Nancy’s Ramblings

Earlier in 2010, Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) introduced a new DNA test – the Family Finder test. I was contacted by FTDNA and invited to be one of their “pre-launch” testers for this new product. I went ahead and did it as it hold some exciting possibilities.

The Family Finder test is different from the mtDNA test which only looks at the lineage through the mother’s mother – the matrilineal line. It’s also different from the traditional Y-DNA test which can only be done by men and trace’s the patrilineal line. The family finder test uses the 22 autosomal chromosomes to look for relatives from the “middle branches” of your family tree. In other words, it will find relatives of your mother’s father’s family and your father’s mother’s family. It does not just look at the matrilineal and patrilineal lines. The Family Finder test claims they can find with a high degree of confidence, cousins up to the 5th cousin level. This effectively can trace the lineage back up to your great-great-grandparents. However, it could potentially connect cousins together who have common ancestors much farther back.

As an example, even though I was one of the first people to do this test through FTDNA and it is a relatively new test, I have had several matches already. One of those matches, FTDNA determined could be a cousin at the “4th cousin to distant cousin” level and did not show up in my “close and immediate” matches category. In other words, they thought we were cousins, but couldn’t be sure due to the number of generations removed from the common ancestor. This gentleman contacted me anyway. He asked if I would like to investigate with him how we were related. I agreed and we exchanged our GEDCOM files. I found a neat little program called GENMatcher which would compare every person in 2 different GEDCOM files and return a list of probable matches. This program produced a listing of 18 common ancestors between myself and this gentleman – 9 married couples. After examining these common ancestors through both of our GEDCOM files, I discovered that the closest he and I were related was at the 9th Cousin level, although we have many common ancestors. He and I never would have connected without this test.

According to the FTDNA website, the chances of finding 2nd cousins or closer is 99%, 3rd cousins 90%, 4th cousins is 50% and 5th cousins are about 10%. Anything beyond that is a “remote” chance – typically less than 2%. Probably the reason why this gentleman and I matched is because we had so many different ancestors in common – they all were not in one line. Some matched through my father’s side of the family, but many matched through my mother’s side of the family.

This test is still in its infancy, being released by FTDNA in April 2010. But, I would encourage others to have this test done. You never know how you might be related to someone else!

I recently became a member of the Network of Founding Families Genealogies due in part to my research into my family history. I had engaged the services of their genealogist, Richard Ripley, to find the parents of William Doonan. Thanks to the research that I had already done, Richard was able to find not just the parents of William, but his grandparents and great-grandparents in the Doonan line. We also discovered some siblings for William and their descendants. This also lead me to find the parents and ancestry for William’s third wife Rosie Smith.

This morning I received an email from another participant in the Family Finder DNA that is done through Family Tree DNA. Our match indicated a possible 4th cousin to distant cousin relationship – but was not flagged as a “close relationship”.

The gentleman emailed me and gave me a link to his family tree on rootsweb.com. In looking at his Ahnentafel report that I could generate on rootsweb, I discovered that we indeed were cousins! The connection is “way back” – Isaac Cummings born 1601 in England and died 1677 in Massachusetts. I descend from his son Isaac and my newly found cousin is a descendant of John – a brother of my Isaac Jr. I incorporated what I could of his file (to his father only) into my database for a quick calculation and it turns out that his father and I are 9th cousins 3x removed.

So, the Family Finder DNA test from Family Tree DNA worked at finding me a very distant cousin. So far, no luck finding the connection with the two people who should be 4th cousins. But the search is on!

Family Tree DNA has introduced a new DNA test – the Family Finder. I was invited to take the test as part of their “pre-launch” since I had already had my mtDNA test done with them. It was to help them establish a database for when they officially launched the product I’m sure.

My results came back and to my astonishment I had one “close” match immediately – someone who FTDNA believes to be a 4th cousin of mine. So, I contacted her to find out how we might be related. Just a couple of days later, I receive an email from someone else whose results just came in and we also show 4th cousin relationship. Amazing!

Now the hard work begins. The Family Finder test will find relatives not just along the paternal or maternal lines – but the in-between branches. The Y-DNA test is for males – and traces the paternal line only – so your father, his father, his father, etc. The mtDNA test is for the female line – tracing your mother, her mother, her mother, etc. The family finder would trace the father’s mother, the mother’s father, etc. The test is supposed to be good for matching within the last 5 generations.

