I was able to make a confirmation to my Brown/Guider family via a DNA match to Lena Rosalind White Keith.
She is descended of Catherine Brown Robertson Purple, my mtDNA ancestor.
This has been a suspicion for a while ever since my cousin Jeanne Mendes told me that Catherine Brown's daughter was called Grandma Purple. Jeanne supposed this was due to her always wearing purple, but she wasn't sure.
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
MtDNA
I ordered a new DNA test yesterday for myself.
I am K2b1 haplogroup on my MtDNA. It is fairly rare. I have not tested it because it is unlikely to be of much use in genealogy. However, I am hoping, that because of its rarity, I might find a breakthrough for Mary Matilda Robinson and Catherine Brown. (They are both my mtDNA anscestors).
In looking at GEDMATCH I did discover a mtDNA match (they listed K as their Haplogroup) and was surprised to find, besides the Brown surname, Catherine, Arvella and Matilda all mentioned in the appropriate generation. These names of course all being part of the family line I am researching. The inconsistency is the Kentucky heritage, but that is not too troubling.
I have created a landing pad for researching other possible matches here at wikitree.
I am K2b1 haplogroup on my MtDNA. It is fairly rare. I have not tested it because it is unlikely to be of much use in genealogy. However, I am hoping, that because of its rarity, I might find a breakthrough for Mary Matilda Robinson and Catherine Brown. (They are both my mtDNA anscestors).
In looking at GEDMATCH I did discover a mtDNA match (they listed K as their Haplogroup) and was surprised to find, besides the Brown surname, Catherine, Arvella and Matilda all mentioned in the appropriate generation. These names of course all being part of the family line I am researching. The inconsistency is the Kentucky heritage, but that is not too troubling.
I have created a landing pad for researching other possible matches here at wikitree.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
MTDNA
So today I had a little moment of Zen.
23andAncestry provides you with an MTDNA haplogroup when you sign up with them to have your DNA done. The MTDNA is DNA that is passed down from mother to her children only. Like the YDNA haplogroup, this is useful for finding deep history.
I have been lucky enough to have been blessed with a pretty rare MTDNA Haplogroup.
This help me because my GGG Grandmother, Mary Matilda Robertson is a member of the Haplogroup as well. And so was her mother, and her maternal grandmother.
This means I can go to 23andMe or GEDMATCH and pull out all my matches that are also this rare haplogroup.
Then I can contact all of the people and see if anyone can give me any insight - this will mean they will have had to have done some serious maternal research.
However, if nothing turns up I am not done. I will then cross compare their matches with people that match me. Those crossover matches may not have direct maternal lines to our MCRA, but they still could be related to us both, even if I do not know their MTDNA haplogroup. That is because once there is a father son relationship, the MTDNA haplogroup is lost. For example, Mary Matilda, had a daughter, Arvilla Fenters. She was the same haplo group. She married James Davis. That means her son, Charles Davis was her haplogroup. However, none of Charles children will inherit that Haplogroup, they will instead get his wife's MTDNA.
Making generational charts of all of these matches might point me in the direction of getting rid of this brick wall.
23andAncestry provides you with an MTDNA haplogroup when you sign up with them to have your DNA done. The MTDNA is DNA that is passed down from mother to her children only. Like the YDNA haplogroup, this is useful for finding deep history.
I have been lucky enough to have been blessed with a pretty rare MTDNA Haplogroup.
This help me because my GGG Grandmother, Mary Matilda Robertson is a member of the Haplogroup as well. And so was her mother, and her maternal grandmother.
This means I can go to 23andMe or GEDMATCH and pull out all my matches that are also this rare haplogroup.
Then I can contact all of the people and see if anyone can give me any insight - this will mean they will have had to have done some serious maternal research.
However, if nothing turns up I am not done. I will then cross compare their matches with people that match me. Those crossover matches may not have direct maternal lines to our MCRA, but they still could be related to us both, even if I do not know their MTDNA haplogroup. That is because once there is a father son relationship, the MTDNA haplogroup is lost. For example, Mary Matilda, had a daughter, Arvilla Fenters. She was the same haplo group. She married James Davis. That means her son, Charles Davis was her haplogroup. However, none of Charles children will inherit that Haplogroup, they will instead get his wife's MTDNA.
