Another Daniel Miller – A Y DNA Tale – 52 Ancestors #135

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Just when you think you have the family all straightened out, a left hook comes along, sneaks up and sucker-punches you.

Indeed, as if there wasn’t enough confusion about the various Daniel Millers, we now have yet another very interesting twist in the Daniel Miller saga, thanks to DNA.

And a conundrum it is too.

In the article, “Daniel Miller (1755-1822), Musical Graves, 52 Ancestors #130” I provided this summary of the various Daniel Miller’s that we know existed in Montgomery County, Ohio at or about the same time that my Daniel Miller (1755-1822) lived there, or subsequent generations. Below is the summary from that article.

Daniel (1) is my ancestor and was born to Philip Jacob Miller and his wife, Magdalena, whose last name is unknown, on April 8, 1755 in Frederick County, Maryland. Daniel was married to Elizabeth Ulrich and died in Montgomery County, Ohio on August 26, 1822. Those are the easy dates. The rest are difficult.

Daniel (2) arrived in Montgomery County from Huntington County, PA. Daniel (2)’s wife was Susanna Bowman and Daniel (2) lived in what would become the City of Dayton proper where he settled on Wolf Creek in November of 1802, according to the History of the City of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume 1. For those specifically interested in this line, the Brethren Heritage Center has an article available written by Gale Honeyman.

Daniel (3) is the son of Daniel (1). According to the family Bible he was born on March 30, 1779 and he died on June 25, 1812. He would have been 33 years old, and unless he was disabled in some way, he was likely married and may well have had children. He would only have been about 20 when his father Daniel floated down the Ohio on a raft, probably in 1799. Daniel (3) could have remained in Clermont County when his father and uncle, David Miller, left for Montgomery County sometimes around 1802. There is no mention of an estate for Daniel (3) in Montgomery County.

Daniel (4) is the grandson of Daniel (1) through his son Stephen Miller. Daniel (4) was born in 1797 in Bedford County, PA and died in 1879 in Preble County, Ohio.

Daniel (5) is the son of Michael Miller and Salome Cramer of Montgomery County. Michael is the son of David Miller who died in 1845. David was the brother of Daniel (1). Michael obtained and farmed his father’s farm in Randolph Township. Daniel (5) was born in 1822, died in 1903 and was married to Isabella Cook.

Daniel (6) is the grandson of Daniel (1) through son Jacob A. Miller born in 1776 who married first to Elizabeth Metzger and second to Catherine Zimmerman. Jacob farmed his father’s land in Randolph Township past 1851 and likely until his death in 1858. Jacob’s son Daniel (6) by his first wife was born about 1800, married Susanna Hardman on November 1, 1819 and died about 1835 in Montgomery County.

Daniel (7) born in 1815 is the son of Isaac Miller, son of Daniel (1) and his wife Elizabeth Miller who is the daughter of David Miller, brother of Daniel (1). I know nothing more about Daniel (7).

Daniel Y. (8) born in 1808 is the son of John Miller, son of Daniel (1). John’s wife Esther Miller, daughter of David Miller, brother of Daniel (1). Daniel Y. (8) married Margaret Bainter and died in 1833.

Daniel (9) is the son of Daniel (2) and his wife, Susan Bowman. Daniel (9) was born about 1808 and died about 1863 in Montgomery County, marrying Susan Oliver.

Daniel (10) is the son of the Elder Jacob Miller by either his first or second wife, who are unknown. This Daniel was born on September 6, 1780 and died on November 15, 1858 in Monroe County, Iowa. Daniel (10) married Elizabeth Shidler or Shideler on April, 13, 1808 in Montgomery County, Ohio, but by 1813, it appears that they had moved on to Union County, Indiana. When Daniel lived in Montgomery County, he owned land near the 4 Mile Church, east of Cottage Creek, about one and one half miles west of the Lower 4 Mile Church.

Today’s article specifically deals with Daniel (2), referred to in this article as Dayton Daniel to keep him separate from Daniel (1) who lived in Montgomery County at the same time as Dayton Daniel (2).

To this group, we need to add two more Daniels. It’s OK to groan now. I’ve been groaning all week!

Daniel (11) who is the son of Lodowich Miller, brother of Philip Jacob Miller. Daniel (11) was born about 1752, probably in Frederick County, Maryland and moved with Lodowich’s family to the Shenandoah Valley about the time of the Revolutionary War. Daniel (11) died in Rockingham County, Virginia in 1819.

Daniel (12), the son of John Miller, also a brother to Philip Jacob Miller. This Daniel was probably John’s eldest son and was one of the executors of his father’s estate in 1794 through 1799 when the estate paid the heirs.

Therefore, Daniel (1), Daniel (11) and Daniel (12) were all first cousins to each other – and Daniel (2), Dayton Daniel, we’ve discovered this week, was also somehow related as well.

The question is, who is Dayton Daniel and how is he related? And how do we know he’s related?

Michael Miller’s Sons

As a short review, let’s take a look at the immigrant Michael Miller’s sons. He has three proven sons, and only three; Philip Jacob, Lodowick (Lodowich) and John, parents of Daniel (1), Daniel (11) and Daniel (12), respectively.

For many years, every stray Miller male in a several-hundred-mile radius around Frederick County, Maryland was pinned to Michael Miller like tails on the proverbial donkey. To date, we have disproved every line that has tested utilizing Y DNA. In fact, that’s the purpose of the Miller Brethren DNA Project – to sort out the various Brethren Miller lines. I expected several lines to match Michael’s descendants, but surprisingly, they haven’t – until now.

Before this week, not one line that was not from Michael Miller’s proven sons has ever matched Michael’s line utilizing Y DNA. But then came today and all that changed.

And of course, the end of line oldest ancestor for the new Miller Y DNA participant was none other than Daniel Miller (2), Dayton Daniel, found originally in what would become the City of Dayton, in Montgomery County, Ohio, very early – his arrival date stated variously as either 1802 or 1804 and having come from Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.

If you recall from the article about “my” Daniel Miller, the son of Philip Jacob Miller, the son of Michael Miller, the immigrant, Daniel lived in Bedford County from sometime in the 1780s until around 1800 when he floated down the Ohio River and joined his father and siblings in Clermont and Warren Counties in Ohio. My Daniel migrated on to Montgomery County by 1805, about the same time as Dayton Daniel. In fact, when I first began researching Daniel Miller in Montgomery County, I found the information about the Daniel in Dayton and thought for some time that he WAS my Daniel, until I found additional information and pieces of the puzzle began not fitting. I figured out that there were indeed two Daniel’s living in Montgomery County at the same time, thanks to tax lists and other information. Actually, there were three Daniels until 1813 when Daniel (10), who is not descended from the Michael Miller line, did us the huge favor of moving on.

Dayton Daniel was also Brethren, but that alone does not mean he is related to my Daniel. Another man was Brethren too – the Elder Jacob Miller, who everyone thought surely WAS related to Michael Miller, but who, it turns out, is not – at least not through the paternal line. So just being a Miller male, a Brethren and being found in Frederick County, Maryland, then Montgomery County, Ohio does not guarantee a kinship relationship – as unlikely as that seems. I can see why people reached those earlier conclusions, before Y DNA testing, but they were wrong.

Michael Miller, the immigrant, had three proven sons – and only 3, who were:

John Miller who died in 1794 in Washington County, Maryland, formerly Frederick County, with a will which listed his children. This John had a son Daniel (12).
Lodowich Miller who died about 1782 and whose children (if not Lodowich too) moved south to the Shenandoah Valley about this same time also had a son Daniel (11) who died in Rockingham County, Virginia in 1819.
Philip Jacob Miller also had a son Daniel (1) who married Elizabeth Ulrich, moved to Bedford County, Pennsylvania, then on to Ohio where he was the Daniel who wound up in Montgomery County but did NOT live in Dayton. This is my Daniel.

After I published my article about Daniel, sorting through the various Daniel Millers in Montgomery County, a cousin, Doug, contacted me and was confused. Doug descended from Dayton Daniel (2), born in 1765, and he wondered, if his Daniel was not descended from Johann Michael Miller, why did Doug’s autosomal DNA so strongly match my mother and cousins. Obviously, I couldn’t answer that question, so Doug set about finding a male Miller, his second cousin, who descended from Dayton Daniel, to test. That participant is referred to as TM in this article.

Obviously, if TM’s DNA representing Dayton Daniel’s Y DNA had not matched my Daniel’s Y DNA, you either would not be reading this article right now, or it would be a very different story. But Dayton Daniel’s Y DNA does match the Michael Miller line.

Um….so now what? Who is Dayton Daniel (2) and who are his parents? They can’t be the only three proven sons of Michael Miller – because all 3 of them had sons named Daniel and all 3 are accounted for. So, who were Dayton Daniel’s parents? Let’s walk through the possibilities and look a the DNA results.

The Y DNA

Looking at the Miller Brethren project, we can see 5 men descend from Michael Miller. There are also two additional men, but they are not project members. One is private, so I can’t even e-mail him.

The first thing I noticed was that marker 449 has two different values, shown at far right, in purple, above. I mapped them to the participants, with the hope that TM’s marker 449 would tell us which line he was from. In other words, I was hoping that 449 was a line marker mutation.

TM, shown at far left, has a value at marker 449 of 30. One of Philip Jacob’s descendants, RM as well as both of Lodowich’s descendants carry the same value. So no, marker 449 does not indicate a specific son’s line of Johann Michael Miller.

How can this same marker show up in two of Daniel’s sons’ lines, represented by HAM and RWM, but not in the third son’s line, represented by RM? Apparently this marker value has mutated in both Isaac and John’s lines, sons of Daniel, independently, someplace between Daniel and the testers, HAM and RWM today. We know that the original marker value is 30 because it is found independently in the lines of two different sons, Daniel and Lodowich, and probably a third son now with TM.

Ok, we know that marker 449 doesn’t help us, so where do we look next? Let’s take a look at the genealogy.

Candidates for Dayton Daniel’s Father

Obviously, the first place to look for this Daniel is among the grandchildren of Michael Miller.

Dayton Daniel’s wife is Susanna Bowman who was born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. They are both buried with tombstones that give their age at death, so we can extrapolate that information to obtain a birth date and year. Thanks to the tombstone, we know that Daniel was born in 1765 and because he married Susanna who was born in the next county, we know that they were living there about 1785, marriage age.

Knowing Daniel’s birth year helps us rule out various grandchildren of Michael Miller.

We have already ruled out Philip Jacob Miller as Dayton Daniel’s parent, because his son was my Daniel (1), according to the family Bible.

Two of our other Y DNA testers descend from Lodowick’s son, Daniel (11), who was born in 1752 and died in 1819 in Rockingham County, Virginia. Clearly, this is not the Daniel living in Montgomery County, Ohio who died in 1849.

That leaves Michael Miller’s son, John, who also had a son Daniel (12). Could Daniel (12) actually be Dayton Daniel? Let’s see.

John Miller, Michael’s third son did us the favor of executing a will just days before his death listing his children.

Children named:

Daniel
John
Jacob
Abraham
Ludwick
David
Michael
Catherine
Susanna
Mary
Elizabeth

Underage sons were Ludwick, David and Michael.

Son Daniel Miller and son-in-law John Fisher were executors.

The will was made Dec 13, 1794 and recorded Dec. 20, 1794. Clearly John was literally on his death bed when he made his will.

On April 9, 1799, Daniel Miller and John Fisher, executors of John Miller’s estate made a distribution of 2010 pounds, 5 shillings and 9 pence, in equal parts to the 10 remaining children, all apparently now 21 years of age. The order of the named heirs is: Daniel Miller, John Fisher, Susanna Wissinger, Mary Studanbaker, Elizabeth Cameron, Jacob Miller, Abraham Miller, Lodwick Miller and David Miller. Michael is missing in the distribution list so he apparently died sometime between 1794 and 1799. Washington County Distribution Liber I, folio 80.

