Agnes Muncy (1803-after1880), A Grieved Mother, 52 Ancestors #52

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Agnes Muncy was reportedly born on January 19, 1803 in Virginia, although I have not been able to confirm that date. She was probably born in Lee County very near the border with Claiborne County,TN, probably on or near the Powell River, to Samuel Muncy and Anne “Nancy” Workman.

Agnes was married about 1819 or 1820 to Fairwix Claxton or Clarkson, probably in either Lee County, Virginia or Claiborne County, TN. They lived in the part of Claiborne County that would become Hancock County in the mid-1840s.

Various members of the Muncy family owned land on the Lee County side of the Virginia/Tennessee border and many attended the Thompson Settlement Church in Lee County, Virginia where they would have met the residents living in the northern part of Claiborne County, Tennessee, living on the Powell River. Church minutes begin in 1800, but the first Muncy’s joined in 1822. However, those records don’t include Agnes nor her husband. Her parents records are found in church records beginning in 1833. Agnes had to be living in the area in 1819 or 1820 in order to meet Fairwick.

Fairwix (Fairwick) Claxton and Agnes Muncy’s first child was born about 1820 with them having a total of 8 children that we are aware of.

James R., 1820-1845/50, unknown spouse, their 4 children living with Fairwick and Agnes in the 1850 census
Henry Avery, 1821-1864, married Nancy “Bessie” Manning, died in the Civil War
William “Billy,” born about 1822, died 1920, married Martha Walker, widow of Henry Claxton (son of James Lee Claxton and Sarah Cook,) married second to and Eliza J. Manning
Samuel, 1827-1876 married Elizabeth “Bettie” Speaks
Sarah “Sally,” 1829-1900 married Robert Shiflet
Nancy, 1831/33-before 1875 married John Wolfe
Rebecca, 1834-1923 married Calvin Wolfe
John, 1840-1863 never married, died in the Civil War

In the 1850 Hancock County, TN census, Fairwick and Agness are living with their 3 youngest children, their 4 grandchildren, the children of their deceased son James, and Agnes’s mother, Nancy Monsy, age 81, born in Virginia. Their sons, William and Samuel live in adjacent homes, and Fairwick’s mother, Sarah Claxton, age 75, lives in the next house. Truly a multi-generational family.

Amazingly enough, in the 1860 census, Nancy Muncy is still living with Fairwick and Agnes, now listed as age 99, and “feeble.” Fairwick’s mother still lives next door as well. This is a family with amazing longevity.

They all lived together on the land owned by Fairwick Claxton and his mother, Sarah Claxton, whose land adjoined Fairwick’s.

The Rob Camp Church in Hancock County, TN was incorporated in 1845 from the mother church, Thompson Settlement, located across the border in Lee Co., VA, although there had been separate services in different locations for decades.

In October 185? – Agnes Clarkston was received into the congregation by letter, although it does not say what church the letter was from. This means that she had already been baptized elsewhere and was a member in good standing. Regardless of what church she had been attending, moving to Rob Camp made sense since it was located only a couple miles from where she and Fairwick lived – much closer than other churches that existed in that timeframe. Her husband, Fairwick was received on February 17, 1851 by experience into the same church, which means he was baptized at that time.

According to the Rob Camp Church minutes, on the second Saturday of April, 1869, Rob Camp Church released the following people from their fellowship to form the Mount Zion Baptist Church. On the third Saturday of May, the following list of brothers and sisters met to officially constitute the church which would be located on a parcel of land belonging to William Mannon. Most of these people were related to each other in some fashion.

E.H. Clarkson (Fairwix’s nephew)
Mary Clarkson (Mary Martin, wife of E.H. Clarkson)
William Mannon
Elizabeth Mannon
Mary Muncy
Clarissa Hill
Sarah Shefley (Shiflet, daughter of Fairwick and Agnes)
Farwix Clarkson (husband to Agnes)
Agnes Clarkson (Agnes Muncy, wife to Fairwick)
Nancy Furry (Granddaughter of Fairwick and Agnes)
Elizabeth Clarkson (Elizabeth Speaks, wife to Samuel Clarkson, son of Fairwick and Agnes)
Margret Clarkson (granddaughter of Fairwick and Agnes through son Samuel)
William Bolton (son of Joseph Bolton)
James Bolton (son of Joseph Bolton)
John Grimes
Catherine Grimes
Joseph Bolton (this would be Joseph Preston Bolton Sr., the deacon whose son, Joseph “Dode” Bolton married Margret Clarkson)

One of the first things the new church did was to create a list of members and they all signed a very lengthy statement about the mission of the church.

Mt. Zion Church Covenants 1869 upon formation.

We the Baptist Church of Christ at Mount Zion, Hancock County, Tennessee being organized and constituting an independent body professing to believe and maintain the Christian faith of the general union to which we belong do covenant and agree to and with each other to live together in Christian love and fellowship endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bounds of peace and to submit ourselves to each other in church government to be ruled and guided by a gospel discipline according to the word of God and to contribute of our worldly goods when necessary to the decent support of the gospel and ordinances and to the relief of the poor and to attend our church meetings as often as providence may permit strictly adhering to the word of God and our rules of decorum, viz, our church meeting to begin and close with prayer. A moderator and clerk to be chosen. The clerk of our own body. The moderator shall be at liberty to call on any other Brother to fill his place when necessary. Every male member wishing to speak shall rise from his seat address the moderator and then speak strictly adhering to the subject matter under consideration d by ? means cast reflection on those who spoke before him. No member of this church is permitted to address another member in any other appellation than of Brother neither is any member permitted to abruptly absent himself in time of business without leave of the moderator. When this church happens to be divided in sentiment on any matter of distress she shall be at liberty to call on any sister church or churches for help in testimony whereof we here unto set our names both males and females.

The Articles of Faith

We believe in one only true and living God as He is revealed to us in the scripture viz: Father, Son and Holy Ghost
We believe that the scripture of the old and new testament are the word of God and the only rule of all saving knowledge and obedience.
We believe in the doctrine of election according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.
We believe in the doctrine of original sin.
We believe in mans impotency to recover himself from the fallen state he is in by his own free will or ability.
We believe that sinners are justified in the sight of God only by the imputed right of Jesus Christ.
We believe that the electaccordin (sic) to the foreknowledge of God will be called connected regenerated and sanctified by the holy spirit.
We believe the saints will persevere in grace and never finally fall away.
We believe of a truth that God is no respecter of persons but in every nation he that fearith Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.
We believe in the revealed religion of Jesus Christ internally in the soul.
We believe that Baptism and the Lords Supper are ordinances of Jesus Christ and that true believers are the only subjects of these ordinances and that the true mode of baptism is by immersion.
We believe in the resurrection of the dead and a general judgement.
We believe that the punishment of the wicked will be everlasting and that the joys of the righteous will be eternal.
We believe that no minister has a right to the administration of the ordinances only such as are regularly called and comes under the impositions of hands by presbytery.

This Church shall be known by the name of Mount Zion – May 3, 1869

Constitution of Mount Zion Church Hancock County, TN of United Baptist.

We do with mutual consent agree to embody ourselves together as a religious society to worship God and being a church congregation holding believers baptism by immersion our hole bodys once underwater. (sic)
Final perseverance of the saints through grace and the resurrection of our bodys.
Relieving the old and new testament to be the revealed will of God.
Believing in a Christian Sabbath being a holy and heavenly institution.
And not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some ??.
And not expose the infirmities of our brethren to any without or within the community but in gospel order.
And not neglect attending meetings.
And not remove out of the bounds of the church without applying for a letter of dismission.
To contribute of our worldly substance to decent support of church and ministry.
Unto which with mutual consent and agreement we here unto set our hand.

Rules of Decorum

Church shall be opened and closed with prayer.
A moderator shall be chosen by the church.
Only one member shall speak at a time who shall rise from his seat and address the moderator whit the appellation of Brother.
The members thus speaking shall not be interrupted in his speech by any person except the moderator till he is done speaking.
He shall strictly adhere to the subject and in no wise cast reflections on those who spoke before him so as to make remarkes on his margins? or imperfections but shall fully state he case and mater so as to convey his lite or meaning.
No member shall abruptly brake off or absent himself from the church without liberty obtained.
No member shall speak more than 3 times on one subject without liberty obtained from the church.
No member shall have liberty of laughing or whispering in time of public worship.
Members of the church shall address each other with the appellation Brother.
The moderator shall not interrupt any one while speaking till he gives his views except he violates these rules of decorum.
The names of the several members of this church shall be enrolled by the clerk
The moderator shall be entitled to the liberty of speaking as other members provided his station be filed and he shall have no vote unless the church be equally divided.
Any member knowingly and willingly shall brake any of the rules shall reproved by the church as she may think proper.
This church shall be ruled a majority except in receiving and dismissing members which shall be unanimous so as not to infringe on the principles of the union.
The church shall be at liberty to alter any article in these rules of decorum when two thirds of the members shall think proper.

This page is followed by an undated membership list that includes the following family names.

E. H. Clarkson, deacon.
Farwix Clarkson, deceased
Joseph B. Bolton
William Moncy, excluded
Solomon Mancy
Jane Bolton, dismissed
Margret (sic) Bolton, dismissed
Mary Clarkson
Nancy Furry
Margret Clarkson
Agness Clarkson
Elizabeth Clarkson

Another list includes:

Mary Clarkson, deceased
Margret Bolton, deceased
Agness Clarkson, deceased
Elizabeth Clarkson, dismissed

This tells us that Agnes died as a church member, so did not transfer her membership elsewhere.

According to later depositions, Agnes’s husband, Fairwick, became ill about 1867 and languished for 7 years before passing away on Wednesday morning, February 11, 1874, with Agnes at his side. It had been a brutal decade for Agnes, and it wasn’t going to get better.

After Fairwick’s death, a chancery suit was filed by his son, William, against Fairwick’s estate. That suit managed to make its way to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which is the only reason we have those records today, including depositions. The entire case is transcribed in the story of Fairwick’s life, but within that case, we hear Agnes’s voice in her deposition. This is the only personal remnant of Agnes, other than the DNA that her descendants carry.

Deposition of Agnes Clarkson

July 15, 1876 – Wm Clarkson vs Samuel Clarkson et al – In the Chancery Court of Sneedville, Hancock Co., Tenn – Deposition of Agnes Clarkson, Nancy Ferry others with Nancy Snavely.

Taken by agreement on the 15th day of July at the house of Agnes Clarkson in the ?? and their attorney before H. F. Coleman a Justice of the Peace for Hancock County to be read as evidence on the trial of said case and behalf of the defendants.

The said witness Agnes Clarkson aged 74 years being duly sworn deposes as follows:

Question 1st by defendant. What relationship are you to the parties of this said and are you the widow of Fairwic Clarkson dec’d?

Ans – I am the mother of William & Samuel Clarkson and the widow of Farwix Clarkson.

Question 2 by defendant – Were you with your late husband Fairwix Clarkson during his last sickness and up to the time of his death?

Ans – I was.

By same – What was the condition of his mind during his last sickness was he cognizant of his business and of sane and disposing mind?

Ans – He seemed like he was. I never saw him out of his mind but one time a little and that was from the effect of medicine and that was but a few minutes. His sister came in during the time and he knew her.

By same – Was the time you speak of being a little out of mind before or after the execution of (page 2) the deed by Fairwix Clarkson decd to defendants for the lands in controversy in this case?

Ans – It was before.

By same – Did you hear the decd Fairwix Clarkson say any thing about the disposition he had made of the lands in dispute in this case as what he intended to make of said land and at what time did you hear him talk about the matter?

Ans – I have years ago heard him talk about what disposition he intended to make of it.

By same – Please state what he said before to the disposition of said lands.

Ans – He and my self were alone and he said he wanted his business wound up that he intended to make three deeds one to Samuel Clarkson, one to Rebecca Wolf and one to Nancy Ferry (was then). I asked him what he intended to do with his other children and he said he would do by them as they had done by him they had left him in a bad condition and he had nothing for them. I persuaded him to leave some land for them and he said I need not talk to him for he would not.

By same – Did Fairwix Clarkson decd say any thing to you about the matter after the deed was made to the lands in controversy and if so state what he said?

Ans – He did, he said he had his business as he wanted it that he had left Rebecca a little home on the other side of well hollow next Rhonda Shifletts and Samuel the old home place below the road and Nancy the west side of the well hollow this was on Sunday morning after the deeds were made.

(page 3) Cross Examination by complainant – Question – State if you can the day of the week and the day of the month that Fairwix Clarkson died.

Ans – He died on Wednesday morning the 11th day of February I think.

By the same – State whether or not Fairwick Clarkson sold them the lands mentioned in the pleadings or give it to them.

Ans – He sold the land to them.

By the same – At what time did he sell the lands to them and what did pay him for the land?

Ans – I cannot tell at what time he sold the land. They paid him in various ways there was a right smart of money paid, but I do not know who paid the money now nor do I recollect any thing else they paid him in particular. They made him a crop every year and paid him the rent on there own crop besides.

By the same – State if any one besides your self heard the conversation that Farewick Clarkson had to you about what disposition he had made of his lands after the execution of the deeds.

Ans – Clementine Clarkson came in when he was talking to me and I think she heard the conversation.

Agnes X Clarkson – Her mark

Agnes Clarkson did not know how to sign her name, so she was also likely unable to read. In fact, the 1880 census confirms that and also tells us that Agnes’s granddaughter, Nancy, then age 42, can’t read or write either, but Nancy’s daughter, Ann, age 15, can both read and write. Agnes lived just one house away from her daughter-in-law Elizabeth Claxton, widow of her son Samuel.

Fairwick and Agnes raised their grandchildren, the children of their eldest son, James, after his death. Their granddaughter, Nancy, probably lived on the land with them their entire life, and in their house with them from the time she was about 10 years old when her parents died. According to the depositions, Nancy cared for Fairwix in his last years of sickness and he rewarded her with a house of her own and land. She married James Snavely during the lawsuit after Fairwick’s death. In 1880, we find Agnes, Nancy’s grandmother who raised her, living with James Snavely and Nancy Clarkson Furry Snavely with her daughter from her first marriage to a Furry male. The daughter is listed as Ann J. Snaveley and the daughter of James Snaveley, which is incorrect, according to both the earlier census and the depositions. Agnes Claxton, age 80, born in Virginia is listed as his mother-in-law when in actuality she is James Snaveley’s grandmother-in-law, according to the depositions. This census created a huge amount of confusion for researchers for decades. Agnes is very likely still living on her original land, just with the granddaughter.

There is no 1890 census, and by 1900 Agnes is gone.

Although Agnes Muncy Clarkson’s grave is unmarked, it is assuredly in the Clarkson/Claxton family cemetery as she lived on that land with Fairwix her entire life, and Fairwix’s grave is marked in that cemetery. In the photo below, Agnes grave is likely beside Fairwix, whose stone is pictured with the broken corner. There are two fieldstones beside him, one on the left and one on the right.

I’d love to know more about Agnes Muncy through her mitochondrial DNA which is passed from mothers to all of their children, but only passed on by daughters

Agnes and Fairwick only had two daughters that had daughters to pass their mitochondrial DNA on down the line.

Sally (or Sarah born in 1829, died 1900) married Robert Shiflet and their female children were:

Elizabeth (1858-1936) who married William Lundy and had 5 daughters
Catherine b 1863 married Pleasant Powell, children unknown
Rhoda (1865-1954) married John Martin Burchfield and had 5 daughters
Agnes b 1869 married Tom Smith and had 3 daughters

Rebecca (183401923) married Calvin Wolfe and their female children were:

Nancy (1860-1924) married a Marcum
June or Jane E. (probably Elizabeth) b 1864
Agnes b 1869
Sasha b 1873
Easter C. b 1877

If you are male or female and descend from the women listed above, through all females to the current generation and have tested your mitochondrial DNA, please let me know. If not, I have a scholarship for you for mitochondrial DNA testing.

