Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Share Family Trees to support y-DNA studies: If you care, you'll share!
The members of the Taylor y-DNA project have been busy behind-the-scenes. We are close to having a major number of new participants join our project. This means there will be more likelihood that your DNA will be matched. However, as Ralph Taylor says, “In any case, they paid good money to get, essentially, a bunch of numbers. It doesn’t make sense to let that investment go to waste by failing to turn it into real knowledge.” That real knowledge is, of course, comparing your paper trail: family information, pedigrees, with project members with matching or very similar results. Ninety-five participants have already shared their male Taylor ancestral trees. But we have 145 participants who have not yet sent theirs in.
Now about those matching results, you may be aware that having a data match, even at 67 markers, means that your line converges with the other person’s within a few generations. Suppose you compare your earliest known ancestor to mine. If I have Isaac Newton Taylor, born 1824 in Ohio and you have Jacob Taylor born in 1799 in Philadelphia, with a 67 marker match, there is an implied relationship. It does not mean that the above [hypothetical] Jacob was Isaac’s father, or uncle, or cousin. It could be any of those situations. Or it could be something else. But the something else would involve a single man who was a common ancestor of both men!
Leigh Taylor told me: "I was able to find my entire maternal Swedish roots after I posted a query about the family who adopted my great-grandmother. A descendant of that line had collected some court records of his family which included my great-grandmother. He was so willing to share this information and it opened up a huge amount of data for me. I'm so grateful that he took the time to SHARE information."
Some project members are worried about privacy issues. Our project leader, Leigh Taylor, is also concerned about these issues as are the rest of the volunteer team. To avoid problems, we don’t publicly post the names and birthdates of living persons.
Remember to update your contact information, as it's really hard to communicate with those we've matched when the other person changed his email address without updating it with us!
For me, Lalia, I don’t see issues of privacy when the birth dates and information involves people who died more than a hundred years ago. But maybe I’m wrong. Let me know if you see something I don’t on that issue!
In any case, our family information is being shared only with other project members as you provide it. Some of you may be embarrassed to provide the information because you are concerned about errors in it. To me, all genealogical data has errors in it. Family trees are always being revised. So I consider all family trees as works in progress. Provide the best data you have. We hope that you will be able to learn more and make your tree more accurate.
I hope this has inspired you to share your Taylor data more freely within the project. This is especially important as we look at doubling the number of members within a few months. More participants mean more chances of scaling our genealogical brick walls!
Ralph Taylor says, “My experience is that sharing has advanced my own family history research a great deal. By freely offering the results of that research online, people see it and contact me -- saying something like, ‘Here’s more about my great-grandmother.’ Or, ‘You got this wrong.’ That opens a dialogue which benefits both parties. So, the sharing is sort of ‘fishing bait’; I get a nibble and try to reel ‘em in. For example, I would love to contact direct male descendants of James Taylor (1740 NC – 1816 TN) and convince one or more to join our Taylor Project. Maybe, someday, I'll get an e-mail or Post-em notice.”
Lalia says, “I also have benefited greatly, HUGELY, from the generosity of relatives who have shared their side of the family story. I would not know what I know without their input.”
Lalia
Now about those matching results, you may be aware that having a data match, even at 67 markers, means that your line converges with the other person’s within a few generations. Suppose you compare your earliest known ancestor to mine. If I have Isaac Newton Taylor, born 1824 in Ohio and you have Jacob Taylor born in 1799 in Philadelphia, with a 67 marker match, there is an implied relationship. It does not mean that the above [hypothetical] Jacob was Isaac’s father, or uncle, or cousin. It could be any of those situations. Or it could be something else. But the something else would involve a single man who was a common ancestor of both men!
Leigh Taylor told me: "I was able to find my entire maternal Swedish roots after I posted a query about the family who adopted my great-grandmother. A descendant of that line had collected some court records of his family which included my great-grandmother. He was so willing to share this information and it opened up a huge amount of data for me. I'm so grateful that he took the time to SHARE information."
