Data Mining and Screen Scraping – Right or Wrong?

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Data mining, also known as screen scraping has been occurring in the genetic genealogy community for some time now. I had hoped that peer pressure and time would take care of the issue and it would resolve itself, but it has not.

This topic has become somewhat of the pink elephant in the middle of the living room. People are whispering. Some people have adopted the pink elephant as a pet. Some are trying to ignore it. A few haven’t noticed and some just kind of accept its presence since no one seems to be able to convince it to leave. But no one has yet to walk in, take a look, and say “Hey, there’s a pink elephant in the living room.”

Well folks, there’s a pink elephant in the living room and we’re going to talk about it today.

What is Screen Scraping and Data Mining?

Screen scraping and data mining is where (generally) robots visit certain sites online on a scheduled basis and harvest data that is residing there. The harvested data may be used privately after that, or may be reformatted and massaged and then displayed differently on a public site. No notification is given or permission is asked to use the data.

Screen scraping and data mining is different than one person doing a Google search for information about their genealogy or their ancestor utilizing online resources. Screen scraping or data mining is the capturing or targeting of entire data bases. Mining implies searching for just one type of data – like maybe a certain haplogroup – and scraping implies taking everything viewable. Best case, it’s Google spidering sites for indexing. Worst case, they are thieves in the night. Like many things, the technology can be used for bad or good.

Let me give you an example which illustrates how I initially discovered this issue.

I administer several projects at Family Tree DNA – both surname and haplogroup. One of my surname project members e-mailed me one day in March of 2013 with a jovial note about their “15 minutes of fame.” The essence of this is that they had just transferred their National Geographic results to Family Tree DNA and the next day, found their results with their new SNPs they were so proud of on a website in Russia. Because of the quality of the site and how quickly those results appeared, they presumed that this was a collaborate research effort between either Family Tree DNA and/or National Geographic and the Russian site.

I took a look, and sure enough, he was right. There, big as life, was his DNA SNPs, his surname and his kit number, on an unauthorized site. I clearly knew that the website was not collaborative, but I confirmed with Family Tree DNA just to be sure, who was aware of it but could not do anything about the screen scraping of the DNA projects.

At that point, my project member attempted to contact the Russian site owner to have the information removed and to ask how they obtained it in the first place. There was no name on the semargl site, nor e-mail, only a form. I also attempted to do so and even involved two intermediaries who also attempted to facilitate contact. The site in question had clearly advertised a haplogroup project so I reached out to those project admins to facilitate contact as well. The website owner never replied. However, two days later, the web site owner did remove the surname from the site, but all of the harvested information remains. You can see it for yourself today. Kit number 24162.

In fact, this site has scraped and reconstructed almost all (if not all) of the haplogroup projects at Family Tree DNA. You can see them here.

I conducted a little experiment not long ago wherein I timed how long it took after results were posted at Family Tree DNA for them to appear on this site and it was generally between 24 and 48 hours. I repeated that this week with my husband’s results which were already displayed on the semargl website (without his permission,) and sure enough, his Big Y results that are displayed on the haplogroup project page at Family Tree DNA were immediately updated on the semargl site with his new SNP information.

One of my haplogroup projects has SNPs “turned off” but the participants data and SNPs are harvested anyway, because the robots don’t just scrape haplogroup projects, but surname projects as well. And almost everyone who joins haplogroup projects joins surname projects.

Have you noticed that the response times at Family Tree DNA are sometimes slow? Well, when robots are searching every project for new results on a daily basis, it does indeed tax their systems. We know the semargl site uses robots, but there may be more sites we aren’t aware of doing the same thing.

Remember when Ysearch was taken offline entirely and the following message was displayed?

“YSearch is currently unavailable due to an increase in abusive data mining by automated scripts. The site will be unavailable for an extended period of indeterminate duration.”

Well, robots at it again.

Ironically, one of the people I spoke to about this used the fact that YSearch was down to justify why the semargl site was so important – because they duplicated the YSearch info.

How Can They Do This?

The bottom of every single project page at Family Tree DNA displays copyright verbiage, as follows:

This clearly includes the contents. In the context of Russia, where the semargl website is located, this doesn’t matter, but perhaps Judy Russell will tackle the topic of project content ownership relative to the US in one of her columns.

I assure you that I have never been contacted and many of my projects’ contents are shown on the semargl site, complete haplogroup project data along with many participants, specifically those with SNP tests, from surname projects.

If you have had any SNP testing at Family Tree DNA, your results are probably included in this data base. If you want to see if your kit number is there, you can search by kit number, and just for yuks, try searching by surname too: http://www.semargl.me/en/dna/ydna/search/

When participants join projects, they can clearly expect their results to be shown on the associated project page at Family Tree DNA. In fact, that’s the whole point of genetic genealogy, to be able to find your paternal line, for example, or your genetic cousins. Sharing and comparing.

Do participants expect that their data will be scraped and displayed on a website in Russia, with or without their surname, and entirely without their permission or knowledge? Many surname project administrators are probably entirely unaware of this themselves.

The answer to “how can they do that?” is that they are in Russia and they are not bound by any US copyright or any other US laws. If you have any doubt about that, think Edward Snowden and why he is in Russia. In fact, the only thing that binds them is a sense of ethics, what’s right and wrong, internet courtesy and a colloquial definition of fair use. As you might have noticed, none of these things are legally binding, especially not on people in Russia.

Ethics speaks for itself. This site obviously sees nothing wrong with taking or harvesting the data from elsewhere without notification or permission. They also see nothing wrong with retaining, utilizing and displaying data even when it has been asked by the owner to be removed. Internet courtesy or netiquette would indicate that you would ask permission or minimally, inform the individuals that you are using their data. And fair use would indicate that you credit the individuals for their work and that you would source your data. Given that individuals didn’t grant permission for their information to be included, one should at least have the opportunity for their data to be removed, if randomly discovered, but that isn’t the case. This certainly explains why they were trying to remain anonymous a year ago, and refused contact.

As one participant said to me, “Just because the technology door can’t be locked to prevent this type of activity, does that make taking something that doesn’t belong to you any less of a theft?”

In discussions surrounding this topic, a highly respected project administrator said the following:

“I do not think any person today should have a reasonable expectation that anything displayed on the Internet can be expected not to be copied because it is public info – fair game to a third party as long as the fair use doctrine is observed. If I copied that particular person’s results to my website as an example of something it comes under fair use – as long as I indicate the source for the info. But when someone copies large numbers of items or fails to show the source of the info, it is no longer fair use.”

This isn’t the only situation like this, although it is by far the most blatant.

Recently, I saw a draft of a “paper” where an entire haplogroup project was “analyzed” using a third party tool without knowledge or involvement of the administrators, nor appropriate credit given for their project. Clearly, without their efforts in the project, the analysis paper could not have been written because the project would not exist. While that paper involves one person, this website involves many, is very public, and now the owner(s) have also formed and are part of a company. The website also solicits donations as well.

You’ll notice that YFull is advertised on their website, under the donate button. The ISOGG Wiki provides the following information about YFull.

“YFull.com was founded in 2013 and focuses on the interpretation of Y-chromosome sequences. The main aim of the project is to provide services for the analysis of full Y-chromosome raw data (BAM) files and convenient visualization. The data is collected and analysed and newly discovered single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are placed on an experimental Y-tree. Haplogroup and thematic projects are offered. The YFull service is located in Moscow, Russia.”

The YFull product analysis deliverables have been covered by two bloggers here and here.

The YFull team is listed in the Wiki article as follows:

Vadim Urasin (aka Wertner): active participant of the DNA genealogical community since 2008, the developer of robots to collect Y-data from public sources, “Y-predictor” developer, FTDNA group administrator, developer of the Y-series SNPs (for R1a, J2b, R2a, Q, O etc).
Roman Sychev (aka Maximus Centurion): active participant of the DNA genealogical community since 2006, since 2007 as moderator dna-forums.org (aka Maximus), molgen.org, FTDNA group administrator, developer of the Z-series SNPs (for R1a, I1, J2b), developer of the Y-series SNPs (for R1a, I, R2a, J2b, Q, O etc).
Vladimir Tagankin (aka Semargl): active participant of the DNA genealogical community, the DNA database “semargl.me” developer, FTDNA group administrator and co-administrator, developer of the Z-series SNPs (for R1a, I, J2b), developer of the Y-series SNPs (for R1a, J2b, R2a, Q, O etc).

You’ll note that the team includes two people who are credited with developing the mining/screen scraping robots and the developer of the semargl.me database. Also please note that all 3 are listed as group administrators at Family Tree DNA, which, given the circumstances, seems to be in violation of the Project Administrator Guidelines. I wonder if Family Tree DNA is aware of this and if project members understand what their project administrator is doing with their DNA results.

I happened to be working with someone’s results who are in the R1a1a and Subclades project. I noticed a familiar name among the project co-administrators at the bottom of the list.

I have not checked other projects.

This is particularly unfortunate, because the haplogroup projects have been key players in terms of encouraging SNP testing, sorting through results and defining key haplogroup subgroups. Project participants join haplogroup projects to further science and research. They expect the administrators to work with the results, but working with/ analyzing the results and reproducing the results on another site is not the same. Furthermore, being both a project administrator and the same person whose robots are scraping the FTDNA project sites to reproduce elsewhere without permission seems like a wolf masquerading as a shepherd to gain access to lambs.

Of course, the fully sequenced Y results are not posted to the public pages of projects, so they can not be harvested in full by robots like the individual SNP results, including Nat Geo transfers and Walk the Y results. Enter the free analysis provided by YFull to individuals who receive their fully sequenced Y results from either the Big Y at Family Tree DNA or the Full Y from FullGenomes.

When I first looked, there were no terms and condition, but there are terms and conditions on the YFull site today, at the bottom of the main page.

4.2 We may disclose to third parties, and/or use in our Services, “Aggregated Genetic and Self-Reported Information”, which is Genetic and Self-Reported Information that has been stripped of Registration Information and combined with data from a number of other users sufficient to minimize the possibility of exposing individual-level information while still providing scientific evidence. If you have given consent for your Genetic and Self-Reported Information to be used in YFull.com Research, we may include such information in Aggregated Genetic and Self-Reported Information intended to be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. We emphasize that Aggregated Genetic and Self-Reported Information will be stripped of names, physical addresses, email addresses, and any other Personal Information that may be used to identify you as a unique individual.

4.3 We may disclose to third parties – Yfull.com. Partners or service providers (e.g. our contracted genotyping laboratory or credit card processors) use and/or store the information in order to provide you with YFull.com’s Services.

Is Screen Scraping and Data Mining Wrong?

There are two sides to this argument.

At the time of the initial discovery, a year ago, with my project participant, based on my communications with some project administrators, it was clear that at least some of the admins knew of this activity and were supportive.

Why?

Because they perceived that the data was “public domain” and the resultant semargl website and “knowledge base,” as they phrased it, justified the means. These sentiments were expressed by multiple project administrators, separately, although now I realize that at least one of these people is a project co-administrator with the semargl owner, whose identity I didn’t know at that time. Their interpretation of public domain is incorrect, because public domain refers to works “whose intellectual property rights have expired” and this is clearly not the case. What they probably meant was that since the data has been posted publicly, from their perspective, the data at that point is freely available to use.

In some circumstances, that might at least partially be true. But since this site is in Russia, they are not bound by any laws here and they clearly did not choose to abide by any of the generally accepted netiquette standards.

Having said that, the semargl site is wonderfully done and extremely informative, which is why genetic genealogists have embraced it. Many probably don’t realize how the data has been obtained. Combine that with the mindset of “there’s nothing we can do about it anyway,” since they are in Russia, and many have simply resigned themselves to the fact that the situation is what it is. Besides that, brining this topic up causes you to be extremely unpopular in some camps.

Semargl vs Family Tree DNA

This is probably a good time to define how the semargl site is different than the Family Tree DNA site. Family Tree DNA is focused on genealogy, which includes surnames and oldest ancestor information. They also support and encourage testing of markers that reveal deeper ancestry, before the advent of surnames, which falls into the anthropological timeframe. After all, that’s still the history of our ancestors, revealed in their DNA – but before surnames. At Family Tree DNA, people join themselves to projects and they give permission when testing for comparison of their data. If they so choose, then can remove their data from projects, make their information entirely private or remove it entirely from the data base. In other words, they own and control their data.

The semargl site does not focus on genealogy and is generally focused on haplogroup definitions (by both SNP and STR markers) and population movement and settlement relative to haplogroup subgroups. In that way, it’s more of a research support endeavor. It’s not genealogy focused although it has the potential of helping genealogists understand the genesis of their ancestors before surnames. Having said that, they do have marker matching capabilities but without surnames displayed.

Of course, we know how they obtain their data, screen scraping the Family Tree DNA and YSearch sites, and that people whose data is displayed have not given permission and may be entirely unaware their data appears on that site.

Let’s look at an example of what semargl has done with DNA information. I’ll use haplogroup Q since it is a smaller haplogroup than others and one I’m familiar with.

They have divided haplogroup Q into 30 groupings based on SNPs. Each of these branches has its own map. The Q1b-Ashkenazi map is shown below with associated kit numbers to the right under the ad.

The map above, is by SNP, not by STR or individual match like the project and personal maps at Family Tree DNA.

This is followed by a table of STR marker haplotypes, by kit number, which is exactly like the data at Family Tree DNA.

STR table in color.

Each haplogroup by SNP has a distribution map. This is not by subgroup, but by main haplogroup. Haplogroup Q is shown below.

You can also select any SNP to view. I’ve selected L294 at random. Notice that the results are noted as from FTDNA (with kit number) or YSearch (with user ID) and those are the only sources given, so the origin of the data is very clear.

You can also inquire by country. Albania has primarily three haplogroups found.

You can query by haplogroup placing results on maps and other types of queries as well.

This owner(s) of this site has done a prodigious amount of work, and it is all very useful, and very well done. It’s actually too bad this isn’t a collaborate work, because I think it would have been very well accepted under different conditions. Most people would have gladly given permission had they been asked.

Unfortunately, the method used to obtain the data generates a lot of unanswered and pretty ugly questions.

Begging the Questions

Some people feel that if this site were to disappear, that the genetic genealogy community as a whole would suffer. It is the only location where aggregated SNP data is processed and analyzed in this manner.

They also feel that because the individual information has been publicly posted elsewhere, in this case, in Family Tree DNA projects, that this site, and others who might be doing the same thing, have done nothing wrong, unethical or inappropriate.

Others feel that this screen scraping/data harvesting of Family Tree DNA project data is an ethics violation in the strongest terms and that if this activity had been undertaken by someone within the US or within reach of the US via copyright treaty, it would be prosecutable under copyright laws.

Originally, many felt that since these people were “just genetic genealogists” trying to understand results, focused on just a few haplogroups in which they were personally interested, and since they weren’t selling anything, that there was no conflict of interest. However, the site has clearly grown exponentially and evolved over time, robots created and utilized, donations are being solicited, and now a company is involved as well, formed in 2013. And now we discover that the site owner is a project administrator at Family Tree DNA, giving them unprecedented access to DNA results beyond what is available publicly. One might suggest that is a conflict of interest. In defense of Family Tree DNA, a year ago it was almost impossible to discern the name of the person behind the semargl site and I was never able to obtain an e-mail address, even though it was clear that the intermediaries were communicating with him. People on the internet use pseudonyms and screen names regularly, as you can note in the Wiki entry about the YFull team.

Clearly, the people responsible for the robots that were and continue to disrupt the Family Tree DNA site and taking YSearch down have to be aware of that and they didn’t and haven’t stopped their activities. Was it these robots? I don’t know for sure, but semargl has obviously been utilizing robots, screen scraping the Family Tree DNA site for more than a year based on when my participants data was harvested. In fact, they are still utilizing robots, because my husband’s Big Y SNPs that were posted at Family Tree DNA (a subset of his total SNPs) one day this week were displayed on the semargl site the following day. Furthermore, one of the YFull principals is credited with developing these robots and is also noted as being a project administrator. Project administrators are supposed to be trusted stewards of the DNA of their participants.

Because the provider’s services were disrupted, one can’t really argue that no one has been damaged. Family Tree DNA has clearly been and continues to be impacted, their customers have been inconvenienced. Family Tree DNA spends money on bandwidth and staff to deal with these issues.

Some would assert that the expectations and rights of those whose results have been pirated, harvested or stolen, depending on your perspective, have been violated because the results have been used without permission of the participant. Others would say that there has been no harm because the results are anonymized (currently) on the semargl site with the surname removed from the display and they were retrieved from a publicly available source. However, the surname is still stored in the semargl system, because you can query by surname and all kits numbers with that surname are returned. With some creative Googling, you can uncover the surname relatively easily given just the kit number on the semargl site, but I know of no way you could discover the actual identity of an individual unless that person was the only person in the world with that particular surname, or if they had themselves posted their name and kit number together on a public venue.

If participants refuse to join projects in the future, or withdraw from projects because they don’t want their data to be harvested by sites like this, then genetic genealogy as a whole has been damaged. Then so have you and I as genetic genealogists.

Let me quote my husband, who never gets ruffled, this evening, when I showed him his results. He knew nothing about any of this before I sat him down at my computer and showed him his results, first at Family Tree DNA, where he was excited to see his extended haplogroup and Big Y Novel Variants, and then on the semargl site. I wish I had taken a picture of the shocked look on his face. Here’s what he had to say when he saw his results on the semargl site:

“What the <bleep>? How did they get there?”

Pause for a moment while the reality soaked in.

“Get them off there. They have no right.”

I really can’t quote anymore of what he said and remain family friendly, but suffice it to say the word appalled was used several times, along with horrified, and when I showed him that the semargl data base owner was a co-administrator of his haplogroup project, he shifted to utterly livid and suggested that Family Tree DNA remove him and whoever added him as a co-administrator as well for complicity. In fact, his “suggestions” went even further, to removing all of the project admins as co-conspirators, because they obviously knew what their co-admin was doing and did nothing to protect his data, as a project member. In fact, some of them may well be involved in the exploitation of his data.

