The Case for Using Family Finder in a Surname Project

Members of the Taylor Project have almost all participated by means of y-DNA testing. You submitted a sample, provided a basic pedigree and the name of your earliest know Taylor ancestor and now (ideally) you are matched with a group of Taylors. Your group descends from a single line and the other group members are your cousins.

In an ideal world, you know your exact relationship with each member of your Taylor group. Knowing this relationship, each of you can now claim your combined paper trail of lineage.

Isn’t that why you have participated in DNA testing?

Well, it doesn’t always work out like that. And you, dear reader, may be one of the people who is an exception to the ideal portrayed above. This is where the Family Finder test can be of great benefit. The Family Finder test looks at autosomal DNA, which is inherited from all of your lines of descent, not just the male-to-male lineage of y-DNA or the female-to-female lineage of mitochondrial DNA. It is a way to investigate all your lines.

I’m writing this because there is a price reduction on this test for current FTDNA members. Take advantage of a major price reduction through June 22nd.

What can the Family Finder test contribute? Let’s look at several situations.

First, you are a male Taylor, you have a fairly close match with other Taylor project members, enough to form a group, but you don’t know your exact relationship. If you and others in your group do the Family Finder test (henceforth FF), you can close in on your relationship. For example, if your y-DNA suggests a 50% likelihood of a common ancestor within 6 generations, doing the FF will indicate if your common ancestor is within seven generations (the equivalent of 5th cousins) and suggest the number of generations between you. This should focus on exactly where to look for the paper trail indicating a common ancestor. It also may help identify a relative who has not yet tested who would be “the missing link.”

Second instance, you are a female Taylor. You don’t have any y-DNA, and you don’t know any living male Taylors of your line. Doing the FF test will allow you to match with Taylor males currently unknown to you. You can then use their Taylor group, from their y-DNA results, to work towards your earliest Taylor ancestor.

Third instance, you are a male Taylor. Your y-DNA did not match any Taylor line, but did match another surname project. The evidence is pretty conclusive that one of your male ancestors carried the name Taylor, but was not biologically a Taylor. However, you do not know when that NPE (non-parental event) occurred. Was it in your generation? Five generations? More? With the FF test, you can compare your results with other known Taylor relatives, second cousins, great aunts and uncles. If you match them, the likelihood is that the NPE occurred prior to the births of all those tested, and that a common ancestor of all of yours came subsequent to the NPE. (However this inference cannot extend beyond seven generations due to limitations of the testing, nor can it extend beyond the parameters of your individuals sampled.)

Fourth instance, you are a male with a non-Taylor surname. Your y-DNA matched the Taylor line in multiple close matches. You don’t know when the NPE occurred. You do the FF test. If you match a Taylor group with the FF in addition to y-DNA, this suggests the NPE occurred within the last seven generations. It may be fewer generations depending upon the FF results. At least you can begin to discover your roots.

Finally, what about the unique individual who has tested 67 y-DNA markers and mt-DNA and has no matches? I know one of these people. We hope with the FF test to finally find someone who matches!

I look forward to us all finding out our ancestry.

Lalia

Jefferson Taylor, Police Officer Killed by Lightening at Joplin Tornado Scene

From Police One.com:


SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Officer Jefferson “Jeff” Taylor of the Riverside (Mo.) Police Department, who was struck by lightning while aiding in relief efforts in the wake of the Joplin tornado, passed away at in Springfield (Mo.) today. Family members were at his side at St. John’s Hospital — where he had undergone successful skin graft surgery and was being treated for other complications related to injuries he suffered in that incident on Monday, May 23 — when he died. Taylor is the first officer in the history of Riverside Police Department to die in the line of duty.

From OfficerDown.com:

Master Patrolman Jeff Taylor succumbed to injuries sustained on May 23, 2011, while assisting with tornado disaster response efforts in Joplin, Missouri.

Patrolman Taylor had just returned to a command post on a department ATV to drop off another first responder when a bolt of lightning struck next to where he was standing. Other public safety officers on the scene immediately began CPR and stabilized him for transport to the hospital.