We can learn about Agnes deep history, before surnames, thought mitochondrial DNA. DNA gives us more chapters in the lives of our ancestors.

In Summary

We know that Agnes was a religious woman, was a founder of a church, and withstood a lot of pain in her lifetime.

We know nothing about her childhood, but we do know that births of her children were spaced in a way that suggests she lost four young children.

By 1845, she had lost her adult son, James, and his wife, and was raising his four children. Furthermore, two of those children died, at least one, William, in service during the Civil War, and the second, John about that same time.

In addition, Agnes lost two of her own sons during that war, John and Henry, plus her son-in-law, John Wolfe. John Clarkson died of typhoid on March 23, 1863 and is buried in the Nashville National Cemetery, according to his service records. Henry Avery Claxton (Clarkson) was a blacksmith and died “of disease” on February 2, 1864 in the Brown General Hospital in Louisville, KY. He is buried at Cave Hill National Cemetrey in Louisville and was described as having dark hair, a dark complexion, and blue eyes.

Her granddaughter that she raised, Nancy Claxton Furry lost her husband about this time as well, although we don’t know the specifics. Nancy Furry came back to live with Agnes and Fairwick with her infant daughter.

By the time Agnes’s husband, Fairwick, died in 1874, their daughter Nancy Wolfe had passed away too.

With Fairwick’s death, Agnes, then 72, would have lost 4 children as youngsters and 4 of her 8 adult children as well. The Civil War was brutal to this family and those who did not pass away were dramatically affected.

A descendant of William Clarkson’s wife, Martha Walker, tells us the following information that he found in a chancery suite involving Edward Walker, the person who raised Martha, but likely not her father:

“One of the uncollectible debts was a loan from Edward Walker’s estate to Bill Clarkson made by Henry Walker, Edward’s original administrator, who was at this point dead for about 15 years. A statement was made that Bill had lost all of his money during the war, was dirt poor, and didn’t stand a chance of ever repaying the debt. It doesn’t really say how or why, but it does suggest that he was a desperate man by the time that he sued over his own father’s estate.”

As I read the depositions of the various people included in the chancery suit filed by William Clarkson against his siblings, I could virtually hear the pain for Agnes Muncy Claxton. Of the 4 children she had left in this world, 2 of the 4, Sarah Shiflet and William Claxton, were filing suit and testifying against the other two, Samuel Claxton and Rebecca Wolfe, accusing them of unduly influencing her husband, Fairwick, while attempting to gain part of his estate. This lawsuit drug on for at least 6 years, first being tried locally, then in the Supreme Court in Memphis. We don’t know if Agnes died before it was resolved or not.

Furthermore, Agnes’s son Samuel would die in the midst of the suit from the after-effects of his service in the Civil War as well, leaving only one child living near her and the other two at a distance and estranged.

For a woman who bore at least 8 children and probably 12, who would ever think she would wind up with only one child, Rebecca, plus her widowed daughter-in-law and grandchildren next door. I’m sure this was not the life she imagined nor had in mind as a young bride in 1819.

I hope this woman truly can rest in peace, because she certainly deserves it and peace was not something that rested with her family in her lifetime – either by virtue of the Civil War and its aftermath nor the resulting family dynamics.

It’s bad enough, tragic, when something external, like a war, tears your family apart, but it’s living hell to watch the remainder of your family self-destruct before your eyes. To the best of my knowledge, the Claxton family members never reconciled during their lifetimes.

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Updated Native American Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Roberta Estes

I’ve updated the list of Native American Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups and their sources.

This most recent update comes from both GenBank the Anzick extrapolations, with links provided when possible.

If you know of other credibly sourced Native haplogroup information, please let me know.

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Mitochondrial DNA Mutation Rates and Common Ancestors

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Roberta Estes

One of the most common questions I receive about mitochondrial DNA is what matches with 1 or 2 differences, meaning mutations, mean relative to how long ago the two people are related.

And the answer, is, of course, “it depends.” Don’t you just hate that.

First, it depends on whether you are referring to just the mutations in the HVR1 or HVR1+HVR2 regions, or the entire full sequence. Clearly, the full sequence test provides the most refinement, because it tests the entire mitochondria, all 16569 locations, and compares them with others who take the full sequence test.

Family Tree DNA has this to say.

- Matching on HVR1 means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last fifty-two generations. That is about 1,300 years.
- Matching on HVR1 and HVR2 means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last twenty-eight generations. That is about 700 years.
- Matching exactly on the Mitochondrial DNA Full Sequence test brings your matches into more recent times. It means that you have a 50% chance of sharing a common maternal ancestor within the last 5 generations. That is about 125 years.

Because of the constantly changing surnames of the females as they marry, it’s very difficult to track the mitochondrial line back very many generations.

Recently, a paper was published, titled “Identification of the remains of King Richard III” by Turi King et al, that focused on identifying the skeletal remains found in 2012 in Leicester as those of King Richard III. Interestingly enough, one of the ways that they confirmed the identity of the remains is through mitochondrial DNA matching.

In order to do this, the researchers had to find at least one individual who descended directly from a matrilineal line in common with Richard. The mitochondrial DNA is passed from the mother to all of her offspring, but only females pass it on. Richard’s sister, Anne of York, had two descendants who fit the bill, and both of them were willing to DNA test.

The results compared the full mitochondrial sequence, and it was determined that in one case, Richard and the participant were an exact match, and in the second case, only one mutation difference.

This is really quite interesting because we can see a real life example of mutations that do, and don’t occur. In this case, the timeframe involved was over 500, almost 600, years since the births of Richard and Anne from their common ancestor, their mother, Cecily Neville.

As this chart of descent from the supplementary materials from the paper shows, there were 18 generations in the case of Michael and 20 generations in the case of Wendy. We know that there was no mutation in this line from Anne of York through Catherine Manners, because Catherine would have passed any mutation she carried to both of her children, so the one single mutation in one of the descendants’ results happened someplace between Catherine and the present day testers.

So while you may have a common ancestor with someone you match exactly at the full sequence level in the last few generations, you may also share an ancestor a long way back on your common tree – much further back than most of us will ever be able to reach genealogically – unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to be descended from King Richard III’s mother.

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Kostenki14 – A New Ancient Siberian DNA Sample

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Roberta Estes

This week, published in Science, we find another ancient DNA full genome sequence from Siberia in an article titled “Genomic structure in Europeans dating back at least 36,200 years” by Seguin-Orlando et al.. This sample, partially shown above, is quite old and closely related to the Mal’ta child, also found in Siberia from about 24,000 years ago. Interestingly enough, K14 carries more Neanderthal DNA than current Europeans. This skeleton was actually excavated in 1954, but was only recently genetically analyzed.

From the paper, this map above shows the locations of recently analyzed ancient DNA samples. Note that even though K14 and Mal’ta child are similar, they are not located in close geographic proximity.

Also from the paper, this chart of population clusters is quite interesting, because we can see which of these ancient samples share some heritage with today’s indigenous American populations, shown in grey. UPGH=Upper Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherer, MHG=Mesolithic Hunter Gatherer, which is later in time that Paleolithic, and NEOL=Neolithic indicating the farming population that arrived in Europe approximately 7,000-10,000 years ago from the Middle East

You can see that the Neolithic samples show no trace of ancestry with today’s Native people, but both pre-Neolithic Hunter-Gatherer cultures show some amount of shared ancestry with Native people. However, to date, MA1, the Malta child is the most closely related and carries the most DNA in common with today’s Native people.

Felix Chandrakumar is currently preparing the K14 genome for addition to the ancient DNA kits at GedMatch. It will be interesting to see if this sample also matches currently living individuals.

Also from the K14 paper, you can see on the map below where K14 matches current worldwide and European populations, where the warmer colors, i.e. red, indicated a closer match.

Of interest to genealogists and population geneticists, K14’s mitochondrial haplogroup is U2 and his Y haplogroup is C-M130, the same as LaBrana, a late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer found in northern Spain. Haplogroup C is, of course, one of the base haplogroups for the Native people of the Americas.

The K14 paper further fleshes out the new peopling of Europe diagram discussed in my Peopling of Europe article.

This map, from the Lazardis “Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans” paper published in September 2014, shows the newly defined map including Ancient North Eurasian in this diagram.

K14 adds to this diagram in the following manner, although the paths are flipped right to left.

Blue represent current populations, red are ancient remains and green are ancestral populations.

Dienekes wrote about this find as well, here.

Paper Abstract:

The origin of contemporary Europeans remains contentious. We obtain a genome sequence from Kostenki 14 in European Russia dating to 38,700 to 36,200 years ago, one of the oldest fossils of Anatomically Modern Humans from Europe. We find that K14 shares a close ancestry with the 24,000-year-old Mal’ta boy from central Siberia, European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, some contemporary western Siberians, and many Europeans, but not eastern Asians. Additionally, the Kostenki 14 genome shows evidence of shared ancestry with a population basal to all Eurasians that also relates to later European Neolithic farmers. We find that Kostenki 14 contains more Neandertal DNA that is contained in longer tracts than present Europeans. Our findings reveal the timing of divergence of western Eurasians and East Asians to be more than 36,200 years ago and that European genomic structure today dates back to the Upper Paleolithic and derives from a meta-population that at times stretched from Europe to central Asia.

You can read the full paper at the two links below.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/11/05/science.aaa0114

http://www2.zoo.cam.ac.uk/manica/ms/2014_Seguin_Orlando_et_al_Science.pdf

It’s been a great year for ancient DNA analysis and learning about our ancestral human populations.

However, I have one observation I just have to make about this particular find.

What amazing teeth. Obviously, this culture did not consume sugar!

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Margaret Herrell (c1810-1892), Twice Widowed Church Founder, 52 Ancestors #43

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Margaret Herrell, also spelled Harrell, was born about 1810 to Mary McDowell and William Herrell/Harrell, probably on the Powell River in Lee County, Virginia very near the border of Tennessee and Virginia.

In 1812, we know that William Herrell was living in Lee County Virginia based on the deed where he purchased land in Claiborne County, Tennessee, on Powell River very close to the land where his wife’s father, Michael McDowell lived, known as Slanting Misery. In fact, Michael witnessed the deed.

This photo shows the Herrell land, standing in the Herrell cemetery.

By 1814, Margaret’s father, William Herrell, was marching off to war, but Margaret was probably too young to remember much, if anything, about that.

Margaret Herrell married Anson Cook Martin about 1828, based on the birth year of her eldest child, in 1829, if his birth year is correct.

We know that in 1830, Anson Martin was living in Lee County, Virginia along with a John Martin. Anson was listed as age 20-30 as was his wife. No children are listed, which casts doubt on the birth of their first child in 1829.

The first actual record of Margaret that we have, by name, is on December 1, 1833 when she was noted as “received by experience,” typically meaning baptized, in the Thompson Settlement Church, just over the border in Lee County, Virginia, on the Powell River. Her husband Anson Cook Martin had been received by experience just two months previously on October 1, 1833, along with his brother James Monroe Martin. This would have been when Margaret was pregnant with William and John, if they were in fact twins as the 1850 census indicates.

When this part of the country was forming, churches were important social institutions, although it’s hard to think of a church with no building or permanent location as an institution. The church, in addition to religion, provided an important bond among residents and was often the only organized social outlet for women.

Thompson Settlement Church was established in 1800, just 4 years after Tennessee became a state. It was referred to as the River Church as it was established on and along the Powell River near where the river crossed between Virginia and Tennessee between Lee County Virginia and then Claiborne County, Tennessee, now Hancock County.

The Herrell Property is shown above with the red arrow.

For the first quarter century, until 1824, the Thompson Settlement Church met in various locations, including Rob Camp, shown above on the bottom left, in Claiborne County which would eventually spin off its own church. Meetings were being held in Rob Camp as early as 1801, according to Thompson Settlement Church minutes. Rob Camp was more than 15 miles from the mother church, but other churches were even further. Gap Creek was at Cumberland Gap, more than 35 miles distant, and Big Springs was south of Tazewell in Claiborne County at current Springdale, 35 miles in the other direction. Blackwater Church formed and was not far from Sneedville, 2 mountain ranges over and near the border with Lee County as well. In 1820, Mulberry Gap Missionary Church formed.

The photos above and below, taken by Phillip Walker, show the terrain of these hills. Above, Mulberry Gap from Mulberry Gap school, and below, Mulberry Gap Church nestled in the valley.

Initially, Thompson Settlement Church borrowed preacher Jesse Dodson from Big Springs Baptist Church. The first Thompson Settlement Church building, erected in 1822, measured 24X26 feet. This would have been about the size of a cabin. Before that, they met in peoples’ homes or outside. The minutes are full of references to places like “Earl’s Cabins” where the church was to meet on the second Saturday of each month. Oh yes, and church services were not always held on Sunday. It’s not recorded in the minutes, but revivals were legendary and very popular and families would come long distances and camp in their wagons for several days as visiting preachers would inspire them.

The current Thompson Settlement Church is the 5^th building, but in the same general proximity. You can also see the location of Rob Camp on the map below, and the road between the two.

The Thompson Settlement church minutes are also full of “trials” where members were reported for offenses such as adultery (Nancy Fletcher), lying (Eleanor Fletcher), swearing (Henry Fortner), absconding this country without paying his debts (John Owens), disobeying the church (Elisha Steward), drinking spirituous liquors to excess (Robert Clark), not being lawfully married (Hanna Denham), unchristian behavior, using unbecoming language and requesting to be excluded (James Muncy), drinking to excess (Brother Carnes), not requesting a letter of dismissal (Lewis and Susannah Tasket) and worse yet, withdrawing herself from the church and joining the Methodist Society (Elizabeth Wells.) Knowing the history of the area, this was likely the Speak Methodist Church founded in 1820 just up the road a few miles in Lee County, Virginia. Brother Smith Sutton even turned himself in for drinking too much and getting angry. I wonder if his wife had anything to do with his decision to turn himself in!

On the 1838 membership list, Margaret and Anson Martin were both noted as dismissed, meaning they were members in 1838 and dismissed some time later. Anson joined Rob Camp Church in 1844, much closer to where they lived and a spinoff the of the Thompson Settlement Church. Anson died not long after, because the last child that Margaret had was Alexander born in 1844. Anson was only about 35 years old and left Margaret to raise nine children as a widow. She lived alone for the next six years or so, until she married Joseph Bolton after his wife died, leaving him with seven children. Their combined household of sixteen children, plus two more that they would have together, probably made for one noisy household in a relatively small space. Log cabins were all small, no matter how large your family.

The females on the list of Margaret’s children, below, have their names bolded, signifying that they passed the mitochondrial DNA of Margaret Herrell to their children. Today, anyone who descends from Margaret Herrell Martin Bolton through all females carries her mitochondrial DNA as well. In the current generation, this can be a male, because women give their mitochondrial DNA to all of their children, but only females pass it on. I have a DNA testing scholarship for anyone who fits this description.

With Anson Cook Martin, Margaret had the following children:

John Martin born 1829 or 1833 died April 1, 1918 Harrogate, Claiborne Co., TN married Hannah Eldridge. His death certificate says he’s age 89, but his birth year has been overstruck with a magic marker, incorrectly, as 1839. Note that in the 1850 census, he is noted as a 17 year old twin with William.
Eveline Martin born March 11, 1830, died Feb. 1, 1905 Whitley Co., KY, married to Alexander Calvin Busic who died in 1862 the Civil War.
William Martin born 1833 died 1867-1869, married Rachel Markham. Note that William and John are shown as 17 year old twins in the 1850 census. Mary Parkey indicated that it’s believed that William is buried in the Martin Cemetery in the Hopewell Community off of Cedar Fork Road. Both he and his wife’s graves are unmarked.Martin Cemetery MapThis may be where William Martin is buried, but it looks to be too far west for the original Martin cemetery, given that the Herrell, Bolton and McDowell families were living on the Powell River to in the upper right hand corner on Slanting Misery between River Road and Wolfenberger Hollow Road.Slanting miseryThe Martin Cemetery is located off of Martin Cemetery Road.Martin Cemetery location
Surrelda (Selerenda) Jane Martin born 1834/1836, died 1890 Hancock Co., TN, buried in Liberty Cemetery, Claiborne County, married Pleasant Smith.

