Sneak Peek at the New Gedmatch.com Chromosome Triangulation Tool

For those of you who use Gedmatch.com to view, share, and analyze your DNA results, you might have noticed that the "Check for matches on a specific chromosome segment" utility was removed from the site. I used this feature most of all to find all my matches who matched me on a particular chromosome, but found lately that this utility was too slow to use.

Those of us who loved this tool will be in heaven as it has been replaced with a new tool called "Segment Triangulation." This new utility acts similarly to the previous utility with the added function of showing you matching segments BETWEEN the matches on every chromosome. 

Here is a sneak peek of what it looks like. 

More information on how to use this tool is to come. 

Have you check out the new Segment Triangulation Tool? If so, what did you think? 

The Wrong Peters Family

In this post, I will discuss how James and Martha Peters were eliminated as potential parents of my 2nd great-grandfather, William Edward Peters via DNA Testing.

William E Peters and Stanley Lark

Pocahontas, Arkansas, c 1940

My 2nd Great-Grandfather, William Edward Peters:

William Edward Peters was the father of my great-grandmother Nova Peters. According to his obituary and death certificate, he was born 10 March 1874 in Thomasville, Oregon Co., Missouri and died 3 February 1948 in Pocahontas, Randolph Co., Arkansas. Unfortunately, his parents’ names were not listed on his death certificate or in his obituary, no family bible has been found containing information on him or his family, and there is no known information about any siblings he might have had. 

William Peters is my brick wall.

According to the Research Report I have written about my William Peters, I was looking for an 1880 census report that had a William Peters on it who was born about 1874 in Missouri when I came across a potential family. I found the 1880 Oregon County, Missouri Census report of Martha Peters with a 7 year old son named William Peters who was born in Missouri. James W and Ella were also enumerated with Martha and William. [1]

1880 Oregon Co., MO Census for Martha Peters

The Family of James and Martha Peters:

I couldn't find anything on Martha, James W., or Ella Peters between 1880 and 1900, nor could I find marriage or death records for Martha and a possible Peters husband in MO. I thought that since Martha was from TN and William's parents were from either  IL, TN or MO, [2] that maybe Martha and Unknown Peters married in TN prior to moving to MO and maybe they passed through IL on their way from TN to MO? I could not find the family of Martha Peters anywhere in Missouri in 1870. 

I did find a family with Martha Peters, born about 1844 in TN on the Anderson Co., TN 1870 Census with husband James Peters and son Elijah Peters. I reached out to the descendants of this family through message boards and learned that James and Martha only had 2 or 3 children, none of whom were the William, James or Ella who were listed on the 1880 MO census report with Martha.

I did not get discouraged though, and tried to find ways to make my William Peters fit in with this James and Martha family. James' father was named Tobias Peters and he also had a grandson named Tobias Peters. This was of interest to me because my great-grandmother's nickname was "Tobe," and no one knows where that nickname came from. I thought this was a plausible explanation.

Also, there is a huge mystery around the family of James and Martha Peters: The story goes that Martha and James left TN and moved to a farm in Arkansas. Then one day James up and disappeared leaving Martha to tend the farm and raise the kids alone. She finally sold the farm and she and her kids moved in with her parents in Sebastian Co., Arkansas. [3] Supposedly the new owners of the farm found a body on the premises which everyone agreed must have belonged to the missing James. However, according to letters written by James' children, several years later his children received a letter from him attached to a substantial amount of cash, indicating he was still alive at that time.

Putting aside the mystery surrounding James' disappearance, and looking at Martha Peters, his widow or spouse, I found that she was also missing. Although her descendants claim that she and her children moved in with her parents in Sebastian Co., AR, only her children were enumerated on the 1880 census report with her parents. This is why I wondered whether the Martha Peters I found on the 1880 Oregon Co., MO census report could have been the same Martha Peters. It seemed feasible to me that maybe she had remarried and had 3 additional children whom she was raising on her own while her parents looked after her older 2 children in Arkansas. The descendants of Martha and James that I corresponded with did not share my suspicions. One descendant did have a letter that mentioned Martha had remarried to a man named Williams, but there was no mention of any additional children.

DNA Doesn't Lie:

I finally put my suspicions aside about my William Peters being connected to the family of James and Martha Peters when I was contacted by another descendant of this family. She had read about my William on my blog and decided to write to me and introduce herself. 

