When Opting for Simplicity Causes Grief But Leads To New Discoveries

My story really isn't that uncommon than that of a lot of people in world. My last name comes from my paternal grandmother's husband and not my biological grandfather.  So the story goes that my paternal grandmother, Cordelia married and divorced her husband Willie Felton.  They had one child, my Uncle Clarence.  Shortly after my uncle was born, my grandmother divorced her husband and with child in tow, moved to the Hampton Roads area in Virginia.  She was employed by a Jewish family as domestic servant.  Later on she became an assistant to a leading orthopedic surgeon in the area.  She tended to patients and often wrapped their broken and fractured limbs in a cast.

Solving The Mystery of Jane Small

Nansemond County Virgina (now Suffolk, Virginia) had a considerable number of FPOC's (free people of color) prior to Emancipation.  Most African Americans who are able to trace their lineage to Nansemond County will more than likely find ancestors and relatives who were born free or were freed through manumission.  Such is the case with some of my paternal ancestors.

In an earlier blog post, I talked about untangling a mysterious web of information that involved my 3rd great grandmother Jane Small.  Click here to read the post.  

The Importance Of Using Your Arsenal

There are only a handful autosomal DNA testing companies in existence and each company brings something different to the table.  Testers that are actively engaged in genetic genealogy still hope for the holy grail of testing companies.  Often times we have to use a combination of resources to get results.  One classic example of where I had to use 23andme, AncestryDNA, Ancestry.com and Gedmatch to see just how different each company as it pertains to identifying genetic relationships among its testers.  Another peculiar thing that may occur is what I like to call phantom segments. These segments may appear in a child's profile and not the parent's profile. Situations such as these require further analysis that the DNA testing companies do not provide.  The following example demonstrates why you must use your arsenal for analysis:  

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

When I first started delving into genetic genealogy I really didn’t have a lot of expectations.  I simply thought it would be a cool way to tie the paper trail and research that I had amassed with my genes.  As I explored and conversed more and more with others in the genetic genealogy community, I noticed that there was a common theme that occurred in African American circles…resistance from European descent DNA matches.  The incidents that occurred seemed unreal, especially in this day and age.  Some of the exchanges were pretty funny.  But yet and still there is some resistance from European descent testers to collaborate or even corroborate information with African descent testers.  Back in July 2015, I fell victim to the same rejection as my cohorts.  The note was crafted in what many would consider to be code language.  The message was crafted as not to offer offense or as not to give the appearance that there was some form of bias toward me; but I knew better.   Like all things, I handled it like a champ and moved on.   I won’t lie, it still kind of stings when I think about it.

Sometimes Life Hits You Like A Ton of Brick Walls

For the past 6 years, two mysterious individuals have been hanging out on my family tree…no parents, no subsequent census records beyond 1920, not even a hint from another tree.  I felt bad for Ruben and William.  It appeared as if they were orphaned at a young age and now they are somehow orphaned within my family tree.  So let me back up and explain the plight of these 2 brothers and how their existence probably caused more confusion than answers.  It actually starts with another enigmatic relative in my tree, my 2^nd great grandmother Roselia Rogers (née Howell).   

Gedmatch GEDCOMS

Gedmatch is a genetic genealogist's delight.  You can find DNA matches that have uploaded their raw data from the Big 3 (FTDNA, 23andme and AncestryDNA) and create cool spreadsheets from Gedmatch's various analytics tools.  I highly suggest forking over the additional $10 to use the Tier 1 tools as you will eventually need them.

One of my new favorites, is the GEDCOM + DNA Matches tool.  Gedmatch allows users to upload a Gedcom (a text file that contains genealogical information about individuals that can be downloaded and uploaded to sites and/or software that accepts such files.) to be linked to your Gedmatch Kit number.  The GEDCOM + DNA Matches tool ( I will refer to the tool as GDM moving forward) takes a list of your matches that have uploaded a Gedcom file to the system and produces a lists of those individuals.  You can click onto the match's Gedcom file and look for matching relatives or clues for the MRCA (most recent common ancestor) between you and the match.  Now the caveat is that this tool will only display DNA matches that share at least 10 cM's of autosomal DNA, so this will not included matches that are considered a match within in a genealogical timeframe at 7cM's of autosomal DNA and this will not included matches in which you share X-DNA only (no autosomal).
If you've tested with the Big 3, I strongly suggest that you upload your raw data to Gedmatch along with your Gedcom.  In conjunction with segment triangulation, this tool will assist with opening doors and tearing those genealogical brick walls that so many of us experience.

