerdrup, Sealand, Denmark – Middle Bronze Age X2c1 3400 X2+225 13,000
Kopparsvik 225 950-1100 Gotland, Sweden – Viking Sweden X2z 5650 X2+225 13,000
Sandomierz 494 900-1100 Sandomierz, Poland – Viking Poland X2c2b 1650 X2+225 13,000
Sweden Skara 275 800-1100 Varnhem, Skara, Sweden – Viking Sweden X2c1 3400 X2+225 13,000
Kennewick man 8390-9250 Kennewick, Washington – Native American X2a2’3’4^ 10,450 X2 13,000
Roopkund 39 80-306 Roopkund Lake, Uttarakhand, India – Historical India X2d 13,000 X2 13,000
Ranis 10 43,500-47,000 Ranis, Germany – LRJ Hunger Gatherer N3’10 53,000 N+8701 53,000
Zlatý kůň woman 47,000 Czech Republic – N+8701 53,000 N+8701 53,000

Zlatý kůň Woman

Zlatý kůň Woman lived some 43,000 years ago and her remains were discovered in the Czech Republic in 1950.

Believed to be the first anatomically modern human to be genetically sequenced, she carried about 3% Neanderthal DNA. Europeans, Asians and indigenous Americans carry Neanderthal DNA as well.

Unlike many early remains, Zlatý kůň Woman’s facial bones have been scanned and her face approximately reconstructed.

There’s something magical about viewing a likeness of a human that lived more than 40,000 years ago, and to whom I’m at least peripherally related.

Like all other Ancient Connections, it’s unlikely that I descend from Zlatý kůň Woman herself, but she is assuredly my very distant cousin.

What else do we know about Zlatý kůň Woman? Quoting from her Ancient Connection:

She lived during one of the coldest periods of the last ice age, surviving in harsh tundra conditions as part of a small hunter-gatherer group. She died as a young adult, though the cause of death remains unknown.

Her brain cavity was larger than that of modern humans in the comparative database, another trait showing Neanderthal affinity. While the exact colors of her features cannot be determined from available evidence, researchers created both a scientific grayscale model and a speculative version showing her with dark curly hair and brown eyes.

Zlatý kůň Woman may or may not have direct descendants today, but her haplogroup ancestors certainly do, and Radegonde Lambert is one of them, which means Radegonde’s matrilineal ancestors and descendants are too.

Ancient Connections for Genealogy

While Ancient Connections are fun, they are more than just amusing.

You are related through your direct matrilineal (mitochondrial) line to every one of your mtDNA Discover Ancient Connections. Everyone, males and females, can take a mitochondrial DNA test.

I find people to test for the mitochondrial DNA of each of my ancestral lines – like Radegonde Lambert, for example. I wrote about various methodologies to find your lineages, or people to test for them, in the article, Lineages Versus Ancestors – How to Find and Leverage Yours.

Radegonde’s mitochondrial DNA is the only key I have into her past, both recent and distant. It’s the only prayer I have of breaking through that brick wall, now or in the future.

Interpreted correctly, and with some luck, the closer Ancient Connections can provide genealogical insight into the origins of our ancestors. Not just one ancestor, but their entire lineage. While we will never know their names, we can learn about their cultural origins – whether they were Vikings, Phoenicians or perhaps early Irish buried in Passage Graves.

On a different line, an Ancient Connection burial with an exact haplogroup match was discovered beside the Roman road outside the European town where my ancestral line was believed to have been born.

Ancient Connections are one small glimpse into the pre-history of our genetic line. There are many pieces that are missing and will, in time, be filled in by ancient remains, Notable Connections, and present-day testers.

Check your matches and your Ancient Connections often. You never know when that magic piece of information you desperately need will appear.

What is waiting for you?

_____________________________________________________________

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me 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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

New Mitotree Haplogroups and How to Utilize Them for Genealogy

Posted on by
8

Have you received a new Mitotree haplogroup? Or maybe you didn’t? Are you wondering why you might not have received a new haplogroup? How do the new haplogroups work anyway? And how do you work with them?

Great questions!

Approximately 75% of full sequence testers received a new haplogroup with the Mitotree Beta release, which means that about 25% did not. Keep in mind that new sequences are being added to the database, so the tree will be sprouting new haplogroups with each subsequent release.

Check For Your New Haplogroup

Click on any image to enlarge

Sign in to your account at FamilyTreeDNA and look at the Badges in the bottom right corner of your page.

Your Beta haplogroup is your new Mitotree haplogroup, and your Legacy haplogroup is your old one – prior to Mitotree. They may be the same. My haplogroup, shown above, did not change.

This is a good place to note that the tree is not “done,” yet, nor will it ever be. New samples are added daily as more people test and as academic samples from published papers are added to the database as well. Additionally, FamilyTreeDNA is tweaking the algorithm, so the tree branching structure may change from time to time.

When your haplogroup changes, you’ll receive a notification email.

Some people’s haplogroup will remain the same. There can be several reasons why you might not have received a new haplogroup.

Before we discuss that, I’d like to stress that your haplogroup remaining the same isn’t exactly a bad thing because there is SO MUCH new content for everyone. It’s like receiving a whole new book about your mother’s direct matrilineal line.

mtDNA Discover Offers 13 New Reports for Everyone

MtDNA Discover was released with the new Mitotree, and it includes a dozen new reports for EVERY haplogroup.

Discover is available publicly, and also through your FamilyTreeDNA dashboard which provides a customized experience for mtFull testers with additional information that is not available in the free version.

Think of these Discover reports as chapters in your personal book – all about you and your matrilineal ancestors.

The Discover reports are provided in addition to the tools in the mtDNA Results and Tools section of your dashboard on FamilyTreeDNA.

There’s something for everyone, even if you don’t have a new haplogroup. There’s certainly new information that will help with your genealogy and with understanding the history and ancestral journey of your mother’s direct line maternal ancestors.

Three Reasons Why You Might Not Receive a New Haplogroup

Ok, so why might you not have received a new haplogroup?

The first reason that you might not have received a new haplogroup assignment is the simplest. The new tree is only updated periodically.

After your results are returned, and before the next Mitotree version is available, your Mitotree haplogroup Badge will show as “Analyzing.”

If one of your matches is waiting for a new haplogroup, their Mitotree Haplogroup will show as “Pending Analysis.”

There is no published tree-update schedule, but you’ll receive your new haplogroup soon.

However, you can probably determine your new haplogroup quite easily. If you have any exact matches on your mtDNA Match page, their haplogroup will be your haplogroup as well, so check your full sequence mtDNA Matches on your dashboard for a hint.

For, example, here’s one of my exact matches with their haplogroup.

The second reason you might not have a new haplogroup assignment is that you may not have taken the full sequence mitochondrial DNA test – mtFull.

Only testers with full sequence test results can receive an updated haplogroup, because the full mitochondria needs to be tested. The older HVR1/HVR2 Plus tests only tested a fraction of the full sequence – around 1000 locations of the 16,569 locations tested in the full sequence test.

If you have only taken the HVR1 or HVR1/HVR2 level test, you will only have one badge, and it will say “Predicted.”

The haplogroup for the Plus test is predicted at a high level based on those 1000 locations, while the full sequence test tests the entire mitochondria and uses all locations to confirm your most granular and detailed haplogroup possible.

On your dashboard, if both the Plus and Full icons are pink, you have taken the mtFull test. If the “Full” is grey, you have not. You can click on that grey button to upgrade.

You can also navigating to on Add Ons and Upgrades in the top bar to upgrade to the full sequence test.

The third reason why someone might not have received a new haplogroup assignment is if they didn’t match with anyone else who has the same mutations, or variants, for a particular haplogroup.

In other words, if my mitochondrial DNA has had a mutation or two since my assigned haplogroup was formed and no one else has tested that has those exact same mutations, there’s no one else to form a new haplogroup with, but there might be in the future as additional people test and the tree continues to grow.

Think of those additional mutations, called Private Variants, as foundation blocks, or haplogroup seeds since they are still private to you, and not yet used for a haplogroup.

It’s easy to see if you have any Private Variants by clicking on Discover on your mitochondrial dashboard.

Scientific Details – Private Variants, Building Blocks, Haplogroup Seeds

If you have taken the full sequence test, click through to mtDNA Discover from your dashboard. If you aren’t signed in and click through from your dashboard, you won’t be able to see your variants or other information customized for you.

Navigate to Scientific Details, then click on the Variants tab.

Click on image to enlarge

Be sure that “Show private variants” is toggled to “on,” which is blue with a checkmark.

At the very top, you’ll see two things:

  1. Your haplogroup, which is indicated by the solid pink square.
  2. An F number followed by your private variants, if any, and if so, which ones.

I have no private variants or haplogroup seeds available to form a new haplogroup, so I have no ability to receive a more refined haplogroup.

Haplotype Clusters

However, I’m NOT out of luck, because I have something else – a Haplotype Cluster, indicated by having an F#. My Haplotype Cluster is F1752176 and is indicated by the pink outlined box.

I wrote about haplotype clusters in the article, Mitochondrial DNA: What is a Haplotype Cluster and How Do I Find and Use Mine?.

In a nutshell, haplogroups are only formed around reliable, relatively stable mutations, meaning those that are reliable and don’t tend to randomly mutate back and forth.

You may match exactly with a group of other people who share the same haplogroup, PLUS the same unstable mutations that don’t qualify to become haplogroup-defining.

Those groups of two or more people who match exactly on all mutations are members of the same  Haplotype Cluster – and Haplotype Clusters can be INCREDIBLY genealogically useful. In fact, let me go out on a limb here and say that I think they are even more genealogical useful than haplogroups, although both have their strengths. Let’s look at a good example.

Using Haplogroups and Haplotype Clusters Together

My family member, Jim, had a surprise waiting for him in his mitochondrial DNA. When he received his new haplogroup, I took a look to see what new information might be forthcoming.

His legacy haplogroup was V, and his new Mitotree haplogroup is V216a2 which is significantly more refined.

Before Mitotree and Haplotype Clusters, there wasn’t much to differentiate him from his other matches.

Let’s take a look at JUST his genetic information before adding genealogy.

If I click on the Time Tree for haplogroup V216a2, I see two testers with no cluster, meaning no one matches them exactly, and Jim’s cluster number F9712482.

Keep in mind that Jim might not match everyone in his haplogroup – only people at or beneath the matching threshold.

Jim’s new haplogroup, V216a2 was formed about 1056 CE, or about 975 years ago. Note that as the tree changes and becomes more refined, haplogroup formation dates change too. A haplogroup’s birth date is an approximate year when the mutations occurred that define that haplogroup, based on surrounding mutations and mutation rates.

Many people look at a haplogroup, especially one with a birth date of, say, 1056 CE, which is long before the formation of surnames, shrug their shoulders, and give up.

Don’t. Do. That.

So, let me say this as loudly as possible.

A haplogroup’s most recent common ancestor is NOT the EKA (earliest known ancestor) with any individual match. It’s the approximate date when ALL of the people with this haplogroup share a common ancestor.

When looking at haplogroups, don’t let locations thrown you. Keep in mind that country boundaries are fluid. What was at one time Hungary could be Germany or Romania or something else just a few years earlier or later. So don’t discount that information either. Think regions and take into consideration that people move around – and some people enter incorrect genealogy/location information.

Your common ancestor with the people, individually, who share your haplogroup,  is sometime between the haplogroup formation date and today. Everything else is a clue. 

Think about it this way. You share a haplogroup with your mother, and while you are both descended from the woman who lived when your haplogroup was formed – your most recent ancestor with that haplogroup is your mother – not the woman 975 years ago. Your most recent common ancestor (MRCA) with your mother and her sister is your grandmother – a lot closer in time than 1056 CE. 1056 CE the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) date for everyone in the haplogroup, not between you and any one person in particular. The MRCA date for you plus another person is sometime between now and 1056 CE.

So, let’s take a look at Jim’s results.

Finding Jim’s Gold Nugget

Jim has 27 coding region matches, of which six share both his new haplogroup, V216a2, AND Haplotype Cluster F9712482. His other matches are split between three related haplogroups, and multiple haplotype clusters.

Most of his family, meaning three of his grandparents, were from eastern Europe, meaning Germany, Hungary or the Austro-Hungarian empire as it was recorded in American records. Many genealogical records no longer exist in that region, or if they do, you have to know exactly where to look.

We were brick-walled with Jim’s matrilineal great-grandmother, Sophia Smith, who was born about 1877 and seemed to appear out of thin air.