She mentioned that she and her cousin had done the autosomal DNA testing and offered to compare our results to see if we were a match. Me, my mother, and Grandfather tested through ftDNA. She tested with 23AndMe, so she had to upload her test results to Gedmatch.com for us to compare our DNA results since we tested with different companies. We also compared my family’s DNA results to her cousin, the granddaughter of Elijah Peters and great-granddaughter of James and Martha. Their grandmothers were double-cousins (mothers were sisters, fathers were brothers).

Although her cousin tested through ftDNA, she did not show up as a match to my family. I still did a comparision with Gedmatch.com just in case there was a small match that was not big enough to reach the threshold to be considered a match. [4]

In doing the Gedmatch.com comparison, we ran a one-to-one comparison between the first descendant's kit and mine, her kit and my mother, her kit and my grandfather. Then we did the same for her cousin's kit. We set the minimum cM value equal to 1. 

Here are the results: 

1. Descendant vs Me - 0
2. Descendant vs my Mother - 0
3. Descendant vs my Grandfather - 0
4. Descendant's cousin vs me - 4.3cM
5. Descendant's cousin vs Mother - 4.9cM
6. Descendant's cousin vs my Grandfather - 4.7cM
7. X chromosome comparison between Descendant's cousin and my Grandfather - 0
8. X chromosome comparison between Descendant and my Grandfather - 0

The amount of DNA that the descendant's cousin shares with my family is less than 5cM which is not enough to be significant and is probably just noise, therefore there is no connection between our two families. My family does not share any DNA in common with the descendant either, further supporting the conclusion that our two families are not connected. 

Conclusion: 

This is just one example of how DNA can either support or refute a hypothesis. In this case, our hypothesis was that my William Peters is connected to the family of James and Martha Peters. We compared the DNA results of my family  to those of James Peters’ family to determine if this was true. Since the DNA results did not match between descendants of both families, we determined that these two families are NOT connected. 

Next Steps: 

Our next steps would be:

1. Continue looking for the Martha Peters family represented on the 1880 Oregon Co., MO census report. She was in the right place at the right time and is a good candidate to be the mother of my ancestor, William Edward Peters.
2. Continue combing through the DNA results of me, my mother, and grandfather to look for matches with Peters in their list of surnames and connections to Oregon or Howell Counties, MO.
3. Investigate the X matches of my grandfather, since William Peters has been identified as one of his X ancestors.
4. Apply this exercise to other "suspicious" ancestors: It would be nice to find some descendants of Wilzey King’s family to test and compare to as well. This is another line that I am hypothetically connecting my line to, but am not quite sure of.

---

Sources:

[1] 1880 U. S. Federal Census, Oregon Co., MO, p. 330C, Martha Peters; digital image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 June 2011); citing NARA Microfilm publication T9, Roll 707, FHL Film 1254707. Martha Peters, 35 yo (b. abt 1845), TN; William Peters, 7 yo (b. abt 1873), MO, both parents born in TN; James W Peters, 3 yo (b. abt 1877), MO, both parents born in TN; Ella Peters, 2 yo (b. abt 1878), MO, both parents born in TN.

[2] Sources providing information that William’s parents were born in IL, MO, or TN include the 1900-1930 census reports for William Peters and the death certificate of William Peters, 1948.

[3] 1880 U. S. Federal Census, Sebastian Co., AR, p.669C; Samuel Martin; digital image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 June 2011); citing NARA Microfilm publication T9, Roll 57, FHL Film 1254057.  

[4] With FamilyTreeDNA, the threshold for consideration to be a match is a minimum of 7cM of shared DNA and 700 SNPs.

RootsTech 2014 Announces Schedule of FREE live-streamed Presentation Broadcasts

The schedule of the FREE live-streaming videos of 15 of RootsTech's popular presentations have been announced. They start on February 6th at 8:30 AM MST. Remember this is Mountain Standard Time, so you need to adjust accordingly for your time zone. They can be watched live from your computer by visiting the conference website at https://rootstech.org/.

From FamilySearch

SALT LAKE CITY—RootsTech, the world’s largest family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 6-8, 2014, announced today that 15 of its popular sessions will be broadcast live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend in-person worldwide a sample of this year’s conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The fourth-year conference has attracted over 10,000 registered attendees in-person, and leaders expect over 20,000 additional viewers online.