In 1799, when the estate was paid, all children would have reached the age of 21. The youngest child, Michael, apparently did not survive, so if we can presume he wouldn’t have become 21 until 1801, that means that he was born in about 1780. There were a total of 11 children, so a child was born every two years, with no deaths, then the oldest child, presumably Daniel, would have been born about 22 years before the youngest, or about 1758.

There is some confusion about John Miller’s name, because while most deeds and documents, such as his will, refer to him clearly as John, which would mean his German name was Johannes, with no middle name, one deed refers to him as Peter, not Johann Peter, just Peter. Was the deed in error, or was John really Johann Peter? We don’t know.

Did Michael Miller Have Other Sons?

The answer to this question is yes, he did, according to German church records. What we don’t know is if they lived, how many he might have had that are unrecorded, and if he had children after he arrived in Pennsylvania. Yes, there are a lot of unknowns.

In Frederick County, Maryland in the 1760s, there is a Michael Miller Jr. and a Hans Michael Miller, both of whom are involved with Michael Miller, the immigrant. It would be very unlikely for Michael to have two sons named so closely, but then again, stranger things have happened. One or both could also be grandsons. Or the two men could be one and the same.

In the Michael Miller article, I introduce both of these men. I did not follow either one forward in time, but it might well behoove the descendants of Dayton Daniel to pick up the trail where I left off.

Birth Records in Germany

My retired German genealogist friend, Tom, has found records of the births of several of Michael Miller’s children, in Germany. Unfortunately, the church records are missing for a time period, so we don’t know if all of the children lived, or how many more children might have been born. Tom is reading every single entry on every single page, just to be sure we don’t miss something.

Yes. Every. Single. Entry. On. Every. Single. Page.

Tom is my super-hero!

Michael Miller married Susanna Berchtol in 1714, who was born in 1688, in Konken, Germany. Their first child was born the following year, also in Konken.

Hans Peter Miller born January 19, 1715 (This might be John.)

The next children were born in Kallstadt.

Johann Jacob Miller baptized May 26, 1716
Regina Maria Elisabetha born August 30, 1717
Johannes Michael Miller born April 24, 1719 (This could be Hans Michael or Michael Jr.)
Johann Ludwig born April 10, 1721. (This would be Lodowich.)

Very unfortunately, by 1722, Johann Michael Miller and Susanna Berchtol had moved to Lambscheim where they live until 1726 where the records indicate they immigrated. I will be documenting these movements in a special update article about Michael Miller and Jacob Stutzman soon, but for today, we just needed the names of Michael’s sons.

We next find Michael’s immigration record, along with Jacob Stutzman, in 1727.

We know that Philip Jacob Miller was born about 1726, so he was probably a babe in arms on the boat.

If Michael Miller and Susanna Berchtol continued having children in the same pattern, they would have had another child in 1723.

Susanna would have probably had children until she was in her early 40s, so until about 1730. Therefore, in addition to Philip Jacob in about 1726, they could have had another child in 1727, 1729 and perhaps even 1731.

This gives us the opportunity for 4 additional sons (besides Philip Jacob) not recorded in existant church records. Of course, additional children may not have been male, and may not have survived.

Is John the Same Person as Hans Peter?

If John who died in 1794 is the same child as Hans Peter born in 1715, then he would have been age 43 in 1758 when his first child was born. That’s actually quite unusual for a man in that timeframe, so one of a number of situations have to be the case.

The John Miller who died in 1794, brother to Philip Jacob is not the same Hans Peter who was born in 1715.
The John Miller, brother to Philip Jacob who died in 1794 had more than one wife, and had children before 1758 who are all omitted from the will.
The Hans Peter born in 1715 died and Johann Michael Miller had another son by the same or a similar name either in 1723, 1727, 1729 or 1731. This would make John between the ages of 27-35 in 1758, which is still on the older side for a Brethren man to be marrying, but more believable than age 43 for a first marriage.

However, even allowing for these possibilities, it still doesn’t seem reasonable that Dayton Daniel Miller who died in 1849 in Montgomery County, Ohio and was born in 1765 is the oldest child of John Miller. That would mean that the next 10 children were born beginning in 1767 and continue being born until 1787. However, we know that all of John’s surviving children were of age by 1799. Therefore, Dayton Daniel simply cannot be the son of John.

It’s also possible that John’s son Daniel was not the eldest, but the children seem to be listed in order, twice – once in the will and once in the distribution. Daniel is listed first in both documents. It’s typical for the eldest son to be the executor.

Therefore, for all these reasons, I don’t think it’s feasible that Daniel Miller of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania who was born in 1765 is the son of John Miller who died in 1794.

However, Dayton Daniel’s descendant matches the Y DNA of Johann Michael Miller. Furthermore, Dayton Daniel’s descendants match several of Johann Michael Miller’s proven descendants utilizing autosomal DNA, so he has to be related in a reasonable timeframe. Autosomal DNA becomes less and less likely to match with each passing generation beyond third cousins.

Other Candidates?

Our next best candidate as the father of Dayton Daniel is Michael Miller Jr. and/or Hans Michael Miller.

I did not track them forward in time, but other researchers have spent some time on this endeavor. It is reported that Hans Michael Miller lived in Franklin County, PA and what is now Mineral County, West Virginia, and had a will. He reportedly paid taxes in Antrim Township in Franklin County and New Creek, now in Mineral County, WV, according to the 1772 Frederick County Tax list. He was given money by Michael Miller to purchase land called Pleasant Gardens, which could be Garden’s Delight and Add Garden’s Delight on the 1772 tax list as well. This information is detailed in the Michael Miller article.

Michael Miller could have had other sons that did not accompany him to Frederick County in about 1750 from York County, Pennsylvania, or who do not appear recognizably as his sons in the Frederick County records. Those sons would have been 20 or slightly older by the time that Michael left Pennsylvania and moved to Maryland. It’s certainly possible that one of Michael’s sons survived infancy, the voyage overseas and the frontier, married, and did not elect to move to yet another frontier – instead, remaining in York County or striking out on his own. Possible, but not terribly likely. There was safety and help in groups, especially for a small religious denomination who were known as “dissenters” and not terribly well liked because they would not defend themselves, or the neighborhood where they lived. Brethren tended to stick together, moving in groups. Young families would not be inclined to stay behind, especially not if the rest of the family moved on.

If Michael Miller’s son, Johann Michael Mueller, born in 1719 is the father of Dayton Daniel, he would have married sometime around 1740 and could still have been having children in 1765. It’s also possible that Dayton Daniel was the grandson of Johann Michael born in 1719, but to do so, both Johann Michael and his firstborn son would have bad to have married young.

DNA Findings

When Doug and I first realized we were cousins, and I mean via DNA, we didn’t know exactly how. Doug had always assumed that Dayton Daniel was indeed a descendant of Michael Miller, the immigrant. However, as the documentation surrounding Michael Miller’s life unfolded, we realized that we needed more information and documentation. Doug and I discovered additionally that we are also both descended through the Stephen Ulrich line, so Doug and I could have been matching through that line and not the Miller line. That’s when Doug reached out to Dayton Daniel’s Miller descendant, TM.

Unlike Doug, TM does not descend through the Ulrich line, so any of the known Michael Miller descendants that TM matches should be matching through the Miller line only.

TM’s matches are shown above, in red. Of course, he matches his second cousin, Doug, as expected. But aside from that, he matches four of Philip Jacob’s descendants, and none of Lodowich’s, as shown above and below on the chromosome browser.

It’s exciting to think that the segment on chromosome 14 is shared by four of Michael Miller’s descendants. A piece of Michael or his wife that still exists today and is identifiable. That’s just amazing for a man and his wife who were born before 1700.

Is this Michael Miller or Susanna Berchtol’s DNA?

I have access to the kits that TM matches, and the DNA segments that match the other Miller descendants do triangulate, so we know for sure that these segments do indeed belong to the Miller line, descended from Michael Miller or his wife, Susannah Berchtol. We can’t tell which, of course, without matching someone from another Miller, like Michael’s brother, or a Berchtol. So now, we can simply say this matching DNA comes from this couple.

I know what you’re going to ask next? Did Michael have a brother that could have also immigrated and father’s children who, in turn, had Dayton Daniel in 1765? Great question.

There is absolutely no evidence that Michael had a Miller brother who immigrated. In fact, according to the church records in Steinwinden, Germany, no other children born to Michael’s parents survived. Michael was the last child born before his father’s death.

Autosomal Messages

Let’s look at what the autosomal DNA suggests in terms of how closely related TM and these 4 matching individuals might be. The table below shows TM’s matches to the 4 Miller descendants, except for Doug. We already know how TM and Doug are related.

	Shared cM	Longest block	Segments >5cM	*Estimated Relationship	**Shared DNA Range	***Predicted Relationship	Average DNA****
Barbara	98	27	5	6C	0-21	2-4C	2C1r-2C2r
Donald	87	29	4	6C	0-21	2-4C	2C2r
HAM	77	35	2	5C1r	0-41	2-4C	3C
Cheryl	57	29	3	6C	0-21	2-4C	3C1r

*Estimated relationship presumes (I know, bad word) that Dayton Daniel is Michael Miller, the immigrant’s grandson. Dayton Daniel cannot be Michael’s son, because Michael married a widow woman about his same age by 1754, after his wife died. In 1765, Michael would have been 73.

** Shared DNA Range is the range of the lowest and highest amounts of DNA found for the estimated relationship in the Shared cM Project. In other words, this is how much DNA someone of that Estimated Relationship is found to share. 6th cousins share a range of 0-21 cM DNA, not 98cM like TM and Barbara share.

***Predicted Relationship is the relationship level predicted by Family Tree DNA based on the amount of shared DNA.

****Average DNA is the best fit from the chart I compiled in the article, “Concepts – Relationship Predictions” that combines information from several sources on the expected, actual average and ranges of DNA for each relationship type. The average DNA is taken from the column titled “Blaine’s Shared cM Average” which are results from a crowd sourced project indicating the actual amount of shared centiMorgans from various relationships. In this case, the best fit for Barbara and TM would be between second cousins once removed (2C1r) and second cousins twice removed (2C2r).

Even though the average DNA suggests that these people are some flavor of second or third cousins, we know from the proven genealogy that these relationships cannot be in the second or third cousin range, because we know beyond a doubt that Dayton Daniel born in 1765 cannot be more closely related to Barbara, Donald, HAM and Cheryl than the nephew of Philip Jacob Miller, their common ancestor. In fact, they cannot be related more closely than the 5th or 6th cousin level, as shown in the Estimated Relationship column.

Clearly, the amount of shared DNA exceeds the expected average for 6^th cousins or 5^th cousins once removed, significantly, for all 4 matches – comparing the value in the Shared cM column with the Shared DNA Range column. The amount of shared DNA also exceeds the maximum amount of shared cMs in the range, by at least double. In the case of Barbara and Donald, they exceed the maximum DNA for 6^th cousins by 400%. That’s not a slight deviation. What could cause this?

There can be three possible causes for the amount of shared DNA to so dramatically exceed the maximum amount found for the estimated relationships. I’ve listed these in the order of probability.

TM is related to Barbara, Donald, HAM and Cheryl through a secondary line. However, TMs mother is English and his paternal line is well researched back through Dayton Daniel. If TM and Barbara, Donald, HAM and Cheryl share more than one line, that occurred in or before Dayton Daniel’s father’s generation and Philip Jacob Miller’s generation. We do not know the surname of Philip Jacob Miller’s wife, Magdalena, nor have we identified the parents of Dayton Daniel. This shared secondary line is the most likely scenario for why TM shares so much DNA with Barbara, Donald, HAM and Cheryl.
For some reason, a very large amount of common DNA has been passed to TM and Philip Jacob Miller’s descendants. This is not one “sticky segment” but multiple segments, which makes this scenario less likely.
All 4 matches, meaning TM to Barbara, TM to Cheryl, TM to Donald and TM to HAM are extreme outliers in the relationship range shared centiMorgans. This is the least likely scenario and it would have had to have happened independently four different times.

