I decided to cut out most of the technical stuff, and go for short and simple. There are lots of technical articles about genetic genealogy, and they can explain it just as well, or better, than I can. See the bottom of the post for links.
So just how reliable is genetic testing for genealogical purposes? Well it depends on what you are after. Are you looking to establish a close relationship with someone from 600 years ago? Don't count on it. Are you looking to see if you have markers indicating that some of your ancestors came from a certain region or belonged to a certain group, more likely, but it is not an ironclad guarantee that you are actually from that region, or belong to that group. If you are looking to establish a relationship in the past few hundred years, that is possible, but the closeness of the relationship will not be included, i.e. you will know you are related, but not how closely. To establish closeness, you need a paper trail. On the other hand a genetic test can rule out relationship.
How does it work? It is actually quite straight forward. Our physical sex is determined by whether or not we have two X chromosomes (women), or an X and a Y (men). The Y chromosome is passed down through the male line exclusively. Women are a little different, as the mitochondrial DNA must be tested. The mitochondria are basically cells within a cell, and they provide energy to the cell. At any rate, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is transmitted from the mother to all the children. Both the Y chromosome DNA and mtDNA change at relatively constant rates, which allows us to test and determine a very broad level of closeness. Additionally, because the Y chromosome only follows the male line, and the mtDNA follows both lines, we can test for paternal and maternal origins.
For example, Y DNA changes at the rate of 1 mutation every 500 years on average, so you may find that you are related to someone sometime in the past 500 years, but it doesn't tell you how closely you are related, just that you are. If the test finds no commonality, then you are definitely not related. In addition, remember that the times span of the change is an average. The Y DNA may have changed between you and your father, or not have changed at all in the past 1000 years. We just don't know.
What happens if you get a negative result? There may have been an adoption. There may have been an illegitimate child. There may have been an error in the test. There may have been a name change. There may have been infidelity. Be prepared, none of us are (or were) perfect, and you may not like the answer you find.
So, I come back to the original question, is genealogical DNA testing reliable? The answer is yes, but within limits. It can determine if there is a relationship, but it cannot determine the closeness of the relationship. Alternately, it can prove that no relationship exists. Taken along with paper records it can be a valuable addition to your research. Genealogical DNA testing can also be used to help determine deep ancestry, in other words where in the world your ancestors are (mostly) from. Finally, remember there are no absolutes. Even the best genetic testing comes with a percent level of certainty, even if the level is 99% certain, there is always that 1% chance that the correct results are alternate to the main result.
If you do decide to have some sort of genealogical genetic testing done, look around, some groups will pay part or all of the test costs depending on your surname or ancestry.
There are lots of sources about genetic genealogy. Here are some I used:
And the post wouldn't be complete if I didn't include a link about Devon - The Devon DNA Project - you will need a paper trail leading back to Devon in order to be allowed to submit a DNA sample to this project.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Genetics and Genealogy
I recently came across Family Tree DNA, a company that collects genetic data to determine paternal or maternal ancestry. Being the curious sort I am I decided to investigate exactly what it was all about.
The first thing I wanted to know was whether or not they share the information they collect? The answer was no, they do not share the data from the genetic testing.
Then I decided to see if they were a reliable organization, or would they just take the money (or information) and run. So I did a web search for genetic genealogy, and came up with a Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article mentioned the Genographic Project, which it stated was a joint project between IBM, National Geographic, University of Arizona, and Family Tree DNA. A web search for the Genographic Project came up with multiple pages from Family Tree DNA, National Geographic and IBM, and one of the IBM pages said that the information was processed by Family Tree DNA. So, I have now determined to my satisfaction that Family Tree DNA is a reputable company.
The next thing I want to consider is whether or not I actually want to be tested, and right now I am just not sure. The Family Tree DNA site does include a Devon DNA Project group, so it is tempting, and they do have some maps of their findings.
Does the testing itself work? Is it reliable? What's the point? I think I'll leave those for the next post because it gets kind of technical.