We have a photo of Surelda Jane and Pleasant Smith. I wonder if he was tall or she was short, or both. I wonder if she looked like her mother, Margaret. This is probably as close as we’ll ever get to seeing Margaret.

Here is the photo restored, courtesy of Dillis Bolton.

James Monroe “Roe” Martin born December 29, 1836 in Virginia, died November 15, 1914 in Middlesboro, KY, married Sarah Elizabeth “Betty” Bolton, daughter of Joseph P. Bolton and his first wife, Mary Polly Tankersley. In other words, he married his step-sister. Note, he is not shown with the family in the 1850 census.
Manerva Martin born in 1838
Mary Marlene Martin born March 10, 1839, died Feb. 17, 1893 Hancock Co., TN, married March 11, 1860 to Edward Hilton Claxton. She is buried in the Clarkson Cemetery near Mt. Zion Church where E. H. was the church moderator at Mt. Zion for many years. The Claxton’s owned the land just downstream of Slanting Misery.
Malinda “Linda” Martin born July 31, 1842 died June 30, 1903 Whitley Co., KY, buried Riley Cemetery, Whitley Co., married James Parks.
Alexander Martin born 1844, died after 1860

In the 1840 census, Anson Martin is living in Claiborne County, Tennessee and Anson and Margaret are shown with 6 children, 1 male under 5, 2 males 5-10, 2 females under 5 and 1 female 5-10. Anson is shown as age 30-40 but Margaret is shown as age 20-30. Based on all of the evidence for her birth year, I would think it is most likely 1810. It looks like they are short one daughter and the boys birth years don’t line up, but all of the boys are accounted for.

Margaret and Anson live one house away from her father, William Harrell and William lives 2 houses away from John McDowell, his wife’s brother.

In 1845, this part of Claiborne County, Tennessee would become Hancock County. It was about this time that Anson died.

In the 1850 census, Margaret Martin is shown in a close-knit family group. In order, we find the following households:

Pleasant Tankersley, brother to Polly Tankersley
Joseph Bolton and his wife Polly Tankersley – Joseph would be Margaret Herrell Martin’s second husband – very shortly, in fact.
3 houses
John Bolton, brother to Joseph Bolton
Jacob Wolfenbarger (confederate in the Civil War)
John Martin with his apparent mother, Elizabeth Martin in the household
Margaret (Herrell) Martin, age 38, born in Virginia, widow of Anson Cook Martin. She is shown with her children, the last one born in 1844, about the time that Anson died. It’s worth noting that she had 17 year old twins, William and John. Twins that lived were rather rare. The first 3, and the 6^th child, were born in Virginia. Given where the family lived, they probably passed back and forth over the border quite easily. Margaret shows that she herself was born in Virginia in 1812.

Margaret was living next to her parents, William and Mary McDowell Harrell.
Abel Harrell, her brother, was living next to her parents.
Mary Busic
John McDowell, Margaret’s uncle.

In December 1852, Margaret Bolton was received by experience in the Rob Camp Church along with Syrena McDowell, possibly her brother’s daughter.

Rob Camp Baptist Church had officially spun off from the Thompson Settlement Church in the mid-1840s. By 1856, Joseph Bolton was embroiled in church politics after having been accused by Robert Tankersley, a black man, of saying he had stolen bacon and bread. Apparently unhappy, Joseph asked to have himself excluded from the church in April 1856. Apparently, Margaret continued to attend, because in 1866, Joseph was once again received by recantation and baptized into fellowship. By 1868, he was a deacon and in 1859, he and Margaret were founding members of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church, very close to the Clarkson cemetery, today. Eventually, Joseph was excluded from this church as well, and Margaret was dismissed, which means dismissed in good standing by letter, allowing a member to join another church, also in good standing.

Margaret’s father, William Herrell died in October of 1859. Although the courthouse records have burned, twice, some records do remain. This 1860 deed may well have been in private hands all this time, because it was given to me by a descendant of Alexander Herrell who still owns and farms part of this land.

The deed itself is in metes and bounds and is dated November 17, 1860, just about the right time for William’s estate to be being settled.

In the deed, “William Edens and Mary, his wife, Hiram Edens and Mildred, his wife, Nancy Herril, Joseph Bolton and Margret his wife and her heirs, have this day bargained and sold and do hereby transfer and convey to Alexander Herril and his heirs forever for $100 in hand paid a tract of land in Hancock County, district 14, containing 32 acres bounded as follows, beginning on the south bank of the Powels River…line of William Edens…”

The deed is witnessed by A. Montgomery and M.B. Overton and signed by all of the people listed as conveying the land to Alexander. I do wonder why Margaret’s brother Abel Herrell didn’t sign.

The 1860 census quality is very poor, but Margaret looks to be age 50, which would put her birth in 1810.

Margaret has two of her Martin children living at home. Joseph has 4 of his children from his first marriage as well, and Margaret and Joseph have two children of their own.

Mary Ann Matilda Bolton born September 5, 1851, died July 2, 1909, married Martin Cunningham.
Joseph B. Bolton, born September 18, 1853, died February 23, 1920, buried in the Plank Cemetery, Claiborne Co., TN and married Margaret Clarkson/Claxton.

Of course, this begs the question of when Mary Ann Matilda Bolton was actually born, and when Mary Polly Tankersley died.

The 1850 census shows Joseph Bolton still married to Mary Polly Tankersley, but Mary’s birthdate is shown to be September of 1851, so if both records are accurate, Mary died sometime after June 1850 and Margaret and Joseph were married before year end, giving the 9 months gestation necessary. However, there is a fly in the ointment. The census form is dated December 10^th. Now, it’s possible that it was taken in December but “as of” June and it’s possible that Mary was born in 1852 instead of 1851. There are also other possibilities.

I tried to verify that Mary Ann Matilda is the same person who married Martin Cunningham in Claiborne County in 1877. Looking at the 1880 census, Martin and Matilda Cunningham have a son who is 2 years old and named Joseph, so I’m thinking this is the right person. She shows her age as 24 so born in 1856. Her husband is 4 years younger.

In the 1900 census, Matilda Cunningham’s son Joseph was followed by daughter Margaret two years later. However, Matilda’s age is listed as 40 and her birth year given as 1860, which we know is incorrect from the earlier census.

The Civil War left no family unscathed. Sometime after 1860 and before 1870, Alexander, Margaret’s youngest child by Anson Martin died. Did he die in the Civil War? Perhaps, but we have no proof. He was the right age and in the right place, that’s for sure. Hancock County was raided by bands of both Union and Confederate forces, plus, battles were fought nearby at and around Cumberland Gap. Food was scarce and families were frightened, both for those who left to fight, and for those who stayed behind.

Margaret’s daughter, Evaline, lost her husband, Calvin Busic in the war to malarial fever, according to the 1890 veterans census, leaving her with three children to raise.

In 1869, Margaret and Joseph Bolton were founding members of Mt. Zion Church. Margaret’s name is listed in the member’s list alongside Matilda Bolton and Evaline Busic, her daughters.

The 1870 census shows Margaret Bolton, age 60, born in Virginia. Neither Joseph nor Margaret can read nor write.

In 1874, on the same day her father, Joseph Bolton, was censured by the Mt. Zion Church, Matilda Bolton made application for a letter of dismissal from the church.

On July 1, 1878, the following deed was executed.

Whereas we Pleasant Smith, Serelda Smith his wife, John Martin and Hanah Martin his wife have a fee simple interest in remainder to take and be united with the processions after the death of Marget (sic) Bolton who has a life interest in the same in tract of land in the state of Tennessee Hancock County Number 14 district containing by estimation 50 acres be the same more or less bounded by the lands of John McDaniels, Elexander Herrells and others. For the consideration of $100 to be paid in hand we have bargained and old and hereby convey to J. M. Martin the fee simply interest in remainder…this first day of July 1878. Witnessed William Cook, D.M. Bolton and signed by John (x) Martin, his mark, Hannah Martin, her mark, Pleasant Smith and Serelda T. Smith.

This was not filed until December 10^th, 1892, suggesting that Margaret Herrell Bolton had died by that time.

On July 12, 1878 a deed was signed between Joseph Bolton and Margaret Bolton his wife, Hiram Edins and Mildred Edins his wife, William Edins and Mary Edins his wife, Nancy Herrell and Alexander Herrell and Jane Herrell his wife to William J. Edins, all of Hancock Co., TN for “a certain tract of land for $200 to them in hand paid and receipt is hereby acknowledged lying in district no. 14 on the North side of Powells River known as a part of the widow Herrell dower containing by estimation 20 acres and bounded as follows…beginning on the N bank of Powells river on Hiram Edins corner, thence up the river as it meanders the distance unknown to an ash on the bank of Powells river, then leaving the river northwardly the distance unknown to a large hickory on the top of the river bluff, thence northwardly the distance unknown to a poplar and elm in a field, thence northwardly to Wolfenbarger’s line, then went to Hiram Edins.” Witnesses JM Martain and JD Wolfenbarger. Margaret Bolton her mark, William Edins, Mary Edins her mark, Hiram Edins, Mildred Edins her mark, Alexander Herrell, Jane Herrell her mark, Nancy Herrell her mark.

These are Margaret Herrell Martin Bolton’s siblings conveying the land of her mother, “widow Herrell.”

In the 1880 census, Joseph and Margaret have moved to Claiborne County and they are living beside Milton Bolton. This is in the Little Sycamore area not far from the Plank Cemetery where Joseph is buried. Margaret is age 72, so born in 1808 and can read but cannot write. He can do neither.

Margaret was born in Tennessee but both of her parents were born in NC. Joseph was born in VA, as was his mother, but his father was born in England.

In the Hancock Co. 1880 tax list from the E. Tennessee Roots vol VI, number 4, Margret Bolton is listed with 55 acres, $350 value, 105 to county, 35 to state, 35 to school, 87.5 for special 262.5 total taxes, no poll. This is very odd because her husband, Joseph Bolton Sr. did not die until 1887.

Joseph Bolton Jr. lives beside her with no land, 1 poll, but then under him it says 100 to school and 30 special and 130 total, paid to Edds.

In June 1881, Joseph and Margaret Bolton along with D.M. Bolton and Silveny, his wife purchase land together from Daniel Jones and on November 25^th of the same year, they deed the land on Little Sycamore in Claiborne County along with Daniel Marson Bolton and his wife, Silvania to H. H. Friar.

April 4, 1885 – From Alexander Herrell, Nancy Herrell of Hancock Co. and Margaret Bolton of Claiborne Co. to William Mannon of Hancock, parcel of land for $175, 65 acres it being a part of a 50 acre grant granted to Thomas Lawson Sr. assigned to John Grimes of number 485 dated March 13, 1827 also a part of a larger grant granted by the State of TN to William Mills of number 56 dates the 9^th of January 1852 lying in the 14^th district of Hancock and on the N side of Powels river bounded…JW Yeary’s corner but now William Mannon’s corner, conditional line between James W. Yeary and William Mills, conditional line between JW Years and Green B. Lawson, also between JW Yeary and William Herrell… conditional line between SP Lamarr? And Greene B. Lawson…conditional line between Greene B. Lawson and William Mills. All 3 sign with a mark and Emanuel Stafford and Andrew Mannon witness.

This is likely part of the original William Herrell land and possibly the widow Herrell’s dower land.

Joseph Bolton, Margaret’s second husband, died on December 28, 1887 in Claiborne County and was buried in the Plank Cemetery. They had been married or 37 years.

In 1889, a lawsuit was filed by James Speers against defendants that are the children of Margaret Herrell Martin Bolton, by both of her husbands.

James E. Speers in a March 1889 lawsuit vs J.M. Martin, William J. Martin, Joseph Bolton and Margaret in Hancock Co. Cannon Herral, Alexander Herrell and John McDowell were witnesses paid by Speer. W.J. Martin was also a witness. (Note the elder Joseph Bolton died in 1887 so this must be the younger Joseph B. Bolton and Margaret Clarkson.)

This may imply that Margaret Herrell Bolton has passed away by March 1889 or simply that she has passed her interest to her children.

Margaret Bolton probably rests with her husband, Joseph Bolton, in the Plank Cemetery, in Claiborne County very near the land they sold to the Frairs in 1881.

However, we’re not sure. Joseph’s grave is marked but Margaret’s isn’t. It’s possible that after Joseph’s death she moved back to the 4 Mile Creek and Powell River area of Hancock County, possibly to live with one of her children. There is a list of members in the 1885 Rob Camp Church minutes and Margret (sic) Bolton appears on that list along with many Herrells, McDowells and Clarksons. Of course, Joseph Bolton Jr. also had a wife named Margaret, so they are difficult and often impossible to tell apart.

Did Margaret go back “home?” It’s certainly possible. The Mt. Zion Church minutes indicated that on June 3^rd, 1888 Margret Bolton, Farwick Shiflet and a

Adeline Shiflet along with Jane Montgomery were received into the congregation. The younger Margaret Bolton, wife of Joseph B. Bolton, was already a member of this church, and as late as 1887, Joseph B. Bolton was still attending because that is when he was last censured for drinking and swearing. Two men by the same name, father and son, should not be allowed to have wives with the same first name as well.

If Margaret Herrell Bolton did move back home, then she may not be buried in the Plank Cemetery, but may be buried in the Herrell Cemetery in Hancock County, located on River Road not far from the Martin Creek Church, in one of the unmarked graves shown below, or even possibly where Anson Martin is buried. Of course, Anson may be buried in this cemetery as well.

The Herrell Cemetery is located on River Road, shown on the map below.

Many of the graves are unmarked.

Margaret was the first generation to be born and to die in the same general area of Hancock County. She lived her life in these beautiful and rugged mountains, buried two husbands and at least 4 children. She was a founding member at Mt. Zion Church and may have been a founder of Rob Camp Church as well. She found herself a widow in her 30s and raised her children, as a widow, for more than 5 years before remarrying. Likely, she farmed, just like her husband would have done. It was farm or starve. Margaret could neither read nor write, but she owned land. When she remarried, she married a man who was a widower and who had 7 children of his own, increasing her household size to 16 before having 2 more children with Joseph Preston Bolton, her second husband.

Their only son, Joseph “Dode” Bolton was my great-grandfather. His daughter, Ollie was my grandmother. She died five months before I was born, so I never knew her. Her son was my father. I mention this, because Margaret, through her descendants gave me a very special gift.

Because Margaret had two husbands, we have the potential to tell which DNA came from her, and only her. Normally, with a couple, we can only say that the DNA came from one of the two people. However, by comparing the DNA of people who descend from Margaret through her two husbands, we can isolate Margaret’s DNA. Wherever the descendants of the children from the first husband match the descendants of the children from the second husband, the only common denominator has to be Margaret.

I was quite excited at first, because there are two other people who descend from Margaret’s marriage with Anson Martin who have tested, and whom I match. But then, I took a good look at their pedigree charts, and I also share a Clarkson line with them. The Clarksons also lived right along the Powell River. So, we can’t tell if we are matching on the Herrell line, or the Clarkson line. I was quite disappointed, until I realized that one of our matches was on the X chromosome, and it has special inheritance properties. You can see the match to the person in orange on the X chromosome at the bottom of this chromosome chart. The places where the blue and orange match up are the locations where the tree of us share DNA – but that’s the DNA that might be Herrell or Clarkson.

The X chromosome is inherited from only part of your ancestors. Specifically, men only inherit an X from their mother, because they inherit the Y from their father that makes them a male.

My X inheritance path from my grandmother Ollie Bolton is shown on the fan chart, below. You can see that wherever there is a blue male, he only inherits from his pink mother and that creates entire vacant areas of the pedigree chart. This limits who I can inherit my X chromosome from – dramatically – and would be even more restrictive if I were a male.