The streamed sessions include a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in mountain standard time (MST):

Thursday, February 6

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Top 10 Things I Learned About My Family from My Couch by Tammy Hepps

1 p.m. to 2 p.m., FamilySearch Family Tree: What's New and What's Next by Ron Tanner

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Intro to DNA for Genealogists by James Rader

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Genealogy in the Cloud by Randy Hoffman

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Sharing Your Family with Multimedia by Michael LeClerc

Friday, February 7

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Storytelling Super Powers: How to Come Off as Your Family's Genealogy Hero by David Adelman

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Tweets, Links, Pins, and Posts: Break Down Genealogical Brick Walls with Social Media by Lisa Alzo

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Getting the Most Out of Ancestry.comby Crista Cowen

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Finding Family and Ancestors Outside the USA with New Technologies by Daniel Horowitz

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Do It Yourself Photo Restoration by Ancestry Insider

Saturday, February 8

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Become an iPad Power User by Lisa Louise Cooke

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Information Overload: Managing Online Searches and Their Results by D. Josh Taylor

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., A Beginner’s Guide to Going Paperless by Randy Whited

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., How to Interview Yourself for a Personal History by Tom Taylor

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Five Ways to Do Genealogy in Your Sleep by Deborah Gamble

About RootsTech

RootsTech is a global family history event where people of all ages learn to discover and share their family stories and connections through technology. The first annual conference was held in 2011, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by leading genealogical organizations, the conference includes hands-on demonstrations and forums to provide a highly interactive environment and accelerate learning. Content is geared to young and old, beginner to advanced levels.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 3) – Lucenda Gentry

This is Week 3 of Amy Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blogging challenge to write about one ancestor a week for 2014. Amy highlights each weeks’ posts on her blog No Story Too Small every Wednesday.

This week I am writing about my third great-grandmother, Lucenda “Cindie” Gentry. The GENTRY surname is an interesting one to write about. Why? Because it seems like everyone has at least one or two Gentrys in their family. And chances are, they will tell you that their Gentrys all descend from the same immigrant ancestor - Nicholas Gentry.

I have no idea if my third great-grandmother, Lucenda Gentry descends from Nicholas Gentry or not. I’m not even sure what her father’s real name was! Was it William or was it Berry? Well, I’ll come back to that. First, let’s meet Lucenda.

Lucenda Gentry was born April 12th, 1868 in Tennessee [1] and died February 19th, 1905 in Garrett’s Bluff, Lamar Co., Texas [2]. She was the second oldest child born to Manerva Jane O’Neal and William T. Gentry. Well I'm pretty sure it was William T. Gentry. There is some confusion, though, because on the 1880 Scott Co., AR census report, the head of the house hold is listed as "Berry A. Gentry." Berry was actually the name of their first born son. This is the only time I've seen "Berry" mentioned as Manerva's husband or Lucenda's father. I think probably Manerva and William might have been separated at this time and someone in the house just used the oldest son Berry's name as a placeholder for the man of the house.

Manerva and William were married in Roane County, Tennessee on January 5th, 1865 [3]. Manerva was from Blount County and William was from neighboring Knox County. William had just returned home from the war. I am not sure why they went to Roane County to marry; unless it was to evade detection by Manerva’s mother who might have disapproved of the marriage because Manerva was only 14 years old (William was 25). Manerva’s mother had married young as well and was widowed by the time she was 25 years old.

William and Manerva did return to Blount County; however, things might not have gone as well as they had hoped as they were living with Manerva’s mother Lucinda O’Neal and her younger siblings only 5 years into their marriage [4]. By that time, my third great-grandmother Lucinda had been born along with her older brother Allen Berry.

But things got even worse for Lucenda’s family. By the mid 1880’s, Lucenda’s parents had gotten a divorce. Her mother Manerva moved with her brother Allen Berry and her youngest sister Mary Jane to Arkansas. Lucenda and her brothers William and James moved to Paris (Lamar County), Texas with their father who remarried to a woman named Nannie in 1886. Lucenda’s mother remarried as well to a man named George Wagoner in 1889 [5].

While in Texas, Lucenda met and married a farmer named Reuben Dennis in 1886. She was 18 years old. They had four children together: Wallace, Eva, Luther, and Willie. They lived in the small town of Garrett’s Bluff outside of Paris, Texas. According to the 1900 census reports, the children did not go to school, even though there was a school nearby; they were probably too busy tending the farm and working. Lucenda and Reuben were educated though, so they probably gave the children their lessons at home.