Making generational charts of all of these matches might point me in the direction of getting rid of this brick wall.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
More 23anMe nonsense. Again, I cannot stress how terrible their site is.
Just how backward is 23andMe? I had an aunt tested there but unfortunately her test did not give any results. So now I get a banner across my page every time I log in saying... the test failed, request a refund. I did that and received the refund a couple months ago. But the banner persists. I asked 23andme to remove the bad test from my account.. This is the response:
Becca, Sep 10, 8:20 AM:
Hello Lance,
Thank you for your reply. This ticket has been escalated to me for review. Our records show the sample for ******* is registered to your account under the email address *****. Unfortunately, we are unable to remove her profile from your account without closing the entire account. We apologize for any inconvenience.
You have two options for how to proceed. Your first option is to simply ignore the profile for *********.
If you would prefer not to see ***** profile, your second option is to transfer ****** profile to a different 23andMe account. Please note this would require that you set up a new 23andMe account. After completing the profile transfer, if you email us from the email address associated with the new account we can then close the whole account. If you would like to proceed with this option please refer to the instructions included in our previous message for how to complete a profile transfer.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed.
Best Regards,
Becca
The 23andMe Team
Becca, Sep 10, 8:20 AM:
Hello Lance,
Thank you for your reply. This ticket has been escalated to me for review. Our records show the sample for ******* is registered to your account under the email address *****. Unfortunately, we are unable to remove her profile from your account without closing the entire account. We apologize for any inconvenience.
You have two options for how to proceed. Your first option is to simply ignore the profile for *********.
If you would prefer not to see ***** profile, your second option is to transfer ****** profile to a different 23andMe account. Please note this would require that you set up a new 23andMe account. After completing the profile transfer, if you email us from the email address associated with the new account we can then close the whole account. If you would like to proceed with this option please refer to the instructions included in our previous message for how to complete a profile transfer.
Please let us know how you would like to proceed.
Best Regards,
Becca
The 23andMe Team
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
DNA Ancestry VS. 23andMe
YIPPEE.. So I got my results back for my aunt. She tried 23andMe two times. I decided to try her one more time with Ancestry. Bingo, before 23andME would have even acknowledged they had her sample, I had the results.
This is very exciting. Now why did 23andME find it so hard to get results? One difference I note is that Ancestry uses a "stabilizer". A fluid that is added to the test results. Perhaps that is why. Also, since Ancestry seems to get to analyze the sample more quickly, it seems that 23andME might also want to think about adding a stabilizer.
Another idea, perhaps 23andME is more stringent with their results. I ran into a small hiccup uploading the sample to GEDMATCH. I needed to analyze the DNA results file from Ancestry and found that there is an unusually high number of "no calls" in the sample. (roughly 2.1% compared to my sample which was 1.8%) Not really sure what all that means, perhaps the DNA was not intact and the information could not be obtained, but the result, according to GEDMATCH is that I will have an unusually high number of false matches in the new test. Well, that really is not a problem to me. If valid matches are confirmed by a few of the known ancestors, I am fine with her just being the added hint to solve a mystery.
This is very exciting. Now why did 23andME find it so hard to get results? One difference I note is that Ancestry uses a "stabilizer". A fluid that is added to the test results. Perhaps that is why. Also, since Ancestry seems to get to analyze the sample more quickly, it seems that 23andME might also want to think about adding a stabilizer.
Another idea, perhaps 23andME is more stringent with their results. I ran into a small hiccup uploading the sample to GEDMATCH. I needed to analyze the DNA results file from Ancestry and found that there is an unusually high number of "no calls" in the sample. (roughly 2.1% compared to my sample which was 1.8%) Not really sure what all that means, perhaps the DNA was not intact and the information could not be obtained, but the result, according to GEDMATCH is that I will have an unusually high number of false matches in the new test. Well, that really is not a problem to me. If valid matches are confirmed by a few of the known ancestors, I am fine with her just being the added hint to solve a mystery.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
REGLI CHRISTEN COPPINI and now REIDY
So, the test results for Don Coppini came back. He is a neighbor to my maternal 1C1R in Ferndale.
Through researching my DNA matches and a lot of GOOGLEing, I determined we may be related because we both shared CHRISTEN/REGLI names. He, in his actual tree, and I, because my paternal great grandmother's name was probably REGLI and CHRISTEN came up as a high probability surname on my sister's 23andME DNA test.