The question now was whether or not the orange person also has Margaret Herrell Martin in her X chromosome inheritance path, and NOT any of our other common lineages. Her tree, beginning with her grandparents, is shown below.

After verifying that I have none of these other lines in my tree nor that my ancestral lines fed any of these lines, I concentrated on the relevant lineage of her tree..

My match didn’t have her tree entirely filled out, but I can complete it easily. The X inheritance path to Margaret Herrll is shown by the red arrows. The green arrows also show individuals from whom she inherited her X chromosome, but they turn out to be irrelevant because they don’t lead to a common ancestor utilizing only the X inheritance path. Said another way, I do share several common ancestors with this woman, including Joseph Bolton, but they are irrelevant when evaluating X chromosome matches unless the X path results in common ancestors. Of course, many lines are eliminated from the X inheritance path.

In her case, Surelda Jane Martin is the daughter of Margaret Herrell Martin and Anson Cook Martin. My matches inheritance path to Margaret is through her father, who inherited his entire X from his mother Nursie Bolton, who inherited her X from her mother and father Alvis Bolton and Helen Smith. Helen Smith received her X from her father Pleasant Smith and mother, Serelda Martin, whose mother was Margaret Herrell.

Our other common ancestral lines are through the Bolton and Clarkson families. If you look at my fan chart, you’ll note that my Clarkson line ends at Samuel Clarkson/Claxton because he didn’t inherit his X from his father and my Bolton line ends with Joseph Bolton because he didn’t inherit his X from his father, Joseph Bolton – so those are entirely irrelevant to the X chromosome.

In my matches tree, Alvis Bolton inherited his X from his mother Nursissa Parks, who inherited her X from her parents, Jacob Parks and Polly Claxton/Clarkson. However, Polly Claxton inherited her X from James Lee Claxton/Clarkson and Sarah Cook, neither of whom are in my X inheritance path. They are two generations upstream of Samuel Claxton, so that line has already been eliminated, as was the Bolton line.

Therefore, the only ancestor I share in common with my match that falls in both of our X inheritance paths is….drum roll….Margaret Herrell Martin Bolton.

Therefore, that beautiful orange segment on the X chromosome is a gift to me, and my match, directly from Margaret herself.

Isn’t it beautiful, seeing an actual artifact from Margaret Herrell?

Switching to table view, we can see all of the segments that I share with my orange match. However, we can’t tell if the matches on chromosome 2-13 are from the Herrell, Bolton or Clarkson lines. However, due to the special inheritance path of the X chromosome, we can identify the X segment specifically as having come from Margaret Herrell, by process of elimination.

Margaret was obviously an incredibly strong, resourceful and resilient woman. I like to think that in addition to some of her DNA, I inherited some of those qualities as well.

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Peopling of Europe 2014 – Identifying the Ghost Population

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Beginning with the full sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, first published in May 2010 by the Max Planck Institute with Svante Paabo at the helm, and followed shortly thereafter with a Denisovan specimen, we began to unravel our ancient history.

Neanderthal man, reconstructed at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo

The photo below shows a step in the process of extracting DNA from ancient bones at Max Planck.

Our Y and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups take us back thousands of years in time, but at some point, where and how people were settling and intermixing becomes fuzzy. Ancient DNA can put the people of that time and place in context. We have discovered that current populations do not necessarily represent the ancient populations of a particular locale.

Recent information discovered from ancient burials tells us that the people of Europe descend from a 3 pronged model. Until recently, it was believed that Europeans descended from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, a two-pronged model.

Previously, it was believed that Europe was peopled by the ancient hunter-gatherers, the Paleolithic, who originally settled in Europe beginning about 45,000 years ago. At this time, the Neanderthal were already settled in Europe but weren’t considered to be anatomically modern humans, and it was believed, incorrectly, that the two groups did not interbreed. These hunter-gatherers were the people who settled in Europe before the last major ice age, the Younger Dryas, taking refuge in the southern portions of Europe and Eurasia, and repeopling the continent after the ice receded, about 12,000 years ago. By that time, the Neanderthals were gone, or as we now know, at least partially assimilated.

This graphic shows Europe during the last ice age.

The second settlement wave, the agriculturalist farmers from the Near East either overran or integrated with the hunter-gatherers in the Neolithic period, depending on which theory you subscribe to, about 8000-10,000 years ago.

2012 – Ancient Northern European (ANE) Hints

Beginning in 2012, we began to see hints of a third lineage that contributed to the peopling of Europe as well, from the north. Buried in the 2012 paper, Estimating admixture proportions and dates with ADMIXTOOLS by Patterson et al, was a very interesting tidbit. This new technique showed a third population, referred to by many as a “ghost population”, because no one knew who they were, that contributed to the European population.

The new population was termed Ancient North Eurasian, or ANE.

Dienekes covered this paper in his blog, but without additional information, in the community in general, there wasn’t much more than a yawn.

2013 – Mal’ta Child Stirs Excitement

The first real hint of meat on the bones of ANE came in the form of ancient DNA analysis of a 24,000 year old Siberian boy that has come to be named Mal’ta (Malta) Child. In the original paper, by Raghaven et al, Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans, he was referred to as MA-1. I wrote about this in my article titled Native American Gene Flow – Europe?, Asia and the Americas. Dienekes wrote about this paper as well.

This revelation caused quite a stir, because it was reported that the Ancestor of Native Americans in Asia was 30% Western Eurasian. Unfortunately, in some cases, this was immediately interpreted to mean that Native Americans had come directly from Europe which is not what this paper said, nor inferred. It was also inferred that the haplogroups of this child, R* (Y) and U (mtDNA) were Native American, which is also incorrect. To date, there is no evidence for migration to the New World from Europe in ancient times, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still looking for that evidence in early burials.

What this paper did show was that Europeans and Native Americans shared a common ancestor, and that the Siberian population had contributed to the European population as well as the Native American population. In other words, descendants settled in both directions, east and west.

The most fascinating aspect of this paper was the match distribution map, below, showing which populations Malta child matched most closely.

As you can see, MA-1, Malta Child, matches the Native American population most closely, followed by the northern European and Greenland populations. The further south in Europe and Asia, the more distant the matches and the darker the blue.

2013 – Michael Hammer and Haplogroup R

Last fall at the Family Tree DNA conference, Dr. Michael Hammer, from the Hammer Lab at the University of Arizona discussed new findings relative to ancient burials, specifically in relation to haplogroup R, or more specifically, the absence of haplogroup R in those early burials.

Based on the various theories and questions, ancient burials were enlightening.

In 2013, there were a total of 32 burials from the Neolithic period, after farmers arrived from the Near East, and haplogroup R did not appear. Instead, haplogroups G, I and E were found.

What this tells us is that haplogroup R, as well as other haplogroup, weren’t present in Europe at this time. Having said this, these burials were in only 4 locations and, although unlikely, R could be found in other locations.

Last year, Dr. Hammer concluded that haplogroup R was not found in the Paleolithic and likely arrived with the Neolithic farmers. That shook the community, as it had been widely believed that haplogroup R was one of the founding European haplogroups.

While this provided tantalizing information, we still needed additional evidence. No paper has yet been published that addresses these findings. The mass full sequencing of the Y chromosome over this past year with the introduction of the Big Y will provide extremely valuable information about the Y chromosome and eventually, the migration path into and across Europe.

2014 – Europe’s Three Ancient Tribes

In September 2014, another paper was published by Lazaridis et al that more fully defined this new ANE branch of the European human family tree. An article in BBC News titled Europeans drawn from three ancient ‘tribes’ describes it well for the non-scientist. Of particular interest in this article is the artistic rendering of the ancient individual, based on their genetic markers. You’ll note that they had dark skin, dark hair and blue eyes, a rather unexpected finding.

In discussing the paper, David Reich from Harvard, one of the co-authors, said, “Prior to this paper, the models we had for European ancestry were two-way mixtures. We show that there are three groups. This also explains the recently discovered genetic connection between Europeans and Native Americans. The same Ancient North Eurasian group contributed to both of them.”

The paper, Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans, appeared as a letter in Nature and is behind a paywall, but the supplemental information is free.

The article summary states the following:

We sequenced the genomes of a ~7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ~8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes1, 2, 3, 4 with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians3, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations’ deep relationships and show that early European farmers had ~44% ancestry from a ‘basal Eurasian’ population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.

This paper utilized ancient DNA from several sites and composed the following genetic contribution diagram that models the relationship of European to non-European populations.

Present day samples are colored purple, ancient in red and reconstructed ancestral populations in green. Solid lines represent descent without admixture and dashed lines represent admixture. WHG=western European hunter-gatherer, EEF=early European farmer and ANE=ancient north Eurasian

2014 – Michael Hammer on Europe’s Ancestral Population

For anyone interested in ancient DNA, 2014 has been a banner years. At the Family Tree DNA conference in Houston, Texas, Dr. Michael Hammer brought the audience up to date on Europe’s ancestral population, including the newly sequenced ancient burials and the information they are providing.

Dr. Hammer said that ancient DNA is the key to understanding the historical processes that led up to the modern. He stressed that we need to be careful inferring that the current DNA pattern is reflective of the past because so many layers of culture have occurred between then and now.

Until recently, it was assumed that the genes of the Neolithic farmers replaced those of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Ancient DNA is suggesting that this is not true, at least not on a wholesale level.

The theory, of course, is that we should be able to see them today if they still exist. The migration and settlement pattern in the slide below was from the theory set forth in the 1990s.

In 2013, Dr. Hammer discussed the theory that haplogroup R1b spread into Europe with the farmers from the Near East in the Neolithic. This year, he expanded upon that topic that based on the new findings from ancient burials.

Last year, Dr. Hammer discussed 32 burials from 4 sites. Today, we have information from 15 ancient DNA sites and many of those remains have been full genome sequenced.

Information from papers and recent research suggests that Europeans also have genes from a third source lineage, nicknamed the “ghost population of North Eurasia.”

Scientists are finding a signal of northeast Asian related admixture in northern Europeans, first suggested in 2012. This was confirmed with the sequencing of Malta child and then in a second sequencing of Afontova Gora2 in south central Siberia.

We have complete genomes from nine ancient Europeans – Mesolithic hunter gatherers and Neothilic farmers. Hammer refers to the Mesolithic here, which is a time period between the Paleolithic (hunter gatherers with stone tools) and the Neolithic (farmers).

In the PCA charts, shown above, you can see that Europeans and people from the Near East cluster separately, except for a bridge formed by a few Mediterranean and Jewish populations. On the slide below, the hunter-gatherers (WHG) and early farmers (EEF) have been overlayed onto the contemporary populations along with the MA-1 (Malta Child) and AG2 (Afontova Gora2) representing the ANE.

When sequenced, separate groups formed including western hunter gathers and early european farmers include Otzi, the iceman. A third group is the north south clinal variation with ANE contributing to northern European ancestry. The groups are represented by the circles, above.

Dr. Hammer said that the team who wrote the “Ancient Human Genomes” paper just recently published used an F3 test, results shown above, which shows whether populations are an admixture of a reference population based on their entire genome. He mentioned that this technique goes well beyond PCA.

Mapped onto populations today, most European populations are a combination of the three early groups. However, the ANE is not found in the ancient Paleolithic or Neolithic burials. It doesn’t arrive until later.

This tells us that there was a migration event 45,000 years ago from the Levant, followed about 7000 years ago by farmers from the Near East, and that ANE entered the population some time after that. All Europeans today carry some amount of ANE, but ancient burials do not.

These burials also show that southern Europe has more Neolithic farmer genes and northern Europe has more Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherer genes.

Pigmentation for light skin came with farmers – blue eyes existed in hunter gatherers even though their skin was dark.

Dr. Hammer created these pie charts of the Y and mitochondrial haplogroups found in the ancient burials as compared to contemporary European haplogroups.

The pie chart on the left shows the haplogroups of the Mesolithic burials, all haplogroup I2 and subclades. Note that in the current German population today, no I2a1b and no I1 was found. The chart on the right shows current Germans where haplogroup I is a minority.

Therefore, we can conclude that haplogroup I is a good candidate to be identified as a Paleolithic/Mesolithic haplogroup.

This information shows that the past is very different from today.

In 2014 we have many more burials that have been sequenced than last year, as shown on the map above.

Green represents Neolithic farmers, red are Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, brown at bottom right represents more recent samples from the Metallic age.

There are a total of 48 Neolithic burials where haplogroup G dominates. In the Mesolithic, there are a total of six haplogroup I.

This suggests that haplogroup I is a good candidate to be the father of the Paleolithic/Mesolithic and haplogroup G, the founding father of the Neolithic.

In addition to haplogroup G in the Neolithic, one sample of both E1b1b1 (M35) and C were also found in Spain. E1b1b1 isn’t surprising given it’s north African genesis, but C was quite interesting.

The Metal ages, which according to wiki begin about 3300BC in Europe, is where haplogroup R, along with I1, first appear.

Please note that the diffusion of melallurgy map above is not part of Dr. Hammer’s presentation. I have added it for clarification.

Nothing is constant in Europe. The Y DNA was very upheaved, as indicated on the graphic above. Mitochondrial DNA shifted from pre-Neolithic to Neolithic which isn’t terribly different from the present day.

Dr. Hammer did not say this, but looking at the Y versus the mtDNA haplogroups, I wonder if this suggests that indeed there was more of a replacement of the males in the population, but that the females were more widely assimilated. This would certainly make sense, especially if the invaders were warriors and didn’t have females with them. They would have taken partners from the invaded population.

Haplogroup G represents the spread of farming into Europe.

The most surprising revelation is that haplogroup R1b appears to have emerged after the Neolithic agriculture transition. Given that just three years ago we thought that haplogroup R1b was one of the original European settlers thousands of years ago, based on the prevalence of haplogroup R in Europe today, at about 50%, this is a surprising turn of events. Last year’s revelation that R was maybe only 7000-8000 years old in Europe was a bit of a whammy, but the age of R in Europe in essence just got halved again and the source of R1b changed from the Near East to the Asian steppes.

Obviously, something conferred an advantage to these R1b men. Given that they arrived in the early Metalic age, was it weapons and chariots that enabled the R1b men who arrived to quickly become more than half of the population?

The Bronze Age saw the first use of metal to create weapons. Warrior identity became a standard part of daily life. Celts ranged over Europe and were the most dominant iron age warriors. Indo-European languages and chariots arrived from Asia about this time.

The map above shows the Hallstadt and LaTene Celtic cultures in Europe, about 600BC. This was not a slide presented by Dr. Hammer.

Haplogroup R1b was not found in an ancient European context prior to a Bell Beaker period burial in Germany 4.8-4.0 kya (thousand years ago, i.e. 4,800-4,000 years ago). R1b arrives about 4.6 kya and is also found in a Corded Ware culture burial in Germany. A late introduction of these lineages which now predominate in Europe corresponds to the autosomal signal of the entry of Asian and Eastern European steppe invaders into western Europe.

Local expansion occurred in Europe of R1b subgroups U106, L21 and U152.

A current haplogroup R distribution map that reflects the findings of this past year is shown above.

Haplogroup I is interesting for another reason. It looks like haplogroup I2a1b (M423) may have been replaced by I1 which expanded after the Mesolithic.

On the slide above, the Loschbour sample from Luxembourg was mapped onto a current haplogroup I SNP map where his closest match is a current day Russian.

One of the benefits of ancient DNA genome processing is that we will be able to map current trees into maps of old SNPs and be able to tell who we match most closely.

Autosomal DNA can also be mapped to see how much of our DNA is from which ancient population.

Dr. Hammer mapped the percentages of European Mesolithic/Paleolithic hunter-gatherers in blue, Neolithic Farmers from the Near East in magenta and Asian Steppe Invaders representing ANE in yellow, over current populations. Note the ancient DNA samples at the top of the list. None of the burials except for Malta Child carry any yellow, indicating that the ANE entered the European population with the steppe invaders; the same group that brought us haplogroup R and possibly I1.