Some project members are worried about privacy issues. Our project leader, Leigh Taylor, is also concerned about these issues as are the rest of the volunteer team. To avoid problems, we don’t publicly post the names and birthdates of living persons.
Remember to update your contact information, as it's really hard to communicate with those we've matched when the other person changed his email address without updating it with us!
For me, Lalia, I don’t see issues of privacy when the birth dates and information involves people who died more than a hundred years ago. But maybe I’m wrong. Let me know if you see something I don’t on that issue!
In any case, our family information is being shared only with other project members as you provide it. Some of you may be embarrassed to provide the information because you are concerned about errors in it. To me, all genealogical data has errors in it. Family trees are always being revised. So I consider all family trees as works in progress. Provide the best data you have. We hope that you will be able to learn more and make your tree more accurate.
I hope this has inspired you to share your Taylor data more freely within the project. This is especially important as we look at doubling the number of members within a few months. More participants mean more chances of scaling our genealogical brick walls!
Ralph Taylor says, “My experience is that sharing has advanced my own family history research a great deal. By freely offering the results of that research online, people see it and contact me -- saying something like, ‘Here’s more about my great-grandmother.’ Or, ‘You got this wrong.’ That opens a dialogue which benefits both parties. So, the sharing is sort of ‘fishing bait’; I get a nibble and try to reel ‘em in. For example, I would love to contact direct male descendants of James Taylor (1740 NC – 1816 TN) and convince one or more to join our Taylor Project. Maybe, someday, I'll get an e-mail or Post-em notice.”
Lalia says, “I also have benefited greatly, HUGELY, from the generosity of relatives who have shared their side of the family story. I would not know what I know without their input.”
Lalia
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Another Take on Surnames and Y-DNA Studies
Hi,
Here's a popular article that helps explain the relationship between having a common surname and having a genetic or biological relationship.
A study done in the UK shows that if you have a common surname--and I think Taylor would qualify--then you are about 24% likely to share a common ancestor. If your name is uncommon the chances are greater.
See http://www.genealogyintime.com/NewsStories/2008/October/are_people_with_the_same_family_name_related.html
Lalia
Here's a popular article that helps explain the relationship between having a common surname and having a genetic or biological relationship.
A study done in the UK shows that if you have a common surname--and I think Taylor would qualify--then you are about 24% likely to share a common ancestor. If your name is uncommon the chances are greater.
See http://www.genealogyintime.com/NewsStories/2008/October/are_people_with_the_same_family_name_related.html
Lalia
Friday, January 23, 2009
Morphing the Presidents Link
Hi,
This was too cool to keep to myself. You'll see our famous Zachary Taylor along with 42 other presidents. Remember that one president served two non-concurrent terms. So we've had 43 different presidents, but 44 presidential terms.
http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/Morphing+The+Presidents.aspx
Lalia
This was too cool to keep to myself. You'll see our famous Zachary Taylor along with 42 other presidents. Remember that one president served two non-concurrent terms. So we've had 43 different presidents, but 44 presidential terms.
http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/Morphing+The+Presidents.aspx
Lalia
Thursday, January 15, 2009
About your TAYLOR team administrators
As a person interested in the Taylor DNA project, you may have wondered about the history of the project itself and about who the volunteer administrators are and what brought them to the project. I plan to introduce each member in a series of articles. The TAYLOR DNA project has grown from a handful of participants to our present count of a couple of hundred members. At the beginning, there was no structure for the site nor well-defined jobs for the administrator. Everything was evolving. Expanding membership brought its own challenges and demands on the volunteers' "free" time. So some administrators stepped down and others volunteered.
