Month: August 2018

Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 6 – Our crazy attempt to leverage 288 DNA matches to expand our tree comes to it’s conclusion

Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 6 – Our crazy attempt to leverage 288 DNA matches to expand our tree comes to it’s conclusion

In the five previous parts of this series: We identified a plan to tackle what looked like a large group of DNA matches (Part 1), we went through and tagged all 288 of our Ancestry DNA results that were related to a group of matches that had Woodley/Woodson surnames in their attached trees (Part 2), we then built out a common tree for as many of the matches as we could, to nail down common ancestors, and to gain clues on where these matches link up with our tree (Part 3), we used GEDmatch and DNApainter to target the most likely line of “Mary’s” that leads from her to the group of 12 DNA matches (Part 4), and last week we broke through a brick wall with some old fashioned genealogy (Part 5). In this installment, we wrap up the story of this journey and the lessons we’ve learned. 

This journey also highlights the paradox of genealogical DNA: Your matches will come easiest on lines where you have a complete and accurate tree, but you’ll struggle to match those that are on the lines where you really need the help of DNA…because you don’t have a complete and accurate tree.

As we ended our last installment, we’d identified Sam Caswell’s wife as Annie (Moore) Caswell, daughter of Robert Moore and Henrietta (Bradford) Moore. We were able to quickly identify Henrietta’s mother, Sallie Bradford and five of Henrietta’s siblings. It was amazing, the links came easy, and the tree fell in-place just how you’d hope. The only problem was…we weren’t getting any closer to linking Roman and Mary Jones to “Mary”.  

Screen Shot 2018-08-10 at 3.18.43 PMGoing back to our work with the “What Are the Odds?” tool (Part 3), it’s 48 times more likely that “Mary” and Roman/Mary’s Most Recent Common Ancestor was our “Mary’s” 3x Great Grandparents, than it was her 2xGGP, and 77 times more likely that it was 3xGGP v. 4xGGP. That means Annie (Moore) Caswell’s parent all but needed to be the MRCA. One thing became increasingly clear as we shrubbed out our tree with the new information: Sam and Annie weren’t a link to Roman and Mary Jones.  

Roman Jones was born around 1840, and his wife Mary was born around 1838. Annie (Moore) Caswell parents were both born around 1880, and for them to share parents would be…incredible. We looked back a generation (hoping to defy the 48 times odds!), and the lines still didn’t match.  We had good info on “Mary’s” 4xGGM Henrietta Bradford and her siblings…and while we couldn’t rule it completely out, it was very likely she wasn’t a link to the Jones either.

We went back to review everything we had on Annie Caswell, and in the 1910 U.S. Census it jumped out at us: Sam and Annie listed themselves as having no children, despite the fact that Mattie would have been 7 years old. She also indicated that she never had children. 

SamAnnie1910Census

When we looked at our notes, and research we realized we fell in the most basic trap in genealogy research: we had accepted family lore as fact, and built around that “fact”. We had an uncle that had done some basic Ancestry-based research, and when we first built out a skeleton tree, we’d used his info as the bones of the Caswell line. We had all the right facts on Mattie Caswell, we had all the right facts on Sam Caswell and Annie (Moore) Caswell…but we’d never proven their link. We went back and reviewed the transcripts of other family interviews we’d done with Mattie’s granddaughter (and others) about 4 years ago and there it was. They described that Mattie’s mother had died soon after Mattie’s birth, and her father died soon after. Mattie had been raised by others, her parents weren’t Sam and Annie, and the brick wall we’d broken through wasn’t ours…in-fact it wasn’t anyone’s, since they never had children who would be researching their ancestors.  

So what did we learn in all of this?

  • The crazy strategy of casting a wide net across 288 DNA matches worked..even though it was a LOT of work.
  • We identified a key ancestor, and we know where we can expect the MCRA to fall in our line once we know more about our line.
  • In the end, no matter how high-tech genealogy research becomes with DNA, it still comes back to the basics of a solid tree, with strong evidence, supported by old fashioned family history research. Without a solid tree, we can’t take full advantage of DNA links. 

This journey also highlights the paradox of genealogical DNA: Your matches will come easiest on lines where you have a complete and accurate tree, but you’ll struggle to match those that are on the lines where you really need the help of DNA…because you don’t have a complete and accurate tree.

