GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN

 

Vol. 15, No. 1, Jan. 21, 2013

 

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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Click on these links to visit the GFA web site and our Facebook page.

 

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CONTENTS

 

** General Comments

** Highest Ranked Genealogy Websites

** Most Helpful Websites for Research in Britain

** How to Help Transcribe Graves/Greaves Records

** Oldest and Largest Greaves Family in England

** New Research About How Long Native Australians Have Been Isolated, and Implications for Genealogy

** The Problem of Private Information on Family Tree DNA

** To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things

 

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GENERAL COMMENTS

 

Welcome to 2013!  We can look forward to an exciting year, with lots of new discoveries.  I wish you all much happiness.

 

This issue contains some suggestions for places on the Internet to look for information, discussion of the largest Graves/Greaves family, a plea for help in transcribing records, and hope that DNA test results will be even more helpful in the future.

 

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HIGHEST RANKED GENEALOGY WEBSITES

 

Every year, Genealogy In Time magazine ranks the top 100 genealogy websites.  For those of you researching in countries other than the U.S., note that this list is international.  This list for 2013 is dominated by websites run by the big three companies, Ancestry, MyHeritage, and BrightSolid.  For those of you not familiar with BrightSolid, it is the online publishing and technology arm of British publishing group DC Thomson.  Their companies include Findmypast.com, Friends Reunited, Genes Reunited, censusrecords.com, and Newspaper Archive.

 

It is interesting to see that FTDNA is the highest ranked DNA website at number 17.  You may also find the genealogy search engines of interest, the last two free: Mocavo (25), Steve Morse (56), and Access Genealogy (71).  The top 30 genealogy websites on the list are below.

 

Rank

Website

Category

Country

Free or Pay

2012 Rank

Address

1

Ancestry.com

records

USA

pay

1

http://www.ancestry.com/

2

MyHeritage.com

family tree

USA

pay

2

http://www.myheritage.com/

3

Find A Grave

cemetery

USA

free

4

http://www.findagrave.com/

4

FamilySearch

records

USA

free

3

https://www.familysearch.org/

5

Geni.com

family tree

USA

pay

5

http://www.geni.com/

6

Ancestry.co.uk

records

UK

pay

8

http://www.ancestry.co.uk/

7

Archives.com

records

USA

pay

6

http://www.archives.com/

8

GeneaNet

forum

France

free

9

http://www.geneanet.org/

9

Genealogy.com

records

USA

pay

7

http://genealogy.com/

10

MyFamily

forum

USA

pay

10

https://www.myfamily.com/

11

Genealogy Bank

newspapers

USA

pay

21

http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/

12

Arkivverket Digitalarkivet

records

Norway

free

26

http://arkivverket.no/eng/content/view/full/629

13

Newspaper Archive

newspapers

USA

pay

12

http://www.newspaperarchive.com/

14

FindMyPast UK

records

UK

pay

13

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/

15

Ancient Faces

forum

USA

free

32

http://www.ancientfaces.com/

16

Ancestry.com.au

records

Australia

pay

18

http://www.ancestry.com.au/

17

Family Tree DNA

DNA testing

USA

pay

22

http://www.familytreedna.com/

18

MyHeritage.no

family tree

Norway

pay

n/a

http://www.myheritage.no/

19

Ancestry.ca

records

Canada

pay

14

http://www.ancestry.ca/

20

Fold3

records

USA

pay

17

http://www.fold3.com/

21

GenealogyInTime Magazine

magazine

Canada

free

20

http://www.genealogyintime.com/

22

Eastman's Genealogy Newsletter

blog

USA

free

19

http://blog.eogn.com/

23

Genealogie.com

family tree

France

pay

n/a

http://www.genealogie.com/

24

Genes Reunited

records

UK

pay

16

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/

25

Mocavo

search engine

USA

pay

45

http://www.mocavo.com/

26

USGenweb Archives

records

USA

free

23

http://usgwarchives.net/

27

Deutschen Genealogieserver

forum

Germany

free

n/a

http://genealogienetz.de

28

Genealogy.About.com

articles

USA

free

n/a

http://genealogy.about.com/

29

World Vital Records

records

USA

pay

28

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/

30

EllisIsland.org

records

USA

free

24

http://www.ellisisland.org/

 