Well Don's test did not match anyone. Not me or my brother or sister or cousin. I thought at first it was a waste of money. However, using AncestryDNA helper for Chrome, I was able to cross tabulate a few matches. The first one that came up was someone that just had JOSEPH ANTONE REGLI in their tree. I was familiar with that name, so that was a plus. However, the next one was more exciting in that he was a close relative of Don Coppini that matched me and one sister.
This is a pretty good indication that we are related to DON just do not share any segments with him. This is more common the further back in the tree we go. At this point we are showing approximately a fourth cousin relationship.
Through researching my DNA matches and a lot of GOOGLEing, I determined we may be related because we both shared CHRISTEN/REGLI names. He, in his actual tree, and I, because my paternal great grandmother's name was probably REGLI and CHRISTEN came up as a high probability surname on my sister's 23andME DNA test.
Well Don's test did not match anyone. Not me or my brother or sister or cousin. I thought at first it was a waste of money. However, using AncestryDNA helper for Chrome, I was able to cross tabulate a few matches. The first one that came up was someone that just had JOSEPH ANTONE REGLI in their tree. I was familiar with that name, so that was a plus. However, the next one was more exciting in that he was a close relative of Don Coppini that matched me and one sister.
This is a pretty good indication that we are related to DON just do not share any segments with him. This is more common the further back in the tree we go. At this point we are showing approximately a fourth cousin relationship.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Martinucci DNA saga
So some excellent results from my brother Todd's DNA test. He matches someone with ancestors from a town called Villa De Chiavenna, Italy. I had already identified this town as a possible origination point for my Martin(ucci) surname.
I also revisited an older site http://photohistory-sussex.co.uk/BTN-Lombardi.htm which points to a photographer named Eugenio Lombardi Martinucci (1849-1920). He is also for Chiavenna and bears a striking resemblance to my father.
I contacted the owner of that site, and he said he would try and reach the Martinucci descendants for me.
I was able to contact the Maraffio from Chiavenna. He did not know much about genealogy, but his sister in law is a Mormon and is supposedly working on the family tree. I am also trying to conatct her.
I also tried running a search on my matches for people born in Chiavenna, and I was able to pull up one family from there Panzeri. This match was also a match to my cousin, who is descended from my Italian Grandfather. This is a good lead.
It sounds like a trip to Chiavenna is in order in the coming years. It is nearby to Andermatt and my mother's grandmother's home so I can do research there as well on the REGLI family.
This adds more surnames to my search including PANZERI, GINI, NYE, DOLLIMORE, and TAYLOR, MARAFFIO,
I have been busy entering this information into familysearch and wikitree.org and I am actually going to write a little about those sites and findagrave right now.
I also revisited an older site http://photohistory-sussex.co.uk/BTN-Lombardi.htm which points to a photographer named Eugenio Lombardi Martinucci (1849-1920). He is also for Chiavenna and bears a striking resemblance to my father.
I contacted the owner of that site, and he said he would try and reach the Martinucci descendants for me.
I was able to contact the Maraffio from Chiavenna. He did not know much about genealogy, but his sister in law is a Mormon and is supposedly working on the family tree. I am also trying to conatct her.
I also tried running a search on my matches for people born in Chiavenna, and I was able to pull up one family from there Panzeri. This match was also a match to my cousin, who is descended from my Italian Grandfather. This is a good lead.
It sounds like a trip to Chiavenna is in order in the coming years. It is nearby to Andermatt and my mother's grandmother's home so I can do research there as well on the REGLI family.
This adds more surnames to my search including PANZERI, GINI, NYE, DOLLIMORE, and TAYLOR, MARAFFIO,
I have been busy entering this information into familysearch and wikitree.org and I am actually going to write a little about those sites and findagrave right now.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
More on the new Ancestry DNA feature
So I am working on Jennie Mae's tree. Ancestry suggests she is related to Nancy Louisa Brock (1842-1896).
Now Jennie's tree is pretty clean to 1900 so it should be easy to spot this relationship. Originally I thought the link would have to be through one of Nancy's kids if she descended from her. However, all of Nancy's children were all born, lived and died in the same area in which they were born, Georgia.
By 1900 Jennie only had family in Oregon and Minnesota. There is no crossover.
Now chatting with a Brock researcher, it appears there is another way to interpret the Ancestry hint.
