As a quick recap. My Y DNA testing at Ancestry.com showed that I have an odd marker at DYS458. Where most people have a solid number like 16, I have decimal number like 16.2 The way the .2 happens was explained to me this way: "You have 16 repeats of 458 this DYS458=N.2 is the result of an AA-insert within the repeat section." I was also told that matches would continue to have the microallele even though they may have a different whole number. So a match who was 16.2 could mutate up to 17.2 and the microallele would remain.
At SMGF (who runs tests for Ancestry.com) the percentage of men with DYS458 of 16.2 is 0.150%. 17.2 is at 0.531%. So we're talking about less than one percent of men in their database.
You can see some of my past checking into the 458.2 in a previous post.
Since that posting, as you might see in my comments, I've transferred to FTDNA and had SNP testing done there. It has been interesting to see that many of my 16.2 matches have family over at FTDNA who match me and still more interesting to see that a few of those have also tested as Z18 positive like me. I'm particularly excited to see familiar names like the Elmers, Knowltons and Damerons who have been placed in the Cumberland cluster of the Z18 project along with me.
So what is this new hope?
At the DNA Newbies forum I saw someone answer a post by using their microallele discussion with FTDNA as an example. They have a microallele that helps define their cluster in their surname project. That would certainly be true for me if my surname was not so common and I had any matches at all among Thompsons. I don't have that, but I do have a haplogroup and a cluster within that.
What was so hopeful about it was that they routinely communicate with FTDNA to check to see if new members have this same microallele. It's enough of a part of the process that they use it to determine matches. So FTDNA doesn't display microalleles, but it knows about them and can confirm them.
To test out this theory, I took a ringer (my Elmer match) who has a known 16.2 carrying relative at SMGF and asked him to see if he could ask FTDNA specifically if he had a value of 16.2 at DYS458. He agreed and he did ask. Within a few days they answered back that they were able to confirm it.
Success!
So now I've asked a few more ringers who have family members tested at both places and a few people who are matches at FTDNA that I don't know about, to see how they turn out. My end goal would be to see if this is something common to Z18 as a whole or if it's something common to the Cumberland cluster or if it could be used to further break the cluster down into smaller groups of individuals that share that same microallele.
No matter what it is great to get a confirmation for this microallele on that Elmer match because we are so close.
Sorting out the Puzzle Pieces in My Big Messy Family
Monday, October 22, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Set in Stone
Following up on the stonemasons that live around Levi in the 1860 Census, I found John B. Hollingsworth from Butler Pennsylvania living with a Kelso Family. He is listed under a "Smith" Kelso who is also a stonecutter. Smith Kelso actually is Smith Kelsay and is part of the Kelsay family that moves to Indiana from Ohio. I believe Smith may be Robert's much younger brother...or his son. In which case he would have been born before his parents were married.
Robert Kelsay (born around 1809 in VA) the head of the family is listed as a farmer in 1860. In 1850 when there is no Levi Thompson or John B Hollingsworth in Van Buren Indiana, Robert Kelsay is listed as a stonemason. His wife Hannah is from Pennsylvania. In family trees is shows that they were married in 1843 in Paris Ohio and gives Hannah's name as Hannah Minyoung.
Robert Kelsay has a son named Albert Kelsay. Alberts always get my attention. I attempted to find a connection for Hannah Minyoung in Pennsylvania, but couldn't find any.
At a minimum, I think this is the source for Levi's tombstone manufacturing after the civil war. It would seem to me that he and John B. Hollingsworth picked up the skill after they moved to Indiana and lived with or near Robert Kelsay and family.
Whether there is some further connection between these people, I don't know.
I was able to follow up on the Hollingsworths a bit more. John B. Hollingsworth's mother was Lucinda Burgess, in family trees she is shown as being born in Pittsburgh. John B's father William Hollingsworth born 1811 is shown in family trees to be from Chester county PA. They have a daughter Isabella who was born in 1848 and a son Gilmore who was born in 1838.
Of course, as I've probably mentioned before when looking at the John Thompson and Jane Stevenson, the Bayer family and other Thompsons all from North Butler...the name Isabella seems to repeat. The Thompsons, Bayers and Hollingsworths all seem to have Isabellas and sometimes multiple generations of them.
It's too bad Levi didn't have an Isabella in his mix of children. That would be an awesome pattern match.