Dr. Hammer says that ANE was introduced to and assimilated into the European population by one or more incursions. We don’t know today if ANE in Europeans is a result of a single blast event or multiple events. He would like to do some model simulations and see if it is related to timing and arrival of swords and chariots.

We know too that there are more recent incursions, because we’re still missing major haplogroups like J.

The further east you go, meaning the closer to the steppes and Volga region, the less well this fits the known models. In other words, we still don’t have the whole story.

At the end of the presentation, Michael was asked if the whole genomes sequenced are also obtaining Y STR data, which would allow us to compare our results on an individual versus a haplogroup level. He said he didn’t know, but he would check.

Family Tree DNA was asked if they could show a personal ancient DNA map in myOrigins, perhaps as an alternate view. Bennett took a vote and that seemed pretty popular, which he interpreted as a yes, we’d like to see that.

In Summary

The advent of and subsequent drop in the price of whole genome sequencing combined with the ability to extract ancient DNA and piece it back together have provided us with wonderful opportunities. I think this is jut the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and I can’t wait to learn more.

If you are interested in other articles I’ve written about ancient DNA, check out these links:

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Anzick (12,707-12,556), Ancient One, 52 Ancestors #42

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Roberta Estes

His name is Anzick, named for the family land, above, where his remains were found, and he is 12,500 years old, or more precisely, born between 12,707 and 12,556 years before the present. Unfortunately, my genealogy software is not prepared for a birth year with that many digits. That’s because, until just recently, we had no way to know that we were related to anyone of that age….but now….everything has changed ….thanks to DNA.

Actually, Anzick himself is not my direct ancestor. We know that definitively, because Anzick was a child when he died, in present day Montana.

Anzick was loved and cherished, because he was smeared with red ochre before he was buried in a cave, where he would be found more than 12,000 years later, in 1968, just beneath a layer of approximately 100 Clovis stone tools, shown below. I’m sure his parents then, just as parents today, stood and cried as the laid their son to rest….never suspecting just how important their son would be some 12,500 years later.

From 1968 until 2013, the Anzick family looked after Anzick’s bones, and in 2013, Anzick’s DNA was analyzed.

DNA analysis of Anzick provided us with his mitochondrial haplogroup, D4h3a, a known Native American grouping, and his Y haplogroup was Q-L54, another known Native American haplogroup. Haplogroup Q-L54 itself is estimated to be about 16,900 years old, so this finding is certainly within the expected range. I’m not related to Anzick through Y or mitochondrial DNA.

Utilizing the admixture tools at GedMatch, we can see that Anzick shows most closely with Native American and Arctic with a bit of east Siberian. This all makes sense.

Full genome sequencing was performed on Anzick, and from that data, it was discovered that Anzick was related to Native Americans, closely related to Mexican, Central and South Americans, and not closely related to Europeans or Africans. This was an important discovery, because it in essence disproves the Solutrean hypothesis that Clovis predecessors emigrated from Southwest Europe during the last glacial maximum, about 20,000 years ago.

The distribution of these matches was a bit surprising, in that I would have expected the closest matches to be from North America, in particular, near to where Anzick was found, but his closest matches are south of the US border. Although, in all fairness, few people in Native tribes in the US have DNA tested and many are admixed.

This match distribution tells us a lot about population migration and distribution of the Native people after they left Asia, crossed Beringia on the land bridge, now submerged, into present day Alaska.

This map of Beriginia, from the 2008 paper by Tamm et all, shows the migration of Native people into (and back from) the new world.

Anzick’s ancestors crossed Beringia during this time, and over the next several thousand years, found their way to Montana. Some of Anzick’s relatives found their way to Mexico, Central and South America. The two groups may have split when Anzick’s family group headed east instead of south, possibly following the edges of glaciers, while the south-moving group followed the coastline.

Recently, from Anzick’s full genome data, another citizen scientist extracted the DNA locations that the testing companies use for autosomal DNA results, created an Anzick file, and uploaded the file to the public autosomal matching site, GedMatch. This allowed everyone to see if they matched Anzick. We expected no, or few, matches, because after all, Anzick was more than 12,000 years old and all of his DNA would have washed out long ago due to the 50% replacement in every generation….right? Wrong!!!

What a surprise to discover fairly large segments of DNA matching Anzick in living people, and we’ve spent the past couple of weeks analyzing and discussing just how this has happened and why. In spite of some technical glitches in terms of just how much individual people carry of the same DNA Anzick carried, one thing is for sure, the GedMatch matches confirm, in spades, the findings of the scientists who wrote the recent paper that describes the Anzick burial and excavation, the subsequent DNA processing and results.

For people who carry known Native heritage, matches, especially relatively large matches to Anzick, confirm not only their Native heritage, but his too.

For people who suspect Native heritage, but can’t yet prove it, an Anzick match provides what amounts to a clue – and it may be a very important clue.

In my case, I have proven Native heritage through the Micmac who intermarried with the Acadians in the 1600s in Nova Scotia. Given that Anzick’s people were clearly on a west to east movement, from Beringia to wherever they eventually wound up, one might wonder if the Micmac were descended from or otherwise related to Anzick’s people. Clearly, based on the genetic affinity map, the answer is yes, but not as closely related to Anzick as Mexican, Central and South Americans.

After several attempts utilizing various files, thresholds and factors that produced varying levels of matching to Anzick, one thing is clear – there is a match on several chromosomes. Someplace, sometime in the past, Anzick and I shared a common ancestor – and it was likely on this continent, or Beringia, since the current school of thought is that all Native people entered the New World through this avenue. The school of thought is not united in an opinion about whether there was a single migration event, or multiple migrations to the new word. Regardless, the people came from the same base population in far northeast Asia and intermingled after arriving here if they were in the same location with other immigrants.

In other words, there probably wasn’t much DNA to pass around. In addition, it’s unlikely that the founding population was a large group – probably just a few people – so in very short order their DNA would be all the same, being passed around and around until they met a new population, which wouldn’t happen until the Europeans arrived on the east side of the continent in the 1400s. The tribes least admixed today are found south of the US border, not in the US. So it makes sense that today the least admixed people would match Anzick the most closely – because they carry the most common DNA, which is still the same DNA that was being passed around and around back then.

Many of us with Native ancestors do carry bits and pieces of the same DNA as Anzick. Anzick can’t be our ancestor, but he is certainly our cousin, about 500 generations ago, using a 25 year generation, so roughly our 500^th cousin. I had to laugh at someone this week, an adoptee who said, “Great, I can’t find my parents but now I have a 12,500 year old cousin.” Yep, you do! The ironies of life, and of genealogy, never fail to amaze me.

Utilizing the most conservative matching routine possible, on a phased kit, meaning one that combines the DNA shared by my mother and myself, and only that DNA, we show the following segment matches with Anzick.

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
2	218855489	220351363	2.4	253
4	1957991	3571907	2.5	209
17	53111755	56643678	3.4	293
19	46226843	48568731	2.2	250
21	35367409	36761280	3.7	215

Being less conservative produces many more matches, some of which are questionable as to whether they are simply convergence, so I haven’t utilized the less restrictive match thresholds.

Of those matches above, the one on chromosomes 17 matches to a known Micmac segment from my Acadian lines and the match on chromosome 2 also matches an Acadian line, but I share so many common ancestors with this person that I can’t tell which family line the DNA comes from.

There are also Anzick autosomal matches on my father’s side. My Native ancestry on his side reaches back to colonial America, in either Virginia or North Carolina, or both, and is unproven as to the precise ancestor and/or tribe, so I can’t correlate the Anzick DNA with proven Native DNA on that side. Neither can I associate it with a particular family, as most of the Anzick matches aren’t to areas on my chromosome that I’ve mapped positively to a specific ancestor.

Running a special utility at GedMatch that compared Anzick’s X chromosome to mine, I find that we share a startlingly large X segment. Sometimes, the X chromosome is passed for generations intact.

Interestingly enough, the segment 100,479,869-103,154,989 matches a segment from my mother exactly, but the large 6cM segment does not match my mother, so I’ve inherited that piece of my X from my father’s line.

Chr	Start Location	End Location	Centimorgans (cM)	SNPs
X	100479869	103154989	1.4	114
X	109322285	113215103	6.0	123

This tells me immediately that this segment comes from one of the pink or blue lines on the fan chart below that my father inherited from his mother, Ollie Bolton, since men don’t inherit an X chromosome from their father. Utilizing the X pedigree chart reduces the possible lines of inheritance quite a bit, and is very suggestive of some of those unknown wives.

It’s rather amazing, if you think about it, that anyone today matches Anzick, or that we can map any of our ancestral DNA that both we and Anzick carry to a specific ancestor.

Indeed, we do live in exciting times.

Honoring Anzick

On a rainy Saturday in June, 2014, on a sagebrush hillside in Montana, in Native parlance, our “grandfather,” Anzick was reburied, bringing his journey full circle. Sarah Anzick, a molecular biologist, the daughter of the family that owns the land where the bones were found, and who did part of the genetic discovery work on Anzick, returns the box with his bones for reburial.

More than 50 people, including scientists, members of the Anzick family and representatives of six Native American tribes, gathered for the nearly two-hour reburial ceremony. Tribe members said prayers, sang songs, played drums and rang bells to honor the ancient child. The bones were placed in the grave and sprinkled with red ocher, just like when his parents buried him some 12,500 years before.

Participants at the reburial ceremony filled in the grave with handfuls, then shovelfuls of dirt and covered it with stones. A stick tied with feathers marks Anzick’s final resting place.

Sarah Anzick tells us that, “At that point, it stopped raining. The clouds opened up and the sun came out. It was an amazing day.”

I wish I could have been there. I would have, had I known. After all, he is part of me, and I of him.

Welcome to the family, Anzick, and thank you, thank you oh so much, for your priceless, unparalleled gift!!!

If you want to read about the Anzick matching journey of DNA discovery, here are the articles I’ve written in the past two weeks. It has been quite a roller coaster ride, but I’m honored and privileged to be doing this research. And it’s all thanks to an ancient child named Anzick.

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Tenth Annual Family Tree DNA Conference Wrapup

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Roberta Estes

This slide, by Robert Baber, pretty well sums up our group obsession and what we focus on every year at the Family Tree DNA administrator’s conference in Houston, Texas.

Getting to Houston, this year, was a whole lot easier than getting out of Houston. They had storms yesterday and many of us spent the entire day becoming intimately familiar with the airport. Jennifer Zinck, of Ancestor Central, is still there today and doesn’t have a flight until late.

And this is how my day ended, after I finally got out of Houston and into my home airport. This isn’t at the airport, by the way. Everything was fine there, but I made the apparent error of stopping at a Starbucks on the way home. This is the parking lot outside an hour or so later. What can I say? At least I had my coffee, and AAA rocks, as did the tow truck driver and my daughter for getting out of bed to come and rescue me!!! Hmmm, I think maybe things have gone full circle. I remember when I used to go and rescue her:)

So far, today hasn’t improved any, so let’s talk about something much more pleasant…the conference itself.

Resources

One of the reasons I mentioned Jennifer Zinck, aside from the fact that she’s still stuck in the airport, is because she did a great job actually covering the conference as it happened. Since I had some time yesterday to visit with her since our gates weren’t terribly far apart, I asked her how she got that done. I took notes too, and photos, but she turned out a prodigious amount of work in a very short time. While I took a lightweight MacBook Air, she took her regular PC that she is used to typing on, and she literally transcribed as the sessions were occurring. She just added her photos later, and since she was working on a platform that she was familiar with, she could crop and make the other adjustments you never see but we perform behind the scenes before publishing a photo.

On the other hand, I struggled with a keyboard that works differently and is a different size than I’m used to as well as not being familiar with the photo tools to reduce the size of pictures, so I just took rough notes and wrote the balance later. Having familiar tools make such a difference. I think I’ll carry my laptop from now on, even though it is much heavier. Kudos to Jennifer!

I was initially going to summarize each session, but since Jen did such a good job, I’m posting her links. No need to recreate a wheel that doesn’t need to be recreated.

http://www.ancestorcentral.com/decennial-conference-on-genetic-genealogy/

ISOGG, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy is not affiliated with Family Tree DNA or any testing company, but Family Tree DNA is generous enough to allow an ISOGG meeting on Sunday before the first conference session.

http://www.ancestorcentral.com/decennial-conference-on-genetic-genealogy-isogg-meeting/

http://www.ancestorcentral.com/decennial-conference-on-genetic-genealogy-sunday/

You can find my conference postings here:

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/11/tenth-annual-family-tree-dna-conference-opening-reception/

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/12/tenth-annual-family-tree-dna-conference-day-2/

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/13/tenth-annual-family-tree-dna-conference-day-3/

Several people were also posting on a twitter feed as well.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23FTDNA2014&src=tyah

Those of you where are members of the ISOGG Yahoo group for project administrators can view photos posted by Katherine Borges in that group and there are also some postings on the Facebook ISOGG group as well.

Now that you have the links for the summaries, what I’d like to do is to discuss some of the aspects I found the most interesting.

The Mix

When I attended my first conference 10 years ago, I somehow thought that for the most part, the same group of people would be at the conferences every year. Some were, and in fact, a handful of the 160+ people attending this conference have attended all 10 conferences. I know of two others for certain, but there were maybe another 3 or so who stood up when Bennett asked for everyone who had been present at all 10 conferences to stand.

Doug Mumma, the very first project administrator was with us this weekend, and still going strong. Now, if Doug and I could just figure out how we’re related…

Some of the original conference group has passed on to the other side where I’m firmly convinced that one of your rewards is that you get to see all of those dead ends of your tree. If we’re lucky, we get to meet them as well and ask all of those questions we have on this side. We remember our friends fondly, and their departure sadly, but they enriched us while they were here and their memories make us smile. I’m thinking specifically of Kenny Hedgepath and Leon Little as I write this, but there have been others as well.

The definition of a community is that people come and go, births, deaths and moves.

This year, about half of the attendees had never attended a conference before. I was very pleased to see this turn of events – because in order to survive, we do need new people who are as crazy as we are…er….I mean as dedicated as we are.

ISOGG traditionally hosts a potluck reception on Saturday evening. Lots of putting names with faces going on here.

Collaboration

I asked people about their favorite part of the conference or their favorite session. I was surprised at the number of people who said lunches and dinners. Trust me, the food wasn’t that wonderful, so I asked them to elaborate. In essence, the most valuable aspect of the conference was working with and talking to other administrators.

It’s not like we don’t talk online, but there is somehow a difference between online communications and having a group discussion, or a one-on-one discussion. Laptops were out and in use everyplace, along with iPads and other tools. It was so much fun to walk by tables and hear snippets of conversations like “the mutation at location 309.1….” and “null marker at 425” and “I ordered a kit for my great uncle…..”

I agree, as well. I had pre-arranged two dinners before arriving in order to talk with people with whom I share specific interests. At lunches, I either tried to sit with someone I specifically needed to talk to, or I tried to meet someone new.

I also asked people about their specific goals for the next year. Some people had a particular goal in mind, such as a specific brick wall that needs focus. Some, given that we are administrators, had wider-ranging project based goals, like Big Y testing certain family groups, and a surprising number had the goal of better utilizing the autosomal results.

Perhaps that’s why there were two autosomal sessions, an introduction by Jim Bartlett and then Tim Janzen’s more advanced session.

Autosomal DNA Results

Note the cool double helix light fixture behind the speakers.

Tim specifically mentioned two misconceptions which I run across constantly.

Misconception 1 – A common surname means that’s how you match. Just because you find a common surname doesn’t mean that’s your DNA match. This belief is particularly prevalent in the group of people who test at Ancestry.com.

Misconception 2 – Your common ancestor has to be within the past 6 generations. Not true, many matches can be 6-10^th cousins because there are so many descendants of those early ancestors, even as many as 15 generations back.