Thanks to the new haplogroups, combined with Haplogroup Clusters, I knew to focus on his matches in this order:

  • Same haplogroup plus same Haplotype Cluster
  • Same haplogroup plus different Haplotype Cluster, because clusters are built around identical but less reliable mutations
  • Related haplogroup – this is unlikely to yield direct genealogical results, but can be very useful in terms of origins

Of Jim’s exact matches with the same Haplotype Cluster, three showed an earliest known ancestor (EKA) and three did not. Three provided a tree, and three did not. Of the trees, one was private and the other two provided no useful insight.

Of the people who provided EKA information, one EKA matches their tree information, one conflicts with their tree. After viewing their tree, it appears that they did not understand that the mitochondrial EKA is the most distant ancestor in your mother’s direct maternal line. They listed someone in their grandmother’s paternal line.

I find this easiest to deal with if I organize the research in a chart for each match.

Match # Earliest Known Ancestor EKA Location Tree Comment
#1 No No No
#2 No No No
#3 No No Yes – Private
#4 Yes – only one name “Egan” with brith and death dates Ireland Yes – Egan is surname of their grandmother EKA person listed tracks up wrong line in tree
#5 Yes Hungary No Elizabeth Schmidt Hornung b1888 d 1930
#6 Yes No Yes – matches EKA Ancestor born NC in 1811, no common names or location

Match #5 provided an EKA, but no tree, showed a country of origin as Hungary, and the identity of her EKA as “Elizabeth Schmidt Hornung b.1888 and d.1930.”

Hmmm…three things of interest here:

  • The location of Hungary, even though the oral history in Jim’s family said his great-grandmother was a Smith from the US, maybe New York. Jim’s family, including Sophia’s husband, was Eastern European. Remember, I couldn’t find any early records for Sophia Smith.
  • Smith is the anglicized version of Schmidt.
  • Hornung may be a married name.

I’m a genealogist, and Jim’s match had provided enough information that I was able to identify her ancestor, Elizabeth Schmidt, and find additional information.

Sure enough, Elizabeth Schmidt immigrated as an adult by herself, married Karl Hornung in Richland County, Ohio, the same location where Jim’s family was living. That information led me to another record, identifying a brother whose marriage license application provided their parents. Elizabeth’s parents were Ignatius Schmidt and Catherine Schlowe, and her sister was Sophia Schmidt, Jim’s great-grandmother. Deeper digging suggests that Ignatius and Catherine were from Timisoara in what is now Romania. I have been unable to confirm with birth, death or marriage records, but that part of Romania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during that timeframe.

Immigration of siblings, alone, at different times after the 1910 census, without their parents, made this particularly difficult, as did cultural and language barriers – but mitochondrial DNA, and Jim’s Haplotype Cluster in particular, provided the key I needed.

Jim’s common ancestor with his Schmidt match is the birth date of Catherine Schlowe, which was probably about 1850 – NOT 1056 CE, which is the haplogroup formation date.

Don’t get discouraged by misinterpreting haplogroup origin information or missing genealogy information. All you need is that one good match. That gold nugget. Don’t forget that you can email your matches and ask for more information.

The Match Time Tree makes all of this easier.

Match Time Tree

The Match Time Tree shows match, haplogroup, location and Haplotype Cluster information all in one place.

It’s easy to use the Match Time Tree to view how all of your matches are grouped, along with their EKA, displayed together in one place.

Here are all of Jim’s matches. They were all originally haplogroup V, but now his matches have been divided into V216, V216a, V216a1, and V216a2 (Jim’s haplogroup).

I’ve obfuscated the names of his matches, but the EKA, when provided, is there. Each person is grouped into their haplotype cluster of exact matches, and the user-provided country of origin for their ancestor is shown by their profile photo.

Jim’s match with the descendant of Elizabeth Schmidt is indicated in the red boxes, and Jim has updated his own EKA and her country of origin.

Who is waiting for you in your match list?

Will extending and building out trees help?

Have you emailed your matches to see what additional information they can provide?

Female ancestors are sometimes the MOST difficult to find, often due to name changes  – so be sure to mine every possible avenue and don’t become discouraged if you don’t immediately see something “familiar.”

Every generation in a female lineage will probably carry a different surname and the match you need may not have researched as far back as your ancestor, or vice versa.

Don’t forget that autosomal matching can play an important role in confirming relationships.

But wait – there’s STILL more about Jim’s ancestors…

There’s Even More to Discover

There’s more to discover about Jim’s ancestors.

Jim’s Discover Ancient Connections tells me that 5200 years ago, Jim shared a common mitochondrial DNA ancestor with two Hungarian and a Slovakian Yamnaya cultural burial whose remains date to about 2800 BCE, or about 4800 years ago.

To be clear, the common haplogroup between Jim and all three burials dates to 5200 years ago, when their common haplogroup was formed, but the remains themselves are from about 4800 years ago – so only about 400 years difference between the haplogroup birth date and when those people lived, died and were buried.

How close are the remains to the location of Jim’s ancestor in Timisoara?

Using Google Maps, I placed the three Yamnaya burial locations (blue pins), plus Timisoara.

The two most distant points, Timisoara to Lesne, Slovakia, walking, is 393 km or 245 miles. The closest burial to Timisoara, located in Sárrétudvari, Hungary, is 157 km  or 119 miles.

So Jim’s ancestors remained in the same general area for someplace between 4,800 and 5,200 years. And, his great-grandmother was born not far from those burials. That alone is an INCREDIBLE find!

So, what happened to the people of the Yamnaya culture? I think we might have gained some insight into that question.

So, there’s even more to discover using Discover.

You don’t know what you don’t know about your matrilineal ancestors, so test your mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA and break through those brick walls. I’ve already solved multiple long-standing mysteries and added generations to my own tree.

Plus, I really, REALLY want to know where every single ancestor “came from,” what culture they were a part of, and when. History is part of genealogy – and a part of our ancestral journey that we can’t reach any other way.

Fortunately, your matches, Scientific Details, Time Tree, Match Time Tree, and Ancient Connections help you visualize all of these various situations and aspects of your ancestor’s history, and evaluate your results.

Both haplogroups and Haplotype Clusters provide very fine degrees of granularity that were not previously available. MtDNA Discover adds a dozen new reports, and Ancient Connections allow you to time travel.

Let me know what you discover!

_____________________________________________________________

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me 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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Y-DNA Highways of History: Fleshing Out Your Ancestors Using Discover Case Studies – Webinar Free for 7 Days!!

Posted on by
3

I’m so very pleased to announce with Legacy Family Tree Webinars, that we are offering a special midsummer surprise webinar – and it’s FREE through August 1st, here.

Thank you, Legacy Family Tree Webinars, for making this webinar free!

We are using FamilyTreeDNA’s free Discover tool to reveal our ancestors’ past and their path through history.

This webinar features fun ”how-to” case studies. Who doesn’t love a good story – especially ones that you can put to use in your own genealogy right away?

We begin with an overview.

  • What are reasonable testing goals for Y-DNA?
  • Why do we want to take Y-DNA tests anyway?
  • What can we discover when we test, and when we encourage our cousins to test?
  • Where and how do we find those cousins?

If you ladies are thinking, I WISH I had a Y chromosome to test, cheer up, because one of the topics I cover is how to find relevant family members, even distant members, who can test for your male ancestral lines.

History Revealed

Genealogists always want every piece of available information. Y-DNA testing does just that and reaches beyond the barrier of surnames. In fact, it reaches beyond the possibility of genealogical research with only one test.

There’s so much to learn.

Who were my ancestors, and where did they come from? How are they related to other people, including ancient burials and notable people who lived more recently?

I’m sharing several case studies from my own genealogy. Come join me on my journey.

  • I discovered that my ancestor is related to a burial along the old Roman Road in France. He lived there before the Romans arrived. What does that mean to me today, and how can I find out?
  • I’ll also share with you how I solved an adoption case within a generation with JUST Y-DNA, and then how I used autosomal DNA matches to augment and refine that information.
  • In another case, we learned something VERY interesting and quite unexpected, revealing either a secret or information that was never passed to contemporary family researchers. Y-DNA testing is the only way this would EVER have been revealed.
  • Another ancestor appears to have been a retired Roman soldier in England. How did I figure this out? I’ll show you.
  • My Jewish friend famously said “My ancestors are in my soul. I can’t get them out of my mind.” Can you relate? The Big Y-700 test proved that his ancestors settled in Spain and exactly when they migrated to Eastern Europe using a very unconventional approach that you can utilize too.
  • Another tester discovered that he and a famous lineage match. You’ll probably recognize this historical person and you might even be related yourself. Their ancestors are found in the baptismal records of the same church in England, but their common ancestor reaches back to the people buried beneath the Saxon tombstones outside.

How did we discover all of this???

Big Y-700 testing at FamilyTreeDNA, combined with the Discover tool, sprinkled from time to time with some old-fashioned genealogy.

Once you engage in Y-DNA testing, you’ll have fascinating success stories of your own to share too.

Collect the Full Set

There’s so much to be learned about our ancestors.

I “collect” Y-DNA haplogroups from testers in each of my ancestral lines to reveal their history that has been obscured by time – and to assure my recent genealogy is accurate.

Every one of these haplogroups on my family tree, such as R-ZS3700, looks like just letters and numbers, but they aren’t. They are the keys that easily unlock that ancestor’s paternal family story, previously hidden behind history’s misty curtains. Now, they’ve been revealed! You can do exactly the same thing!

All you need to do is enter your Y-DNA haplogroup into Discover or just click through directly from your results page at FamilyTreeDNA.

Which ancestors are waiting for you?

Please enjoy this webinar. Don’t forget it’s only free for a week, so check it out now.

There’s More

Take a look at the other webinars I’ve recorded for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. (Hint – there are more coming very soon!!)

You can always access this and any of more than 2200 webinars in the library by subscribing to Legacy Family Tree Webinars, here.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me 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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Genealogy Proof Series: Gathering Location Resources

Posted on by
2

This is the first article in the Genealogy Proof Series.

Most genealogists, even if they don’t realize they are genealogists yet, begin by creating a small tree of their known ancestors. Most people know who their grandparents are, and by asking a few questions, can probably complete another generation or two.

If your parents were born in 1950, your grandparents would have been born about 1920, and your great-grandparents may have been born around 1890. You probably have concrete facts about your parents. Their birthdates, birth location, marriage location, and so forth. They probably have the same information about their parents. However, with each generation reaching back in time, the information becomes less precise and less reliable. Memories fail people, and the information they were provided may not have been accurate in the first place.

For example, my mother told me what she knew about her maternal grandfather, which wasn’t much. He died when my grandmother was 20, several years before my mother was born.

As the information becomes thinner, the need for additional information and confirmation of facts becomes crucial. Furthermore, when utilizing new resources, you may discover information not previously known about close generations. One of the best resources for that is old newspapers.

Our ancestors are more than birth and death dates. I like to piece their life together, complete with historical events, both national and local, and how they influenced and affected their lives.

This first article explains how I gather and utilize location resources for each ancestor.

Before we start, let’s talk for a minute about where we are going and how this series will be organized.

The Genealogy Proof Series Roadmap

It’s difficult to put the steps in a specific order because often, I get very distracted and go right down a rabbit hole.

In other words, I’ll be working on gathering resources for a specific county, but then I find a listing for what I think is my ancestor, and before you know it, I’m off on the chase. I really, really try NOT to do that because it’s actually very distracting to the process as a whole.

It’s also difficult for me to select an order to write these articles. For example, do I write about Leveling Up, determining what you need for each ancestor, first or last?

I’ve chosen to write about that topic last because I want to step through how to gather and use the resources before we get distracted by what you need to do with individuals in your tree. It’s way too easy to go after that bright, shiny object:)

Gathering and Organizing Location Resources: This article is about how to find location resources for the area where your ancestor(s) lived. I suggest starting at the beginning, meaning your closest ancestors. You know where your parents and grandparents lived, so start there.

If you think there’s nothing there that matters because you know everything about your family – I guarantee you surprises are waiting. They may surprise you, touch your heart, or even shock you, and they are just waiting to be discovered. But before you can logically extract everything to do with your family and surname, you need a comprehensive list of what is available for your county and region.

You’ll also need to keep a record of what you looked for in that county, and when, because you may very well need to go back and access those records again in the future.

Recording Your Data: After you have a list of what’s available for your specific counties, in the next article, we’re going to talk about extracting information and recording it in a spreadsheet. If you don’t like spreadsheets, you can do the same thing in a table. But it’s critical that you record it someplace.

You’ll also index and transcribe it as you go so you can reasonably retrieve it. This is why I utilize spreadsheets – they are made for filtering and sorting.

Surname Searching: You’ve found location resources, but where do you find surname resources? For example, what about books written about the Estes surname, or internet resources? Some will be in books or webpages about the location, but certainly not everything.

How do you find additional resources?

Proof Table: Now that you HAVE data about all the people in a region or regions where your ancestors lived, how do you prove that the Moses Estes or George Estes in Halifax County, Virginia is YOUR Moses or George Estes? What about men with the same name? What if there is no definitive proof in ONE document?

We will discuss the Genealogy Proof Standard and create a proof table for every single generation because you need proof for every single generation.

Including DNA.

(If you’re beginning to think you might dislike me by the time this series is finished – I fully understand. If it helps any, some days I’m tired and mad at myself.)

DNA: How and when can you use DNA as part of your proof argument? What about the different types of DNA? When are they useful? Are they conclusive? How do they bolster or refute other evidence?

Can you resolve conflicts between DNA and a paper trail, and if so, how?

Leveling Up: Leveling up is a methodology of determining where you are in the process of evaluating EVERY PIECE OF EVIDENCE available about each ancestor.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

For those of us who have been working on genealogy for a long time, it’s easy not to think about using new resources when they become available. For example, the 1940 and 1950 census, new full-text AI from FamilySearch, and new newspaper resources like OldNews.

What do you need to do yet for each ancestor to bring them to current?

Writing It Up: Now that you HAVE this information assembled, what will you do with it? I fervently hope you’re going to write or record it for posterity. I’ve chosen the 52 Ancestors series that I’ve been writing weekly for several years, but there are other ways, too. Genealogy is about resurrecting and honoring the lives of our ancestors. The more factual information you can saturate the airwaves and internet with, the less “bad information” can take hold. Genealogy is a team sport.

Gathering and Organizing Location Resources

This article is focused on gathering and organizing resources for where your ancestor lived, NOT on retrieving the records in those resources for your ancestor and their surname. The next article will cover retrieving and recording the data using a consistent methodology.

If you’ve followed my blog for some time, you’ll know that I’m a spreadsheet person, but I also use MSWord documents to organize and utilize resources from time to time, especially if the text is long. I have one Word document for every ancestor.

I’m going to use a chart as an example, understanding that you will create your own resource-tracking tool that you’re most comfortable with.

The first consideration is that you probably have at least three ancestors in any specific location. By that, I mean at least two parents and one child. You may have significantly more ancestors and family members from that location.

Conversely, those same ancestors may have moved from location to location – even state to state or cross-country, so you may have multiple locations for the same ancestor(s).

In my family, I have clusters of ancestors in the same county. For example, my early Estes line, along with their wives’ lines including Combs, Younger and Moore, resided in Halifax County, Virginia for about 4 generations or more than 50 years. The first generation, Moses Estes (1711-1787) who moved to Halifax County by 1771 came from someplace else, and the last generation, John R. Estes (1787-1885), moved to Claiborne County, TN about 1820, not long after his marriage.

I searched Halifax County records for at least four surnames and multiple generations.

This means I needed to compile the various resources for Halifax County across a significant amount of time.

Resources for Resources

There are multiple places to find available resources for a specific county and state.

We will use these to complete our own research list by county. In the next article, we’ll be checking each one of these resources for surnames.

FamilySearch Wiki

The first thing I do when beginning to compile resources is check the FamilySearch wiki.

Googling “Halifax County, Virginia FamilySearch wiki” brings up a lovely compilation of resources.

You’ll find general information by category, followed by very specific information and multiple resources for each category.

Click on any image to enlarge

Also note that the county website link is given, along with the county formation history further down the page. Don’t neglect to check each county’s individual resources and parent county, if relevant.

If you’ve checked the wiki, or any resource list before, check back often because things change.

I enter each of the resources into a spreadsheet for that county. This is NOT the same thing as making a list of information discovered for an individual ancestor or surname. We’ll get to that later.

Don’t limit yourself to just the years that you know your ancestor was living in that county because records pertaining to that family may exist before your ancestor arrived and long after they left. Other family members may have preceded them, while lawsuits, deeds, and other records may refer to them decades after they left or died.

Here’s the beginning of a list for Halifax County,

Resource State County Link Year Range Surnames Findings
Virginia Bible Records Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore One was donated by the Tune family.
Halifax Biographies Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore
1782 tax list Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm, http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/halifax/census/1782/1782tax.txt 1782 Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore 5 Estes, 1 Combs, 2 Younger 6 Moore
Slave Draft for Defense of Richmond Virginia Halifax http://usgwarchives.net/va/halifax.htm

http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/halifax/court/1862slavedraft.txt

 1862 Estes, Younger, Combs, Moore 2 Younger, 2 Moore

I enter the county and state in two fields, so it’s sortable. If I’m checking multiple counties using the same resource, I enter the resource twice, one for each county and the surnames in that county that I searched for.

For example, this link for Virginia Bible records takes you to a link for Halifax County Bible records on the USGenWeb site. I listed the surnames I checked for. I also noted the Tune donation because I know from prior research that the Tune home is on the old Marcus Younger land and the families intermarried. When you search any county for another surname, be sure to add it to the list so you don’t have to wonder later if you checked for that surname.

For county histories and biographies, check to see if they are available digitally. In the next article, you’ll want to search for and record all instances of your surname, even if it’s NOT your ancestor, because of the FAN club, Friends and Neighbors (thank you ,Elizabeth Shown Mills). Those people may or will help you identify which ancestors are yours. Not to mention fleshing out their lives.

Tax lists are often used to replace or supplement the census. You should be able to determine if the lists are recorded in procession order or alphabetical order. Clearly, procession order is much more relevant because it shows who lives nearby or are neighbors. This may help you identify specific individuals, especially when there are multiple people with the same name. In the case of John Estes in Halifax County, Virginia, the tax list placed “my” John by his father, George, which was a huge clue. Eventually, on a tax list that was stuffed in the back of a deed book in the Clerk’s Office, I found another tax list with the note, “S. G.” by my John’s name, and another note on the “other” John that lived in the north end of the county. “S.G.” meant son of George, as that designation had been used and spelled out for other people elsewhere in the same tax list. I’ve never been so grateful to the taxman in my life!

The Slave Draft for the Defense of Richmond is a fascinating document transcribed by a volunteer from the court minute book.

From Minute Book 20 page 169 Halifax County, Va

At a Court Held for Halifax County on Monday the 4th day of April 1862. Present Beverly Sydnor, Howell Chastain, John M. Craddock, William Moorewell, James Kent, Henry C. Logan, James Richardson, E. A. Coleman, Archer A. Farmer

The court in consideration of the Draft from the Governor of the Commonwealth for laborers on the Public Defense near Richmond do order and direct that the Sheriff of this County do proceed for ___ to require the following named persons to deliver to him the said Sheriff at News Ferry Depot, Boston Depot, Clover Depot and as may be convenient to the parties on ___ the day of ___ at such see hours as he may designate the Slaves between the ages of eighteen and fifty five years directed to be furnished by each person in the said following list and proceed with them to the City of Richmond and deliver them to the Agent of the Confederate Government and take receipt for the Slaves furnished by each person.

Then, by district, the name of the owner, and the number of enslaved persons sent.

This information may provide insight into who enslaved others at that time, which may provide insight into families that were slaveholders historically. Additionally, it may provide important hints and clues for African American researchers who seek their family and may have adopted the surname of their former enslaver after the war.

Also, please note that these records may not be entirely accurate. For example, there’s a list of ministers who performed marriages, and my Rev. William Moore is not listed, but I actually have the list of his marriages, returns made in his own handwriting obtained in the courthouse in Halifax County.

If you remember, I found my way to GenWeb through the FamilySearch Wiki. When I finish listing the GenWeb resources, I need to return to the FamilySearch wiki to list any further resources.

You may find lists of out-of-print books for land and property records and other record types. I sometimes find out-of-print books for sale at www.bookfinder.com.

If you own the book, note that it’s in your own library.

To locate books, check the WorldCat entry, but also check both the FamilySearch Catalog by county, the Fort Wayne Public Library and other book resources as well.

Surnames

While the goal of this exercise is to document and record location resources, if you stumble across surname resources, certainly don’t ignore them and think you’ll find them later – you might not.

I suggest starting either a second spreadsheet, or new tab on this spreadsheet for each surname.

I maintain a separate spreadsheet for each location and one for each surname or group of surnames on the same migration path. For example, my Combs, Estes, Moore, and Younger families are migrating from the Virginia Colony into the new frontiers, so I track them together from Amelia and Prince Edward Counties, where they are first found through Halifax County.

Ok, back to searching for our county resources.

FamilySearch Catalog

To search the FamilySearch Catalog by county, sign in and then click on Search, Catalog, and Place.

I was given the choice of British Colonial America or the United States. I’ll check both to be sure I have all available resources.

Selecting “Land and Property,” one of the items displayed is the Antrim Parish Vestry book. By clicking on that entry, you can see that it’s available in the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Maybe it’s available elsewhere too. I’ll check in a bit.

I build research lists from these resources routinely.

The entry for deed books shows that some are available online only at either the FamilySearch Library or a Family History Center (camera with key), which may be located near you. Other images are available online with no location requirement, indicated by the camera without a key, just by clicking.

These may or may not be indexed, and an index may be available elsewhere or by using the new FamilySearch Labs AI full text transcription tool. AI is not available for all records yet.

FamilySearch Labs

Next, try FamilySearch labs for additional assistance. I wrote about this new AI full text transcription tool, here.

You’ll see two features which may help you.

Using the “Find Help with AI Search” feature, type in what you’re searching for. I find the Full Text Search” to be much more helpful.

Click on “Go to Experiment.”

Typing “Halifax County, VA” into the search box returns resources from unexpected places. For example, county histories from elsewhere that reference Halifax County, or a Divorce degree, or a deed book from another county.

These are unexpected gold mines that you’d never find otherwise.

Note that this search is literally an exact match, so Halifax County, VA, is NOT the same as Halifax County, Virginia.

However, adding a surname to the location narrows the results substantially.

While normal deed and other books are indexed by the grantor and grantee, the FamilySearch full text search reveals EVERY instance of that name, including when referenced in another document. This feature is an absolute game-changer!

I can hardly wait to revisit my earlier work to see what’s new, but that’s part of the Level Up process.

It’s important to note that FamilySearch is adding new types of records to the AI collection almost daily, so check back often. Not everything uses the full-text transcription feature today, and while it’s quite accurate, it’s not 100%, so read carefully for yourself.

FamilySearch Book Search

You can also search for books by location or surname.

Allen County Public Library

The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana is one of the largest genealogy libraries in the US. You can search their site for locations, keywords, or surnames, here.

While these resources are generally not available online at this library, they alert you that they exist, and you may be able to find them elsewhere.

The one HUGE exception is the one-of-a-kind PERSI index.

PERSI

The PERSI, or Periodical Source Index is maintained by the Allen County Public Library as well, here.

You can search by location.

Click on a category that displays the results.

At the bottom of each page, you can open a form to request a copy of the article.

Ancestry.com Card Catalog

At Ancestry.com, you can search their Card Catalog by title or location.

Be sure to try different spellings and abbreviations, like VA for Virginia, or remove the word county, etc.

The results display a list of records for Halifax County in their collection.

You can click on the link to this book to search by surname or keyword.

These local histories are wonderful tools for fleshing out your ancestor’s stories because they tell us what was happening in their community during different time periods that would have affected and influenced their lives.

For example, in one of these histories, I discovered that one of the Revolutionary War generals and his troops marched right down the road in front of my ancestor’s home. It’s no wonder that he “contributed” brandy, food, and fodder for their horses.

Newspaper Sites

At Newspapers.com, you can see which papers were available and when.

You can also add a surname or first and last name.

Unless there’s a story about someone’s ancestors, there’s no point in looking for people who lived there in the 1700s and early 1800s. These are the publication dates, so an earlier ancestor could have been included in a 25 or 50-year history column in the local paper.

This same technique works with other genealogy Newspaper sites, too, including MyHeritage with a subscription and separately, their new OldNews site which contains newspapers not included in the MyHeritage subscription.

Also check out the Library of Congress digitized newspaper collection, here.

Newspaper Archive is available with an NGS membership, here.

Fulton County (not limited to Fulton County) and GenealogyBank are two additional newspaper resources.

MyHeritage

At MyHeritage, you can search by location or Newspapers as well.

MyHeritage has one book about Halifax County.

By clicking on the book, you can add additional search criteria.

Estes is mentioned 16 times in this book.

Library of Congress

Don’t forget about the Library of Congress, which has its own Historical Newspapers section, here.

You can also search by county or surname in the search box at the top. The images are all copyright-free.

State Archives

Don’t forget about your state archives.

Most have wonderful search capabilities and specific collections.

