JinJer & Felicity 44: The Glossy Veneer is Slipping

[just_ordinary]

I am very intrigued how you all are able to trace your ancestry back so far. And how did you do it? 

Here it often gets already complicated after four/five generations because of many reasons. Bad handwriting on official documents, wrong spelled names, children out of wedlock (that are said to be the children of the mother instead of the daughter for example) and the further you go back the harder it gets (as long as you are not royalty). The writing of names often wasn’t always correct, papers missing, changing of family names, no photographs or letters.

It is actually really hard to trace back if you are not a genealogist and know all the tools. Often people find connections that wouldn’t hold a proper check. Especially with all those internet programs that highly rely on the idea that the paperwork they have as a basis is correct. 

I would love to pay a genealogist to get a proper family tree. Especially since I found out there was a relative named Apollonia (found the name in an old family bible). It sounds rather exotic to me (at least for my country) so I would love to know more.

[singsingsing]

8 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

I am very intrigued how you all are able to trace your ancestry back so far. And how did you do it? 

Here it often gets already complicated after four/five generations because of many reasons. Bad handwriting on official documents, wrong spelled names, children out of wedlock (that are said to be the children of the mother instead of the daughter for example) and the further you go back the harder it gets (as long as you are not royalty). The writing of names often wasn’t always correct, papers missing, changing of family names, no photographs or letters.

It is actually really hard to trace back if you are not a genealogist and know all the tools. Often people find connections that wouldn’t hold a proper check. Especially with all those internet programs that highly rely on the idea that the paperwork they have as a basis is correct. 

I would love to pay a genealogist to get a proper family tree. Especially since I found out there was a relative named Apollonia (found the name in an old family bible). It sounds rather exotic to me (at least for my country) so I would love to know more.

A lot of my ancestry is French Canadian. The Catholic Church kept amazing records, so it's really easy to trace back to the 1600s and beyond. The maternal side of my family that's anglo just happened to produce a lot of genealogists. To be fair, I'm also an experienced genealogist and researcher. On my dad's anglo side, I have more trouble. I've traced some of them quite far back, but a lot of the lines run into brick walls fairly quickly. My ancestors who were the most recent to immigrate to Canada, a Scottish couple, can't be traced back any farther because their names are so common.

It's crucial to look carefully at the sources. A lot of people just jump on Ancestry.com and copy other people's family trees. So inaccuracies get perpetuated over and over again. I've run into other people with pet theories or assumptions that they just refuse to let go, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary ("I know for sure great-grandma was a full-blooded Cherokee! I have straight dark hair! Why does my DNA test show 0% Native American? It must be wrong!" Or, "Of course great-great-grandpa wasn't adopted, that's ridiculous, he was a Shellstrop and I have traced the noble Shellstrop line back to the Viking Age!"

[HerNameIsBuffy]

9 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

I am very intrigued how you all are able to trace your ancestry back so far. And how did you do it? 

One of my uncles converted into LDS and there was meticulous genealogical research with that.  They even got our great whatever grandparents marriage book from the parish in 1651 as well as his will.  The documentation is official enough that some of my cousins got into the DAR, some confederate groups, some Mayflower thing.  (I'm not a joiner, nor do I feel the need to leave confederate flags on graves of people because of shared DNA but whatever.)

The Mormons may have beliefs with which I don't agree but they do a hell of a job with genealogy.  

.And not everyone is traceable. If you go back 10 generations we all have 1024 grandparents, the vast majority lost to history.  They have to have left records to be found:  Land deeds, wills, legal records (helps if they were litigious), church membership, mentioned in newspaper, etc.

I don't know anyone who can trace everyone, but everyone can trace some of them.  Heck, I found my own dad's birth recorded with the US Consular on Ancestry dot com in a bunch of uploaded military records.  

Don't believe everything you read, though.  I saw an obit for my great grandfather which erroneously noted my grandmother died as an infant.  I'm pretty sure she lived to have my mom since I happen to be here....but when you have 16 kids confusion like that is going to happen from time to time.

It's one of those hobbies that people are either super into or give zero f's about.

What I think is kind of cool is that there are three people here that I know of who descend from those on the Mayflower.  Which means that hundreds of years ago our ancestors sat around talking about whatever, too.

But we get to do it without seasickness and poop buckets below deck!