Since TAYLOR is such a popular surname, we expect the project to continually expand its membership. [The more people tested the better chances we have to match someone else.] We have a system that works now, but when this project goes through its next major growth, say to get to a thousand members (!), we will be again working hard to have systems that allow the data to be most easily sorted and arranged in ways that facilitate the users getting the information they want and need.
So for our first article I find no better place to start than with the head of this team of volunteers, Dr. Leigh Taylor. Soon after the Taylor project was begun the first administrator called for more volunteers to assist. Leigh answered that call and has been involved with the project ever since.
In addition to her own personal genealogical research, Leigh's background includes research techniques, statistics and computer science as well as education.
Through Girl Scouting Leigh became interested in people from different cultures and countries. Her parents and maternal grandmother studied and spoke different foreign languages. So she became interested in her own ancestry. Before the days of internet-searching and DNA testing she gathered information from family members and the US Federal census. Luckily her Taylor family stayed put in Ohio for generations but once she found her great-great-great-grand-father b. 1759 in VA, census data would not help. She found several third cousins through searches on various genealogical websites and the DNA testing proved their paper trails to be correct but they were all stuck at this same brick wall. Through DNA testing, they were successful in matching with another Taylor member whose ancestor came to America from England in the 1600's. Now they are all working on this 100 year gap to find their common ancestor. The DNA test also disproved the family legend of kinship to President Zachary Taylor.
On the non-Taylor side of her family, Leigh has also had a cousin's DNA tested. He matched 3 other people with 100% match on 67 markers. So they too are trying to find the actual common ancestor but with the certainty they are related.
Next article, I will take up the story of the blog and of Dr. Leigh Taylor in my next post. One hint, she has recently published a genealogy book that is available from www.janawaygenealogy.com.
Since TAYLOR is such a popular surname, we expect the project to continually expand its membership. [The more people tested the better chances we have to match someone else.] We have a system that works now, but when this project goes through its next major growth, say to get to a thousand members (!), we will be again working hard to have systems that allow the data to be most easily sorted and arranged in ways that facilitate the users getting the information they want and need.
So for our first article I find no better place to start than with the head of this team of volunteers, Dr. Leigh Taylor. Soon after the Taylor project was begun the first administrator called for more volunteers to assist. Leigh answered that call and has been involved with the project ever since.
In addition to her own personal genealogical research, Leigh's background includes research techniques, statistics and computer science as well as education.
Through Girl Scouting Leigh became interested in people from different cultures and countries. Her parents and maternal grandmother studied and spoke different foreign languages. So she became interested in her own ancestry. Before the days of internet-searching and DNA testing she gathered information from family members and the US Federal census. Luckily her Taylor family stayed put in Ohio for generations but once she found her great-great-great-grand-father b. 1759 in VA, census data would not help. She found several third cousins through searches on various genealogical websites and the DNA testing proved their paper trails to be correct but they were all stuck at this same brick wall. Through DNA testing, they were successful in matching with another Taylor member whose ancestor came to America from England in the 1600's. Now they are all working on this 100 year gap to find their common ancestor. The DNA test also disproved the family legend of kinship to President Zachary Taylor.
On the non-Taylor side of her family, Leigh has also had a cousin's DNA tested. He matched 3 other people with 100% match on 67 markers. So they too are trying to find the actual common ancestor but with the certainty they are related.
Next article, I will take up the story of the blog and of Dr. Leigh Taylor in my next post. One hint, she has recently published a genealogy book that is available from www.janawaygenealogy.com.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Finding Your Taylor Kin Through Y-DNA
How can you maximize the chances of finding blood relatives? By doing the full 67 marker Y-DNA study and posting your family tree at the Taylor site. (If you are not a Taylor, post it at the appropriate site.)
Then proceed to set your search at FTDNA to search all surnames, AND list your results at Y-Search (which allows those who tested with other laboratories to compare their results with your FTDNA results).
I have previously found that neither my brother (Robinson project) or my great-uncle (Taylor project) were set to match ANY surname (other than their project). I physically changed both, and probably will need to do so again, since FTDNA just revised the website and caused many settings to change. Be sure and check your page, too.
