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.