Oh and my Mayflower line were of the Strangers, not the Puritans.  The religious group gets all the press but they weren't happy about a bunch of non-believing merchants and whatnot coming along to make a buck.  I can only imagine how long that boat ride with the ultimate fundies felt for my people!  LOL

 

[TeaELSee]

1 hour ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

Oh and my Mayflower line were of the Strangers, not the Puritans.  The religious group gets all the press but they weren't happy about a bunch of non-believing merchants and whatnot coming along to make a buck.  I can only imagine how long that boat ride with the ultimate fundies felt for my people! 

My ancestor John Alden was a cooper, (barrel maker) on the ship and not one of the Puritans either, maybe our ancestors hung out together !  He and his wife Pricilla had the most children, therefore he is the most common pilgrim to have lineage to. 

[Casserole]

3 hours ago, singsingsing said:

The Catholic Church kept amazing records, so it's really easy to trace back to the 1600s and beyond.

Unless you're trying to trace an infant given up for adoption, born in a "home" for unwed mothers built by the Catholic Church in Ireland... 

My father's mother was adopted in Ireland and brought to America, and due to the secrecy, unfortunately that is one family line of ours that dies when trying to trace lineage. 

[AtlanticTug]

I have mine traced back to about the 12th century. It took nearly a year of work on behalf of one of my great uncles, who took a sabbatical to do nothing but this.

[candygirl200413]

Being really lucky that I'm the first generation, my parents have shown us back in Eastern Africa the land where my ancestors came from. 

[singsingsing]

13 minutes ago, Casserole said:

Unless you're trying to trace an infant given up for adoption, born in a "home" for unwed mothers built by the Catholic Church in Ireland... 

My father's mother was adopted in Ireland and brought to America, and due to the secrecy, unfortunately that is one family line of ours that dies when trying to trace lineage. 

Oh yeah, that's where the Catholic Church's documentation collapses into a giant pile of steaming garbage. My grandpa was given up for adoption in Quebec. He was listed as born to 'unknown parents' and given a fake name. Miraculously (or so it seemed) we were able to get some 'non-identifying information' about his birth mother from the government of Quebec. It took me a good few years of intense research, but that combined with DNA testing ultimately led me to the identities of both of his birth parents. Even then, there was a good degree of luck involved. 

[SassyPants]

@singsingsing The Catholic Church kept amazing records, so it's really easy to trace back to the 1600s and beyond.

Yep. I recently returned from a trip to Italy with my parents. My dad traced his ancestry back 8 generations to the 1500s through the parish church in the small village where his father was born in 1897. It was an amazing process to watch unfold. My dad who is in his mid 80s is now his family's patriarch.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 hour ago, TeaELSee said:

My ancestor John Alden was a cooper, (barrel maker) on the ship and not one of the Puritans either, maybe our ancestors hung out together !  He and his wife Pricilla had the most children, therefore he is the most common pilgrim to have lineage to. 

Mine was Resolved White and his parents - mother was Susannah White who was pregnant with his little brother during the voyage and gave birth while boat was anchored off Cape Cod.  His father William didn't last the first winter so his mother married Edward Winslow.

I wonder what she was like.  I know if I was pregnant and my husband said we were going to take our small child and leave England and go on a brutal ocean journey to an unknown land...my answer would not have been an enthusiastic yes.

Keeping sweet about it also wouldn't have happened!

I don't think there is a maybe about it...they definitely hung out.  Weird analogy but I went to boarding school and you often knew your most distant acquaintance better than your good friends back home just because of proximity and lack of others to talk to.  

They totally would have gossiped about and with @MarblesMom 's ancestor who was quite the cut up!  

 

[TheOneAndOnly]

17 hours ago, TeaELSee said:

My family can be traced back to the Mayflower, (John Alden), I would NEVER consider myself a Native American.

Same. Some of mine can be traced back to the original Virginia colonies (the starving time at Jamestown? That was us) but I can't imagine thinking of those ancestors as native. 

One branch of my family tree had what is called a "non paternity event" turn up back in 1730something where the second son of a couple didn't match the family DNA. To hear the descendants try to rationalize how that happened while ignoring the obvious actually makes me laugh out loud. Anyone with Virginia/Tennessee/Kentucky roots might be interested -

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/owsley/about/news 

http://owsleyfamily.tripod.com/the-two-wives-of-thomas-owsley-ii.html

For what it's worth, I'm descended from both the one that didn't match and one that did. Great great great grandma and grandpa were 3rd cousins. It makes a nice excuse to have handy when I do weird things.  