For us, it’s back to the drawing board. We’re spinning off the branch of the Caswell tree for Sam and Annie that we’ve documented so well, and making it Public so others can benefit from our work. We’re attempting to identify more information from family on where/when George Barnes and Mattie (Caswell) Barnes died, so we can get their Death Certificates and begin working backwards again!

Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 5 – Rolling up our sleeves and doing some genealogy

Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 5 – Rolling up our sleeves and doing some genealogy

In the first four parts of this series: We identified a plan to tackle what looked like a large group of DNA matches (Part 1), we went through and tagged all 288 of our Ancestry DNA results that were related to a group of matches that had Woodley/Woodson surnames in their attached trees (Part 2), we then built out a common tree for as many of the matches as we could, to nail down common ancestors, and to gain clues on where these matches link up with our tree (Part 3), and we finally used GEDmatch and DNApainter to target the most likely line of “Mary’s” that leads from her to the group of 12 DNA matches (Part 4). In this installment, we use take the high-tech leads we have and do some old-school genealogy to try and prove out our theory on who connects us to Roman and Mary Jones.

Given what we knew, it’s most likely that Mary matched the other 12 through a 3x Great Grandmother on her mom’s side. Of course that’s two women…neither of which we know much about: Fannie (Johnson) Barnes and Annie (–?–) Caswell. We had some decent confidence in who Fannie’s parents were, and the family originated in Tennessee. Since Roman and Mary Jones were from NW Mississippi, we decided to focus in on Annie Caswell from Quitman County, MS.

Mattie's Tree

Sam and Annie Caswell, when we started this process

We had almost no information on Annie Caswell. We didn’t know her maiden name, her actual birth year (only Census year), her death year, or her parents’ names. We did have her husband’s death month, year and location, and so we decided to order Sam Caswell’s Death Certificate and hope that would be enough…and that maybe there was more information on Annie listed.

Mississippi is horrible when it comes to Vital Records. They didn’t start requiring any Birth or Death Records to be recorded until 1912, and wide adoption by counties wasn’t complete until the early 1920’s. Additionally, they spent decades trying to dehumanize people of African descent to the degree that the less they were recorded as people, the better. On top of that, what they did record is mostly neither online or microfilmed…or even indexed.

There is no question DNA testing/results are valuable, but in the end it’s still just genealogy and the same techniques that have been used by family researchers for a 100+ years that are going to break through your brick walls.

This is one of the reasons there are so many holes in this branch of our family. We haven’t made the genealogy pilgrimage to Mississippi, we’re not sure what we’ll find when we get there, and there’s next to nothing available remotely. Facing this, we decide to attempt our first MS Vital Record purchase online…which requires “VitalCheck”.

About 2 weeks later, after having to remember just about every address we’ve had in the past 20 years to get past VitalCheck and deciding that selecting “Grandchild” for our relationship when we really meant “maybe 2nd Great Grandchild” was the same thing, we received Sam’s Death Certificate in the mail.

We were hoping that Annie was still alive at the time of his death, and that the certificate was filed out with her maiden name listed (maybe?). The bad news is, none of that was true…but the good news is that it gave us a next step.

We know that Sam and Annie were married in the 1940 U.S. Census but by the time of Sam’s death on 4 Jul 1974, he was married to Emma (Fox) Caswell. Of course, we’re not even 100% sure this Sam is the same Sam from Sam and Annie in 1940, and now we have a different spouse listed on the birth certificate. But, it’s possible that Annie died after 1940 and Sam remarried. The problem was how do we find Annie and tie her to Sam, let alone find her maiden name.

The hint we needed came from Sam’s Death Certificate, and his burial location. He was buried in an African American cemetery in Quitman County, which like most Southern Black cemeteries, is poorly documented. Looking in Find-A-Grave, we saw that only 1% of the headstones here were photographed, and there was no record of Sam’s

OakGroveCemetery

headstone/burial. However, looking at the other Caswell’s in Oak Grove Union Cemetery, we found a major lead: Annie Caswell, b. 15 Sep 1882, d. 11 Jul 1969. We’re well into speculative territory here, but this Annie first the proper birth range and she died before Sam.

