Hunting Down My Elusive Ancestry

*Let me start this genealogy post by prefacing it with this.....

When I was a very young child, I remember hearing something about there being Native American blood on my mother's side of the family lines.  I can't tell you exactly who said this(though it was my mother or someone related to me on her side of the family)but I have a recollection of "something".
Of course, now that I'm interested in all these things, my mother and her parents are long dead so there is no one in my life currently to get any more information on this to either prove or disprove this idea.

As I've been going through the paper records on my ancestors I've uncovered a few "interesting" things in regard to our ancestry and having native peoples in our family tree.

First off, here's a little background information on World War I US Draft Registration Cards.

There were 3 stages of the draft process, so your ancestor's card could be from one of these three time periods:

1. 5 June 1917 all men between the ages of 21 and 31 were registered.
2. 5 June 1918 those men who turned 21 AFTER 5 June 1917, with supplemental registration on 24 Augusts 1918 for those who turned 21 after 5 June 1918.
3. 12 September 1918 for those men aged from 18 to 45 inclusive who had not previously been required to register.

Each registration period used a slightly different registration card.
These are just random persons cards from the era, not family members. You can click and 'embiggen them if you are interested in seeing the differences between each registration period's form.

Someone's card from 5 June 1917.....on this one they asked you Which race? and you filled in a race.....

 

 A 5 June 1918 card.....on this one, under number 5, they put each possible answer for race and you crossed off the ones that didn't apply to you, leaving 1 answer uncrossed......

And a 21 September 1918 card.......this one has 5 possible race/boxes(the native box had 2 sub-boxes)and you checked which applied to you......

 

Each one is arranged slightly differently, but ask the same basic information.


The first "interesting" thing concerns two of the brothers of my maternal great grandmother and their World War I draft registration cards.

Russell Paris Baker(the son of Wesley Baxter Baker and Luretta Foster)registered during the 3rd draft period and his information appears on the third version of the Registration Card.......

 If you look closely, Under RACE, you can check the box for "White", "Negro", "Oriental" or "Indian".....and under "Indian" there is a choice between "Citizen" and "Non-citizen"(Which probably meant if you lived on a reservation, and thus within the Indian Nation, you checked Non-Citizen and if you lived outside of the reservation you checked off Citizen).

Russell Baker, who lived in Randolph, Charlotte County, Virginia in 1918, checked off "White" AND "Indian-Citizen".

And his brother, Richard Baxter Baker's draft card....

And their cousin, Bruce Prudent Foster(the son of my great grandmother's Uncle William Dillon Foster), who registered while living in Wilmington DE, also has the White and Citizen-Indian boxes checked as well.......

This information either means that my great grandmother Baker's mother's Foster line had a known to this generation Native American ancestor(s) OR that my great grandmother's brothers and cousin didn't understand how to fill out these cards fully and thought the "citizen" box meant a US Citizen and not a reservation vs. non-reservation recognized Native American person of that time.

So this does nothing to answer my NA ancestry questions one way or another.

Earlier this year, when I had my autosomal DNA tested(it tests random areas on your DNA strands and your matches can come from any of your 4 ancestral lines at the grandparent level) one of my closer matches was to a gentleman who is a known 5th generation descendant of William Taptico.

William Taptico(which was later shortened to Tapp)was the last Chief of the Wicocomico Nation.  The Wicocomico were an Algonquin speaking tribe of Native Americans who were living in what is now the Northumberland County area of Virginia(The northern neck of Virginia).   They were among the confederacy of tribes lead by Powhatan and were first encountered by Capt. John Smith in 1608 as he explored beyond where Jamestown was founded.  They were one of the first Native nations "given" reservation lands(land that had belonged to them to begin with)by the first English who settled in Virginia.  Over time the English used the courts to swindle the tribe out of some of those acreage, leaving them with about 1700 acres by the early 1700's from the original 4400 acres granted them in a treaty in the 1650's.

After the death of Chief William Taptico, the last weroance of the Wicocomico, in 1719, the English confiscated what was left of the lands of the Wicocomico nation and forcibly disbanded the tribe and officially brought the tribe to extinction in the eyes of the English legal system and society.
You can read some more on the Wicocomico HERE and HERE.