Additionally, regarding the y-search, with both 67 marker subjects above there were VERY few people in the y-search (and no matches for either). The number participating in the Y search was less than 10% of the number in the surname project itself. So it has been a wasted effort SO FAR.
Given what we know about the Taylors, spelling changes and so forth, as well as the normal number of NPEs[1], limiting a search to just "Taylor" will exclude many likely matches.
Anyone who has spent more than a couple of minutes looking at his/her family tree will see how there have been diverging lines with different spellings, out-of-wedlock births, adoptions inside and outside the family, and other things that make tracing their DNA most likely to be fruitful if they search the entire FTDNA database!
Then, when you find your blood relative, I hope you each have enough of the family tree to solve all your questions about your forebears!
I like to think optimistically!
Please share your good news here.
[1] Non parental events: when the father of record is not the genetic father.
Then proceed to set your search at FTDNA to search all surnames, AND list your results at Y-Search (which allows those who tested with other laboratories to compare their results with your FTDNA results).
I have previously found that neither my brother (Robinson project) or my great-uncle (Taylor project) were set to match ANY surname (other than their project). I physically changed both, and probably will need to do so again, since FTDNA just revised the website and caused many settings to change. Be sure and check your page, too.
Additionally, regarding the y-search, with both 67 marker subjects above there were VERY few people in the y-search (and no matches for either). The number participating in the Y search was less than 10% of the number in the surname project itself. So it has been a wasted effort SO FAR.
Given what we know about the Taylors, spelling changes and so forth, as well as the normal number of NPEs[1], limiting a search to just "Taylor" will exclude many likely matches.
Anyone who has spent more than a couple of minutes looking at his/her family tree will see how there have been diverging lines with different spellings, out-of-wedlock births, adoptions inside and outside the family, and other things that make tracing their DNA most likely to be fruitful if they search the entire FTDNA database!
Then, when you find your blood relative, I hope you each have enough of the family tree to solve all your questions about your forebears!
I like to think optimistically!
Please share your good news here.
[1] Non parental events: when the father of record is not the genetic father.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Finding People Who Match Your Results
Having done (ideally) 67 markers, you then look at the results page, and you may not find any matches within the listed Taylor results. Do not despair! You have several options.
Your first option is to wait until another Taylor joins the project and matches your results.
Second, you can search the entire Family Tree DNA database, if you indicate that you do not want to limit your search to the Taylor surname. It may be that you have a match with the last name Cruse, or Obama, or Robinson! Why could this be true? Because not all people carry the surname of their biological father. And when they have children, their children will carry (usually) the name of the father, so the "false" name is propogated down generations.
A third option is to upload your markers to www.ysearch.org to find matches with those who had testing done by other companies.
While you are going through this process, you should still work on refining your research on your own family tree. That is the family tree you want to post to the Taylor DNA project, and it is the family tree you want to share with people who match your results.
The best of luck to you on this! Our goal is to fully document all the Taylor lines! Fortunately, we won't run out of fun doing this job in the near future!
Your first option is to wait until another Taylor joins the project and matches your results.
Second, you can search the entire Family Tree DNA database, if you indicate that you do not want to limit your search to the Taylor surname. It may be that you have a match with the last name Cruse, or Obama, or Robinson! Why could this be true? Because not all people carry the surname of their biological father. And when they have children, their children will carry (usually) the name of the father, so the "false" name is propogated down generations.
A third option is to upload your markers to www.ysearch.org to find matches with those who had testing done by other companies.
While you are going through this process, you should still work on refining your research on your own family tree. That is the family tree you want to post to the Taylor DNA project, and it is the family tree you want to share with people who match your results.
The best of luck to you on this! Our goal is to fully document all the Taylor lines! Fortunately, we won't run out of fun doing this job in the near future!
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