Robert Kelsay (born around 1809 in VA) the head of the family is listed as a farmer in 1860. In 1850 when there is no Levi Thompson or John B Hollingsworth in Van Buren Indiana, Robert Kelsay is listed as a stonemason. His wife Hannah is from Pennsylvania. In family trees is shows that they were married in 1843 in Paris Ohio and gives Hannah's name as Hannah Minyoung.
Robert Kelsay has a son named Albert Kelsay. Alberts always get my attention. I attempted to find a connection for Hannah Minyoung in Pennsylvania, but couldn't find any.
At a minimum, I think this is the source for Levi's tombstone manufacturing after the civil war. It would seem to me that he and John B. Hollingsworth picked up the skill after they moved to Indiana and lived with or near Robert Kelsay and family.
Whether there is some further connection between these people, I don't know.
I was able to follow up on the Hollingsworths a bit more. John B. Hollingsworth's mother was Lucinda Burgess, in family trees she is shown as being born in Pittsburgh. John B's father William Hollingsworth born 1811 is shown in family trees to be from Chester county PA. They have a daughter Isabella who was born in 1848 and a son Gilmore who was born in 1838.
Of course, as I've probably mentioned before when looking at the John Thompson and Jane Stevenson, the Bayer family and other Thompsons all from North Butler...the name Isabella seems to repeat. The Thompsons, Bayers and Hollingsworths all seem to have Isabellas and sometimes multiple generations of them.
It's too bad Levi didn't have an Isabella in his mix of children. That would be an awesome pattern match.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Gathering Elmers
In trying to solidify who in the world our Thompsons are most like. It's helpful to have a nice group of very close matches...which I think I'm putting together.
Although I have two Elmers that I match very well with, only one had a tree that would reach far enough back to give us a rough European origin.
Recently though, my Elmer contact found the tree of an Elmore from the Elmore DNA project that also reaches back to the same Edward Elmer who is a founder of Hartford Connecticut. Of course then, the thing to look for is a common Y DNA. Here is how they line up:
Presumed Levi DNA (mine alone for now) is at the bottom. The top is my match at FTDNA the second in line is the new Elmore and the third is my match from SMGF who shares a family tree paper trail ancestor with number 2.
Unfortunately only the SMGF and my FTDNA match have more than 12 markers to look at. Even so, though I think you can see the pattern. Elmer 1 and 3 do have further markers that only mismatch by 1. Any STR can change at any time, so number 2 appears to have a difference on DYS393, but the rest of the markers are dead on. I've seen this level of difference among Damerons that are obviously related. I do wish there were more markers to compare, but you get what you get, and this is a great find.
The markers number 2 shows are indicative of our Z14 cluster at a really basic level, which is great, and those three 11s in a row is one of the hallmarks I look for in all my matches. It's a bikini haplotype though (12 marker matches are much more common than 25 or 37) and they can be misleading, still the pattern seems clear and worth further inspection.
At the very least, I have three Elmers that appear to be related, two of whom have intersecting family trees and a common patriarch. To me, that would be evidence that Number 1 Elmer is definitely from the English Elmer line that 2 and 3 are from. With their further matches also being southeast English (as are ours), I think these Elmers are pretty well sorted out, barring some amazing new information coming from Switzerland or Germany.
The thing for the Elmers to do now would be to recruit other known Elmers from this family and have them Y tested as well.
The same plan I need to follow with my Thompsons.
Although I have two Elmers that I match very well with, only one had a tree that would reach far enough back to give us a rough European origin.
Recently though, my Elmer contact found the tree of an Elmore from the Elmore DNA project that also reaches back to the same Edward Elmer who is a founder of Hartford Connecticut. Of course then, the thing to look for is a common Y DNA. Here is how they line up:
Presumed Levi DNA (mine alone for now) is at the bottom. The top is my match at FTDNA the second in line is the new Elmore and the third is my match from SMGF who shares a family tree paper trail ancestor with number 2.
Unfortunately only the SMGF and my FTDNA match have more than 12 markers to look at. Even so, though I think you can see the pattern. Elmer 1 and 3 do have further markers that only mismatch by 1. Any STR can change at any time, so number 2 appears to have a difference on DYS393, but the rest of the markers are dead on. I've seen this level of difference among Damerons that are obviously related. I do wish there were more markers to compare, but you get what you get, and this is a great find.