For example, the Library of Virginia has been indexing individual county chancery records dating back to the county’s formation. Chancery suits are where you find all the juicy stuff because people are asking for remediation and explaining why.

The index is here, and you can search by a combination of county and surname.

There are 59 records in Halifax County fitting this description, mentioning Estes in any capacity, reaching back as far as 1795.

Don’t neglect later cases because many times later cases tend to be lawsuits filed about much earlier estates and property divisions. They also tend to provide relationships in their narrative.

You’ll also notice that often, the plaintiff and defendant aren’t Estes, but they are clearly mentioned somewhere in that case, perhaps in a deposition.

Clicking on “View Details” displays the entire case file.

The resources at each state library are different and vast, so take a look and check back for new offerings and features.

Google is Your Friend

Google can turn up amazing resources, but it can also lead to some unsafe sites, so be careful and don’t just click without thinking.

Google “Halifax County Virginia genealogy society.” You’ll receive eight results that may have databases, members, or donated materials, but these resources may not be complete. For example, I wrote and donated a Moore genealogy to the local museum, which doubled as a genealogy society, and that “book” isn’t listed anywhere in any resource list.

You’ll often find multiple groups focused on the county of interest. These groups will likely have dedicated and interested volunteers and other researchers.

RootsWeb

Ancestry shut down the RootsWeb mailing lists, but they are still out there even though you can no longer add information.

If you Google “Halifax County, Virginia Rootsweb,” you’ll be shown several pages and entries, some of which may or may not be useful to you.

One link provides a list of the 1860 slaveholders compared to the 1870 African Americans on the census. This could be extremely useful!

Google Books

Another underutilized tool is Google books, found here.

Some of these resources you’ll not find elsewhere.

Also, check out the other Google features, such as Images, Maps, and more, which may lead you to other resources.

I love old maps where sometimes you’ll find old stream names, landmarks, or even settlers’ homes with their name.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is an initiative found at the Internet Archive to digitize out-of-copyright books for public consumption.

You can read more here.

Genealogical.com and American Ancestors

Don’t forget about book publishers that specialize in genealogy books like Genealogical.com and American Ancestors. Both are searchable, offer both hardcopy and e-books, and American Ancestors sells used books too.

Facebook

Last but not least, Facebook has many groups, including county-focused genealogy groups.

Sign in to Facebook and then use the Facebook search for the county you want.

Some groups maintain a list of resources.

Be sure to check both “Files” and “Features,” then use the Facebook search function to search for your surname(s) or other relevant locations or keywords in the Discussions.

In Summary

As you step through this process, it’s easiest if you include links to the various sites so that you can extract names in the next step. Links make it easy to return in the future and quickly review to see if anything has been added.

Even if you don’t find anything relevant at the site, be sure to NOTE THAT. That way, you never have to wonder and replow that same infertile ground. For example, if you determine that none of your four surnames are in a book written in 1937, they will never be in that book. If you don’t record that you looked, you’ll be left to wonder a few years from now and you’ll find yourself looking again.

However, a new book about that county might be written in the future, so it’s important to continue to look for new resources.

It’s also important to know that you searched for Estes, Moore, Younger, and Combs in Halifax County because you might, someday in the future, need to search for a new surname, like Hart. This way, you know what you did and did not search for in the past.

Why might you need to search for a new surname? Brick walls fall. Sometimes, the FAN Club turns out to be an important key to unlocking relationships that may extend back in time to earlier locations. People did not live or move in a vacuum.

I’ve made every one of these mistakes and nothing makes me unhappier than having to look something up, AGAIN, because I failed to record what I did.

The same advice holds for hard-copy books in research libraries. If nothing else, I take a picture of the front or inside cover and the index so I know what to record and that nothing was found. I wish I had done that from the beginning. Live and learn.

The biggest lie I’ve ever told myself is, “Of course I’ll remember that!”

Your Turn

It’s your turn now. Happy hunting!

Our next articles in this series will discuss how to record data from these resources so that it is both useful and findable again.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me 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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Books

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Bennett Greenspan: Meet My Extended Family & Discover Extraordinary Deep Heritage

Posted on by
24

“My ancestors are in my soul. I can’t get them out of my mind.”

Bennett Greenspan

“And yes, I brake for cemeteries.”

Bennett Greenspan gave an incredibly interesting presentation at the 15th International Genetic Genealogy Conference held by FamilyTreeDNA in November 2023. Since his retirement in January 2021, he has been able to focus on his genealogy. Once a genealogist, always a genealogist.

Bennett said some things I hadn’t thought about, and now I’m viewing Y-DNA matches with a different perspective – based on how he’s using his results.

Ever since I met him, Bennett’s focus has been to use genetics to unravel his complex Jewish heritage.

The questions that drive Bennett are the same ones that motivate most genealogists:

  1. Who are we?
  2. Where did we come from?
  3. Where were we before we were there?
  4. How did my ancestors get there?

Bennett “lost his family lines” before the mid-1800s due to his Jewish heritage, exacerbated in the 1930s by the devastation wrought by the Holocaust. Families were either killed or scattered to survive. It has been through Y-DNA in particular that he has been able to establish unquestionable and confirmed connections with other Greenspan men, sometimes by similar but different surnames, like Green, and sometimes with other surnames entirely.

When Bennett first started down this path, he tested more than 62 men before actually finding one a decade later that matched his Y-DNA. Bennet commented that it was “a little frustrating.”

Persistence is the key, and sometimes, genealogy is a waiting game, but that’s small comfort to genealogists during that unproductive waiting period.

Eventually, Bennett reassembled his family, at least somewhat, but it was a long journey. Here’s Bennett’s incredible story, including surprises, as he tells it.

Bennett discovered genealogy at age 12 and, like many genealogists, created a pedigree chart by talking to his family.

I love the mark-outs. How many of us still have our first chart with its edits?

This is the young Bennett Greenspan, whose interest in genealogy would one day unlock secrets for all of us!

It was a long way from a decade with no matches to finding his genetic kin in Ukraine.

The Big Y-700 Time Tree shows Bennett’s lineage in Ukraine, but stepping back in time, some descendants of his ancestors are found in adjacent locations.

Bennett was passionately discussing his matches on the time tree and in the Greenspan project, so I visited the Greenspan DNA Project, where the earliest known ancestors of Bennett’s Big Y matches are shown on the Group Time Tree.

Bennett’s closest matches are shown as descendants of haplogroup J-ZS1718. He has additional matches who are not in the Greenspan project. Since this is the Group Time Tree, it only displays the people in that project, along with their earliest known ancestors, Isaac and Usher Greenspan.

12-Marker Matches

Bennett never fails to amaze me. He said something very important and profound about 12-marker matches that I really hadn’t thought about – at least not this way.

As a community, we are often guilty of discounting 12-marker matches, those that don’t match us at 25-markers or above, or with different surnames, as “too far back in time” or otherwise irrelevant. I always look at the names and earliest known ancestors of 12-marker matches, because that person may have tested back in the day when fewer markers were available. But if I don’t recognize something, I move on.

However, Bennett said that, ”Y-12 matches reach back to a common ancestor. 12-marker matches are not a quirk. They are related to you, just further back in time. You share a common ancestor with them, someplace. They may be more distant, but they are still your close matches.”

I’ve been in too much of a hurry for a quick win, and ignoring the (apparently not so) obvious.

Determining when and where their ancestors lived also paves the way to discover yours. Your Y-DNA and theirs were in the same place at the same time.

Of Bennett’s 171 12-marker matches, 107 have upgraded to the Big Y, probably mostly due to his encouragement. This benefits both them and Bennett by fleshing out the history of that entire group of men, including how they got to where they are found in the first available records. The Time Tree shows when Big Y testers shared a common ancestor, and based on Earliest Known Ancestor (EKA) locations, where. This provides further information about the lives of ancestors before contemporary records – in other words – people that we can never identify by name. It’s a window into ancestors before surnames.

Bennett notes that testers need to know their ancestral village or location to be most useful within the project, and of course, they need to enter their EKA information. Location information is how the Migration Map, Matches Map, and Discover tools, including the Time Tree, are built.

What Happened in Spain?

Bennett’s ancestors and those of his 12-marker matches are found in Spain, and as Bennett says, “One son stayed and one left about the year 296.”

While we have no idea of their names, based on the Time Tree combined with the cluster of earliest known ancestors, we know that they were in Spain, and when.

Their family story is revealed in the bifurcation of the tree found beneath haplogroup J-L823, formed about 296 CE. One line stayed in Spain, and Bennett’s line migrated to eastern Europe where that man’s descendants, including Bennett’s family, are found in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Slovakia, Ukraine, Germany, Romania, the Czech Republic, and other eastern European locations. The closer to you in the tree and in time, the more relevant to your more recent ancestral story.

However, Bennett’s deeper ancestry, the migration of his ancestors to Spain, was only revealed by testing those more distantly related men. Those same men could well have been ignored entirely because they only matched at 12 markers.

According to Bennett, “Y-12 markers are important because these are the men most closely related to you in a database of 1 million men.”

How incredibly profound. How much have I been cavalierly overlooking?

How does this actually apply to Bennett’s results?

Bennett’s Spanish Matches

Bennett has the following STR panel matches who indicate that their EKA are from Spain. You can see that they match Bennett on a variety of panels.

  • X = yes, match
  • No = no match
  • Blank = not tested at that level.

In the Big Y GD column, the genetic distance (GD) is displayed as 15/660 where 15 is the number of mismatches, or the cumulative genetic distance ABOVE the 111 panel, and 660 is the number of STR markers above 111 with results.

The Big Y-500 test guaranteed a minimum of 500 total STR markers, and the Big Y-700 guarantees a minimum of 700 total STR markers, plus multiple scans of the balance of the Y chromosome for SNP mutations that define haplogroups. Testers don’t receive the same number of markers because the scan technology sometimes doesn’t read a specific location.

Tester 12 25 37 67 111 Big Y Test Big Y GD Big Y Match Haplogroup
AA X X X No No Yes 15/660 No J-FTD8826
DT X X No No X Yes 17/664 No J-FTE50318
JG X X No No
AR No No X X No No
ELR X X X No No
EL X X Yes 17/666 No J-FTE50318
GC X X X X No No
JC X No No
JLG X X No No No Yes 14/662 No J-FTE23540
MF X X No X No Yes 15/665 No J-FTD91126
MT X X X X No No
BE X X X X X Yes 20/664 No J-BY1795
DR X X X X X Yes 16/660 No J-FTC87344
EC X X X X X Yes 15/665 No J-FTC87344
GM X X No No No Yes 16/650 No J-FTD28153
GM X X X X No Yes 17/664 No J-FTD11019
LS X X No No No Yes 18/666 No J-FTD28153
NE X X X X X Yes 23/597 No J-BY1795
NC X No No
RR X X X No X Yes 22/659 No J-BY1795
TT X X X X X Yes 16/647 No J-FTC87344
XG X X X No No Yes 17/523 No J-BY167283
JA X X No No No Yes 15/646 No J-FTD11019

Of those 23 Spanish matches, sixteen have upgraded to Big Y tests, 14 of which are Big Y-700s, resulting in nine different haplogroups, all of which are descendants of Haplogroup J-L823. How cool is that?

The “Nos” in the Big Y Match Column aren’t mistakes. That’s right – none of these men match Bennett on the Big Y test, meaning they had more than a 30 mutation difference between them and Bennett on the Big Y test.

At first glance, you’d think that Bennett would have been disappointed, but that’s not the case at all! In fact, it was the information provided by these distant Spanish matches that provided Bennett with the information that his line had split sometime around the year 296 CE, with one branch remaining in Spain and his branch migrating to Eastern Europe, where he has lots of matches.

DNA Plus History

What was happening in Spain or the Iberian peninsula that involved the Jewish people about that time? Historical records exist of Jews living in that region before the fall of the Second Temple in about 70 CE, including records of Jews being expelled from Rome in 139 for their “corrupting influence.”

Furthermore, the Ancient DNA Connections for haplogroup J-L823, the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all of those branches, includes connections to multiple burials from:

  • Lebanon
  • Iran
  • Rome (from 1-400 CE)
  • Turkey
  • Jordan

Clearly, Bennett’s ancestor was in the Iberian peninsula around or before 296 CE. One branch stayed, winding up in Spain, and one headed for Europe.

Without these matches, some who didn’t match above the 12 or 25 marker level, how would Bennett have EVER known that his Jewish ancestors left the Middle East for Spain in the early years? How would he have known they migrated from Spain to Eastern Europe, and how would he have known that his line did not migrate directly from the Levant to Eastern Europe in the 9th century?

Big Y matches are typically within about 1500 years, but non-matches are still INCREDIBLY valuable. Without them, you can’t completely assemble your family story.