[Carm_88]

Ehhh it depends on the Catholic Church. All my ancestors are Catholic and some of the records are very well kept and some of them are so patchy, it's hard to figure it all out. Census records have been great for me, I take the ancestry hints and combine that with some census records and piece together things as best I can. It's not perfect, but it's alright so far.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

8 minutes ago, TheOneAndOnly said:

but I can't imagine thinking of those ancestors as native.

Right, because the NA of the time sure as heck didn't!

[HerNameIsBuffy]

36 minutes ago, TheOneAndOnly said:

For what it's worth, I'm descended from both the one that didn't match and one that did. Great great great grandma and grandpa were 3rd cousins. It makes a nice excuse to have handy when I do weird things.  

We both have people in the same county in Virginia at the same time and mine were significant land owners as well.  Odds are good they at least knew of each other.  Interesting.

[PennySycamore]

Some British great aunts of my husband became Mormon and traced their ancestry back to the 1200s or maybe even earlier.  My mother-in-law was trying to tell my husband that one of his early ancestors had been a bishop.  Nope.  Not one of his direct ancestors anyway.  This supposed ancestor was from a time before Henry VIII so the church in England was still the Roman Catholic Church.  Bishops could not marry.  

I have ancestors from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.  One of my ancestors founded the town of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley, but he emigrated from England (London, to be more specific) and his father emigrated from Paris and his father from Navarra.  The doctor is my dad's hometown was a Dr Owlsley though.

[hoipolloi]

7 minutes ago, TheOneAndOnly said:

One branch of my family tree had what is called a "non paternity event" turn up back in 1730something where the second son of a couple didn't match the family DNA.

Something like this occurred in Mr Hoi's family. At the request of a genealogist cousin, Mr Hoi submitted a sample to Ancestry or whoever, and it showed that he did NOT actually come from a male line of the family that, on paper, he and a number of others were believed to have descended from.

Working theory is that the putative male ancestor had married a woman who was pregnant with another man's child -- she had been a servant in the home or something. So that male child, though he carried the ancestor's surname, was not in fact from that family although said child had descendants who identified as such.

IMO, this is where the Ancestry DNA tests have some validity -- coming up with actual matches, or not, as the case may be.

Where they are fairly bogus, IMO, is with the "percentages" of general ancestry that they provide in the results. As one of the experts said in the linked Telegraph article, it's so much "genetic astrology."

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

7 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Where they are fairly bogus, IMO, is with the "percentages" of general ancestry that they provide in the results. As one of the experts said in the linked Telegraph article, it's so much "genetic astrology."

I don't consider them as much bogus as general.  I think if they were complete hokum you'd see more huge surprises but people who are mostly of European descent show that in their results, people of South American descent show similar mixes of European and Native American, etc.

I think where some of the astrology comes in (and I agree) is parsing out the micro divisions.  For example Germany is considered Northwestern European and Poland Eastern European.  Those borders changed....a lot.  So the markers show more ethnic groups when specific than how we often think of things in regions.

And I have an example or two in my own that proves the astrology theory for sure.  

Some groups are so isolated the confidence level is much stronger than others - Finnish is one.  Less mixing, isolated...it's one of those that if you get it the experts feel it's solid because it's not confused for others the way populations with more mixing can be.

[hoipolloi]

For some REAL fireworks in DNA & family genealogy, go check out the information on the descendants of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. 

The Monticello website has a good introductory overview but a quick google will turn up lots more, especially those who absolutely disagree with the conclusion that Sally Hemings' children were fathered by Thomas Jefferson.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Just now, hoipolloi said:

For some REAL fireworks in DNA & family genealogy, go check out the information on the descendants of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. 

The Monticello website has a good introductory overview but a quick google will turn up lots more, especially those who absolutely disagree with the conclusion that Sally Hemings' children were fathered by Thomas Jefferson.

And there goes my afternoon...thanks for the rabbit hole!

[hoipolloi]

1 minute ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

And there goes my afternoon...thanks for the rabbit hole!

We need a "You're Welcome" reaction!

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, hoipolloi said:

We need a "You're Welcome" reaction!

I was thinking that the other day!

[Lurky]

4 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

The Mormons may have beliefs with which I don't agree but they do a hell of a job with genealogy.  

See, I have family examples of the absolute opposite.

My Granny was one of 13 kids, with 2 different fathers.  Her mother has married to husband 1, but had a long-term affair with man 2, and so while she was married, her kids had 2 different fathers, and apparently there was physical resemblances that meant it was quite obvious, especially as she apparently had stopped sleeping with her husband.  After her first husband died, she married man 2, and had more kids with him. 