The markers number 2 shows are indicative of our Z14 cluster at a really basic level, which is great, and those three 11s in a row is one of the hallmarks I look for in all my matches. It's a bikini haplotype though (12 marker matches are much more common than 25 or 37) and they can be misleading, still the pattern seems clear and worth further inspection.
At the very least, I have three Elmers that appear to be related, two of whom have intersecting family trees and a common patriarch. To me, that would be evidence that Number 1 Elmer is definitely from the English Elmer line that 2 and 3 are from. With their further matches also being southeast English (as are ours), I think these Elmers are pretty well sorted out, barring some amazing new information coming from Switzerland or Germany.
The thing for the Elmers to do now would be to recruit other known Elmers from this family and have them Y tested as well.
The same plan I need to follow with my Thompsons.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Anthropology Closing the Gap on Genealogy
I was looking at my most recent map of people who are roughly like me at FTDNA who are also U106. It looks much like my other maps but just a little more focused. Having those extra four STRs from FTDNA really culled my matches down quite a bit. Still it's broadly German and English. Many of these people are also members of R1b-Z18 and a few are part of R1b-Z14 which are both under U106.
These are again people who match my "pattern" roughly, there are some markers off but overall they seem like me. I've color coded them so that Blue are just those with my rough pattern, Red are matches from FTDNA at 25 markers and the single Yellow is my match at 37 STRs or markers..I use those interchangeably.
When I talk about people matching my pattern, it means the pattern of short tandem repeats in my YDNA. Here is an example of several people who are in R1b-Z14:
Notice number two through four from the top down. They seem to have several markers or STRs in common, while the top one has many in common but not as many as the the three below seem to share with each other. You can begin to see a pattern in those last three that the first one doesn't follow. Notice also that the second one has more differentiation from the two below it. Those last two are very similar. At this level they only have one marker different. That is a closer match for STRs. My map above would contain 2 - 4 because they seem to form a rough group. Those STRs "suggest" a relationship. The closer the STRs the closer the suspected relationship.
I also talk a lot about SNPs. Single nucleotide polymorphisms don't just suggest a relationship they are the evidence of a relationship. People who share a Y SNP are definitely related to the same man, although it may be thousands of years in the past. It happens that in my example above, all those patterns in Y DNA are also people who carry the R1b-Z14 SNP. So I am related to all of them. At some point we all share a common male ancestor...of course that ancestor could be any time between now and about 0AD when it is thought the parent SNP Z18 came into being. Z14 itself has children which are younger than it. Here is an image of the ISOGG YDNA tree for my branch of U106 as it stands today. Keep in mind that this tree is always changing as new things are learned. So like any family tree, it grows.
So there you can see U106 which I tested for with 23 and me (23 the north sea and me). Z18 is beneath that at about 2000 years old. Then Z14 is Z18's child. Beneath Z14 is Z372 and it's child (so far) L257. I've seen L257's age estimated at 1500 years ago. So somewhere between 1500 and 2000 years ago is Z14.
An actual map of people in R1b-Z18 or R1b-Z14 would probably look remarkably like my other maps here. Broadly "Germanic" with people in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, Latvia and France. There aren't a ton of people tested in Z14 and Z18 so it appears more scattered and sparse than it actually may be. It is also basically the geographic area covered by U106 itself.
Here is an interesting map of Europe I found with rough borders for different groups about 1500 years ago:
What can we do to get closer than 1500 to 2000 years ago? Well, for that we go back to the STRs and suggested relationships. If I hone down my map to show just those people who match closely enough for FTDNA to list them in my matches at 25 and 37 markers I get something like this with the red dots being 25 matches and the yellow dot my 37 match:
This represents only my matches at FTDNA, both 25 and 37. All the dots except my friend in Germany there have tested Z18 positive. The yellow dot is Z14 positive.
It's possible that at the next test up I could gain or lose matches and that's the next recommended test for me. This is basically why I've picked out the Saxons for us. I don't think these groups are small enough to differentiate between an Angle and a Saxon and I don't think the lines between people are as cut and dry as maps make them. You can get a rough idea though that people most like me are most likely in Britain, but also probably Germany. This could represent genetic evidence of the Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain or it could represent some later migration of "Germans" to England. Right now, given the ages of SNPs involved the consensus seems to be Anglo Saxons.
