DNA or Dear Neighborly Ancestors

I am in the midst of full blown genea-mania after many months of down time. With luck I will return to sanity in time to pay bills before the utilities are shut off.

I blame FamilyTreeDNA. Their new reporting of X chromosome matches dragged me back into the DNA analysis quagmire. Autosomal testing is an appealing concept to those of us without Y chromosomes. Take a sample of our DNA and compare it to thousands of others. When there is a statistically significant match you can assume a genetic connection within measurable history. Not a shared haplogroup where the common ancestor was dead long before Moses gathered animals into the ark. A connection within a few centuries. A connection that can, in theory, be found.

Autosomal chromosomes can also be mapped. Again, in theory. Imagine being able to see a match and being able to identify the shared lineage because you have already identified that section as coming from great-grandma so and so. More than intriguing to me. And seemingly so straightforward.

Until I started analyzing the results. And heard that lovely GPS voice in my head - rerouting, rerouting, rerouting. Here's what I've learned from the profiles I manage.

• Some folks spent too much time together over the last thousand years. If you have Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry ( ✓ ) you are going to match more people than you can imagine. I loved having genetic confirmation of our family tradition of Jewish ancestry. But the genetic noise makes matching people where I have a shot at identifying a common ancestor difficult. My new strategy is to focus on matches that are not shared with my cousins of Ashkenazi descent. That will either highlight the Slavic matches or suggest Ashkenazi ancestry on multiple lines. 
• Acadian ancestry ( ✓ ) dominates results just as much as Ashkenazi ancestry. Lovely people. Lovely culture. But not what I am trying to investigate. My relatives need to be more considerate about their ancestors. 
• As for those matches that do seem straightforward - think again. My mother's entrenched southern roots  ( ✓ ) mean that we may share multiple ancestral lines. (Back to the folks spending too much time together.) It's glaringly obvious if I examine the data rather than focus on paper trails.
• Cousin A and I match. I match her father. We have an easily documented shared Williams/Pugh line out of southwest Virginia. But she and I share more DNA than her father and I do. Enough to make it clear that she and I are also related through her mother. No clue what that connection is. While I can make some assumptions that the matches I share with her father are the Pugh/Williams lines, I wish I knew what the others were. 
• Cousin B and I also match and are confirmed Pugh/Williams cousins. But (and this is a big one) we are also X chromosome matches. My known Pugh/Williams line is not an X chromosome match. Not at all. So where does that X match come from? We are clearly related more than once. 

That lovely chromosome map I dream of is a long way off due to all this ancestral fraternization. But, as challenging as using DNA for genealogical research is, I am loving the exercise.

Photograph from Flickr by Duncan Hull  Some rights reserved.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Sarah or Sally James Williams (1821-1864)

Last week I wrote about a great-grandmother who, while not alive when I was born, remained vividly alive to her children and grandchildren throughout their lives. I have photographs and stories to augment the documents outlining her life. She is as real to me as if I had been rocked on her knee.

This week's ancestor is a cipher. Sarah or Sally (or Sallie) James is my great-great grandmother. She was born, according to information passed down in the family, on 21 March 1821 in Wythe County, Virginia to John James and his wife, Nancy Smith. She married Granville Williams on 30 January 1841 in Smyth County and bore 11 children before dying on 18 August 1864 when her youngest child was two and a half years old. I suspect she died in childbirth. Or of exhaustion.

She appears in the 1850 and the 1860 census. There is an appropriately aged female in John James' household in 1830 and 1840. That's it. I have no pictures. No stories. My great-grandfather Reese Jackson Williams was the youngest, a toddler when his mother died. He grew up well-mothered by his father's second wife, Serilda Jane Wells Pugh. That he was well-mothered is the only hint of personality or temperament I have about Sarah. She and Serilda were first cousins.

Reese's wife, my great-grandmother, was a family historian, as was his daughter, my grandmother. I have reason to trust the dates they passed down to me, but no family bible or gravestone to support their family record.

So why does Sally James hit my radar this week? Because she is one of my X chromosome ancestors.

X chromosome ancestors include Reese Jackson Williams, his mother Sally James, her parents John James and Nancy Smith, and his mother Nancy.

I have several genetic matches that I had thought matched her husband's paternal ancestors. We are, in fact, cousins through those lines. But these genetic matches turn out to match on our X chromosomes. Which, since I am descended through his son Reese, rules out Granville's lines completely. Reese only inherited one X chromosome. From his mother. Sally James. One of my cipher ancestors.

Now these genetic connections may be through completely different lines. From one of my Tennessee lines. But since we can each place ancestors in SW Virginia at the same time and since there IS a relationship through Reese's paternal lines I am starting with his mother. Sally James.

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's blogger challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Sources

Iva Williams Sawyer, "Williams Family Record"; 1969; original held by Susan Popp Clark.

1830 U.S. census, Virginia, Wythe, , p. 336, line 24, John James; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M19, roll 200.

1840 U.S. census, Virginia, Smyth, , p. 396, line 26, John James; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M704, roll 578.

1850 U.S. census, population schedule, Virginia, Smyth, District 60, p. 215A, dwelling 792, family 799, Sarah Williams; digital images, Ancestry.com (www. Ancestry.com : accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M432, roll 976.

1860 U.S. census, population schedule, Virginia, Smyth, , p. 1004, dwelling 930, family 933, Sarah Williams; digital images, Ancestry.com (www.Ancestry.com : accessed 10 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M653, roll 1377.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Catherine Conway Sawyer

Amy Johnson Crow has issued a challenge to genealogy bloggers to write about an ancestor a week during 2014 on her blog No Story Too Small. We'll see how close I get to hitting her number!

I am starting with my great-grandmother Catherine Conway Sawyer - the Nolichuckiest of my Nolichucky Roots. Catherine Pearlina was born 3 February 1865 to Porter and Eleanor Holt Conway at Conway's Ferry on a bend of the Nolichucky River in Cocke County, Tennessee. She was, you will notice, born near the end of the Civil War leading me to believe her children's assertion that her father did not fight during the War. Another post, but not so!

As a girl she ran the ferry from her father's farm across the river to Warrensburg in Greene County. Somewhere on one of those trips she must have met Jehu Stokely  "Gee" Sawyer. They were married two days before Christmas in 1886 and settled into the house he built in Warrensburg along the Nolichucky River.

Gee and Catherine had 10 surviving children from 1887 to 1909. The household was full of life, laughter and probably more than a few pillows flying through the air. Catherine's children and grandchildren describe a mother rarely flustered, rarely still, and often laughing. She had plenty to laugh at. Merely traveling by the house put one at risk from projectiles flying from one of the trees, roof or windows. She was a legendary cook, quilter and seamstress. Her youngest daughter's first memories were of being leashed to her mother's sewing machine while the older children frolicked. Frolicking was a favored pastime. I've often wondered if Catherine was trying to protect her toddler daughter from her older brothers, keep her from wandering off, or was too absent minded to keep track of her while sewing. Or all of the above.

I have no photographs of Catherine from the time of her marriage until her daughters got their first camera around the time of World War I. Even then photos are scarce. One reason might be she never stood still long enough to get a shot. Here's what I found when I looked through the photo albums.

And finally, this with her daughter and granddaughter in 1929.

Catherine was widowed in 1940 and died 2 March 1943 in Warrensburg. She lived her entire life within yards of the Nolichucky. She is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Greeneville, TN. I never heard anyone mention her name or tell any story about her without a huge grin on their face. She brings a smile to mine every time I think of her. 

Sources

1870 U.S. census, population schedule, Tennessee, Cocke, District 4, p. 378A, dwelling 64, family 64, Perlina Conaway; digital images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 Jan 2014); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm M593, roll 1519.  

Cocke, Tennessee, Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, December 1886: 376, Sawyer-Conway; digital images, Ancestry.com (accessed 5 Jan 2014).  

Greene, Tennessee, Tennessee Death Records, 1908-1958, 1943: Katherine Conway Sawyer; digital image, Ancestry.com (5 Jan 2014).  

Photographs
Gee Sawyer Family Photo Albums; digital images, privately held by Susan Clark . 1996.  

A Snowy Day

We are having a true winter in St. Louis this year. Indeed, much of the United States and Canada is preparing for record cold temperatures over the next two days. Today's snow sent me back to my photo albums hunting for wintery days. I found a few, though none of my uncles or male cousins. Either they were behind the cameras or looking outside at their snow crazed sisters.

Chicago, near the stockyards, c. 1928. Anna, Mary, and Helen Hricak. 

Warrensburg, TN c. 1932. Mary Kathryn Sawyer. 

Blog Caroling ~ Sing We Noel

Not much brings me out of my blogging hibernation, but I cannot resist the chance to sing the music of Christmas with friends. Footnote Maven has again invited us to share our favorite carol. I was challenged this year to find the one I most wanted to share, a traditional French carol that opened every Candlelight Concert at Staples High School when I was growing up. This year was the 73rd concert, and for the 73rd time the high school choirs entered the darkened theater carrying candles and singing Sing We Noel. I wish I could have been there. 

This is not the popular Noel Nouvelet (another favorite) that begins "Sing we now of Christmas", but a choral anthem arranged by H. B. Gaul in the early 20th c. It is more solemn and deliberate, a song that brings quiet to the noisy days of preparation. And it does, of course, remind me of the Christmases when I was young, celebrating first as a wide-eyed child and later as a proud choir member. Christmases before Santa and I became fast friends and co-conspirators. 

I was startled at how out of favor Gaul's arrangement is. Google delivered little more than posts by former Staples choristers mourning the lack of YouTube videos or readily found lyrics. YouTube is flooded with cheery versions of Noel Nouvelet. I was finally able to find references using Bing (a new experience for me since I am not actively researching right now) and to hear a lovely version on Spotify (you must have Spotify installed and an account to listen). Eventually (50 or 60 versions in) I did find a video of a Deland High School (FL) choir performing my chosen Sing We Noel. They are good, but not quite as good as the anthem of my memory.