Tim also mentioned that endogamous relationships are a tough problem with no easy answer. Polynesians, Ashkenazi Jews, Low German Mennonites, Acadians, Amish, and island populations. Do I ever agree with him! I have Brethren, Mennonite and Acadian in the same parent’s line.

Tim has been working with the Mennonite DNA project now for many years.

Tim included a great resource slide.

Tim has graciously made his entire presentation available for download.

There are probably a dozen or so of us that are actively mapping our ancestors, and a huge backlog of people who would like to. As Tim pointed out with one of his slides, this is not an easy task nor is it for the people who simply want to receive “an answer.”

I will also add that we “mappers” are working with and actively encouraging Family Tree DNA to develop tools so that the mapping is less spreadsheet manual work and more automated, because it certainly can be.

Upload GEDCOM Files

If you haven’t already, upload your GEDCOM to Family Tree DNA. This is becoming an essential part of autosomal matching. Furthermore, Family Tree DNA will utilize this file to construct your surname list and that will help immensely determining common surnames and your common ancestor with your Family Finder matches. If you have sponsored tests for cousins, then upload a GEDCOM file for them or at least construct a basic tree on their Family Tree DNA page.

Ethics

Family Tree DNA always tries to provide a speaker about ethics, and the only speakers I’ve ever felt understood anything about what we want to do are Judy Russell and Blaine Bettinger. I was glad to see Blaine presenting this year.

The essence of Blaine’s speech is that ethics isn’t about law. Law is cut and dried. Ethics isn’t, and there are no ethics police.

Sometimes our decisions are colored necessarily by right and wrong. Sometimes those decisions are more about the difference between a better and a worse way.

As a community, we want to reduce negative press coverage and increase positive coverage. We want to be proactive, not reactive.

Blaine stresses that while informed consent is crucial, that DNA doesn’t reveal secrets that aren’t also revealed by other genealogical forms of research. DNA often reveals more recent secrets, such as adoptions and NPEs, so it’s possibly more sensitive.

Two things need to govern our behavior. First, we need to do only things that we would be comfortable seeing above the fold in the New York Times. Second, understand that we can’t make promises about topics like anonymity or about the absence of medical information, because we don’t know what we don’t know.

The SNP Tsunami

One of my concerns has been and remains the huge number of new SNPs that have been discovered over the past year or so with the Big Y by Family Tree DNA and corresponding tests from other vendors.

When I say concern, I’m thrilled about this new technology and the advances it is allowing us to make as a community to discover and define the evolution of haplogroups. My concern is that the amount of data is overwhelming. However, we are working through that, thanks to the hours and hours of volunteer work by haplogroup administrators and others.

Alice Fairhurst, who volunteers to maintain the ISOGG haplotree, mentioned that she has added over 10,000 SNPs to the Y tree this year alone, bringing the total to over 14,000. Those SNPs are fully vetted and placed. There are many more in process and yet more still being discovered. On the first page of the Y SNP tree, the list of SNP sources and other critical information, such as the criteria for a SNP to be listed, is provided.

So, if you’re waiting for that next haplotree poster, give it up because there isn’t a printing press that big, unless you want wallpaper.

These slides are from Alice’s presentation. The ISOGG tree provides an invaluable resource for not only the genetic genealogy community, but also researchers world-wide.

As one example of how the SNP tsunami has affected the Y tree, Alice provided the following summary of R-U106, one of the two major branches of haplogroup R.

From the ISOGG 2006 Y tree, this was the entire haplogroup R Y tree. You can see U106 near the bottom with 3 sub-branches. While this probably makes you chuckle today, remember that 2006 was only 8 years ago and that this tree didn’t change much for several years.

2007 was the same.

2008 shows 5 subclades and one of the subclades had 2 subclades.

2009 showed a total of 12 sub-branches and 2010 added one more.

2011 however, showed a large change. U106 in 2011 had 44 subgroups total and became too large to show on one screen shot. 2012 shows 99 subclades, if I counted accurately. The 2014 U106 tree is shown below.

There’s another slide too, but I didn’t manage to get the picture. You get the idea though…

As you can imagine, for Family Tree DNA, trying to keep up with all of the haplogroups, not just one subgroup like U106 is a gargantuan task that is constantly changing, like hourly. Their Y tree is currently the National Geographic tree, and while they would like to update it, I’m sure, the definition of “current tree” is in a constant state of flux. Literally, Mike Walsh, one of the admins in the R-L21 group uploads a new tree spreadsheet several times every day.

In order to deal attempt to deal with this, and to encourage people who don’t want to do a Big Y discovery type test, but do want to ferret out their location on their assigned portion of the tree, Family Tree DNA is reintroducing the Backbone tests.

They are starting with M222, also known as the Niall of the 9 Hostages haplogroup which is their beta for the new product and new process. You can see the provisional tree and results in the two slides they provided, below. I apologize for the quality, but it was the best I could do.

Haplogroup administrators are going to be heavily involved in this process. Family Tree DNA is putting SNP panels together that will help further define the tree and where various SNPs that have been recently discovered, and continue to be discovered, will fall on the tree.

As Big Y tests arrive, haplogroup project administrators typically assemble a spreadsheet of the SNPS and provisionally where they fall on the tree, based on the Big Y results.

What Bennett asked is for the admins to work with Family Tree DNA to assemble a testing panel based on those results. The goal is for the cost to be between $1.50 and $2 (US) for each SNP in the panel, which will reduce the one-off SNP testing and provide a much more complete and productive result at a far reduced price as compared to the current $29 or $39 per individual SNP.

If you are a haplogroup administrator, get in touch with Family Tree DNA to discuss your desired backbone panels. New panels, when it’s your turn, will take about 2 weeks to develop.

Keep in mind that the following SNPs, according to Bennett, are not optimal for panels:

Palindromic regions
Often mutating regions designated as .1, .2, etc.
SNPs in STRs

Nir Leibovich, the Chief Business Officer, also addressed the future and the Big Y to some extent in his presentation.

Utilizing the Big Y for Genealogy

In my case, during the last sale, I ordered several Big Y tests for my Estes family line because I have several genealogically documented lines from the original Estes family in Kent, England through our common ancestor, Robert Estes born in 1555 and his wife Anne Woodward. The participants also agreed to extend their markers to 111 markers as well. When the results are back, we’ll be able to compare them on a full STR marker set, and also their SNPs. Hopefully, they will match on their known SNPs and there will be some new novel variants that will be able to suffice as line marker mutations.

We need more BIG Y tests of these types of genealogically confirmed trees that have different sons’ lines from a distant common ancestor to test descendant lines. This will help immensely to determine the actual, not imputed, SNP mutation rate and allow us to extrapolate the ages of haplogroups more accurately. Of course, it also goes without saying that it helps to flesh out the trees.

I personally expect the next couple of years will be major years of discovery. Yes, the SNP tsumani has hit land, but it’s far from over.

Research and Development

David Mittleman, Chief Scientific Officer, mentioned that Family Tree DNA now has their own R&D division where they are focused on how to best analyze data. They have been collaborating with other scientists. A haplogroup G1 paper will be published shortly which states that SNP mutation rates equate to Sanger data.

FTDNA wants to get Big Y data into the public domain. They have set up consent for this to be done by uploading into NCBI. Initially they sent a survey to a few people that sampled the interest level. Those who were interested received a release document. If you are interested in allowing FTDNA to utilize your DNA for research, be it mitochondrial, Y or autosomal, please send them an e-mail stating such.

Don’t Forget About Y Genealogy Research

It’s very easy for us to get excited about the research and discovery aspect of DNA – and the new SNPs and extending haplotrees back in time as far as possible, but sometimes I get concerned that we are forgetting about the reason we began doing genetic genealogy in the first place.

Robert Baber’s presentation discussed the process of how to reconstruct a tree utilizing both genealogy and DNA results. It’s important to remember that the reason most of our participants test is to find their ancestors, not, primarily, to participate in the scientific process.

Robert has succeeded in reconstructing 110 or 111 markers of the oldest known Baber ancestor, shown above. I wrote about how to do this in my article titled, Triangulation for Y DNA.

Not only does this allow us to compare everyone with the ancestor’s DNA, it also provides us with a tool to fit individuals who don’t know specific genealogical line into the tree relatively accurately. When I say relatively, the accuracy is based on line marker mutations that have, or haven’t, happened within that particular family.

Jim illustrated how to do this as well, and his methodology is available at the link on his slide, below.

I had to laugh. I’ve often wondered what our ancestors would think of us today. Robert said that that 11 generations after Edward Baber died, he flew over church where Edward was buried and wondered what Edward would have thought about what we know and do today – cars, airplanes, DNA, radio, TV etc.. If someone looked in a crystal ball and told Edward what the future held 11 generations later, he would have thought that they were stark raving mad.

Eleven generations from my birth is roughly the year 2280. I’m betting we won’t be trying to figure out who our ancestors were through this type of DNA analysis then. This is only a tiny stepping stone to an unknown world, as different to us as our world is to Edward Baber and all of our ancestors who lived in a time where we know their names but their lives and culture are entirely foreign to ours.

Publications

When the Journal of Genetic Genealogy was active, I, along with other citizen scientists published regularly. The benefit of the journal was that it was peer reviewed and that assured some level of accuracy and because of that, credibility, and it was viewed by the scientific community as such. My co-authored works published in JOGG as well as others have been cited by experts in the academic community. It other words, it was a very valuable journal. Sadly, it has fallen by the wayside and nothing has been published since 2011. A new editor was recruited, but given their academic load, they have not stepped up to the plate. For the record, I am still hopeful for a resurrection, but in the mean time, another opportunity has become available for genetic genealogists.

Brad Larkin has founded the Surname DNA Journal, which, like JOGG, is free to both authors and subscribers. In case you weren’t aware, most academic journal’s aren’t. While this isn’t a large burden for a university, fees ranging from just over $1000 to $5000 are beyond the budget of genetic genealogists. Just think of how many DNA tests one could purchase with that money.

Brad has issued a call for papers. These papers will be peer reviewed, similarly to how they were reviewed for JOGG.

Take a look at the articles published in this past year, since the founding of Surname DNA Journal.

The History, Adoption, and Regulation of Jewish Surnames in the Russian Empire, A Reviewby Dr. Jeffrey Mark Paull and Dr Jeffrey Briskman
Preliminary Phylogenetic Analysis of Briese Family Relationships by David Briese
Differences in Autosomal DNA Characteristics between Jewish and Non-Jewish Populations by Dr. Jeffrey Mark Paull, Gaye Sherman Tannenbaum, and Dr Jeffrey Briskman
Using STRs for Intra-Family Y-DNA Comparisons: Segmenting Markers by Joe Flood, PhD
Y-DNA of the British Monarchy by Brad Larkin
The Irish Septs by David Austin Larkin
Using Y Chromosome DNA Testing to Pinpoint a Genetic Homeland in Ireland by Dr. Tyrone Bowes, PhD
Ancestral Parish Sampling in Ulster and Wexford for the Larkin DNA Project by Brad Larkin

The citizen science community needs an avenue to publish and share. Peer reviewed journals provide us with another level of credibility for our work. Sharing is clearly the lynchpin of genetic genealogy, as it is with traditional genealogy. Give some thought about what you might be able to contribute.

Brad Larkin solicited nominations prior to the conference and awarded a Genetic Genealogist of the Year award. This year’s award was dually presented to Ian Kennedy in Australia, who, unfortunately, was not present, and to CeCe Moore, who just happened to follow Brad’s presentation with her own.

Don’t Forget about Mitochondrial DNA Either

I believe that mitochondrial DNA the most underutilized DNA tool that we have, often because how to use mitochondrial DNA, and what it can tell you, is poorly understood. I wrote about this in an article titled, Mitochondrial, The Maligned DNA.

Given that I work with mitochondrial DNA daily when I’m preparing client’s Personalized DNA Reports (orderable from your personal page at Family Tree DNA or directly from my website), I know just how useful mitochondrial can be and see those examples regularly. Unfortunately, because these are client reports, I can’t write about them publicly.

CeCe Moore, however, isn’t constrained by this problem, because one of the ways she contributes to genetic genealogy is by working with the television community, in particular Genealogy Roadshow and the PBS series, Finding Your Roots. Now, I must admit, I was very surprised to see CeCe scheduled to speak about mitochondrial DNA, because the area of expertise where she is best known is autosomal DNA, especially in conjunction with adoptee research.

During the research for the production of these shows, CeCe has utilized mitochondrial DNA with multiple celebrities to provide information such as the ethnic identification of the ancestor who provided the mitochondrial DNA as Native American.

Autosomal DNA testing has a broad but shallow reach, across all of your lines, but just back a few generations. Both Y and mitochondrial DNA have a very deep reach, but only on one specific line, which makes them excellent for identifying a common ancestor on that line, as well as the ethnicity of that individual.

I have seen other cases, where researchers connected the dots between people where no paper trail existed, but a relationship between women was suspected.

CeCe mentioned that currently there are only 44,000 full sequence results in the Family Tree DNA data base and and 185K total HVR1, HVR2 and full sequence tests. Y has half a million. We need to increase the data base, which, of course increases matches and makes everyone happier. If you haven’t tested your mitochondrial DNA to the full sequence level, this would be a great time!

There are several lessons on how to utilize mitochondrial DNA at this ISOGG link.

I’m very hopeful that CeCe’s presentation will be made available as I think her examples are quite powerful and will serve to inspire people. Actually, since CeCe is in the “movie business,” perhaps a short video clip could be made available on the FTDNA website for anyone who hasn’t tested their mitochondrial DNA so they can see an example of why they should!

myOrigins

I would be fibbing to you if I told you I am happy with myOrigins. I don’t feel that it is as sensitive as other methods for picking up minority admixture, in particular, Native American, especially in small amounts. Unfortunately, those small amounts are exactly what many people are looking for.

If someone has a great-great-great-great grandparent that is Native, they carry about 1%, more or less, of the Native ancestor’s DNA today. A 4X great grandparent puts their birth year in the range of 1800-1825 – or just before the Trail of Tears. People whose colonial American families intermarried with Native families did so, generally, before the Trail of Tears. By that time, many tribes were already culturally extinct and those east of the Mississippi that weren’t extinct were fighting for their lives, both literally and figuratively.

We really need the ability to develop the most sensitive testing to report even the smallest amounts of Native DNA and map those segments to our chromosomes so that we can determine who, and what line in our family, was Native.

I know that Family Tree DNA is looking to improve their products, and I provided this feedback to them. Many people test autosomally only for their ethnicity results and I surely would love to have those people’s results available as matches in the FTDNA data base.

Razib Khan has been working with Family Tree DNA on their myOrigins product and spoke about how the myOrigins data is obtained.

Given that all humans are related, one way or another, far enough back in time, myOrigins has to be able to differentiate between groups that may not be terribly different. Furthermore, even groups that appear different today may not have been historically. His own family, from India, has no oral history of coming from the East, but the genetic data clearly indicates that they did, along with a larger group, about 1000 years ago. This may well be a result of the adage that history is written by the victors, or maybe whatever happened was simply too long ago or unremarkable to be recorded.

Razib mentioned that depending on the cluster and the reference samples, that these clusters and groups that we see on our myOrigins maps can range from 1000-10,000 years in age.

The good news is that genetics is blind to any preconceived notions. The bad news is that the software has to fit your results to the best population, even though it may not be directly a fit. Hopefully, as we have more and better reference populations, the results will improve as well.

Razib showed a PCA (principal components analysis) graph, above. These graphs chart reference populations in different quadrants. Where the different populations overlap is where they share common historic ancestors. As you can see, on this graph with these reference populations, there is a lot of overlap in some cases, and none in others.

Your personal results would then be plotted on top of the reference populations. The graph below shows me, as the white “target” on a PCA graph created by Doug McDonald.

The Changing Landscape

A topic discussed privately among the group, and primarily among the bloggers, is the changing landscape of genetic genealogy over the past year or so. In many ways I think the bloggers are the canaries in the mine.

