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Month: April 2019

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An underutilized free genealogy resource – FamilySearch Digital Library

Firstly, an apology for not posting last Friday. My intention was to do an Easter-themed blog, but instead we were dealing with a family emergency. Sometimes even the most tragically obsessed family historian needs to prioritise the here and now over those that are long departed. Normal service is now resumed…

FamilySearch

Most people who are constructing their family tree are aware of FamilySearch.org. As a totally free genealogy resource, it is invaluable and becoming more so every day. Those of you who have downloaded my free guide to my Top 10 favourite genealogy sites know I love this one! Many of the records on the site are indexes, and you really need to find and cite the original documents to verify the information. But even these are a great finding aid to help you on your way. In recent years, the team at FamilySearch have been adding many original documents to the site (just look for the camera icon to see the images).

It is common for people to focus on the top two items in the drop down menu under ‘Search’. That is, ‘Records’ and ‘Family Tree’. This is where you find the indexed records available to search, and the collaborative family tree that people contribute to respectively. But FamilySearch contains much more than just these two sections and I’d like to encourage you to explore beyond this. I spend a lot of time lurking in the ‘Catalog’ section, where so much more is available to see, though much is unindexed and you need to be quite focused in your search. I will talk a little more about the Catalog on another occasion, because today I want to let you know about the ‘Books’ section.

FamilySearch Home Page
Where to find FamilySearch Books

The FamilySearch Digital Library – a great free genealogical resource

FamilySearch Digital Library page
The portal to free book bliss!

‘Books’ (or more properly the ‘FamilySearch Digital Library’) has become a delightful treasure trove of easily accessible information that you may have otherwise had no access to. FamilySearch has been working hard to improve this section. Over 375000 books, journals, family histories and local histories are indexed here. Most of these are fully accessible. Even those that aren’t yet fully available due to copyright have generous snippets of content available and can be useful. The number of items available to search will dramatically increase as they are checking copyright status individually for each book and making them available as quickly as they can.

Checking it out…

The section has become much more intuitive to use and easy to search. Handy hint: if you are searching two or more terms, don’t just list them one after the other or you will get a cumulative number of hits. Make it a Boolean search to find items containing both terms. For example, Swinbourne AND Birmingham rather than Swinbourne Birmingham.

FamilySearch search results
Example of search results

I was delighted to find that a journal (‘Midland Ancestor‘) that I have subscribed to since 1985 appears to have its full run available on the site, which saves me trawling through back issues looking for occurrences of family names as I discover them. Even more usefully it gives me access to issues published before I took up my subscription. I found this journal popping up in the results for nearly every search I did.

I also managed to find a couple of published family histories covering potential branches of my tree, which I will be checking against documentation to verify; several historical tomes mentioning ancestors by name, some with illustrations of ancient documents that they signed, and some wills and probate inventories.

So, last night I made the mistake of quickly taking a look before I went to bed. Many hours later… you get the picture.

New Genealogy Resource Found
Credit: Wendell Washer

Take a look…

So if you haven’t checked out this section of FamilySearch recently, I highly recommend you find some time (not within a few hours of intending to sleep!) and go take a look. You can thank me later…

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Endogamy and Intermarriage in Your Family Tree – It’s Not Just Game of Thrones!

Credit: Matt Barker, Useful charts

Winter is right on the doorstep with the final season of Game of Thrones starting very soon. I thought it might be interesting to touch on endogamy (or ‘inbreeding’) and intermarriage to celebrate the show’s return.

You may think that the amount of intermarriage between a limited number of families, along with the incest which has become a crucial part of the plot, is a little far-fetched. Indeed it isn’t, it’s possibly the least far-fetched of all the story elements. There are many groups of families around the world who descend from a very small gene pool and are classified as ‘endogamous’. Furthermore, most of us at some point in our family tree are touched by intermarriage.

Causes of endogamy

Endogamous populations occur for several reasons, including:

Geographical – Remote or isolated communities often had little choice but to intermarry amongst themselves, as there were rarely others to choose a marriage partner from. Groups tucked away in mountains or on islands, especially if they came from a small number of settlers to begin with, tend to be very endogamous.