I noticed on the Time Tree that in Bennett’s Eastern European line, one of his ancestor’s brother lineages includes the Katzenellenbogen Rabbinic Lineage derived from ancient DNA samples.

Bennett’s successes have resulted from contacting his matches and encouraging upgrades. So how did he do it? What’s the magic sauce?

Contacting Matches

How to contact matches successfully is a question I see often. In fact, FamilyTreeDNA recently wrote about that in an article, here.

Bennett’s methodology for contacting his matches to encourage an upgrade is that he sends an email explaining why he’s encouraging them to upgrade, followed by a 2nd email three days later.

Bennett tells the recipient that we are at an inflection point in time. “It’s winter, the wind is blowing hard, and many of the leaves are gone.”

In other words, we need to cast the net wider and capture what we can, while we can. Unfortunately, many early testers have died, and with them, chapters of history are perishing.

Collaboration is key. In addition to encouraging upgrades, Bennett also offers Zoom calls to these groups of men to explain the results if they are interested.

What a GREAT idea! I need to begin offering that as well.

Upgrade Request

Bennett reaches out to his matches at various levels, but he expects his closer STR matches, meaning at the 67 and 111 marker level with the fewest mismatches, to match him on a Big Y-700 test and connect someplace between 300-600 years ago, which helps everyone flesh out their tree.

Bennett’s email:

Hello <name>,

Since you have already made a sizable investment in your Y-DNA, you now know that we come from the dominant male Middle Eastern group (Haplogroup J) of men who <subject here>.

What’s really neat is that our Y-DNA has recently been found in an archaeological site in Northwestern Jordan dated to about 4200 years ago. I know this because I upgraded to the Big Y, which tests SNPs, looking at several million locations on the Y chromosome of each man.

One academic customer recently compared this new technology as the difference between looking into space with binoculars versus the Hubble Telescope.

I don’t know if you are familiar with your list of matches at the highest level you’ve tested for, either Y-67 or Y-111. If you are, you should recognize my name and the names of others who have taken the Big Y test.

You’ll see what you’ll gain by letting me upgrade your test for you and determining whether you are related to my line – probably between about 200 years and 500 years.

This might be the second time that I have written to you on this matter; can I presume if I don’t hear from you that you’re not really interested in the Y-DNA subject anymore?

Can I run the test so that I can see how closely we are related – at my expense? (Of course, you get to see how closely related we are, too).

Please reply to me and say “yes.” You don’t even have to put a 🙂 if you don’t want to.

I started this company and this industry over 20 years ago. I predict that you will be happy with the history of YOU that this upgrade will uncover.

Best,

Bennett Greenspan

As you can see, this email can easily be personalized further and adapted to matches at the 37, 25, and 12 marker levels – or even Family Finder matches, now that intermediate-range haplogroups are being reported.

What’s Next?

I’m going back to every one of the kits I sponsored or that represent descendants of one of my ancestors to review their matches again – focusing not just on the closest matches with common surnames, but also on locations – and specifically at lower matching levels. I’ll also be checking their Family Finder matches for male surname matches, or similar surnames.

As is evident from Bennett’s tests, an entire mine of diamonds is out there, just waiting to be unearthed by a Big Y test.

And to think that some people have been advising people to ignore 12-marker matches out-of-hand because they are “entirely irrelevant.” They aren’t – for two reasons.

  1. First, some early testers only tested to that level
  2. Second, because of the deeper history that Big Y tests from those matches will uncover

You can view your Y-DNA matches, upgrade your own Y-DNA test, or order a Big Y-700 test if you haven’t yet tested by clicking here. What’s your next step?

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me 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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Which DNA Test Should I Buy? And Why?

Posted on by
18

Which DNA test should I buy, and why?

I receive questions like this often. As a reminder, I don’t take private clients anymore, which means I don’t provide this type of individual consulting or advice. However, I’m doing the next best thing! In this article, I’m sharing the step-by-step process that I utilize to evaluate these questions so you can use the process too.

It’s important to know what questions to ask and how to evaluate each situation to arrive at the best answer for each person.

Here’s the question I received from someone I’ll call John. I’ve modified the wording slightly and changed the names for privacy.

I’m a male, and my mother was born in Charleston, SC. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Jones and a paternal surname was Davis. The family was supposed to have been Black, Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Scots-Irish…only once was I told I was 3/16 Indian, with Davis being 3/4 and Jones being full Indian.

Do I have enough reasonable information to buy a test, and which one?

Please note that it’s common for questions to arrive without all the information you need to provide a sound answer – so it’s up to you to ask those questions and obtain clarification.

Multiple Questions

There are actually multiple questions here, so let me parse this a bit.

  1. John never mentioned what his testing goal was.
  2. He also never exactly said how the paternal line of Davis was connected, so I’ve made an assumption. For educational purposes, it doesn’t matter because we’re going to walk through the evaluation process, which is the same regardless.
  3. John did not include a tree or a link to a tree, so I created a rudimentary tree to sort through this. I need the visuals and normally just sketch it out on paper quickly.
  4. Does John have enough information to purchase a test?
  5. If so, which test?

There is no “one size fits all” answer, so let’s discuss these one by one.

Easy Answers First

The answer to #4 is easy.

Anyone with any amount of information can purchase a DNA test. Adoptees do it all the time, and they have no prior information.

So, yes, John can purchase a test.

The more difficult question is which test, because that answer depends on John’s goals and whether he’s just looking for some quick information or really wants to delve into genealogy and learn. Neither approach is wrong.

Many people think they want a quick answer –  and then quickly figure out that they really want to know much more about their ancestors.

I wrote an article titled DNA Results – First Glances at Ethnicity and Matching for new testers, here.

Goals

Based on what John said, I’m going to presume his goals are probably:

  • To prove or disprove the family oral history of Black, Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch (which is actually German,) Scots-Irish, and potentially Native American.
  • John didn’t mention actual genealogy, which would include DNA matches and trees, so we will count that as something John is interested in secondarily. However, he may need genealogy records to reach his primary goal.

If you’re thinking, “The process of answering this seemingly easy question is more complex than I thought,” you’d be right.

Ethnicity in General

It sounds like John is interested in ethnicity testing. Lots of people think that “the answer” will be found there – and sometimes they are right. Often not so much. It depends.

The great news is that John really doesn’t need any information at all to take an autosomal DNA test, and it doesn’t matter if the test-taker is male or female.

To calculate each tester’s ethnicity, every testing company compiles their own reference populations, and John will receive different results at each of the major companies. Each company updates their ethnicity results from time to time as well, and they will change.

Additionally, each company provides different tools for their customers.

The ethnicity results at different companies generally won’t match each other exactly, and sometimes the populations look quite different.

Normally, DNA from a specific ancestor can be found for at least 5 or 6 generations. Of course, that means their DNA, along with the DNA from all of your other ancestors is essentially combined in a communal genetic “pot” of your chromosomes, and the DNA testing company needs to sort it out and analyze your DNA for ethnicity.

DNA descended from ancestors, and their populations, further back in people’s trees may not be discerned at all using autosomal DNA tests.

A much more specific “ethnicity” can be obtained for both the Y-DNA line, which is a direct patrilineal line for men (blue arrow,) and the mitochondrial DNA line (pink arrows,) which is a direct matrilineal line for everyone, using those specific tests.

We will discuss both of those tests after we talk about the autosomal tests available from the four major genealogy DNA testing companies. All of these tools can and should be used together.

Let’s Start with Native American

Let’s evaluate the information that John provided.

John was told that he “was 3/16 Indian, with Davis being 3/4 and Jones being full Indian.”

We need to evaluate this part of his question slightly differently.

I discussed this in the article, Ancestral DNA Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?

First, we need to convert generations to 16ths.

You have two ancestors in your parent’s generation, four in your grandparents, and so forth. You have 16 great-great-grandparents. So, if John was 3/16th Native, then three of his great-great-grandparents would have been fully Native, or an equivalent percentage. In other words, six ancestors in that generation could have been half-Native. Based on what John said, they would have come from his mother’s side of the tree. John is fortunate to have that much information to work with.

He told us enough about his tree that we can evaluate the statement that he might be 3/16ths Native.

Here’s the tree I quickly assembled in a spreadsheet based on John’s information.

His father, at left, is not part of the equation based on the information John provided.

On his mother’s side, John said that Grandfather Davis is supposed to be three-quarters Native, which translates to 12/16ths. Please note that it would be extremely beneficial to find a Y-DNA tester from his Davis line, like one of his mother’s brothers, for example.

John said that his Grandmother Jones is supposed to be 100% Native, so 16/16ths.

Added together, those sum to 28/32, which reduces down to 14/16th or 7/8th for John’s mother.

John would have received half of his autosomal DNA from his mother and half from his non-Native father. That means that if John’s father is 100% non-Native, John would be half of 14/16ths or 7/16ths, so just shy of half Native.

Of course, we know that we don’t always receive exactly 50% of each of our ancestors’ DNA (except for our parents,) but we would expect to see something in the ballpark of 40-45% Native for John if his grandmother was 100% Native and his grandfather was 75%.

Using simple logic here, for John’s grandmother to be 100% Native, she would almost assuredly have been a registered tribal member, and the same if his grandfather was 75% Native. I would think that information would be readily available and well-known to the family – so I doubt that this percentage is accurate. It would be easy to check, though, on various census records during their lifetimes where they would likely have been recorded as “Indian.” They might have been in the special “Indian Census” taken and might be living on a reservation.

It should also be relatively easy to find their parents since all family members were listed every ten years in the US beginning with the 1850 census.

The simple answer is that if John’s grandparents had as much Native as reported, he would be more than 3/16th – so both of these factoids cannot simultaneously be accurate. But that does NOT mean neither is accurate.

John could be 7/8th or 40ish%, 3/16th or 18ish%, or some other percentage. Sometimes, where there is smoke, there is fire. And that seems to be the quandary John is seeking to resolve.

Would  Ethnicity/Population Tests Show This Much Native?

Any of the four major testing companies would show Native for someone whose percentage would be in the 40% or 18% ballpark.

The easiest ethnicities to tell apart from one another are continental-level populations. John also stated that he thinks he may also have Black ancestry, plus Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Scots-Irish. It’s certainly possible to verify that using genealogy, but what can DNA testing alone tell us?

How far back can we expect to find ethnicities descending from particular ancestors?

In this table, you can see at each generation how many ancestors you have in that generation, plus the percentage of DNA, on average, you would inherit from each ancestor.

All of the major DNA testing companies can potentially pick up small trace percentages, but they don’t always. Sometimes one company does, and another doesn’t. So, if John has one sixth-generation Native American ancestor, he would carry about 1.56% Native DNA, if any.

  • Sometimes a specific ethnicity is not found because, thanks to random recombination, you didn’t inherit any of that DNA from those ancestors. This is why testing your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings can be very important. They share your same ancestors and may have inherited DNA that you didn’t that’s very relevant to your search.
  • Sometimes it’s not found because the reference populations and algorithms at that testing company aren’t able to detect that population or identify it accurately, especially at trace levels. Every DNA testing company establishes their own reference populations and writes internal, proprietary ethnicity analysis algorithms.
  • Sometimes it’s not found because your ancestor wasn’t Native or from that specific population.
  • Sometimes it’s there, but your population is called something you don’t expect.

For example, you may find Scandinavian when your ancestor was from England or Ireland. The Vikings raided the British Isles, so while some small amount of Scandinavian is not what you expect, that doesn’t mean it‘s wrong. However, if all of your family is from England, it’s not reasonable to have entirely Scandinavian ethnicity results.

It’s also less likely as each generation passes by that the information about their origins gets handed down accurately to following generations. Most non-genealogists don’t know the names of their great-grandparents, let alone where their ancestors were from.

Using a 25-year average generation length, by the 4th generation, shown in the chart above, you have 16 ancestors who lived approximately 100 years before your parents were born, so someplace in the mid-1800s. It’s unlikely for oral history from that time to survive intact. It’s even less likely from a century years earlier, where in the 7th generation, you have 128 total ancestors.

The best way to validate the accuracy of your ethnicity estimates is by researching your genealogy. Of course, you need to take an ethnicity test, or two, in order to have results to validate.

Ethnicity has a lot more to offer than just percentages.

Best Autosomal Tests for Native Ethnicity

Based on my experience with people who have confirmed Native ancestry, the two best tests to detect Native American ethnicity, especially in smaller percentages, are both FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.

Click images to enlarge

In addition to percentages, both 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA provide chromosome painting for ethnicity, along with segment information in download files. In other words, they literally paint your ethnicity results on your chromosomes.

They then provide you with a file with the “addresses” of those ethnicities on your chromosomes, which means you can figure out which ancestors contributed those ethnicity segments.

The person in the example above, a tester at FamilyTreeDNA, is highly admixed with ancestors from European regions, African regions and Native people from South America.

Trace amounts of Native American with a majority of European heritage would appear more like this.

You can use this information to paint your chromosome segments at DNAPainter, along with your matching segments to other testers where you can identify your common ancestors. This is why providing trees is critically important – DNA plus ancestor identification with our matches is how we confirm our ancestry.

This combination allows you to identify which Native (or another ethnicity) segments descended from which ancestors. I was able to determine which ancestor provided that pink Native American segment on chromosome 1 on my mother’s side.

I’ve provided instructions for painting ethnicity segments to identify their origins in specific ancestors, here.

Autosomal and Genealogy

You may have noticed that we’ve now drifted into the genealogy realm of autosomal DNA testing. Ethnicity is nice, but if you want to know who those segments came from, you’ll need:

  • Autosomal test matching to other people
  • To identify your common ancestor with as many matches as you can
  • To match at a company who provides you with segment information for each match
  • To work with DNAPainter, which is very easy

The great news is that you can do all of that using the autosomal tests you took for ethnicity, except at Ancestry who does not provide segment information.

Best Autosomal Test for Matching Other Testers

The best autosomal test for matching may be different for everyone. Let’s look at some of the differentiators and considerations.

If you’re basing a testing recommendation solely on database size, which will probably correlate to more matches, then the DNA testing vendors fall into this order:

If you’re basing that recommendation on the BEST, generally meaning the closest matches for you, there’s no way of knowing ahead of time. At each of the four DNA testing companies, I have very good matches who have not tested elsewhere. If I weren’t in all four databases, I would have missed many valuable matches.

If you’re basing that recommendation on which vendor began testing earliest, meaning they have many tests from people who are now deceased, so you won’t find their autosomal tests in other databases that don’t accept uploads, the recommended testing company order would be:

If you’re basing that recommendation on matches to people who live in other countries, the order would be:

Ancestry and 23andMe are very distant third/fourth because they did not sell widely outside the US initially and still don’t sell in as many countries as the others, meaning their testers’ geography is more limited. However, Ancestry is also prevalent in the UK.

If you’re basing that recommendation on segment information and advanced tools that allow you to triangulate and confirm your genetic link to specific ancestors, the order would be:

Ancestry does NOT provide any segment information.

If you’re basing that recommendation on unique tools provided by each vendor, every vendor has something very beneficial that the others don’t.

In other words, there’s really no clear-cut answer for which single autosomal DNA test to order. The real answer is to be sure you’re fishing in all the ponds. The fish are not the same. Unique people test at each of those companies daily who will never be found in the other databases.

Test at or upload your DNA to all four DNA testing companies, plus GEDmatch. Step-by-step instructions for downloading your raw data file and uploading it to the DNA testing companies who accept uploads can be found, here.

Test or Upload

Not all testing companies accept uploads of raw autosomal DNA data files from other companies. The good news is that some do, and it’s free to upload and receive matches.

Two major DNA testing companies DO NOT accept uploads from other companies. In other words, you have to test at that company:

Two testing companies DO accept uploads from the other three companies. Uploads and matching are free, and advanced features can be unlocked very cost effectively.

  • FamilyTreeDNA – free matching and $19 unlock for advanced features
  • MyHeritage – free matching and $29 unlock.for advanced features

I recommend testing at both 23andMe and Ancestry and uploading one of those files to both FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage, then purchasing the respective unlocks.

GEDmatch

GEDmatch is a third-party matching site, not a DNA testing company. Consider uploading to GEDmatch because you may find matches from Ancestry who have uploaded to GEDmatch, giving you access to matching segment information.

Other Types of DNA

John provided additional information that may prove to be VERY useful. Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can be tested as well and may prove to be more useful than autosomal to positively identify the origins of those two specific lines.

Let’s assume that John takes an autosomal test and discovers that indeed, the 3/16th Native estimate was close. 3/16th equates to about 18% Native which would mean that three of his 16 great-great-grandparents were Native.

John told us that his Grandmother Jones was supposed to be 100% Native.

At the great-great-grandparent level, John has 16 ancestors, so eight on his mother’s side, four from maternal grandmother Jones and four from his maternal grandfather Davis.

John carries the mitochondrial DNA of his mother (red boxes and arrows,) and her mother, through a direct line of females back in time. John also carries the Y-DNA of his father (dark blue box, at left above, and blue arrows below.)

Unlike autosomal DNA which is admixed in every generation, mitochondrial DNA (red arrows) is inherited from that direct matrilineal line ONLY and never combines with the DNA of the father. Mothers give their mitochondrial DNA to both sexes of their children, but men never contribute their mitochondrial DNA to offspring. Everyone has their mother’s mitochondrial DNA.

Because it never recombines with DNA from the father, so is never “watered down,” we can “see” much further back in time, even though we can’t yet identify those ancestors.

However, more importantly, in this situation, John can test his own mitochondrial DNA that he inherited from his mother, who inherited it from her mother, to view her direct matrilineal line.

John’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup that will be assigned during testing tells us unquestionably whether or not his direct matrilineal ancestor was Native on her mother’s line, or not. If not, it may well tell us where that specific line originated.

You can view the countries around the world where Y-DNA haplogroups are found, here, and mitochondrial haplogroups, here.

If John’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is Native, that confirms that one specific line is Native. If he can find other testers in his various lines to test either their Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, John can determine if other ancestors were Native too. If not, those tests will reveal the origins of that line, separate from the rest of his genealogical lines.

Although John didn’t mention his father’s line, if he takes a Y-DNA test, especially at the Big Y-700 level, that will also reveal the origins of his direct paternal line. Y-DNA doesn’t combine with the other parent’s DNA either, so it reaches far back in time too.

Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests are laser-focused on one line each, and only one line. You don’t have to try to sort it out of the ethnicity “pot,” wondering which ancestor was or was not Native.

My Recommendation

When putting together a testing strategy, I recommend taking advantage of free uploads and inexpensive unlocks when possible.

  • To confirm Native American ancestry via ethnicity testing, I recommend testing at 23andMe and uploading to FamilyTreeDNA, then purchasing the $19 unlock. The free upload and $19 unlock are less expensive than testing there directly.
  • For matching, I recommend testing at Ancestry and uploading to MyHeritage, then unlocking the MyHeritage advanced features for $29, which is less expensive than retesting. Ancestry does not provide segment information, but MyHeritage (and the others) do.

At this point, John will have taken two DNA tests, but is now in all four databases, plus GEDmatch if he uploads there.

  • For genealogy research on John’s lines to determine whether or not his mother’s lines were Native, I recommend an Ancestry and a MyHeritage records subscription, plus using WikiTree, which is free.
  • To determine if John’s mother’s direct matrilineal female line was Native, I recommend that John order the mitochondrial DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA.
  • When ordering multiple tests, or uploading at FamilyTreeDNA, be sure to upload/order all of one person’s tests on the same DNA kit so that those results can be used in combination with each other.

Both males and females can take autosomal and mitochondrial DNA tests.

  • To discover what he doesn’t know about his direct paternal, meaning John’s surname line – I recommend the Big Y-700 test at FamilyTreeDNA.

Only males can take a Y-DNA test, so women would need to ask their father, brother, or paternal uncle, for example, to test their direct paternal line.

  • If John can find a male Davis from his mother’s line, I recommend that he purchase the Big Y-700 test at FamilyTreeDNA for that person, or check to see if someone from his Davis line may have already tested by viewing the Davis DNA Project. Like with mitochondrial DNA, the Y-DNA haplogroup will tell John the origins of his direct Davis male ancestor – plus matching of course. He will be able to determine if they were Native, and if not, discover the origins of the Davis line.
  • For assigning segments to ancestors and triangulating to confirm descent from a common ancestor, I recommend 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch, paired with DNAPainter as a tool.

Shopping and Research List

Here are the tests and links recommended above:

More Than He Asked

I realize this answer is way more than John expected or even knew to ask. That’s because there is often no “one” or “one best” answer. There are many ways to approach the question after the goal is defined, and the first “answer” received may be a bit out of context.

For example, let’s say John has 2% Native ancestry and took a test at a vendor who didn’t detect it. John would believe he had none. But a different vendor might find that 2%. If it’s on his mother’s direct matrilineal line, mitochondrial DNA testing will confirm, or refute Native, beyond any doubt, regardless of autosomal ethnicity results – but only for that specific ancestral line.

Autosomal DNA can suggest Native across all your DNA, but Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA confirm it for each individual ancestor.

Even when autosomal testing does NOT show Native American, or African, for example, it’s certainly possible that it’s just too far back in time or has not been passed down during random recombination, but either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA will unquestionably confirm (or refute) the ancestry in question if the right person is tested.

This is exactly why I attempt to find a cousin who descends appropriately from every ancestor and provide testing scholarships. It’s important to obtain Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA information for each ancestor.

Which Test Should I Order?

What steps will help you decide which test or tests to take?

  1. Define your testing goal.
  2. Determine if your Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA will help answer the question.
  3. Determine if you need to find ancestors another generation or two back in time to get the most benefit from DNA testing. In our example, if John discovered that both of his grandparents were enrolled tribal members, that’s huge, and the tribe might have additional information about his family.
  4. Subscribe to Ancestry and MyHeritage records collections as appropriate to perform genealogical research. Additional information not only provides context for your family, it also provides you with the ability to confirm or better understand your ethnicity results.
  5. Extend your tree so that you can obtain the best results from the three vendors who support trees; Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritage. All three use trees combined with DNA tests to provide you with additional information.
  6. Order 23andMe and Ancestry autosomal DNA tests.
  7. Either test at or upload one of those tests to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDmatch.
  8. If a male, order the Big Y-700 DNA test. Or, find a male from your ancestral line who has taken or will take that test. I always offer a testing scholarship and, of course, share the exciting results!
  9. Order a mitochondrial DNA test for yourself and for appropriately descended family members to represent other ancestors. Remember that your father (and his siblings) all carry your paternal grandmother’s mitochondrial DNA. That’s often a good place to start after testing your own DNA.
  10. If your parents or grandparents are alive, or aunts and uncles, test their autosomal DNA too. They are (at least) one generation closer to your ancestors than you are and will carry more of your ancestors’ DNA.
  11. Your siblings will carry some of your ancestors’ DNA that you do not, so test them too if both of your parents aren’t available for testing.

Enjoy!!!

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

Beethoven’s DNA Reveals Surprises – Does Your DNA Match?

Posted on by
19

Beethoven’s DNA has been sequenced from a lock of his hair. That, alone, is amazing news – but that’s just the beginning!

The scientific paper was released this week, and the news media is awash with the unexpected surprises that Beethoven’s DNA has revealed for us. Better yet, his DNA is in the FamilyTreeDNA database and you just might match. Are you related to Beethoven?

His Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal DNA have been recovered and are available for matching.

You can check your autosomal results if you’ve taken a Family Finder test, or you can upload your DNA file from either AncestryDNA, 23andMe or MyHeritage to find out if you match Beethoven. Here are the download/upload instructions for each company.

But first, let’s talk about this amazing sequence of events (pardon the pun) and scientific discoveries!

Beethoven’s Genome is Sequenced

Everyone knows the famous, genius composer, Ludwig van Beethoven. He was born in 1770 in Bonn on the banks of the Rhine River and died in 1827 in Vienna. You can listen to a snippet of his music, here.

We are all about to know him even better.

Yesterday, amid much media fanfare and a press release, the genome and related findings about Beethoven were released by a team of renowned scientists in a collaborative effort. Research partners include the University of Cambridge, the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, the American Beethoven Society, KU Leuven, the University Hospital Bonn, the University of Bonn, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and  FamilyTreeDNA. I want to congratulate all of these amazing scientists for brilliant work.

Beethoven’s Hair Revelations

In the past, we were unable to retrieve viable DNA from hair, but advances have changed that in certain settings. If you’re eyeing grandma’s hair wreath – the answer is “not yet” for consumer testing. Just continue to protect and preserve your family heirlooms as described in this article.

Thankfully, Beethoven participated in the Victorian custom of giving locks of hair as mementos. Eight different locks of hair attributed to Beethoven were analyzed, with five being deemed authentic and one inconclusive. Those locks provided enough DNA to obtain a great deal of different types of information.

Beethoven’s whole genome was sequenced to a 24X coverage level, meaning the researchers were able to obtain 24 good reads of his DNA, providing a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the sequencing results.

What Was Discovered?

Perhaps the most interesting discovery, at least to genealogists, is that someplace in Beethoven’s direct paternal lineage, meaning his Y-DNA, a non-paternal event (NPE) occurred. The paper’s primary authors referred to this as an “extra-pair-paternity event” but I’ve never heard that term before.