As things progress we may find further SNPs to split this group up and get tighter timeframes. Y SNPs will eventually enter the genealogical timeframe. When I started I was at cave paintings with R1b. Last year I was at 5000 years ago with prehistoric "Germanic" cultures and R1b-U106. Now I'm at 0 to 500AD, the fall of the Roman empire, Germanic migrations and the Anglo Saxon invasions with R1b-Z14. That's a huge leap in a few years.
These are again people who match my "pattern" roughly, there are some markers off but overall they seem like me. I've color coded them so that Blue are just those with my rough pattern, Red are matches from FTDNA at 25 markers and the single Yellow is my match at 37 STRs or markers..I use those interchangeably.
When I talk about people matching my pattern, it means the pattern of short tandem repeats in my YDNA. Here is an example of several people who are in R1b-Z14:
Notice number two through four from the top down. They seem to have several markers or STRs in common, while the top one has many in common but not as many as the the three below seem to share with each other. You can begin to see a pattern in those last three that the first one doesn't follow. Notice also that the second one has more differentiation from the two below it. Those last two are very similar. At this level they only have one marker different. That is a closer match for STRs. My map above would contain 2 - 4 because they seem to form a rough group. Those STRs "suggest" a relationship. The closer the STRs the closer the suspected relationship.
I also talk a lot about SNPs. Single nucleotide polymorphisms don't just suggest a relationship they are the evidence of a relationship. People who share a Y SNP are definitely related to the same man, although it may be thousands of years in the past. It happens that in my example above, all those patterns in Y DNA are also people who carry the R1b-Z14 SNP. So I am related to all of them. At some point we all share a common male ancestor...of course that ancestor could be any time between now and about 0AD when it is thought the parent SNP Z18 came into being. Z14 itself has children which are younger than it. Here is an image of the ISOGG YDNA tree for my branch of U106 as it stands today. Keep in mind that this tree is always changing as new things are learned. So like any family tree, it grows.
So there you can see U106 which I tested for with 23 and me (23 the north sea and me). Z18 is beneath that at about 2000 years old. Then Z14 is Z18's child. Beneath Z14 is Z372 and it's child (so far) L257. I've seen L257's age estimated at 1500 years ago. So somewhere between 1500 and 2000 years ago is Z14.
An actual map of people in R1b-Z18 or R1b-Z14 would probably look remarkably like my other maps here. Broadly "Germanic" with people in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, Latvia and France. There aren't a ton of people tested in Z14 and Z18 so it appears more scattered and sparse than it actually may be. It is also basically the geographic area covered by U106 itself.
Here is an interesting map of Europe I found with rough borders for different groups about 1500 years ago:
You can see the Angles and Saxons right there on the top of Germany and eating into Denmark and then in Britain the Angles and the Saxons occupying the same sort of vertical space on the east coast. Angles are purple, Saxons..kind of puke mustard colored. U106, Z18 and Z14 would be represented in many of these groups and many that aren't on the map in Scandinavia.
What can we do to get closer than 1500 to 2000 years ago? Well, for that we go back to the STRs and suggested relationships. If I hone down my map to show just those people who match closely enough for FTDNA to list them in my matches at 25 and 37 markers I get something like this with the red dots being 25 matches and the yellow dot my 37 match:
This represents only my matches at FTDNA, both 25 and 37. All the dots except my friend in Germany there have tested Z18 positive. The yellow dot is Z14 positive.
It's possible that at the next test up I could gain or lose matches and that's the next recommended test for me. This is basically why I've picked out the Saxons for us. I don't think these groups are small enough to differentiate between an Angle and a Saxon and I don't think the lines between people are as cut and dry as maps make them. You can get a rough idea though that people most like me are most likely in Britain, but also probably Germany. This could represent genetic evidence of the Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain or it could represent some later migration of "Germans" to England. Right now, given the ages of SNPs involved the consensus seems to be Anglo Saxons.
As things progress we may find further SNPs to split this group up and get tighter timeframes. Y SNPs will eventually enter the genealogical timeframe. When I started I was at cave paintings with R1b. Last year I was at 5000 years ago with prehistoric "Germanic" cultures and R1b-U106. Now I'm at 0 to 500AD, the fall of the Roman empire, Germanic migrations and the Anglo Saxon invasions with R1b-Z14. That's a huge leap in a few years.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
John Bayer 1782 Butler PA
I attempted some follow up on the Thompson children living with John Bayer born 1782 in Ireland. These are further Thompsons who live near John B Hollingsworth in Butler PA.