A good example of this is the Maoris of New Zealand, who all descend from a small number of immigrants from the Hawaiian islands several centuries ago. Even in pre-industrial revolution England, people often tended to marry people from their own village or from within a few miles around it.

The Hatfield clan in 1897
  • Cultural – For example, a group of people who settle somewhere with a different culture from their own or are not a part of the ‘standard’ culture of the area in which they live. Group cohesion and survival can be based on marrying within that minority group. Examples of this include Orthodox Jews, the Amish, Parsi and Yazidi.
Jewish wedding rituals
  • Societal – Aristocratic and royal families tend to intermarry among one another for political reasons and to keep the bloodlines ‘pure’, a la Game of Thrones. This of course never stopped them from sowing plenty of wild oats amongst the commoners. It is said that every English white Anglo-Saxon person can count King Edward III amongst their ancestors, so prolific were his appetites! Another example is the caste system in India, where it once was forbidden and is still frowned upon to marry outside one’s own caste.

So what does this mean for genealogical research?

Intermarriage and Incest

These are not confined to endogamous populations but can occur in any family. Society tends to frown on intermarriage between close relatives, and incest is universally taboo. However, the reality is that they do happen and children can be the result.

How endogamy and intermarriage can make research easier

People with endogamous backgrounds or occasions of intermarriage find that their family tree has ‘pedigree collapse’ at various points. This means that two or more of their family lines goes back to the same set of common ancestors. The more endogamous lines, the fewer distinct ancestors they descend from. This is the main reason why even though technically you have over a quarter of a million 16xgreat-grandparents, in practice most people don’t.

In my tree, there are several instances where the same names pop up, sometimes over and over. “Oh, YOU again?” Luckily it’s quite a long way back in my tree. To be honest, it can be quite a relief if that line is already researched beyond those ancestors! Can you imagine trying to find 262, 142 people to complete a generation of forebears? In a way, pedigree collapse can simplify your family tree. Although the same names appearing over and over again can make it look less interesting on a chart!

How endogamy and intermarriage can make research harder

However, complexity is added if you are researching your family but every second family in the area shares the same surname. In many situations, the naming patterns for the children’s forenames might be similar too. This means you end up with multiple possibilities to choose from. So there’s a lot of evidence gathering before you can decide who is the candidate for YOUR great-great-great-grandfather, William Jones!

Because of their negative connotations, incest and marriage between close cousins are often hidden by family members. This can make it very difficult to pin down the truth. Your older family members who know the story may be very resistant to telling it because of the shame they feel exists within the family. The fallout from the aunt/nephew relationship between Jon Snow and Daenarys Targaryen is likely to be ‘interesting’ – and that’s just Game of Thrones!

It also makes it more difficult to unravel DNA matches. Say you have the same ancestors transmitting the same pieces of DNA down the generations through several lines. It can be extra difficult to work out which branch you are related to somebody on in more recent history. Often people require additional assistance in working their way through that quagmire.

Have you encountered any significant endogamy in any of your family lines? How has that impacted your research?

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DNA Testing For Genealogy- Useful Tool or Load of Codswallop?

dna molecules

Genealogy research has traditionally been all about compiling written and oral evidence to find your family lines and support your hypotheses. In recent years however, getting a genealogy DNA test done has become very popular. Millions of people have now spat in a tube or swabbed their inner cheek to find related family members in their DNA matches or to satisfy an urge to verify their ethnicity. Is DNA testing for genealogy actually useful, or is it a marketing gimmick?

The value of DNA testing for genealogy

The trouble with relying only on documents and oral evidence is that they are all filtered through the people involved. People are humans, with human failings. There are reasons, both deliberate and accidental, why the information may not be accurate.

There are innocent explanations. For example:

  • The person may not remember accurately.
  • The person may not have known their birthplace if they were raised somewhere else. They may have assumed they were born in the place of their childhood.
  • If they were illiterate and relying on someone else writing things down for them, that person may have misheard because of accents, deafness or inattention.
  • If the document has been transcribed from an original document, errors can creep in with every transcription.

There are also not so innocent explanations, usually related to ‘skeletons in the cupboard’ (often the most interesting parts of our family history!):

  • The person may be trying to hide illegitimacy. Society was less forgiving of human behaviour in previous generations.
  • The person may be trying to hide a criminal background even from several generations before. Even 50 years ago, Australians would be quick to deny any possibility of having a convict in their tree, despite Australia having been settled as a penal colony (of course, it’s a badge of honour these days!)
  • Sometimes people ran off to start a new life under a new identity, so any subsequent documents would be deliberately falsified.

DNA testing for genealogy can be a very useful tool to supplement traditional research methods. It helps eliminate the inaccuracies that can creep into them by removing the reliance on people’s word. “Science doesn’t lie, people do”.

My Personal Bombshell

Around 10 years ago, after 25 years of traditional genealogy research, I had my DNA tested along with several other family members. It turned out that the extensive research I had done on one branch of my family tree was completely wrong. It was correct for the people named, it was just that it turned out one of my grandparents was not related to me at all. Therefore that branch was not mine. I was devastated. All that work! And they were some of the most interesting ancestors (I thought) I had found! Back to the drawing board.

But you know what? I’m so glad I found out. The people in that branch that I know are still my family, I grew up with them as family and they always will be. But I can now have confidence that my tree is accurate. My other family lines have been verified by DNA, and with some diligent research, I have discovered the correct grandparent and a whole new family line to research!

Never be afraid to pursue accuracy, but be mindful of its potential impact on other family members. Think hard about whether they should know or would want to know if they were illegitimate before saying anything to them. They are from a different era when it could be a tremendous shock.

Where to get a DNA test done

There are several companies specialising in autosomal DNA testing for genealogy purposes. Currently, the five most common ones are:

  • AncestryDNA – this is the most well-known due to heavy marketing, and consequently has the biggest matching database. It used to predominantly have US customers, but the number of international DNA testers has grown in recent times as they’ve expanded their reach.
  • 23andMe – one of the oldest and most established DNA tests, also with a very large US-centric database.
  • FamilyTreeDNA – originally FTDNA offered Y-DNA (paternal line) and mtDNA (maternal line) tests only. In recent years they also have expanded into autosomal DNA tests, and this company now provides all three types of test should you want to also look at chasing specific lines or deep ancestry.
  • MyHeritage – a newer entrant into the marketplace, but with a rapidly growing database, and a very broad geographical range of testers.
  • LivingDNA – geared towards people of UK ancestry, this company is very new, and provides excellent ethnicity estimates, but is only just beginning to provide DNA cousin matching. One to watch, they have a whole new approach to matching, which should be extremely interesting when it gets up and running!

Recommendations:

I have either tested with, or uploaded to every one of these companies, and I use them all regularly. They have their own tools to help you analyse the data, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Often individuals are only to be found in one of the databases as they only test once. Therefore if you are looking to find matches for a specific line, or indeed a specific person such as a birth mother, I recommend you get yourself into as many of the databases as possible.

Ancestry and 23andMe do not allow you to upload data from other testing companies. So if you can afford only one test, choose one of these. Once your results are in, download your raw data and upload it to the other three. You will get results there too and will be available in the database for others there to find. You may need to pay a small amount to unlock all the tools and features on the other sites, but it’s cheaper than doing a fresh test for each.

The other thing I would highly recommend is uploading your DNA to Gedmatch.com. This is a third-party site where you can directly compare your results with people who have uploaded from any of the DNA testing companies.

Get other family members tested if you can to build up a picture and allow you to work out which side of the tree your matches come from. If you have family from the previous generation(s) still alive, their DNA is twice as valuable with each generation you go back as their DNA is only half as diluted. Grandparents, parents, uncles/aunts and parents’ cousins are genetic goldmines! Don’t ignore your siblings, you and each of them only share half your DNA despite having the same parents – they will have genetic cousins that you don’t in their matchlist.

Most people are not genetics experts. It can be a steep learning curve. If I had to recommend just one book to get you started on understanding DNA testing for genealogy and how to get the most out of it, it’s this one.

Verdict – not codswallop.

DNA testing for genealogy is not meant to replace your traditional research. It is an extra tool for your belt. I have found it invaluable for knocking down brick walls, finding ancestors hidden from documentary sources, and giving me confidence that I am on the right track. If you haven’t already been tested, you are missing out on one of the major new genealogical breakthrough techniques of recent times. DNA testing for genealogy is here to stay!