Based on testing of other family members, that event occurred sometime between roughly 1572 and Ludwig’s conception in 1770. The reported lack of a baptismal record had already raised red flags with researchers relative to Beethoven’s paternity, but there is nothing to suggest where in the five generations prior to Ludwig von Beethoven that genetic break occurred. Perhaps testing additional people in the future will provide more specificity.

We also discovered that Beethoven was genetically predisposed to liver disease. He was plagued with jaundice and other liver-related issues for much of his later life.

Beethoven, prior to his death, left a handwritten directive asking his physicians to describe and publicize his health issues which included progressive hearing loss to the point of deafness, persistent gastrointestinal problems and severe liver issues that eventually resulted in his death. Cirrhosis of the liver was widely believed to be his cause of death.

In addition, DNA in the hair revealed that Beethoven had contracted Hepatitis B, which also affects the liver.

The combination of genetic predisposition to liver disease, Hepatitis B and heavy alcohol use probably sealed his fate.

Additional health issues that Beethoven experienced are described in the paper, published in Current Biology.

It’s quite interesting that during this analysis the team devised a method to use triangulated segments that they mapped to various geographic locations, as illustrated above in a graphic from the paper. Fascinating work!!!

As a partner in this research, Cambridge University created a beautiful website, including a video which you can watch, here.

Beethoven’s Later Years

This portrait of Beethoven was painted in 1820 just 7 years before his death, at 56 years of age. By this time, he had been completely deaf for several years, had stopped performing and appearing in public. Ironically, he still continued to compose, but was horribly frustrated and discouraged, even contemplating suicide. I can’t even fathom the depths of despair for a person with his musical genius to become deaf, slowly, like slow torture.

His personal life didn’t fare much better. In 1812, he wrote this impassioned love letter to his “Immortal Beloved” whose identity has never been revealed, if it was ever known by anyone other than Beethoven himself. The letter was never sent, which is why we have it today.

FamilyTreeDNA

FamilyTreeDNA, one of the research partners published a blog article, here.

The FamilyTreeDNA research team not only probed Beethoven’s genealogy, they tested people whose DNA should have matched, but as it turns out, did not.

Beethoven’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is H1b1+16,362C, plus a private mutation at C16,176T. Perhaps in the future, Beethoven’s additional private mutation will become a new haplogroup if other members of this haplogroup have it as well. If you have tested your mitochondrial DNA, check and see if Beethoven is on your match list. If you haven’t tested, now’s a great time.

According to the academic paper, Beethoven’s Y-DNA haplogroup is I-Z139, but when viewing Figure 5 in the paper, here, I noticed that Beethoven’s detailed haplogroup is given as I-FT396000, which you can see in the Discover project, here.

Viewing the Time Tree and the Suggested Projects, I noticed that there are four men with that haplogroup, some of whom are from Germany.

The ancestor’s surnames of the I-FT396000 men, as provided in public projects include:

  • Pitzschke (from Germany)
  • Hartmann (from Germany)
  • Stayler
  • Schauer (from Germany)

If your Y-DNA matches Beethoven at any level, you might want to upgrade if you haven’t taken the Big Y-700 test. It would be very interesting to see when and where your most recent common ancestor with Beethoven lived. You just never known – if you match Beethoven, your known ancestry might help unravel the mystery of Beethoven’s unknown paternal lineage.

Beethoven’s DNA is in the FamilyTreeDNA database for matching, including Y-DNA mitochondrial and autosomal results, so you just might match. Take a look! A surprise just might be waiting for you.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

DNAExplain Blog to be Preserved for Future Generations in the Library of Congress

Posted on by
68

Yes, indeed, this is definitely a red-letter event!!!

Not only is having my blog archived in the Library of Congress an incredible honor, but it solves a long-standing problem. Let’s start at the beginning.

In the Beginning…

I started this blog, www.dna-explained.com, also www.dnaexplain.com, for three primary reasons:

  • To educate the public, specifically genetic genealogists, about effectively using DNA for genealogy.
  • To share my own and other relevant vendor and non-vendor research and advancements in the field.
  • To provide a timeline and cumulative progressive history of this emerging field, recorded as it occurred. Essentially an industry diary.

My first blog article was published in July of 2012. The direct-to-consumer genetics industry was about 12 years old at that time. Today, the industry is roughly 23 years old and my blog is approaching its 11th anniversary. I’ve covered nearly half of the life of the genetic genealogy industry.

I recently crossed the threshold of 1600 published articles which equates to about 2.5 articles each week. Those articles total over 4 million words, or more than 15,000 pages of text, plus 20,000 images. That’s about half the size of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. That level of writing and publishing is almost a full-time job, alone, without anything else. Yet, I need to perform the research and do the work to create the content of each article. Not to mention the rest of my activities that pay the bills.

Anyone who writes, specifically, those who write to publish regularly, such as a blog, know that blogging isn’t exactly easy and requires an incredible amount of investmented time. The majority of blogs are abandoned shortly after creation. I fully understand why. You have to love both the process of writing and the subject – and be willing to contribute. Not to mention monitoring and approving the more than 50,000 comments and such.

As you know, this blog is free. I don’t charge for a subscription. I don’t accept paid content, guest articles or write articles for pay. I do have affiliate links at the bottom, but consider those cumulative purchases equivalent to buying me a cup of coffee. (Thank you to those who purchase through those links.)

There is some recurring financial investment in blogging too, but the biggest commitment, by far, is time. Hours and days that can’t be spent elsewhere, like on genealogy, for example – which leads me to my 52 Ancestors articles.

52 Ancestors

Of those slightly more than 1600 articles, 465 are in my 52 Ancestors series. I’m “blaming,” or crediting, Amy Johnson Crow for this, because in January of 2014, she challenged genealogists to write something about one ancestor a week and share or publish it someplace, somehow. I really liked that idea, and came to discover that focusing on one ancestor at a time, not a couple, and not their parents or children, allowed me to live with them for a bit and view their life through their eyes alone. So many times we know very little about our ancestor’s lives, and even less about the women. Interweaving Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA results and matches, relationships and the history of what was happening around them provides an invaluable tool to connect with their lives.

I wasn’t sure I could maintain that one article per week pace, but I wanted to try. The 52 Ancestors challenge was just for one year, right? I could stop anytime, right? But how would I share? I didn’t really think any of you would be interested in MY ancestors, so I very nearly didn’t publish these stories on my blog. I’m INCREDIBLY glad that I did, because I use both genealogy and genetic tools at multiple vendors to confirm those ancestors, to find and identify their descendants, and to break though next-generation brick walls. Plus, I’ve discovered innumerable wonderful cousins!

Having committed, I jumped into 52 Ancestors with both feet and immediately addressed a very long-standing mystery about my father’s missing son. What I didn’t expect to happen was for you, my readers, to help solve it, but you did!!! Two weeks later, Lee was identified, had a name and a history! Wow we were off and running at breakneck speed. To this day, the 52 Ancestors articles remain some of my favorites, along with the process of bringing those ancestors back to life, even if just through words.

Sometimes I don’t write about ancestors specifically, but memorable events in our lifetimes that we’ve shared, like the 1969 moon landing, Y2K and more recently, the anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger explosion. Don’t you wish someone had written or journaled about contemporary milestones in our ancestor’s lives? What I wouldn’t give for that!

Preservation and Perpetuity

One of the reasons I write about my ancestors and genetic genealogy more broadly is because I very much want to share with other researchers, now and in the future.

In some cases, I’m the contributor, but often others contribute invaluable information to me. I firmly believe that a rising tide lifts all ships.

My goal is twofold:

  • To educate others and share methodologies so they can find and confirm their ancestors.
  • To complete the painting of my ancestor’s lives, or as much as I can in my lifetime.

Both of these are foundations upon which others can build.

A few years ago, I began to be concerned with preservation in perpetuity. How might I preserve those stories and the rest of my blog? I realize that in time, the technical aspects of my blog articles will be dated, but the educational basics remain firm. Better research methodologies will be developed. New information, both paper trail and genetic, will, hopefully, be unearthed about my ancestors, but I want the information I’ve provided to remain accessible over time.

I’ve been a technologist long enough to know that nothing is forever. Web sites disappear every day. The Internet Archive is wonderful, but it too may go poof, not to mention that you need to know the website url to access the archived website.

I reached out to WordPress, my blogging platform a few years ago. I asked if I could pay in advance for a “permanent” website, but they said that after payment stopped for the domain name and my subscription for the “non-free” platform, that my articles would revert to a free WordPress site “forever.” That means the url would change. Of course, none of the original links would work, and its value would be much dimished given that the articles would not appear in search engines. Furthermore, “forever” in technology days could be very short indeed.

Resources like FamilySearch aren’t meant for publications like my blog, and neither is WikiTree, especially “someday” after the blog link is no longer valid. I’ve posted links to articles on my blog on the ancestors’ profiles at WikiTree and in my personal trees at MyHeritage and Ancestry, but once the link is gone, effectively, so is the information.

I could copy the articles to word/pdf documents and attach those files to the trees, but we really don’t know what will and will not have longevity in today’s technical genealogical environment. Plus, I don’t want my articles behind a paywall anyplace, especially since I’ve made them available for free.

However, the Library of Congress has now solved that quandary for me and I’m both elated and honored.

The Invitation  

In the crazy days leading up to RootsTech, a gem of an email landed in my inbox. It was supposedly the Library of Congress (LOC) requesting to archive this blog and make this website available for all perpetuity as part of a collection of historically and culturally significant websites designated for preservation.

That’s quite a compliment.

I wasn’t quite sure I believed it. In fact, I was pretty sure that I didn’t.

Of course, the first thing I thought was that these were really brilliant scammers.

I contacted the LOC and discovered that this email was, indeed, genuine. I was both shocked and humbled.

To Whom It May Concern:

The United States Library of Congress requests permission to include your website in the Local History and Genealogy Web Archive, which is part of a larger collection of historically and culturally significant websites that have been designated for preservation. The following URL has been selected for archiving: https://dna-explained.com/.

The Library hopes that you share its vision of preserving digital content and making it available to current and future generations of researchers. As the internet has become an increasingly important and influential part of our lives, we believe the historical record would be incomplete if websites like yours are not preserved and made a part of it. We also believe that expanding access to the Library’s collections is one of the best ways we can increase opportunities for education and scholarship around the world. Please provide the Library with permission to archive your website and provide public access to archived versions of your website by filling out the form available here: <link redacted.>

With your permission, the Library of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of content from your website at regular intervals over time. In order to properly archive the above URL, we may archive other portions of the website and public content that your page links to on third party sites such as social media platforms. In addition to the aforementioned collection, archived content from your website may be added to other relevant collections in the future. This content would be available to researchers only at Library facilities or by special arrangement, unless you additionally grant the Library permission for the content to become more broadly available through hosting on the Library’s public website, which would be done no sooner than one year after it was collected. For more information on the web archiving process, please read our frequently asked questions.

We encourage you to learn more about the Library’s Web Archiving program and explore our collections to see examples of how we archive websites. If you have any questions, comments, or recommendations concerning the archiving of your website, please email the Library’s Web Archiving Team at webcapture@loc.gov.

Thank you.

Library of Congress Web Archiving Team

It would be an understatement to say I was incredibly excited. There were no balloons or jubilant noisemakers though, and the cats were unimpressed as I clicked and agreed for my collective body of work to succeed me “forever.” Who knew milestones like this were so quiet, with only me winking to Mom and Dad who I’m positive were watching and silently cheering!

Here’s the confirmation of my acceptance.

So, in another hundred years, just like I can search for, say, Estes photos from a century or more ago at the Library of Congress, people living four or five generations in the future will be able to search for and read about the very early days of genetic genealogy and find those ancestor stories. They will also be able to learn something about the time in which we live today.

I can stop worrying about more than a decade’s worth of work disappearing after I join my ancestors, hopefully to obtain the answers that have eluded me here.

I’m incredibly, incredibly humbled and grateful to the Library of Congress for this amazing opportunity to contribute to our collective heritage. Thanks to each and every one of you for joining me on our journey into the history books.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research

FamilyTreeDNA Keynote, RootsTech Wrap + Special Show Pricing Still Available

Posted on by
11

Am I ever whipped. My two live Sessions that were actually a series of three classes each took place on Friday. Yes, that means I presented 6 sessions on Friday, complete with a couple of Zoom gremlins, of course. It’s the nature of the time we live in.

RootsTech tried something new that they’ve never done before. The Zoom class sessions were restricted to 500 attendees each. RootsTech was concerned about disappointed attendees when the room was full and they couldn’t get in, so we live-streamed three of my sessions to Facebook in addition to the 500 Zoom seats.