He was transferred to St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, where he remained until succumbing to his injuries on June 3, 2011.

~~~~~~~~~~

Let me know if he is a member of your Taylor family. He is one of many who have given their lives in the service of others. May he rest in peace.

Lalia Wilson for the Taylor Surname Project

Collaboration is the Name of the Game

A lot of work goes on behind the scenes of this Taylor DNA project. Among what happens is that the administrators are actively working with project members to facilitate a win-win experience for all. One of the principal parts to making your experience with the project a success is offering as much information as you can about your family lines—excluding personal information on living persons.

 

On your personal page at www.familytreedna.com, you have ways to input data about your father’s line, your mother’s line and all family lines. These can be input as a gedcom or individually.

When you post this information, it allows near-matches to begin to see where their line connects with your line. For best results, all project members should be forthcoming with family pedigrees.

But your job is not over! A next part is to actively collaborate with people who ask you for information. This means responding in a timely manner to project members who inquire about possible connections. It means responding thoughtfully. It means being responsible for your own safety and protection as well—don’t share mother’s maiden names or birthdates or social security numbers for living people!

It may be that you get a lot of e-mail; I do. If you are busy, give a quick response. “I got your message. I may have some information on your question. I cannot get to it until after the 20th. Please contact me again if I don’t get back to you.”

 

I have been in many conversations with project members and other genetic genealogists about how to best work collaboratively. Here are some thoughts from our member Richard A. Taylor:

 

I don't understand why so many folks spend all their money and time testing with FTDNA or some other DNA testing company, joining the Family Finder group and/or signing up for any of the many groups, projects or blogs and then DO NOT SUBMIT FAMILY TREES, GEDCOMS, MULTIPLE SURNAMES OR NOTES ABOUT THEIR FAMILY ORIGINS AND WORST OF ALL - DO NOT REPLY TO A CONTACT E-MAIL MESSAGE OFFERING TO SHARE/COMPARE INFORMATION!!!

 

I've sent out e-mails to three people listed as possible matches, 2 for my line and 1 for a friend’s Taylor line, without any reply or acknowledgement. Reckon this is sort of analogous to "leading a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

 

Why go to all this trouble if you're not going to respond or share any info?

I know that Dick’s a bit annoyed in his tone above, but he is simply repeating some of the frustration that all of us face as we start working through our matches in the Taylor project (and with our other related lines).

 

To the extent we can, we should work to make our own experience and that of our related lines as pleasant as possible. We can do this by submitted your family pedigree, or gedcom.

• Did you post your earliest known ancestor (of your male Taylor line)?
• Have you posted your earliest know female ancestor on your female-to-female line?
• Finally, if you are doing the Family Finder test, have you posted all the known surnames for all your lines in the last seven generations?

By completing these details, which are about people who are usually many years deceased, you improve your chances of determining how you link to anyone whose DNA you match. You also improve the ability of those you match to find their link with you. (This is because the person you match may have more family information than you have, which is a blessing in that it adds important family information you may not have known about.)

 

Lalia

  

Always happy to share Taylor or any other info I possess. My wife (surname Ford/Foard from MD to NC to TN to VA) and I have been researching since about 30 years or more.

 

 Richard (Dick) A. Taylor

 

 

 

 

 

Working Together to Assist All Genealogists

Our Taylor DNA project is just one of the many ways those who love family history can help themselves directly and indirectly by helping preserve genealogical information. 

A perennial problem is the neglect and abandonment of buildings and graveyards.  To highlight just the graveyards, today's Knoxville News-Sentinel calls on those of a mind to help, to join the efforts to protect graveyards in East Tennessee.  (This is certainly a problem in almost every locale, I'm just highlighting the local problem in my backyard.)  I'm placing a photo here from the article, showing a graveyard in a neighboring county.  I urge you to do what you can to advocate for preserving information about all the departed, and for either restoring these cemeteries, or relocating them to places of dignity.

Thanks!

Lalia Wilson for the Taylor DNA Project

Using Genetic Matches to Understand Your Roots

Finding out the story of our ancestors, who they were and something of their personal history, involves a combination of genealogy research techniques, serendipity, and the science of genetics. Serendipity, the accidental discovery of something fortunate, is unplanned and cannot be anticipated. While it is always nice to have, serendipity cannot be your entire family history strategy.

This leaves us with family stories, census data and other sources of records for our ancestors. Sometimes these contradict one another. Should that happen, there are ways to evaluate and settle on the most likely answer. However, the final way to compare family history to current reality is DNA. Should DNA results contradict the family history, no matter how well researched, the DNA (as measured in a member of the family line being studied) is incontrovertible!