Nancy Louisa Brock and a child out of wedlock. His name was James Leander Brock. His father is unknown and not really included in Ancestry's database.
My new theory is perhaps Jennie's ancestors, the Ray's who lived in Kentucky, might have been related to the man that Nancy had a child with. If we cut out all the generations in between, Jennie would be half cousins to this James Leander Brock. Since Ancestry would pick up on this genetic match, and the only person in the database which James Leander Brock was related to was his mother, it would show that Jennie was likely related to her as well.
This is an exciting new way of looking at things and may provide more satisfactory results with my Lee Miller family.
Now Jennie's tree is pretty clean to 1900 so it should be easy to spot this relationship. Originally I thought the link would have to be through one of Nancy's kids if she descended from her. However, all of Nancy's children were all born, lived and died in the same area in which they were born, Georgia.
By 1900 Jennie only had family in Oregon and Minnesota. There is no crossover.
Now chatting with a Brock researcher, it appears there is another way to interpret the Ancestry hint.
Nancy Louisa Brock and a child out of wedlock. His name was James Leander Brock. His father is unknown and not really included in Ancestry's database.
My new theory is perhaps Jennie's ancestors, the Ray's who lived in Kentucky, might have been related to the man that Nancy had a child with. If we cut out all the generations in between, Jennie would be half cousins to this James Leander Brock. Since Ancestry would pick up on this genetic match, and the only person in the database which James Leander Brock was related to was his mother, it would show that Jennie was likely related to her as well.
This is an exciting new way of looking at things and may provide more satisfactory results with my Lee Miller family.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
DNA problems
Ancestry DNA gave me some nice answers. The proved I was related to my sister and my cousin. They also proved that I had a first-step-cousin I had only discovered this last year. I will write about the whole discover later. A few other relationships were confirmed, and then there were the questions.
In my last blog, I talked about my great grandfather Sherman Andrew Miller and the possibility that he had a completely unrelated dad that I never had researched or that maybe his dad was actually someone I thought was his brother.
In this blog I want to discuss another conundrum.
What to do when you order DNA tests for your relations? I had thought this was going to be straight up. I would test certain relatives who were related to me through certain ancestors which would lead me further back in time by cross matching people who matches us both.
Simple on paper, but in reality there are some real problems with it. These are things you probably will want to discuss with people BEFORE you have them tested.
The biggest problem that turned up was not being related at all. That can only mean the family tree we had drawn for ourselves was incorrect and there was either infidelity, and early pregnancy or adoption involved. How do you tell your relative, hey sorry, I think you were adopted? Also, one of my relatives knew there was a problem with her tree, and didn't tell me until after I had ordered the test. Not a huge deal, but if I had been testing her for only one specific thing, or if she had been adopted rather than just a product of and early pregnancy by another man, I might spent money where it didn't do much good.
Simple on paper, but in reality there are some real problems with it. These are things you probably will want to discuss with people BEFORE you have them tested.
The biggest problem that turned up was not being related at all. That can only mean the family tree we had drawn for ourselves was incorrect and there was either infidelity, and early pregnancy or adoption involved. How do you tell your relative, hey sorry, I think you were adopted? Also, one of my relatives knew there was a problem with her tree, and didn't tell me until after I had ordered the test. Not a huge deal, but if I had been testing her for only one specific thing, or if she had been adopted rather than just a product of and early pregnancy by another man, I might spent money where it didn't do much good.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
A confusing DNA story
AncestryDNA has a new feature that links your DNA results to family that are not included in your tree.
This is all well and good for finding your way through brickwalls, but when it affects a portion of your tree you thought you had all mapped out, it is quite upsetting.
This happened to me in the case of Burrell Russell Lee (1804-1877) and Louhaney Paralee Swafford (1800-1863). AncestryDNA states there is a very good chance I am related to this couple.
First I thought I had a great breakthrough for one of my brick walls. Mary Matilda Robertson (1845-1901) or James Jesse Guider (1849-1909), both of which I have not been able to trace back to their parents. However, this was quickly dashed when I realized two things. The birth dates did not make sense and the location was off.
My first task was to find out about the Lee family. I saw that they lived in Tennessee where my Miller family was. As I looked closer I saw that they did not have any unaccounted for kids, with birth dates that would link up. I looked at my Miller family and saw that Sherman Andrew Miller was born in 1865.
