Results: 21% DNA - Ireland/Scotland/Wales

My DNA reveals that I have 21% Irish/Scottish/Welsh ancestry. I have ruled out any significant amount of Irish blood in my family, which is too bad considering that my son is traveling to Ireland next Spring... I was hoping to find some places of origin for him to explore. The Scotland and Wales connections are easier to identify.

Scotland
The Croffords are most certainly from Scotland. The original Horace Crawford (Crawfurd, Craufurd) came from Scotland to New York and settled in the Genessee Valley. He was a millwright. Horace is my 3X great grandfather. My primary source is a document written by my great grandmother Ada Crofford. Granted, she sometimes has errors in her family histories, but Horace would have been a close relative - her father-in-law - so the likelihood of error in information about him is less. The Crofford DNA is probably enough to account for most of the 21% Scottish blood in me.

The Crawford clan originates in the Southern part of Scotland

Crawford Castle was in existence in 1175

Wales

John Dillingham, my 3rd great grandfather whose daughter Anna married Calvin Crawford, is said to have come to America from Wales. This particular piece of family lore is in question, but is mentioned in several fairly reliable sources.

Then there is my 14th great grandfather, Sir Ieuan Deulwyn Bushe. born in 1427 at Rodes Court in Carmarthenshire, Wales. He was a famous poet whose work (50 poems) has survived to the present day. Whitfield Barrie Abbott is descended from the Bushe line through the Sabin family.

Earl

Another mystery solved!

One of the early surprises in my genealogy quest was finding out that Earl Butler was born three years before his parents, William Butler and Ida Rene [Bryant], were married in 1895. At the same time, I learned that Ida Rene's last name was "Williams" when she married William Butler; she was widowed by age 27 from a first marriage (her children never knew this).  

I concluded that Earl must not have been Ida's son. My question then was, "Who was Earl's mother?"

I contacted someone on Ancestry -  M. Butler.  She had downloaded a photo that I had posted of the three Butler boys, so I figured she was researching that family too. Come to find out, M's husband Scott is Earl's grandson. I jokingly (sort of) said that he should get a DNA test done. Almost a year later, M. writes that they did the DNA test and I am indeed a genetic match with Scott.  

So Earl is Ida's son after all.  

Ok, so... I'm still digesting this new information...

Facts:1) Earl was three years old when Ida and William Butler married. 2) Ida Rene was widowed, age 27 when she married William Butler (her last name was Williams on the marriage certificate).

Why would Ida wait for three years to marry William after having his child out of wedlock? Is it possible that Earl was Ida's son from her first marriage to Williams? Maybe William Butler adopted him?

One question only leads to another and another...

Here is Earl's family tree, showing how my new-found cousin Scott fits in:

 1) William Brown Butler m. (1895) Ida Rene [Bryant] Williams
     2) Earl Charles, b. 1892
         m. Ellen (1911)
            3) Edna 
            3) Helen
         m. Agnes (abt 1925)
            3) William Earl
                   4) William Bryant 
                   4) Robert Scott 
                   4) Charles Earl
            3) Mary Ann
     2) William Bryant, b. 1895
     2) Rawley Martin, b. 1897

Earl Charles Butler, 1892-1962, son of Ida Rene Bryant

Ida Rene Bryant > Jacqueline Abbott > John Beverly Zaun > Teresa Zaun

 

DNA results

Mom's DNA test results came in yesterday.  It was like Christmas!  I can't wait to dive into her DNA matches and Shared Ancestors.

At first look, there is perplexing information in her test results.  Her ethnicity estimate was much different from mine. Hers came in at 14% Italian or Greek... I had none of that ethnicity in my own results.  I had Iberian Peninsula (Spain) in my results, but she showed none at all.  She has ancestors in Eastern Europe; I have ancestors in Western Europe.  I have no Scandinavian ancestry in my DNA. Why is our ethnicity so different?  Our DNA results prove that we have a parent/child relationship.

I spent some time last night looking through her DNA matches to see what common ancestors popped up.  While examining the first 3 pages of 7 pages of matches, I found many Allen ancestors from Virginia, but there were also many Allen ancestors from New England (NY, CT, MA).  There were many Hickox matches (no surprise there). I will have to revise my findings after I review all 7 pages of DNA matches.

I may have to open my mind to going in a different direction with my research.  I thought I had it all neatly wrapped up with proper documentation, but I realize there may be some false assumptions.  Stay tuned.

Allens of Virginia

Still obsessed with the Allen family and trying to confirm some tentative conclusions about my grandmother's ancestry.  I am writing this without my notes in front of me but can share the gist of the story.

