The Thomas and Judah Farrell DNA Project: The Connections Tree

See previous posts to find out about this project.

One thing you need when chasing the DNA rabbit down a hole is a tree that contacts can look at to see if you two match. If they don't have a tree (or a clue) at least you can send them on to your tree to window shop for a connection. Surnames and a surname list with locations and years is a good tool as well, but for my money, you can't beat a good tree. Give me a tree over a surname list any day.

I've been reading a couple of blog posts from wise writers that make the case for not posting a tree online in special or unusual situations and it opened my eyes. I now understand about the need to protect the innocent from prying eyes looking for character flaws, crimes, and the unspoken terrors of family life gone very wrong. I'm with them and to be candid there is one person, living, not on our tree because, well, of the mess. One has a moral responsibility to protect those who might be harmed from such messes made public. Doing genealogy in circumstances such as this makes the going dicey. For those of us who have garden variety family issues peppering our tree, most have a good-hearted desire to share the fun with others. After all we weren't there and we don't really know all the facts.

Mom, who you might know is 95 and been doing genealogy since the early 1970s, was reluctant to share her tree online. She'd happily send family group sheets and then GEDCOMs to anyone researching our ancestors, but putting her tree on Ancestry? She had to warm up to that. "I'm not done with it'" she said about her tree on more than one occasion. But as time went by we both came to see that even though every tree run by a living person is a work in progress, putting Mom's tree online was the best way to share her substantial work with the most people.

But not all searchers feel that way. I get it. How frustrating to see your work copied and recopied without a mention of where the document, photo or rare index came from. Recently, I had the pleasure (?) of finding a rare photo of a 2nd great grandparent I'd uploaded a while back and now on another tree without attribution. Someone had downloaded the picture and then uploaded it again and attached their name as the original submitting person. Is there a hidden tag on it stating who originally had the photo (Mom) and who cleaned it up (moi) in a photo editing program? Take a guess! But never mind about that. Back to The Farrell Project and cousin Rich's great idea.

So, cousin Rich and I had been sifting through some GEDmatch results and emailing back and forth about this and that, looking for people who matched Mom and Uncle Sonny. (See previous post or this will make no sense whatsoever!) We were working informally then, and each on his or her own avenues of pursuit when Rich emailed and said, in a nutshell, hey do you want to work together on this? You in, he asked? I immediately replied, YES!

Rich and I are trying to link as many of the descendants of Thomas and Judah Farrell by specific DNA segment and pedigree as we can. We know of a couple of hundred direct descendants, both living and dead, but just a handful of those have taken a DNA for genealogy test and are known to us. After a couple of goes at locating descendant's places on trees, both theirs and ours, Rich suggested that we needed a tree of only direct descendants - blood descendants - that could be available for prospective DNA match candidates to peruse.

Just to underline the problems faced without the Farrell Connections tree, here's what happened before we built it. If I sent GEDmatch matches to Mom's tree, they would have to either follow my very tedious instructions on how to locate the Farrell family group or try searching, or just start wading through over 60,000 individuals on Mom's tree. Either way, it's enough to send someone fleeing from the room, and not return emails.

Rich's personal tree focuses on only his wife's family in Cumberland, Allegany, Maryland. For example, Rich's tree only lists one child of Samuel Albert House (1832-1919) and Mary Elizabeth Farrell (1835-1919) whereas Mom's tree lists all 16 kids as well as each of their descendants and their kids. Yeah, we needed a new tree, a tree in common. Good idea, Rich!

As of right now there are a tidy 252 individuals on the Thomas & Judah Farrell Connections tree, all well researched, all blood descendants or spouses of blood descendants. Nice and tidy. Some descendants are sure to be missing but it's a work in progress, as are all trees. It's a fine tool to use when helping DNA cousins try to locate their ancestors within the Farrell big picture. Yeah, and it's Private. It's a research tool for us, not a tree for public consumption.

Joseph H. Whetstone (1858-1939) and Katherine Elizabeth House (1865-1947).

Kate was just one of the 16 children of Mary Elizabeth Farrell (1835-1919) and Samuel Albert House (1832-1917). Mary Elizabeth was born in Ireland.

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-thomas-and-judah-farrell-dna_16.html 

DNA Monday: 3.1% Neanderthal, What Does It Mean, Really?

Well poor ol' GEDmatch is out so there's no chance of playing around there. The main page now explains that the servers are out and a message that says this:
17 April 2013 - There have been recent unrelated malfunctions impacting the operation of 2 servers. One will likely result in the loss of recently uploaded genealogical (GEDCOM) and triangulation ('match' files) data. The other server is being repaired. No time estimate yet, but it will probably take at least a week to resume limited operation.
Below that is a plea for donations to purchase additional back-up equipment. Yikes! Are they underfunded? Hope not. Maybe some large deep-pocketed group could buy or invest in them. They seem to have a very workable business concept.

I could continue to refine my list of surnames and locations associated so that I have something at hand to give potential DNA matches, but frankly I don't feel like it right today. My sinuses are all clogged and I'm working in slow motion so working on a list that needs to be perfect doesn't appeal. Instead, let's have some fun with the Neanderthal results from my 23andMe test.

Must confess to liking the idea of being 3.1% Neanderthal and in the 99th percentile of those who tested with 23andMe! At least I'm naturally in the 99th percentile at something, if an extreme outlier with no practical application. Here's a screen shot of the Neanderthal results page.

 

I think I'm more European in appearance than Neanderthal, for which I'm thankful;)

 

I scroll on down the page to find a link to a white paper on the Neanderthal issue and testing. The first thing it mentions is whether humans and Neanderthals interbred. I've been on a DNA message board for a bit now and this Neanderthal/human interbreeding topic comes up often. Guess people are thinking about this a lot. Here's what the white paper says, by Eric Y. Durand:

As a member of the Neanderthal Genome Analysis Consortium, I participated in the analysis of the first draft of the Neanderthal genome that was published in 2010. More specifically, I was involved in the analysis that led to the discovery that Neanderthals did indeed interbreed with modern humans. We found that 1-4% of the genomes of all modern humans outside of Africa is of Neanderthal ancestry.

 

OK, so yes, they had real physical contact. Big deal, now let's move on. What does having Neanderthal DNA mean? I have no answer here, sorry, and it seems by the scant information on their web site (nifty t-shirt aside) neither does 23andMe.

 

I Googled around and so can you. Here are some interesting, at least to me, locations on the web.

 

What Neanderthal DNA can teach us about race, autism, and more.

 

From the Smithsonian Institution: Ancient DNA and Neanderthals

 

From National Geographics: Neanderthals... They're Just Like Us

 

You can find a lot more on this fascinating topic by just searching on Neanderthal and DNA.

 

I confess to finding this particular topic interesting because in a way it does connect us to our deep roots and paths of human migration, with mental images of very deep ancestors trying to survive climate, food opportunities or lack thereof, pest and pestilence alike, and yes, maybe interbreeding. It does make me thing in terms of deep time and about the possibilities of survival in the long haul. It takes me out of the mundane (and my sinus headache) and puts me in a really big picture. I like that!

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/dna-monday-31-neanderthal-what-does-it.html



A Reasonably Exhaustive Search

Now as you can tell, I'm having fun with this genealogy. I try my best on any given day to be as qualitative as possible but most of the time, as judged by the larger view of the craft, I really have very little idea what I'm doing. 

You might know that Mom has been doing this genealogy stuff sine the 1970s so she's done all the hard work of it, and she has standards. Like all Moms everywhere who want things to be better and maybe a tad easier for their kids, she's given me her GEDCOM with no specific instructions.  So I snoop around looking for ancestor puzzle pieces and stories. There are plenty or good stories and that makes us both happy.

Recently was very interested in the New England Historic Genealogical Society's issue of "American Ancestors", especially the article, "Weighing the Evidence." I learned a lot about the practical difference between these words: definite, possibly, likely, perhaps, or possibly. And once again I spent some quality time with the Genealogical Proof Standard.

Now I do understand that it's very important to make a "reasonably exhaustive search." But I have to confess that most days it just feels like a reasonably exhausting search!

Mom's under the weather due to an accident so please keep a good thought for her. Thanks.

Photo of the day from the Archive:

Mom and Dad, 1942,

Francis Patrick Kelly (1916 - 2007)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/07/reasonably-exhaustive-search.html