Digging a little deeper I noticed that the Lee family was not living in Tennessee for the period when Sherman would have been conceived, except for one son, Anderson Lee (1837-1905). He was actually living in Tennessee, and was a traveling preacher. There is a story posted about him online, going from community to community staying at people's homes. Hmm. Was John Manson Miller away at war during 1864? I know that he was a G.A.R. solider from the same article regarding his 90th birthday. Perhaps Anderson Lee did a visit to my great grandmother Malissa Ann Stiles (1832-1885).
This seems to make a lot of sense on the surface. Especially considering that Anderson Lee was also know as "Andrew Lee", Andrew being Sherman's middle name.
OK. So that was all a pretty good bit of detective work I thought until I did one more search. I went page by page through the 1860 Census of Bradley County to see if my family was living there at the time. I have never been able to find them on the census before, and it was suggested to me I might find them there. So indeed, there they were, classified as McMiller. OK Case made.
But then in cleaning up everything I thought I would go to familysearch.org and make sure that I linked the McMiller census record to my family. As I was doing that, I noticed the oldest son, William had already been linked to someone else, that, get this, had married a Swafford and had a child named Olena Miller (1879-1967). Olena Miller married Henry S. Randolph.
What could this mean? Well to save the name of Malissa Stiles, it could mean her son, William got a girl pregnant when he was 13 years old and had Sherman Miller in addition to later marrying the Swafford and having Olena. If it is the Swafford previously mentioned, no first name was given, but a birth year of 1856 or 1857 was reported, it would make her about 9 or 10.
Then, Malissa and John would have raised Sherman as their own. This would indeed make the 90th birthday story accurate in the number of children John and Malissa had.
All of this is curious. I hope to find out the answer to it someday. I am hoping to find some of Olena's descendants.
This is all well and good for finding your way through brickwalls, but when it affects a portion of your tree you thought you had all mapped out, it is quite upsetting.
This happened to me in the case of Burrell Russell Lee (1804-1877) and Louhaney Paralee Swafford (1800-1863). AncestryDNA states there is a very good chance I am related to this couple.
First I thought I had a great breakthrough for one of my brick walls. Mary Matilda Robertson (1845-1901) or James Jesse Guider (1849-1909), both of which I have not been able to trace back to their parents. However, this was quickly dashed when I realized two things. The birth dates did not make sense and the location was off.
My first task was to find out about the Lee family. I saw that they lived in Tennessee where my Miller family was. As I looked closer I saw that they did not have any unaccounted for kids, with birth dates that would link up. I looked at my Miller family and saw that Sherman Andrew Miller was born in 1865.
Digging a little deeper I noticed that the Lee family was not living in Tennessee for the period when Sherman would have been conceived, except for one son, Anderson Lee (1837-1905). He was actually living in Tennessee, and was a traveling preacher. There is a story posted about him online, going from community to community staying at people's homes. Hmm. Was John Manson Miller away at war during 1864? I know that he was a G.A.R. solider from the same article regarding his 90th birthday. Perhaps Anderson Lee did a visit to my great grandmother Malissa Ann Stiles (1832-1885).
This seems to make a lot of sense on the surface. Especially considering that Anderson Lee was also know as "Andrew Lee", Andrew being Sherman's middle name.
OK. So that was all a pretty good bit of detective work I thought until I did one more search. I went page by page through the 1860 Census of Bradley County to see if my family was living there at the time. I have never been able to find them on the census before, and it was suggested to me I might find them there. So indeed, there they were, classified as McMiller. OK Case made.
But then in cleaning up everything I thought I would go to familysearch.org and make sure that I linked the McMiller census record to my family. As I was doing that, I noticed the oldest son, William had already been linked to someone else, that, get this, had married a Swafford and had a child named Olena Miller (1879-1967). Olena Miller married Henry S. Randolph.
What could this mean? Well to save the name of Malissa Stiles, it could mean her son, William got a girl pregnant when he was 13 years old and had Sherman Miller in addition to later marrying the Swafford and having Olena. If it is the Swafford previously mentioned, no first name was given, but a birth year of 1856 or 1857 was reported, it would make her about 9 or 10.
Then, Malissa and John would have raised Sherman as their own. This would indeed make the 90th birthday story accurate in the number of children John and Malissa had.
All of this is curious. I hope to find out the answer to it someday. I am hoping to find some of Olena's descendants.
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