It seems that there are two distinct lines of Allens that settled in early Virginia, maybe three. There are the Allens that came over from England in the 1600's and settled in New Kent County.  There are Allens that settled in York County in the 1600's. Then there are the Allens that came over from Scotland and moved into western Virginia from the north.

These families converged in Southwest Virginia by the 1800's. Descendants migrated to Kentucky and West Virginia. These families used many of the same first names (i.e. Sarah, Rebecca, Robert, John), and they intermarried with some of the same families (i.e. Scott, Crawford, Watson).

No wonder I am having trouble figuring out who is whom!

UPDATE:  I contacted someone through the Lunenburg Historical Society Facebook page. They referred me to two genealogists who have done a lot of research about the Allens. We have been corresponding for a couple of days now, and I am excited to have such enthusiastic help with my research!  It turns out that I really need to get a yDNA test done on a male member of the Allen line to prove my connection to the New Kent Allens.  We have no direct Allen descendants - I'd have to find a proven descendant of one of Augustus Allen's siblings.

More DNA testing

Through a video course on ancestry, I learned that one should get a DNA test on the oldest member of the family line.  Makes sense - the closer you are to an ancestor, the more concentration of their DNA you have.

So I ordered another test, and got mom to spit in the test tube (took her 20 minutes to work up 1/4 tsp of spit!).  The test has been sent off, and I am waiting for the results with great anticipation. I hope this will help solve some of the mysteries of her family's past.

Lunenburg, Virginia

The main focus of my research lately has been on the Allens of Virginia.  I am determined to prove the link between my orphaned grandmother, Teresa (nee Ethelyn), and the Allens that have shown up in my DNA matches.

The Allens started out in New Kent County.  I have pinpointed the exact location of their homestead. The property is described as being on "Williamsburg Road." There are even photos online of the Allen home taken during the Civil War.

Historic map of New Kent landowners showing the Allen property.  There is also Allen property near West Point, Virginia.

The arrow points to the present day location of the Allen property shown on the historic map above.  It is on or near the current site of the New Kent airport.  The branch of the river that runs north toward Tallysville is called "Allen's Run."

The Allens moved to Lunenburg County from New Kent.  Historic Lunenburg County is known as the "Mother of Counties."  It included thirteen counties that were part of the "Hanover Counties," west and south of Richmond. The Allen home was the old "Brengle's Place" in Lewiston.

Our Allen ancestors were instrumental in the development of the road system on Lunenburg.

An act of the General Assembly passed March 21, 1853, authorized formation of the Lewiston Plank Road Company to construct a road from a point on the Richmond and Danville Railroad by way of Lewiston in Lunenburg County to some point on the Meherrin River or to the Lunenburg Plank Road. Capital stock was set at $30,000 with the Board of Public Works authorized to subscribe to 3/5 or $18,000. The construction was to begin within two years, with completion by five years. An increased in capital stock was authorized March 29, 1858 by $10,000 to complete the project.

From the guide to the Lewiston Plank Road Company Minute Book, 1853-1855, (The Library of Virginia)

From here, some of the Allens moved south into North and South Carolina, and some moved west into Kentucky and beyond. Our family was in the group that moved west.

William Allen and his wife, Mary Lewis, have shown up consistently in my DNA matches.  I believe their son Turner was my 4th great grandfather, but have yet to find conclusive evidence of this.

My Family Tree - 5 generations

Here are five generations of my family tree, as accurate as I have been able to prove thus far.  I printed this basic tree from Ancestry.com, but on the actual website, you can see all the documentation and photos that I have accumulated on each person.  Each one has a unique story to tell!  I am 100% sure of the identities of all but two of these folks.  Sadie Wright and Elizabeth Highland, both 2X great grandmothers, have precious little information available, either in family documents or online.  Their names are about all that could be found.

I hope this is readable - it was hard to get a scanned copy to fit this space.

I took an online course to be able to better understand the DNA test results. It made me realize that more of our family members should get tested in order to more fully prove my genealogy research!  I thought that siblings had nearly identical DNA, but that is not true at all.  My sister and I each got different pieces of our parents' DNA; therefore, she may have gotten pieces of DNA from an ancestor that I did not.  I also learned that cousins, up to 4th cousins, almost certainly share at least some DNA.  On the other hand, I could be cousins with someone who shares absolutely no DNA at all with me, but we could both be linked by DNA to a different cousin who shares our same ancestor.  This gets very complicated, as you can imagine.

Research Status Update

The ancestry DNA results will take some time to sort out - LOTS of time.  I have to click on each of the hundreds of "cousins" who share my DNA and look at the list of common surnames.  A cousin may share my DNA, but have no surnames in common with my tree (how could that be?).  And not every surname is the one that links us.  We may have ten surnames in common, but which is the one that connects us? Sometimes the results will show a specific ancestor that we share (not just the surname) and it will show the relationship of that cousin to me on the family tree.  That is the gold nugget that I search for in the results.