If Philip Jacob Miller and the father of Dayton Daniel married women who were related, that would cause a higher amount of matching DNA in the descendants of both lines – but not to people the Lodowich line, which is exactly what we are seeing.

It’s also possible that in addition to being related to each other, both of their wives were also related to or descended from the Berchtol line, which would also drive up the shared amount of DNA in the descendants. We know during that timeframe it was not unusual for people to marry their first cousins and there were not a lot of Brethren brides to choose from on the frontier.

What Have We Learned?

This exercise has been very interesting and we have learned a number of things.

Via DNA and genealogy combined, we have probably confirmed that the immigrant Michael Miller did in fact have another son that survived and had offspring. Based on records alone, that son may be Michael Jr., or Hans Michael Miller. Additional genealogy work needs to be done to follow the records for these men from Frederick County, Maryland forward in time.
Via Y DNA, we know that Dayton Daniel does positively share a common ancestor with the descendants of Philip Jacob Miller and Lodowich Miller, both sons of Johann Michael Miller, the immigrant.
Via genealogy records, we have proven that Dayton Daniel cannot be the son of Philip Jacob Miller, Lodowich Miller or John Miller, the three proven sons of Michael Miller, the immigrant. All three of Michael Miller’s sons had sons named Daniel, but all three Daniels are accounted for and eliminated as being Dayton Daniel born in 1765 by other records.
Via autosomal DNA, we confirm that the relationship between TM and the Miller descendants he matches is in a genealogical timeframe, not back in Germany several generations. Due to the fact that Michael had no Miller siblings that survived, if the relationship was further back in time, it would have to be at least two generations before Michael Miller, the immigrant, making DNA matching between TM and Michael’s descendants unlikely at all, and certainly not at the level they match, as they would be at least 8^th cousins.
Via autosomal DNA, we suspect that there may be a secondary matching line, and the best candidates for secondary lines would be Magdalena, the wife of Philip Jacob Miller along with the mother of Dayton Daniel.
Given the very high amount of shared DNA, more than double the expected maximum amount, it’s also suggestive that in addition to being related to each other, than the wives of Dayton Daniel’s mother and Philip Jacob’s wife, Magdalena Miller, may also have been related to Michael Miller and Susanna Berchtol. We know that Susanna Berchtol had relatives in York County. Michael Miller did not, except for his step or half-brother, Jacob Stutzman, whose will we have and who did not have a daughter Magdalena who married a Miller, nor another unknown daughter who also married a Miller.
Because of the Brethren Miller DNA Project, we have gathered together the descendants of several Brethren Miller lines which allows us to compare the Y and autosomal DNA and work together to solve this ongoing mystery.
Doug and I have now confirmed that we are related on both the Miller and Ulrich lines – and now perhaps a third mystery line as well.

As with all genealogy, every question answered produces several new ones. What a wonderful puzzle to unravel and how lucky we are to have DNA tools in our genealogy toolbox today!!!

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The Rest of the Miller-Stutzman Story

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Roberta Estes

If you watched the Katey Sagal episode of Who Do You Think You Are that aired on TLC on April 14^th, you’ll recall that Katey made a couple of discoveries leading to the unveiling of her Amish heritage. First, her ancestor in Iowa was buried in a “Dunkard” Cemetery. Dunkard was the colloquial name for the religious denomination known as the Brethren.

I have Brethren ancestors too, an entire quarter tree full of them – my mother’s father, John Whitney Ferverda was Brethren. His mother Evaline Miller married Hiram B. Ferverda, a converted Mennonite.

The Brethren, Amish and Mennonite churches were all German based, lived in German communities, and were notorious for swapping members back and forth. All three were pietist religions, eschewing any type of violence or warfare, even for protection of yourself or your family. In other words, those three sects were in many ways far more alike than different.

In other words, finding someone who was a Dunkard in one generation and their parents as Mennonite in the earlier generation was not a surprise. According to Amish historian, J. M. Byler, intermarriage between Amish and Brethren or Mennonite was acceptable until 1809 when it was forbidden.

So, I knew I was going to enjoy this episode.

But then, the episode got much, MUCH more interesting.

Here are two screen grabs from the episode, thanks to TLC and Shedd Media. Katey’s line, going back in time, was found in Somerset, PA, then in Berk’s County, PA. an area highly known for their Amish population.

Even more interesting, Peter Miller married Mary Stutzman.

That just about doubled my heart rate right there, because my Miller line, also German, also Brethren, was very closely associated with a Brethren Stutzman line.

My Miller Line

My immigrant Johann Michael Miller Jr., born in 1692, immigrated from Germany in 1727 with his sort-of step-brother Johann Jacob Stutzman, known as Jacob Stutzman.

What is a sort-of step-brother?

Johann Michael Miller’s mother died, and his father, also Johann Michael Miller, married a second time to Anna Loysa Regina. Johann Michael Miller Sr. then died, and Anna then married to Hans Jacob Stutzman in 1695. Johann Michael Miller Jr. was only three years old at this time, so Anna was probably the only mother he had ever known.

Anna and her husband Hans Jacob Stutzman then had a son by the name of Johann Jacob Stutzman on January 1, 1706. So, technically, these two boys were not biologically related, but given that they immigrated together and were found together throughout their lives, it’s very likely that Anna Loysa Regina Miller Stutzman simply continued to raise Johann Michael Miller Jr., her step-son, after his father’s death and the boys were raised as brothers, even though they were 14 years apart.

Johann Michael Miller Jr. married Suzanna Berchtol in Germany, and in 1727, immigrated with his family, which included at least son Philip Jacob Miller, to the colonies – along with his sort-of step-brother Johann Jacob Stutzman

Johann Michael Miller and Suzanna Berchtol had a son the year after their marriage, Hans (probably Johann) Peter Mueller, baptized January 19, 1715 in Konken, Germany. We don’t know much about Peter except that on at least one occasion, Philip Jacob Miller’s brother, John, who died in Washington County, MD in 1794 was referred to as Johann Peter Miller in one document, but only one document of many.

Was that John the same Hans Peter that was born in 1715? It seems rather unlikely since he was never otherwise called Peter, but it’s possible.

So, we have a (possible) lost brother, Johann Peter Miller who was associated with the Stutzman family. Now, in Berks County, we find a Peter Miller married to a Stutzman wife.

What are the chances of this being all circumstantial?

Slim to none, right? Stutzman is not a common name, even though Miller is. And the two families being found together again, and intermarried is certainly suggestive of some continuity. Right?

Clearly, the Peter Miller on Katey’s chart born in 1756 is not the SAME Peter Miller born in 1715 in Germany, but he could clearly be a descendent, either a son or possibly a grandson.

The program did not follow Peter Miller any further, but instead switched to the Stutzman line because it led to the Hochstetler line which was the focus of the rest of the program.

Mary Stutzman was the daughter of Christian Stutzman, born about 1732, and Barbara Hochstetler. Christian Stutzman could have been the son of Jacob Stutzman or perhaps even a younger half-sibling or uncle.

Had I by any chance found my missing Peter Miller, or at least his descendant, associated with the Stutzman family? It would make perfect sense.

With two family connections in Pennsylvania, plus the pacifist religion – and a very unusual name like Stutzman – how could this NOT be the same family group?

Well, hold tight, because we’re going to find out!

I was so very excited!

Let’s Start Digging

Since Stutzman isn’t my direct line, I do have some references, but not a lot, so I began on the internet where I discovered that Christian, at least by some, is attributed to be the brother of Johann Jacob Stutzman, the “step-brother” of Johann Michael Miller Jr..

If Anna was 20 in 1695 when she married Jacob Stutzman, as her second marriage, she would have been 57 in 1732 when Christian Stutzman was born. Well, there’s the first big red flag.

The next problem is that Peter Miller is attributed to John Miller and Magdalena Lehman, and that John Miller would have been the age to be a sibling to my Johann Michael Miller Jr. This John Miller, known as “Indian John” was also wounded in the same raid where Katey Sagal’s Hochstetler family was taken captive.

The next problem is that Indian John is attributed to Christian Daniel Miller, born in Bern Switzerland. Hmm….if this is accurate, this is clearly not my Miller family – although my Miller’s did come from near Bern – so they could be the same family, just a generation or two further back in time. But regardless, not my lost Hans Peter Miller’s son.

Well, crumb.

I’m always skeptical of trees, anyplace, so I wanted more proof than this.

I decided to take a look at the Miller DNA project at Family Tree DNA and see if there was any enlightenment there. At the top of the project page, my Johann Michael Miller line is shown. At the bottom of the page, the John Miller who married Magdalena Lehman is shown. You can click to enlarge.

While they do share the same halogroup, they are definately not matches to each other, as you can see below, so they are definitely NOT the same Miller line.

Double crumb.

Ok, well, maybe the Stutzman line is the same. While it’s not my direct line, it’s still an interesting part of my Johann Michael Miller’s life, so let’s take a look at what we find.

Stutzman

Stutzman was more difficult.

Ancestry trees showed a plethora of information, with some trees showing Jacob and Christian as full brothers, but we’ve already shown that’s nigh on impossible due to the age of Anna.

They could, however, be paternal half brothers or otherwise related.

The Stutzman project at Family Tree DNA seems to be abandoned and shows no project results. Harumph. (If there is someone who would like to adopt the Stutzman DNA project at Family Tree DNA, which is quite small (4 members), it needs an administrator.)

So I turned to YSearch, with the hope that some of the Stutzman clan had uploaded results there.

Indeed they had. Three entries – and two of those entries appear to be the lines we’re seeking. I checked the compare box to view their results.

First of all, none of the three match to each other, so these lines are definitely different. I checked my own Stutzman resource books, and the Jacob Stutzman line that Anna Regina married into is reported to be from Erlenbach, Switzerland. In this case, that would be equivalent to the first entry, user ID V85YJ.

Sure enough, they had uploaded a Gedcom file and I verified that indeed, this is the Jacob line that was the sort-of step-brother to Johann Michael Miller.

The other entry, VZJYF is the is the Christian Stutzman line from Berks County, PA, whose daughter married Peter Miller.

By running the Genetic Distance report, I verify that at 12 markers, which is all the further kit V85YJ tested, they have a genetic distance of 6, which very clearly indicates they are NOT a match.

Well, triple crumb.

Now, you could also say we need another sample from each of these two Stutzman lines, through a different son to assure that no undocumented adoptions have occurred – and you would be right of course.

However, without that additional information, it looks like these are different lines, just like the Miller line was.

Summary

I’m sure that it was assumptions just like this, before DNA testing was available, that caused people to jump to incorrect conclusions.

After all, what ARE the chances that both a Miller and a Stutzman would be found in a close family situation, not terribly distant, in a minority Pietist German religion in colonial America, and not be related? I don’t know the mathematical odds, but I can tell you that DNA confirms that whatever those odds are, they don’t matter. Of course, this is also why definitive proof of a relationship between the two families could never be found – it wasn’t there to BE found. The only facts we have are the DNA tests.

The DNA facts confirm that neither the Peter Miller nor the Christian Stutzman family from Berks and Somerset County, PA are the same family as the Johann Michael Miller and Jacob Stutzman family from York and Cumberland County, PA and then Frederick/Washiongton County, Maryland.

Three strikes and I’m out, but I am actually very glad to put this decades long question for both of these family groups to rest once and for all. Bravo DNA testers, projects at Family Tree DNA and YSearch – all three critical to answering this question.

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Further Analysis of Native American Haplogroup C-P39 Planned

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Haplogroup C is one of two Native American male haplogroups. More specifically, one specific branch of the haplogroup C tree is Native American which is defined by mutation C-P39 (formerly known as C3b). Ray Banks shows this branch (highlighted in yellow) along with sub-branches underneath on his tree:

Please note that if you are designated at 23andMe as Y haplogroup C3e, you are probably C-P39. We encourage you to purchase the Y DNA 111 marker test at Family Tree DNA and join the haplogroup C and C-P39 projects.

It was only 11 years, ago in 2004 in the Zegura study, that C-P39 was reported among just a few Native American men in the Plains and Southwest. Since that time The American Indian DNA project, surname projects and the AmerIndian Ancestry Out of Acadia DNA projects have accumulated samples that span the Canadian and American borders, reaching west to east, so haplogroup C-P39 is not relegated to the American Southwest. It is, however, still exceedingly rare.

In August of 2012, Marie Rundquist, co-administrator of the haplogroup C-P39 DNA project performed an analysis and subsequent report of the relationships, both genealogical and genetic, of the C-P39 project members. One of the burning questions is determining how far back in time the common ancestor of all of the C-P39 group members lived.

When Marie performed the first analysis, in 2012,, there were only 14 members in the project, representing 6 different families, and they had only tested to 67 markers. Most were from Canada.

My, how things have changed. We now have more participants, more markers to work with and additional tests to bring to bear on the questions of relatedness, timing and origins.

Today, there are a total of 43 people in the project and their locations include the Pacific Northwest, Appalachia, the Southwest and all across Canada, west to east.

If you are haplogroup C-P39 or C3e at 23andMe, please join the C-P39 project at Family Tree DNA today. I wrote about how to join a project here, but if you need assistance, just let me know in a comment to the blog and Marie or I will contact you. (Quick Instructions: sign on to your FTDNA account, click on projects tab on upper left toolbar, click on join, scroll down to Y haplogroup projects, click on C, select C-P39 project and click through to press orange join button.)

Marie is preparing to undertake a new analysis and provides the following announcement:

The C-P39 Y DNA project is pleased to announce a forthcoming updated and revised project report. The C-P39 project has established a 111-marker baseline for our 2016 study and analysis will include:

111 marker result comparisons
geo-locations
tribal / family relationships
C P39 SNP findings
new SNPs and Big Y results

The current C-P39 Y DNA study has a healthy diversity of surnames, geo-locations, and tribal / family lines represented.

The C-P39 Y DNA project will cover the costs of the necessary 111 marker upgrades by way of Family Tree DNA C-P39 Y DNA study project fund.

Thanks to all who have contributed to the project fund and to participants who have funded their own tests to 111 markers as part of our study. To voluntarily contribute (anonymously if you like) to the C-P39 Y DNA project funds and help our project achieve this goal, please click on the link below and please do make certain that the “C-P39 Y-DNA” pre-selected project is highlighted when you do:

https://www.familytreedna.com/group-general-fund-contribution.aspx?g=Y-DNAC-P39

Thank you to project members contributing DNA test results to the C-P39 study and for encouraging friends and relatives to do the same! Thank you also to Family Tree DNA management for their ongoing support.

The project needs to raise $3164 to upgrade all project members to 111 markers. Many participants have already upgraded their own results, for which we are very grateful, but we need all project members at the 111 level if possible.

Please help fund this scientific project if you can. Every little bit helps. I’m going to start by making a donation right now! You can make the donation in memory or in honor of someone or a particular ancestor – or you can be completely anonymous. Please click on the link above to make your contribution!!! We thank you and the scientific community thanks you.

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How to Join a DNA Project

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Roberta Estes

Family Tree DNA provides three types of projects for people to join. Projects are free to join and are run by volunteer project administrators, people who have a specific interest in the topic at hand and are generally quite glad to be of assistance. Projects are great ways to find people you match and others interested in a common topic.

There are three kinds of DNA projects:

Surname projects – like Estes
Haplogroup Projects – like R1b, M269 or J1c2f, for both Y and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups and subgroups
Geographic projects – really anything else that isn’t a surname or a haplogroup, like Cumberland Gap or Cherokee or Scottish DNA

You can join unlimited multiple projects, but you want to make sure projects you join are relevant to your genealogy, your research and/or your haplogroup.

I covered haplogroup projects in depth here and surname projects in depth here, but today, I just want to do a simple “how to” instruction on how to find and join any project of your choosing.

Joining projects is easy.

First, of course, you must have tested at or transferred your results to Family Tree DNA and you must have taken the type of test relevant to the project at hand.

For example, if you have taken the Family Finder Autosomal test and not taken any other tests, you can’t join a Y DNA project because you have not tested your Y chromosome. Ladies, sorry, you can’t join Y DNA projects either because you don’t have a Y chromosome.

If you haven’t yet tested, then you can join a project and get a discount on your test at the same time. If you already have results at Family Tree DNA, skip to the next section, “Joining Up.”

Discounts When Ordering Through Projects

You can order tests through projects at a discount if you’ve never tested before. To do that, just click on this link, then type your surname of interest into the search field by the green text box.

Hint – if you’re an adoptee, just type adoptee and you’ll see the adoptee project. If you type a surname, you’ll see surname related projects.

Click on the project you’re interested in joining to see discounted project based pricing, example shown below.

Not sure what to order? You can read about the different kinds of DNA testing and how they apply to various ancestors on your tree in this “basic” DNA article.

Joining Up

If you’re already a customer at Family Tree DNA, it’s easy to join projects. First, sign on to your account.

You’ll see your home page that looks something like this at the top.

In the upper left hand tool bar you’ll see the projects tab, with 3 drop down selections, shown below.

“Learn About Projects” is basic information which you should, of course, read.

The “Manage My Projects” selection shows you which projects you are a member of and provides you with a convenient click list to visit any of your projects.

But before you can manage projects, you have to join some first.

Click on “Join Projects.”

The first thing you will see is a list, based on your surname, of projects where the administrators have entered your surname as a surname of interest to their projects. This may or may not be useful to you. If your surname is the surname of your spouse – not useful at all. In my case, however, Estes is my maiden name so these projects might be useful to me.

Let’s take a quick look.

The Cumberland Gap mtDNA project isn’t relevant, because my Estes line is my paternal line and my mitochondrial DNA is my matrilineal line – so no cigar on this one.
The Cumberland Gap Y DNA project isn’t relevant for me, because I’m a female and don’t have a Y chromosome, although my family is from the Cumberland Gap area. Hmmm…I need to find a related Estes male to test so he can join that project.
The Estes surname project. I have it on good authority that I can join this project whether or not I’m related via the Y, mitochondrial or autosomal connection. Hint – I founded this project and yes, we welcome anyone who is Estes descended.
Estis Jewish Ukraine – Nope doesn’t pertain to me and neither do the surnames Jester or Maestas, although clearly Estes could be derivative spellings of those surnames.
The I-L161 project is a Y DNA haplogroup project, so I’m not sure why a surname would be listed here, but this does not apply to me as I have no Y chromosome.
The administrators of the North Carolina Early project have obviously found the Estes surname in early records, but my line came through Virginia and Tennessee, so this doesn’t pertain to me either.

So, I can join one of these projects. Please, please take the time to read the project descriptions to see if the projects listed are a good fit for your family and for the stated project goals.

Some people think that this list is Family Tree DNA recommending certain projects, or suggesting that they join these projects. It isn’t. The only way these projects appear is for the administrator to list your surname as one that their project is interested in – and it’s likely not universal meaning not relevant to everyone who carries the surname. For example, Early North Carolina is confined to a specific geography and timeframe.

Obviously, there are probably other projects of interest that can’t be sensed by your surname.

At the bottom of the project list, there is a search field, followed by a list of projects that are divided into types.

First, type into the search box the surname (or word) you are trying to find. Let’s use Ferverda for example.

Yes, there is one project with 3 members for Ferverda. You can click on the project name to see additional information. In fact, please do read the entire project description, because that’s the only way you’ll know if you qualify to join and the project is a good fit. For example, what is the word Ferverda, or worse yet, Ireland? Is it a surname or a place? If it’s the place, can you join only if you are proven to descend from Ireland or can you join if might have Irish heritage? Mitochondrial or Y DNA, or both? What about autosomal DNA? Read the project description to find out.

Once you’ve determined that this project is for you, click the orange join button to join. Don’t worry, you can unjoin easily if you make a mistake. Some projects have a “request to join” feature to be sure the pairing is a good fit.

Can’t find your surname? Try an alternate spelling or scroll down and see if you can find a different kind of project that fits the bill. (Hint – you can double click on this image to make it larger.)

For example, let’s see what’s available under the letter B under Y-DNA Geographical projects:

Hmm, I can’t join those because they are Y DNA projects, so lets look under mtDNA Haplogroup projects. I’m haplogroup J.

Look, here’s the perfect project for me!

Now all I have to do is click on the project link and then on the orange Join button to become a member.

Privacy Settings and Sharing

You will want to be sure your privacy settings are set such that your results will show in the projects you choose to join. I wrote about that here with specific instructions, so be sure to check, especially if you tested in 2015 or later, because the default is set to not publicly sharing. This means if you don’t change your settings, your results will not be visible on the public project page. An example of my haplogroup J project results on the public project page is shown below.

The great thing about projects is that they ultimately benefit everyone through sharing, but sharing is the key word.

For example, this map of where the J1c2f ancestors are found in Europe and Asia, generated within the haplogroup J project, would not be available if people didn’t:

Join projects
Share publicly
Enter the location of their most distant ancestor for that line

These maps allow us to take a look at the migration and settlement story behind this haplogroup. There are there hints based cumulatively on where our most distant ancestors are found. We’ll never unravel the ancestral story without these hints and these hints are the results of shared information. So, please share. You’ll benefit from others sharing and others will benefit from you sharing. Sort of a scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours scenario.

Have fun and find some great projects to join. You never know where your DNA will take you or the discoveries you’ll make! What is your DNA waiting to tell you?

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Roy Eastes – A Shining Example

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Roberta Estes

Some things….they’re just hard….really hard.

My cousin, Roy Eastes has been such an inspiration to me and others for decades now, and he passed over this week, just two days after his 94^th birthday.

Yep, earned his wings. Finally free from pain. Gets to see his beloved wife again. Meeting the ancestors. Good for him. Sad for those of us left behind.

Roy was my very first DNA project co-administrator on my first DNA project. And he was a very, very unlikely candidate. I kind of thought of us as Mutt and Jeff, but we were indeed a dynamic duo and he made every escapade fun. I loved working with Roy and just having someone who was as excited as I was about every little discovery made sharing the journey wonderful. We had a special kind of camaraderie, even though he was clearly old enough to be my father – and he was somewhat of a character.

Why was Roy such an unlikely project administrator candidate? Well, because he was too old, too set in his ways, too unhealthy and too uneducated in the science of genetic genealogy. At least, that’s what he told me.

I am 81 and have been in bad health for the past 10 years. I am pretty much confined and can’t get out but very little. My wife Berniece is 80 an has had two light strokes but gets around real well with a walker. We joke and say that we get up in the mornings and flip a coin to see who takes care of who!! I can only piddle with this stuff a little bit each day but like to keep up with what’s going on!

But he wasn’t too old or too disabled, and he made up for all of those things with tenacity and sheer, utter commitment and perseverance. He was a pit bull, not a piddler…except I don’t want to offend any pit bulls out there.

I first came to know Roy in the Estes family research community over the years. We all lurked on Rootsweb and Genealogy.com posting questions and finds back and forth beginning in the early 1990s.

In 2003, Roy told me that he had been researching Estes family history for 55 years and he had made it his top retirement objective in 1983. I hate to tell you this, but Roy started with his genealogy significantly before I was born. I don’t think my Dad’s eyes were even twinkling yet or that he had met my Mom.

But Roy had a problem. He was stuck on his Estes line with an Elisha who died in Roane County, TN in 1819.

Stuck.

Really stuck.

As in brick wall stuck.

Roy knew that there were several Estes men who were candidates to be Elisha’s father, but who was? And did these men all descend from the immigrant Abraham Estes, or did some of the Estes men in the late 1700s descend from other, perhaps unrelated immigrants?

When you’ve been through all the records, there just isn’t anyplace more to go unless you can find a record in a different location that connects the two families together – family history becomes impossible and you have reached a dead end.

The other alternative, at least today, is DNA testing.

In 2003 when I first really began recruiting for the Estes surname project, Roy jumped at the chance to participate. He didn’t know what he’d find, but he knew he stood a better chance of finding something and anything was more than he already knew.

Roy ordered kit number 11,727 in July of 2003.

He told me he was too old to understand “any of this,” but after I explained it to him, he began explaining it to others. So, Roy, at a mere 81 years of age wasn’t too old at all.

Roy wanted to know who else was participating in DNA testing from the Estes community, because he understood the success of his own goals depended on other male Estes’s with proven genealogical descent from Abraham taking the Y DNA test. So, he began recruiting people himself.

After Roy’s initial recruiting drive which included calling every other Estes male researcher he knew AND writing letters, he told me that he had, after he retired, entered every Estes family he could find into his genealogy software. Most of these lines had been documented somewhat in at least one earlier published book, but that was only the beginning for Roy. He added his own research and that of anyone who would send him sourced information.

In 2003, I asked Roy to be my Estes DNA project co-administrator. He assured me he could not do that, for the same list of reasons he always gave me…too this or too that…but I knew better. I wasn’t sure exactly how everything would work out. After all, this was my first project and I was learning too. But I knew for sure that Roy had one invaluable asset – enthusiasm and a willingness to reach out to people and to learn. Plus, Roy was extremely motivated by his own brick wall interests.

I suggested that Roy and I split the tasks and that I’d take the genetics and he could help people with the genealogy part. We agreed, but that was before all of the DNA results began coming in.

A few weeks later, Roy, who was “too old” to understand the genetics, was sending me spreadsheets comparing the various Estes lines, their mutations and trying to figure out which of Abraham’s sons he descended from. We knew by that time that Roy’s line did indeed match the DNA of Abraham the immigrant, so either Abraham was his ancestor or they shared a common ancestor.

It’s amazing what a little motivation can do – Roy could and did understand Y DNA just fine.

Roy asked me about doing a webpage. I told him that was not my area of expertise. Then, he told me he was unable at his age to learn anything like web programming.

About two weeks later, he mentioned that he was learning html, a web programming language, so he could write his own web page. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought to myself, “Good luck with that.”

Another few weeks later, I received a link to something that looked a lot like this:

He had taught himself html at age 82 or 83 and constructed a genealogy webpage that still exists today. This man puts me to shame!

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was a bit of a turning point in Roy’s life, the beginning of a final set of chapters. Not only was it devastating, Roy refused to evacuate. I begged him to come, family, wife, wheelchairs, pets, everyone and whatever he wanted to bring to stay with us indefinitely. He told me he would live or die, but it would be right there – and he stayed in Gulfport, Mississippi. We couldn’t contact Roy for days and days. I never told him that another cousin died in that hurricane and how desperately worried we were. His mortality became crystal clear to him, his priorities shifted, and he began to work fervently on his bucket list.

Shortly thereafter, Roy told me he was too unhealthy to continue his website, and while I fervently hoped he was wrong, I did accept the gift of Roy’s website which Estes family archivist, David Powell has graciously incorporated as part of his website today, where you can visit it at http://estes.roots-boots.net/.

Over the next few years, now entirely wheelchair bound, Roy authored several books, the last of which was published in 2009. Roy wrote a large and beautifully detailed book about his Estes family history, but that book didn’t sell one single copy. Know why? Roy gave it away, to anyone and everyone who wanted it.

Roy was a true historian, questioning everything, driving us all to distraction sometimes requesting documentation, and digging up not only the improbable but seemingly, the impossible. His stringent military training and just under four decades of service never left him and served us all very well. In fact, Roy poked around until he discovered the Bobbitt family whose Bible page included a record that Abraham Estes had sailed with their family immigrant on the same ship, the Martha, arriving in January 1674 at City Point, Virginia.

As Roy and his wife’s health both deteriorated, he did have to give up his DNA project co-administrator duties and he was preparing for the inevitable day when he would no longer be here. He signed an affadivit, for example, allowing me access to his DNA forever. That was before Family Tree DNA had their Beneficiary page for you to designate a beneficiary for your DNA. Roy was absolutely committed to genealogy and genetic genealogy, both today and in the future when he just knew all of the answers would be unraveled.

After Roy’s wife passed away, he began living in an assisted living facility and gave up his research “cave” for a laptop. He was still involved, gladly shared his work, and encouraged anyone and everyone who would listen for half a minute…that was…until the beast called Alzheimer’s began to steal his life away.

These last few months have been exceedingly difficult, watching the once vibrant and outstanding researcher descend into the darkness of confusion. We still loved Roy of course, and we still wrote to him and shared finds with him, but his answers often no longer made sense. But Roy knew we cared about him and sometimes a cognizant e-mail would slip in among the rest. Those were doubly sad, because he clearly knew what he was losing as he slipped beneath the waves. Those were heart-wrenching moments of terrifying clarity.

As I’ve looked back through Roy’s e-mails and letters these past few days, one of his e-mails really stands out in terms of clarity and prophecy.

I think when the dust clears with the DNA project we will find some fantastic information. I don’t expect this in my life time but you have really started a great thing in the project!

I will say this – My predictions are future research will show that:

Nicholas Ewstas was not connected to The House of Este.
Nicholas will be found connected to the Eustice line.
The basic line will be traced back to the Flanders area.

Other predictions that will be proven :

The spouse of Abraham Sr, was not Barbara Brock.
Abraham was not an indentured servant as such.
There are errors in the list of children of Abraham and Barbara that we now accept.

I only wish I knew 30 years ago what we know now! Then I would have had the time and resources to check into these things!

To date, we have evidence that indeed, Nicholas Ewstas was most likely not connected to the House of Este. The connection to the Eustice line depends on which line and who is spelling the surname. And yes, the Estes line, first found in Kent, did come from mainland Europe – but apparently not Italy. Big Y testing on a group of Estes men with known and proven descent helped to sort this out. Roy didn’t get to participate in that testing, because his line is not proven genealogically beyond Elisha. DNA can do a lot, but it can’t make up for generational genealogically connected records.

Indeed, Roy is right and there is no evidence to suggest that Abraham’s wife, Barbara, was a Brock. You can’t prove a negative using DNA, at least not in this case. I am hopeful that in years to come as we develop tools like ancestor libraries where haplotypes are associated with certain ancestors and lines that we can one day unravel Barbara’s surname. It may not be in my lifetime either – but it will happen one day.

However, until then, we just don’t know, the county records we need have burned and there is just no way to discover her surname.

Unless, unless….Roy can figure out a way to tell us her name. I know, for a fact, that the first thing Roy did after greeting Berniece and his dog was to find Abraham and Barbara and ask about her surname.

Roy wasn’t too old, too disabled, too uneducated in genetic genealogy or too anything else. He was just the opposite, extremely capable. Roy jumped right in, in his 80s and made an unparalleled contribution on several fronts, including genetic genealogy. And now that he is actually ON the other side, WITH those ancestors… I’m hoping against hope that Roy isn’t too far away. I know that if there is any way for Roy to get us that surname information, he will. And I’m counting on him.

Just so you know, Roy, I’m leaving a pad of paper out with a pen, right by the Christmas tree:)

Roy has served as a personal inspiration for me now, for years. I used to think of Roy and say to myself, thinking of him confined to his wheelchair and always working through some level of chronic pain, “If Roy can do THAT, I can surely do this.” Roy leaves a huge legacy behind.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that you are never “too” anything, unless you decide you are. However, if you don’t DO something, eventually, you will be too late. Roy wasn’t too late, he just left too soon. I miss you partner.

Rest in peace Roy, right after you send me that surname:)

______________________________________________________________

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Hans Berchtol (1641/1653-1711), Twice a Godfather, 52 Ancestors #101

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Roberta Estes

We know that Hans Berchtol’s death was recorded in the church in Konken, Germany, the beautiful hamlet shown below, on June 15, 1711. His death record in the church records tells us that he resided in Krottelbach, just a few miles away.

Hans Berchtoll and his wife, Anna Christina reportedly had the following children:

Hans Jacob born in 1686 who married Anna Marie Glosselos
Susanna Agnes born on May 3, 1688 and married Michael Mueller (1692-1771) (One source reports her birth in Ohmbach, a nearby village.)
Hans Peter born on May 1, 1690 and married Maria Elizabeth Zimmer
Hans Heinrich born on May 1, 1690
Barbel (Barbara) born about 1693
Ursula born about 1696

In 1686, in Steinwenden (shown below,) not terribly far from Konken, we find mention of Hans Berchtol in the baptismal record of Johann Abraham Mueller, the son of Johann Michael Mueller and his wife, Irene Charitas whose last name is unknown.

Hans Berchtol’s wife was not with him in the baptismal records of this child, likely because she was herself quite pregnant or had recently given birth. The first child born to Hans Berchtol and his wife, Anna Christina was born in 1686 as well.

The infant, Johann Abraham Mueller, would die shortly after his birth, but again, in 1692, Hans Berchtol would be called upon to attend another baptism of a child of Johann Michael Mueller and his wife. These two couples were obviously close, even though they didn’t live nearby. Why? Were they in some way related? What was their common bond – a bond strong enough to survive a 15 mile distance in the mountains over several years.

The child born in 1692, Johann Michael Mueller (Jr.) would one day marry the daughter of Hans Berchtol and Anna Christina. How strange is that? Michael’s in-laws-to-be were his godparents. That doesn’t happen often. Hans Berchtol’s daughter, Susanna Agnes Berchtol was born on May 3, 1688 in Konken (or Ohmbach). Whether this family was previously related in some fashion or not, their descendants were destined to be. I wonder if Johann Michael Mueller grew up playing with Susanna Berchtol, his future wife. Did they sit beside each other in Sunday School from time to time? She was more than 4 years his senior, so maybe she wasn’t terribly interested in him until they were teenagers or young adults. And they did live 15 miles apart.

Then another thought struck me. Konken and Steinwenden are really too distant for easy accessibility. Since Hans Berchtol and his wife had stood up with Johann Michael Mueller at his baptism, they would have been his godparents. Godparents were technically responsible for the religious education of the child, and were the people who would have taken the child to raise if their parents died. It has always been assumed because of the close relationship of Johann Michael Mueller (the second) and Johann Jacob Stutzman (born 1706), son of Michael’s father’s second wife, that Michael’s step- mother, Anna Loysa Regina, and her second husband, Jacob Stutzman raised Michael. I know this is confusing, so I’ve created a little chart representing the relationships.

But maybe that wasn’t true, and Anna Loysa Regina and Jacob Stutzman didn’t raise Johann Michael Mueller (the second), or maybe not for the entire time. Maybe Michael was raised by Hans Berchtol and his wife, his godparents. That would explain how the 15 mile difference between Steinwenden and Konken was overcome for courting purposes.

I don’t have the Konken church records or their direct translations, but it would be very interesting to see if Johann Michael Mueller (the first) and his wife, Irene Charitas Mueller, witnessed the baptisms of any of Hans Berchtol’s children. It would also be interesting to check the neighboring church records to see if we can find any additional children for Hans baptized in neighboring churches. I don’t know if the family moved, or if they simply went to the closest church for baptisms, or they changed churches occasionally. Why didn’t they attend the church in Krottelbach where they lived?

As it turns out, Krottelbach historically formed the boundary between the parishes of Ohmbach and Konken, so Krottelbach didn’t have its own church.

This caused some difﬁculty in ascertaining what the village’s population was in the so-called Konker Protokollen of 1609 in which the 12 hearths (“households”) with 65 inhabitants listed for Krottelbach were actually only the ones on the north side of the brook, in the parish of Konken. Corresponding statistics for the part of the village on the south bank are not available. All in all, though, the village as a whole may have been rather large for the circumstances of that time. However, that wasn’t to last.

Like all villages in the region around Kusel, Krottelbach suffered heavily under the twin blows of the Plague and the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). After that war, there were only four people living in the village. The populace was devastated. This area of Germany was barren and desperate for settlers who were willing to work and farm, and actively sought people from Switzerland and other regions.

The newcomers welcomed the opportunity and settled, but more lives were lost towards the end of the 1600s in French King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest. It seemed that there was no end to wars and violence.

Krottelbach belonged to the village church in Ohmbach, which Count Gerlach V of Veldenz had bequeathed to the Werschweiler Monastery after 1258. During the Reformation, the monastery was dissolved, whereafter some of the then Lutheran villagers still belonged to the parish of Ohmbach, while others belonged to the parish of Konken. Until 1817, the village of Krottelbach remained solidly Reformed, a faith that in 1817 united with the Lutherans. At that point, the whole village once again belonged to the parish of Ohmbach.

What this history of Krottelback, along with the Konken church records, tells us is that Hans Berchtol lived on the north side of the brook in Krottelbach.

Perhaps Hans farmed one of these beautiful fields or maybe he lived on Krottelback Creek, meaning “Toadbrook.” At this time, farmers did not live on farms in the countryside, but they actually lived in the villages clustered together and then went to farm their fields that surrounded the village.

A second Berchtol male was having children in Steinwenden where Johann Michael Mueller lived. Hans Simon Berchtol and his wife Catherine had the following children according to Steinwenden church records:

Hans Samuel born 1685, godparent Hans Michael ?
Maria Magdalena born 1686, godparents Hans Michael Muller of Steinwenden and Anna Catherine
Maria Elizabeth born 1691
Anna Catherine born 1696, godparents Anna Catharine, Johannes Lampon, frau, Jacob ??
Johannes Theobold born 1697, godparent Maria Elizabeth
Johannes born 1698, godparents Johannes Berchtol and Anna Maria

Hans Samuel Berchtol, born in 1685 above is believed to be an immigrant and possibly the Samuel Berchtol found in records in Pennsylvania with Johann Michael Mueller born in 1696. One Samuel Becktel arrived on the ship Robert and Alice on September 30, 1743.

Were Hans Berchtol of Krottelbach and Hans Samuel Berchtol of Steinwenden brothers? These families were surely related, but how?

These villages, Krottelbach and Steinwenden were nearly as far apart as Konken and Steinwenden, being a distance of about 18 km.

The fact that both families were of Pietist leanings and settled in this part of Germany, traveling a non-trivial distance between locations, suggests that perhaps they had a pre-existing connection before settling here, other than their obvious religious leanings and refugee status. Remember, we don’t know the maiden name of either man’s wife, Hans Berchtol’s Anna Christina or Johann Michael Mueller’s Irene Charitas.

We know that the Mueller family was originally found in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland where Johann Michael Mueller, the elder, was born in 1655 in Zollikofen. Many Pietist families from this region removed to this same part of Germany in the 1680s. So it’s not unlikely that the Berchtol family did the same thing, which would explain why Hans Berchtoll was willing to travel 18km, each way, twice to stand up with the Mueller family for the baptism of babies.

The record from Konken Reformed Church shows that Michael Muller, son of Johann Michael Muller from Steinweiler in Churpfalz, married Susanna Agnes Berchtel, a Swiss, at Crottelbach (sic) on January 4, 1714. “A Swiss,” in fact confirms that indeed, the Berchtel family too immigrated from Switzerland.

The Steinwenden records begin in 1684, but the Konken records begin in 1654, so perhaps more information awaits in those records, once they are translated and indexed in some location so that you can find entries without reading the entire church book – or more accurately stated – paying someone else to read the entire church book.

Just three years after Hens Berchtol’s death in 1711, his daughter would marry Johann Michael Mueller Jr., that baby born in 1692. Maybe when Hans died, Johann Michael Mueller stepped in to help the family.

Krottelbach, shown above, is about 5 miles from Konken.

So, by piecing scant records together, we know that Hans Bechtol, Bechtel or Berchtol was “Swiss,” lived in Konken or more likely Krottelbach by 1686, but traveled that same year to Steinwenden, without his wife, for the baptism of the child of Johann Michael Mueller and his wife, Irene Charitas, whose last name is unknown.

During this same time period, a Hans Simon Berchtol was living in Steinwenden and having children there. Johann Michael Mueller was a godparent to one of Hans Simon’s children as well. These three families were likely related in some fashion.

Hans Berchtol and his wife continued to have children in Konken until about 1696. We don’t know if this was when his wife died, or whether she had reached the age where children were no longer forthcoming. If that was the case, it would put their birth year at about 1653 or so. It would be worth checking Hans actual death record to see if his wife is mentioned as either living or dead.

Hans died in 1711 where the Konken church records reflect that he lived in Krottelbach. He was born probably before 1653, which means he would have been at least 57 when he died. Another source states that he was born on June 15, 1641 in Germany, but they do not provide the source of this information. Regardless, Hans was not a young man when he died.

We know that two of Hans sons lived to marry, although I have no information about their children, or if they immigrated.

I noticed that in the Biddle/Bechtel project at Family Tree DNA, there are several Bechtel and Bechtol males who have Y DNA tested. Unfortunately, there are eight different groupings, and none of them reach back to Hans Bechtol in Germany. Several are found in Germantown, Delaware Co., Huntington Co., York and Berks Counties in PA. These would, of course, be the exact locations where these German families would have settled. Bechtel immigrants are documented here and none of these seem to be candidates for sons of our Hans.

Many of the Bechtol/Bechtel families were Mennonites and one group arrived in 1729. These men don’t look to be Hans sons, but we don’t really know, apart from the fact that we are looking for a Jacob, a Peter or a Heinrich.

However, we know positively that there were Bechtol men with the Brethren families in Chester and York Counties in PA.

On February 7, 1744, Michael Miller, Nicholas Garber, Samuel Bechtol and Hans Jacob Bechtol, who all lived in Chester Co, PA, purchased a tract of land consisting of 400 acres northeast of Hanover, PA in York County.

Today this land is near Bair’s Mennonite Church, probably lying south from the church, shown below.

Today, that land has a cemetery on both sides of the road. It’s possible that the church is on the original land owned by these 4 men.

Let’s see if we have a participant from this line in the Bechtel DNA project.

The last group of Bechtel men in the DNA project track back to one Samuel Bechtel, reportedly born in 1700, died in 1785, and is buried in the York Road Cemetery in York County, PA. A little bit of digging shows us that indeed, the church shown in Samuel’s Find-A-Grave picture is Bair’s Mennonite Church, shown below from Google maps, street view.

Is this the same family line of Samuel Bechtol who purchased land there in 1744? Assuredly. Additional deed work would likely confirm the land history. Is the Samuel Bechtol of Chester County, PA the same Bechtol family as was found in Konken and Steinwenden, Germany. Most likely, but we don’t know for certain. The dates don’t align exactly. Hans Simon Berchtol of Steinwenden had son Hans Samuel in 1685. It’s hard to imagine the continued connection with the Mueller/Miller family if it is not the same Berchtol family line, but we need more than circumstantial evidence.

If any Bechtol, Bechtel or Berchtol male, meaning any of Hans Bechtol’s or Hans Simon Berchtol’s descendants who are males and still carry the surname, by any spelling, are discovered, I have a DNA testing scholarship for the first individual. Let’s find out more about our ancestors. I’m betting that Samuel Berchtol and Hans Berchtol from Germany are related, one way or another, and so is the Samuel buried in the Mennonite cemetery at Bair’s Mennonite Church.

Various kinds of DNA testing could help unravel this puzzle.

It’s possible that autosomal DNA testing can solve this puzzle as well, even though there are several generations between Hans and descendants today. If we don’t look, we’ll never find that connection. If you descend from these lines, let me know.

It’s amazing that DNA has the potential to answer these questions that have been burning for decades – and questions that our ancestors knew the answers to and thought nothing of. They are probably chuckling at our inquisitiveness today, given that they still know those answers, and we still don’t.

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Native American Haplogroup C Update – Progress!!

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Roberta Estes

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

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

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

Z30503
Z30601
FGC21495
Z30750
Z30764
PF3239
Z30729
FGC263
FGC31712

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Project Administrators – Disabling E-Mail Notifications

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Roberta Estes

The good news is that in the past couple of weeks, thousands of kits have been processed and Family Finder and other results are being returned to participants. Copies of these notifications are also being sent to project administrators who manage the projects that these people have joined.

Sometimes that’s great – and sometimes not so much – especially when you’re receiving literally thousands of notifications.

I administer or co-administer a variety of types of projects, from surname to haplogroup to geographic and regional projects – and no offense – but I really don’t want to see everybody’s everything – only what’s relevant to the project at hand.

For example, haplogroup project admins generally don’t want to see Family Finder matches of people within their projects.

The good news is that admins can stop what they don’t want, and continue to receive what they do.

Here’s how to do that if you’re a project administrator.

At Family Tree DNA, under your GAP account, select the project you want to modify (at top right) and then click on the “My Account” tab on the top toolbar, then “My Settings” and you will then be presented with a long list of notification settings on the left.

Now, just unclick the ones you don’t want to receive. It’s that easy.

IMPORTANT – When finished – click on “Save Settings” at the top left of the page – or it won’t!

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2014 Top Genetic Genealogy Happenings – A Baker’s Dozen +1

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Roberta Estes

It’s that time again, to look over the year that has just passed and take stock of what has happened in the genetic genealogy world. I wrote a review in both 2012 and 2013 as well. Looking back, these momentous happenings seem quite “old hat” now. For example, both www.GedMatch.com and www.DNAGedcom.com, once new, have become indispensable tools that we take for granted. Please keep in mind that both of these tools (as well as others in the Tools section, below) depend on contributions, although GedMatch now has a tier 1 subscription offering for $10 per month as well.

So what was the big news in 2014?

Beyond the Tipping Point

Genetic genealogy has gone over the tipping point. Genetic genealogy is now, unquestionably, mainstream and lots of people are taking part. From the best I can figure, there are now approaching or have surpassed three million tests or test records, although certainly some of those are duplicates.

500,000+ at 23andMe
700,000+ at Ancestry
700,000+ at Genographic

The organizations above represent “one-test” companies. Family Tree DNA provides various kinds of genetic genealogy tests to the community and they have over 380,000 individuals with more than 700,000 test records.

In addition to the above mentioned mainstream firms, there are other companies that provide niche testing, often in addition to Family Tree DNA Y results.

In addition, there is what I would refer to as a secondary market for testing as well which certainly attracts people who are not necessarily genetic genealogists but who happen across their corporate information and decide the test looks interesting. There is no way of knowing how many of those tests exist.

Additionally, there is still the Sorenson data base with Y and mtDNA tests which reportedly exceeded their 100,000 goal.

Spencer Wells spoke about the “viral spread threshold” in his talk in Houston at the International Genetic Genealogy Conference in October and terms 2013 as the year of infection. I would certainly agree.

Autosomal Now the New Normal

Another change in the landscape is that now, autosomal DNA has become the “normal” test. The big attraction to autosomal testing is that anyone can play and you get lots of matches. Earlier in the year, one of my cousins was very disappointed in her brother’s Y DNA test because he only had a few matches, and couldn’t understand why anyone would test the Y instead of autosomal where you get lots and lots of matches. Of course, she didn’t understand the difference in the tests or the goals of the tests – but I think as more and more people enter the playground – percentagewise – fewer and fewer do understand the differences.

Case in point is that someone contacted me about DNA and genealogy. I asked them which tests they had taken and where and their answer was “the regular one.” With a little more probing, I discovered that they took Ancestry’s autosomal test and had no clue there were any other types of tests available, what they could tell him about his ancestors or genetic history or that there were other vendors and pools to swim in as well.

A few years ago, we not only had to explain about DNA tests, but why the Y and mtDNA is important. Today, we’ve come full circle in a sense – because now we don’t have to explain about DNA testing for genealogy in general but we still have to explain about those “unknown” tests, the Y and mtDNA. One person recently asked me, “oh, are those new?”

Ancient DNA

This year has seen many ancient DNA specimens analyzed and sequenced at the full genomic level.

The year began with a paper titled, “When Populations Collide” which revealed that contemporary Europeans carry between 1-4% of Neanderthal DNA most often associated with hair and skin color, or keratin. Africans, on the other hand, carry none or very little Neanderthal DNA.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/01/30/neanderthal-genome-further-defined-in-contemporary-eurasians/

A month later, a monumental paper was published that detailed the results of sequencing a 12,500 Clovis child, subsequently named Anzick or referred to as the Anzick Clovis child, in Montana. That child is closely related to Native American people of today.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/02/13/clovis-people-are-native-americans-and-from-asia-not-europe/

In June, another paper emerged where the authors had analyzed 8000 year old bones from the Fertile Crescent that shed light on the Neolithic area before the expansion from the Fertile Crescent into Europe. These would be the farmers that assimilated with or replaced the hunter-gatherers already living in Europe.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/06/09/dna-analysis-of-8000-year-old-bones-allows-peek-into-the-neolithic/

Svante Paabo is the scientist who first sequenced the Neanderthal genome. Here is a great interview and speech. This man is so interesting. If you have not read his book, “Neanderthal Man, In Search of Lost Genomes,” I strongly recommend it.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/07/22/finding-your-inner-neanderthal-with-evolutionary-geneticist-svante-paabo/

In the fall, yet another paper was released that contained extremely interesting information about the peopling and migration of humans across Europe and Asia. This was just before Michael Hammer’s presentation at the Family Tree DNA conference, so I covered the paper along with Michael’s information about European ancestral populations in one article. The take away messages from this are two-fold. First, there was a previously undefined “ghost population” called Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) that is found in the northern portion of Asia that contributed to both Asian populations, including those that would become the Native Americans and European populations as well. Secondarily, the people we thought were in Europe early may not have been, based on the ancient DNA remains we have to date. Of course, that may change when more ancient DNA is fully sequenced which seems to be happening at an ever-increasing rate.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/21/peopling-of-europe-2014-identifying-the-ghost-population/

Ancient DNA Available for Citizen Scientists

If I were to give a Citizen Scientist of the Year award, this year’s award would go unquestionably to Felix Chandrakumar for his work with the ancient genome files and making them accessible to the genetic genealogy world. Felix obtained the full genome files from the scientists involved in full genome analysis of ancient remains, reduced the files to the SNPs utilized by the autosomal testing companies in the genetic genealogy community, and has made them available at GedMatch.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/22/utilizing-ancient-dna-at-gedmatch/

If this topic is of interest to you, I encourage you to visit his blog and read his many posts over the past several months.

https://plus.google.com/+FelixChandrakumar/posts

The availability of these ancient results set off a sea of comparisons. Many people with Native heritage matched Anzick’s file at some level, and many who are heavily Native American, particularly from Central and South America where there is less admixture match Anzick at what would statistically be considered within a genealogical timeframe. Clearly, this isn’t possible, but it does speak to how endogamous populations affect DNA, even across thousands of years.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/23/analyzing-the-native-american-clovis-anzick-ancient-results/

Because Anzick is matching so heavily with the Mexican, Central and South American populations, it gives us the opportunity to extract mitochondrial DNA haplogroups from the matches that either are or may be Native, if they have not been recorded before.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/23/analyzing-the-native-american-clovis-anzick-ancient-results/

Needless to say, the matches of these ancient kits with contemporary people has left many people questioning how to interpret the results. The answer is that we don’t really know yet, but there is a lot of study as well as speculation occurring. In the citizen science community, this is how forward progress is made…eventually.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/25/ancient-dna-matches-what-do-they-mean/

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/30/ancient-dna-matching-a-cautionary-tale/

More ancient DNA samples for comparison:

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/04/more-ancient-dna-samples-for-comparison/

A Siberian sample that also matches the Malta Child whose remains were analyzed in late 2013.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/11/12/kostenki14-a-new-ancient-siberian-dna-sample/

Felix has prepared a list of kits that he has processed, along with their GedMatch numbers and other relevant information, like gender, haplogroup(s), age and location of sample.

http://www.y-str.org/p/ancient-dna.html

Furthermore, in a collaborative effort with Family Tree DNA, Felix formed an Ancient DNA project and uploaded the ancient autosomal files. This is the first time that consumers can match with Ancient kits within the vendor’s data bases.

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Ancient_DNA

Recently, GedMatch added a composite Archaic DNA Match comparison tool where your kit number is compared against all of the ancient DNA kits available. The output is a heat map showing which samples you match most closely.

Indeed, it has been a banner year for ancient DNA and making additional discoveries about DNA and our ancestors. Thank you Felix.

Haplogroup Definition

That SNP tsunami that we discussed last year…well, it made landfall this year and it has been storming all year long…in a good way. At least, ultimately, it will be a good thing. If you asked the haplogroup administrators today about that, they would probably be too tired to answer – as they’ve been quite overwhelmed with results.

The Big Y testing has been fantastically successful. This is not from a Family Tree DNA perspective, but from a genetic genealogy perspective. Branches have been being added to and sawed off of the haplotree on a daily basis. This forced the renaming of the haplogroups from the old traditional R1b1a2 to R-M269 in 2012. While there was some whimpering then, it would be nothing like the outright wailing now that would be occurring as haplogroup named reached 20 or so digits.

Alice Fairhurst discussed the SNP tsunami at the DNA Conference in Houston in October and I’m sure that the pace hasn’t slowed any between now and then. According to Alice, in early 2014, there were 4115 individual SNPs on the ISOGG Tree, and as of the conference, there were 14,238 SNPs, with the 2014 addition total at that time standing at 10,213. That is over 1000 per month or about 35 per day, every day.

Yes, indeed, that is the definition of a tsunami. Every one of those additions requires one of a number of volunteers, generally haplogroup project administrators to evaluate the various Big Y results, the SNPs and novel variants included, where they need to be inserted in the tree and if branches need to be rearranged. In some cases, naming request for previously unknown SNPs also need to be submitted. This is all done behind the scenes and it’s not trivial.

The project I’m closest to is the R1b L-21 project because my Estes males fall into that group. We’ve tested several, and I’ll be writing an article as soon as the final test is back.

The tree has grown unbelievably in this past year just within the L21 group. This project includes over 700 individuals who have taken the Big Y test and shared their results which has defined about 440 branches of the L21 tree. Currently there are almost 800 kits available if you count the ones on order and the 20 or so from another vendor.

Here is the L21 tree in January of 2014

Compare this with today’s tree, below.

Michael Walsh, Richard Stevens, David Stedman need to be commended for their incredible work in the R-L21 project. Other administrators are doing equivalent work in other haplogroup projects as well. I big thank you to everyone. We’d be lost without you!

One of the results of this onslaught of information is that there have been fewer and fewer academic papers about haplogroups in the past few years. In essence, by the time a paper can make it through the peer review cycle and into publication, the data in the paper is often already outdated relative to the Y chromosome. Recently a new paper was released about haplogroup C3*. While the data is quite valid, the authors didn’t utilize the new SNP naming nomenclature. Before writing about the topic, I had to translate into SNPese. Fortunately, C3* has been relatively stable.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/12/23/haplogroup-c3-previously-believed-east-asian-haplogroup-is-proven-native-american/

10^th Annual International Conference on Genetic Genealogy

The Family Tree DNA International Conference on Genetic Genealogy for project administrators is always wonderful, but this year was special because it was the 10^th annual. And yes, it was my 10^th year attending as well. In all these years, I had never had a photo with both Max and Bennett. Everyone is always so busy at the conferences. Getting any 3 people, especially those two, in the same place at the same time takes something just short of a miracle.

Ten years ago, it was the first genetic genealogy conference ever held, and was the only place to obtain genetic genealogy education outside of the rootsweb genealogy DNA list, which is still in existence today. Family Tree DNA always has a nice blend of sessions. I always particularly appreciate the scientific sessions because those topics generally aren’t covered elsewhere.

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/

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/15/tenth-annual-family-tree-dna-conference-wrapup/

Jennifer Zinck wrote great recaps of each session and the ISOGG meeting.

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

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

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

I thank Family Tree DNA for sponsoring all 10 conferences and continuing the tradition. It’s really an amazing feat when you consider that 15 years ago, this industry didn’t exist at all and wouldn’t exist today if not for Max and Bennett.

Education

Two educational venues offered classes for genetic genealogists and have made their presentations available either for free or very reasonably. One of the problems with genetic genealogy is that the field is so fast moving that last year’s session, unless it’s the very basics, is probably out of date today. That’s the good news and the bad news.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/11/12/genetic-genealogy-ireland-2014-presentations

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/26/educational-videos-from-international-genetic-genealogy-conference-now-available/

In addition, three books have been released in 2014.

In January, Emily Aulicino released Genetic Genealogy, The Basics and Beyond.

In October, Richard Hill released “Guide to DNA Testing: How to Identify Ancestors, Confirm Relationships and Measure Ethnicity through DNA Testing.”

Most recently, David Dowell’s new book, NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection was released right after Thanksgiving.

Ancestor Reconstruction – Raising the Dead

This seems to be the year that genetic genealogists are beginning to reconstruct their ancestors (on paper, not in the flesh) based on the DNA that the ancestors passed on to various descendants. Those segments are “gathered up” and reassembled in a virtual ancestor.

I utilized Kitty Cooper’s tool to do just that.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/03/ancestor-reconstruction/

I know it doesn’t look like much yet but this is what I’ve been able to gather of Henry Bolton, my great-great-great-grandfather.

Kitty did it herself too.

http://blog.kittycooper.com/2014/08/mapping-an-ancestral-couple-a-backwards-use-of-my-segment-mapper/

http://blog.kittycooper.com/2014/09/segment-mapper-tool-improvements-another-wold-dna-map/

Ancestry.com wrote a paper about the fact that they have figured out how to do this as well in a research environment.

http://corporate.ancestry.com/press/press-releases/2014/12/ancestrydna-reconstructs-partial-genome-of-person-living-200-years-ago/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2014/12/16/ancestrydna-recreates-portions-genome-david-speegle-two-wives/

GedMatch has created a tool called, appropriately, Lazarus that does the same thing, gathers up the DNA of your ancestor from their descendants and reassembles it into a DNA kit.

Blaine Bettinger has been working with and writing about his experiences with Lazarus.

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2014/10/20/finally-gedmatch-announces-monetization-strategy-way-raise-dead/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2014/12/09/recreating-grandmothers-genome-part-1/

http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2014/12/14/recreating-grandmothers-genome-part-2/

Tools

Speaking of tools, we have some new tools that have been introduced this year as well.

Genome Mate is a desktop tool used to organize data collected by researching DNA comparsions and aids in identifying common ancestors. I have not used this tool, but there are others who are quite satisfied. It does require Microsoft Silverlight be installed on your desktop.

The Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer is available through www.dnagedcom.com and is a tool that I have used and found very helpful. It assists you by visually grouping your matches, by chromosome, and who you match in common with.

Charting Companion from Progeny Software, another tool I use, allows you to colorize and print or create pdf files that includes X chromosome groupings. This greatly facilitates seeing how the X is passed through your ancestors to you and your parents.

WikiTree is a free resource for genealogists to be able to sort through relationships involving pedigree charts. In November, they announced Relationship Finder.

Probably the best example I can show of how WikiTree has utilized DNA is using the results of King Richard III.

By clicking on the DNA icon, you see the following:

And then Richard’s Y, mitochondrial and X chromosome paths.

Since Richard had no descendants, to see how descendants work, click on his mother, Cecily of York’s DNA descendants and you’re shown up to 10 generations.

While this isn’t terribly useful for Cecily of York who lived and died in the 1400s, it would be incredibly useful for finding mitochondrial descendants of my ancestor born in 1802 in Virginia. I’d love to prove she is the daughter of a specific set of parents by comparing her DNA with that of a proven daughter of those parents! Maybe I’ll see if I can find her parents at WikiTree.

Kitty Cooper’s blog talks about additional tools. I have used Kitty’s Chromosome mapping tools as discussed in ancestor reconstruction.

Felix Chandrakumar has created a number of fun tools as well. Take a look. I have not used most of these tools, but there are several I’ll be playing with shortly.

Exits and Entrances

With very little fanfare, deCODEme discontinued their consumer testing and reminded people to download their date before year end.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/09/30/decodeme-consumer-tests-discontinued/

I find this unfortunate because at one time, deCODEme seemed like a company full of promise for genetic genealogy. They failed to take the rope and run.

On a sad note, Lucas Martin who founded DNA Tribes unexpectedly passed away in the fall. DNA Tribes has been a long-time player in the ethnicity field of genetic genealogy. I have often wondered if Lucas Martin was a pseudonym, as very little information about Lucas was available, even from Lucas himself. Neither did I find an obituary. Regardless, it’s sad to see someone with whom the community has worked for years pass away. The website says that they expect to resume offering services in January 2015. I would be cautious about ordering until the structure of the new company is understood.

http://www.dnatribes.com/

In the last month, a new offering has become available that may be trying to piggyback on the name and feel of DNA Tribes, but I’m very hesitant to provide a link until it can be determined if this is legitimate or bogus. If it’s legitimate, I’ll be writing about it in the future.

However, the big news exit was Ancestry’s exit from the Y and mtDNA testing arena. We suspected this would happen when they stopped selling kits, but we NEVER expected that they would destroy the existing data bases, especially since they maintain the Sorenson data base as part of their agreement when they obtained the Sorenson data.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/02/ancestry-destroys-irreplaceable-dna-database/

The community is still hopeful that Ancestry may reverse that decision.

Ancestry – The Chromosome Browser War and DNA Circles

There has been an ongoing battle between Ancestry and the more seasoned or “hard-core” genetic genealogists for some time – actually for a long time.

The current and most long-standing issue is the lack of a chromosome browser, or any similar tools, that will allow genealogists to actually compare and confirm that their DNA match is genuine. Ancestry maintains that we don’t need it, wouldn’t know how to use it, and that they have privacy concerns.

Other than their sessions and presentations, they had remained very quiet about this and not addressed it to the community as a whole, simply saying that they were building something better, a better mousetrap.

In the fall, Ancestry invited a small group of bloggers and educators to visit with them in an all-day meeting, which came to be called DNA Day.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/10/08/dna-day-with-ancestry/

In retrospect, I think that Ancestry perceived that they were going to have a huge public relations issue on their hands when they introduced their new feature called DNA Circles and in the process, people would lose approximately 80% of their current matches. I think they were hopeful that if they could educate, or convince us, of the utility of their new phasing techniques and resulting DNA Circles feature that it would ease the pain of people’s loss in matches.

I am grateful that they reached out to the community. Some very useful dialogue did occur between all participants. However, to date, nothing more has happened nor have we received any additional updates after the release of Circles.

Time will tell.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/11/18/in-anticipation-of-ancestrys-better-mousetrap/

http://dna-explained.com/2014/11/19/ancestrys-better-mousetrap-dna-circles/

DNA Circles, while interesting and somewhat useful, is certainly NOT a replacement for a chromosome browser, nor is it a better mousetrap.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/11/30/chromosome-browser-war/

In fact, the first thing you have to do when you find a DNA Circle that you have not verified utilizing raw data and/or chromosome browser tools from either 23andMe, Family Tree DNA or Gedmatch, is to talk your matches into transferring their DNA to Family Tree DNA or download to Gedmatch, or both.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/11/27/sarah-hickerson-c1752-lost-ancestor-found-52-ancestors-48/

I might add that the great irony of finding the Hickerson DNA Circle that led me to confirm that ancestry utilizing both Family Tree DNA and GedMatch is that today, when I checked at Ancestry, the Hickerson DNA Circle is no longer listed. So, I guess I’ve been somehow pruned from the circle. I wonder if that is the same as being voted off of the island. So, word to the wise…check your circles often…they change and not always in the upwards direction.

The Seamy Side – Lies, Snake Oil Salesmen and Bullys

Unfortunately a seamy side, an underbelly that’s rather ugly has developed in and around the genetic genealogy industry. I guess this was to be expected with the rapid acceptance and increasing popularity of DNA testing, but it’s still very unfortunate.

Some of this I expected, but I didn’t expect it to be so…well…blatant.

I don’t watch late night TV, but I’m sure there are now DNA diets and DNA dating and just about anything else that could be sold with the allure of DNA attached to the title.

I googled to see if this was true, and it is, although I’m not about to click on any of those links.

Unfortunately, within the ever-growing genetic genealogy community a rather large rift has developed over the past couple of years. Obviously everyone can’t get along, but this goes beyond that. When someone disagrees, a group actively “stalks” the person, trying to cost them their employment, saying hate filled and untrue things and even going so far as to create a Facebook page titled “Against<personname>.” That page has now been removed, but the fact that a group in the community found it acceptable to create something like that, and their friends joined, is remarkable, to say the least. That was accompanied by death threats.

Bullying behavior like this does not make others feel particularly safe in expressing their opinions either and is not conducive to free and open discussion. As one of the law enforcement officers said, relative to the events, “This is not about genealogy. I don’t know what it is about, yet, probably money, but it’s not about genealogy.”

Another phenomenon is that DNA is now a hot topic and is obviously “selling.” Just this week, this report was published, and it is, as best we can tell, entirely untrue.

http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/usa-archaeologists-discover-remains-of-first-british-settlers-in-north-america/

There were several tip offs, like the city (Lanford) and county (Laurens County) is not in the state where it is attributed (it’s in SC not NC), and the name of the institution is incorrect (Johns Hopkins, not John Hopkins). Additionally, if you google the name of the magazine, you’ll see that they specialize in tabloid “faux reporting.” It also reads a lot like the King Richard genuine press release.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/Fake-News/tp/A-Guide-to-Fake-News-Websites.01.htm

Earlier this year, there was a bogus institutional site created as well.

On one of the DNA forums that I frequent, people often post links to articles they find that are relevant to DNA. There was an interesting article, which has now been removed, correlating DNA results with latitude and altitude. I thought to myself, I’ve never heard of that…how interesting. Here’s part of what the article said:

Researchers at Aberdeen College’s Havering Centre for Genetic Research have discovered an important connection between our DNA and where our ancestors used to live.

Tiny sequence variations in the human genome sometimes called Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) occur with varying frequency in our DNA. These have been studied for decades to understand the major migrations of large human populations. Now Aberdeen College’s Dr. Miko Laerton and a team of scientists have developed pioneering research that shows that these differences in our DNA also reveal a detailed map of where our own ancestors lived going back thousands of years.

Dr. Laerton explains: “Certain DNA sequence variations have always been important signposts in our understanding of human evolution because their ages can be estimated. We’ve known for years that they occur most frequently in certain regions [of DNA], and that some alleles are more common to certain geographic or ethnic groups, but we have never fully understood the underlying reasons. What our team found is that the variations in an individual’s DNA correlate with the latitudes and altitudes where their ancestors were living at the time that those genetic variations occurred. We’re still working towards a complete understanding, but the knowledge that sequence variations are connected to latitude and altitude is a huge breakthrough by itself because those are enough to pinpoint where our ancestors lived at critical moments in history.”

The story goes on, but at the bottom, the traditional link to the publication journal is found.

The full study by Dr. Laerton and her team was published in the September issue of the Journal of Genetic Science.

I thought to myself, that’s odd, I’ve never heard of any of these people or this journal, and then I clicked to find this.

About that time, Debbie Kennett, DNA watchdog of the UK, posted this:

April Fools Day appears to have arrived early! There is no such institution as Aberdeen College founded in 1394. The University of Aberdeen in Scotland was founded in 1495 and is divided into three colleges: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/about/colleges-schools-institutes/colleges-53.php

The picture on the masthead of the “Aberdeen College” website looks very much like a photo of Aberdeen University. This fake news item seems to be the only live page on the Aberdeen College website. If you click on any other links, including the link to the so-called “Journal of Genetic Science”, you get a message that the website is experienced “unusually high traffic”. There appears to be no such journal anyway.

We also realized that Dr. Laerton, reversed, is “not real.”

I still have no idea why someone would invest the time and effort into the fake website emulating the University of Aberdeen, but I’m absolutely positive that their motives were not beneficial to any of us.

What is the take-away of all of this? Be aware, very aware, skeptical and vigilant. Stick with the mainstream vendors unless you realize you’re experimenting.

King Richard

The much anticipated and long-awaited DNA results on the remains of King Richard III became available with a very unexpected twist. While the science team feels that they have positively identified the remains as those of Richard, the Y DNA of Richard and another group of men supposed to have been descended from a common ancestor with Richard carry DNA that does not match.

http://dna-explained.com/2014/12/09/henry-iii-king-of-england-fox-in-the-henhouse-52-ancestors-49/

http://dna-explained.com/2014/12/05/mitochondrial-dna-mutation-rates-and-common-ancestors/

Debbie Kennett wrote a great summary article.

http://cruwys.blogspot.com/2014/12/richard-iii-and-use-of-dna-as-evidence.html

More Alike than Different

One of the life lessons that genetic genealogy has held for me is that we are more closely related that we ever knew, to more people than we ever expected, and we are far more alike than different. A recent paper recently published by 23andMe scientists documents that people’s ethnicity reflect the historic events that took place in the part of the country where their ancestors lived, such as slavery, the Trail of Tears and immigration from various worldwide locations.

From the 23andMe blog:

The study leverages samples of unprecedented size and precise estimates of ancestry to reveal the rate of ancestry mixing among American populations, and where it has occurred geographically:

All three groups – African Americans, European Americans and Latinos – have ancestry from Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Approximately 3.5 percent of European Americans have 1 percent or more African ancestry. Many of these European Americans who describe themselves as “white” may be unaware of their African ancestry since the African ancestor may be 5-10 generations in the past.
European Americans with African ancestry are found at much higher frequencies in southern states than in other parts of the US.

The ancestry proportions point to the different regional impacts of slavery, immigration, migration and colonization within the United States:

The highest levels of African ancestry among self-reported African Americans are found in southern states, especially South Carolina and Georgia.
One in every 20 African Americans carries Native American ancestry.
More than 14 percent of African Americans from Oklahoma carry at least 2 percent Native American ancestry, likely reflecting the Trail of Tears migration following the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Among self-reported Latinos in the US, those from states in the southwest, especially from states bordering Mexico, have the highest levels of Native American ancestry.

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/12/genetic-study-reveals-surprising-ancestry-many-americans?utm_campaign=email-news-weekly&utm_source=eloqua

23andMe provides a very nice summary of the graphics in the article at this link:

http://blog.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Bryc_ASHG2014_textboxes.pdf

The academic article can be found here:

http://www.cell.com/ajhg/home

2015

So what does 2015 hold? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out. Hopefully, it holds more ancestors, whether discovered through plain old paper research, cousin DNA testing or virtually raised from the dead!

What would my wish list look like?

More ancient genomes sequenced, including ones from North and South America.
Ancestor reconstruction on a large scale.
The haplotree becoming fleshed out and stable.
Big Y sequencing combined with STR panels for enhanced genealogical research.
Improved ethnicity reporting.
Mitochondrial DNA search by ancestor for descendants who have tested.
More tools, always more tools….
More time to use the tools!

Here’s wishing you an ancestor filled 2015!

______________________________________________________________

Disclosure

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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!

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Disclosure

Thank you so much.

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