On first contact with my new found “cousins”, I offered some surnames asking if the names sounded familiar – unfortunately neither of them had the same surnames. But, if this test could match anywhere in the last 5 generations – that’s a lot of people to go through – male and female.

Today, I had a brainstorm. I created a new subset of my genealogy database – one that contains people only from my last 6 generations and their descendants. I then took my RootsMagic Software and generated 2 distinct reports – one for places with events listed (this gives the name of the person in the place on a specific date) and the other one just for surnames. I have sent these 2 documents to my matches to see if that will trigger anything.

I was astonished at how big my reports were though for just 6 generations back. The place list turned out to be 93 pages long. The surname list was 15.5 pages long! There are over 2000 names in this 6 generation database. I have been able to identify 24 unique individuals who are my 3rd Great Grandparents. 3 unique individuals at the 2nd Great Grandparent level (I don’t know who their parents are yet). And I don’t have all descendants!  Here are some other interesting stats:

Now for the really long list – how frequently the surnames appear within the last 6 generations (from me – not the generation of my niece/nephew):

Quite astonishing huh?

I did a search on ancestry.com for my gr-gr-grandfather, John Rivers. I put in his birth and death information and found exactly 6 results – all in the family trees section. Out of those 6 results, 5 were public member trees and 1 was in OneWorld tree. I just thought I would check the public member trees to see if I could gather any new clues about John. What I found was both interesting and frankly rather disappointing.

Out of the 5 trees, 3 of them were the exact same tree – just submitted by 3 different people. These 3 had source citations – the exact same ones. Clearly, they were just copying each other. The other 2 were unsourced, but one of them was actually more useful and I am waiting to hear back from that person.

I point this out because the 3 trees that were carbon copies of each other have completely incorrect information in them that the other 2 trees had copied. The incorrect information is GLARINGLY incorrect which is what makes this so much worse. The 3 trees have him married twice and living in 2 different states in 1880.

According to these three trees, John was born 16 May 1823 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and died 21 November 1902 in Taymouth [Township], Saginaw [County], Michigan. This sort of coincides with information that I have (although I have his birth as April 1824).

The 3 trees have John married twice with his first wife as an Elizabeth and two children – Elizabeth Betsy and Susannah. The problem is this can NOT possibly have been the same John Rivers. The wife Elizabeth has a birth of 1765 and a death of 1810 (her death is 13 years BEFORE John Rivers was born – how could they have been married?).  The daughter Elizabeth Betsy Rivers was born 12 Jan 1780 in Virginia and died 1822 in Green Kentucky. The daughter Susannah was born 25 Dec 1783 in Virginia and died 1824 in Green Kentucky. Both daughters were born before their father was born???? Come on – it’s obvious that this family does not belong with the John Rivers born in 1823/4 in Montreal Canada.

These 3 family trees also give that John Rivers was living in 2 different states in 1880 – one in Albee [Township], Saginaw [County], Michigan (who is my gr-gr-grandfather) and one in Newport, Orleans, Vermont. The census for Vermont gives his age as 56 born Canada and lists only children who were born in Vermont with him – John age 24, Fredie age 18, Annie age 15, Melvina age 13 and Eugene age 10. The census for Michigan gives John as age 55 born Canada with wife Jane (Francis Jane) age 34, children Betsey age 16, John age 14, Thomas age 10, Gardner age 8, Birtie (Burt Eugene) age 4 and Daniel (James Daniel) age 1. All the children were born in Michigan. The ONLY things that the Vermont John Rivers shares with my gr-gr-grandfather is his name and birth year/general place. It is a coincidence that these two happen to have the same name and same birth year/general place. It is clear that these are 2 separate and different John Rivers. They are not the same person as these 3 trees suggest.

I really wish that people would just not copy information and tout it as accurate without examining the evidence. This is a perfect example of why you cannot count on the information in the family trees section of ancestry.com. It provides clues only – not truths. And in this case – not very good clues even.

Oh. The one tree that was more useful was a tree that was unsourced (which always makes me a little suspicious), but was one that did NOT just copy information from the others. Yes, the birth of John was copied, but it only listed one wife and one child (which is inaccurate). But it gave more information on that child – that Daniel was married twice (which I knew and the names matched) and had at least 2 kids – one by each wife. That was new – I didn’t know about the 2nd child. This person was clearly a descendant of the 2nd child by the 2nd wife and was completely new information to me. That is why I pursued contact with this person and am waiting for a response now. Am I taking it as gospel? No, not until I make contact with that contributor and verify the information.