His uncomfortable questions continued, like “How can that be?” and “Does he have the rest of my data too?” Suffice it to say my husband is utterly furious, and when I told him that I can’t have those results removed from the Russian site, and why, it got even worse. Maybe it’s a good thing they are in Russia.

On the other hand, others argue that many benefit from the semargl site and that the people who join projects and whose results are publicly posted had no reason to expect that their results would not be harvested or utilized by someone, at some time. Try explaining that to my husband, whose comment when he saw the ‘donate’ button right beside his results on the semargl said to me, “How is that right, they’re getting money for something they stole? My DNA results, that I paid for. My God, they had my results posted on their site before I even had a chance to look at them at Family Tree DNA.”

One DNA project clearly states on their main project page that once you post your information on the internet, it can never be entirely “removed.” Of course, DNA testing for genealogy without sharing is entirely pointless. Where is the line between sharing, when an individual intentionally joins a project, posting their own data, and theft?

The only difference between cousin Johnny discovering that you descend from the same genealogy/genetic line based on your surname project at Family Tree DNA and Russian data miners harvesting the data is the order of magnitude, intention and methodology. As someone else has pointed out, not dissimilar from the difference between consensual sex and rape.

Another perspective is that because we are here and they are in Russia, there’s nothing we can do about it, anyway, so why sweat it and just enjoy the benefits. Right? Besides, as has been pointed out to me, we don’t want participants to become upset and withdraw from projects or not join, so we won’t discuss the elephant in the room. What pink elephant? I don’t see a pink elephant. And we certainly, most certainly, do NOT want to have to answer any of those uncomfortable questions my husband asked me this evening. After all, their DNA is already out there and there’s nothing to be done about it now, so don’t make waves.

“Doing something” now to prevent harvesting, assuming there was anything that could be done, is like closing the barn door after the cow has already left, or, in this case, the pink elephant.

This fatalism sounds a whole lot like the thought process involved in how slavery was justified along with gender and race discrimination and Hitler’s genocidal atrocities. I’m not equating data mining to those things, but I am saying that the thought process that “we can’t do anything about it” or “everyone else is doing it,” so we accept it and even participate can be a deadly, slippery slope. And if it’s wrong, ignoring, tolerating or accepting it certainly doesn’t make it right.

Let me share a parting thought from my husband, after he calmed down enough to speak coherently.

“I feel unclean. I feel like I’ve been violated. My DNA has been kidnapped and I’ve been genetically raped. It’s wrong. It’s just wrong, in so many ways.”

So….you tell me…

Harvested, pirated or stolen? Right or wrong? Ethical or unethical? Malicious or not? Theft? Plagiarism? Does the end justify the means? Perfectly fine?

I shared with you my husband’s reaction. He’s not involved in this field like I am. He’s much more of the typical “end consumer.” I’m not telling you what I think. You decide for yourself.

Note: I thought that participants would be able to view the comments entered in the “other” field. Since you can’t, here’s what they say:

Inevitable
Wrong, unethical, non consensual, and exploitive
Thank you for letting us know about this.
It’s criminal
FTDNA should learn from the semargl site, then it would be more useful and legal

______________________________________________________________

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Hugh Bowling (1591-1651) – DNA Rare as Hen’s Teeth – 52 Ancestors #14

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Thomas Speake, the immigrant that founded the Maryland line of the Speak(e)(s) family America, was born about 1634, had immigrated by 1660 and was married to Elizabeth Bowling by November of 1663. They lived in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. They had only two known children, John, known as John the Innkeeper, born in 1665, and Bowling Speak born in 1674. We know about their children, because Thomas died August 6, 1681 and he appointed James Bowling, his brother-in-law, guardian of his minor children, naming them.

The Speak family who descends from Thomas Speak who married Elizabeth Bowling carries as many genes from the Bowling family as from the Speak line. We just don’t think of it that way because the Speak surname has been passed down, and of course, the Bowling name, except as a first name, Bowling Speak, and then a middle name, Thomas Bowling Speake, did not get passed to future generations.

The Bowling Y-line DNA would be that of Elizabeth’s father who is believed to be Hugh Bowling, christened August 6, 1591 in Chorley, Lancashire, and died Sept. 7, 1651, buried in Standish, married to Ellen Finch in 1616.

Before our trip to England, we located some Bowling males, and thanks to Shirley Platt, Jerry Bowling agreed to have his Y DNA tested for a special kind of mutation called a SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) that tells us about his haplogroup or his deep ancestral clan.

About 50% of the men of Europe descend from one group of settlers, but in our case, we’ve twice been lucky now, because our Speak line comes from the Dinaric area of the Alps and our Bowling line is even more unique. The Bowling males from Chorley, in Lancashire, carry haplogroup T1. What is T1, you ask? Rare, that’s what it is!!! We’re talking hens-teeth rare here.

And not only is it rare overall, it’s extremely rare in England.

Jerry has a total of 15 low resolution DNA matches, and of those, 3 are other Bowlings, 6 are to other English surnames, of which 3 are Dutton, and the balance are to men from either Portugal or Spain. All of the English surname men match Jerry exactly, and all of the Spanish/Portuguese matches carry one mutation difference. This indicates that the Bowlings are more closely related to the English men than the Spanish/Portuguese men. For example, the Stockton family is from just up the road, in Cheshire.

As we move to higher resolution markers, meaning matches closer in time, the other surnames all fall away and the Bowling men only match other Bowling men. They should be more closely related to Bowling men than men who match genetically but carry different surnames, unless an “adoption” of some sort, name change or illegitimate birth has occurred in the line.

This match with Iberian men doesn’t necessarily mean that the ancestors of the Bowlings were Iberian. It could mean that the Bowling men and the Iberian men both share a common ancestor from elsewhere, with both groups having migrated from that central location. Or, it could mean that the Bowling ancestors were Iberian. Perhaps we can find clues in the history of the population migration pattern of haplogroup T1. Let’s see what we can find.

At Family Tree DNA, there are haplogroup as well as surname projects. People who share a common haplogroup join the haplogroup project that matches their haplogroup designation in order for the population spread and migration pattern of the haplogroup to be studied. Generally, the haplogroup project administrators know more about their haplogroups than almost anyone else. Often they have a personal interest, carrying that haplogroup themselves. They are also often out in front of the scientists who define subgroups. Science is slow-moving by its very nature, and in genetic genealogy, sometimes scientists move so slowly that the science is obsolete by the time it’s actually announced. In other words, the field sometimes moves faster than the scientists can keep up.

In this case, Family Tree DNA, who waits for academic consensus before assigning new haplogroups, shows the SNP marker M70 as defining haplogroup T1, but the administrators, based on both STR markers and SNPs, have grouped Jerry with a small subgroup of people who are from ….are you ready for this….Egypt, Saudi Arabia (2), Bangladesh, Spain, Yemen (2), Bulgaria and the United Arab Emirates. Of this entire grouping, Jerry Bowling is the only individual from the British Isles or even from Europe except for Spain and Bulgaria. This group is labeled at the Alpha-1-Y group. Keep in mind, however, that not all testers join haplogroup projects and it’s obvious from this information that Jerry’s English matches have not joined.

So, in timeline order, the Bowlings are the most closely related to other Bowlings males, then the English non-Bowling men they match, then the Iberian men they match, then the Alpha-1-Y haplogroup T group. On the map above, showing the Bowling matches, the location in Turkey is believed to be the birthplace of haplogroup T.

What do we know about haplogroup T, the parent of subgroup T1?

Haplogroup T is very rare in Europe, with less than 1% of European men carrying haplogroup T. It is much more common in the Middle East, portions of South Asia and portions of Northern and Eastern Africa.

In addition, the distribution of haplogroup T is very spotty, with some areas virtually devoid of this haplogroup, while in other locations we find rich pockets. The map below shows the distribution of haplogroup T.

On the map above, haplogroup T is found most often in Northern and Eastern Africa, in the Middle East and South Asia and in spotty locations in Southern Europe. It’s believed that haplogroup T originated in the Taurus Mountains in Eastern Turkey about 25,000 or 30,000 years ago, with subgroup T1 being born in the Middle East between 10,000 and 25,000 years ago.

A Relief of the Taurus Mountains is shown below. Cyprus is the island just to the south of the mountain range.

So how, then, did our haplogroup T ancestors get to Europe? And not just Europe, but the western periphery of Europe?

There are four scenarios that have historical evidence and fit what we know of the migration path of haplogroup T. Any or all of these could have come into play, or perhaps another scenario we don’t know about today.

Scenario 1 – The Phoenicians

The Neolithic period, as the introduction of agriculture was known, began about 12,000 years ago in the Levant and had arrived in Europe by about 7,000 years ago. It took another 3000 years to spread across Europe from Southeast to Northwest, moving at the rate of .6 -1.3 km per year, or between a third and 4/5^ths of a mile, or between 400 and 1400 yards, just enough for the next generation to move next door to find available, unoccupied farmland.

The path to Europe was originally thought to be through the Caucus region, present day Turkey, Georgia and countries East of the Black Sea, but alternate routes are a probability and for our haplogroup T1 ancestors, a certainty. Another route was likely a coastal Mediterranean route or a slightly different route that bypassed the northern Caucus area for the easier coastal route, crossing into Turkey at Istanbul and then taking the overland route in Europe. These routes would also explain the frequency of haplogroup T found in the Balkan area, into Italy, the Iberian peninsula and throughout the Mediterranean in addition to northern Europe.

The coastal route associated with Phoenician trading is a strong possibility. Phoenician traders, whether they settled or regularly visited, would have deposited their Y-line DNA for centuries in various trading and settlement areas, as shown in the following map from the paper “Identifying Genetic Traces of Historical Expansions: Phoenician Footprints in the Mediterranean”.

As you can see, illustrated on the map below from the National Geographic Genographic project, the population migration route for haplogroup T parallels these settlements.

The Phoenicians were dominant traders 2000-3000 years ago. The following map shows both Phoenician (yellow) and Greek (red) trade routes in 500 BC. The route is extremely suggestive of correlation when compared with the frequency charts compiled from research papers. Many of the locations with the highest frequencies in the Mediterranean today were trade destinations of the Phoenicians or Greeks.

Scenario 2 – The Jews

Haplogroup T is found in very low levels throughout Europe, but they tend to be clustered and are often significantly higher in areas where Jewish families are known to have settled. Below, we see a haplogroup breakdown within the Ashkenazi Jews. This, of course, implies that even if haplogroup T was already resident within Europe, additional families were part of the Jewish diaspora. Clearly not all European men who are haplogroup T were of the Jewish faith, but many are. Haplogroup T dates much further back in time than the Jewish faith, so many people will be distantly related to those of the Jewish faith, but not Jewish themselves.

The Rapalye/Rapparlie Family

We have actual evidence of a haplogroup T1 family found in Germany, France and the Netherlands and having a history of being a Sephardic Jewish from Spain who left with the edict of Nantes in 1492 evicting all Jews. I am intimately familiar with this family because my family in Mutterstadt, Germany is the Rapparlien family, referred to in the Bible, originally from the coast of France at Calais.

The Rapparlie family crest, shown above, is taken from the Rapparlie family Bible in Mutterstadt. The information on the family crest translates as follows:

“Rapparlie. An ancestral Spanish family which came in the 16th century to the Netherlands. From where (our ancestor) Josef Georg, who lived in Leuven, came to Frankfurt (the one of the river Main). He obtained citizen rights there in 1820.”

The translator adds information telling us that the Rapparlie family is likely to have fled from Spain to the Netherlands because of the Decree of Alhambra of 1492, an edict expelling all of the Jews from Spain.

Estimates are that between 165,000 and 800,000 people were evicted with about 28,000 displaced individuals migrating to what is today France, Holland, Germany and England. These displaced Jews became the Shepardic Jews, and were forced to convert to Catholicism before the expulsion, becoming therefore known as Conversos. Their conversions were often insincere, only a method to survive persecution, and therefore they would have been ripe pickings for the rebellion against Catholicism accompanying the Protestant reformation some years later.

The Rapparlie (and variant spellings) family in Valenciennes were known to be silk weavers, and historical records are full of references to Jewish silk weavers in Spain and other Middle Eastern and Northern African locations in the Middle Ages and prior to their eviction from Spain in 1492.

Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews

The Ashkenazi Jews were known to have been in Europe as early as the Middle Ages in the 4^th century. It is unknown if this early group survived intact, but Jews are again prevalent in the records by the 10^th century. Most of the Jews were clustered in cities, trade centers, as their high rates of literacy and knowledge of trades made them successful and desirable, if sometimes looked down upon because the Christian church forbade Christians from participating in usury (money lending in exchange for interest), which the Jews embraced heartily.

Conversely, the Jews maintained their separate living quarters, communities and family units, practiced endogamy (married only within their Jewish community) and they too looked down up on their neighbors. Unfortunately, this mutual distrust and antipathy was the seed of eventual anti-Semitic discrimination and ultimately, attempted genocide.

The Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and again in 1497, and many settled in Europe, but the two Jewish groups tended to maintain separate communities as their beliefs, practices and languages had come to differ in the centuries they had both been separated from their motherland.

Following the Roman takeover of Judea, the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem in 70AD. They continued to be residents of Palestine for several hundred years, but groups began to look for opportunities elsewhere and they began to be found in other locations in Mesopotamia and dispersed within the Mediterranean region. The largest concentrations were in the Levant, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, including Rome itself. Smaller communities are recorded in Gaul (France), Spain and North Africa. Christianity became the official religion of Rome and Constantinople (current day Istanbul) in 380 and Jews were increasingly marginalized.

The Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire in the 5^th century by tribes such as the Visigoths, Franks, Lombards and Vandals caused massive economic and social instability within western Europe, contributing to its decline. In the late Roman Empire, Jews are known to have lived in Cologne and Trier as well as in what is now France. However, it is unclear whether there is any continuity between those Roman communities and the distinct Ashkenazi Jewish culture that began to emerge about 500 years later.

After 800 AD, Charlemagne’s unification of former Frankish lands with northern Italy and Rome brought a brief period of stability and unity in western Europe which created new opportunities for Jewish merchants to settle once again north of the Alps. Many Jewish merchants embraced occupations in finance and commerce. From that time to the present, the Ashkenazi are well documented in Europe.

Unfortunately, their lives in Europe were not always stable, and with the onset of the Crusades, they were evicted from England in 1290, France in 1392 and parts of Germany in the 1400s, pushing them eastward into Poland, Lithuania and Russia. By the 1400s, the Ashkenazi Jewish Communities in Poland were the largest Jewish communities of the Diaspora. This area which eventually fell under the domination of Russia. Austria and Prussia (Germany) would remain the center of Ashkenazi Jewry until the Holocaust. A painting on the previous page of Ashkenazi Jews praying on Yom Kippur was painted in 1878 by Maurycy Gottlieb in his hometown of Drohobych.

During the Holocaust, of the 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of World War II, about 6 million, more than two-thirds, were systematically murdered because of their Jewish faith or heritage. More than 91% of the Polish Jews died, 82% in
the Ukraine and between 50 and 90% in other European nations (Germany, France, Hungary and the Baltic states). Sephardic communities suffered similar depletions in a few countries including Greece, the Netherlands and the former Yugoslavia. At this time, many Jews began to immigrate, to the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia and Argentina where they and their descendants are found today. At right, refugee Jews are portrayed arriving in London, poor and destitute, but alive.

Scenario 3 – Phoenician, Jewish or Maybe Moors?

First, let me say we simply don’t have the definitive answer to this question, but let’s use what records we do have to try to narrow the possibilities.

The Bowling family first has records from 1520 in Chorley, in Lancashire, England. This Bowling family was, indeed, Catholic, as was the rest of England in 1520. The Protestant Reformation had not yet happened and wouldn’t until in the 1530s, specifically, 1534 when Henry VIII declared himself the head of the church in England and broke ties with Rome.

After that, the Bowling family, along with the Speak family, the Finch family and others would staunchly refuse to become Protestants.

It’s hard for me to believe that the Bowling family was Jewish in 1492, when only 28 years later, or one generation, we find them in England, and not coastal England, but in the middle of Lancashire. Even harder for me to believe is that they would become Catholic, the religion that persecuted them so terribly and forced the Jews to leave Spain in such desperate straits. If they were going to become Catholic, they would simply have converted and stayed in Spain. It would have been a lot easier that way.

They could have been Phoenician. They could also have been Moorish, as the Moors from the Middle East and North Africa invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and called the territory Al-Andalus, an area which at different times comprised Gibraltar, most of Spain and Portugal, and parts of France. There was also a Moorish presence in what is now southern Italy, primarily in Sicily which also has a significant amount of haplogroup T, although none that matches the Bowling line.

This 13^th century painting depicts Moors in Iberia.

Medieval Spain and Portugal were the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. Al-Andalus sent periodic raiding expeditions to loot the Iberian Christian kingdoms, bringing back booty and slaves. In a raid against Lisbon, Portugal in 1189, for example, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur took 3,000 female and child captives. In a subsequent attack upon Silves, Portugal in 1191, the governor of Córdoba took 3,000 Christian slaves.

Similarly, Christians sold Muslim slaves captured in war. The Knights of Malta attacked pirates and Muslim shipping, and their base became a center for slave trading, selling captured North Africans and Turks. Malta remained a slave market until well into the late 18th century. One thousand slaves were required to man the galleys (ships) of the Order.

The religious difference of the Moorish Muslims led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian kingdoms of Europe called the Reconquista. The Fall of Granada in 1492 saw the end of the Muslim rule in Iberia.

Perhaps the history of Lancashire itself can help us understand how our ancestors might have settled in that region.