There are multiple names in North Butler at the time that seem like I might be looking at an extended family. John Bayer has a wife named Isabelle in the census. His daughter is named Margaret B Bayer born 1828. The Thompsons living with him are John born 1833, Mary born 1835 and Isabelle the youngest.
Also in North Butler is a woman named Margaret Thompson born in the 1760s in Ireland with another woman named Isabelle Thompson who is in her 50s living with her. That's a lot of Isabelles and Margarets between these two families and it makes me suspect some sort of relationship. It also makes me suspect some missing male Thompsons.
It's possibly of interest that in the same 1850 census Jane (Stevenson) Thompson (b 1781) is living with her adult son David William Thompson and Nathaniel S Thompson. Her husband John Thompson having died in the 1840s. Jane would be about 69 here, which is one reason I doubt she could be the mother of Levi Thompson, she would have been 53 when he was born in 1834. So there is at least one missing male Thompson that I know of.
In at least one family tree for John Thompson and Jane Stevenson I see a daughter named Isabella. In all the trees I have John Thompson is listed as being born around 1770 which would make him about 10 years older than Jane Stevenson. If I make some conjectures given the relative ages of people, it seems like John and Jane have at least one child born around 1802 (Samuel). The Isabell listed with Margaret is in her 50s (I'll have to recheck the record). That would put her birth date around 1800. This could be John's child..possibly an oldest daughter. Margaret born in the 1760s could be a sibling to John..she doesn't seem old enough to be a parent, but then the 1770 date for John's birth may be a best guess.
They could be totally unrelated Thompsons in the same town. I've seen that enough.
I couldn't track the Bayer family any further than this single census because I'm not sure their name is spelled correctly..in 1840 there are Barrs, Bears and Berrs in Butler.. and with one daughter of marrying age and parents near their 70s, they just may not exist as a unit beyond this point. "John" and "Mary" Thompsons will be hard to track. Isabelle offers the best hope because of her relatively young age and fairly unique name.
Also in this family, John Thompson living with John Bayer would have to BE Levi Thompson. What I'm really hoping for here is sort of what I found with my Williamsons. If I looked at the Census That listed Henry Williamson with his mother and no father, a few houses away was his grandfather..sitting there the whole time. I can't say with a certainty who his father was but I have a few candidates among the Williamson men who all died around the same time that would fit well.
Similarly Levi and his parents may just fall into a record gap I can't get past. Not all the children of these Thompson patriarchs are known or documented, but if I can jump over is parents to find his grandparents (like I did with Henry Williamson), I might get a lot closer to piecing this together and maybe with the help of genetics, work it the other way around.
It's possible that these people who live near John B. Hollingsworth represent a larger family we're tied to. It's a funny quirk of being a Thompson that even here when I've got a very narrow search I turn up at least two totally separate Thompson families. Still it gives me a bit of hope to think that I may be looking at aunts, uncles, cousins or if I'm really lucky, grandparents for Levi.
There are multiple names in North Butler at the time that seem like I might be looking at an extended family. John Bayer has a wife named Isabelle in the census. His daughter is named Margaret B Bayer born 1828. The Thompsons living with him are John born 1833, Mary born 1835 and Isabelle the youngest.
Also in North Butler is a woman named Margaret Thompson born in the 1760s in Ireland with another woman named Isabelle Thompson who is in her 50s living with her. That's a lot of Isabelles and Margarets between these two families and it makes me suspect some sort of relationship. It also makes me suspect some missing male Thompsons.
It's possibly of interest that in the same 1850 census Jane (Stevenson) Thompson (b 1781) is living with her adult son David William Thompson and Nathaniel S Thompson. Her husband John Thompson having died in the 1840s. Jane would be about 69 here, which is one reason I doubt she could be the mother of Levi Thompson, she would have been 53 when he was born in 1834. So there is at least one missing male Thompson that I know of.
In at least one family tree for John Thompson and Jane Stevenson I see a daughter named Isabella. In all the trees I have John Thompson is listed as being born around 1770 which would make him about 10 years older than Jane Stevenson. If I make some conjectures given the relative ages of people, it seems like John and Jane have at least one child born around 1802 (Samuel). The Isabell listed with Margaret is in her 50s (I'll have to recheck the record). That would put her birth date around 1800. This could be John's child..possibly an oldest daughter. Margaret born in the 1760s could be a sibling to John..she doesn't seem old enough to be a parent, but then the 1770 date for John's birth may be a best guess.
