Chasing Edward

When doing your genealogy research do you sometimes feel like you are going down a rabbit hole or chasing your tail? That's what I sometimes feel like when I research descendants of a Crawford who is not my ancestor.

So yesterday, I was chasing my tail by researching the children of Edward Crawford (1762-1826) of Overton, Tennessee. Even though I don't have any paper research connecting my Crawford line to Edward or even to Overton County, Tennessee, there is a DNA connection. Descendants of Edward Crawford have also done a Big Y DNA test and we have been assigned the same branch of the Big Y Haplotree: R-Y88686.

When I first received these DNA results, I couldn't find a connection between my Crawford family in Garrard County, Kentucky and Edward Crawford of Overton County, Tennessee. However, I remembered that I had found an Edward Crawford in the 1795 and 1796 tax lists for Madison County, Kentucky. Wondering whether the Edward Crawford in the tax lists of Madison County, KY is the same Edward Crawford who died in Overton County, TN.

Thus, I've been researching the children and grandchildren of Edward Crawford of Overton County, Tennessee -- hoping to find some clue that would lead back to Kentucky. As I was finding records for Edward's children and their family, I was comparing my findings to the Edward Crawford [LD9R-8KW] family on the FamilySearch tree. During this comparison, I discovered that other researchers believe that David Crawford [9KMN-WNK], son of Edward and Abigail (Trowbridge) Crawford was born in Clark County, Kentucky.

Crawford yDNA

Did you know you can get a yDNA haplogroup from your Ancestry DNA? Until an administrator of the Crawford yDNA project posted directions on the Clan Crawford Association Ancestry and DNA Research Forum Facebook group, I didn't know anything about this.

To do this, one needs to download Ancestry DNA and save the ZIP file in a known location. The file needs to remain 'zipped'.

The blog post, Updated Method to Get yDNA Haplogroup from AncestryDNA Results explains the process.

The second step is to use the MorleyDNA.com Y-SNP Subclade Preditor. After giving consent for the use of the data, a screen will open to upload the zipped file containing AncestryDNA results

Once the data is uploaded, a screen will appear prompting you to prove you are not a robot and again asking for consent to use the data.

The processing is quick and opens a screen showing the results. Look for the box highlighted in green on the left side of the screen. That is the predicted haplogroup.

If you wish to share the findings with other CRAWFORD researches, you may either post your results as a comment to the Facebook post or as a comment to this blog. Please include the following information in your comment.Earliest known ancestor

• Birthdate and place if known
• Deathdate and place if known
• Spouse's name
• Copy of information in the green box on the left (your haplogroup)

If your yDNA comes back any variety of R1b, I would be very interested in seeing if our research connects.

Alway Learning - Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Do you like to pick up tips and tricks from other researchers? I know I do! I especially like those surveys or challenges that cause me to look at my data in a different way. That's one of the things I like about Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun" challenges. Not only does Randy challenge me to look at my data differently - but he often provides the instructions on how to do it.

That is especially true of last night's challenge.

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to Count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3)  Tell us what the top 20  surnames are in your database and, if possible, how many entries.  How many different surnames are in your family tree?

4)  Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a status or comment on a Facebook post.

Since like Randy, I use RootsMagic 7 to manage my genealogy research, I simply have to follow his directions to figure out my top 20 surnames.

So within RootsMagic 7, I pulled down the REPORTS menu and clicked on LISTS for the type of report. Then I just scrolled down the right side of the window to locate the SURNAME STATISTICS LIST.

Garrard County Names

Do you use a list of FAN (Friends, Acquaintances, Neighbors) club names when researching county records for your family? If so, do you ever struggle with remembering how the members of your FAN club fit together? If so, you are not alone.

As I'm getting back into my CRAWFORD research and Garrard County, Kentucky records by reading an order book, I've found that I not only need a list of names, but a diagram of how they might fit together. Since I don't own any software to easily create such a diagram, I used Microsoft Publisher and multiple text boxes to create my diagram of the CRAWFORD families in early Garrard County, Kentucky along with some associated families.