Lucenda was a member of the Chicota Baptist Church. Chicota was a small community about 15 miles east of Garrett’s Bluff. The family probably attended church service there every Sunday. Lucenda’s daughter Eva was my 2nd great-grandmother. Since Eva was the only other girl in the house, the two of them were very close. Eva spoke often of how her mother taught her how to cook, iron, and clean the house.

Unfortunately, Eva was left motherless at a young age. Her mother Lucenda died from pneumonia at the age of 36. Eva was 14 years old when her mother died. Her father, devastated, left the farm and moved the children to the “big city” of Paris to be near his brother Liberty. Reuben became a tax collector. Eva married to my 2nd great-grandfather, Barney Benson, who had lived next door to her family prior to their move to Paris.

I chose to write about Lucenda Gentry because very little was known about her. In the course of this writing, I was able to learn some more about her family and to fill in some of the gaps I had in my family tree. I realized that I do have a lot more research to conduct and I’m very much looking forward to it. I also made a connection with a new cousin I found on ancestry.com, but who also happened to be connected to another one of my cousins on Facebook. She is the one who has shared the photo of the Dennis family with me. If you have Gentry ancestors, please contact me so we can share information. I am very interested in learning more about my Gentry ancestors.

Photo of Cindy Gentry, Reuben Dennis and their children: 

Eva Mae Dennis, Wallace, Willie "L. C.," & Luther

Shared by my cousin Allison Hurst

Sources:

[1]  Jim Tipton, Find A Grave, Online database, (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 21 January 2014), User Input Bio and Headstone, Luecindie "Cindie" Gentry Dennis, Memorial No. 120766810, created by John and Ruth Clackler, 24 November 2013, citing Garrett's Bluff Cemetery, Garrett's Bluff, Lamar County, Texas, USA: Headstone reads: "Luecindie wife of Rubin Dennis, born 12 Apr 1868, died 19 Feb 1905." Biography includes place of birth as Tennessee and place of death as Garratt’s Bluff, Lamar Co., TX.

[2]  Ibid.

[3]  Ancestry.com, "Tennessee Marriages, 1851-1900," index, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 January 2014), M J O'Neill to W T Gentry; Roane County, Tennessee Marriages, 1851-1900. County court records located at Kingston, Tennessee or Family History Library microfilm #0560087-0560089: "M. J. O'Neal” married “W. T. Gentry," 5 Jan 1865 in Roane Co., TN.

[4]  1870 US Federal Census, Blount County, Tennessee, population schedule, District 4, Friendsville Post Office, Page 112A (stamped), Page 21 (penned), Dwelling 136, Family 137, Lucinda O'Neil; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : downloaded 20 January 2014); NARA Film M593, Roll 1515, FHL Film 553014.William and Minerva “Gerity” were enumerated in Lucinda O’Neill’s household.

[5]  Ancestry.com, "Arkansas County Marriages Index, 1837-1957," online database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 January 2014), Manerva Jane Gentry and G W Wagoner; Citing: "Arkansas County Marriages, 1838–1957." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, from Arkansas Courts of Common Pleas and County Clerks.; FHL film no. 1027124: married 5 Mar 1889, Scott Co., AR.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (Week 2) – John Brooks Binns

I just realized that I haven’t written anything about my BINNS family. And I have a LOT of information. I need to get writing! What am I waiting for? – I know! A challenge! I have pledged to join the “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” Challenge for 2014 which was started by Amy Crow of the No Story Too Small blog. Each week Amy will showcase all of that week’s ancestor posts and I hope to be included. I missed Week 1, but here is a post for week 2.

JOHN BROOKS BINNS

B. 20 MARCH 1910, MONTICELLO, ARKANSAS

D. 10 DECEMBER 1989, FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS

John Brooks Binns was my great-grandfather

Photo of John B. Binns, Arkansas, 1950s

John Brooks Binns was born March 20^th, 1910 in Monticello (Drew County) Arkansas to John Milton Binns and Perthinia “Pert” Brooks. He was the 2^nd to youngest child of 8 born to this couple. His siblings were John Lavert Binns, Milton “Roy” Binns, James Howard Binns, Rubye Estelle Binns, Van Carl Binns, Lurah Marcelle Binns, and Byron Zach Binns.  His father, John Milton Binns, was a farmer from Georgia who became a salesman in Monticello and eventually became a meat cutter / butcher.

John followed in his father’s footsteps by working in a department store in Longview, Texas and in Kroger’s as a meat cutter; but he also went to college and earned his teaching degree. He and his wife, Blanche Hill taught school in Alma, Arkansas.