They could be totally unrelated Thompsons in the same town. I've seen that enough.
I couldn't track the Bayer family any further than this single census because I'm not sure their name is spelled correctly..in 1840 there are Barrs, Bears and Berrs in Butler.. and with one daughter of marrying age and parents near their 70s, they just may not exist as a unit beyond this point. "John" and "Mary" Thompsons will be hard to track. Isabelle offers the best hope because of her relatively young age and fairly unique name.
Also in this family, John Thompson living with John Bayer would have to BE Levi Thompson. What I'm really hoping for here is sort of what I found with my Williamsons. If I looked at the Census That listed Henry Williamson with his mother and no father, a few houses away was his grandfather..sitting there the whole time. I can't say with a certainty who his father was but I have a few candidates among the Williamson men who all died around the same time that would fit well.
Similarly Levi and his parents may just fall into a record gap I can't get past. Not all the children of these Thompson patriarchs are known or documented, but if I can jump over is parents to find his grandparents (like I did with Henry Williamson), I might get a lot closer to piecing this together and maybe with the help of genetics, work it the other way around.
It's possible that these people who live near John B. Hollingsworth represent a larger family we're tied to. It's a funny quirk of being a Thompson that even here when I've got a very narrow search I turn up at least two totally separate Thompson families. Still it gives me a bit of hope to think that I may be looking at aunts, uncles, cousins or if I'm really lucky, grandparents for Levi.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Z14 it is
My results are in and I am Z14, along with my Elmer match(es). Z18, our parent group contains the Knowltons, Damerons, Emery and Pipkins who were in my matches at FTDNA, Ancestry.com and SMGF. I'm clustered with all these people so it is more likely that they will also be Z14 (although not absolutely known until they test for it or an SNP downstream).
As I move down the Y DNA family tree, the possibilities for matches narrow and so does the time to most recent common ancestors. R1b-U106 is thought to be roughly 5000 years old. So I share a common ancestor with everyone who is R1b-U106 about 5000 years ago. I haven't yet seen a number of years associated with Z14, but Z18 is thought to be roughly 2000 years old. Z14 would necessarily be less than that, but I wouldn't have a guess what age that is. So I share a common ancestor (one man) with everyone who is Z18 about 2000 years ago.
Z18 contains people from all over Northern Europe and especially around the North Sea but also in Switzerland and France. Z14 testers also appear to be pretty wide ranging. To me it seems the Z14 haplogroup exists in as many places as Z18 so it may not be a big divider like R1b-U106 was for R1b where you could definitely see the map change. The ranges of the parent and child SNP might be exactly the same.
In our Cluster (labelled the cumberland cluster also sometimes labelled "channel British") there are many people of European descent. Polish, Dutch, Germans, English, Irish and Welsh. So there again, even our cluster of very similar STR results is pretty spread out. The test results of the Elmer and I are wedged right in a chunk of Southeast England results. It's not definitive of course, but we're getting a lot closer to mapping out an area. These results really back up many of the maps I made based on STRs and it tells me that I'm working this end of the puzzle the right way even if accidentally. For me it still appears to be a map of a migration taking place. The easiest one to pick out would be the Germanic migrations, although it's not the only migration of "germanic" people.
I still have a lot of homework to do to see how things line up between other Thompsons in my family and the Elmers (which we're also starting to gather). It will be crucial for me to test at least one more known Thompson relative, preferably a little more removed than my immediate uncles. So that I can have a baseline for our family and compare that with (hopefully) a group of Elmers. It could help us determine how much closer than 2000 years we share a common ancestor. Right now estimates seem to range between 200 and 400 years, but that is just comparing two people.
I need to be careful because I've been down this road before with the Knowltons where it seemed highly possible there was an NPE. Now further testing has proven that to be unlikely even though we are very obviously in the same haplogroup. The relationship is just further back in time than my other tests suggested.
The next steps will require even more involvement from my family and, as ever, I'm aware of the costs of this hobby and what an imposition that can be on my relatives. It's time to put my recruiter hat back on.