Chasing Winborne

During my research, I find that my father's paternal line is very endogamous and homogamous.  I also see this in his maternal line, but it's more prevalent with his paternal lines than anything else.  I've always been proud that I really didn't have to search to far or search multiple states to trace my paternal ancestry back as far as I have.  As it turns out my father's family didn't do a lot of traveling even after the Civil War.  By the turn of the 20th century family members traveled to the northern states for better opportunities.

When Your 2nd Great Grandfather Steals Bacon

One of the great things about genealogy research is discovering the ridiculous and dumb things that your ancestors and relatives managed to do.  Or were they quite ridiculous for the times in which that ancestor lived?  Today, one would say stealing bacon is a pretty stupid thing to do.

Getting Started – Family Tree 101

So now that you have a reasonable expectation of what expect as you embark on your journey, let’s discuss the tools that you will need to actually construct a family and the information and components that make a family tree. I strongly suggest that you invest in family tree software that can create a GEDCOM file. Everyone is going to have an opinion on what you should use. Ultimately driving factors such as cost, functionality and ease of use will be your primary determining factors in selecting software.

We Share X-DNA But No Autosomal DNA...Now What?

Just like autosomal DNA, there's no rhyme or reason why certain family members receive specific segments or specific amounts and others don't.  X-DNA isn't exactly useless, but it kind of sort of is without autosomal DNA.  So what do you do when you have a match in which you share X-DNA but no autosomal DNA?

Tracing Your Family Roots: Expectation & Level Setting

So you want to dig deeper and discover more about your family and figure out what it all means in the grand scheme of things.  Great!  This means you'll need to construct a family tree.  You have to start somewhere and now is just as good as a time as any to get started.  This particular post will help you level set as well as give you a gauge as to what you should expect when embarking on a constructing a family tree.

So here are some things you need to know and some things that you need to consider before constructing a family tree and tracing your roots:

Where's Uncle Eddie

I came by my love of family history honestly.  My grandmother was kind of obsessed with relatives, particularly the dead ones.  I think she had seen so much death in her life, outliving my grandfather and half of her children, her siblings as well as other relatives and friends that death and dead people weren’t far from her mind.  As child I spent my summers with my maternal grandmother and my aunt Cleo and almost every week there was talk of this relative or that relative. 

How I Met My 4th Cousin

Modern technology is an awesome thing!  It's given people the ability to connect and form relationships with anyone on the globe. One of the most fascinating aspects about genealogy research is that although we are searching for the dead, we often come across the living.  It was March 2011 and I had been building my tree and doing a little research on Ancestry.com.  A hint appeared.  Normally I would just look at the little shaky green leaf and ignore the hint.  Most of the time the hints were regurgitated information or family trees that had family members who had the same or similar names as my family members.  Well that day in March I opted to click on the leaf for my 3rd great grandparents Charles and Cynthia Hendricks.

8 Years and I'm Just Now Blogging

Okay, so I really do not have an excuse or at least a valid excuse as to why I haven't blogged about my 8 year journey tracing my family roots. So this year I've decided was THE year to get up off of my ass and actually blog. How hard can it be, right? Well after mulling over all the various free platforms, I opted to use Blogger. Setting up this blog site wasn't exactly a piece a cake and it's always going to be under construction because I am my own worst enemy when it comes to design. So it is officially Spring 2015 (although I can't get a 70 degree day to stick) and I am officially a genealogy blogger! YAAAAAAAY! So my hope is to chronicle my journey moving forward and provide some insight of my past activities while making friends along the way.