 

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MOST HELPFUL WEBSITES FOR RESEARCH IN BRITAIN

 

A researcher in England recently made the comment that for families in the British Isles, Ancestry.com is not very helpful.  She has had much more success with MyHeritage, Genes Reunited, and Findmypast.  (As mentioned in the previous article, these last two are part of BrightSolid.)

 

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HOW TO HELP TRANSCRIBE GRAVES/GREAVES RECORDS

 

From time to time, people ask me how they can help further the goals of the Graves Family Association.  One way is to transcribe records, including census records, church records, and many other groups of records.

 

I am not sure the best way to set up a system to allow people to search records and submit the results for all of us to use. I have been hoping to find tools already created by others so I wouldn’t have to reinvent something that already exists, but I have not yet had success.  Three ways that have been suggested are:

(1) Use spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel) that have been created by others or that I create for each type of record, and provide those to people who offer to compile data.  Then post the data on the GFA website.

(2) Use an online database (such as in Google documents) that can be shared by multiple users.

(3) Create custom spreadsheets that would be posted on the website of the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS).

 

For all of these, an updatable index would have to be provided to allow users to easily retrieve information.

 

Have any of you had experience doing something like this, and can you suggest the best way to make it happen?

 

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OLDEST AND LARGEST GREAVES FAMILY IN ENGLAND

 

The Greaves family of Beeley, Derbyshire, England (genealogy 228), is probably the earliest for which there is a paper trail of documentation.  One researcher has traced the family back to Hugo Greaves (about 1200-1260), and another has traced it to Hugo’s purported father, John Grevis (or Greaves) (born about 1175).  All records of this period are in Latin, and are legal documents, not parish registers, and spelling of the surname varied.  Genealogy 228 starts with John Greaves (b.c. 1490), who lived at Beeley Hill Top, Matlock, Derbyshire, which we have visited twice on our trips to England.

 

HELP NEEDED TO EXPAND GENEALOGY 228

For a family of such antiquity and whose descendants are so numerous, it is surprising that genealogy 228 is so small.  Including the most recent generations (not on the GFA website), there are only 460 descendants.  Why is genealogy 228 so small?  Is it because the family in England is small, and all the growth is in the families that went overseas?  Is it because of a lack of interest by descendants in England in gathering and sharing information?  Is it because of the lack of records and difficulties in researching early English records?  Or are there other reasons?  Let me know your thoughts on this, and any suggestions you may have for expanding the genealogy.

 

MANY OTHER FAMILIES DESCENDED FROM GEN. 228

As a result of our Y-DNA studies, we have identified the largest group of related Graves/Greaves genealogies as descended from this family.  That means there are more people descended from this family than any other Graves/Greaves family.  If you go to the Charts page (Numerical Listing page) of the website and scroll down toward the bottom (or go directly there), you will see a huge list of genealogies sharing a common ancestor with gen. 228.  If you go to the summary chart listed there, you will see much of the large network of related genealogies.  These include gen. 166 (John Graves of Concord, MA), gen. 28 (Greaves family of Stepney, London, England, and Rear Adm. Thomas Graves of Charlestown, MA), gen. 247 (John Greaves of St. Mary’s Co., MD), gen. 220 (Francis Graves of VA), and many others.

 

Considering the rates of illegitimacy, adoption, and name changes in each generation (estimated by some at about 3% per generation), it is very likely that many of the other Graves, Greaves (and other spellings) families may have been descended from genealogy 228 also.  (Future genealogists may have a much more difficult time, however, since there has been a dramatic rise in births outside marriage in the past half century, with the rate rising to around 40% in the U.S. and other western countries.)

 

WILL WE BE ABLE TO USE DNA TO CONNECT THESE FAMILIES?