The first thing I wanted to know was whether or not they share the information they collect? The answer was no, they do not share the data from the genetic testing.
Then I decided to see if they were a reliable organization, or would they just take the money (or information) and run. So I did a web search for genetic genealogy, and came up with a Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article mentioned the Genographic Project, which it stated was a joint project between IBM, National Geographic, University of Arizona, and Family Tree DNA. A web search for the Genographic Project came up with multiple pages from Family Tree DNA, National Geographic and IBM, and one of the IBM pages said that the information was processed by Family Tree DNA. So, I have now determined to my satisfaction that Family Tree DNA is a reputable company.
The next thing I want to consider is whether or not I actually want to be tested, and right now I am just not sure. The Family Tree DNA site does include a Devon DNA Project group, so it is tempting, and they do have some maps of their findings.
Does the testing itself work? Is it reliable? What's the point? I think I'll leave those for the next post because it gets kind of technical.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
A Collection of Links
Today I posted four new links to From the Halls of Devon, and it got me thinking about links, and the quality of sites that are out there. Perhaps I should be more specific, not the quality of the site, but the quality of the search engine for a site. A final point before I launch into my reviews of the sites, they are all worthwhile. I wouldn't include them if I didn't think they were, but some have search engine issues which can significantly reduce their usefulness as resources.
Canadiana
As far as I understand Canadiana is a both a collection of collections, and a collection of its own. It contains magazines, photos, books, and other materials. A large amount of it is public domain. It is divided into two sections, Early Canadiana Online, and a Canadian Discovery Portal.
I have two criticisms of the site. The first is that many of the documents are only available by subscribing to the site. A related criticism is that there is only one subscription option, annual, and the cost is quite high for a site that is essentially a collection with very little "social" component. I suspect that they could significantly increase their subscriber base if they allowed shorter subscription times, or lowered their annual rate. Certainly it discourages casual research, and in my opinion limits their ability to raise funds for further digitization projects.
The second is that only one (Early Canadiana Online) of the two parts of the site has the ability to search for exact phrases. This is a very large drawback when searching a large online collection. Certainly when I am searching for my own surname I don't want every bingo hall, community hall, church hall, banquet hall, halls of power, residence halls, and well, I'm sure you get the idea, turning up in my search.
The Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a very large collection of sound, video, text, images, etc., all in the public domain. My personal interest is the text portion of the archive. It has a very limited search engine, that searches only the titles of the documents, but you can choose which collections or sub-collections you will search. I have often found that the best way to search the Archive is to do an advanced Google search, and specify to search only in the Internet Archive domain. An added, major, advantage of the Internet Archive is that you can download the texts in a number of different formats, including those that can be read on e-readers.
The Canada Gazette Archive
The range of the Canada Gazette archive is from 1841 until 1997. As with most government of Canada websites, it is a little quirky (click the search links on the left of the page), and worse still, the search engine sucks. I don't know what algorithms they use, but they return the oddest results, and in the oddest order sometimes. Sadly there is no way to sort the results, and it would be really handy to sort by date. There are other issues too.
The site has been redesigned, and I have to say I like what they have done. You can drill down through region and sub-region to see the documents you want. In many cases you can actually view the documents themselves online without ordering the microfilms. Much of their Newfoundland collection is now available with images. The Newfoundland collection is not indexed, but they have grouped the documents by date, location, and occasionally church. The same goes for many other collections, though there are collections that are both indexed and have images of the original documents. Finally, one can choose to search historical records, trees, and the catalogue for books, microfilms, etc.
They seem to have refined their search engine too. The results that come back are much more sensible, and specifying an exact match now actually shows the exact matches, which was not always the case before.
Canadiana
As far as I understand Canadiana is a both a collection of collections, and a collection of its own. It contains magazines, photos, books, and other materials. A large amount of it is public domain. It is divided into two sections, Early Canadiana Online, and a Canadian Discovery Portal.