Anyway, I am related to this known descendant of the leader of the Wicocomico nation through my DNA but I don't know which of the 4 lines.  I suspect however that I am probably related to him via one of the European Northern ancestors that intermarried into his family tree(which I am assuming there are)as his Y-DNA(paternal) Haplogroup is Q1a3 but he has not listed his mtDNA(maternal).  My mtDNA is obviously NOT native American since it's a J Haplogroup(Northern European) and my Y-DNA, when it comes back, will most probably be a R1b or R1a(also European)given the paper trail I have compiled so far.
At any rate, there is still a chance we are related via his native line since I don't know nearly enough about how all this dna stuff works.
I've written the gentleman to look into doing some joint research with him to see how we ARE related(through which lines), but he elected to ignore my email.
Oh well.....

So I am still left with open questions and no answers.

And of course because my people on this side of the families are from Virginia going back many centuries I also have to deal with the "Plecker Factor" when trying to root out any information in regard to race.

Yes, Mr. Plecker......the bane of every genealogist doing research into Virginia records of the early 20th century.


The Plecker Factor refers to Walter Plecker, who was the head of the Bureau of Vital Statistics for the state of Virginia from 1912 to 1946.  He drafted and lobbied for the passage of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 which instituted the "one drop" rule in the state.  He was a white supremacist who the Nazis consulted in regard to his views on race mixing and eugenics.
Plecker used his position to have anyone with any non-white blood to be classified as a Negro, even Native Americans, as he held the belief that the Virginian Native population had intermarried so often with the Negro population that no one at that point in history in Virginia was pure enough to be considered Native.  He had official records changed so that anyone with non-white blood was recorded in society as Negro.  Many Native or mixed blood Native people fled Virgina during this time to other states.  His manipulating of the records adds another layer of difficulty to trace anyone's Native ancestry in Virginia from that period on.

I had hoped to ask some at the family reunion last month but fewer of the old timers elected to come this year and I didn't get a chance to ask any of the ones who might know something.  I have connected with the wife of my mother's cousin who is their family's historian so I am hoping to get a dialogue going soon on this native American issue with her, if she is aware of it.
Stay tuned......

Sluggy




 

Goddag På Dig!

So to continue on with my DNA test.
I had what is called the "Family Finder" or Autosomal test.
Both males and females can take this one.
It tests your SNPs or Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms.
Try saying that 10 times really fast!

This Family Finder kit tests along the 22 autosomal pairs of  your chromosomes.
It is helpful for finding recent relatives and your geographic origins.

With this genetic information they put your results next to the results for everybody else who has been tested, and see where and how much of your DNA matches to the same positions on your chain to everyone else's DNA combinations in their database.

This test can be useful in finding your genetic cousins going back 5-6 generations.....meaning you could match other's DNA going back to a shared common ancestor of your 4x Great Grandparents generation.

The drawback to this test though is that while it tells you who shares enough DNA combinations with you to be related to you, it doesn't tell you if that match is from your paternal or maternal side.
So basically it gives you a clue but brings along even more questions.

Or as I like to put it, someone hands you a jigsaw puzzle piece from the center of a puzzle and then dumps the other 9,999 pieces on the table and walks away. 8-)

My Match Results turned up 6 pages of "Distant Cousins"(who could be anywhere from 2nd to 5th cousins) and 35 pages of "Speculative Cousins"(who could be anywhere from 4th to Remote cousins), and 40 pages of possible matches over the entire database.

I wasn't counting on any close matches since my mother was an only child and my father had/has 1 sister and none of that generation was ever tested nor has my 1 remaining sibling been tested.
The closest match possible would be a second cousin if any of my grandparents siblings' grandchildren have/had been tested.
More on this later......

I have already shared my Population Finder conclusion.  Most, if not all, of my genetic material tested came back as originating in Western Europe.

Besides my nice totally blue pie chart, I also got a map graphic of the world, indicating where my ancestors originated from.
Wanna see it?

Look closely and try to find the dark blue specs of color.  The variation is so small you might need a microscope.  Not only am a very very white, I may be inbred.....lol

My DNA indicates that my ancestors mostly(if not all), came from Western Europe.
There are 7 Continental Groups you can be placed into.......Africa, Americans, Europe, East Asia, Middle Eastern, Oceania and South Asia.
Within these groups you can belong to a subgroup genetic population.

And within these subgroups are smaller subgroups of nationalities.
Here's Europe's group, subgroup and nationality breakdowns.....