When John and Blanche met, John was studying and playing football at Monticello A&M College. He was there from 1930 – 1932. He was a member of the “Little Big Three” Press Association. Blanche was attending Magnolia A&M College from 1930 – 1931 and then transferred to Monticello A&M for the 1931 – 1932 school year to be with John. On August 19^th 1934 John and Blanche were married at the First Christian Church in Longview, Texas where John was working in advertising for a department store.

John and Blanche Binns had three blonde haired, blued eyed little girls, including my grandmother, born between 1936 and 1940 in Fort Smith, Arkansas. In 1943, they bought their house on 1401 N. 19^th street where they lived until they died. He also bought the house behind him and the grocery store next door to his house. He rented the store out to a lady named Alice Shields who ran the store. He eventually tore the store down and had a house built there. This is the house that my mom, dad, and I lived in when I was first born. John worked at Kroger’s on Grand Avenue in Fort Smith, Arkansas as a meat cutter for ten years and then later he owned and operated the Cash and Carry in Fort Smith on N. 2^nd street.

After the girls were old enough to go to high school, John and Blanche went back to school to get their teaching degrees. Blanche went to school the first two summers of 1952 and 1953 and John the next two in 1954 and 1955. They went to Russellville Tech in Northwest Arkansas. Their first teaching jobs were in Alma, Arkansas. Blanche taught the 2^nd grade and John taught 7^th grade Science. Then he switched to 5^th grade after realizing he couldn’t handle the junior high kids.

In 1963, Blanche had a stroke and had to stop teaching. John took care of her and continued teaching until he retired in 1975. John must have taken really good care of her because she survived him by 3 years. John died December 10^th, 1989 in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Blanche died December 27^th, 1992 in a nursing home in Fort Smith.

I was lucky to have grown up with 6 of my 8 great-grandparents, including John and Blanche. Blanche never really liked us kids much, but John, or “great-granddad” to me, loved us to death. He was a big hugger and he would squeeze you so tight you couldn’t breathe. And he was always around. He got sick pretty fast, so I didn’t really have to see him bad off in a nursing home like I saw Blanche. He got a bunch of fluid in his lungs probably due to the emphysema and that is eventually what stopped his breathing. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.

Here are some photos to remind me of our time together: 

Ginger Smith and great-grandfather, John Brooks Binns, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1977

Ginger Smith and great-grandfather, John Brooks Binns, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1982

Ginger Smith and great-grandfather, John Brooks Binns, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1984

All photos are from the private collection of Barbara Binns, Fort Smith, Arkansas and were scanned by Ginger Smith, 14 November 2008. 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - What's Your Ancestor Score?

27 %

Randy Seaver over at the Genea-Musings blog has given us a new Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge which I have chosen to participate in. It seems not only fun but a good exercise to do every so often in order to see how my research and genealogy is progressing along.

Here’s what Randy wants us to do:

1)  Determine how complete your genealogy research is.  For background, read Crista Cowan's post Family History All Done? What’s Your Number? and Kris Stewart's What Is Your Genealogy "Score?"  For comparison purposes, keep the list to 10 or 11 generations with you as the first person. 

2)  Create a table similar to Crista's second table, and fill it in however you can (you could create an Ahnentafel (Ancestor Name) list and count the number in each generation, or use some other method).  Tell us how you calculated the numbers.

3)  Show us your table, and calculate your "Ancestral Score" - what is your percentage of known names to possible names (1,023 for 10 generations).

4)  For extra credit (or more SNGF), do more generations and add them to your chart.

5)  Post your table, and your "Ancestor Score," on your own blog, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post or Google+ Stream post.

--------------------------------------------------

Here is my Ancestor Table:

I calculated the number of identified people by running an Ahnentafel in my RM program and then going through and counting the names in each generation. My score is 27%!

It probably would be higher if I included the research of other people, including my grandfather. But I keep his research in a separate tree file until I can find the sources to back the information up.

What's My Number?
Generation	Relationship	Possible People	Identified People
1	Me	1	1
2	Parents	2	2
3	Grandparents	4	4
4	1x Great-Grandparents	8	8
5	2x Great-Grandparents	16	16
6	3x Great-Grandparents	32	30
7	4x Great-Grandparents	64	49
8	5x Great-Grandparents	128	59
9	6x Great-Grandparents	256	59
10	7x Great-Grandparents	512	55
Total	283/1023 = 27%	1,023	283

What is YOUR score? Let us know in the comments below.