There have been several "gold nuggets" concerning the Allens of St. Peter's Parish, New Kent County, Virginia. The common ancestors in this case are Robert Allen, Sr. (1704-1784) and his wife, Elizabeth Young Stokes.  The problem is, I am having trouble determining from which one of their many children we are descended. Working backwards from my great-grandfather Augustus Dozier Allen (1859-1904), there was his father, Robert Scott Allen (1797-1864), and HIS father, John Watson Allen (abt 1770).  I just need to determine the missing generations between the original Allen and John Watson Allen.

Robert Allen, Sr. (1704-1784) m. Elizabeth Young Stokes (1702-1762)
Children:  Lt. Robert Samuel Allen, Jr., William Carr Allen, Drury, Reynolds, David, Young, James, Josiah, Ann, Judith, Sarah, Agnes, Elizabeth, Susannah, Richard.

Our most probable path is William Carr Allen (1724-1789) > Turner Allen (1751-1800) > John Watson Allen > Robert Scott Allen > Augustus Dozier Allen.  

Augustus Allen married Eva Bosworth, so I also hoped to prove the link to the Bosworths.  Sure enough, there are several DNA matches that share specific Bosworth ancestors with my tree.  This proves that their only child "Ethelyn," and my grandmother Teresa are one and the same.  The Bosworth link also confirms our Mayflower descendance from the Howland/Tilley families.

This fulfills my primary purpose in having the DNA test done.

I will eventually write about the illustrious Allen family of Virginia, who associated with the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and who owned vast tracts of land in what is now Gloucester and New Kent County.  Stay tuned!

The Results are In

Up until now, all of my research had been through various written sources, most of which has the potential to be misleading and laden with human error. 

Today, I got the results of my DNA test which will prove (or disprove) my research ABSOLUTELY and SCIENTIFICALLY.  I am nervous to open it.  I am overwhelmed at the thought of what I might find.  I wonder if I even have the capacity to comprehend it all.  I am afraid that I will be opening a can of worms that will take over my life.


The first part of the DNA results is easy to understand.  The Ethnicity estimate holds no surprises...99% European. Here is the more detailed breakdown:

The second part of the results is the overwhelming part. I have hundreds of new cousins with whom I share a significant amount of DNA. I can click on each of these new cousins to find out what surnames are common with my family tree, and which ones have common ancestors. I can even contact the cousin to share information.

I decided to click on each cousin's record to briefly scan over the surnames looking for the ones that are familiar to me. I barely even started going through the list when I came across the names that I was hoping to find, proving a biological connection to my maternal grandmother's parents. I think I will stop there for now.

Genetic Memory

I do not believe in reincarnation, though I have had personal experiences that made me understand why people do believe in it.  Now, I read about studies conducted at Emory University indicating that we inherit memories through our DNA, that we share in the experiences of our ancestors. This would explain a lot!  Chemical changes to our DNA occur when we experience a stressful or traumatic event, and experiments with mice show that these memories are passed down to subsequent generations. Experiences can alter our brains and our behavior, and these traits can be inherited.  Our DNA holds the recorded history of our family!  Natural aversions and instincts, and even phobias can be explained by this biological mechanism. I'm thinking that those mysterious deja vu moments can be explained by this as well.

Deja Vu

deja vu 

When I was about seven years old, my parents and a neighbor took me with them to Colonial Williamsburg. I remember very little about the visit, but one moment struck me so dramatically, I still get goosebumps thinking about it. The grownups were at Raleigh Tavern purchasing ginger cakes from the bakery there. (The smell still has very strong memory associations for me, which may explain why I must bake Raleigh Tavern ginger cakes every Christmas).  Anyway, I walked ahead of them and opened a little white gate leading out to Duke of Gloucester Street.  As I stood in the gateway looking toward the capitol building, an powerful sensation of deja vu came over me, and I have never forgotten it.  At that age, I could not even have known that deja vu was a thing.

Remembering Places I've Never Been
There are certain places that have always greatly interested me for no reason that I could figure - I have never set foot in any of them, but they are on my bucket list for sure:  Long Island and Cape Cod, The Alamo in Texas, and the particular areas of England associated with the legend of King Arthur.  Also, a story that greatly intrigued me as a child was The Boy at the Dike, set in the Netherlands.

Through my genealogy research in the past two years, I have discovered that my ancestors have solid connections with these very places.  It is truly an exciting thing for me, to believe that my inexplicable attraction to these places may be linked to my DNA!  I believe that this phenomenon might explain why some people get so hooked on genealogy once they get started.  It's like finding yourself.