I have two criticisms of the site. The first is that many of the documents are only available by subscribing to the site. A related criticism is that there is only one subscription option, annual, and the cost is quite high for a site that is essentially a collection with very little "social" component. I suspect that they could significantly increase their subscriber base if they allowed shorter subscription times, or lowered their annual rate. Certainly it discourages casual research, and in my opinion limits their ability to raise funds for further digitization projects.
The second is that only one (Early Canadiana Online) of the two parts of the site has the ability to search for exact phrases. This is a very large drawback when searching a large online collection. Certainly when I am searching for my own surname I don't want every bingo hall, community hall, church hall, banquet hall, halls of power, residence halls, and well, I'm sure you get the idea, turning up in my search.
The Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a very large collection of sound, video, text, images, etc., all in the public domain. My personal interest is the text portion of the archive. It has a very limited search engine, that searches only the titles of the documents, but you can choose which collections or sub-collections you will search. I have often found that the best way to search the Archive is to do an advanced Google search, and specify to search only in the Internet Archive domain. An added, major, advantage of the Internet Archive is that you can download the texts in a number of different formats, including those that can be read on e-readers.
The Canada Gazette Archive
The range of the Canada Gazette archive is from 1841 until 1997. As with most government of Canada websites, it is a little quirky (click the search links on the left of the page), and worse still, the search engine sucks. I don't know what algorithms they use, but they return the oddest results, and in the oddest order sometimes. Sadly there is no way to sort the results, and it would be really handy to sort by date. There are other issues too.
- In addition to the results presentation, there are significant limitations on how you do a search. You cannot specify your own date range. This is all the stranger when you consider that you can specify a single date.
- Word stemming is automatic and it does not look like it can be disabled. Word stemming means that in a search "halls" and "hall" are treated the same, i.e. the "s" is ignored, not what I want in a search for my surname.
- When you go back to the main search page to modify your search you have to retype your entire search as the form automatically clears.
- The results that are generated are shown in pdf or gif, which is fine, but the search terms are not highlighted in the gif version, meaning you have to read the entire page, or in a pdf, search again using the pdf search tools to see if the result is one that you want.
The site has been redesigned, and I have to say I like what they have done. You can drill down through region and sub-region to see the documents you want. In many cases you can actually view the documents themselves online without ordering the microfilms. Much of their Newfoundland collection is now available with images. The Newfoundland collection is not indexed, but they have grouped the documents by date, location, and occasionally church. The same goes for many other collections, though there are collections that are both indexed and have images of the original documents. Finally, one can choose to search historical records, trees, and the catalogue for books, microfilms, etc.
They seem to have refined their search engine too. The results that come back are much more sensible, and specifying an exact match now actually shows the exact matches, which was not always the case before.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Can Our Ancestors Make us Smarter?
While it's not directly related to the Halls family, I thought it was interesting.
Apparently thinking about the hardships that your ancestors went through increases your intellectual performance. You can read this article from the Daily Mail, or you can see the original paper here (registration required to see more than the abstract).
Apparently thinking about the hardships that your ancestors went through increases your intellectual performance. You can read this article from the Daily Mail, or you can see the original paper here (registration required to see more than the abstract).
Friday, January 7, 2011
A Portrait of James Halls and Family
Just prior to Christmas I was contacted by an individual who had a picture of James Halls and family (from the Exeter, Ontario area). I was very surprised to say the least. The name of the person was not any that I had connected with the Halls family, though I had seen it in relation to Devon. It was a beautiful photo, a formal studio portrait taken at Senior's in Exeter, about 1890 judging by the ages and style of dress. Sadly not every name can be associated with a face, but now I have a picture, so it is only a matter of time. It is the first group picture I have of that generation.
It was, all in all, a wonderful Christmas present.
The picture itself got me looking at the details in the picture, and what struck me most were the hands of Mary Ann and James.