One of my mum's cousins became Mormon, and got quite high in the hierarchy.  His dad was one of the sons born from the affair, and this was very well known in the family - but because husband 1 had a "better" lineage, that's the person on the family tree. 

I've heard this in other contexts too - that Mormons have a great reputation re genealogy, but if they get to the place where there are 4 different John Smiths (as my dad has got stuck on, lucky up his background) they'll pick the "best" one, so they can make that tree.

(I find genealogy a really odd thing, because it's assuming records show what actually happened, and there's no room for ancestors who were adopted and never told/were the result of an affair or a rape but raised by their mother's husband/were the child of a teenage mother, but brought up as their mother's sister, to avoid scandal/their mother was pregnant, and another man married her and chose to raise her child as his own/the man got another woman pregnant and his wife raised his baby etc etc etc etc.  Of course researching family trees is fun, but no one can hand on heart say they're definitive, or even likely to be right)

[singsingsing]

34 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

My mother-in-law was trying to tell my husband that one of his early ancestors had been a bishop.  Nope.  Not one of his direct ancestors anyway.  This supposed ancestor was from a time before Henry VIII so the church in England was still the Roman Catholic Church.  Bishops could not marry.  

Bishops couldn't marry, but they could father children. He could definitely have a bishop for an ancestor. I'm not sure how such a thing would be proven, though. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any English bishops who had acknowledged or widely known illegitimate children, but there could be some...

21 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I don't consider them as much bogus as general.  I think if they were complete hokum you'd see more huge surprises but people who are mostly of European descent show that in their results, people of South American descent show similar mixes of European and Native American, etc.

Yep, they're only 'bogus' if you don't understand how to interpret them (I'm only talking about the legit tests, like Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, 23&Me, maybe MyHeritage). People take the percentage breakdowns way, way too literally. As a general overview it's usually pretty accurate, and can even be quite accurate down to a detailed level. But if you know you're 75% French and your test says you're 75% British, there's no need to panic. It doesn't mean your genealogy is wrong, it doesn't even mean the test is wrong - it means it's very difficult to distinguish between a lot of these populations and it often comes down to an educated guess. Take it with a grain of salt, read the nitty gritty explanations these companies usually provide, and just enjoy it for what it is.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

10 minutes ago, singsingsing said:

It doesn't mean your genealogy is wrong, it doesn't even mean the test is wrong - it means it's very difficult to distinguish between a lot of these populations and it often comes down to an educated guess.

Yep.  This is why your results at 90% confidence have a lot of broad categories and not the type of percentage breakdowns you see at the lower confidence levels.

There is guesswork involved on the small percentages I don't understand - I'd be curious as to know what formulas are.

An example from mine - my brother did it first and he had 0.1% in a category we didn't expect.  I had nothing in that category.  His was on a spot on the 18th chromosome which was identical to mine.  

After the recent upgrade I now have 0.1% in this category and he now has zero - but still showing us as identical.

It doesn't matter as for both the category dissapeared as soon as we went off 50% and is likely noise - I'm just curious as to the formulas they use to determine that kind of thing.

[hoipolloi]

22 minutes ago, Lurky said:

I've heard this in other contexts too - that Mormons have a great reputation re genealogy, but if they get to the place where there are 4 different John Smiths (as my dad has got stuck on, lucky up his background) they'll pick the "best" one, so they can make that tree.

My MIL tried LDS sources for genealogy research years ago but quit using them because the ones pertaining to her ancestors (all of them Anglo-Brit family lines) were rife with inaccuracies. Can't say that my recent searches at their website inspire more confidence. I consider them to be of minimal reliability and avoid using them if at all possible.

1 minute ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

There is guesswork involved on the small percentages I don't understand - I'd be curious as to know what formulas are.

This is the crux of the problem with the commercial DNA business. They treat the algorithms they use to issue results as proprietary, and therefore secret, information. Consequently, you have no way of knowing how they derived these percentages given in your or anyone else's results. If you could compare HOW each company obtained the results you're given as well as WHAT the results are, it could be very helpful. It would also probably put some of them out of business!

By contrast, when DNA analytical results are published in the forensic literature, you get that information: number of participants; how the researchers collected the samples; complete results; full transparency of how the results are interpreted. This is all missing from the commercial services and there's no way, AFAIK, to find out.