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.
8, No. 1, Jan. 15, 2006
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Copyright
© 2006 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:
**
Update on Graves Family Reunion in Virginia in 2007
**
Graves Gatherings in the Southeastern U.S. in Early 2006
**
More on How We Can Determine the DNA of Ancestors by Testing Living People
**
Get Your DNA Test Results Before My Trip to England
**
To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things
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UPDATE
ON GRAVES FAMILY REUNION IN VIRGINIA IN 2007
It
was previously announced that the reunion in Williamsburg, VA will be the
weekend of June 15-17, 2007. This will
be a unique opportunity to celebrate and learn about our Graves/Greaves
families and history, including that of Capt. Thomas Graves who arrived in
Jamestown in 1608. During the entire
year of 2007 there will also be a celebration throughout Virginia of the birth
of America, the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English
settlement in North America.
The
Patrick Henry Inn has now been selected as the headquarters of the
reunion. They have hosted many
gatherings similar to ours, and their reputation is excellent. They are located directly across the street
from Colonial Williamsburg. They can be
contacted at Best Western Patrick Henry Inn, York and Page Sts., Route 60E, PO
Drawer 3678, Williamsburg, VA 23187-3678; phone (757)229-9540 or toll free
(800)446-9228; Fax (757)220-0657. Email
is sales@wmbgva.com and website is www.wmbgva.com.
A
block of 75 rooms has been reserved for the reunion at a group rate of $85,
plus 10% tax and $2.00 occupancy tax, for a total of $95.50 per room per
night. When making your reservation,
mention that it is part of the Graves Reunion block of rooms. An advance deposit of the first night’s room
rate will be required when making reservations, and you will be able to cancel
for a full refund up to 72 hours before the event. There has been great interest in this reunion, so it is suggested
that you make your reservations early.
We
will try to provide information on other lodging options, including camping and
recreational vehicle locations.
We
have already starting discussing and planning a tentative program for the
reunion, including 2 or 3 group meals, social time, discussions and
presentations about family research, the DNA study results, etc., and guided
tours of Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and the eastern shore where Capt.
Thomas Graves lived.
We
need further discussion of what we want to do, as well as how to publicize and
promote the reunion, both to the relatives we already know about and the
thousands of others out there who haven't heard about the Graves Family
Association and this reunion. Please
let us know any ideas and needs that any of you can think of, and any help you
can provide. To join the planning group
and participate in the discussion, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gravesreunion2007/
and follow the instructions to join.
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GRAVES
GATHERINGS IN THE SOUTHEASTERN U.S. IN EARLY 2006
WEDNESDAY,
FEB. 1: Reunion in Annapolis, MD, at the Hampton Inn, 124 Womack Dr, Annapolis,
phone 410-349-1600. Since we couldn’t
find a free meeting room, we will host this in the living room of a suite we
are staying in that night. Meeting to
start at 7:30 p.m., although you are invited to join us for dinner (about 6
p.m.) before the meeting if you want.
If possible, let me know if you are planning to attend. Ask for me at the front desk.
Directions: take I-97 south from Baltimore to
Rt. 50 East, or Rt. 50/301 east from Washington. Take Exit 22 (SR 665) Aris T. Allen Blvd and immediately exit to Riva
Road. At the end of the ramp turn right onto Riva Road at the first light turn
left onto Admiral Cochrane Drive. Go 2 tenths of a mile and turn left onto
Spruill Road, at the stop sign turn left onto Womack Drive and the hotel is on
the left.
SUNDAY, MARCH 12: Reunion at Pleasant Hill
Baptist Church, 4278 Chamblee Tucker Rd., Doraville, GA, 1 p.m. It is a little northeast of Atlanta, just a
short distance from the intersection of Routes 85 and 285.
I also hope to organize a gathering in
Florida while we are there, perhaps in a private room at a restaurant. Can
anyone help find a place for that and help organize it?
To contact me with questions or to let me
know you want to attend or help with any of these gatherings, you can send
email to ken.graves@gravesfa.org, although while we are traveling it will be best to call my cell phone
number, 508-369-5217.
These gatherings will be a good opportunity
to share family information, learn more about your Graves/Greaves ancestry,
learn about the DNA study and even take a DNA test, and ask me questions.
===============================================
MORE ON HOW WE CAN DETERMINE THE DNA OF
ANCESTORS BY TESTING LIVING PEOPLE
There
was previous discussion of this subject in the Graves Family Bulletin, vol. 7,
no. 10, Dec. 3, 2005. Because of some
questions about this, I will repeat some of what I wrote before, and try to
explain a little more.
In
simple terms, the Y chromosome is passed on from father to son with almost no
changes from generation to generation. So (if you are a male) your Y-DNA is
almost exactly the same as that of your grandfather, your
g-g-g-g-g-grandfather, etc. Therefore, if two men have the exact same Y-DNA or
almost exactly the same Y-DNA, they are descended from a common ancestor. The
more differences there are between the two DNA samples, the farther back in
time the common ancestor is.
It
is extremely likely that the DNA test results that were the same in both living
descendants were ones that the common ancestor had also. If we test more than
two descendants and they all share the same test results, that increases the
confidence even more that the ancestor's DNA had those values. So we don't need
to dig up and test our ancestors. We can discover their Y-DNA by testing the
Y-DNA of their descendants.
Basically, if a DNA marker is carried down in
multiple lines of descent, it is a good bet that the common ancestor had that
marker. If we go through that process with all the markers tested, then we can
deduce the set of markers (called a haplotype) that the common ancestor had.
That is one of the reasons we need to test more than one descendant per family.
It can be helpful to find the haplotype for
more recent ancestors as well as the earliest known ancestor. By finding where a particular change
(mutation) occurred, we can often find where an unknown branch of a family
fits, and we can also find whether a line is in the right place (since there is
sometimes some uncertainty in documented results).
Sometimes
the differences between descendants are greater than expected. This can happen for at least 2 reasons. First, mutations happen randomly, so some
lines can go for hundreds of years with no mutations while other lines can have
multiple mutations within a few generations.
Secondly, the important difference is between a test result and the
ancestral haplotype. An example of this
is genealogies 336 and 156, where we don't really have enough test results to
be sure of the ancestral haplotypes, but the updated charts for 156 and 336
(based on my estimate of the ancestral haplotype, shown on the master table of
DNA results on the GFA website) is a difference of 1 for descendant 1, 3 for
descendant 2, and 2 for descendant 3.
This compares to a difference of 4 between descendants 1 and 2 and
between descendants 2 and 3. This
happens because different mutations can occur in different lines.
===============================================
GET
YOUR DNA TEST RESULTS BEFORE MY TRIP TO ENGLAND
I now
expect to go to England for a week or so this coming May. I will be meeting with
Greaves/Graves/Grieves descendants to try to gather family information and to
get DNA samples. (I may also be able to
take a limited number of interested family members from the U.S. on the trip
with me. More on that later.) It would be helpful to get our DNA study in
the US. and Canada more complete before that trip so we will have more results
to compare to.
For
people descended from families or parts of families that do not yet have a DNA
study participant, we especially need Graves/Greaves men to take the test. The test is easy and painless, just
involving rubbing the inside of your mouth with a plastic applicator. The only requirement is that the person
taking the Y-DNA test must be a male with the Graves or Greaves surname, since
the Y chromosome is only passed on from father to son.
To
sign up, go to the GFA website at www.gravesfa.org,
click on the DNA link at the top of the main page, then click on the link in
the red-outlined box near the top of the next page. This will take you to a page on the Family Tree DNA page. Then just fill out the requested
information, and your testing kit will be mailed to you the next day. The 37-marker Y-DNA test is preferred for
most participants.
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ABOUT
THIS BULLETIN:
This
bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves,
ken.graves@gravesfa.org. Ken Graves was
also editor of the Graves Family Newsletter (no longer published). This bulletin will contain announcements and
news of special interest to Graves descendants with Internet access. It will not contain queries, genealogies,
photos, and the kind of in-depth articles that used to appear in the Graves
Family Newsletter.
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 via PayPal by going to www.paypal.com
and sending payment to gfa@gravesfa.org.
Benefits include access to the “members only” section of the website,
membership directory, and help with learning more about your Graves/Greaves
family. The purpose of the GFA is to
bring together as many descendants as possible to work toward learning more
about the Graves/Greaves families, to help other descendants, and to instill
pride in our ancestry.
COPYRIGHTS:
Although
the contents of this bulletin are copyrighted by the Graves Family Association
and Kenneth V. Graves, you are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise
specified, to re-distribute articles to other parties for non-commercial
purposes only. Do not re-distribute the
newsletter in its entirety.
TO
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To
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