This is best understood by examples. I am going to use a fictitious Taylor ancestor and demonstrate what various DNA results will tell us. Let us begin with an imaginary ancestor, John Q. Taylor, born in 1824 in Belmont, Ohio, USA. As were all years, 1824 has its distinctions, on November 5th – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (the first technological university in the English-speaking world) was founded in Troy, New York, the Florida State capital moved to Tallahassee, where it remains, and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony premiered on May 7th. This ancestor (for our example we will assume he is our earliest known ancestor) grew up, married and produced four sons: Abe Taylor, Bryon Taylor, Charlie Taylor and Daniel Taylor. All four sons were born in Ohio in the period 1845-1860 and you have records of them and their marriages. Each produced at least one son who was named after him, Abe Taylor II, Byron Taylor II and so forth.

Skip ahead to the current day. You are Daniel Taylor IV born in 1950 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Or his close female kin.) You have records and a pedigree showing your descent from your great-great-grandfather, John Q. Taylor. You submit a sample and join the Taylor project.

Luckily, it turns out that there are existing samples in the Taylor project for three others of your third cousins, direct descendants of Abe Taylor, Byron Taylor and Charlie Taylor. Let us look at what the results might mean.

In our first case, let us assume each of these Taylor cousins does a 12 marker y-DNA test. In our example, all four match. Does this prove the family history? No! (Nor does it disprove the family history.) All a 12-marker match tells us is that these four men share a common ancestor sometime before 1200 AD, which predates the use of surnames. It does not tell us that they are third cousins, or that they are not.

What if you each tested 25 markers and had a perfect match? A perfect 25/25: The chances are 90% that your most recent common ancestor is within the past 28 generations, roughly since 1300 AD.

What if you tested 37 markers and had a perfect match? A perfect 37/37: The chances are 90% that your family lines are connected within 19 generations, most likely since 1530 AD.

If you find a perfect 67/67: The 90% probability level is a common ancestor no earlier than 1735 AD, with a 50% probability that your common ancestor is your great-great-grandfather.

These, however, are the easy cases.

What if, of the four descendants of John Q. Taylor in the Taylor project, yourself and three different third cousins, representing three different lines, three of you match 67-67 and one matches 65/67? While it is unlikely that there would be two random mutations in the same line over so few transmission events , it is within possibility that the four lines are connected as the paper trail indicates.

But let’s make this more complex. Three lines connect at 67/67, and the fourth line, which has an equally compelling paper trail, connects at 62/67. From mathematics, we know that the fourth line, with only a 62/67 connection, is not a recent cousin of the other three lines. Their genetic connection is before surnames came into common use in the English speaking world.

What can we conclude about these four lines? Most likely, three of the lines are the direct descendants of John Q. Taylor, and the fourth line is of similar ancestral stock, but not a direct descendant of John Q. However, there is also a possibility that the one individual is the sole true descendant, and the other three lines represent similar ancestral stock. And there is always a remote possibility that none of the samples is a direct descendant.

How do you proceed to understand more about these lines? There are several ways to proceed. One is to compare the 67 marker matches to all surnames at the Family Tree DNA project. If that line ends up having 15 perfect matches to individuals with the surname Miller, then there is a likelihood that somewhere between 1824 and 1950 either an adoption or a “non-paternal event” occurred that introduced the Miller genes into the Taylor family.

In addition to following the genetic science, you also want to further explore the family history. Was there a time that rumors spread about an affair? When husband and wife were separated? Follow that thread to find out more…

Lalia Wilson for the Taylor DNA Project

Navy Hero, Captain Edwin Taylor Pollock

Today's Wikipedia features a front page story of Captain Edwin Taylor Pollock, USN, who became the 1st Governor of the U. S. Virgin Islands and the 8th Governor of American Samoa.  Pollock's mother was Olive Orlinda Taylor.  Her father was Edmond Taylor, born 27 August 1789 in Buckland, Massachusetts.  Edmond's father was Enos Taylor (also born in Massachusetts), 1751-1836.

Are any of you related to this Taylor descendant?



Lalia

Searching Taylor Family Trees in the Taylor Surname Project

Participants in the Surname Project have the opportunity to submit family trees.  In fact, they are strongly encouraged to do so, as well as to send in updated information if they discover changes.  However with almost 400 participants, it was hard to find information across the membership.  Now, with the single link below, you can search for given names, locations, migration patterns... 

I've just spent a pleasant hour searching around looking for a collatoral Taylor line.  Like many of you, I descend from two Taylor lines, and the "other" one I don't have a direct male descendant to test.  So I was looking to see if that line is already in the database.  It appears not to be, but more searching or a different approach may help me find the right line. 

In the meantime I have a couple of Taylor groups that were in the right locations at the right time in US history to be possible contenders.

http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~taylorydna/fam-trees/all_trees.shtml

Best wishes for your successful ancestoral search!

Lalia