As I move down the Y DNA family tree, the possibilities for matches narrow and so does the time to most recent common ancestors. R1b-U106 is thought to be roughly 5000 years old. So I share a common ancestor with everyone who is R1b-U106 about 5000 years ago. I haven't yet seen a number of years associated with Z14, but Z18 is thought to be roughly 2000 years old. Z14 would necessarily be less than that, but I wouldn't have a guess what age that is. So I share a common ancestor (one man) with everyone who is Z18 about 2000 years ago.
Z18 contains people from all over Northern Europe and especially around the North Sea but also in Switzerland and France. Z14 testers also appear to be pretty wide ranging. To me it seems the Z14 haplogroup exists in as many places as Z18 so it may not be a big divider like R1b-U106 was for R1b where you could definitely see the map change. The ranges of the parent and child SNP might be exactly the same.
In our Cluster (labelled the cumberland cluster also sometimes labelled "channel British") there are many people of European descent. Polish, Dutch, Germans, English, Irish and Welsh. So there again, even our cluster of very similar STR results is pretty spread out. The test results of the Elmer and I are wedged right in a chunk of Southeast England results. It's not definitive of course, but we're getting a lot closer to mapping out an area. These results really back up many of the maps I made based on STRs and it tells me that I'm working this end of the puzzle the right way even if accidentally. For me it still appears to be a map of a migration taking place. The easiest one to pick out would be the Germanic migrations, although it's not the only migration of "germanic" people.
I still have a lot of homework to do to see how things line up between other Thompsons in my family and the Elmers (which we're also starting to gather). It will be crucial for me to test at least one more known Thompson relative, preferably a little more removed than my immediate uncles. So that I can have a baseline for our family and compare that with (hopefully) a group of Elmers. It could help us determine how much closer than 2000 years we share a common ancestor. Right now estimates seem to range between 200 and 400 years, but that is just comparing two people.
I need to be careful because I've been down this road before with the Knowltons where it seemed highly possible there was an NPE. Now further testing has proven that to be unlikely even though we are very obviously in the same haplogroup. The relationship is just further back in time than my other tests suggested.
The next steps will require even more involvement from my family and, as ever, I'm aware of the costs of this hobby and what an imposition that can be on my relatives. It's time to put my recruiter hat back on.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
A Comforting Thought and Some Follow Up on Carles
First some follow up on Carles Thompson.
It turns out that Carles Thompson and Susannah from Butler County PA (see last post Hollingsworths next door) are actually Charles Thompson and Susannah Colby from Butler County PA. I was able to find some family history on them. Charles is born in Massachusetts and his daughters marry Washington Perry Smith (ironically born in Indiana). Charles' son Warren dies in the area before his son Michael. No Levis are mentioned in the material I found.
Charles has some interesting connections to Allisons from the History of Butler County:
Mr. SMITH has been an active worker in the Republican party
since its organization, has held the office of school director for
sixteen years, and has always manifested a laudable interest in the
progress of the public schools. He was married in 1848, to Harriet, a
daughter of Charles THOMPSON, of Massachusetts. She died in 1850,
leaving one child, who died in early youth. His second wife was
Emeline THOMPSON, a sister of his first wife, to whom have been born
five children, as [p. 1073] follows: Harriet N., wife of John N.
ALLISON;
JAMES ALLISON, a native of Ireland, first settled in Maryland, and
came to Centre township, Butler county, Pennsylvania, in 1802. He
purchased 300 acres of land, and cleared a farm, a portion of which is
now in possession of his grandson, John ALLISON, the old homestead
being owned by O. D. THOMPSON. Mr. ALLISON married a Miss THOMPSON,
and his family were as follows: Frank; William; Robert; Margaret, who
married James PHILLIPS, and Ellen, who married Henry THOMAS
Now for the comforting thought.
John B. Hollingsworth and family from my last post make their way to Indiana between 1850 and 1860, without any decade of layover in Ohio. That means to me that my searches in Ohio may be fruitless. It's comforting though because it means that people really did just leave Butler PA and move to Madison Indiana. The family of Howell D. Thompson seems to make a similar trip from York PA to Randolf, Grant and Madison county Indiana so it's not uncommon at all.
What is uncommon to me is how I can track all these other families back to Pennsylvania, but not Levi. I've tracked multiple Thompson families in the Madison area and I can't get any of them back to Butler County PA. What makes me feel a lot better about this lack of data is that I CAN get John B. Hollingsworth, neighbor in 1860, back to Butler.
