GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN
A
Free, Occasional, Online Summary of Items of Interest to Descendants of all
Families of Graves, Greaves, Grieves, Grave, and other spelling variations
Worldwide
Vol.
13, No. 5, November 22, 2011
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Copyright
© 2011 by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves. All rights reserved.
Information
on how to start a free subscription to this bulletin and how to be removed from
the subscription list is at the end of this bulletin. If you received this bulletin directly, then you are already
subscribed.
Visit
the GFA web site at http://www.gravesfa.org
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CONTENTS:
**
General Comments
**
Special Offer on DNA Testing from FTDNA
**
Using Autosomal Testing to Prove Graves/Greaves Ancestry
**
Responses About Including Living Family Members in Genealogies
**
Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter
**
Recording Stories of Our Lives Through StoryCorps and Other Means
**
To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things
===============================================
GENERAL
COMMENTS
After
many years of living in what I thought was one of the safest parts of the U.S.,
with very few extremes of weather, it was frustrating to have our recent late-October
snowstorm, which gave us 2-1/2 days with neither electricity nor heat. And this just 2 months after a 4-day
power outage in late August from Hurricane Irene. However, it’s still not nearly as bad as some have
experienced elsewhere with natural disasters.
The
most exciting thing to report in this issue of the bulletin is the special
offer from Family Tree DNA. Even
if you or other family members have already been tested for Y-DNA or
mitochondrial DNA, I urge you to take the autosomal DNA test (Family Finder)
which gives information on all your ancestral lines.
Sarah
and I wish all of you much happiness for the upcoming holiday season!
===============================================
SPECIAL
OFFER ON DNA TESTING FROM FTDNA
Family
Tree DNA has just announced a new sale on DNA testing, running from now through
the end of the year. What a great time for a Christmas present! If you have
been thinking about ordering a test for yourself or someone else, now is the
time to do it. If you or a known
male family member with the Graves or Greaves surname is part of a family that
has not yet had a Y-DNA test, we especially urge you to order the Y-DNA37 or
Y-DNA67 test now. Note that
financial assistance from the Graves Family Association may be available,
especially if your family is from outside North America. To inquire about this, contact Ken Graves at ken.graves@gravesfa.org.
If
you or one of your relatives has already taken a Y-DNA test at the 12 or 25-marker
level, it would be helpful to upgrade to 37 or 67 markers. The current
sale from Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) offers considerable savings on
upgrades. Just log into your personal page on FTDNA and order the desired
upgrade.
Note that the Family Finder test (the
autosomal DNA test that traces all ancestral lines about 5 or 6 generations
back) is included in this offer.
For those of you who do not have an all-male lineage to a Graves or
Greaves ancestor, and can’t find a relative with that ancestry, an autosomal
test may be what you need. Also,
even if you can trace back through an all-male lineage to a Graves ancestor,
this test may help you prove a connection to a specific part of an earlier
Graves/Greaves family. See the
following article for more explanation about how this may be helpful.
For more information about all these
tests, go to the FTDNA website at www.familytreedna.com.
|
Family Tree DNA decided to have one
BIG promotion for a longer time, in the hope that this will help to recruit
new members. (In previous years
their sales have tended to be for fewer test products for a shorter length of
time.) Current members will also
benefit by having simultaneously reduced prices for upgrades. This promotion is effective
immediately and will end on December 31, 2011.
All orders must be placed and paid
for by midnight December 31st, 2011 to
receive the sale prices. This promotion is not valid in conjunction with any other
promotions or coupons. At this time, there will not be
discounts for the Y-DNA111 test via either new kits or upgrades.
Those may be offered at a later time pending the lab volumes with the tests
under promotion. |
For
new orders you should remember to always order as part of the Graves DNA
project by going to the GFA website at www.gravesfa.org,
scrolling down to the DNA Study section, and clicking on the “How to sign up”
link, or going to the FTDNA website at www.familytreedna.com,
entering Graves in the “Search Your Last Name” box in the upper right, clicking
on the Graves link under projects, and placing your order.
===============================================
USING
AUTOSOMAL DNA TESTING TO PROVE GRAVES/GREAVES ANCESTRY
There
are many genealogies on the Graves Family Association website where the
earliest Graves/Greaves ancestor is descended from someone in another
genealogy, but the ancestral genealogy is not known, or the specific connection
is not known. In some cases, from
Y-DNA test results and documentary evidence, we can speculate about possible
relationships. A few examples of
that are:
·
Graves families of SC, GA, AL & AR at http://www.gravesfa.org/DNAchart78-189.pdf
·
Graves family of Caroline Co. & Halifax Co., VA at http://www.gravesfa.org/DNAchart145-217.pdf
·
Graves/Greaves families of Northamptonshire & Buckinghamshire,
England at http://www.gravesfa.org/chart047-connections.pdf
·
Families descended from Greaves family of Beeley, Derbyshire, with
other families of England and the U.S. at http://www.gravesfa.org/DNAchart228-connections.pdf
There
are other genealogies where the earliest known ancestor is a female Graves
(such as genealogies 55, 219, and 267), and even a few genealogies where the
earliest know ancestor is not a Graves at all (such as genealogy 536 for
William Harris, father of Graves Harris of VA). (The several genealogies in this last category are found in
the alphabetical listing of genealogies, but not in the numerical listing on
the Charts page.)
AUTOSOMAL TESTING WILL HELP FIND CONNECTIONS TO
LARGER AND EARLIER FAMILIES
With Family Finder and Relative Finder (at 23andMe)
results to work with, I think it is very likely that we should be able to find
many of our missing connection. For instance, finding which Graves ancestor
Graves Harris (in the preceding paragraph) is descended from. Look at the chart for genealogy 270 at http://www.gravesfa.org/chart270a.pdf
as an example. Even though the
chances of finding a match becomes very small after about 5 generations, that
chart shows matches at 6, 7 and 8 generations. The key to using autosomal DNA testing results successfully
is to do enough tests that some few of them will show matches. If those matches for descendants of
Graves Harris or his siblings are with descendants of genealogy 169 (Capt.
Thomas Graves of VA), then we will know that there really was a Graves ancestor
for Graves Harris and that Capt. Thomas Graves is that ancestor.
We need to try to do much more with this in the
future. As more people are tested
for autosomal DNA and the results are compared in various ways, we will see
many more genealogical breakthroughs.
I will try to write about more of our successes and techniques for how
to find our missing connections in future issues of this Bulletin.
===============================================
RESPONSES
ABOUT INCLUDING LIVING FAMILY MEMBERS IN GENEALOGIES
In
the last issue of the Bulletin, there was an article called “Identity Theft and
Genealogy Book Publishing.” In
that, I tried to make a case for the position that including names of living
family members is not only not a security risk, but it is essential for a
complete and worthwhile genealogy.
I asked whether you want any history of your family to include living
family members, and whether you would buy a book that excluded all living
family members. Some of the
responses that have been received so far are:
·
“I really don’t see a problem with publishing information about living
people.”
·
“I cannot imagine purchasing a family history in which all the living
are omitted.”
·
“As a general rule, I don’t think including living persons is a good
idea. Identity theft aside, I
don’t want to have to obtain permission from lots of people I don’t know.”
·
“I'm in favor of including enough information regarding living people
so that it is clear as to who they are to their contemporaries. You don't
have to include everything you know about them. So, something like:
"John Graves, b. 1945, Indianapolis, IN" would do for me. I
can't see how any harm could come from doing that.”
·
“I’d love to have a Graves book! I’m not worried about identity
theft.”
The response from Dick Eastman’s (editor of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter) when I asked him this question this past July was: “My suggestion is to always protect the interests of your living relatives before trying to create "complete genealogies."
Future genealogists should be able to find records of twenty-first century citizens, whether you list them or not. Why risk alienation, and perhaps legal problems, by putting them in a book or other document that can still provide valuable information without listing living people?
Census records and Social Security records (in the U.S.) undoubtedly will supply that information to future genealogists anyway. Why duplicate that information and create legal problems for your living relatives?” [One of my concerns with this response is that future genealogists may or may not be able to find records of 21st century citizens, but the average family member interested in his or her family probably will not be able to easily do that, nor will the average person be interested enough to do it.]