One thing that clearly happened is that the proverbial tipping point occurred, and we’re past it. DNA someplace along the line became mainstream. Today, DNA is a household word. At gatherings, at least someone has tested, and most people have heard about DNA testing for genealogy or at least consumer based DNA testing.

The good news in all of this is that more and more people are testing. The bad news is that they are typically less informed and are often impulse purchasers. This gives us the opportunity for many more matches and to work with new people. It also means there is a steep learning curve and those new testers often know little about their genealogy. Those of us in the “public eye,” so to speak, have seen an exponential spike in questions and communications in the past several months. Unfortunately, many of the new people don’t even attempt to help themselves before asking questions.

Sometimes opportunity comes with work clothes – for them and us both.

I was talking with Spencer about this at the reception and he told me I was stealing his presentation. He didn’t seem too upset by this:)

I had to laugh, because this falls clearly into the “be careful what you wish for, you may get it” category. The Genographic project through National Geographic is clearly, very clearly, a critical component of the tipping point, and this was reflected in Spencer’s presentation. Although I covered quite a bit of Spencer’s presentation in my day 2 summary, I want to close with Spencer here. I also want to say that if you ever have the opportunity to hear Spencer speak, please do yourself the favor and be sure to take that opportunity. Not only is he brilliant, he’s interesting, likeable and very approachable. Of course, it probably doesn’t hurt that I’ve know him now for 9 years! I’ve never thought to have my picture taken with Spencer before, but this time, one of my friends did me the favor.

I have to admit, I love talking to Spencer, and listening to him. He is the adventurer through whom we all live vicariously. In the photo below, Spencer along with his crew, drove from London to Mongolia. Not sure why he is standing on the top of the Land Rover, but I’m sure he will tell us in his upcoming book about that journey,

I’m warning you all now, if I win the lottery, I’m going on the world tour that he hosts with National Geographic, and of course, you’ll all be coming with me via the blog!

Spencer talked about the consumer genomics market and where we are today.

Spencer mentioned that genetic genealogy was a cottage industry originally. It was, and it was even smaller than that, if possible. It actually was started by Bennett and his cell phone. I managed to snap a picture of Bennett this weekend on the stage looking at his cell, and I thought to myself, “this is how it all started 14 years ago.” Just look where we are today. Thank you Michael Hammer for telling Bennett that you received “lots of phone calls from crazy genealogists like you.”

So, where exactly are we today? In 2013, the industry crossed the millionth kit line. The second millionth kit was sold in early summer 2014 and the third million will be sold in 2015. No wonder we feel like a tidal wave has hit. It has.

Why now?

DNA has become part of national consciousness. Businesses advertise that “it’s in our DNA.” People are now comfortable sharing via social media like facebook and twitter. What DNA can do and show you, the secrets it can unlock is spreading by word of mouth. Spencer termed this the “viral spread threshold” and we’ve crossed that invisible line in the sand. He terms 2013 as the year of infection and based on my blog postings, subscriptions, hits, reach and the number of e-mails I receive, I would completely agree. Hold on tight for the ride!

Spencer talked about predictions for near term future and said a 5 year plan is impossible and that an 18 month plan is more realistic. He predicts that we will continue to see exponential growth over the next several years. He feels that genetic genealogy testing will be primary driver of growth because medical or health testing is subject to the clinical utility trap being experienced currently by 23andMe. The Big 4 testing companies control 99% of consumer market in US (Ancestry, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA and National Geographic.)

Spencer sees a huge international market potential that is not currently being tapped. I do agree with him, but many in European countries are hesitant, and in some places, like France, DNA testing that might expose paternity is illegal. When Europeans see DNA testing as a genealogical tool, he feels they will become more interested. Most Europeans know where their ancestral village is, or they think they do, so it doesn’t have the draw for them that it does for some of us.

Ancestry testing (aka genetic genealogy as opposed to health testing) is now a mature industry with 100% growth rate.

Spencer also mentioned that while the Genographic data base is not open access, that affiliate researchers can send Nat Geo a proposal and thereby gain research access to the data base if their proposal is approved. This extends to citizen scientists as well.

Michael Hammer

You’ll notice that Michael Hammer’s presentation, “Ancient and Modern DNA Update, How Many Ancestral Populations for Europe,” is missing from this wrapup. It was absolutely outstanding, and fascinating, which is why I’m writing a separate article about his presentation in conjunction with some additional information. So, stay tuned.

Testing, More Testing

It’s becoming quite obvious that the people who are doing the best with genetic genealogy are the ones who are testing the most family members, both close and distant. That provides them with a solid foundation for comparison and better ways to “drop matches” into the right ancestor box. For example, if someone matches you and your mother’s sister, Aunt Margaret, especially if your mother is not available to test, that’s a very important hint that your match is likely from your mother’s line.

So, in essence, while initially we would advise people to test the oldest person in a generational line, now we’ve moved to the “test everyone” mentality. Instead of a survey, now we need a census. The exception might be that the “child” does not necessarily need to be tested because both parents have tested. However, having said that, I would perhaps not make that child’s test a priority, but I would eventually test that child anyway. Why? Because that’s how we learn. Let me give you an example.

I was sitting at lunch with David Pike. were discussing autosomal DNA generational transmission and inheritance. He pulled out his iPad, passed it to me, and showed me a chromosome (not the X) that has been passed entirely intact from one generation to the next. Had the child not been tested, we would never have known that. Now, of course, if you’ll remember the 50% rule, by statistical prediction, the child should get half of the mother’s chromosome and half of the father’s, but that’s not how it worked. So, because we don’t know what we don’t know, I’m now testing everyone I can find and convince in my family. Unfortunately, my family is small.

Full genome testing is in the future, but we’re not ready yet. Several presenters mentioned full genome testing in some context. Here’s the bottom line. It’s not truly full genome testing today, only 95-96%. The technology isn’t there yet, and we’re still learning. In a couple of years, we will have the entire genome available for testing, and over time, the prices will fall. Keep in mind that most of our genome is identical to that of all humans, and the autosomal tests today have been developed in order to measure what is different and therefore useful genealogially. I don’t expect big breakthroughs due to full genome testing for genetic genealogy, although I could be wrong. You can, however, count me in, because I’m a DNA junkie. When the full genome test is below $1000, when we have comparison tools and when the coverage won’t necessitate doing a second or upgrade test a few years later, I’ll be there.

Thank you

I want to offer a heartfelt thank you to Max Blankfeld and Bennett Grenspan, founders of Family Tree DNA, shown with me in the photo below, for hosting and subsidizing the administrator’s conference – now for a decade. I look forward to seeing them, and all of the other attendees, next year.

I anticipate that this next decade will see many new discoveries resulting in tools that make our genealogy walls fall. I can’t help but wonder what the article I’ll be writing on the 20^th anniversary looking back at nearly a quarter century of genetic genealogy will say!

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

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DNA Day with Ancestry

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Roberta Estes

For quite some time now, the genetic genealogy community has been beating the living tar out of Ancestry.com for not listening, among other things. Well, I’m here to say, they are listening. Now, what I can’t say is how much they are hearing. The jury is out and we will see. However, we are hopeful.

Ancestry invited a few of the leaders in the genetic genealogy field to come and meet with them this week. They dedicated the resources of eighteen of their scientists and executives to this meeting and they spent the day with us, sharing information about the science underlying their upcoming product changes and having frank discussions with the group.

This was a very cordial, informative and I think, team-building, experience, but there was far from uniform agreement. There was a great deal of discussion which I think helps everyone understand the position and reasoning of the other parties involved. Like anything else, it’s not as simple as one might hope.

Another important aspect of these meeting is that they serve to put faces with names and humanize the other people involved.

I also found it encouraging that most of the people at Ancestry are genealogists and utilize their own tools.

Tim Sullivan, CEO of Ancestry stopped by and talked with us for a few minutes. He asked us what we wanted, why and if we had any questions for him. He told us about his own genealogy experiences. And, we discovered, he does read our blogs. Tim is very actively engaged as is Ken Chahine, Senior Vice President and General Manager DNA, who is in many of the photographs because he was sitting at the end of the screen and was with us for the entire day.

I will be covering different aspects of the content of these meetings as time moves forward and as Ancestry’s new software version is implemented, but for now, I wanted to update you on the two burning questions in the genetic genealogy community.

These, as you might guess, were also the most contentious aspects of the entire meeting.

Will We Receive a Chromosome Brower?

I want to share with you readers that there is absolutely no question that Ancestry heard the message that we need a chromosome browser, loud, clear and uniformly from us. Ancestry is equally as adamant, it appears, as we are, that we don’t need one.

So, the short answer is no.

The longer answer is probably not.

Judy Russell, in comments to her article, “when less is more,” which I strongly encourage you to read, says about the chromosome browser:

“In my personal opinion, speaking only for myself and based solely on my own perceptions of the attitudes of some folks at AncestryDNA and not on any specific representations by anyone else, my judgment is that we may get a chromosome browser at AncestryDNA when hell freezes over.”

This was also followed by a comment about pigs flying…..plus, she took all the good phrases…not much left for me to say.

I think this pretty well sums it up.

I do want to discuss why Ancestry does not feel a chromosome browser is warranted. This topic was discussed directly and indirectly several times throughout the day. These concerns listed below are not necessarily in priority order based on discussions, because I couldn’t really discern a priority.

1. Given that Ancestry will hit the million kit DNA mark sometime in the first quarter of 2015, they feel that very few, a small percentage, of those people would ever utilize, or understand the results of a chromosome browser. Given that, they don’t feel it is a good investment of their engineering time to invest in something that few people, or a small percentage of the whole, will utilize.

2. Since Ancestry did not begin utilizing chromosome browsing in the beginning, they are concerned about privacy issues having to do with now introducing the feature to people who did not expect to have that to begin with.

3. Ancestry is concerned about unexpectedly and unintentionally revealing health information. For example, let’s say that today, a particular SNP is included in their information and is not known to be medically relevant. Next year, someone discovers that a particular SNP on chromosome 7 is connected to the genetic propensity for erectile dysfunction. Remember, a genetic propensity does NOT mean you have or will get the particular disease. In this case, of course, that would not apply to women.

Ancestry’s concern is that since they would have already been displaying that match on chromosome 7 between several people for months/years, the cow is proverbially out of the barn and closing the door at that point it a bit late, if possible at all.

Of course, as we pointed out to Ancestry, that’s the entire point of having testers sign a release, and both Family Tree DNA and 23andMe both deal with the same issue.

4. Ancestry feels that a chromosome browser would provide information to people that they should not be drawing conclusions from, and they are.

For example, as they showed us, there are areas in each person’s chromosome and their matches chromosomes that are what they call “pile up” areas. These are areas that we would call IBS, identical by state as opposed to IBD, identical by descent. Some of these pileup areas are so old that they could potentially be considered AIMs, or Ancestrally Informative Markers that harken back to continents like Africa, Asia or Europe.

This slide shows Cathy Ball, VP Genomics and Bioinformatics, showing me my own pileup areas. The two screens are a TV screen to the right where the colors resolved much better, and the larger screen where the display was larger.

What this shows you is that on the chart at left, I have one area that has a very large number of pileups, probably about 800 matches (out of my 12,500 total matches), two areas that have 400 each, two that have about 200. On the chart at right, the top of the chart is 25 match segments, so you can see that most of my matches fall below that. Ancestry feels that the higher matched segments are less relevant because they match to so many people, that they aren’t really indicative of shared ancestry in a genealogical timeframe.

And no, they did not tell me which chromosome these pileup segments are found on, and I’m DYING to know so that I can relate that to my ancestral chromosome mapping….but no cigar. It’s so frustrating that they know, they have the info, our info, but they won’t share it with us. I’m not referring here to the slide and my pileup, but the lack of segment information in general. I don’t know how that’s any worse that allowing customers to infer that a shakey leaf tree match is equivalent to a DNA match…..

Everyone has these pileup areas, which also means that they show up on your chromosome browser as matches. Ancestry is concerned that you will see three people, whether from a common genealogy line or not, who match on one segment and you will presume that they are genealogically related, when perhaps they aren’t, because their match is IBS from a pileup area.

Clearly, those of us who work in this field daily deal with IBS issues routinely, but Ancestry is concerned about the general consumer who doesn’t.

I suggested that the chromosome browser could be even more useful if they had a way to show but “grey out” those pileup areas, so we would be aware that their confidence is low, and to highlight the areas where the rarest alleles match, because those matches are most likely to indicate true genealogical matches. That suggestion met with polite silence.

Roberta’s Opinion

I do agree that many people won’t utilize the chromosome browser, but many people won’t utilize many of their services. That doesn’t prevent Ancestry from providing those services for those who want to utilize them. I’m fine with Ancestry making the Chromosome Browser part of a subscription kit so only subscribers have access, just like many of their data bases.

Unfortunately, without a chromosome browser, we are left with nothing concrete to base any matches on, nor the ability to utilize that information in conjunction with chromosome segment information from other companies to map our segments to various ancestors. The problem of incorrect ancestor attribution remains and will remain present in their matches.

They are changing their matching algorithm and in some ways, it will be improved, but in one way, I am gravely concerned that it will be worse. Ancestry will begin weighting various factors in calculating the match strength, and one of those factors will be the number of trees that list a particular ancestor. If you’ve just had a coronary…so did we. I thought one of the genetic genealogists was going to have the big one right there – they turned so red in the face.

A second confidence weighting factor will be the amount of source information for a particular tree which Ancestry feels helps judge the quality of the tree. In a sense, I agree, but attaching source information, perhaps incorrectly, to the wrong family, or having the wrong ancestor you’ve just attached source information to, is still the same large problem. Clearly, quality is not a matter of quantity, but just as clearly Ancestry cannot look at each tree individually and render an opinion, so they have to develop some automated methodology if they are going down this path.

Ancestry is trying to find ways to improve their matching and predictions of common ancestry. As time moves forward, I’ll be covering these developments. As someone in the meeting said, first steps first.

But back to the chromosome browser, my gut reaction to this is, and this is my opinion alone, that they don’t want to invest the development effort into something that will make the user experience more complex and may increase their customer support staff load to support and explain matching on a chromosome browser. I don’t think they believe the genealogy community has the ability to utilize and understand this type of tool. Ancestry is a genealogy marketing company. They want the user’s experience to be pleasant, easy and fulfilling…not difficult and certainly not upsetting.

Our message did not waiver, we need a chromosome browser and “trust me” simply won’t work.

The Y DNA and mtDNA Data Base

When Ancestry sent the invitation to this meeting, I had to wonder if they really thought through the fact that this meeting would occur less than a week after they decommissioned their Y and mtDNA data base.

Did they really want a group of people that were mad as wet hens arriving to meet with them? I fully expected to receive an “un-invitation” after my article and before the meeting, but I didn’t.

Without going into nitty-gritty detail, Ancestry indicates that the data base that held those results was literally on its last leg and they did not want to invest any money into something they was not bringing in any revenue and for a product they were no longer selling. I do believe that data base was indeed in its death throes because after the denial of service attack in June, it was no longer searchable.

In the ensuing discussion, the genetic genealogy community provided a number of alternative scenarios both within and outside of Ancestry as a way to salvage the information in that database. Ancestry has agreed to take the matter under consideration internally and discuss the various options. They made no promises, but I personally find it very encouraging that they are willing to discuss the matter and reconsider.

I told them I’d like nothing more than to write a retraction article that says that Ancestry did not, after all, burn the DNA courthouse.

In the same vein, I asked if they had any plans to decommission the Sorenson data base at www.smgf.org and they indicated that they do not have any plans at this point to do that. Obviously, nothing is forever, and they could reconsider in the future but at least it appears that resource is safe for now and adding the Y and mtDNA records from Ancestry into that data base was one option discussed.

In Conclusion

I do feel this was a productive meeting. The scientific aspects of having a large data base to draw from are quite interesting and I’ll be sharing some those in upcoming articles. Some of the best conversations took place beside the proverbial “water cooler.” I am hopeful that we made progress, or at least thawed the ice a little on the issues so critical for the genetic genealogy community, but time will tell. In a way, I felt like this was a United Nations type of meeting where everyone leaves with a better understanding.