Needless to say, the next step was to order our 2nd Mississippi Vital Record from the Mississippi Department of Health. But it highlights something we’ve known for quite some time about Genetic Genealogy, but it’s easy to forget: There is no question DNA testing/results are valuable, but in the end it’s still just genealogy and the same techniques that have been used by family researchers for 100+ years that are going to break through your brick walls.

We’ve shown how we can use things like DNA testing and GEDmatch to give us leads researchers would have NEVER had 20 years ago…but in the end, only the basic work of gathering and confirming Birth/Marriage/Death records will turn the leads into family members.

We received Annie Caswell’s death certificate, and it was the goldmine we were hoping for! She was married to Sam Caswell at the time of her death, and her mother’s maiden name was listed. We had gotten back a generation, both parent’s names, birth date and location…everything you could hope for! Unfortunately, her mother’s maiden name wasn’t Jones…it was Henrietta Bradford. That means Mary’s 3x Great Grandmother wasn’t a Jones, by name. It would have been much easier…but it’s possible that the 4x Great Grandparent we expect will be the link to the Jones family was Henrietta’s mother.

AnniesParentsName

We’ll conclude this series next time, as we shrub out Henrietta’s tree…and reach the end of this journey!

Next in the Series:

#ThrowbackThursday – From the Archives: Buying a boat for 4th of July

#ThrowbackThursday – From the Archives: Buying a boat for 4th of July

One of our favorite parts of the various Archives we inherited is the little miscellaneous bits that are included. They aren’t as sexy as the big treasures, but they fill in the little stories of lives we’re chronicling, and help paint a picture of who they were and what life was like.

Today’s #TBT is a perfect example of the bits that tell a story. Catherine (Morse) Leonard bought a new boat, after trading an old one, just in-time for 4th of July, 1967. This 12′ aluminum boat would be the primary fishing boat at her Pelican Lake, WI cottage for the next couple of decades.

Check out our entire online Archives here: Archive Collections

Emily’s Casserole…Food and Family History

Emily’s Casserole…Food and Family History

I’m so excited to announce that I was a guest on Carolynn from Ancestor’s Alive’s (AncestorsAlive!) “From Paper to People” podcast, which was released today! (Episode 26: Emily’s Casserole) If you’re not listening, you should be (subscribe in all the usual places), as she’s one of the few genealogy podcasts that’s really caught out attention.

She recently did an episode on a family recipe that helped tell a story from her family’s history (Episode 23: Johnny Mazetti, or is it Marzetti?), and she put a call for others who had similar stories. While ours doesn’t trace actual family history, and in-fact doesn’t come from direct family, per se, it really does tell a story, so we reached out and Carolynn invited Rick on.

The episode discusses a casserole that was made by family “friend” Emily Ott. Emily was a part of Michael’s Great Grandmother Catherine (Morse) Leonard’s household, and she was a key factor in raising Catherine’s 5 children. Rick grew up with Emily as a constant in his Grandmother’s home, and knew she was more than a housekeeper, but not quite a Great Aunt. His dad had a deep fondness for her, and Rick visited her in assisted living in his college years.

Emily’s Casserole
3 lbs. thin sliced potatoes
1 bad of carrots, sliced
1 medium-large sliced onion
1 ½ lbs. ground beef, browned*
1 can Cream of Celery soup
1 can of milk
Directions:
Butter dutch oven, and layer in potatoes, carrots, onions and ground beef. Mix soup with milk, and pour over top. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for an hour and a half.

Emily’s casserole was a staple when Rick was growing up, it was a favorite of his dad’s and mom got the recipe from Emily knowing it was always enjoyed…and it was easy to make. It became a part of Rick’s comfort food repertoire, just like it had been for his father, and it’s now a part of his children’s. (Editor’s Note: In the interest of transparency, the subject of this blog (Michael) is not a big fan of this casserole and it’s not as regular in our family dinner rotation as it once was…but it will be!)

That a dish named for Emily was one of the comfort food for Rick’s dad and uncles were children tells us a lot about our family history. Emily was like a sister to Grandma Leonard, but never too much like a sister. The family legend (largely true I believe) was that she was rescued by our historic, revered Congressman ancestor E.A. Morse of Antigo, WI. But she was also an employee from an early age. First for the Morse family, and then for their only daughter (and very close in-age) Catherine. It was an interesting dynamic that wasn’t fully apparent to the grandchildren of Catherine, but it runs deeply through the fabric of today. She had a deep, emotional impact on us, but she wasn’t family…but she was, even if she was an employee.