History of Lancashire

In the Domesday Book, written in 1086 after William the Conqueror conquered England in 1066, some of the lands now within Lancashire had been treated as part of Yorkshire. The area in between the Mersey and Ribble Rivers (referred to in the Domesday Book as “Inter Ripam et Mersam”) formed part of the returns for Cheshire. Although some have taken this to mean that, at this time, south Lancashire was part of Cheshire, it is not clear that this was the case, and more recent research indicates that the boundary between Cheshire and what was to become Lancashire remained the river Mersey. Once Lancashire’s initial boundaries were established in 1182, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland, Yorkshire, and Cheshire.

Lancashire takes its name from the city of Lancaster, which itself is means ‘Roman fort on the River Lune’, combining the name of the river with the Old English cæster, which referred to a Roman fort or camp. The county was established some time after the Norman conquest when William the Conqueror gave the land between the Ribble and the Mersey, together with Amounderness, to Roger de Poitou. In the early 1090s Lonsdale, Cartmel and Furness were added to Roger’s estates to facilitate the defense of the area south of Morecambe Bay from Scottish raiding parties, which travelled round the Cumberland coast and across the bay at low water, rather than through the mountainous regions of the Lake District.

Scenario Four – Roman Soldiers, Slaves or Conscripts

From this information, we know two things. First, there was a Roman fort in this area, and second there were Scottish raiding parties. This DNA is not Scottish, so we can discount that but what it does tell us is that the fort was very probably heavily fortified and the soldiers patrolled throughout the region to protect it from the Scots.

We also know, from our visit to Chester, that a Roman fort was also located there. A little additional research yields even more interesting information, revealing a Roman fort right in the Ribble Valley at a location called Ribchester, shown below, which is located on the Ribble River half way between Gisburn, the home of the Speake family and Charnock Richard, the home of the Bowling family, about 10 miles from each.

Furthermore, this fort is much older than the Domesday Book. The first fort at Ribchester was built in timber in AD 72/73 by the Roman Twentieth Legion. The fort was renovated in the late 1st century AD and was rebuilt in stone in the early 2nd century. During the life of the fort, a village grew up around it becoming Ribchester. A fort remained at Ribchester until the 4th century AD and its remains can still be seen around the present village.

Romans also settled Sarmatians at Ribchester. In those days Ribchester was known as Bremetennacum and is known chiefly as the retirement home of the Sarmatians. Checking the distribution map, there is a high concentration of haplogroup T along the southwest Caspian Sea and a less dense concentration in western Iran and Iraq. Areas either long Iranian for millenia or well within the sphere of Iranian influence.

The map below shows the following locations:

The Lowbarrow Bridge location of the Roman fort recorded in the Domesday Book
Gisburn – home region of the Speak family
Ribchester, location of the Roman fort in the Ribble Valley
Charnock Richard, home region of the Bowling Family
Chester, location of a third Roman fort

In other areas in England, in particular, along the line of Hadrian’s Wall between England and Scotland, where we find several Roman forts and fortifications, we also find Mediterranean and North African DNA, quite a bit of it, and concentrated in pockets surrounding the forts. We know that not all Roman soldiers were Roman citizens, some were slaves and some were conscripted. Many slaves volunteered for military duty. And the Romans, of course, as soldiers will do, sometimes left their DNA behind, if they didn’t marry outright with the local females.

So Who Are We???

I really don’t think the Bowling family has a Jewish history. In part because they have no Jewish matches at all, nor matches in highly Jewish areas. Also, the known history of the family does not mesh with what would have happened historically at that time. England was not a Jewish haven, especially not the countryside. London might be another story, but Lancashire, in the Ribble Valley? I don’t think so as there is absolutely no evidence to support this.

The Bowling ancestors could have been Phoenician and found their way to the Iberian peninsula in that manner, but if they were, I would think we would see a path of matches throughout the Mediterranean, particularly on Greece, the southern end of Italy and on Sicily, and we don’t. We see Middle Eastern matches, Iberian matches and then English matches with only a couple of exceptions.

The Bowling men could be Moors, except the Moors didn’t invade the Iberian peninsula until about 300 years after the Roman occupation of England ended, meaning the Romans were no longer sending troops to England so the dates with Moors are problematic.

The scenario that fits best is that the Bowling ancestors were likely slaves or conscripted soldiers of the Roman legion that conquered England beginning in AD43. The Roman occupation continued until about the year 500 when the Saxons invaded. This means that Romans lived in Britain, among the British for about 400 years which equates to about 16 generations, plenty of time to assimilate with the local population.

The Roman empire from the year 43AD to 409 is shown below.

In time, slaves and captives became part of the Roman army, willingly or not, conscripts or otherwise, that invaded and subsequently ruled England for the next 400 years. Slavery was part of Roman life and captive soldiers and their family were traditionally sold into slavery. Note, on the map above, that the entire Mediterranean basin fell under the Roman rule, including several Middle Eastern locations where Bowling haplogroup matches are found.

This relief below, from Smyrna, present day Izmir, Turkey, shows a roman soldier leading 2 Turkish slaves away in chains.

Regardless of whether the Bowlings paternally are Moors, Phoenicians, Roman soldiers, Roman slaves or Jews, we share a common heritage between all of these groups – back in the Middle East before these groups were separately defined as such. Our origins are firmly tied there, for tens of thousands of years, in the land of sand and forbidding mountains, the Holy Land and the religious well from which Christianity, the Muslim faith and the Jewish religion all sprang. The Taurus Mountains and the Middle East. This is the land of our Bowling forefathers, before Lancashire…this is our homeland.

______________________________________________________________

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Mitochondrial – the Maligned DNA

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Roberta Estes

The good news is that the current mitochondrial DNA sale at Family Tree DNA has generated quite a bit of stir and discussion in the genetic genealogy community. The bad news is that some of it hasn’t been terribly positive.

Some people equate this to the glass half empty – glass half full type of perspective, and to some extent, this is true. What I’d like to do here is talk about why you might want to test your mitochondrial DNA, in spite of the fact that it’s more difficult to work with than Y DNA.

Let’s talk about that first, in fact. Here’s the problem in a nutshell – surnames for women in Europe and the US change in every generation. Because of that, when you do have a match, you can’t just look at the name and see that it’s the same as your surname. In fact, if you match with someone who also shares your ancestor, and the match is back more than a couple of generations, you’re very likely NOT going to recognize the surname. So yes, there is some elbow grease involved.

The descendant fan chart below is only 3 generations in depth. I couldn’t utilize the fourth and fifth generations, because I wasn’t absolutely positive that everyone was deceased. However, each family seemed to introduce about 3 new surnames, on average, in each generation. That means, of course, females marrying. On the chart below, that means that only descendants from lines with red arrows qualify – if they continue to descend through all females.

In just these generations, you have 6 surnames and that’s before the female children married.

However, all is not lost. People do upload their GEDCOM files and they do answer e-mails asking about their oldest linear ancestors. Granted, not everyone does but that’s not at all exclusive to mitochondrial DNA.

Yes, you have to do a little digging, but one good “hit” makes it all worthwhile.

Here’s the bottom line…

You don’t know what you don’t know.

Let me say that again…

Now let me ask a question – aside from a pure financial aspect – why would you NOT open that door? Ancestral information is inside. It’s a package wrapped in a neat bow with your name on it. It’s a gift from your ancestors. Why would you decide not to open it?

Let’s talk about what you might discover.

The Story of Anne-Marie

The Story of Anne-Marie is particularly close to my heart. After using this story as a mtDNA success story in presentations for some time, I too discovered Anne-Marie in my Acadian tree. I imagine my surprise!

In Marie Rundquist’s words, when she received her mitochondrial DNA results “I nearly fell out of my chair.” Why? Because Anne Marie was a Native American woman, not French.

Marie had no idea what was in her mitochondrial DNA gift box from her ancestor. She didn’t know what she didn’t know.

And, had Marie not tested, and shared, I would never know either. Thank you, cousin, Marie!

Native or English

Recently, one of my clients for whom I as writing a DNA Report asked if her ancestor was Native American or English. She was confident that she was one or the other.

Her haplogroup showed unquestionably that her ancestor was not Native American, at least not originally. She could, of course, have been adopted into a tribe. As to where her ancestors were from in the UK, her matches map at the full sequence level showed the following cluster.

Where do you think her ancestors were probably from? England? Scotland? Ireland?

The great thing about haplogroups, mapping and clusters is that you don’t need to know your ancestor’s name for this information. It’s from your ancestral DNA – not your genealogy.

And while this might seem like trivial information, it’s certainly not. It may well provide you with an idea of what population to focus on. In early Pennsylvania and Virginia, for example, the Scots-Irish and the Germans inhabited some of the same areas. If you didn’t know your ancestor’s surname, and she was from this area, where would you focus your research efforts after seeing this map?

Who’s the Mother?

My ancestor, William Crumley, who I’ll refer to here as William Jr., was born between 1785 and 1790 in Frederick Co., VA and died between 1852 and 1860 in Appanoose County, Iowa and was at least twice married. His first wife was Lydia Brown and his second wife, whom he married much later, was Pequa.

Furthermore, he had the same name as his father, William Crumley, referred to here as William Sr., who was born in 1767/1768, also in Frederick County, VA and died 1837/1840 in Lee County, Virginia where both Williams lived for many years after initially settling in Greene County, TN. One of these William Crumley’s had the bad judgement to remarry in October 1817 to an Elizabeth Johnson – not leaving us any concrete information as to which William was marrying.

Of course, as luck would have it, my ancestor, Phoebe, was born to William Jr. on March 24, 1818, 5 months after the marriage. Yes, she could have been the reason that William Crumley married Elizabeth Johnson, but was she?

We know who her father was, but who was her mother? I know, this is the opposite of what genealogists normally face.

We mitochondrial DNA tested one of Phoebe’s descendants. Why, because we had the opportunity and, well, you don’t know what you don’t know. Our family does carry oral history of Native in that line.

Then we waited. And we waited. And waited.

Eventually, a full sequence match arrived. Phoebe’s descendant matched another person who descended from one of Phoebe’s older sisters. Therefore, we know that Phoebe IS the daughter of Lydia Brown, not Elizabeth Johnson, AND we now also know that it was William Sr. who married Elizabeth Johnson in October of 1817, not William Crumley Jr.

Two mysteries solved with just one DNA match! Not bad!

So, tell me again, why wouldn’t you open that gift box???

You don’t know what you don’t know, and you’ll never find out if you don’t test.

______________________________________________________________

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Elizabeth Bowling and the Catholic Martyr – 52 Ancestors #13

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Roberta Estes

It’s just 13 generations between me and a Catholic martyr.

My ancestor, Elizabeth Bowling, was married to immigrant Thomas Speak(e), sometime before November of 1663, probably in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. In the fall of 2013, the Speak Family Association undertook a trip back to the homeland of both Speak and Bowling families, both from Lancashire, England, about 30 miles distant from each other. In preparation for the trip, I compiled information about the Bowling family from various sources. Aside from the DNA portion, little of this is my original research. I am grateful to all of the original contributors for their diligence and hard work, much of it done in the churches in England.

According to cousin Harold Speake, now deceased, Thomas Speak(e), who may have been an indentured servant, arrived from England sometime before 1662. We know that in 1662, he was arrested for debt, so he had been here long enough to acquire that debt.

We know that Maryland was organized as a haven for Catholics, persecuted in England, and the Speake family was indeed Catholic. They were in England, their family records being found in the original Catholic, now Protestant, church in Gisburn, and they were in the colonies as well. Bowling Speake, born in 1674, the son of Thomas Speake and Elizabeth Bowling was prosecuted and proudly pled guilty in June of 1752 for publicly drinking to the health of the “Pretender,” the Catholic and deposed King James. In other words, Bowling was Catholic and proudly and publicly so, regardless of the consequences.

The Bowling family was also Catholic in England as well as in Maryland. They lived near and in the village of Chorley and the area of Charnock Richard, some 30 miles from Gisburn, in Lancashire. The Bowling family members found themselves on the list of recusants, in other words, devout, religious warriors or stubborn, unrepentant Catholics, depending on your perspective.

On the map below, A is Chorley and B is Gisburn, both in Lancashire.

No record of the marriage of Elizabeth Bowling and Thomas Speake has been found in the UK churches, so it’s presumed that they married after both families settled in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. They probably both lived at or near Boarman’s Manor, given that Elizabeth’s brother James is recorded as living there. There was only one Catholic church in that area at that time, and both families likely attended. We were told during our visit in 2011 that the early church services were held in people’s homes. If your religion was enough to lose your land and your life for, holding and attending services was something that would have been a very important part of everyday life. And of course, they would have sought other Catholics to marry.

In his article, “The Bowlings of Boarman’s Manor,” Jeffrey Wills, Bowling family historian, tells us that the records of early Maryland give evidence of the Bowling family starting with James Bowling (1636-1693) who arrived in the province sometime before 1658. The Bowlings became associated with other Catholics who eventually settled on Boarman’s Manor in what is now Charles County, Maryland. James had no children from his two marriages, but his will makes clear that there were descendants from his siblings, John (died 1684), Thomas (died 1700) and Elizabeth who married Thomas Speake.

Jeffrey states that the family in Maryland was Catholic and possibly shoemakers by trade. Court records exist that establish relationships with a couple of people, neither of whom have been identified, but the most important clue to the Bowling origin comes from a 1734 deposition, where it is stated that John Bowling, brother to James, “came from Lancashire and left a brother there by the name of Roger Bowling” (Charles Co. Court Rec. R2, 528). Now we have the names of three brothers: John, James and Roger Bowling.

The Bowlings In Lancashire

In Lancashire, practically the only family of the Bowling name is one centered in Charnock Richard in the parish of Standish. T. C. Porteus, in his 1927 history of the parish, describes the township of Charnock Richard as “a nursery of recusants,” meaning a hotbed of Catholic nonconformity to the new Elizabethan church. Among the recusants listed there in 1628 are a John Bowling and wife. The township of Chorley is adjacent and there is a village of Chesham is about 15 miles southeast, shown on the Lancashire map below, both names that the Bowling family of Maryland used for their land holdings.

One problem with the Bowling family, and most English families of this timeframe, is that they reused every first name in every generation. That means if your father’s name was John, then one son would be named John, and one grandchild in every child’s family would be named John. If the original John had 10 living children, that means he had 1 son John and 10 grandsons John and in the next generation, using the same math, there would be 100 Johns in just the original John’s line. And every family had someone named John. If you were lucky, your ancestor was named something like Balthasar, not John. But in both the Speake and Bowling families, there were lots of Johns, James and Williams, etc.

Originally, the Bowling family that James and Elizabeth belonged to were identified as the children of Roger Bowling of Charnock Richard, a shoemaker who wrote a will 17 Sept. 1673, proved on 10 Nov. 1673. He refers to his children: John Bowling, Thomas Bowling, James Bowling, Ann Bowling, Jenet Bowling, eldest daughter Elizabeth (wife of John Catliffe). He also mentioned a grandson Roger Bowling, son of John.

However, the information about Elizabeth Bowling being married to John Catliffe, given that “our” Elizabeth married Thomas Speake, had to be reconciled. Some have suggested that John Speake, the innkeeper, might have been Thomas Speake’s child by a first, unknown, wife, with Elizabeth perhaps marrying Thomas as a widow in 1773, having Bowling in 1774. There is no evidence to support this speculation.

The Bowlings in England are not easy to unravel.

The baptisms of about fifty Bowlings are attested from the 1550 to 1650, and Roger is a name found in several generations, so locating the specific line is not straightforward. The fact that there is no baptismal record for the children mentioned in Roger’s will of 1673 suggests that there could be many more Bowlings than attested in the Anglican church records. Of course, Catholics attempted to prevent their children from being baptized in the Anglican church – and apparently often succeeded, much to the chagrin of genealogists today.

Jeffrey suggested that Elizabeth Bowling Speak’s line was as follows:

Elizabeth, daughter of
Roger “the shoemaker” Bowling, born 1619 who married Elizabeth, son of
Hugh Bowling, born 1591 who married Ellen Finch, son of
Raffe Bollling

Shirley Bowling Platt along with Jean Purdy, in England, have put together a summary of information as well. Shirley was kind enough to send me her detailed work, for which I am exceedingly grateful, and I have extracted from it below.

Jean and Shirley found additional information that proves that our Elizabeth Bowling was not the Elizabeth Bowling who married John Catliffe, so our Elizabeth was not Roger the shoemaker’s daughter.

Jean says, “Burt saw Roger’s original will which is now too fragile to see. He thought her husband’s name was Ratcliffe. I have never found any Catliffes, but Radcliffes or Ratcliffes abound. The family originated in Radcliffe Towers, the ruins of which are about 200 yards from where I live. The chapel there was used by Catholics throughout the penal years. Steuart Bowling drew my attention to a marriage in 1672 on IGI of a John Radcliffe to Elizabeth? at Saddleworth Yorkshire. The place is misleading as it is actually on the Lancashire side of the Pennines, just above Oldham and is now part of the Greater Manchester connurbation. I have been to the church and Elizabeth Bowling of Charnock Richard married John Radcliffe (son of Alexander) at Saddleworth church in 1671. Sadly she is also buried there in 1676 and John married again in 1680.”

Therefore, we confirm that our Elizabeth is not the daughter of Roger Bowling.

Shirley and Jean attribute our Elizabeth Bowling to Hugh Bowling and Ellen Fynch/Finch, so eliminating Roger the shoemaker and attributing Elizabeth to Hugh directly and not as a grandchild. A daughter Elizabeth was born to Hugh and Ellen in Charnock Richard in June of 1635 and died in March of 1637/38. A second daughter Elizabeth was born to this couple on 25 Oct 1641, also in Charnock Richard, Lancashire. She was christened on 25 Oct 1641 in Standish. This is believed to be our Elizabeth who died before 1692 in St. Mary’s County, MD.

The rest of the children’s names proven through James Bowling’s will are found in this family as well, at least the ones we know, so this certainly seems to be the right family.

Shirley and Jean’s proposed ancestry for Elizabeth, listing oldest generation first, was as follows:

Robert Bowling born 1520 in Chorley married Agnes, last name unknown, who died on April 26, 1566 in Chorley
Hugh Bowling born 1540 and died July 17, 1598, married Constance Bibbie on 12 May 1560 in St. Wilfred’s, Standish, Lancashire. Constance was born about 1540 and was buried on 18 Dec 1601 in St. Wilfrid’s Church, Standish. This is the oldest Bowling burial record.

Perhaps she is buried here in the area where some stones have been cleared.

Or maybe here, near the church entrance, nourishing the newly planted trees.

Her funeral would have been preached in this stunningly beautiful church. This nave has heard many Bowling funerals over the centuries.

This exquisite carved cross has overseen many joyful and sorrowful events in the Bowling family – many baptisms, weddings and funerals. All of life’s events took place under the vigilance of this cross – first as Catholic and then as Anglican.

Most of the Bowlings, including Constance and her husband, Hugh, up until the early 1700s, were on Papists lists and/or fined for recusancy. Hugh Bowling and Constance Bibby were convicted of recusancy, which probably led to them losing their lands in 1591.

A record from Steuart Bowling (apparently translated from Latin):

Hugh Bowling of Charnock Richard, husbandman (small farmer); Constance Bowling of Charnock Richard, Roger Bowling of Charnock Richard, and Elizabeth of Charnock Richard, Cecily Bowling of Preston and John Pilkington of Coppull, husbandman, land in Coppull.” Choppull is adjacent to both Chorley and Charnock Richard.

Raffe Bowling born 1563 in Chorley, Lancashire. He was christened on 4 Dec 1563 in Standish, Lancashire, probably in this same baptismal font, and died in 1600.

Raffe (Ralph) Bowling was in Leeds, Yorkshire as late as April 16, 1590 (christening record of his son, Rauffe)–but was in Chorley as early as 6 Aug 1591 (christening of his son Hughe). Raffe married Margaret Marston in 1588 in St. Peter’s, Leeds, Yorkshire. There is a question if Margaret Marston was the second wife of Raffe…since some of children were born before this marriage in 1588.

Jean Purdy states that there is no proof whatsoever that our Hugh’s father Ralph (Raafe) was the one marrying in Leeds. She searched all the records of people given leave to reside in Charnock Richard. This was necessary under the Poor Laws—-there was a John Bowling in the late 1600s—but no Ralph or Rafe.

Hugh was born in 1591 in Charnock Richard, Lancashire. He was christened on 6 Aug 1591 in Chorley, most likely in the old bapistry, shown below, now retired, in St. Laurence in Chorley.

Hugh died on 7 Sep. 1651 in Charnock Richard and was buried on 7 Sep 1651 in Parish Church, Standish, Lancashire. Perhaps his coffin was carried in through this gate in the church wall.

Both Hugh and his wife Ellen’s funerals were most likely preached in this church, before their coffin was carried outside to be buried in the church yard.

Hugh’s grave is now unmarked someplace in the cemetery below.

The cemetery surrounds the church, some areas having been cleared of stones for maintenance. Some graves reused. The oldest stones, of course, would have been located closest to the church and now are, sadly, long gone.

The cemetery extends right up to the church walls, shown below.

Burial space was and remains an issue for all of these old churches. In some cases, extra land was annexed for the “burying ground,” but that wasn’t always possible. They had to make do with what they had and they did, using every possible inch and then reusing older graves whose families were no longer there or whose markers were not legible. Of course, there are also burials inside the church, in the floor and in crypts. Those burial locations were reserved for the wealthy or the notorious. Our family fell in neither category.

The death bed testament of Hugh Bowling gives his residence as “Bowleings Farm.” Later land records suggest this was at Four Lane Ends—where the lane in Charnock Richard crosses the road to Preston and Lancaster. There was another farm “Bowlings in the Fields,” which Jean believes belonged to the other branch of the family (that of Roger the Shoemaker). It was later acquired by Henry the Blacksmith’s Great Grandson, another Hugh Bowling, in the late 1700s. Jean was unable to pinpoint where that was—but the name suggests it was out of the village. Charnock Richard is about half way between Standish and Chorley.

Hugh married Ellen Fynch, daughter of Roger Fynch and Isabella or Elizabeth Brears on 9 Apr 1616 in St. Laurence Church, Chorley, Lancashire, probably entering through the front door shown below.

The Fynch Family

Ellyn Fynch was born in Jan 1597/1598 in Charnock Richard. She died on 13 Jun 1659 in Charnock Richard and was buried on 13 Jun 1659 in Standish Parish Churchyard, Lancashire, below.

It is believed that Roger Fynch (born 1573) is the son of John Finch (born circa 1548-84). He is believed to be the martyr, John Finch (Fynch), yeoman farmer of Eccleston, who was arrested at Christmas 1581, tried in Lancaster on April 18, 1584 on the charge of harboring Catholic Priests and subsequently found guilty and executed.

St. Mary’s the Virgin Church in Eccleston, below, dates to the 1300s, so it is likely the home church of John Fynch. The name of Eccleston itself came from the Celtic word “eglēs” meaning a church, and the Old English word “tūn” meaning a farmstead or settlement – i.e. a settlement by a Romano-British church. It’s quite ancient, having been mentioned in the Doomsday Book in 1086.

John Fynch’s devotion to the Catholic religion in the face of adversity is very likely representative of the devotion felt by the entire Catholic conclave in Lancashire.

John Fynch was a yeoman of Eccleston, Lancashire, from a Catholic family, but brought up an Anglican. When he was twenty years old he went to London where he spent nearly a year with some cousins at Inner Temple. While there he was struck by the contrast between Protestantism and Catholicism in practice, and determined to lead a Catholic life.

Failing to find advancement in London he returned to Lancashire where he was reconciled to the Catholic Church. He then married and settled down, his house becoming a center of missionary work, he himself harboring priests and aiding them in every way, besides acting as catechist. He drew on himself the hostility of the authorities, and at Christmas, 1581, he was entrapped into bringing a priest, George Ostliffe, to a place where both were apprehended. It was given out that Finch, having betrayed the priest and other Catholics, had taken refuge with the Earl of Derby, but in fact, he was kept in the earl’s house as a prisoner. For three years he was held prisoner in various locations and prisons, alternatively tortured and bribed to obtain information on other Catholics.

He was eventually removed to the Fleet Prison, Manchester, and afterwards to the House of Correction. When he refused to go to the Protestant church he was dragged there by the feet. Following that, he was returned to Lancashire where on April 19, 1584, he was tried with three priests, convicted and executed with Priest James Bell, on April 20, 1584 at Lancaster for secreting a Catholic priest for Christmas services and denying that the Queen was head of the Church.

John Fynch was Beatified in 1929 as one of the Lancashire Martyrs. Beatification in the Catholic Church is to be one of the blessed and thus worthy of public religious veneration in a particular region or religious congregation. The Catholic Church canonizes or beatifies only those whose lives have been marked by the exercise of heroic virtue, and only after this has been proved by common repute for sanctity and by conclusive arguments.

One of the church windows in St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chorley honors John Fynch of Eccleston who is pictured with a haystack, because they say, on the church website, that he was of “farming stock.” They also mention that John Finch’s relatives still live in the Mawdesley area. The map below shows that these locations are in relatively close proximity, 3 or 4 miles, to each other and also to Charnock Richard.

It seems that Bowling Speake came by his proud, defiant recussancy honestly. John Fynch, his great-great-great-great-grandfather, would have been proud of him, some 171 years after John’s own act of defiance and 168 years after his barbaric death, being drawn and quartered. I’m sure that Bowling knew that his great-great grandfather was a Catholic martyr. That isn’t a story that is lost in a Catholic family. I’m sure it was both a source of great pride and great sorrow.

I have to wonder where John Finch/Fynch was buried, if the family was allowed to gather what remains of him they could find and if they were allowed to bury anything. He surely would not have been buried in the churchyard which was Anglican at that time. So where was he buried, and the priest also killed with him?

In the book, “The Antiquities of Canterbury In two Parts” by Nicolas Battely it states that John Finch, William Selling and Thomas Goldston were “buried in the Martyrdom.” This is in the History of Christ-Church in Canterbury section, page 35. Elsewhere in the book, it says “John Finch – of this prior’s acts or what he did living, I have seen no monument, but that of him dead, you may find in the Martyrdom, where he lies interred under this broken Epitaph, which is in the Appendix Numb LV.” Other places in the book refer to the Martyrdom as an actual location and in one place it is called “The Altar of the Martyrdom of St. Thomas” in the cathedral.

To say I was excited by this was an understatement. It was about 3 AM – I was hyperventilating. Was it even possible that I had stumbled upon the final resting place of our John Finch? And if so, why didn’t they tell us this when we visited St. Mary’s church in Chorley? They had other information about the family- why not this? Something seemed wrong.

I found the book online, scanned by Google, but as luck would have it, the ONE page I needed, page 62 in the final appendix, had been missed during the scanning. I had to give up and go to bed, but not before sending a message to a cousin asking him to see if he could find the elusive page 62.

I had even found a picture of the altar near where John Finch is buried in Canterbury. The next day, cousin Jerry found page 62, I typed the Latin of John Finch’s epitaph into a Latin translator, and here’s the English equivalent, more or less:

“Here lies John Fynch of Winchelsey once prior to this ecclefise who takes on 9 January eificia conftrueta closing many other goods whose soul.”

I wondered where Winchelsey was, and set about to find out. I discovered that it is no place close to Lancashire, on the Southeast coast of England, and the John Fynch from Winchelsey was a politician that lived in the 1600s. Crumb. Crumb. Crumb. Not our John at all. Our John Fynch/Finch is still MIA. I hate wild goose chases and I felt terrible about involving my cousin in this one – getting everyone’s hopes up. But I’m very glad we persevered for page 62!

Elizabeth Bowling in America

Jean Purdy feels that Elizabeth Bowling accompanied her brothers, James, Thomas and John from England to Maryland, departing for America with her brothers Thomas and John after their mother died in 1659. James Bowling was already in Maryland by that time.

What we do know is that Elizabeth Bowling Speake was subpoenaed to court on November 3, 1663 to testify. She had son John Speak, the Innkeeper, whose birth was determined from 2 depositions given by John as an adult to have occurred in 1665. This implies her marriage about 1663, and possibly somewhat earlier, to Thomas Speake. She had son Bowling in 1674 according to numerous depositions given by Bowling throughout his lifetime. It’s rather unusual that they didn’t have any more children. Perhaps they had children that did not live to adulthood.

Thomas died in August of 1681, still a relatively young man of 48, his will leaving everything to his eldest son, John. He appoints his brother-in-law, James Bowling, his executor and wills “that my Loving brother in Law James Bowling hath the Disposall of my children to be brought up in the Roman Catholick faith.” Elizabeth was apparently gone too, less than age 50, by the time her brother James made his will in 1692. James was childless and left his estate to his siblings and the children of his siblings, including John and Bowling Speake.

It must have been difficult on John and Bowling Speak to lose their father in 1681, their mother sometime in the next decade, before 1692, and their uncle in 1692 who was or probably had been raising them. John would have been about 27 in 1692 and Bowling about 18. That’s a lot of loss and a rough beginning for 2 young men.

Beginning with John Finch, the Martyr, to me, we find the following:

John Finch of Eccleston, the Martyr was born 1748, died April 20, 1584
Roger Fynch born 1573-1642, Eccleston married Isabella or Elizabeth Brears (1569-1631) in Charnock circa 1595.
Hugh Bowling was born in 1591 in Charnock Richard, Lancashire. He was christened on 6 Aug 1591 in Chorley. Hugh died on 7 Sep 1651 in Charnock Richard and was buried on 7 Sep 1651 in Parish Church, Standish, Lancashire. Hugh married Ellen Fynch, daughter of Roger Fynch and Isabella or Elizabeth Brears on 9 Apr 1616 in St. Laurence Church, Chorley, Lancashire.
Thomas Speake (c 1634-1681) married Elizabeth Bowling (1642 – before 1692)
Bowling Speake (1674-1755) married Mary Benson
Thomas Speake (1698-1755) married Jane, last name unknown
Charles Beckworth (or Beckwith) Speake (1741-1794) married Anne, last name unknown (1744-1789)
Nicholas Speak (1782-1852) married Sarah Faires (1786-1852)
Charles Speak (1804-1840/1850) married Ann McKee (1801/1805-1840/1850)
Elizabeth Speak (1832-1903) married Samuel Claxton (Clarkson) (1827-1876)
Margaret Claxton (1851-1920) married Joseph Bolton (1853-1920)
Ollie Florence Bolton (1874-1955) married and divorced William George Estes (1873-1971)
William Sterling Estes (my Dad) (1903-1963)

So there you go, just 13 generations between me and a Catholic martyr. Well, possibly, assuming all of that is correct.

What can we do, if anything, to solidify this connection? Can DNA help?

Can DNA Help?

How would we go about determining if there is a Finch connection in our Speak line? Actually, it’s in the Bowling line that feeds into the Speak line with the marriage of Elizabeth Bowling to Thomas Speake in Maryland in the 1660s. What this means is that if there is a Finch connection, every descendant of both the Bowling family in American through the Maryland group, and the Speaks family in America though Thomas and Elizabeth are descendants of the Finch family.

The first thing to do is to be sure that every Speak(e)(s) descendant who has taken an autosomal test is in the Speak project so that I, as the administrator, can see if they match any individuals with the ancestral or current surname of Finch.

Currently, we have 18 individuals in the Speak project who meet the criteria and have already taken the autosomal DNA test. When I began this comparison a few weeks ago, we had 12 Speak individuals, but I checked the matches of all 12 individuals and found another dozen or so autosomal matches to people with Speak lineage. I invited those people to join the Speak DNA project, even though they are not descended from the direct paternal line. In order to keep this straight, I have an autosomal grouping category in both the Y and mtDNA portions of the project since I’m actually using it for autosomal matching as well.

Next, I searched for Finch and Fynch matches for each of the project participants. It’s surprising how many I found. Among 12 participants, there were 42 Finch matches. Of those, four ancestral groups were repeated more than once. Looking at these groups, it’s possible that they could share a common ancestor between them. That is encouraging.

I checked the Finch DNA project to see if I can tell anything about the Finch groups I found with repeated autosomal matches to Speak descendants.

John Finch born 1625 England – his son Guy Finch b Aug 18 1655 in Berkeley Gloucestershire, England d 1688 Calvert Co., MD, married Rebecca, daughter Mary Finch married Charles Beaven.
Also in Calvert Co., MD, Elizabeth Finch born 1687 Woodbridge, Calvert Co., MD died in 1729 Charles Co MD married William Elder.
Margaret Finch b c 1590 in Stanley, Gloucestershire, England married John Flood and died in Charles City, VA (also shown as Surry Co., VA)
Stamford CT Finch group
One lone person who says “Finch- Lancashire,” but doesn’t answer the e-mails

The Calvert County, MD group could well be Catholic as well.

The Finch DNA project and site tells us that the CT group is from Yorkshire. Unfortunately, the Calvert County group seems to be unrepresented in Y DNA testing. There are also no families from Charles City, VA or Surry Co., VA.

Even more encouraging is that one individual listed their Finch ancestor as being from Lancashire. Unfortunately, I e-mailed them and they have not yet replied.

Shortly, I’ll check the list of Speak participants for Bowling matches as well to see who we match in that line that I could invite to join the project to see if the Bowlings are descended from the Finch family utilizing the same methodology.

From this point forward, we need to do the Finch genealogy work on one hand, relative to the matches, and on the other, we need to work on triangulation to see if we can attribute a DNA match to two people who share the same common ancestral line. That would confirm, along with a match to us, that we do share that common ancestor with them.

However, our common Finch ancestor is many, many generations removed. Little of John Finch’s DNA may be remnant in his descendants – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to find it. You can’t fail if you don’t try, but you also can’t succeed!

This job will take a little bit of genealogy sleuthing, some genetic analysis, a dash of synchronicity and a huge dose of good luck.

Wish me luck!! I’ll get back with you on this one. I’m busy hunting for my magic DNA wand right now. A little bit of magic dust wouldn’t hurt either!

http://www.thetoybug.com.au/Magic-Glitter-Wand

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The Bowling Family of Charnock Richard, Lancashire

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Roberta Estes

A week into our DNA journey across England, I awoke for the last time in the Ribble Valley. This photo is an extremely misty sunrise in the Ribble Valley, through our window in the Stirk House Lodge. Pendle Hill is out there, always out there, but you can’t see it. Just like it’s still in my mind and heart everyday.

This morning, we prepare to leave the Ribble Valley which we have come to love and to view in an odd sort of way as “home.” It only took a very few days for us to adopt this homeland in our hearts as “ours.” We own it in our soul now. It is interwoven into part of who we are, and who we were. We know we are related to many of these families in this valley, centuries back…those whose names and surnames we will never know. Our families were here before surnames were needed. This ancient land holds our history and our family. This is from whence we sprung in the times and days before records. Social history of the region is all that we have now of our early families. The history of the Ribble Valley is the history of our ancestors – the invasions, the wars, the victories – all theirs and all ours as well.

I look at Pendle Hill and I know that before the Quakers received their divine message there, before Catholics and Protestants, before Christianity, before the Romans invaded in the first generation after Christ lived, that Pendle Hill was used for worship. Around the world, the highest sites in the landscape were used for temples to worship deities, and some deities were female, Goddeses. Pendle Hill had to have been one of these places. Our ancestors were surely among these people.

It was hard to say goodbye to Pendle Hill, the Ribble Valley and the Stirk House, because we know it’s forever.

Today, we switch sides of the family. Thomas Speak born about 1634 married Elizabeth Bowling, presumably shortly after immigrating to Maryland before November 1663 when she was subpoenaed to court to testify. The Bowling family was also Catholic, and from an area about 30 miles distant from the Ribble Valley, named Charnock Richard, near Chorley and Standish.

We boarded the bus for Chorley and the St. Laurence Church, where many of the early Bowling burials were recorded. This is our family’s church, as well as St. Wilfred’s at Standish. As it turns out, Charnock Richard lies not terribly far down the main road and is between Chorley and Standish – and of course the ever-present traffic circle, known as a round-about, welcomed us.

Our Bowling family was from Charnock Richard, which tells us they were probably vassals of the Charnock family, one of the landed families who owned a manor and was one of the families with a crest who is remembered in both churches. Unfortunately, the Charnock Manor Hall no longer exists.

The church, St. Laurence, in Chorley is a small church created for a small congregation. Chorley was a market town, and this church was not the main church of the region, but a chapel church for outliers. The photo below is of the original church before the additions. This is the church our ancestors knew and attended as Catholics, then as Anglicans when forced to.

Today’s church is the third church on this location, built the third time in the 1500s, but an earlier church was almost certainly present on the site in the Anglo-Saxon era as the daughter church of Croston. The first documentary record is dated 1362 and refers to a priest for the church. A letter dated 1442 refers to a reliquary owned by the church which is said to contain bones of Saint Laurence for which the church was named.

The stained glass windows in this church are stunning. Of course, each window has its story.

And like all of the other churches in this timeframe, many “floor burials.”

I can’t help but wonder about this ancient secreted passageway.

The gargoyle, the silent sentry, always standing guard. He would have been here when our ancestors laid eyes on him too. Maybe one of our ancestors carved him, or set him where he has been for hundreds of years. How many generations has he seen come and go?

The photo below is the original baptistery. It was relegated to the back corner where I discovered it with a bunch of stuff stacked against it. I asked about it, and the guide told me that the current rector is modernizing and replaced it and it has been retired. I think this is sacrilege after how many centuries. I dug it out and photographed it. And I didn’t put the stuff back up against it either. This is the ancient font from which our Bowling ancestors would have been baptized.

Look at these ancient carvings on this baptistery.

This was also the church of the Standish family, as in Myles Standish, the pilgrim on the Mayflower. Are we related? Not that we know of, but who knows back before records are available. The families certainly lived in the same area and knew each other well, at least through the church, if not socially. The Standish family was “well off” and had their own box seat in the church, shown below.

St. Laurence was originally a Catholic church, of course, but became Anglican along with the rest of England following King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic church in 1534. From St. Laurence, we visited St. Mary’s Catholic church, maybe a quarter or half a mile away.

We walked through the old market town area.

St. Mary’s is a Catholic church and includes the martyr’s windows, specifically one for our John Finch, brutally killed in 1584.

Elizabeth Bowling is believed to be the daughter of Hugh Bowling (born 1591) and Ellen Finch (born 1598). Ellen Finch is the daughter of Roger Finch (born 1573) who was the son of John Finch (born 1548) who we believe is the John Finch who was martyred.

The history of St. Mary’s church tells us that Catholicism had been the faith of most of the English from the time of St. Augustine in 597AD until the 16^th century. Despite this, from 1535 until about 1789, those who remained faithful to this “old religion” suffered fines, arrests, confiscation of property or mob violence, and some 500 were executed. No less than 10 Catholic martyrs either originated from or served in the current Chorley Borough area.

The Mass and Sacraments were celebrated secretly and illegally through the 16^th,17^th and 18^th centuries in the various halls and farmhouses around Chorley still in Catholic hands. Lancashire had a higher proportion of Catholic recusants than any other English county, estimated at over 20% even in the 1700s. Catholic worship remained illegal until 1791. The Catholic church here was founded in 1847, but this building was built in 1927.

St. Mary’s includes 5 stained glass windows commemorating five local martyrs.

Venerable Roger Ashton from Crostin, executed at Tyburn in 1592.
Bd Roger Wrenno, weaver, from Alfred’s Court off Anderton St. Chorley. Executed for shelttering Father John Thules and hanged with him on March 18, 1616 at Lancaster. The rope broke at the first attempt. behind him is a weaving frame.
Bd Lawrence Richardson, a priest who served at Park Hall, shown behind him, home of the Catholic Charnock family. Executed in 1582 at Tyburn.
Venerable John Finch, a yeoman farmer of Eccleston, executed at Lancaster in 1584.
Saint John Rigby from Harrock Hall by Mawdesley, executed at Southwar in 1598.

One end of the church commemorates the martyrs in a beautiful enclave.

Here is John Finch’s window.

I must say, I am not Catholic, but when I approached those windows, every single hair on my body stood up. I had a very physical reaction, something I haven’t had in any other location on this trip and was very unexpected.

The church provided this information about John Finch.

Me with the windows and the baptistery and John’s window.

We learned a lot about the Catholic’s in this region. Charnock Richard was called a “nursery of recussants” meaning they had more “refusers” of the Catholic faith than anyplace else.

Just the other side of Charnock Richard, actually, across from it, is the Bowling Green Inn, land where the Bowlings used to live. This inn has been here for hundreds of years in one form or another.

In the painting and photograph below, purchased from the Lancashire County Council, we can see the Bowling Green Inn in historic times. You can still see this older building in the current complex, if you look closely.

This quaint road sign, directly across the street from the Bowling Green Inn today, points the way from Charnock Richard to Wigan, 7 miles, and Preston, 10 miles.

On the map above, the Bowling Green Inn is the red balloon. The green balloon is where Google misplaced the inn. The red arrow points the location, in the photo below, of the other end of Delph Lane, which begins directly across from the Bowling Green Inn. The road is not contiguous today, but it was originally. The areas between Delph Lane and The Bowling Green Inn is the area believed to be where the Bowling family lived, or the area of Bowling Green. It’s amazing that we can find this location today.

Delph Lane directly across from the Bowling Green Inn is shown below.

Unfortunately, we can’t take a virtual street view drive down Delph Lane on Google, but on Church Road, where, ironically, another church was later built, we can see some of the fields.

The road leading to the Bowling land at Charnock Richard turns to the left here at the bridge on Delph Lane. It’s a dead end today and we didn’t try it in the bus. It’s just fields, sheep and English countryside, much like it was then. Our ancestors lived here, probably for many generations. They worked and walked these lands.

Our next destination was Standish, and we drove through quaint villages with wonderful pubs, reaching back centuries in time. The pub and the church are the two establishments in every village that was timeless and survived through the centuries.

When we arrived at Standish, at St. Wilfred’s Church, they had been waiting for us at the Peace Gate…perhaps for centuries.

This church was named for St. Wilfrid (634-709) who was the son of a Northumbrian Thane, educated at the Lindisfarne Monastery, studied in Rome and Lyon, and became a monk of the Benedictine order. He returned from Europe to Ripon as Abbot in 657 and introduced Benedictine rule to an area under the Celtic form of Christianity.

The earliest reference to this church is in the year 1205 when it is recorded that a dispute arose between the Standish and Langtree families regarding the advowson or right to appoint a Rector. No doubt the church had been in existence before that date. The first recorded Rector was Alexander de Standish in 1206.

In 1543 it was confirmed by the Bishop of Chester that the church was in great ruin and that the whole parish should decide on its repair and rebuilding. That apparently didn’t happen, because Record Moody’s tomb refers to this “twice-ruinated temple.” In 1582, the church was rebuild with Robert Charnock as their representative and a go-between with the master mason Lawrence Shipway. Work was completed in 1589. If the Charnock family was involved, you can rest assured that the Speak family, who probably worked for them, was involved too.

Standish Parish was quite large and served 11 townships until in the 1900s. Charnock Richard was among those. The Bowling family obviously attended two churches, perhaps different branches of the family, or at different times – both at Chorley and at Standish.

Here’s an early photo of St. Wilfrid church, which was obviously taken after the Peace Gate was built in 1926.

The porch entryway to the church, below, is from the 1500s. Inside the inner church door is found an Acanthus flower and it’s leaves. This is a Mediterranean plant used in classical design, probably brought back to England returning from the Crusades.

St. Wilfrid’s Church in Standish records many Bowling burials, although no stones remain intact today. Like many other churches, they have rearranged some of the remaining stones to make maintenance easier.

The churchyard walls incorporate earlier remnant carvings, probably Anglo-Saxon in origin.

In many of these churches, expansions were built right over graves and in that time, place and culture, that was no problem. In fact, it might have just made you holier. This church is particularly interesting because it has a secret staircase hidden in one of the pillars – actually carved in. It led to a chantery where people who died paid for priests or monks to chant for them to get them into Heaven. Of course, when it became Anglican, the chantery was no longer needed – as the concept of Purgatory is a Catholic concept – as is praying your soul out of Purgatory in return for money.

I thought this recess was the font for holy water, just inside the entrance so that the early Catholics could cross themselves upon entering.

However, the church history says that it might have been for a pen and ink or an old lamp or statue. This is in the porch, and the church porch was utilized for a significant number of things, aside from sheltering the door. The first part of the baptismal and wedding services took place here and in the days when women were denied admission to the church after childbirth, the “churching ceremony” was held in the porch.

The churching ceremony was where women were blessed after childbirth and thanks was given for their survival, even if the child had died or was stillborn, and even if the child died unbaptised. It symbolized ritual purification of the Virgin Mary as discussed in the New Testament. The churching ceremony generally took place about 40 days after the woman’s “confinement,” or when the birth took place. In some places it was regarded as unwise for a woman to leave her house to go out at all after confinement until she went to be churched. In the UK and Ireland, new mothers who had yet to be churched were regarded as attractive to the fairies, and so in danger of being kidnapped by them. Customs varied by church and region, although this version seems typical.

On the fortieth day after childbirth, the mother is brought to the temple to be churched; that is to say, to receive a blessing as she begins attending church and receiving the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments) once again. The child (if it has survived) is brought by the mother, who has already been cleansed and washed, accompanied by the intended sponsors (Godparents) who will stand at the child’s Baptism. They all stand together in the narthex (the entranceway) before the doors of the nave of the temple, facing east. The priest blesses them and says prayers for the woman and the child, giving thanks for their wellbeing and asking God’s grace and blessings upon them.

At her churching, a woman was expected to make some offering to the church, such as the chrisom or alb placed on the child at its christening.

Augustine Schulte in the Catholic Encyclopidia described the churching ceremony:

The mother, kneels in the vestibule, or within the church, carrying a lighted candle. The priest, vested in surplice and white stole, sprinkles her with holy water in the form of a cross. Having recited Psalm 23, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”, he offers her the left extremity of the stole and leads her into the church, saying: “Enter thou into the temple of God, adore the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary who has given thee fruitfulness of offspring.” She advances to one of the altars and kneels before it, whilst the priest, turned towards her, recites the appropriate blessing, and then, having sprinkled her again with holy water in the form of the cross, dismisses her, saying: “The peace and blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, descend upon thee, and remain forever. Amen.”

The Parish Clerk undertook much of his business on the church porch too. Contracts were signed, debts paid and executors of wills distributed legacies to beneficiaries on the church porch.

This baptistery (below) has a very old Anglo-Saxon base, pre-dating the current church significantly, and the current church is hundreds of years old. The baptismal font represents three dates. The stem is the oldest and dates from the earlier church. The bowl is 16^th century and probably dates from the rebuilding and the base is an 18^th century replacement.

This church is stunningly beautiful. I can feel the presence of so many ancestors and I look around, drinking in my surroundings, absorbing as fast as possible, to see what they saw. This is their life I’m visiting in a place most sacred to them.

The armorial shields were gifted to the church in 1917 and represent the chief families in the 11 townships of the ancient parish. Charnock Richard’s is shown below.

This beautifully carved oak pulpit was donated by Ralph Standish in 1616, so it would have been here, and relatively new, when our Bowling ancestors stood to hear the sermon, or perhaps sat in the pews.

Aside from the typical floor burials, the oldest of which is from the 14^th century, there are two actual tombs in the church. One, that of Richard Moody, from about the same time, bears the cheerful message of, “As you are I was and as I am you shall be.”

This is an ancient church and a sarcophagus was found under the church suggesting this was a very early religious site as well – probably back to pagan days. It’s now a flower holder outside of the church, along with what they consider to be “a huge boulder” also found on the grounds.

I love the sundial, and the gargoyles in various places positioned on the roof or eaves.

The inscription below the sundial reads, “Let no passing cloud of bitterness thine accustomed serenity o’ershadow.”

The grounds are ancient and hallowed. The graves may not be marked, but we know the bodies of all of the families that lived in this area are interred here, probably stacked and intermingled after generations of reburial, much as the DNA of their descendants is today.

The oldest marked grave here dates from 1621. Stones surround the church.

The church graciously arranged for the group to have lunch in an old restored building, I believe the old restored rectory which is now a Parish Hall. Group meals, while organizationally challenging were also some of the most rewarding times, as we visited with each other. Notice the old wooden beams. Everything in England is either very old or very new.

After leaving Standish, we stopped outside Liverpool and visited Speke Hall which, ironically, has nothing to do with our family. Speke Hall obtained its name from Speke Township which was first found in the Doomsday survey of 1086 where Spec (Speke) appears as one of several local properties held by the Saxon Thane Uctred, and is described as comprising “two carucates of land worth sixty-four pence”. A carucate was a measure of land that could support a family and measured between 60 and 120 acres according to the fertility of the soil. However, the similarity between Speke and Speak served to confuse and tantalize genealogists for years.

Despite the fact that it’s not from our family, Speke Hall did have a “priest hole,” shown below, designed to hide and protect Catholic priests who were, of course, persecuted on pain of death after the reformation. Priest holes were often found in Manor homes where clandestine services were held. It is very difficult to see, but here is the well-disguised entrance. The exit is to the Mersey River where the priests could easily exit to the coast and quickly escape back to Ireland.

After walking back to the visitor center in the drenching cold rain, Jim and I had our own version of “high tea” with creamed tea, scones with locally made jam and “fresh cream” which is not whipped cream. The perfect end to the perfect day!

Bowling DNA

While the Bowling family may seem like any other Catholic Lancashire family, they weren’t. In fact, their DNA is quite rare, something that by the time our ancestors were getting ready to leave for America was probably long forgotten in their family.

In fact, by the time that the Doomsday book was written in 1086, the Bowling family origins in the UK were already roughly 43 generations in the past, and had probably been forgotten for about 40 of those generations.

How do we know this? It’s written in the Bowling Y DNA, and when combined with the historical knowledge of what was happening in the world during that time, it’s relatively easy to construct a “most likely” scenario.

In fact, this part of the story is so interesting, it’s deserving of its own telling, so please join me for the future article, “Bowling DNA, Rare as Hen’s Teeth.”

What, you want a hint?

Ok, but just one….

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Haplogroup Comparisons Between Family Tree DNA and 23andMe

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Recently, I’ve received a number of questions about comparing people and haplogroups between 23andMe and Family Tree DNA. I can tell by the questions that a significant amount of confusion exists about the two, so I’d like to talk about both. In you need a review of “What is a Haplogroup?”, click here.

Haplogroup information and comparisons between Family Tree DNA information and that at 23andMe is not apples and apples. In essence, the haplogroups are not calculated in the same way, and the data at Family Tree DNA is much more extensive. Understanding the differences is key to comparing and understanding results. Unfortunately, I think a lot of misinterpretation is happening due to misunderstanding of the essential elements of what each company offers, and what it means.

There are two basic kinds of tests to establish haplogroups, and a third way to estimate.

Let’s talk about mitochondrial DNA first.

Mitochondrial DNA

You have a very large jar of jellybeans. This jar is your mitochondrial DNA.

In your jar, there are 16,569 mitochondrial DNA locations, or jellybeans, more or less. Sometimes the jelly bean counter slips up and adds an extra jellybean when filling the jar, called an insertion, and sometimes they omit one, called a deletion.

Your jellybeans come in 4 colors/flavors, coincidentally, the same colors as the 4 DNA nucleotides that make up our double helix segments. T for tangerine, A for apricot, C for chocolate and G for grape.

Each of the 16,569 jellybeans has its own location in the jar. So, in the position of address 1, an apricot jellybean is always found there. If the jellybean jar filler makes a mistake, and puts a grape jellybean there instead, that is called a mutation. Mistakes do happen – and so do mutations. In fact, we count on them. Without mutations, genetic genealogy would be impossible because we would all be exactly the same.

When you purchase a mitochondrial DNA test from Family Tree DNA, you have in the past been able to purchase one of three mitochondrial testing levels. Today, on the website, I see only the full sequence test for $199, which is a great value.

However, regardless of whether you purchase the full mitochondrial sequence test today, which tests all of your 16,569 locations, or the earlier HVR1 or HVR1+HVR2 tests, which tested a subset of about 10% of those locations called the HyperVariable Region, Family Tree DNA looks at each individual location and sees what kind of a jellybean is lodged there. In position 1, if they find the normal apricot jellybean, they move on to position 2. If they find any other kind of jellybean in position 1, other than apricot, which is supposed to be there, they record it as a mutation and record whether the mutation is a T,C or G. So, Family Tree DNA reads every one of your mitochondrial DNA addresses individually.

Because they do read them individually, they can also discover insertions, where extra DNA is inserted, deletions, where some DNA dropped out of line, and an unusual conditions called a heteroplasmy which is a mutation in process where you carry some of two kinds of jellybean in that location – kind of a half and half 2 flavor jellybean. We’ll talk about heteroplasmic mutations another time.

So, at Family Tree DNA, the results you see are actually what you carry at each of your individual 16,569 mitochondrial addresses. Your results, an example shown below, are the mutations that were found. “Normal” is not shown. The letter following the location number, 16069T, for example, is the mutation found in that location. In this case, normal is C. In the RSRS model of showing mitochondrial DNA mutations, this location/mutation combination would be written as C16069T so that you can immediately see what is normal and then the mutated state. You can click on the images to enlarge.

Family Tree DNA gives you the option to see your results either in the traditional CRS (Cambridge Reference Sequence) model, above, or the more current Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (RSRS) model. I am showing the CRS version because that is the version utilized by 23andMe and I want to compare apples and apples. You can read about the difference between the two versions here.

Defining Haplogroups

Haplogroups are defined by specific mutations at certain addresses.

For example, the following mutations, cumulatively, define haplogroup J1c2f. Each branch is defined by its own mutation(s).

Haplogroup	Required Mutations
J	C295T, T489C, A10398G!, A12612G, G13708A, C16069T
J1	C462T, G3010A
J1c	G185A, G228A, T14798C
J1c2	A188G
J1c2f	G9055A

You can see, below, that these results, shown above, do carry these mutations, which is how this individual was assigned to haplogroup J1c2f. You can read about how haplogroups are defined here.

At 23andMe, they use chip based technology that scans only specifically programmed locations for specific values. So, they would look at only the locations that would be haplogroup producing, and only those locations. Better yet if there is one location that is utilized in haplogroup J1c2f that is predictive of ONLY J1c2f, they would select and use that location.

This same individual at 23andMe is classified as haplogroup J1c2, not J1c2f. This could be a function of two things. First, the probes might not cover that final location, 9055, and second, 23andMe may not be utilizing the same version of the mitochondrial haplotree as Family Tree DNA.

By clicking on the 23andMe option for “Ancestry Tools,” then “Haplogroup Tree Mutation Mapper,” you can see which mutations were tested with the probes to determine a haplogroup assignment. 23andMe information for this haplogroup is shown below. This is not personal information, meaning it is not specific to you, except that you know you have mutations at these locations based on the fact that they have assigned you to the specific haplogroup defined by these mutations. What 23andMe is showing in their chart is the ancestral value, which is the value you DON’T have. So your jelly bean is not chocolate at location 295, it’s tangerine, apricot or grape.

Notice that 23andMe does not test for J1c2f. In addition, 23andMe cannot pick up on insertions, deletions or heteroplasmies. Normally, since they aren’t reading each one of your locations and providing you with that report, missing insertions and deletions doesn’t affect anything, BUT, if a deletion or insertion is haplogroup defining, they will miss this call. Haplogroup K comes to mind.

23andMe never looks at any locations in the jelly bean jar other than the ones to assign a haplogroup, in this case,17 locations. Family Tree DNA reads every jelly bean in the jelly bean jar, all 16,569. Different technology, different results. You also receive your haplogroup at 23andMe as part of a $99 package, but of course the individual reading of your mitochondrial DNA at Family Tree DNA is more accurate. Which is best for you depends on your personal testing goals, so long as you accurately understand the differences and therefore how to interpret results. A haplogroup match does not mean you’re a genealogy match. More than one person has told me that they are haplogroup J1c, for example, at Family Tree DNA and they match someone at 23andMe on the same haplogroup, so they KNOW they have a common ancestor in the past few generations. That’s an incorrect interpretation. Let’s take a look at why.

Matches Between the Two

23andMe provides the tester with a list of the people who match them at the haplogroup level. Most people don’t actually find this information, because it is buried on the “My Results,” then “Maternal Line” page, then scrolling down until your haplogroup is displayed on the right hand side with a box around it.

Those who do find this are confused because they interpret this to mean they are a match, as in a genealogical match, like at Family Tree DNA, or like when you match someone at either company autosomally. This is NOT the case.

For example, other than known family members, this individual matches two other people classified as haplogroup J1c2. How close of a match is this really? How long ago do they share a common ancestor?

Taking a look at Doron Behar’s paper, “A “Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA Tree from its Root,” in the supplemental material we find that haplogroup J1c2 was born about 9762 years ago with a variance of plus or minus about 2010 years, so sometime between 7,752 and 11,772 years ago. This means that these people are related sometime in the past, roughly, 10,000 years – maybe as little as 7000 years ago. This is absolutely NOT the same as matching your individual 16,569 markers at Family Tree DNA. Haplogroup matching only means you share a common ancestor many thousands of years ago.

For people who match each other on their individual mitochondrial DNA location markers, their haplotype, Family Tree DNA provides the following information in their FAQ:

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

I actually think these numbers are a bit generous, especially on the full sequence. We all know that obtaining mitochondrial DNA matches that we can trace are more difficult than with the Y chromosome matches. Of course, the surname changing in mitochondrial lines every generation doesn’t help one bit and often causes us to “lose” maternal lines before we “lose” paternal lines.

Autosomal and Haplogroups, Together

As long as we’re mythbusting here – I want to make one other point. I have heard people say, more than once, that an autosomal match isn’t valid “because the haplogroups don’t match.” Of course, this tells me immediately that someone doesn’t understand either autosomal matching, which covers all of your ancestral lines, or haplogroups, which cover ONLY either your matrilineal, meaning mitochondrial, or patrilineal, meaning Y DNA, line. Now, if you match autosomally AND share a common haplogroup as well, at 23andMe, that might be a hint of where to look for a common ancestor. But it’s only a hint.

At Family Tree DNA, it’s more than a hint. You can tell for sure by selecting the “Advanced Matching” option under Y-DNA, mtDNA or Family Finder and selecting the options for both Family Finder (autosomal) and the other type of DNA you are inquiring about. The results of this query tell you if your markers for both of these tests (or whatever tests are selected) match with any individuals on your match list.

Hint – for mitochondrial DNA, I never select “full sequence” or “all mtDNA” because I don’t want to miss someone who has only tested at the HVR1 level and also matches me autosomally. I tend to try several combinations to make sure I cover every possibility, especially given that you may match someone at the full sequence level, which allows for mutations, that you don’t match at the HVR1 level. Same situation for Y DNA as well. Also note that you need to answer “yes” to “Show only people I match on all selected tests.”

Y-DNA at 23andMe

Y-DNA works pretty much the same at 23andMe as mitochondrial meaning they probe certain haplogroup-defining locations. They do utilize a different Y tree than Family Tree DNA, so the haplogroup names may be somewhat different, but will still be in the same base haplogroup. Like mitochondrial DNA, by utilizing the haplogroup mapper, you can see which probes are utilized to determine the haplogroup. The normal SNP name is given directly after the rs number. The rs number is the address of the DNA on the chromosome. Y mutations are a bit different than the display for mitochondrial DNA. While mitochondrial DNA at 23andMe shows you only the normal value, for Y DNA, they show you both the normal, or ancestral, value and the derived, or current, value as well. So at SNP P44, grape is normal and you have apricot if you’ve been assigned to haplogroup C3.

As we are all aware, many new haplogroups have been defined in the past several months, and continue to be discovered via the results of the Big Y and Full Y test results which are being returned on a daily basis. Because 23andMe does not have the ability to change their probes without burning an entirely new chip, updates will not happen often. In fact, their new V4 chip just introduced in December actually reduced the number of probes from 967,000 to 602,000, although CeCe Moore reported that the number of mtDNA and Y probes increased.

By way of comparison, the ISOGG tree is shown below. Very recently C3 was renamed to C2, which isn’t really the point here. You can see just how many haplogroups really exist below C3/C2 defined by SNP M217. And if you think this is a lot, you should see haplogroup R – it goes on for days and days!

How long ago do you share a common ancestor with that other person at 23andMe who is also assigned to haplogroup C3? Well, we don’t have a handy dandy reference chart for Y DNA like we do for mitochondrial – partly because it’s a constantly moving target, but haplogroup C3 is about 12,000 years old, plus or minus about 5,000 years, and is found on both sides of the Bering Strait. It is found in indigenous Native American populations along with Siberians and in some frequency, throughout all of Asia and in low frequencies, into Europe.

How do you find out more about your haplogroup, or if you really do match that other person who is C3? Test at Family Tree DNA. 23andMe is not in the business of testing individual markers. Their business focus is autosomal DNA and it’s various applications, medical and genealogical, and that’s it.

Y-DNA at Family Tree DNA

At Family Tree DNA, you can test STR markers at 12, 25, 37, 67 and 111 marker levels. Most people, today, begin with either 37 or 67 markers.

Of course, you receive your results in several ways at Family Tree DNA, Haplogroup Origins, Ancestral Origins, Matches Maps and Migration Maps, but what most people are most interested in are the individual matches to other people. These STR markers are great for genealogical matching. You can read about the difference between STR and SNP markers here.

When you take the Y test, Family Tree DNA also provides you with an estimated haplogroup. That estimate has proven to be very accurate over the years. They only estimate your haplogroup if you have a proven match to someone who has been SNP tested. Of course it’s not a deep haplogroup – in haplogroup R1b it will be something like R1b1a2. So, while it’s not deep, it’s free and it’s accurate. If they can’t predict your haplogroup using that criteria, they will test you for free. It’s called their SNP assurance program and it has been in place for many years. This is normally only necessary for unusual DNA, but, as a project administrator, I still see backbone tests being performed from time to time.

If you want to purchase SNP tests, in various formats, you can confirm your haplogroup and order deeper testing.

You can order individual SNP markers for about $39 each and do selective testing. On the screen below you can see the SNPs available to purchase for haplogroup C3 a la carte.

You can order the Geno 2.0 test for $199 and obtain a large number of SNPs tested, over 12,000, for the all-inclusive price. New SNPs discovered since the release of their chip in July of 2012 won’t be included either, but you can then order those a la carte if you wish.

Or you can go all out and order the new Big Y for $695 where all of your Y jellybeans, all 13.5 million of them in your Y DNA jar are individually looked at and evaluated. People who choose this new test are compared against a data base of more than 36,000 known SNPs and each person receives a list of “novel variants” which means individual SNPs never before discovered and not documented in the SNP data base of 36,000.

Don’t know which path to take? I would suggest that you talk to the haplogroup project administrator for the haplogroup you fall into. Need to know how to determine which project to join, and how to join? Click here. Haplogroup project administrators are generally very knowledgeable and helpful. Many of them are spearheading research into their haplogroup of interest and their knowledge of that haplogroup exceeds that of anyone else. Of course you can also contact Family Tree DNA and ask for assistance, you can purchase a Quick Consult from me, and you can read this article about comparing your options.

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Bowling Speake (1674-1755) Drinks to the Pretender – 52 Ancestors #12

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Roberta Estes

Bowling Speake was born in 1674 in St. Mary’s County, Maryland and died there, in the same location, which by then was Charles County, Maryland, after he signed a deed on July 23, 1755 and before his will was probated on Sept. 13, 1755.

Thomas Speake, his father, had arrived in the colonies about 1660 and subsequently married Elizabeth Bowling. They were having children by 1665 when their son John, known as John the Innkeeper, was born. A record of their marriage does not exist.

Their only other known child was Bowling Speake, although it would have been very unusual to have only two children. John and Bowling are the only ones named in the will of Thomas or that we can find in either earlier or subsequent records.

We know positively that Elizabeth Bowling and Thomas Speake were Catholic because Thomas states in his will “that my Loving brother in Law James Bowling hath the Disposall of my children to be brought up in the Roman Catholick faith.”

According to Harold Speake, early Speake historian, now deceased, John Speak left the Catholic Church when he married Winifred Wheeler, an Anglican (the date of the wedding was apparently August 11, 1685). Bowling Speak remained a Catholic and retained the family homestead.

In March of 1722, Bowling gives a deposition about the bounds of a tract of land called Mudd’s Rest that he purchased about 13 years prior from the daughter of Thomas Mudd. This would put his land purchase in about 1709.

In 1718, we discover that Bowling was a shoemaker.

Charles Co. Land Records Liber D2 p. 203
6 Aug 1718 mentions Bowling Speake, shoemaker.

In September of 1718, Bowling Speak acquired land called “The Mistake,” 200 acres, for 5000 pounds of tobacco, in an area known as Zekiah Manor which is today the land on which the current St. Peter’s Church is located. I have always wondered how “The Mistake” got it’s name. There has to be a good story in there someplace!

Land known as “Speak’s Enlargement” abutted “The Mistake,” according to a 1754 deed in which he deeded both to his son Thomas in which the land was identified as “where Thomas Speake’s dwelling place now is.”

In August of 1718, Bowling also purchased part of a tract called “Boarman’s Reserve” for 9000 pounds tobacco and later, in 1739, patented land called “Speake Meadow” which abutted Boarman’s Reserve.

These two tracts of land were located about 7 miles apart in Charles County, Maryland.

Bowling lived on his land at Boarman Manor, according to his will which says he leaves Edward “my dwelling plantation and a small tract of land called the Meadow.” Before Bowling’s death, he had sold part of the Boarman’s Manor land.

Upon Bowling’s death in 1755, he left the balance of his “Mistake” and “Speake’s Enlargement” lands to his children. In his will, he gives the location of this land which Speak cousin, Jerry Draney, traced through deeds to the current owners, the Catholic Church. Bowling’s son, Thomas (known as Thomas of Zachiah or Zekiah), born about 1698, lived on this land.

On July 23, 1755, Bowling Speake deeded land to his son Thomas Speake. Bowling’s will was then probated on September 13, 1755. On August 2, 1755, Thomas Speake, Bowling’s son, wrote and dated his will. His will was also probated September 13, 1755, the same day as his father. I can’t help but wonder if his father’s death in some way contributed to his own death. Or perhaps Thomas’s death was more than Bowling could stand.

Bowling’s poor wife, Mary – to lose her husband and her son within days of each other must have been almost too much to bear. We know she was alive at Bowling’s death according to his will, unless she had died between October 20, 1750, when he wrote his will and his death nearly 5 years later. It was unusual during that timeframe for men to make wills significantly prior to their death. He may have had an earlier scare and recovered. Wills at that time were often much more of an “on my deathbed” kind of event. Mary signed a release of dower in 1744 but when land was sold but in 1754 and 1755, no dower release was signed. We don’t know when she died.

Thomas’s children lost both a father and grandfather as well. The entire family was in double mourning.

Thomas of Zachiah left his land, today the land of St. Peter’s church, to his children, specifically to sons Charles Beckworth (or Beckwith) Speake and Nicholas Speake. Thomas’s will and his father Bowling’s will were probated at the same court session on September 13, 1755. That must have been a very sad day.

Charles Beckworth (or Beckwith) Speake was born in 1741 to Thomas of Zachiah and wife Jane. His brother Nicholas, who shared the land with him, was born in 1734. To date, a sale of this land has never been found, but it surely was sold, because Charles Beckworth Speak would strike out for North Carolina by 1788, taking with him his young son Nicholas Speak, born in 1782, who would in the 1820s found the Speaks Methodist Church in Lee County, Virginia. Nicholas’s great-grandfather, Bowling, probably turned over in his grave! His grandson had become a Protestant!

You can read more about this land and see it today in the article “Thomas Speak (c1634-1681) – The Catholic Immigrant.”

In a 1739 record, we discover that Bowling Speak married Mary Benson, via this archival record dealing with land in 1739 and that her father’s name was Hugh Benson.

Archives of MD v40 Assembly Proceedings, May 1–June 12, 1739
(LHJ Lib. No. 45)

Your Commitee find on Inspecting the papers of the Petitioners and Land Called Crackburns Purchase Containing Two Hundred acres was Granted on the 24th Day of October Ann. Domr. 1659 unto Richard Crackburn assignee of Walter Peak and Peter Mills assignee of Paul Simpson in ffee. Your Committee furhter find that the said Richard Crackburn by his deed bearing Date the 17th Day of November 1681, Did bargain and sell the said Tract of Land to Richard Gardiner of St. Marys County in ffee.

Your Committee also find that Richard Gardiner and Mary his wife of St. Marys County afd. Did Convey to Hugh Benson of the same County Planter one Hundred acres part of the said Tract in ffee.

Your Committee Likewise find that Mary the Daughter and Heiress at Law of Hugh Benson Intermarried with Bowling Speak of Charles County and that the said Bowling Speak and the said Mary his wife by their Deed bearing Date the 31st day of March 1739 did Convey the said Parcell of Land unto the Petitioners in ffee….

Bowling’s Act of Defiance

This next 1752 record involving Bowling is just a wonderful peek into his life.

Archives of MD 50, p57-58
Assembly Proceedings, June 3-23, 1752 The Lower House.
L.H.J. Liber No.47; June 17 (p237-238)

The Lord Proprietary against Bowlen Speak} The said Bowlen Speak being bound by Recognizance for his Appearance here this Court, to answer of and concerning a Presentment by the Grand Jurors, for the Body of the Province of Maryland, against him found; for that he, on or about the first Day of March last, did, in a public Manner, drink the Pretenders Health, and good Success in his Proceedings; and being demanded whether he is guilty of the Premisses in the Presentment aforesaid mentioned, or not guilty, says he is guilty thereof, and submits to the Court’s Judgment thereon.

Therefore it is considered by the Justices here, that the said Bowlen Speak, for the Offence aforesaid, be fined to his Lordship the Lord Proprietary in the Sum of Ten Pounds Current Money; and he is ordered to give Security for the Payment of the Fine aforesaid: But for the Want thereof, he is committed to the Custody of the Sheriff of Charles County, there to remain until, &c. who being present here in Court, took Charge of him accordingly.

And it is further ordered, that he give Security in the Sum of Fifty Pounds Current Money, himself, with one Security, in the like Sum, or two Securities in the Sum of Twenty-five Pounds like Money each, for his the said Bowlen Speak’s keeping the Peace, and being of good Behaviour, until next Court; and do for the payment of the several Officers Fees arising due by Occasion of the Premisses aforesaid.

Thereupon the said Bowlen Speak, being present here in Court, acknowleges himself to owe and stand justly indebted to his Lordship, the Right Honourable the Lord Proprietary, in the Sum of Fifty Pounds Current Money, together with William Bryant of Charles County, Planter, as his Security, being likewise present here in Court, acknowleges himself also to owe and stand justly indebted unto his Lordship, the Right Honourable the Lord Proprietary, in the like Sum of Fifty Pounds like Money: And they severally acknowlege, that the several above Sums shall be levied on their respective Bodies, Goods, Chattels, Lands and Tenements, to and for the Use of his said Lordship, his Heirs, and Successors; in case he the said Bowlen Speak, shall not keep the Peace, and be of good Behaviour, until the next Provincial Court, and shall not pay the several Officers Fees arising due by Occasion of the Premisses aforesaid.

A true Copy from the Records of the Provincial Court, Liber E I, No. 10.
Folios 231 and 232.
Per R. Burdus, Clerk.
In Testimony whereof the Seal of the said Provincial Court is hereunto affixed, this 15th Day of June, Anno Domini 1752. L.S.

What was Bowling doing, and why? The Pretender here probably refers to “Bonnie Prince Charlie” given the date of 1751 when Bowling uttered these traitorous words for which he stated he was guilty and was remanded to jail because he did not have the fine of 10 pounds. Ironically, his security recognizance to be released, after paying the 10 pounds, to assure his good behavior “until the next court” was 5 times that much – 50 pounds. Apparently the judges felt that Bowling’s good behavior was anything but a sure bet!

However, Bowling’s friend, William Bryant, paid the security, of course, assuming I’m sure that Bowling would behave and his security money would be returned. The lesson here is never open your mouth unless you can afford the consequences or you’ll wind up in jail!!!

Bowling was not a young man when this happened. He was 78 years of age. His children were in their 50s, probably rolling their eyes and scurrying about trying to scrape together the money to bail Bowling out of jail. It makes me wonder if he was suffering perhaps from dementia that made him forget what was politically correct. Or maybe, at age 78, he simply didn’t care anymore. He was going to say what he wanted, the consequences be damned. I love his spirited heart and am so glad he left us this unquestionable view of his beliefs.

The Jacobites

All of this dissention hearkens back to the Protestant vs Catholic battles and politics in England, Scotland and Ireland, and was at the heart of the Jacobite movement. Remember that the US was a colony of Great Britain, so indeed, this mattered to the people who lived here. It involved who officially ruled them. The phrase “Pretender” alluded to one who believes he is rightfully entitled to the English throne, but who is currently not King. In this case, the men who would have been King has England been a Catholic country at that time.

Jacobitism was the political movement in Great Britain and Ireland to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James II of England and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Latinised form of James, and refers to a long series of Jacobite risings between 1688 and 1746. After James II was deposed in 1688 and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary II, ruling jointly with her Protestant husband and first cousin (James’s nephew) William III, the Stuarts lived in exile, occasionally attempting to regain the throne. The strongholds of Jacobitism were the Scottish Highlands, Ireland and Northern England. Significant support also existed in Wales and South-West England.

The Jacobites believed that parliamentary interference with monarchical succession was illegal. Catholics also hoped the Stuarts would end recussancy. In Scotland, the Jacobite cause became entangled in the last throes of the warrior clan system.

The emblem of the Jacobites is the White Cockade. White Rose Day is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of the birth of the Old Pretender in 1688.

Yorkshire Rose, heraldic symbol of the House of York

White Rose of York from a manuscript of Edward IV in the late 1400s

After the execution of Charles I in 1649, his son Charles II became Pretender until his restoration 11 years later.

After the overthrow of the Catholic James II and VII in the Glorious Revolution in 1688, many refused to accept the legality of the new regime of William and Mary, James’s Protestant daughter and son-in-law, and continued to recognize James as King. James made a significant effort in 1690 to recover Ireland, but was defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne. After James’s death, his supporters recognized his son, James Francis Edward Stuart, the Roman Catholic son of the deposed King James VII and II.

James was barred from the succession to the throne by the Act of Settlement 1701. Notwithstanding the Act of Union 1707, he claimed the separate thrones of Scotland, as James VIII, and of England and Ireland, as James III, until his death in 1766. In Jacobite terms, Acts of Parliament (of England or Scotland) after 1688, (including the Acts of Union) did not receive the required Royal Assent of the legitimate Jacobite monarch and, therefore, were without legal effect. James was responsible for a number of conspiracies and rebellions, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland. The most notable was The Fifteen, which took place in 1715-16.

Charles Edward Stuart, James’ elder son, the would-be Charles III, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, led in his father’s name the last major Jacobite rebellion, the Forty-Five, in 1745-46. He died in 1788, without legitimate issue.

In essence, what Bowling said, publicly, in 1752, probably, if I had to guess, after having a bit too much to drink, was that he supported the overthrow of the government under which he was living. Not a wise thing to say in public. However, for Bowling’s descendants, it makes him a colorful man and allows us a peek at his true character. We know he remained a strong Catholic. This also tells us that his wife would have been Catholic as well, and his children baptized in that faith.

Bowling’s Will

Bowling Speake, born in 1674, according to several depositions during his lifetime, in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, died in August or early September 1755 in Charles County, Maryland, just three years after publicly drinking to the Pretender. His will was probated on September 13, 1755.

In the name of God Amen I Bowling Speake of Charles County in the province of Maryland being in perfect health and memory thanks be to God do make & ordain this my will & testament in manner & form following Viz.

Imprimis I give and bequeath to my son Thomas Speake his heirs & assigns forever 121 acres of land being part of a tract of land. ..Mistake beginning at the first bound tree and running thence to Jordan Branch & up the Branch to a small (sic) next of his Dwelling place and thence to the beginning to make acres –

Item I give and bequeath to my son William Speake two hundred and two acres with Dwelling place being part of a tract of land called mistake to him & his heirs forever and bequeath to my well beloved wife my Dwelling plantation and the use of all my persc Estate during her natural life and after her decease I give and bequeath to my grandson Speake the son of Thomas Speake my Dwelling Plantation and also a small tract of land c(alled) the meadow also his first choice of the negroes and the first choice of my beds and fuz

Item I give and bequeath to my granddaughter Ann Higdon the second choice of my beds an furniture my great chest one Dish & three plates one iron pot & Cattle and Sheep that a make to her without interuption –

Item I give & bequeath to my Daughter Mary Baggott th 112 of my cattle and sheep one feather bed and furniture and one chest

Item I give & to my son William one negro –

Lastly I do hereby nominate constitute and appoint my beloved wife Mary Speake and my aforesaid grandson Edward Speake the son of Thomas Speake full sole Executors of this my last will and textament

In Witness whereof I have hereunto se hand and affixed my seal this this(sic) Twentieth day of October in the year of our Lc Signed sealed published & delivered in the presence of us

Will McPherson Junr Wm Comes Bowling Speake seal
Ma–maduke Semmes

Annexed to the foregoing will was the foll(owin)g probate to wit

Maryland for 13th September 1755 Marmaduke Semmes William McPherson Junior and William Coomes the three subscribing witnesses to the foregoing will being duly & solemn sworn on the hole Evangels deposeth and saith that they saw the Testator Bowking Speake & seal the within will and heard him publish & declare the same to be his last will and and that at the time of his so doing was to the best of their apprehensions of sound & mind & memory and that they severally subscribed as witnesses to the said will in the presence of the Testator & at his request which was taken in the presence of Edwd Speake heiz who did not object to the same.

Perhaps Edward was Bowling’s executor because his son Thomas was already ill.

Children of Bowling Speake and Mary Benson were:

Thomas Speake, born 1698 in St Mary’s County, Maryland; died between August 2nd and September 13, 1755, in Charles County, Maryland; married Jane, last name unknown
William Speake, born about 1699.
Mary Speake, born about 1700; married ? Higdon and a Baggott?

However, it seems there was more than religion that separated John Speake from his brother, Bowling. As it turns out, there might be DNA as well.

Lancashire DNA Speaks

In 2013, on our Speaks family trip to Lancashire, we were very fortunate to meet several of our Speak(e) cousins in various locations. Several joined us for dinner one evening at the Stirk House, a country manor house once owned and restored by Harry Speak himself.

Our trip was precipitated upon DNA findings. Our cousin, Doug, from New Zealand tested and matched our American line descended from Thomas Speak(e) born about 1634 and who immigrated to America around 1660. The blessing was that Doug knew exactly where his Speak ancestors were from – Gisburn, Lancashire, England.

During and shortly after our visit, three of our British cousins, Gary, Stan and David took the Y DNA test to see if they matched each other as well as Doug. The prevailing sentiment was that indeed, the Speak families were not related to each other.

David, based on his genealogy, we know is a cousin of our New Zealand cousin, Doug, who matches the American line. In fact, it’s Doug’s fault that we were all there, in Gisburn – because our New Zealand cousin knew who his oldest ancestor was – John Speak – the man whose children were baptized in the 1700s in St. Mary’s of Gisburn.

Gary indicated that he was told that his line is not related to ours. By this time, in the 1900s, the different Speaks families were on the other side of Pendle Hill, not terribly close to each other and in different communities. The known ancestral villages of the three different Speaks lines are shown on the map below. Pendle Hill is the high area in the middle. The two most distant points, Gisburn and Bolton are about 25 miles as the crow flies, or about 30 miles driving, and Bolton is a more recent location.

So indeed, we are all quite interested in the outcome of the Y DNA testing.

And the answer is……drum roll…..all 4 men, Doug, David, Stan and Gary do share a common paternal ancestor. So yes, we are all related. Of course, figuring out exactly how we are related, and how far back, is another matter altogether.

I’ve reconstructed their pedigree charts as best I can. The men graciously provided me with their genealogy information.

What I’ve tried to do with these results is to group them according to ancestor. In other words, in the group above, 201632 and 312514 both share a common lineage via the John born in 1822 in Burnley and who married Mary.

This second chart is a bit more complex. We know that Gary’s ancestor Thomas was the brother of Harry who owned the Stirk House. Gary is still working on his ancestry, but in the mean time, I found a lovely family tree on Ancestry.com provided by the granddaughter of Harry Speak. It’s fully sourced, so I felt good about using it. So even though we don’t have a DNA sample from Harry of the Stirk House, we do have his genealogy which I aligned side by side with Gary’s, as the genealogy should be identical from brothers Thomas and Harry on back in time.

As you can see, the oldest ancestors here are Henry who was born in Twiston and baptized in Downham in 1650 and John born in 1700, location unknown, but who died in Hey, Houlridge and who married Mary.

The common ancestor between these two groups is further back in time. We really don’t know how much further back, but we do know it was after the adoption of surnames. The first mention of a Speak or similar surname male in this region is found in 1305 when Robert Speke was named as a landowner in Billington, which is inside the Whalley parish. This is the earliest known Speak or similar surname record. Given this information, we can safely say that the common Speak ancestor lived sometime between the 1300s and about 1650, a span of about 14 generations.

Let’s take a look at the DNA results found in the Speakes DNA project.

In the first section, after the kit number, you can see the names of the participants oldest ancestors, followed by DNA values at specific markers found on the Y chromosome which they inherited from their fathers unmixed with any DNA from their mother. Therefore, their Y chromosome also matches that of their father, and grandfather, on back in time on the paternal side – except for an occasional mutation. We count on those mutations to identify families and within families, to identify specific lines of descent.

This is actually quite interesting, because all of the British men, plus Doug from New Zealand, have a value of 17 at location DYS19. Two of the American participants have this value as well. This tells me one thing and then begs a second question.

The piece of information this provides me for sure is that the value of our original ancestor in this location was 17. We know this because all of the British samples and the New Zealand sample have this value. This tells me that the mutation happened either in Thomas, the American immigrant’s generation, or thereafter.

The fact that two American samples also have this value isn’t unusual, as one would expect for Thomas to have carried this value as well. However, here’s the fly in the ointment. The two American men who carry this value are from two different sons of Thomas the immigrant. However, none of the rest of the American men have this value. This means one of a few things – options below.

The genealogy of one of the two American men who carry this value is incorrect and they both descend from the same son of Thomas who carried the original mutation. This means that Thomas’s other son had a mutation to a value of 16.
Both of Thomas’s sons had a value of 17, and both of their lines fairly quickly had a mutation to a value of 16. This is unlikely but not unheard of.
Of course, the problem is that both of the two known descendants of Thomas Speak, the immigrant, have additional descendants that have tested and who don’t carry a value of 17.

How can we find out what happened here? We can’t. We can continue to research and if we find something significant in the research that suggests a different genealogy for one participant, that might shed light on the topic. But assuming this is a genetic mutation and not a genealogical problem, the only way we could ever sort through this to test people who descend from every generation of men along the way to see when and where this mutation took place. It’s interesting, but it’s not THAT interesting nor will it answer the question of which Lancashire line the American line is closer to genetically.

What I was hoping to find was a marker that differed between the Lancashire men. For example, if the green group of Lancashire men had a value of 12 at the first marker, 393, and the red group of men had a value of 13 at 393, we would immediately surmise that we most likely were more closely related to the group that sported a value of 13, since all of the Americans carry that value. Unfortunately, there is no marker yet tested in the British men that shows this level of differentiation.

However, we also haven’t tested everyone to 111 markers. The 111 marker upgrade was created for exactly this type of situation. Indeed, the answer may well be waiting for us, waiting to be uncovered or discovered in the 111 marker test.

______________________________________________________________

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Bluejacket Reunion with a Tomahawk

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Roberta Estes

I want to thank Carlyle Henshaw for this wonderful article. When I asked him for permission to publish, here’s what Carlyle had to say.

“I really had fun researching that article. The three Bluejacket brothers that establish Bluejacket Crossing were George, Henry and Charles. Henry was my great great grandfather. The three brothers were grandsons of Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket, 1737-1808. He was the last principal war chief of the Shawnee Tribe of Indians. We have 15 members in our PekowiBlueJacket Project. All trace to Blue Jacket genealogically. We all descend from the three brothers via DNA. Nine of us have Family Finder. Four males have fathers who are named Bluejacket and all match each other. One is haplogroup Q and three are Q1a3a1. All in all, everyone matches up in the Blue Jacket line, genetically and genealogically. We have sixth, seventh and eighth generations from Blue Jacket represented.”

A REUNION with a TOMAHAWK

by Carlyle Hinshaw

Twin Bridges State Park — On July 1, 2001, the Shawnee Indian Blue Jacket family held its biennial reunion at this lovely place eight miles southeast of Miami, Oklahoma. The picnic was comprised of 60 relatives and other Shawnee friends and two fine Ottawa County Coon Hounds who know a Shawnee repast when they see, er, smell one! Blue Jackets from the Cherokee Nation (Cherokee Adopted Shawnee), Eastern Shawnee Tribe and Shawnee Tribe gathered to celebrate their long, illustrious history. Several excellent stories arose and are being told as time allows for the telling.

Robert Harry Withrow, Jr., of Kanab, Utah, brought a Pipe Tomahawk used by and handed down through, his family from Shawnee days in northeastern Kansas Territory during the middle 1800’s. Robert also brought along the story of the Pipe Tomahawk.

On November 30, 1831, a group of 334 Shawnees, including families of Chief John Perry, Henry and James (Jim) Blue Jacket, Peter Cornstalk and John Woolf arrived at the Shawnee Agency in Kansas after a three month “Trail of Tears” from Allen County, Ohio. Most of the adults rode horseback and the children in baggage wagons. These Wapaghkonetta and Hog Creek Shawnees had ceded (August 8, 1831) their homelands to the U. S. Government for 100,000 acres within or contiguous to, the existing Shawnee Reserve south of the Kansas (Kaw) River. The following year, 24 Shawnees of the River Huron in Michigan Territory made their trek to the new Shawnee country. In 1833, 14 more followed suit and in 1839, the total of River Huron Shawnees in the Shawnee Reserve was 38. (Louise Barry, THE BEGINNING OF THE WEST, p. 223-24, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, 1972).

The new Shawnee lands were however, smack dab in the middle of the great western migration. Starting with a fur party path in 1827 (Sublette’s Trace), several trails headed up in the Independence, Missouri – confluence of the Kaw and Missouri rivers area and the main trace of the Oregon California Road crossed Shawnee lands south of the Kaw. Westward Ho traffic steadily increased and reached a crescendo after the discovery of gold in California in 1849. Settlement along the various trails began and Indian lands became more and more desirable to emigrants wanting to establish roots.

Treaty of 1854

Successful in their continual efforts to displace Indians, the U. S. Government had Shawnee leaders travel to Washington DC and sign a treaty on May 10, 1854, ceding 1, 600,000 acres of their land for 200,000 within the same area. Now that was a hell of a deal for the governmental’s! Shawnee signers of the document included: Joseph Parks, Black Hoof (was he still around?), George McDougal, Silverheels, Paschal Fish, Long Tail, George Blue Jacket, Graham Rogers, Wa-wah-che-pa-e-kar (or, Black Bob), Tooly and Henry Blue Jacket. Witness’s to the signatures included Agent Benjamin F. Robinson and Interpreter Charles Blue Jacket. Each Shawnee was awarded, in severalty, 200 acres and that included Absentee Shawnees and Adopted Shawnees.

Hughmongous tracts of lands immediately became available for settlement and many new areas were incorporated, including Lawrence in 1854 and Eudora in 1857. German settlers purchased land for the latter town from Paschal Fish, who, along with John Blue Jacket, had been assistant gun and blacksmiths for the Leavenworth Agency in 1837. Quick to take advantage of this new situation, the Blue Jacket brothers, Henry, George and Charles, went into the hotel and ferry business. George and storekeeper William “Dutch Bill or Billy” Greiffenstein incorporated the town of Sebastian, six miles SE of Lawrence in the SE1/4 of the SW1/4 of Section 12 – Township 13 South – Range 20 East. The town did not survive and is not shown on modern maps. Henry died at Blue Jacket’s Crossing of the Wakarusa River on May 3, 1855, leaving his wife, Eliza, with six children and expecting a seventh. The latter was born in early 1856.