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Disclosure

Thank you so much.

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Elizabeth Day (c 1667 – 1699), Murdered, 52 Ancestors #40

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Elizabeth Day, her married name, was my 7th great-grandmother.

Roberta Estes
William Sterling Estes
William George Estes and Ollie Bolton
Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy
Joel Vannoy and Phoebe Crumley
Elijah Vannoy and Lois McNiel
William McNiel and Elizabeth Shepherd
Robert Shepherd and Sarah Rash
George Shepherd and Elizabeth Mary Angelique Day(e)
Thomas Day (1651-1706) and Elizabeth (murdered 1699), last name unknown

We don’t know Elizabeth’s surname, nor do we know when she was born, nor where, although probably in Virginia. We don’t know exactly when she married Thomas Day, but it was sometime after 1687 and before 1698. She had one child before her death in early 1699. It’s her death that we know the most about.

Elizabeth was murdered, horrifically murdered, beaten to death, very likely at the hands of her husband, Thomas Day. And we only discovered this terrible fact, some 314 years after it happened. Talk about a well-kept family secret.

Thomas Day was born about 1651 in Rappahannock, Virginia and died in 1706 in Essex County, VA. Daughter, Elizabeth Mary Angelica Day, believed to be the only child of Thomas and Elizabeth, per his will, married George Shepherd about 1725. They lived in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Their son, Robert would marry Sarah Rash and they would settle in Wilkes County, beginning the Shepherd line in western NC.

In 1676, Thomas Day married widow Dorothy Young Hudson in Old Rappahannock County, Virginia. Dorothy was the daughter of Robert and Anne Parry Young. Dorothy (b. ca. 1646, d. bef. 1698) was the widow of Edward Hudson with whom she had three children: Serania/Lurana, Anne, and William.

Early records show that Thomas Day purchased land from William Hudson and wife Rebecca Woodnut Hudson located in Essex County, Virginia in 1687. He also purchased 189 acres in Essex County, Virginia from a John Brookes in 1693.

Before 1698, Thomas married a second time to Elizabeth. Thomas and Elizabeth had one daughter, Elizabeth Mary Angelica Day, born between 1687 and 1699. I suspect her birth was closer to the 1698 timeframe, because her eventual husband was born around 1700.

Thomas Indicted

Thomas Day was indicted for the murder of his wife, Elizabeth, in 1699. Exactly what transpired concerning this event is not completely clear.

According to recorded testimony, it appears that a neighbor, Mary Hodges, visited the Day home and found Elizabeth Day’s dead body lying on a bed. She had been severely beaten, and Thomas Day also had wounds on his face. Thomas Day said his wife died about two hours before sunrise, but he did not know what had happened to her. He told Hodges that his facial wounds resulted from hitting his head over a “potrack.” A jury indicted Day for the murder of his wife, but he was acquitted. A man named John Smith was later found guilty of Elizabeth’s murder and was executed.

Nothing is recorded concerning Smith’s relation to the Day’s or his motive–only that he was found guilty and executed (presumably hanged).

Testimony concerning this case follows:

Essex Co., VA Deeds and Wills BK 10, Part 1, 1699-1702; page 31A; 10 Feb 1699;

The deposition of Judith Davy aged 27 years or thereabout, being Examd and swoorn saith that upon ye 9th of this instant and going to ye house of Tho. Days of Ffarnham in ye Essex County at ye request of Mary Hodge, her neighbour and seeing ye Days wife lying dead upon ye bed in a most horrod and barborey mannor all gored in blood this depo. asked him how his wife cam to be in that condition who mad answer he know not. Thy Depot. further asked him if he and his wife had been quarrelling who replyed that he and his wife had not had an angry word this many a day also they Depot further asked him if anybody had been lately thoto who answered nither did he see anhbody also they Depot. asked him how he burned his eyes who replyed again ye pott rack and being asked a little while after by this depot. how he hurt himself he answered the Lord Knows, I know not and this Depot. saith furthor that ye Sd. Tho. Day had then and at the same time his face and eyes most greviously bruised and further saith not.

Judith Davy

Sworne before me ye Day and yeare above written; Rich’d. Covington

The deposition of Elizabeth Aeres, aged thirty-eight years or thereabout, being Examined and Sworne saith that upon the ninth of this instant that going to the house of Tho. Daye of Ffarnham parrish in Essex County at the request of Mary Hodge, he neighbour and seeing the sd. Days wife lying dead upon the bed in a most horrod and barboriy mannor all Gored in Blood thy deponent asked him how his wife came to lie in that condition who made answer he knew not this Depo’t further asked him if he and his wife had been quarrelling who replyed that he and his wife had not had an angry word this many day also thy depont. further asked him if anybody had been lately there who answered no neither did he see anybody also this dDepont. asked him how he hurt his Eyes who replyed against the potrack and being asked a little while after by thy depont’ how he hurt himself he answered the Lord knows I know not and thy Depont saith further if the sd. Thomas Daye had then at the same time his face and eyes most greviously brused with severall wound and bruses upon his head and further saith not.

Elizabeth Aeres

Sworn before me the day and yeare above written By me Rich’d Covington in ye Place of A Coroner

The Deposition of Mary Hodges aged seaventy five yeares or thereabouts being Examined and Sworne saith that upon the ninth of this Instant coming from the house of Mr. Tho. Covingtons and going to Tho. Days of Ffarnham Parish in Essex County seeing the sd. Day setting upon a counch by the fire seemed melancholy asked him how he did who answered he did not know his face and eyes being most greviously brused he presently after tould me that his wife was dead. Your Depot asked him how she came to die who presently replyed she died about two houres before day of morning. Your depot further asked him how his face came to be in that condition who tould me he cut it against the potrack that was over the fire upon which I went to the woman, his wife as she lay on the bed and found her dead your depont. seeing her lying in a most horrod and barborous manor all gored in blood upon….Your depont. took Days wife by one of her shoose which was upon her foot and found her legg to be somewhat limber and the sd. Day requesting her to strip her dead body I told him I may not able of myself to perform it and further told him I would goe for more assistance and call of Judith Davy my daughter in law and Elizabeth Aeres which accordingly I did and ye depont. further saith not.

Mary Hodges

Sworn before me the day and yeare above written. Rich’d Covington in Place of Coronor.

An Inquisition

An Inquisition….taken at ye house of Thomas Dayes in Ffarnham Parish in Essex County ye 10 day of February in ye yeare 1699 before me. Rich’d Covington one of his Majesties Justices of ye Peace for ye County of Essex upon view of the body of Elizabeth day ye wife of Thomas Day….then and there lying dead and ye Jurors being good and lawfull men and Sworne to trye and inquire in ye behalfe of our Sovereigne Lord & King how and in what manner ye Eliza Day came by her death and they upon their oath say that ye Elizabeth Day was much beaten and bruised with both her eyes exstreem black with many other bruses on her face and bruise on her right eare and a hole underneath ye smae eare and we of the juror say..ye cause of ye sd. Eliza Days death and wee of ye Jurors further say that Tho. Day at ye same time was much brused and beaten having both his Eyes Extreemly brused and black several cuts in his head and further upon his Examination would not confess anything how Elizabeth his wife came by them blows and wounds now how he came to be soo beaten himself so we Jurors say that in ye parish and county aforsd and on the eight or ninth of this instant to wit: in ye dwelling house of ye sd. Tho. Day that ye Sd. Eliza. Day was barbarously murdered and by all manner of Circumstances we can find or gather that ye aforesaid Thom. Day is Guilty of ye murdering ye said Elizabeth Day. In Reffereance to ye Same I Rich’d Covington as afforsd togeather with the jurory aforsd: have put our hands and seales ye day and date above written.

Richard Covington in ye Place of Coronor

Sam. Farry, Tho. Ewell, Henry Perkins, Richd. Taylor, Tho. Crants, Tho. Johnsone, Tho. Greene, Wm. Price, Sam. Coates, John Brooks, Tho. Cooper, Henry Geare, Jeffrey Dyer, Tho. Williamson February 10, 1699.

Thomas Day of Essex Co., VA was charged with murdering his wife Elizabeth Day. He was acquitted in the Aprill Generall Court 1700.

Subsequently, John Smith was found guilty of murdering Elizabeth Day and was executed. October Generall Court 1700.

Thomas Day’s Death

Thomas Day didn’t live long himself. He was ill when he made his will. It’s unclear who his daughter lived with after his wife’s death and after his death as well. It’s presumed that he had only the one child because no other children are known or mentioned in the will.

Thomas Day died between December 5, 1705 (the date of his will) and February 11, 1706 (when his will was probated), ironicly, possibly 7 years to the day after his wife’s death. At the writing of his will, an ailing Thomas Day had placed himself and his daughter Elizabeth (still a minor) in the care of John Fargason.

Reflecting

I can’t even begin to imagine how or why Thomas Day was acquitted of Elizabeth’s death. Looking at the depositions, some 300+ years removed, it appears obvious and nearly conclusive that Thomas murdered Elizabeth. Maybe that’s because today we understand much better the profile of wife abusers.

Perhaps research into the life and social standing of Thomas Day might reveal more information and shed more light on this situation. Records in the Virginia archives might contain more information as well.

I find it extremely hard to believe that Thomas did not murder his wife. In fact, how could he NOT have been the murderer, given the circumstances? The description of her wounds, the severity and the continuous beating that had to have occurred in order to inflict those grave wounds would have been unlikely to have been inflicted by someone simply wanting to get her out of the way, like for a robbery. Those are wounds of passion, of anger, and it looks like she put up a hellatious fight as well – literally, fighting for her life. Sadly, a battle she did not win. Thomas had obviously been in a fight as his own face and eyes were bruised. This was a crime of passion. Added to that was the fact that Thomas’s wife had died in the night, and he had not sought assistance from anyone. He was found sitting on the couch by the fireplace hours after she died. If he had found her bloody and beaten, he would have gone for help, but he didn’t. Instead, he watched her die and left her lying on the bed in a pool of her own blood for the neighbor to find in the morning, stating that he didn’t know what happened.

Even if Thomas didn’t directly murder Elizabeth, meaning that a stranger broke in, beat them both, killed Elizabeth but not Thomas, and left the house – Thomas still has some culpability for Elizabeth’s death, since he was clearly conscious and knew when she died, according to what he told 3 separate witnesses. So he wasn’t asleep or unaware, yet he did nothing before she died to try to help her. He clearly knew she was badly injured. Had she survived, she surely would have named him as the person who beat her. Nor was Thomas distraught by her death. There was no sobbing at her bedside.

So Thomas Day not only killed his wife, he is also responsible for the death of John Smith in 1700 who was hung for Elizabeth’s murder. In essence, if Thomas murdered Elizabeth, he murdered John Smith too. All of this makes me wonder how his first wife died, assuming that his first marriage ended with his wife’s death.

Chances are that Thomas and Elizabeth’s child, Elizabeth Mary Angelica Day, never knew her mother, for whom she was named, or was too small to remember her. She may well have been in the house when her father murdered her mother, and depending on her age at the time, might well remember the event. She could also have been an infant. If she was, then she likely didn’t remember either her mother or her father very well as he died just a few years later, in 1706, as an invalid. Somehow Thomas’s death not long after Elizabeth’s seems like karmic justice. If he did in fact murder Elizabeth, we can wish him a long and miserable death, dreading and fearing his own passing, knowing that he would face sure and certain retribution for his actions in the court of ultimate truth. There is no other justice to be wrought for Elizabeth – none.

As she grew up, Elizabeth, the daughter, would have known that her mother was murdered, and even though her father was acquitted, she surely would have known about the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death. People talk.

When she married George Shepherd about 1727, she may have been all too happy to leave the Essex County area and settle in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, striking out for a new location where she could leave the past behind. In essence, she had been raised an orphan under the storm cloud of her mother’s terrible death and her father’s inferred guilt.

How her mother’s death must have haunted her. To lose your mother is bad enough, but to know she died horrifically, and possibly, or probably, at the hands of your own father, is an unspeakable burden for anyone, let alone a child. How could she embrace the memory of her father who took her mother from her? In essence, she lost both parents when her mother died, and her father again at his own death. Of course, it’s also possible that whoever raised her shielded her from the truth, and perhaps that is why this story never descended through the family. Maybe Elizabeth never knew the extent of her father’s involvement. Maybe she never knew the terrible truth about how her mother died.

Elizabeth’s DNA

Elizabeth’s one daughter, Elizabeth had two daughters. We don’t know much about either of them.

Ann Shepherd was born about 1737 in Spotsylvania County and is reported, by some, to have married a Benjamin Holliday or Holloway.

Elizabeth Shepherd was born about 1745 in Spotsylvania County and married Gabriel Shelton.

I have a DNA scholarship for anyone descended from either of these women to the current generation through all women. The current generation can be either male or female, because women contribute their mitochondrial DNA to all of their children, but only the females pass it on.

I’d love nothing more than to honor Elizabeth by telling more of her story held in her DNA.

Honoring Elizabeth

I wanted to find a way to honor Elizabeth Day. Regardless of who killed her, she was certainly, unquestionably, a victim. Her life was taken from her in a most heinous way.

I must admit that it bothers me that some of Thomas Day is in me, even though it is only .39%. I would still probably carry at least some of his actual DNA, likely about 3,000 of the 700,000 autosomal SNPs tested at Family Tree DNA. Maybe that explains a bit of my flash temper.

Death or abuse at the hands of one who is supposed to love and protect you is the ultimate betrayal, second only to a betrayal by a parent I think. Reading the depositions about her death chilled me to the core, knowing what she probably tolerated day to day before the abuse escalated to the point where he killed her. It probably wasn’t the first time she had been abused. I could feel her dread and fear. Perhaps she couldn’t leave. Maybe she had no place to go. We’ll never know. All we know is the outcome, that she died, horribly. At some point during that terrible night, she realized that the man she loved, whose child she had borne, was killing her – that indeed, she would die, as consciousness slipped away. Were her last thoughts wondering what would happen to her defenseless daughter, left through her death to her murderous husband?

This was very difficult for me to read and to deal with.

I posted a query about discovering an ancestor you don’t like to the Cumberland Gap list and we discussed dealing with the emotional aftermath of finding ancestors that you don’t really care for – like Thomas Day, and the horrible knowledge of what he very likely did. Many of the people who participated in that conversation had examples much more current, such as parents and grandparents.

Someone suggested creating a memorial, a virtual cemetery on Find-A-Grave for Elizabeth so that she is not forgotten and is memorialized. In addition, someone made the following commentary.

“You are most honest and ethical Roberta! Each of us, if we shake our family tree long and hard enough, will have a few nuts fall out. Chuck offered good advice. Honor the victim and realize that while you share some of the same genetics, you are not the abuser. The question of nature/nurture will always loom unanswered. We don’t know what causes one member of a family to do monstrous things and another to be acclaimed in their community for their selfless acts of bravery and/or generosity. Do your best to live in the here and now and enjoy this moment. Every shining act that you commit proves the darkness did not win. We can’t change the past but we CAN affect the future.”

That is great advice.

Another person wrote, “We must memorialize if for no one other than ourselves. It is a necessary ritual for all the Pearl Harbors, the Dachaus, Trade Centers, tears, parental betrayals, abandonments and broken promises, the innocent humans of their day and standing insufficiently for each stance of human fragility. We can raise one in the dancing flame of a candle set near the window, a wish upon a star, or by placing a marker on an unmarked grave—cyber or otherwise We must never lose the trail for the tears. Darkness is defined by DAY.” Indeed, in this case, it was.

We can’t bring Elizabeth back and make it possible for her to live out her life. We can’t restore to her what was taken from her, or her child. We can’t change the actions or calm the anger of her attacker that night, or mitigate their ripple effect. We can be aware and wary of the anger issue in our ancestral line, and we can make sure the darkness does not win.

For Elizabeth: