Old Questions with New Answers

My Smith great-grandparents, Stephen and Fannie, came to Oklahoma in 1894, bringing most of their children with them from Alabama, even those that were already adults. One adult daughter, Ella, stayed behind in Alabama with her husband. The youngest Smith sibling, my grandfather Weaver, was born in Indian Territory in 1895.

Both of my Smith great-grandparents have been a pain, genealogically speaking. I spent years thinking that Fannie's maiden name was Cotton, then I thought it was Mansell, then I found out that it was probably neither. Her paternal line is a mystery because I don't know who her father was--and may never know. I have a few more clues with her maternal line, enough that I may someday figure out who her grandparents were. At least, through the years, there has been some movement on her side of the family.

Not so with Stephen. I know that his mother was named Mary E. and that from 1850 on, she was the single parent of Stephen, his sister Cynthia, and his brothers John, Alexander Jackson, Minor Jefferson, and Moses Calvin. I know a little about Stephen's siblings and their future lives. I long suspected that Mary's maiden name was Williams, and that finally was confirmed by the death certificate of her son Alexander Jackson. I know that Stephen's father was probably named John Smith. And that's it. I don't even know for sure where John and Mary came from before they came to Alabama. In fact, I don't have solid evidence that John ever lived in Alabama.

1850 Coffee Co. AL census
Mary E. Smith and children: Synthia A., John, Jackson A.,
Minor J., and Stephen A.

Then in the last month it seems like every genealogical clue I've been given is about the Smiths. First, I got an email from a Perkins descendant. In my post, "Will the Real Ancestor Please Stand Up?" I talked about the fact that my brother's y-DNA test results show matches, not to Smiths, but to men named Banks and Perkins. (Not only did John Smith have to have a difficult paper trail, he had to have difficult DNA, too.) She related that she had also corresponded with a Banks descendant; all three of us were looking for a connection among our Smith, Perkins, and Banks ancestors.

James Washington Perkins, the oldest known ancestor of the Perkins descendants, was born in Georgia and died in Texas. My Smith family, as far as I know, never lived in those states. The Banks descendant that matches my brother on 37 markers was from Bulloch County, Georgia, where his family has lived for 8 generations. After having their y-DNA tested and results compared, several Banks descendants believe their oldest known ancestor is Charles Banks of Edgefield County, South Carolina.

John Smith was supposed to have been born in Virginia, but I always wondered where he met his wife Mary. On several censuses Mary E. Williams Smith reported her place of birth as South Carolina. A little research on the Perkins family revealed that they also had a connection to South Carolina. The grandparents of James Washington Perkins, James and Rebecca (Corley) Smelley, were from Edgefield County, South Carolina. So I might not have found a person that ties the Banks, Perkins, and Smith families together, but I might have found a place. At the very least, I thought I could narrow my search for Williams and Smith families to Edgefield County, South Carolina, where there are several to choose from.

Next, out of the blue, I got a message on Ancestry.com from a new match who turned out to be a 2nd cousin on my Smith side. His grandmother, Barbara Smith, was the sister of my grandfather Weaver. I asked him to upload his results to Gedmatch, which he did in short order, and I now have a Smith family member to compare matches against. It's also really interesting to compare our DNA on Gedmatch. He is now my largest match, next to my brother, with a whopping 312.8 cM's. He has even more in common with my brother--389.6 cM's.

Using the Triangulation feature on Gedmatch, I found a list of people that match both my Smith cousin and me. I contacted a few of them and heard from one--let's call him Mr. F. I actually realized later that he had once contacted me but we couldn't find the ancestor we had in common. This time I had just researched the Perkins family, so my email to him asked if he had an ancestor by that name. He did; his Ann Perkins (or Parkins), born 1800, married William Orr. Their daughter Rachel Orr was his great-great-grandmother. I compared Mr. F. and several of his relatives on the FTDNA Chromosome Browser and found that they all matched in a certain segment of Chromosome 7. Then I switched over to Gedmatch and compared my Smith cousin to them. (He tested on Ancestry.com so is available on Gedmatch but not FTDNA.) And guess what? He lines up in a great big segment at the same place on Chromosome 7 as Mr. F. and his relatives.

Then within a week--I am serious--I got another message on Ancestry.com, this time from a lady who just wanted to help me with my great-grandmother Fannie's maiden name. I explained that even though Fannie listed Mansil as her last name on her marriage license, she couldn't really be the daughter of John Mansell. I was curious if she was a relative, so I asked why she had been looking at my tree.

Fannie and Stephen's marriage license

It turns out that she also has Smith ancestors in Coffee Co., AL. We determined that we are not related--her family has had y-DNA testing done and they are descended from a known Smith. But what she told me next kindof rocked my world. Her ancestors in Coffee Co., who were next-door neighbors of my Mary E. Williams Smith, were Prescotts and Donaldsons--and they moved there from Edgefield Co., SC, along with several other families, including the Williamses.

1860 Coffee Co. census
Mary E. living near Prescotts, Williamses, and Donaldsons

In light of all this new information, I am completely revisiting what I think I know about John A. Smith. The death certificate of Andrew Jackson Smith, Stephen's brother, lists his parents as John Smith and Mary E. Williams. So at least as far as Andrew Jackson knew, his father's name was John Smith. I think the erroneous information starts with a marriage license issued in Chesterfield, Virginia, in 1828 for a John A. Smith and an Elizabeth Williams. I think people assumed that this was our John Smith and that he came from Virginia. A lot of people on Ancestry.com, and even genealogists in my own family, have listed his birthdate as 1805, but it couldn't be if he is the John Smith in Chesterfield, VA, who was listed on the 1820 census. He would only have been 15 years old.

In 1840 there is a John A. Smith in Pike Co., AL, whose census information has been attached to my John Smith. But again, he couldn't be my John Smith. He has way too many children, and I hate to say, I didn't even question this, but--the Smiths didn't live in Pike Co. in 1840. They didn't move there until sometime between 1860 and 1880. He also is supposed to be buried in the same place as Mary--in Pike Co.--but again he wasn't living in Pike Co. around 1850 when he was supposed to have died.

For this reason, one researcher on Ancestry.com thinks that John Smith, the husband of Mary E. and father of Stephen, is the completely different, and much older John W. Smith, who is listed on the 1850 Census Mortality Schedule with a death date of February 1850 at the age of 87. She has compared the census records of two John A. Smiths in Coffee Co. and concluded that neither of them could be the father of my Smith family. I don't know if I agree with all her conclusions, but she has certainly given me something to think about. It just makes sense to question everything when years of research have gotten you no closer to an answer. What do I know? John Smith may have really been born a Perkins.

Will the Real Ancestor Please Stand Up?

Two years ago I gave my brother a DNA test for Christmas.  In my defense, 1) it wasn’t his only present, and 2) even though it seems like I bought a gift for myself, we really do have a mutual interest in finding out more about our Smith line.  I was born a Smith, and my brother is still a Smith, making him perfect for yDNA testing.  

I have always loved genetics.  I remember learning in school about Gregor Mendel, the monk who tracked the inherited traits of peas and became the father of the science of genetics.  I even liked doing Punnett squares, those little graphs that predict the traits of offspring of a particular set of parents.  When I became interested in genetic genealogy, I had to do homework again--about what tests are available and what they can tell you about your family tree.  The field of DNA testing has new developments all the time, and I’m still learning about testing and interpreting test results.

The first test I took myself was a mitochondrial (or mtDNA) test.   Mitochondrial DNA passes from mother to child, uncombined with the father’s DNA.  Only daughters can pass it on to their children, so what mtDNA does is trace your matrilineal line, your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother, back into the distant past.  Since a woman’s surname usually changes in each generation, it can be difficult to use mtDNA to find ancestors by name.  What you get instead are haplogroup matches—others who show the same mutations from the original mother of us all, who the geneticists call “mitochondrial Eve.”

My haplogroup is T, one of the 7 or 8 groups that are really common in Europe.  One of the first companies to test mitochondrial DNA for the general public was Oxford Ancestors.  You may have heard of its founder, Dr. Brian Sykes, because he wrote The Seven Daughters of Eve, in which he explains mtDNA testing and describes the seven clan mothers from ancient Europe who still have descendants today.  My clan mother is Tara, who lived about 17,000 years ago in northwest Italy.  (Geneticists look at how Tara’s ancestors dispersed and how many mutations have occurred in her line to help them estimate where her clan began and how long ago they lived.)  Really cool, but not especially useful in helping you fill out your family tree.

Back to my brother’s Christmas gift.  His paternal line consists of our father, Jack Francis Smith; his father, Weaver Harris Smith; his father, Stephen Albert Smith (for whom my brother is named); and his father, John A. Smith.  Yes, that’s right—John Smith.  That’s as far as we know, and all we know about John A. Smith is that he was born about 1805 in Virginia and died about 1850 in Pike County, Alabama.  We hoped that my brother’s yDNA test would help us differentiate our John Smith from the many others with the same name and lead us to his parents, grandparents, etc. 

While mtDNA traces the matrilineal line of both men and women through mitochondrial DNA, which both sexes have, yDNA traces a man’s patrilineal line, his father’s father’s father, etc. through the genetic information encoded in his Y-chromosome.  While a man can take an mtDNA test, a woman cannot take a yDNA test for the very important reason that she doesn’t have a Y-chromosome to test.   yDNA is a lot more useful for identifying ancestors because surnames remain the same from generation to generation. Hopefully, we would connect with another Smith (we joined a surname project called Smiths Worldwide) who matches my brother genetically, and maybe he knows who John A. Smith’s father was.  Mystery solved.

Except my brother’s closest yDNA matches—he matches one of them on every one of 37 markers—are three men named Banks.  What??  I assumed the worst—what genetic genealogists call a non-paternity event (NPE).  I figured that sometime, somewhere, a female married to a Smith was unfaithful with a Banks man, and the result of that union took the surname Smith.  I even looked for Banks families that lived near our Smith family in Pike County, Alabama, although I don’t know that that is where the alleged NPE took place.  (There actually was a Banks family in Pike County, but now what do I do with that information?  The family tree of that Banks family doesn’t match the family trees contributed by the Banks men who matched my brother on the yDNA test.)  So, there the results sit, on the Family Tree DNA site, just waiting for additional information that makes sense of them.

Until this week, when one of my Internet cousins suggested I read a blog by genetic genealogist, Roberta Estes, at www.dna-explained.com.  In fact, I have read the entire archive of her fascinating blog posts, but one post, “Surprise Y Matches—What Do They Mean?” has been especially helpful.  According to Roberta, there is more than one reason that one man might have matches with another man with a different surname, and this occurrence is not that uncommon.

The fact that my brother and Mr. Banks match at 37 markers means that they have a common ancestor at some point in the past.  However, it’s possible to test 67 and even 111 markers.  If my brother and Mr. Banks were to upgrade to more markers, some mutations might show up that suggest that their common ancestor is not recent but way further back in time.  Testing of other cousins might prove either line and show that what we are dealing with really is an NPE.  Roberta also suggested what I had already done—look for Banks families in proximity to our Smith families in locations where we know they lived.

Other reasons for the mismatch in surnames?  1) Someone just decided to change his last name.  (What better name to change to than Smith?)  2) A step-father raised a boy that took his name, rather than his biological father’s.  3) A boy took his mother’s maiden name, perhaps because he was illegitimate.  4) Someone was unfaithful.  And something I actually had not considered—that the NPE, for whatever reason, might have occurred on the Banks side, not the Smith side.  Before DNA, those circumstances might never have been suspected, and the answers would never be found.

The recent sale at Family Tree DNA ($99) has encouraged my brother to purchase the Family Finder test.  I’ve already had the FF test done but have yet to find any conclusive Smith or Banks cousins.  Family Finder finds matches through a third type of DNA—autosomal.  This is the DNA that most of us are familiar with from those Punnett squares, the kind that is contributed by both father and mother and combines in different ways to make each of us the unique person that we are.  

The test produces a lot of data that I am still learning to interpret, but Family Finder does a lot of the work for you by listing your DNA matches, typically cousins and their suggested relation to you—2^nd-3^rd Cousin, 4^th Cousin, etc.  Our hope is that my brother’s test may give us some more options to trace our Smith line.  Because of the nature of autosomal DNA, my brother may have inherited more on our father’s side and will show up with more conclusive cousin matches that will give us some clues about the ancestry of John Smith (or, I suppose, prove that we aren’t related to him at all.)