GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN
Vol. 14, No. 6, June 30,
2012
A
Free, Occasional, Online Summary of Items of Interest to Descendants of all
Families of Graves, Greaves, Grieves, Grave, and other spelling variations
Worldwide
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Copyright
© 2012 by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves. All rights reserved.
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CONTENTS
**
General Comments
**
Updates to the GFA Website
**
Improving Delivery of This Bulletin
**
Ancestry.com Now Offering Autosomal DNA Testing
**
New Ancestry Features from 23andMe
**
Rapid Advances in DNA Testing and Lower Costs Offer Opportunity and Caution
**
To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things
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GENERAL
COMMENTS
It’s
almost Independence Day in the U.S., usually just called the Fourth of July,
and a time for family gatherings and fireworks. We in the northern hemisphere seldom think that when we are
sweltering in high heat and humidity, those of you in the southern hemisphere are
enjoying winter weather.
The
most important happening discussed in this issue of the bulletin is the changes
that have been made to the website.
There are many more features that I want to add, but they happen slowly
because of limits on my time and money.
I hope to be able to provide some additional capabilities later this
year.
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UPDATES TO THE
GFA WEBSITE
NEW PEOPLE SEARCH CAPABILITY
There
has long been a search capability on the GFA website, now located at the top
left of every page. With it you
are able to search for a person, place, or anything else on the website. It is a Google search specific to our
website, and operates exactly the way all Google searches do - with “wild
card” capability, etc. However, if
you want to find a specific person (such as Thomas Graves), you will usually
find many people of that name, and there is no way to know which is the one you
want.
A
new “people search” feature has now been added. It is a complete index of all the genealogies (and only the
genealogies - not any of the other pages on the site), and will allow you
to find any person by name, by name and date, by spouse, etc. It is at the top left side of every
page, labeled “Genealogy Search.”
When you click on it and do a search, you will get a list of all the
“hits” that meet the criteria of your search. You can then click on the genealogy number link to go
directly to the particular genealogy of interest.
There
will eventually also be a Help feature for both of these searches to help you
use them more effectively. Please
let me know any comments, questions, or suggestions you may have about any
aspect of the search capability.
NEW AND UPDATED GENEALOGIES
As
a result of some questions and information from Terre Brandon Helffrich, I took
a look at the Graves families of Davie Co. and Rowan Co., NC. For genealogy 29 (John C. Graves and
Nancy ‑‑‑‑‑‑ of Davie Co., NC), I was able
to find more of their children, partly by looking at the 1840 and 1850 censuses. It then became apparent that genealogy
29 is descended from genealogy 15 (Conrad Graves), and it appears that they are
both part of genealogy 105 (John Graves/Johann Sebastian Graff). I had not previously realized that the
Graves families of Davie and Rowan counties, NC, were part of the German family
that migrated from PA to Knox Co., TN.
There is still uncertainty and lack of complete and reliable information
about the earliest generations, so genealogy 29/15 has not yet been merged into
genealogy 105. Help will be
appreciated in reconciling some of the discrepancies in submitted genealogies
and finding more documentation for the early generations.
NEW AND UPDATED CHARTS
New
genealogy charts have been created for some of the families from Yorkshire and
Lancashire, England.
Y-DNA TESTS NEEDED FOR MANY
GENEALOGIES
Finding
and testing descendants of most of the genealogies discussed in the preceding
two paragraphs (as well as many other genealogies) would greatly help in
connecting genealogies and finding earlier ancestry. We need for descendants of families that have not yet tested
to find male descendants with the Graves, Greaves, etc. surname and get them
tested. This needs to be done also
for other families that yours may connect to. See the Charts page for genealogies that I suspect may be
related and those that need testing.
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IMPROVING
DELIVERY OF THIS BULLETIN
Because
some emails are blocked by antispam software and Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
that do a less than perfect job, newsletters like this will never be received
by all subscribers. However,
anyone who doesn’t receive it (or who wants to look at back issues) can always
view it on the Graves Family Association website.
Another
way to increase your chances of receiving the bulletin via email is to get a
gmail address at Google, and set it up to automatically deliver all messages to
your computer (or other device).
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ANCESTRY.COM
NOW OFFERING AUTOSOMAL DNA TESTING
Autosomal
DNA tests look for markers inherited from all ancestral lines, not just the
direct male line (Y-DNA) or the direct female line (mtDNA). There are now 3 companies offering
autosomal DNA testing for genealogical purposes. Family Tree DNA offers Family Finder, 23andMe offers Relative
Finder, and Ancestry.com has just started providing a similar test that will be
part of a service called AncestryDNA.
It appears that this service has been announced somewhat prematurely,
since it is only being offered to customers by invitation at this time.