A
conversation I had with the Director of Publications at New England Historic
Genealogical Society in Boston, MA, indicated that they are continuing to
receive new genealogies both with all descendants complete and with living
descendants not included. They
have no policy about which approach is preferred.
My
personal opinion is still that although some of those who have genealogy as a
hobby are very skillful and can track down information on living descendants,
most people have limited research skills.
The average person who is interested in his family and its ancestry
cares most about relatives most closely related to him. To exclude those relatives from a
family history would greatly reduce its interest and usefulness, and I think
that many fewer people would want to buy it.
What
do you think? Do you have anything
you would like to add to this discussion?
===============================================
EASTMAN’S
ONLINE GENEALOGY NEWSLETTER
Dick
Eastman is a computer and genealogy expert who publishes a genealogy blog and
weekly newsletter called Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter. He is also a popular lecturer at
meetings around the world. You can
learn more about him and his newsletter at http://blog.eogn.com. I have subscribed to the Plus Edition
of the newsletter for years, and recommend it to anyone who likes to learn
about a wide range of happenings relating to genealogy.
Some
parts of the following story were mentioned in the issue of Nov. 7.
Other
recent articles of interest have included:
·
the importance of backing up your computer files (10/31/11). This subject has been discussed many
times. One article discusses an
online backup service from Backblaze for $5/month or less to backup an
unlimited amount of data.
·
benefits of a temporary credit card number (10/31/11). To reduce the risk of credit card theft
or undesired automatic renewals on your credit card, it is possible to create a
temporary version of an existing card that expires at the end of the month or
one that can be used only once (using a virtual credit card number).
·
how to prevent other people from accessing your computer files when you
are using wi-fi in an airport or elsewhere (11/7/11. When using a wi-fi network at home or anywhere else, you
should either turn off file sharing or be sure that you have your computer
protected by user names and passwords.
Most people don’t do this.
===============================================
RECORDING
STORIES OF OUR LIVES THROUGH STORYCORPS AND OTHER MEANS
Recording
stories and otherwise documenting the lives of members of our family and our
community is one of the most meaningful things we can do. I have a few recordings of interviews
with my parents and others, but there are so many things I wish I had asked
about when people were alive. Now
is the time to do it for yourself, and for your children and grandchildren.
The
easiest thing you can do is record the stories of your life and the lives of
relatives, using a voice or video recorder. This can be done with your computer, cell phone, or an audio
recorder or video camera from any electronics store such as Radio Shack or Best
Buy, or an online store. For tips
on how to effectively do recording when you are traveling, see an article at http://mobileactive.org/audio-recording. Even if you just plan to write a family
history for your own close relatives, gathering information through recordings
has great advantages. You get the
stories in the words of those who experienced them, and you and others can hear
the stories in the actual voices of those who experienced the events.
The
advantages of StoryCorps are that they will help you do the interviewing and
recording, and they will archive the results for anyone to listen to in the
future. The mission of StoryCorps
is “to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to
record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.” See their website at http://storycorps.org/. More details are available in a
Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StoryCorps.
StoryCorps
is sponsoring the 3rd annual National Day of Listening (see http://nationaldayoflistening.org/)
this year on Nov. 25, 2011 (the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S.). It was recently announced that
Lowcountry Africana will represent SC, GA and FL in this event. From the Lowcountry Africana website at
http://lowcountryafricana.net/, “Lowcountry
Africana, sponsored by the Magnolia Plantation Foundation of Charleston, South
Carolina, is entirely dedicated to records that document the family and
cultural heritage of African Americans in the historic rice-growing areas of
South Carolina, Georgia and extreme northeastern Florida.”
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ABOUT THIS BULLETIN:
This
bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves, ken.graves@gravesfa.org.
TO
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Send
any material you would like to have included in this bulletin to
ken.graves@gravesfa.org. The
editor reserves the right to accept, edit or reject any material submitted.
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you do not already belong to the GFA, you can join by sending $20 per year to
Graves Family Association, 20 Binney Circle, Wrentham, MA 02093 (more details
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the contents of this bulletin are copyrighted by the Graves Family Association
and Kenneth V. Graves, you are hereby granted permission, unless otherwise
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