Europe
	Northeast European
		Finnish
		Russian
	Southeast European
		Romanian
	Southern European
		Italian
		Sardinian
		Tuscan
	Western European
		Basque
		French
		Orcadian (Orkney Islands)
		Spanish

Using this organizational chart, since my findings came back as Europe/Western European, I could have shown Basque, French, Orcadian, Spanish or any combination of these in my results.
Like 43% French and 10% Basque and 47% Basque, etc.

Mine came back with a 100% makeup of Orcadian population.  This refers to the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland(which are part of modern day Scotland).

If you look at a map and do a little digging into the history of who and how different populations of peoples moved around in Europe the last 4,000 years, you'll see that Orkney is a group of 70 islands where the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea meet.
Neighboring countries/populations are Scotland(of course), the other British Isles of England, Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Mann, the Faroe Islands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden to the northwest, the seabound shores of France, Belgium and the Netherlands(plus part of northern Germany), plus Iceland out there northwest of the Faroes.

This Orcadian designations doesn't mean my ancestors were necessarily from the Orkney Islands but it means that the dna tested indicates that my ancestors were among the groups/tribes that mixed it up together in this area of the world......Scots, Picts, Vikings and Normans mostly.  This area of the world changed hands many times and countries were ruled by these groups.
People who test to be among the Orcadian population can also be found to have French ancestry I have read.  And there is definite direct French/Norman ancestry in my paper trail.

Orkney's first residents were Mesolithic hunters.  Then the savage warriors known as the Picts ruled over the area(throw in some Roman invasions)and then the even more savage Norse, along with the Danes, the Celts and the Norman invaders from the south.
You can go read a history book for more details but this gives you an idea of the groups swirling around this area of the world, swapping DNA long, long ago.

This idea that I could have Scandinavian/Norse ancestors if you go back far enough took me by surprise at first.  Not that you could prove via paper trail if I had a Scandinavian ancestor since there wouldn't have been any paper trail to follow that far back......

So while I was shaking my head at the thought of an ancestor named Ingrid or Bjorn, I saw this person listed as a possible 5th cousin-distant relative on my matches....
Rune NXXXXD
When you test your DNA you have the option of listing any known surnames in your family tree, so that you can see if you have any surnames in common with people you genetically match up with.  It gives you a place to start looking for the specific person who you are linked through.
Here is a partial list of Rune's family surnames.......       

• ¢demyr,
• ¢vregard,
• Andersbakken,
• Andersdatter Bredevangen,
• Andersdatter Fauchalskogen,
• Andersdatter Gjefseneie,
• Andersdatter Nigard Røsêasen,
• Anstensen N²rstelia,
• Bentsen Nigarden R²sêasen,
• Bentsen R²sêasen,
• Berdonsen Lille-Goplum,
• Bönick,
• Christiansen Skartseterbakken,
• Eiriksson Valbj²r,
• Endresdatter Fr²ysland,
• Engebretsdatter Odde,
• Engeskog,
• Eriksen Fr²ysland,
• Evensdatter Skartseterbakken,
• Fodstadkvennumen,
• Fr²ysland,
• Fremstad,
• Gr²te,
• Gr²thaug,
• Grimsrud,
• Gudbrandsdatter Krok,
• Gudbrandsen Gjefseneie,
• Gudmundsdatter ¢verbyeie,
• Gudmundsdatter Skinnerlia,
• Gulbrandsdatter,
• Guttormsdatter Gaarden,
• Haagensdatter Odde,

I can't even begin to spell these let alone find them in my family tree! lolz
And Rune lives in Sweden by the way.

The guide to this Autosomal testing does say it can pick up genetic dna matches going back further than 5-6 generations(or make mistakes evidently).
If there is a link here with old Rune, I know it has to be much deeper than 4x Great Grands ago.....



But on the other hand, when I gave that report on Wagner operas in a college music class and wore that Brunhilde Viking horned helmet for the presentation it felt oddly familiar and right to me.

                                   (photo from mudcat.org)

And dare I show you all this painting I did back in college?

It's entitled "Self-Portrait"........excuse the glare of the flash and  that it makes the painting look like I don't have a nose.....

 

Of course this Autosomal DNA test is also in it's BETA testing phase plus it only extracts/looks at about 40% of your chromosomal material so if they compared other places on your chains/strands you might come out with a slightly different continental grouping or subgrouping AND the same test might match you with people in their database that you weren't matched with for the markers/material they did test.
Which means, I may or may not actually have a genetic match with any one of these people they matched me with AND I may have ancestry in my DNA from other parts of the world, but it just wasn't found/tested for or it's too small of a dilution to be conclusive.
Yep.....that just makes this whole thing much clearer.....clear as mud...... ;-)

Who knows?
I might just have an "inner Viking".....



Sluggy

Organizing Work...Boring but Necessary

Nothing much exciting to talk about today.

I took a ride out to visit "Joshua" at the cemetery in St. Johns PA yesterday.
Actually, I went to snap some photos of headstones, both photo requests on F.A.G. and just random stones to put up memorials for on F.A.G.
And Joshua snubbed me....humph!  He must have been up late partying the night before.

I found at least 9 headstones for requests(I may have found more but I need to go through and edit my photos first).  I also found some relatives of the requests who didn't have memorials up on F.A.G. yet, which may make the people who requested photos happier still, as they be long lost relations.

A few of the headstones were very worn and all the details aren't readily readable.  I found this video of a guy who uses flour to bring out the etching in old unreadable headstones....

 

If you read the lengthy list of comments on that video you'll see the flour method has pros and cons and it's use is not widely recommended.  I may have to get a blacklight or laser flashlight to keep in the car as those doesn't seem to harm the headstones and can aid in reading the markers.  It doesn't help that my eyes are old and getting weaker too.

Anyway, today I'm editing photos and uploading them to F.A.G.

I also found an interesting real estate property on the road to the cemetery that is for sale.
Check it out HERE.  It needs gutting basically but it's a nice piece of property in a low tax area and it's right across the road from a creek and it's going for pennies.....mostly because it needs a whole house redo.
But we could buy it for cash and work on it at our leisure.  Of course that would mean retiring up here in the snowbelt but then there is always RV living out-of-state for the winter months.
It's a moot point unless I can get an agent to SHOW us the house!....which no one seems to want to do.  You would think with the housing/real estate market depressed as it is, agents would be returning my calls without haste to get me inside this house, huh?
Not so.
I guess the commission on a $40K property just isn't worth their effort.....

I also cleaned out my Yahoo mailbox earlier this week.  1500+ emails gone!
I unsubbed from many email firms there and dumped a bunch of spam and unwanted mails.
Then I set up some new folders and moved about 300 emails worth keeping.
I am left with 10 emails to deal with in the old inbox.
Go me! lol

I don't access my Yahoo mail much anymore.  I don't remember what led me over there to my inbox but I'm glad I went because I found out something interesting.

Yah see, when I got this new computer with Windows 8(STILL hate W8!), the Hubs couldn't sent up my email server into the Windows program so that my incoming mail goes into my inbox.  He had to sent up a folder in the email program for my server addy and all my incoming mail from my server comes into that folder, not my inbox. (We have a "pop" email account and W8 doesn't support that any longer?)  It's too confusing for me to explain better or even to understand.....I just know that it "ain't right".

Over the last couple of months, since being on this new machine, I've sent out emails to folks.  Now there is still a feature on this machine, through Windows 8, that hooks to my yahoo email account.  I just discovered, by going into my yahoo inbox, I have replies to emails I sent out that I never got responses to in my reg. email server account I use...which is where I thought I had sent these emails from.  Somehow, it seems, when I sent emails on this machine to these persons, the computer used my yahoo email account, thus the replied to the yahoo email.

One such person I never got a response from was Tanner....well she DID respond but I never saw the response as it went to my Yahoo inbox.
Evidently, I hit something on my computer and instead of sending some emails out through my regular server it brought up a blank email form through the yahoo account.
So I apologize if I never responded to your response to me, especially to Tanner.
I'll be emailing you later Tanner about what we were corresponding about....I haven't forgotten you! ;-)

It truly sucks being a technology halfwit and have I told y'all how much I detest Windows 8 yet?? 8-))

Speaking of Yahoo, some day I'll have to tell y'all the story about my Siamese twin Asian email sister on Yahoo.
It's a hoot of a story.

Oh!!!
One more thing to say.......
I got my testing kit yesterday in the mail.

 

I'll be brushing the inside of my cheeks today and sending off my dna to be analyzed tomorrow.
I'm so excited to see what comes up as far as matches(if any)and what it says about my ancestry.
Knowing my luck, it will tell me I am descended from Nordic ancestors and Monkeys, none of which is correct......that I know of.......!

Has anyone else out there taken the first step into the Wide World of Genetic Testing for Ancestry?

Sluggy