New Year Task List

Things I should do without DNA:

• I want to make some kind of list of Thompsons who emigrate from England before 1835, but it may not be worth it because there are many of them and their point of entry into the U.S. may not be telling. Also even though my Y seems to be English, it's still most likely that they came from Ireland (even if they were only there for a generation).
• I should make a survey of 1840 Thompsons who have children around 5 years of age that live in Butler PA. If he was born there, then maybe he was still there in 1840.
• I should contact the Anderson Public Library and Madison County Historical society to see if I can get more information on the trial Levi was in when he disappeared. Obviously it was memorable because they were writing about it 20 years later. Maybe the trial he was in will shed clues on the 1880s.
• I should order death records for Rosa Blades and Henry Williamson and Ida Williamson Thompson (all died after 1900 so they have state records with the Indiana Health department). It would be to gather information on their mothers who are all unknowns at this point. Each record look up is about $8 I think, so this is well worth the stamps.
• I should order Levi Thompson's entire pension record from the national archive. I ordered the short version and have been disappointed that it didn't have a lot of information. It's a $75 gamble though so  it will come later.

Things I should do with DNA:

• Order a Y test for the Indiana Thompsons. It's an expense, and it's limited to male line only, but it would give me either a good match or more to think about and may help me make autosomal DNA decisions. If it's a good Y match then maybe I should test the same person for autosomal, if not, then maybe I should do more Y tests among known relatives to see if I can identify a break point.
• Order autosomal testing for a Seelye. I need some sort of guide post on who is a Seelye match and who is not. A living Uncle would be nice, cousins of any kind will do too. It would be some kind of wedge, even if it only identified 1/8th of my father's matches as Seelyes it would give me over a hundred matches to consider as Seelye candidates. At $99 it's about the cheapest test I can order with 23 and me.
• Order an autosomal test for a Finks relative. There are a few still alive who are cousins of my grandfather and could be valuable in identifying matches that are Finks related.  Again $99. If you're tallying things up you can see that my list of things to do without DNA is much less expensive than my to do list with DNA!
• Upgrade my Y DNA results to 67 markers (and see if my Elmer match is able to do the same). It will give us a much better idea of how closely we continue to match up. Right now that's $79..but it's on sale so the price will likely be higher later.