We’ll feature Emily in more detail in a future post, but today take a listen to Carolynn’s amazing podcast, where she helps pull the details of this story out…and shows how a casserole sometimes isn’t just a casserole!

Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 4 – Proving the matches, and establishing a theory of connection

Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 4 – Proving the matches, and establishing a theory of connection

In the first three parts of this series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), we went through and tagged all 288 of our Ancestry DNA results that were related to a group of matches which had Woodley/Woodson surnames in their attached trees. We then built out a common tree for as many of the matches as we could, to nail down common ancestors, and to gain clues on where these matches link up with our tree. In this installment, we leverage GEDmatch, and deductive reasoning, to identify where we think our tree will link up with their trees.

The largest DNA matches (by centimorgans) we identified in Ancestry had also uploaded their DNA results to GEDmatch, so we were able to do tests to confirm they all truly matched. The “One-to-One” matches for each of them confirmed they were all related to “Mary”. It’s not scientific to say that all 288 were actual DNA matches, but we know the core group of matches are and that a good number of the matches-of-matches are likely also legit.

X DNA is tricky, but the important use of it identifying people who you CAN’T be a match if you share X DNA.

We were also able to use GEDmatch to identify the “true” cM match amounts between various matches, and from there we leveraged the International Society of Genetic Genealogists’ table showing cM ranges and averages between various family relationships (Shared cM Project – V3). The closest match for Mary was “W.W.”, and we settled on 133cM as their match level. The most likely relationship for that level of match was with a shared Great Grandparent, with W.W. likely being a 2nd Cousin, or a 2nd Cousin Once Removed. When we fleshed out the other 12 matches on paper, they all roughly fit this notion that they matched either Mary’s Great Grandparent or Great-Great Grandparent.

female-x-chart
Inheritance pattern for females (X DNA)

The other thing that jumped out at us, unexpectedly, from GEDmatch was that some of the 5 matches there had X DNA matches as well. X DNA is tricky, but the important use of it identifying people who you CAN’T be a match if you share X DNA. For example, a person will only inherit X DNA from their mother, so if you have an X DNA match that you’re theorizing is related to someone, but there are two male relatives in a row between the two matches, that isn’t possible.

Once we built out the theoretical map between all the matches and Mary it all fit that her GGP’s could be Roman and Mary Jones, and with the DNA levels and inheritance pattern of X DNA it’s likely that Marie’s relative was a daughter of Roman and Mary. It also pointed strongly to the matching being on her mother’s side.

 

Screen Shot 2018-08-10 at 3.18.43 PM
“What are the Odds?” gives you the chances of various hypothesis’

The day after we did our work on paper with the ISOGG chart as our guidance, DNAPainter introduced a new tool called “What are the Odds?”  that does the same work we just did on paper! It’s easy, it’s awesome, and we’ll cover it in more detail in a future post. But, most importantly, it showed us that it was 77 times MORE likely that Roman or Mary Jones’s parents are our Most Recent Common Ancestor, than anyone else. It’s technically possible that our Mary is directly descended from Roman and Mary Jones, or that they are connected by 4xGGP’s…but it’s much, much more likely we’re looking for Mary’s 3xGGP’s, the parents of Roman and Mary.

Looking at Mary’s tree, and she of course has 2 maternal GGM’s. One, we have some documentation (mostly Census info with Ancestry Member Trees), but the other we had almost no information. We’re guessing the one we have little information on, Annie Caswell, might be the best lead, so we’re going to dig into her.

Samuel and Annie Caswell were born, married, and died in and around Crowder, MS. Family lore has Sam and Annie as Mary’s grandparents, but we only have Annie’s Census birth date, and no maiden name for her. About the only piece of hard information we had was that Samuel might have died in July 1974 (based on the SSDI).

Time for some old-school genealogy, to hopefully prove out the high-tech theory that points to Annie Caswell being on the Jones line.

Next in the Series: Matching unmatched DNA matches by Casting a Wide Net, Part 5 – Rolling up our sleeves and doing some genealogy