If Levi is on the up and up and he really is just misrepresented in the census records or in the index of those records (as he has been in every one I've found) then at least I have circumstantial evidence of other Butler-ites in the same town..one house away in Madison Indiana.
If Levi is not on the up and up and possibly doesn't even know his origins, but borrowed a background to make life easier when he joined the Army. Then I have a person he would have associated with who influenced him enough to give him some kind of past and a profession he would fall back on when times became hard.
Either way, he didn't just appear in Madison Indiana like a magic rabbit and that, to me anyway, is comforting.
Now I should check into the family that John B. Hollingsworth is living with because there is another stone cutter there and I need to look at the three Thompson children living with the Bayer/Boyers in North Butler.
Then of course there is the matter of John Thompson and Jane Stevenson's children. John dies in the 1840s, that doesn't count him out as a father of Levi but it's cutting it close. His other sons would be a decade or more older in that scenario. I have a few sons listed for John and Jane with no ages assigned. Any of them could be parents of Levi too.
The trail though really seems to stop at John. He is from Lancaster or Chartier's creek, and is one of the many faces of John Thompson in Butler. He may be the one with 11 children...or he may not.
It turns out that Carles Thompson and Susannah from Butler County PA (see last post Hollingsworths next door) are actually Charles Thompson and Susannah Colby from Butler County PA. I was able to find some family history on them. Charles is born in Massachusetts and his daughters marry Washington Perry Smith (ironically born in Indiana). Charles' son Warren dies in the area before his son Michael. No Levis are mentioned in the material I found.
Charles has some interesting connections to Allisons from the History of Butler County:
Mr. SMITH has been an active worker in the Republican party
since its organization, has held the office of school director for
sixteen years, and has always manifested a laudable interest in the
progress of the public schools. He was married in 1848, to Harriet, a
daughter of Charles THOMPSON, of Massachusetts. She died in 1850,
leaving one child, who died in early youth. His second wife was
Emeline THOMPSON, a sister of his first wife, to whom have been born
five children, as [p. 1073] follows: Harriet N., wife of John N.
ALLISON;
JAMES ALLISON, a native of Ireland, first settled in Maryland, and
came to Centre township, Butler county, Pennsylvania, in 1802. He
purchased 300 acres of land, and cleared a farm, a portion of which is
now in possession of his grandson, John ALLISON, the old homestead
being owned by O. D. THOMPSON. Mr. ALLISON married a Miss THOMPSON,
and his family were as follows: Frank; William; Robert; Margaret, who
married James PHILLIPS, and Ellen, who married Henry THOMAS
Now for the comforting thought.
John B. Hollingsworth and family from my last post make their way to Indiana between 1850 and 1860, without any decade of layover in Ohio. That means to me that my searches in Ohio may be fruitless. It's comforting though because it means that people really did just leave Butler PA and move to Madison Indiana. The family of Howell D. Thompson seems to make a similar trip from York PA to Randolf, Grant and Madison county Indiana so it's not uncommon at all.
What is uncommon to me is how I can track all these other families back to Pennsylvania, but not Levi. I've tracked multiple Thompson families in the Madison area and I can't get any of them back to Butler County PA. What makes me feel a lot better about this lack of data is that I CAN get John B. Hollingsworth, neighbor in 1860, back to Butler.
If Levi is on the up and up and he really is just misrepresented in the census records or in the index of those records (as he has been in every one I've found) then at least I have circumstantial evidence of other Butler-ites in the same town..one house away in Madison Indiana.
If Levi is not on the up and up and possibly doesn't even know his origins, but borrowed a background to make life easier when he joined the Army. Then I have a person he would have associated with who influenced him enough to give him some kind of past and a profession he would fall back on when times became hard.
Either way, he didn't just appear in Madison Indiana like a magic rabbit and that, to me anyway, is comforting.
Now I should check into the family that John B. Hollingsworth is living with because there is another stone cutter there and I need to look at the three Thompson children living with the Bayer/Boyers in North Butler.
Then of course there is the matter of John Thompson and Jane Stevenson's children. John dies in the 1840s, that doesn't count him out as a father of Levi but it's cutting it close. His other sons would be a decade or more older in that scenario. I have a few sons listed for John and Jane with no ages assigned. Any of them could be parents of Levi too.
The trail though really seems to stop at John. He is from Lancaster or Chartier's creek, and is one of the many faces of John Thompson in Butler. He may be the one with 11 children...or he may not.
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