Common Ancestor Puzzle

Do you ever participate in one of Blaine Bettinger's DNA quizzes? Or, do you ever see someone else's post about their DNA stats and decide to investigate your own? I know I often take the time to look at the data and see how my data compares.

That happened two days ago when someone (and unfortunately I don't know who and can't find the original post) posted about his Ancestry DNA Common ancestors. Basically, the poster indicated how many common ancestors he had at each cousin level and wondered how that compared to other testers.

Thus, I decided to look at mine:

• One 1st cousin
• Three 2nd cousins
• Five 3rd cousins

With over 3,000 4th cousin or closer DNA matches, I expected a lot of common ancestors at the 4th cousin level. Thus, I was shocked to only find EIGHT.

Out of curiosity, I looked at my incomplete ThruLines spreadsheets to see how many cousins I have identified so far.

DNA Stats

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is known for his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenges. His blog post, DNA Tests and Analysis Summary wasn't a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, but I decided that I needed to view it as a challenge to review my DNA results.

Gedmatch

• highest cM match - 387.2 cM
• # matches sharing 68 cM or more - 9
• # matches sharing 34 cM or more - 53

yDNA matches

• 18 at 111 markers with genetic distance of 6 or higher
• 52 at 67 markers with genetic distance of 1 or higher

Botetourt Virginia Titheables

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to visit the Family History Center in Topeka, Kansas. During this visit, I was able to access digitized images from Botetourt County, Virginia. I was thankful these records were available at the family history center since they were locked at affiliate libraries.

Botetourt County, Virginia
List of Tithables, 1770-1789
FS Film 9106467 DGS 7856374


Looking for Crawford, Douglass, Maxwell

1770

Image 9

Anderson, Lemuel - 1
Crawford, James - 1
Dooley Kenery - 1

Captain Love's Company of Militia

On my way home from the Northeast Kansas Library System's monthly board meeting, I stopped in Topeka to use the library and archives at the Kansas State Historical Society. One of the books I used was Montgomery County, Virginia: The First 100 Years. [Text by Judge C. W. Crush; Index by Mrs. Frances Terry Ingmire. St. Louis, MO: Mrs Terry Ingmire, 1982.]

On page 94 of this book is a list of Captain Love's Company of Militia. Since James Crawford was listed as a lieutenant for the company, this list may prove useful to my Crawford research. By knowing the names of the various men in this company, I can search their pension records for mention of James Crawford (or any other Crawford).

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Re-Learning to Use Shared Events

Have you used 'shared events' in your genealogy software?

Michelle Simmons Lewis had a Facebook post today that is causing me to re-visit the concept of shared events. In her post, she indicated that she was using shared events to help with a one-name study in early South Carolina.

This post caught my attention today for two reasons:

• My Crawford research in Kentucky is similar to a limited one-name study;
• I could be using shared events to tie the various members of my Kentucky FAN club together.

Unfortunately, Michelle Simmons Lewis' post contained hints for Legacy Family Tree software and I use RootsMagic. Knowing that the software packages are similar, I looked for information on shared events in RootsMagic. I found a video by Bruce Buzbee explaining shared events in RootsMagic.

Todd to Crawford Deed Fayette County Kentucky

Fayette County, Kentucky County Court, Deed Book B, 1786-1807
FS Film 1490705 item 3 DGS 8201383
Image 481 - Index C
Crawford Jas Todd [?] D 57

Image 532 - Deed on page 57 - 14 March 1780 Levi Todd and Jane his wife to James Crawford

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