As of this evening, 6,800 of you have viewed the Facebook video, “Associating Autosomal DNA Segments With Ancestors.” I’m stunned, and touched. Thank you, thank you. Here’s the Facebook link, and here’s the RootsTech YouTube link.

My afternoon sessions, “What Can I DO With Ancestral DNA Segments?” can be viewed here at RootsTech or here on YouTube.

I must admit, I’m really, REALLY looking forward to being together again because RootsTech without the socializing and in-person Expo Hall just isn’t the same. Still, be sure to take a virtual walk through the Expo Hall, here. There’s lots of content in the vendors” booths and it will remain available for all of 2022, until the beginning of RootsTech 2023..

Between prep for my classes and presenting, I didn’t have a lot of time to watch other sessions, but I was able to catch the FamilyTreeDNA keynote and their 2022 Product Sneak Peek. Both were quite worthwhile.

However, I just realized that FamilyTreeDNA’s special show pricing promo codes are still valid for the next two days.

 Special Prices Are Still Available

Every single test that FamilyTreeDNA offers, including UPGRADES, is on sale right now by using special RootsTech promo codes. These prices are good for two more days, through March 7th, so if you want to purchase a Y DNA test, mitochondrial, or Family Finder autosomal test, or upgrade, click here to see the prices only available at RootsTech (and to you through my blog.) It’s not too late, but it will be soon.

To order, click here to sign on or place your order.

FamilyTreeDNA’s Keynote

FamilyTreeDNA’s keynote was titled FamilyTreeDNA: 22 Years of Breaking Down Brick Walls.

I really enjoyed this session, in part because I’ve been a part of the genetic genealogy revolution and evolution from the beginning. Not only that, but I know every single person they interviewed for this video, and have for years. If you’ve been participating in genetic genealogy for some time, you’ll know many of these people too. For a minute, it was almost as good as visiting in person.

I’m going to share a few highlights from the session, but I’m also going to include information NOT in the video. I was one of the early project administrators, so I’ve been along for the ride for just a few months shy of 22 years.

FamilyTreeDNA was the first US company to enter the DNA testing space, the first to offer Y DNA testing, and the only one of the early companies that remains viable today. FamilyTreeDNA was the result of Bennett Greenspan’s dream – but initially, he was only dreaming small. Just like any other genealogist – he was dreaming about breaking down a brick wall which he explains in the video.

I’m so VERY grateful that Bennett had that dream, and persisted, because it means that now millions of us can do the same – and will into the future.

Bennett tells this better than anyone else, along with his partner, Max Blankfeld.

“Some people were fascinated,” Bennett said.

Yep, that’s for sure! I certainly was.

“Among the first genetic genealogists in the world.”

“Frontier of the genetic genealogy revolution.”

Indeed, we were and still are. Today’s genetic genealogy industry wouldn’t even exist were it not for FamilyTreeDNA and their early testers.

I love Max Blankfeld’s story of their first office, and you will too.

This IS the quintessential story of entrepreneurship.

In 2004, when FamilyTreeDNA was only four years old, they hosted the very first annual international project administrator’s conference. At that time, it was believed that the only people that would be interested in learning at that level and would attend a DNA conference would be project administrators who were managing surname and regional projects. How times have changed! This week at RootsTech, we probably had more people viewing DNA sessions than people that had tested altogether in 2004. I purchased kit number 30,087 on December 28, 2004, and kit 50,000 a year later on New Year’s Eve right at midnight!

In April 2005, Nat Geo partnered with FamilyTreeDNA and founded the Genographic Project which was scheduled to last for 5 years. They were hoping to attract 100,000 people who would be willing to test their DNA to discover their roots – and along with that – our human roots. The Genographic Project would run for an incredible 15 years.

In 2005 when the second Project Administrator’s conference was held at the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington DC, I don’t think any of us realized the historic nature of the moment we were participating in.

I remember walking from my hotel, ironically named “Helix,” to that iconic building. I had spent my childhood reading those yellow magazines at school and dreaming of far-away places. As an adult, I had been a life-long subscriber. Never, in my wildest dreams did I imagine ever visiting Nat Geo and walking the marble Explorer’s Hall with the portraits of the founders and early explorers hanging above and keeping a watchful eye on us. We would not disappoint them.

That 100,000 participation goal was quickly reached, within weeks, and surpassed, leading us all to walk the road towards the building that housed the Explorer’s Hall, Explorers’ in Residence, and so much more.

We were all explorers, pioneers, adventurers seeking to use the DNA from our ancestors in the past to identify who they were. Using futuristic technology tools like a mirror to look backward into the dim recesses of the past.

The archaeology being unearthed and studied was no longer at the ends of the earth but within our own bodies. The final frontier. Reaching out to explore meant reaching inward, and backward in time, using the most progressive technology of the day.

Most of the administrators in attendance, all volunteers, were on a first-name basis with each other and also with Max, Bennett, and the scientists.

Here, Bennett with a member of the science team from the University of Arizona describes future research goals. Every year FamilyTreeDNA has improved its products in numerous ways.

Today, that small startup business has its own ground-breaking state-of-the-art lab. More than 10,000 DNA projects are still administered by passionate volunteer administrators who focus on what they seek – such as the history of their surname or a specific haplogroup. Their world-class lab allows FamilyTreeDNA to focus on research and science in addition to DNA processing. The lab allows constant improvement so their three types of genetic genealogy products, Y, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA.

Those three types of tests combine to provide genealogical insights and solutions. The more the science improves, the more solutions can and will be found.

If you watch the video, you’ll see 6 people who have solved particularly difficult and thorny problems. We are all long-time project administrators, all participate on a daily basis in this field and community – and all have an undying love for both genealogy and genetic genealogy.

You’ll recognize most of these people, including yours truly.

  • I talk about my mother’s heritage, unveiled through mitochondrial DNA.
  • Rob Warthen speaks about receiving a random phone call from another genealogist as his introduction to genetic genealogy. Later, he purchased a DNA test for his girlfriend, an adoptee, for Christmas and sweetened the deal by offering to “go where you’re from” for vacation. He didn’t realize why she was moved to tears – that test revealed the first piece of information she had ever known about her history. DNA changed her and Rob’s life. He eventually identified her birth parents – and went on to found both DNAAdoption.org and DNAGedcom.
  • Richard Hill was adopted and began his search in his 30s, but it would be DNA that ended his search. His moving story is told in his book, Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA.
  • Mags Gaulden, professional genealogist and founder of Grandma’s Genes and MitoYDNA.org tells about her 91-year-old adopted client who had given up all hope of discovering her roots. Back in the 1950s, there was literally nothing in her client’s adoption file. She was reconciled to the fact that “I would never know who I was.” Mags simply could not accept that and 2 years later, Mags found her parents’ names.

  • Lara Diamond’s family was decimated during the holocaust. Lara’s family thought everyone in her grandfather’s family had been killed, but in 2013, autosomal DNA testing let her to her grandfather’s aunt who was not killed in the holocaust as everyone thought. The aunt and first cousin were living in Detroit. Lara went from almost no family to a family reunion, shown above. She says she finally met “people who look like me.”
  • Katherine Borges founded ISOGG.org, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy in 2005, following the first genetic genealogy conference in late 2004 where she realized that the genealogy community desperately needed education – beginning with DNA terms. I remember her jokingly standing in the hallway saying that she understood three words, “a, and and the.” While that’s cute today, it was real at that time because DNA was a foreign language, technology, and concept to genealogy. In fact, for years we were banned from discussing the topic on RootsWeb. The consummate genetic genealogist, Katherine carries DNA kits in her purse, even to Scotland!

Bennett says that he’s excited about the future, for the next generation of molecular scientific achievements. It was Bennett that greenlit the Million Mito project. Bennett’s challenge as a genetic genealogy/business owner was to advance the science that led to products while making enough money to be able to continue advancing the science. It was a fine line, but Max and Bennett navigated those waters quite well.

Apparently, Max, Bennett, and the FamilyTreeDNA customers weren’t the only people who believe that.

In January 2021, myDNA acquired and merged with FamilyTreeDNA. Max and Bennett remain involved as board members.

Dr.Lior Rauchberger, CEO of myDNA which includes FamilyTreeDNA

Dr. Lior Rauchberger, the CEO of the merged enterprise believes in the power of genetics, including genetic genealogy, and is continuing to make investments in FamilyTreeDNA products – including new features. There have already been improvements in 2021 and in the presentation by Katy Rowe, the Product Manager for the FamilyTreeDNA products, she explains what is coming this year.

I hope you enjoyed this retrospective on the past 22 years and are looking forward to crossing new frontiers, and breaking down those brick walls, in the coming decades.

Sneak Peek at FamilyTreeDNA – New Features and Upcoming Releases

You can watch Katy Rowe’s Sneak Peek video about what’s coming, here.

Of course, while other companies need to split their focus between traditional genealogy research records and DNA, FamilyTreeDNA does not. Their only focus is genetics. They plan to make advances in every aspect of their products.

FamilyTreeDNA announced a new Help Center which you can access, here. I found lots of short videos and other helpful items. I had no idea it existed.

In 2021, customers began being able to order a combined Family Finder and myDNA test to provide insights into genealogy along with health and wellness

Wellness includes nutrition and fitness insights.

Existing customers either are or will be able to order the myDNA upgrade to their existing test. The ability to upgrade is being rolled out by groups. I haven’t had my turn yet, but when I do, I’ll test and let you know what I think. Trust me, I’m not terribly interested in how many squats I can do anymore, because I already know that number is zero, but I am very interested in nutrition and diet. I’d like to stay healthy enough to research my ancestors for a long time to come.

FamilyTreeDNA announced that over 72,000 men have taken the Big Y test which has resulted in the Y DNA tree of mankind surpassing 50,000 branches.

This is utterly amazing when you consider how far we’ve come since 2002. This also means that a very high number of men, paired with at least one other man, actually form a new branch on the Y haplotree.

The “age” of tester’s Y DNA haplogroups is now often within the 500-year range – clearly genealogical in nature. Furthermore, many leaf-tip haplogroups as defined by the Big Y SNPs are much closer than that and can differentiate between branches of a known family. The Big Y-700 is now the go-to test for Y DNA and genealogy.

Of course, all these new branches necessitate new maps and haplogroup information. These will be released shortly and will provide users with the ability to see the paths together, which is the view you see here, or track individual lines. The same is true for mitochondrial DNA as well.

Y DNA tree branch ages will be forthcoming soon too. I think this is the #1 most requested feature.

On the Mitochondrial DNA side of the house, the Million Mito project has led to a significant rewrite of the MitoTree. As you know, I’m a Million Mito team member.

Here’s Dr. Paul Maier’s branch, for example. You can see that in the current version of the Phylotree, there is one blue branch and lots of “child” branches beneath that. Of course, when we’re measuring the tree from “Eve,” the end tip leaf branches look small, but it’s there that our genealogy resides.

In the new version, yet to be released, there is much more granularity in the branches of U5a2b2a.

To put this another way, in today’s tree, haplogroup U5a2b2a is about 5,000 years old, but the newly defined branches bring the formation of Paul’s (new) haplogroup into the range of about 500 years. Similar in nature to the Y DNA tree and significantly more useful for genealogical purposes. If you have not taken a mitochondrial DNA full sequence test, please order one now. Maybe your DNA will help define a new branch on the tree plus reveal new information about your genealogy.

Stay tuned on this one. You know the Million Mito Project is near and dear to my heart.

2022 will also see much-needed improvements in the tree structure and user experience, as well as the matches pages.

There are a lot of exciting things on FamilyTreeDNA’s plate and I’m excited to see these new features and functions roll out over the next few months.

Just the Beginning

The three days of RootsTech 2022 may be over, but the content isn’t.

In fact, it’s just the beginning of being able to access valuable information at your convenience. The vendor booths will remain in the Expo Hall until RootsTech 2023, so for a full year, plus the individual instructor’s sessions will remain available for three years.

In a few days, after I take a break, I’ll publish a full list of DNA sessions, along with links for your convenience.

Thank You Shout Outs

I want to say a HUGE thank you to RootsTech for hosting the conference and making it free. I specifically want to express my gratitude to the many, many people working diligently behind the scenes during the last year, and frantically during the past three days.

Another huge thank you to the speakers and vendors whose efforts provide the content for the conference.

And special thanks to you for loving genealogy, taking your time to watch and learn, and for reading this blog.

_____________________________________________________________

Follow DNAexplain on Facebook, here or follow me on Twitter, here.

Share the Love!

You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

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 Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

My Book

Genealogy Books

Genealogy Research