Response to GeniAus: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2014

The purpose is to get geneabloggers to remember to accentuate the positive.  I think most genealogy researchers are perfectionists.  They rarely step back to take stock of the positive that has happened in their year of research.  There, of course, is more to do, however, little pieces of the puzzle begin to bring the picture into focus. 
These are questions Jill gave us to ponder and answer with positive thoughts.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was... David F Burleson.  He was not my direct line, however, David Franklin was listed in many different trees as two men with different wives.  The War of 1812 Pension Files on Fold3 were the source of the break through.  The files showed David Franklin Burleson, who was the son of David and Ursula Burleson, had two wives and it gave the death, that everyone had estimated, of his first wife and the place.  It was a great finding.  One that will change many trees.

2.  A precious family photo I found was... a photo of some type of mill with my gr great grandfather and his son in Oklahoma about 1915...

3.  An ancestor's grave I found was... because of a wonderful person who was just collecting pictures and tombstone of anyone with the same surname, "just in case"... Proved date,and place of death of a civil war ancestor as his Civil War file was not complete.

4.  An important vital record I found was... was the death certificate for the above ancestor.

5.  A newly found family member shared... a picture and caused a second look at a different picture. Controversy still not resolved.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was... DNA matches that points to a confirmation to prior preponderance of evidence without paper trail. 

7.   My 2014 blog post that I was particularly proud of was one of the few 52 Ancestors weeks challenge posts... It was about my grandfather's sister Bessie Langley Bowen. I am so glad I started this and even happier that Amy Crow's 52 Ancestor's meme is continuing it this year. 

8.   My 2014 blog post that received a large number of hits or comments was Totally Floored and Appreciative   Not so much because of content, but because of  fellow blogger interaction.  Do you seek comments? 

9.  A new piece of software I mastered was Android apps for my tablet and phone for Ancestry.com

10. A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was Facebook.  I have a couple of family groups on FB and they have been active in sharing family information as well as pictures and stories.  Love the stories.

11. A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was FGS 2014 in San Antonio.  My heart is saddened that I will not be able to make it to FGS 2015 in Salt Lake City... Would have been too cool to have done FGS and Rootstech right together.

12. I am proud of the presentation I gave to The Sons of the Texas Republic in the Woodlands, Texas.  

13. A journal/magazine article I had published... this was not my privilege.  

14. I taught several friends how to use FamilySearch's Family Tree and use the Search side of the website.

15. A genealogy book that taught me something new was Guide to DNA Testing by Richard Hill.  

16. A great repository/archive/library I visited was Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research

17. A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was "Grey Skies: A Civil War Legend of Family Courage" by David Self.  This historical fiction book was based on the family history of one of my collateral family members.

18. It was exciting to finally meet many of my genealogy heroes at FGS 2014.  I had been blogging and tweeting with them as well as being Facebook "friends" for several years with so many.  Then to meet them and exchange hugs and chat was just great.

19. A geneadventure I enjoyed was going to an old hidden cemetery with a distant cousin to see the grave sites of  my 4th great grand parents in Ray County, Missouri.  Totally off the grid.  We were taken in an old pickup, which we were holding our breath that it would keep running and crossed three fields to a spot that we needed a machete to clear our way... Outstanding adventure!  

Amy Phillips

20. Another positive I would like to share is that this year, so many have donated time and money to different genealogy projects. It has been awesome to see how the community rallies around each other to help in as many ways as possible for them. 

All in all, looking at it, it has been a very good year.  Thanks Jill for the prompt... it helped.

My DNA Journey ... Bringing Together the atDNA and the mtDNA

I have written about my frustration trying to figure out DNA test results, but not the full story.  This is how my journey has been going.

We had my cousin do her mtDNA through Ancestry.com.  She was our best hope to go through the mtDNA to reach our objective as it was my dad’s sister. Even his YDNA, if he was alive would not have helped.   I, being inexperienced, was clueless what to do with it when it came back.  The only thing I found on Ancestry was a sparse Origin evaluation and matches somewhat based on the origins and somewhat on our family trees.  It did confirm several times a connection with our David Burleson and Ursula Weatherford ancestor line.  Which was the one with the family lore of Native American that appears to be based on a cousin who was ½ Creek, but not the same mothers or related mothers. It was HIS mother who was Creek. 

I talked with a few friends that done DNA testing and they suggested I do the Family Tree DNA autosomal test.  It would me by having a spectrum of my DNA from both the paternal and maternal sides.  It was a long wait to get the results. First there was human error in the lab, the results were thrown out and I had to redo it again, resulting in a 5 month wait.  I will praise Family Tree though, they gave me the test free since it was their fault and the wait was so long, and I love their tools.

When my results came back, once again, I had the 95.33% Western Europe (basically the British Isles) and 4.6% Middle East. both with a disclaimer of +/- 1.38%  and no Native American shown.  The Middle East included populations in Palestine, Bedouin, Iran, and Jewish and Mazobite areas that matched my DNA... Now that I have done the full sequence mtDNA also, that looks like my mom's side which matches Sephardic, Ashkenazim, German, Mizrachi in Vienna, and Armenian populations among others.

I reached out to Heather our Board Member at Montgomery County Historical Commission and Genealogy and Local History Librarian at Montgomery County Memorial Library System.  She also has a blog, The Geneabrarian Reference Desk.  She suggested that I try utilizing Gedmatch.com and try their admix utilities, as well as others.  Her husband’s DNA had not shown Native American on FTDNA, but she found it on there.  I was game.  Gedmatch, I said, “Here I come!” 

I downloaded the raw data for both my cousin and myself.  Then uploaded to Gedmatch.  I was able to compare her DNA and mine. The results were Largest segment = 55.7 cM Total of segments > 3 cM = 796.6 cM Estimated number of generations to MRCA = 2.1… That was good, we are definitely cousins. J  Now, I needed to figure out which admix to use, and how.

I began looking closer at Roberta Jestes blog DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy.  I found her autosomal series and began there.  Part 7 – “The Autosomal Me – Start, Stop, Go – Identifying Native Chromosomal Segments” had some great helps.  I tried the same chromosome 2 she had.  On the comparison she used, my cousin and I had Native American segments at the same place, 10M and 160M.  It appears we match as cousins for Native American which would be for my dad’s side.  Now, I have to find the family connection on paper and with others to prove it.

Admixture Eurogenes EUtest V2 K15 - Compare a single chromosome

The light lavender is American Indian. They are layered because I could not get the whole thing together. The top is myself, second my cousin, and so forth. 

I also did the oracle for both.

Our major Ethnicity is North Atlantic, but we both have a trace amount of Native American.  Janice’s is a little larger than mine but it is to be expected since we were looking down the maternal line which we did for her and mine test is autosomal just picking up part of my dad’s DNA.  Surprising how much came through.

admixture Eurogenes K13

I am not as knowledgeable nor am I a skilled as Roberta at creating examples, but I hope you can see what I am trying to show.  I will share with you any successes I experience, as well any failures too.