On the afternoon of May 19, 1855, the first steamboat to ply the Kansas River, the EMMA HARMON, left Kansas City en-route to Topeka and other way landings. Stopping to re-supply wood around noon the next day, they slipped into the stream again and almost immediately were hailed by an Indian wanting a tow up river for his flatboat. They stopped, made the small boat fast and proceeded west up river. The flatboat had just been made by Tooly, a Shawnee who had operated a ferry where the Delaware River, coming from the north, joined the Kaw between Lawrence and Topeka. Upon reaching the confluence of the Kaw and Wakarusa, they cast the Indian loose in his craft. Amidst cheering and waving from the passengers, the red man poled his way up the smaller stream. That Indian boat captain had to be one of two cousins, both strapping 21 year olds, Stephen S. Blue Jacket, eldest son of Henry, or William George Blue Jacket, eldest son of George! Thus began operations of Blue Jacket’s Ferry. (Kansas Historical Quarterly, V. 6, p. 17-19)

Civil War

The Free State – Slave State concept became an overriding one at this time, as anti-slavery Kansas Jayhawkers actively worked with the underground railroad bringing freedom to many and pro-slavery Missouri Bushwhackers fought to bring the freedmen back into slavery. With Lawrence as the “free state” capitol, local traffic added to the depth of Oregon California Road ruts. Kansas in fact became a free State in 1861 as the Civil War broke out.

On the night of August 21, 1863, Confederate Captain William Clarke Quantrill led 400 raiders from successes at Independence, Missouri against Union troops, toward Lawrence to punish the anti-slavery zealots of many years standing. The inhabitants of Blue Jacket’s Crossing got wind of Quantrill’s sweep across northeastern Kansas and took precautions. Eliza Silverheels, wife of David Likens Blue Jacket, had a one year old boy at the time but took it upon herself to round up the children and some older protectors, loaded them with provisions and the very youngest and sent them into the hills south of the Wakarusa.

Defending Hearth and Home

Eliza was determined to guard her home, stayed there and lay in wait for the band of guerillas prancing toward Lawrence. This great-great grandmother of Robert Harry Withrow, Jr., was armed with a Pipe Tomahawk, most assuredly obtained from her father-in-law, the Rev. Charles Blue Jacket, by now an ordained Methodist Minister.

As the raiders crossed the Wakarusa at this Shawnee enclave, one, bent on looting Eliza’s home and perhaps intent on doing bodily harm to any inhabitants, tried to enter by a window. A young, enraged Shawnee Indian woman brandishing a wicked looking Tomahawk confronted him! With great effort, Eliza gave a mighty swing of her weapon, so mighty in fact, that when the axe met the raider, her arm broke. The haft of the Tomahawk broke at the same time. The Quantrillian was not so fortunate, as the blow to his head did him in for good!

The Confederates hit Lawrence at 5 AM, killing upwards of 200 men, looting, raping and setting fire to the entire town in an atrocity of the worst kind. Quantrill later was abandoned by most of his men and killed by Union troops in Kentucky. Lawrence began recovery immediately, regardless of the heartbreak foisted upon them by those monsters.

Pipe Tomahawks

The successful defender passed the family Pipe Tomahawk on to daughter Cindarella Blue Jacket who passed it to her daughter Cindarella Florence (Mills) Brown. Mrs. Brown’s daughter, Betty June, married Robert Harry Withrow and they parented Robert, Jr., who is the current keeper of the family heirloom. The Withrow family and 90 year old grand mom, Cindarella Florence, all attended the picnic and all contributed to this story.

European and Americans developed pipe Tomahawks for the Indian trade. Made with a smoking handle and a tobacco bowl insert at the head, they served, among other things, as “badges of prestige” given to Indian leaders at treaty signings and other occasions. Giver and receiver ornately decorated most. Modern artisans reproduce them and can be acquired at less than $50.00 to $500.00. Documented historical antiquities sell for upwards of $35,000!

Robert Withrow’s Pipe Tomahawk does not have the original smoking haft, thanks to Eliza’s mighty blow, however, its origin is documented by makers marks.

The maker was a Vickers metal smith in London, England in 1833. The head was cast in the Naylor, Vickers and Company’s Sheffield foundry.

Both sides of the head have the “Bleeding Heart” symbol, which is a common decoration on the antique ones.

The Masonic emblem was probably etched by gun and black smithy, John Blue Jacket, brother of the Rev. Charles Blue Jacket, who, along with many other Shawnees, was active in that organization.

The other side is scribed with a man in the moon, which is a bit unusual. The French Moon or crescent moon was, however, a common inscription, sometimes included when the head was cast.

Robert Withrow, Jr. is a teacher of survival skills across the country, both to private and military groups. It is fitting that he continues to preserve Shawnee history and heritages.

Top L-R: Robert Withrow, Robert Withrow, Jr ., Robert John Brown
Bottom, L-R: Betty Withrow, Cindarella Brown, Saundra Davis.

The elder Withrows live in Chetopa KS, Robert and Saundra in Centralia IL and Cindarella in Centralia.

Cindarella had the good fortune to remember her grandparents. She was born in 1911 and David Likens Blue Jacket passed away on April 4, 1919 and Eliza (Silverheels) Blue Jacket on June 12, 1929. Great historical events were told directly to their daughter Cindarella (Blue Jacket) Mills and to their grand daughter Cindarella Mills. Now, at 90 years of age, the latter is still able to give us insight to our Shawnee heritage. Thank you Cindarella Florence (Mills) Brown.

Gaylord Carlyle Hinshaw
1713 Baron Dr
Norman OK 73071
405-364-4584
bjexploration@swbell.net

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Houston Chronicle Article Features Gene by Gene Founders

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Roberta Estes

On Sunday, March 16^th, 2014, the Houston Chronicle features an article about Houston’s own entrepreneurs, Max Blankfeld and Bennett Greenspan who founded Gene by Gene, parent company of Family Tree DNA. Below, in a photo from the Chronicle, they hold samples of DNA trayed and ready to run in their Gene by Gene lab.

How many of you know that the pair began as a photographic film salesman and a watchmaker? This just proves what passion and innovation can and will do. Impossible is not a word either man knows.

Begun in 2000 as a retirement business, today Family Tree DNA has tested over 600,000 people directly and another half a million people through National Geographic through the Genographic and Geno 2.0 projects.

Their business model: Buy what you can afford. Don’t hire anyone you might have to lay off. Invest in automation and technology.

This seems to be working, as they are profitable and have provided a total of over 5 million discrete tests, between Family Tree DNA and the other Gene by Gene testing companies which provide medical and paternity testing.

The story of how the company began is legendary in DNA circles. Bennett Greenspan, a frustrated genealogist who had hit a dead end approached Dr. Michael Hammer at the University of Arizona. One might suggest that approached isn’t really the correct word. Hounded might be better. Bennett understood that his Y chromosome would match that of someone else who shared a paternal ancestor, and he wanted to find a lab to do that test. Michael Hammer finally simply acquiesced to get rid of Bennett, with the now infamous throw away line, “You know, someone should start a business doing this.” Never, never say that to an entrepreneur.

As reported in the Chronicle, reflectively, Dr. Hammer, an adviser to Gene by Gene and a regular speaker at the Family Tree DNA annual genetics conference, says today, “It was just the right time, right place. No one thought this was going to turn into anything.” Michael had obviously never met a man like Bennett.

I’ve known Bennett for 13 or 14 years now. It’s easy to see him as a successful businessman. But to know Bennett is to remember that he is truly a genealogist at heart, and everything he does with Family Tree DNA has genealogy as its heart and soul. If you walk into his office, you will be immediately reminded of this fact, and it’s hard to see Bennett as anything else other than one of us – just a kind-hearted genealogist seeking answers. In the photo below from the Chronicle, Bennett stands in front of his ancestor timeline which resides on his office wall. I wonder how many of these ancestors he has represented by DNA haplogroups today.

Thank you so much Bennett, for pushing that envelope, hounding Dr. Hammer and birthing genetic genealogy. Today, Max and Bennett are truly shepherding consumer genetics to the next step.

“We took science that was performed in a stuffy lab and brought it into the general public,” Greenspan said.

Thank Heavens they did. We are all the beneficiaries.

To read the rest of the article and for more photos, click here.

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23 Ways To Be a PITA

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Roberta Estes

No, not PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but PITA – Pain In The Arm….yes….arm…what are you thinking???

For most people, being a PITA doesn’t come naturally….so you might need some help knowing how to be one, or perhaps perfecting your PITA skills. Yes, in case you’re wondering….my tongue is firmly implanted in my cheek.

For genetic genealogists, there are special ways to be a PITA. Let me share some of these with you, just so you can fine tune and add to your PITA skills.

First and maybe the best ways to be a PITA, right off the bat.

1. Send e-mails with no subject or punctuation and an indecipherable topic, especially to someone you’ve never communicated with before. Here’s an example. You can just copy and paste this and send it to anyone you want to irritate or confuse.

“i would love to have any information you could give me…..thanks…..”

I so want to send this person something about penile implants. Is this wrong?

2. Send e-mails with no capitals or punctuations. This is always a wonderful way to impress people.

i just wanted to let you know that i have no idea how to type or how to use the period or comma keys or how to use the shift button i’m also using the fact that i’m using my phone as an excuse not to use punctuation however I can manage to type half of my life story for you to try to decipher so get out your special decoder ring

3. BETTER YET, SEND THE ENTIRE MESSAGE, INCLUDING SEVERAL PAGES OF YOUR ANCESTORS NAMES WITH NO DATES OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN ALL CAPITALS. THEN ASK FOR ANY INFORMATION THAT PERSON MIGHT HAVE ABOUT THOSE ANCESTORS. THIS IS ESPECIALLY USEFUL WHEN FIRST INTRODUCING YOURSELF AND LETS YOUR NEW CONTACT KNOW JUST HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE AND HOW MUCH FUN IT’S GOING TO BE TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU.

4. When a match asks you for genealogy information, just send them a link to your Ancestry.com tree. You can then sit back and laugh, knowing that they have no idea where to search in your 35,723 people for a common ancestor without looking for every surname they have. Plus, you have the added benefit that Ancestry will help you be a PITA by attaching your tree to their account like a giant kudzu vine that they can’t disentangle without knowing the secret handshake.

5. When a match asks you for genealogy information, never, ever send them something actually useful, like a pedigree chart with an index. Instead send them rambling e-mails with disconnected tidbits from both sides of your family, or that link to your Ancestry tree. Go to sleep then, knowing they will be up all night trying to figure this out.

6. Ask for, or better yet, demand free consulting. Select someone at random (not me please, I already receive more than my share – 17 yesterday alone) and send them a rambling stream-of-consciousness e-mail several pages long. At the end, tell them that you can’t afford to pay anything, but ask if they would tell you “what they think.” Before sending these to anyone in the genetic genealogy community, send several to other professionals, physicians or lawyers in your community and see how that works out?

Now, if someone is a project volunteer, that’s a bit different. They still don’t “owe” you free consulting, but they have set themselves forth as a volunteer resource. Still, try to be respectful of their time and be brief and concise in your requests.

In other words, the 21 page e-mail I received this week from Person Unknown demanding that I, as a project administrator, figure out how the “requester” was related to three people in the large Cumberland Gap project (also persons unknown) was, well, ahem, a bit over the top, to put it mildly. No, I confess, I did not read all 21 pages and the only reason I know it WAS 21 pages long is because I wanted to use it as a bad example. If that was your e-mail and I’ve just offended you, well, I’m sorry you’re offended, but that is not the way to win friends and influence people, nor to get your questions answers or your problems solved. It is, however, a great way to be a PITA. In fact, you win this week’s PITA award!

Here’s an example of a reasonable, concise question from my blog:

“Thanks for that explanation, I needed that information. Still would like to know what a “back mutation” is.”

And the answer:

“A back mutation is when a mutations happens, like from A to C, and then the reverse happens, a mutation from C to A. It initially looks like no mutation happened, unless you are aware of the intermediate step and that two mutations actually happened.”

There’s a big difference between a simple one or two line general DNA question and a multi-page personal epistle that the receiver has to read three times and make charts to even begin to unravel or understand, so, to be a PITA – always make yourself annoying and then you can wonder why you never receive replies from people. Then complain about not receiving replies.

Oh, and if you do write to a project administrator, never, ever tell them how or why you are writing specifically to them – it’s much more fun to leave them guessing. The sender of the 21 page epistle did not SAY it was the Cumberland Gap project – they left that for me to decipher.

7. Skim articles, don’t click on the links, and then ask questions of the author that would have been answered if you had clicked on the links they provided in the first place. They love receiving several of these e-mails every day!

Now, if you have DNA tested at any of the three major testing companies, there special ways for you to be a PITA with each one. Let me give you some fresh ideas.

At Family Tree DNA

8. Join a DNA project, any project. Then, when the administrator sends you a welcome message, introducing themselves and asking for genealogy information, send them a nasty note. Here’s one I received recently. You can just use it.

“Who the hell are you and why are you contacting me. Don’t ever contact me again.”

9. Family Tree DNA does you the very large favor of providing you with the e-mail addresses of your contacts instead of forcing you to go through a message system like at 23andMe and Ancestry.

When sending an e-mail to someone you match, be sure to never include the name of the person you match, or what kind of a test you took that matches. This will confuse them and make them really want to answer your inquiry. Many people manage test kits for several people and if you don’t put the name of the person you match in your e-mail, they will probably think it’s their kit, and then they will either spend a lot of time looking for matches and/or putting together genealogy info to send to you that is not useful. Then, after you receive the info, tell them you’re sorry, but the match was to a different person. That will truly endear you to them.

10. Don’t ever update your e-mail address…then complain online and loudly about how you never receive contacts from either your project administrator or your contacts/matches.

11. Don’t upload your GEDCOM file either, because someone might accidentally discover a common surname match or a common ancestor, and that would be just awful. It would also provide Family Tree DNA with the information to bold matching surnames on your autosomal match list for you, AND you’d get a $10 coupon…all of which would be just terrible.

12. Volunteer to be a project administrator, then do nothing at all. Leave your project entirely ungrouped, and refuse any assistance. In this case, you really don’t have to DO anything to be a PITA.

Better yet, create an off-site (non-FTDNA) website instead of using the one at Family Tree DNA and remove any information that could be useful to someone searching for their ancestral line. Here’s an example.

Don’t want to create your own website? Well, you can be almost as large a PITA by using the Family Tree DNA page and simply disabling anything useful, like, you know, most distant ancestor. That way people can see that there is a project and their line MIGHT be hidden in there, but they have no way to find out other than contacting you. Then, don’t answer, of course.

At 23andMe

13. Give yourself a really innovative “screen name,” like, say “Your cousin” or “3^rd cousin” or better yet, “My Mother.” That way when you send contact requests or sharing requests to people, it looks like it is coming from their mother…and if their mother has already passed over…well…let’s just say your contact request could be really startling. Worse yet, if that person matches two people who are equally as creative and both named themselves “My Mother,” how will they ever tell you apart??? And can you really have two mothers? OMG, I feel an identity crisis coming on…

14. Tell your contact that you are really interested in genealogy, provide a little bit of genealogy info, just a couple tidbits, maybe a juicy morsel, but then refuse to share your DNA.

15. Don’t provide any surname or location information. That might give someone a clue as to how you connect – so don’t ever do that.

16. I’d tell you to never upload your GEDCOM file, or create one, but you can actually be a larger PITA by uploading your file at 23andMe, because their file reader interface works so poorly that your match will be more frustrated trying to read the file than by not finding one at all. So you can be a PITA whether you upload your file or not. How’s that for good luck!

17. Don’t ever reply to contact or sharing requests. I know this one is already quite popular. About 90% of the people there already do this, so you’ll be in good company. If people at 23andMe aren’t interested in genealogy, there is an opt-out, but don’t opt out because you can be much more of a PITA by leaving yourself in the genealogy pool but never replying to anyone, especially close matches. Drives them crazy!

At Ancestry

18. First and foremost, never, ever reply to messages. I know that this one is very popular, because many of my DNA matches, including my closest match at Ancestry has implemented this scheme. She, I assume, due to the name (unless I’m related to the boy named Sue) and I share a common great-grandfather. In this case, I have photos she might really like to have. Too bad she is being a PITA.

19. Make your tree private, AND never reply to requests. This is the ultimate tease, because your match KNOWS the information is there, right there, hiding just out of reach, and can’t get to it.

20. Copy and paste several trees together because, after all, the names match and, hello, it wouldn’t BE on Ancestry if it wasn’t RIGHT. Right? You can then scare the bejesus out of someone when they discover that their non-Mormon grandfather had 7 wives and 35 kids….all while married to their grandmother. That’s always fun. Then, when they frantically contact you to ask about it, don’t even think about replying to that message.

21. Insist that because you and your Ancestry DNA match have a shakey leaf and a common ancestor in your tree, that you KNOW that’s your DNA match because Ancestry SAYS SO. When your match tries to explain that connection might be incorrect, may not be your DNA match and that there is no way to prove it, at least not without utilizing tools from either GedMatch or Family Tree DNA, don’t reply to them anymore. That will certainly solve the problem!

22. Send random people invitations to your Ancestry tree – and be positive your tree name has absolutely no identifying words in it. Like the one I received recently, for example, named “A Global Tree of Life.” Yep, I can tell you right away who sent that to me and why!!!

23. Oh yes, and in true PITA-esque fashion, never, ever say “Thank you,” to anyone, ever, for anything. Thank you is such an easy thing to say and it makes the person on the receiving end feel good about whatever it was they did for you – even if was “just” answering your question. So don’t slip up and do this! Otherwise, you’ll certainly be thrown out of the PITA Club!

Added PITAs

24. Instead of being grateful for free things, like blogs and webpages, and simply unsubscribing or ignoring them if you don’t like them, make nasty comments. That will certainly confirm your PITA membership and make the person providing the free content feel warm and fuzzy about the time they invest.

“How about I unsubscribe to your boring emails about your family I have been getting the last year. Ms PITA.”

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