Ancestry.com
has the advantage of having a huge customer base and strong marketing. They will undoubtedly have many
autosomal DNA customers. The main
problem with purchasing DNA testing from them is the lack of support. They have been selling Y-DNA and
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) tests for quite a while, but once a customer receives
the results there is very little help with what do with the results and what
they mean. There is also the
expectation that they will try to integrate their DNA test results with their
genealogy database, which may be a huge problem because of the many errors in
the existing genealogies.
23andMe
emphasizes the medical aspects of DNA testing. They have a large database of testing results, but a high
percentage of those tested are not interested in their family history.
Family
Tree DNA (FTDNA) only tests for genealogical purposes, are more responsive to
customer needs, and provide many projects for surnames and other groups to help
those who have been tested learn more.
Neither 23andMe nor Ancestry.com presently have surname (or other)
groups that can provide personal support.
FTDNA continues to be the company we recommend testing with, although
testing with 23andMe and Ancestry.com as a second or third step might also be
helpful. The more groups you test
with, the more matches you will find and the more information you will gather.
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NEW ANCESTRY
FEATURES FROM 23ANDME
The
“Your Genetic Genealogist” blog has a good
article about some new ancestry-related features now in beta testing from
the DNA testing company 23andMe.
The major changes discussed are an update to their Ancestry Painting to
provide a more detailed map of your origins, the addition of a My Ancestry page
to summarize each person’s ancestry on one page, a Relative Finder Explorer Map
to show where your matches live now and known locations of ancestors, and the
addition of a Family Tree feature.
We
can expect to see similar and competing features from Family Tree DNA and
Ancestry.com in the future. In
fact, Family Tree DNA has continued to add new features over the past few
months. The addition of new
features and capabilities will benefit us all.
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RAPID ADVANCES
IN DNA TESTING AND LOWER COSTS OFFER BOTH OPPORTUNITY AND CAUTION
RECENT TESTING ADVANCES
A
recent article (6 June 2012) in the magazine Nature, titled “Ancestry
testing goes for pinpoint accuracy”, is subtitled “Companies use whole
genomes to trace geographical origins.”
This article is interesting because it points out some of the exciting
things that are happening in the use of DNA testing for genealogy. On the other hand, the article’s
statement that 23andMe and other companies are now routinely using whole genome
testing to find ancestry is very misleading. What is really happening is that all ancestral lines are now
being traced with autosomal DNA testing, and parts of the entire genome are
being tested, in contrast to the previous testing of only the direct male line
(Y-DNA) and the direct female line (mtDNA).
Tim Janzen on the ISOGG list mentioned another misleading
statement in this article, which stated that “the ‘uniparental
markers’, which chart an unbroken chain back through either the maternal or
paternal line, are rarely unique to a population.” There is evidence from
multiple sources that there are thousands of ‘uniparental markers’ (Y SNPs or
variants and mtDNA SNPs) that are unique to specific populations. We
haven’t discovered them all yet, but as complete Y sequencing becomes
commonplace and as we get many more complete mtDNA sequences these unique
‘uniparental markers’ will indeed allow us to link these markers to specific
populations. It is true that many older SNPs and markers such as R-M343
are not unique to small specific populations.
Bill Hurst (also on the ISOGG list) added: I
don't think we have to wait very long for mtDNA to link to specific
populations. Take a look at our Google map for K1c1c; all Finland. K2a8 is all
Spanish, a line that has moved from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, up into Texas. For
that one, an FMS test is not even required. It's easily identified from an HVR1
test. Every K with 16182C turns out to be in that subclade.
What these comments are all emphasizing is that
we can expect markers to be discovered in the not-so-distant future that have
been passed on to us from distant ancestors. This will help us discover many of those ancestors that are
now unknown, as well as the places where they lived - a very exciting
prospect indeed!
LOWER COST TESTING
In
the May issue of this bulletin was an article about the decreasing cost of DNA
testing. Another recent article
(June 2012) was in the magazine The
Scientist, titled “Sons of Next Gen.” It is subtitled “New innovations could
bring tailored, fast, and cheap sequencing to the masses.” It mainly discusses the exciting uses
of new equipment and techniques in the health field. However, its discussion of the differences between the
equipment and concepts used by Illumina (presently used by all genetic
genealogy companies for autosomal DNA testing) and the new approaches are
especially interesting. A previous
article in this bulletin discussed the Ion Torrent equipment. Other approaches discussed in this
article are those of Pacific biosciences and the GridION of Nanopore
Technologies. There is obviously
competition among companies to develop new approaches and better, cheaper
equipment for DNA testing. One
example of an incentive is something called the Sequence Squeeze challenge,
where teams compete to see who can compress a reference sequence into the
smallest size in the least amount of time. Even though the emphasis is on health, all this is also
certain to benefit DNA testing for genealogy.
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ABOUT
THIS BULLETIN:
This
bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves, ken.graves@gravesfa.org.
TO SUBMIT MATERIAL TO THIS
BULLETIN:
Send
any material you would like to have included in this bulletin to
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editor reserves the right to accept, edit or reject any material submitted.
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ASSOCIATION:
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