Grandma’s Genes Year End Review – Networking

Grandma’s Genes is winding down 2016 with a mind towards the things that most influenced our work. Aside from the blueberry pies, presentations, research, Swab-A-Thons, field trips, conferences, phone calls, blog posts etc., there is one major take-away.

Networking.

Networks connect us all. We drive to our jobs on a network of roads. We communicate with each other over a network of airwaves or wires or through the vast web of the internet. We have a network of support – friends, family and the baker down the street. Even our neighbor next door is a thread in the Network of our Lives.

How we connect to our networks is just the facility of that connection. What matters is the content.
WikiTree

If I hadn’t joined WikiTree in December 2013, the mother load of genealogy networking and collaboration, and turned this many, many year passion into a mystery solving venture that pays for my blueberry pies? I would still be just answering family queries and would never have learned the joy of genealogical collaboration. Collaboration on such a stratospheric level. I posted once about how WikiTree has given me an education beyond my university degree in WikiTree’s G2G Forum. That was a year ago – I must be working toward my WikiTree doctorate now.

23andMe

As such, I have been able to solve a 90 year old mystery, fairly quickly (8 months to find her father), because I was able to use a Network to make a connection. 23 and me connected me with Jane and her family who in turn helped connect Betty Jean to half of her birth family.

Facebook

A woman posted in Gauldings page on Face Book about a common Ancestor. She found an obituary stating our common ancestor was a Captain in the revolution under Francis Marion. In all the research anyone has ever done on this man, he was not a soldier in the revolution. He served as a Petit Juror. He also might have been providing supplies to the troops – no one knows for sure. She used Facebook to find me and my very underwhelming answer to her question, “was John Gaulding a Captain under Francis Marion?” “No…”

A man who believed a long held family story that his gggrandfather was adopted into a family of African Canadian’s has been able to find interest in the real story. This story told mainly by his DNA and supported by the network of other distant cousins who had heard and believed or not believed the story. These distant cousins are all testing their DNA now and finding that they too have a connection to a very rich African ancestry. These distant cousins have also created their own network, on Facebook, so that others who are not in the know can find the truth and their heritage through them.

Mother Nature

If mother natures network of weather hadn’t dumped 20 + cm of snow on Ottawa in a matter of a few short hours last year, the idea that became Grandma’s Genes would not have formed into what it is today. Marc, my fellow shoveler on that day, has moved on to work in his day-job field full time. During the year, though, he helped an adoptee find his fathers family. Marc helped so many with Indigenous roots find the right identity for themselves and possibly take the true meaning of being connected to an indigenous ancestor with them into their new found knowledge of self. Marc also made long sought connections within his own genealogy through research and networking with others who have connections to his indigenous lines – to his Quaker lines – to his southern lines.

Moving Forward Through Networking

For me? I found a path which has been made stronger, straighter and more focused than I would have ever thought imaginable. Only with the help of my network of family, friends, partners, genealogists, geneticists, clients and all those ancestors long passed, has Grandma’s Genes grown into what it is today. What it will become tomorrow.

Thank you, every – single – point on our network – one of you.

 

Right Chromosome, Right Place, Wrong Side.

My cousin Christopher found me through 23andMe about a year ago.  He and his ancestors are from West Virginia.   Since meeting online we’ve been trying to figure exactly how we connect.  Since he matches my maternal uncle I know he’s a cousin through my maternal side. My Bayley line came from West Virginia.  They were two counties away from where Christopher’s ancestors were.  Christopher still lives in the area.

Right Chromosome, Right Place

Our match is on chromosome nine from 15M to 24M.  This is a 13.2 cM 2,142 SNP match.  This triangulates to my maternal Drybread side.  My Drybread uncle matches on an overlapping 133.6cM 19,427 SNP segment.    There are only a handful of GedMatch kits that match me in the section.  Of those only one GedMatch kit with traceable genealogy triangulates me, Christopher, and my Drybread uncle.   A Hatfield cousin that matches me on a 16.9cM 1,582 SNP segment. 

My ninth chromosome GedMatch Segment Search
My ninth chromosome GedMatch Segment Search

So when I saw seven new samples in GedMatch Segment Search I was excited!  I started to write Christopher a quick message.  Before I even finished typing I stopped.  I’d only looked at the matches for ten seconds.  Just in that short time I’d seen names like, Seamus, Liam, McGee, Donegal and Quinn.  They all sounded Irish. As in Ireland Irish.  That is a long way from West Virginia where Christopher and I think we connect.

 

Wrong Side

To check this match I ran a ten sample Multiple Kit Analysis at GedMatch. The first three kits I entered were me, my uncle, and Christopher. The next seven kits were all the new ones. There are several Visualization Options under GedMatch Multiple Kit Analysis.

Wrong Side - GedMatch Chromosome Browser
Wrong Side – GedMatch Chromosome Browser

 The first visualization option I chose was the Chromosome Browser. Immediately the table told me what I had expected.  All the new samples match me, but do not match Christopher or my uncle.  Since most DNA matches are half-identical you can match different sides in the same place on the same chromosome.  

 

Same ten samples - GedMatch Traceability
Same ten samples – GedMatch Traceability

Another useful visualization option for seeing if people on the same place of the same chromosome are related is Traceability.  The same ten samples run in Traceability generate a web-like image. Since there is a triangle between me, Christopher and my uncle it shows we are related. The lines show all the new samples are related to each other and me, but not Christopher or my uncle. The Traceability option also includes a table similar to Chromosome Browser with a generations estimate. Judging by the names of the new samples it seems highly likely they live in Ireland.

My father and all his known ancestors are from Southern England.  My mother’s ancestors all came to America before ‘the USA’ was a thing.  When I look at lists of cousins it’s easy for me to guess which side they are on.  This is because 97% of my maternal cousins seem to be in America.  And 97% of cousins on my fathers in the British Isles and Australia.

Back to Genealogy and Oral History

So my instinct to stop writing that first message to Christopher was good. We are still where we were before.  Two cousins seemingly connected through West Viriginia ancestors.   Like many from West Virginia we have  mixed race family history.  The lines that we suspect connect us start to brick wall as recently as the Civil War.  So far the best clue we have found is a shared oral history of Blackfoot ancestry on our maternal lines.

Today many people with Blackfoot oral history originating from the Virginia/Carolina Piedmont identify as Saponi.  Through genealogy research at Searching for Saponi Town and other forums I’ve been able to learn more about my lines.   Especially relevant now that I am also making DNA matches to people I have met through these forums.  For all the discoveries made through DNA it seems oral history is still one of the best tools we have.

Thankfully I come from a line of ancestors, many Quakers, (Friends) who recorded the genealogy that I work with.  As a genealogist today I stand on their shoulders.   The rise in popularity of DNA testing, shows how many people are searching for these answers.  Answers these ancestors took the time to record. People are searching for their roots. They are searching for who their ancestors are.  Because we all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors.