Heartland Genealogy

A Sellers DNA Mystery If you search your DNA matches for a member of your genealogy FAN (family, associates, neighbors) do come up with results? Do you ever scratch your head trying to figure out how they fit in your tree? I'm sure scratching my head trying to figure out the over 300 DNA matches to my brother who have SELLERS in their tree. (Note the number goes higher if I click on 'Include Similar Surnames'.) I do have Sellers in my database. I have a whole lot of them in my database. Since the Sellers family is part of my Lincoln County, Kentucky FAN club, I have tracked the descendants of Nathaniel Sellers (1720-1795) for several generations. Two of his sons, James and William, married into the Crawford family in Lincoln County, KY. The marriage records for these Crawford sisters, Mary and Sarah, suggest a relationship with the widow, Rebekah Crawford. Rebekah is also thought to be the mother of the James Crawford that married Martha Knight in Lincoln C...

We finally have DNA evidence of a relationship between our James Crawford (md Sally Smith Duggins) and his neighbor, James Crawford (md. Martha Knight). In addition, we have evidence of a DNA relationship with the James Crawford who owned land on Paint Lick Creek in Kentucky. However, this DNA evidence does not tell us HOW we are related. It might also be telling us that we are not as closely related as we thought. Below is a diagram of what the yDNA tree probably looks like. The bright yellow boxes represent the ancestors of other yDNA testers. The light orange box represents the yDNA tester of my line. This diagram supports an uncle/nephew relationship between the James of Paint Lick area and the James that married Martha Knight. Even though a will for John Crawford has been found that identifies his wife as Rebekah and names sons James and Nathan, documentation has not been found to help prove that the family in Kentucky is the same family named in the Virginia will...

My mind is 'jumping up and down' with joy this morning. Another CRAWFORD researcher contacted me this morning to let me know he had found out his haplogroup: R-Y88686. That is the SAME haplogroup as my brother. We FINALLY have some evidence that we are related! We both descend from James Crawford of Preble County, Ohio. His James Crawford was born in 1770 in Augusta County, Virginia and died in 1833 in Warren County, Indiana. My James was born in 1772 in Virginia and died in 1854 in Preble County, Ohio. Both men were living in Kentucky prior to 1800. His James married Martha Knight in 1793 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. My James married Sally Duggins in 1799 in Garrard County, Kentucky. (Garrard County was formed in 1797 from Lincoln and Madison counties.) In 1811, his James filed land entry papers showing he had made the final payment for the SW 1/4 of Section 14, Township 7 Range 2 East in Preble County, Ohio. In 1816, my James filed similar land entry pape...

Have you learned thru the years that spelling matters when doing an Internet search? On the other hand, have you found that spelling of names varies -- and thus a specific spelling doesn't matter any more? That need to be able to search for various spellings of a name was behind the development of the Soundex code. Soundex code was very valuable in pre-Internet days for locating census records. It can still be used today with searches of Ancestry's databases. Unfortunately, this concept isn't used when Ancestry's computers compares the trees of people who have a DNA match to identify the common ancestor. Instead, the computer is looking for an exact match. As I've started researching an ancestor that Ancestry identified as a potential match, I'm running into spelling issues. This new ancestor is a revolutionary war veteran, Major Simon Van Arsdale. In addition to his revolutionary war service, Simon Van Arsdale was part of the Low Dutch Settlement t...

Do you remember having conversations with your parents similar to 'Why can't I? Everyone else is doing it.' Well, that is how I sometimes feel when it comes to my DNA research strategy. In other words, I often haven't had a specific strategy, but was following the 'crowd'. That was at least true when I submitted my spit to Ancestry to have an autosomal DNA test completed over 4 years ago. At the time, I didin't know much about DNA but was hoping that it would help break down the numerous brick walls in my family tree. It was only after getting my results back that I started learning about the perceived limitations of these results. Autosomal DNA can help identify ancestors within last 5-7 generations. ( Family Search DNA FAQ ) Small cM matches are often false positives ( When Is a Match a False Positive ) Since my tree was already complete thru 5 and 6 generations and mostly complete thru 7 generations, my hopes of using my Ancestry DNA resu...