It seems likely to me that eventually we will be able to find or confirm which Graves and Greaves families are descended from genealogy 228 and other families in this group. I don’t know how soon this will happen, but I would guess within the next 3-4 years.  Some of this will probably require whole genome testing to find markers that are passed on to descendants.  Other techniques may require more sophisticated mathematical analysis.  A hint at some of the techniques that are beginning to be used is in the next article.

 

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NEW RESEARCH ABOUT HOW LONG NATIVE AUSTALIANS HAVE BEEN ISOLATED, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR GENEALOGY

 

There have been an increasing number of articles about studies of human origins and migration.  Many of these involve DNA extraction from artifacts that could not have been tested until very recently (such as the extraction and testing of Neanderthal DNA, showing that living humans all have 1-6% Neanderthal DNA).

 

However, some of the studies involve DNA testing of living humans, followed by sophisticated mathematical computer analysis. An example of this is an article in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 14 about a study of the ancestry of aboriginal Australians.  Although early DNA studies used Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, this study and many others uses autosomal DNA.

 

It has been long believed that modern humans left Africa about 70,000 years ago, reached Australia 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, and then didn’t mix with any other humans until the 18th century arrival of Europeans.  This new study confirmed that aboriginal Australians, and early people of New Guinea and the Philippines diverged about 36,000 years ago.  However, it also provided evidence that interbreeding with people from India happened as recently as 4,200 years ago.

 

The authors of the new study also estimated how far back this genetic mixing occurred, via the following reasoning: A child born of an Aborigine and an Indian would carry in his or her genome an entire, unbroken stretch of each chromosome, one from each parent. But with each generation, those two chromosomes swap bits and pieces with each other. Down the generations, therefore, the pure Indian or pure Australian chromosome stretches will become increasingly shorter. Using the size and number of DNA stretches in people alive today, the team ran computer simulations to calculate that 141 generations have passed since the initial interbreeding.

 

IMPLICATIONS FOR GENEALOGY

It is very encouraging to read of the possibility that autosomal DNA results can be used for such a long span of time.  It seems that if the technique described above can be used for such long periods of time, it might also work even better for much shorter time periods.  Mixing of parts of our chromosomes is not very thorough, and there are sequences in our genome that are very small that don't recombine very fast.  The technique I have been using is to find one or two segments of DNA that are fairly large.  Identifying many smaller segments inherited from a common ancestor is obviously a much more complicated approach.

 

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THE PROBLEM OF PRIVATE INFORMATION ON FAMILY TREE DNA

 

Many of us who have taken DNA tests at Family Tree DNA have noticed that some of our Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA matches are marked “private”.  This is most apt to be the case for 12-marker Y-DNA matches and HVR1 mtDNA matches.  Our first reaction is apt to be: Why would someone take a DNA test and then not want to find matches?  What is going on here?

 

The most complete answer to these questions is in a blog article by Roberta Estes.  The reason listed by her and others is mainly that people don’t make the correct settings in their “Account Settings.”  On the personal page of those who have tested with FTDNA is a drop-down menu for My Account.  If you select “Match and E-mail Settings” from that, you will see that you can choose whether to be notified of Y-DNA and mtDNA matches when they occur.  However, it is very important to note that if you choose not to be notified of matches, those matching you will not be able to see their matches with you, and you will not even be able to see that you have any matches at the level you have disabled.

 

Her explanation ends with the comment: “The key, of course, to privacy and security is to have as much privacy as you wish, without hurting your chances of making genealogical connections and contacts, which is, after all, the entire reason that you tested in the first place.”

 

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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 ken.graves@gravesfa.org.  The editor reserves the right to accept, edit or reject any material submitted.

 

TO JOIN THE GRAVES FAMILY ASSOCIATION:

If 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 on GFA website).  Payment may also be sent electronically to gfa@gravesfa.org via PayPal.

 

COPYRIGHTS:

Although the contents of this bulletin are copyrighted by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves, you are hereby granted permission, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute part or all to other parties for non-commercial purposes only.