James' hands are quite obviously arthritic, no doubt from a lifetime of working with stone and brick and mortar, farming and farm equipment, in all types of weather. His knees also look odd. I recognize the drape of his pants over his knees from the way my father's knees looked covered by the drape of his pants. James knees are terribly arthritic and swollen just like my father.
Mary Ann's hands are quite different. They don't appear arthritic, but the skin looks awful. It appears scabby or scaley. It looks terribly painful. When you look at Mary Ann's face she is terribly stern, almost as if she is gritting her teeth in pain. Admittedly her hair style is very severe too, but she looks not at all comfortable.
James looks very much the loved patriarch of the family. A full head of white hair, a full white beard, and with a daughter resting on his knee. He looks successful, comfortable, and content with his life. Obviously father and daughter are very close. I suspect that she is the youngest, Lillian (Lilly) Halls.
The rest of the family simply seems to be there, just in the picture. They seem content too, healthy, happy, and young. At least they seem that way as much as one can tell from a photo from a time when you needed to hold still for five to ten seconds.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Mysterious Samuel Halls Jnr.
Well, I knew something was strange about Samuel Halls. I now have the first inklings of what might be going on. I found a story in the Chicago Tribune dated Feb 5th, 1912. The story headline reads:
Accused of Farm Swindle.
Samuel Halls Arrested on Charge of Mis-
using Money Given Him for
Canteloupe Scheme
The story then goes on to say that he was charged embezzling $6,128, and that he was released on $6,000 bail.
Happily I have contacts in Chicago who will try and track down what happened with the police and in the courts. Perhaps it will shed light on why his wife and son moved to the other side of the United States.
Stay tuned.
Samuel Halls Arrested on Charge of Mis-
using Money Given Him for
Canteloupe Scheme
The story then goes on to say that he was charged embezzling $6,128, and that he was released on $6,000 bail.
Happily I have contacts in Chicago who will try and track down what happened with the police and in the courts. Perhaps it will shed light on why his wife and son moved to the other side of the United States.
Stay tuned.
Friday, December 3, 2010
The Mysterious Samuel Halls and his More Mysterious Son Samuel Halls
The family of Samuel Halls is one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, branch of the family that I have found.
Samuel Snr. was an observer for the British government during the American Civil War. He lived a long time, 85 years. His brothers were well known in the area where they all lived. And then this is where it starts to get odd. I have only found one reference to him in the local papers, besides his obituary, and that is a brief mention of him being an MC for the local Orange Lodge. I cannot find any marriage record for him and his wife. I cannot find any death record or place of burial for his wife. He died in the local House of Refuge (a combination of old age home and home for the unwell). His Ontario death record lists his nationality as Irish! He had no will, or at least none that I could find.
For the most part his children moved to the United States, in and around Chicago. His son Samuel Jnr. became a mover in high society in Chicago, living in the right neighbourhoods, being socially active. He was a highly successful builder. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 it all came apart. He appears to have been estranged from his wife and children. The 1920 census lists both of them, each claiming to be widowed. She was in Portland living with their son Allen Samuel Halls, he was in Chicago, apparently living in an apartment or boarding house. He died in 1930 in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Samuel has a will, but it has been misfiled, so like his father, we have no record of the final disposition of his effects.
There are no pictures that I have been able to find of either Samuel Snr. or Samuel Jnr.
All in all, very frustrating. Why can I not find pictures? How likely is it that the wills of both father and son would be un-findable? What happened to Samuel Jnr. that made it all fall apart? Why would Samuel Jnr. and his wife and son be estranged from each other? If Samuel and his wife were estranged from each other, why are they buried next to each other in Chicago?
Lots of questions and no answers. Stay tuned for more.
Samuel Snr. was an observer for the British government during the American Civil War. He lived a long time, 85 years. His brothers were well known in the area where they all lived. And then this is where it starts to get odd. I have only found one reference to him in the local papers, besides his obituary, and that is a brief mention of him being an MC for the local Orange Lodge. I cannot find any marriage record for him and his wife. I cannot find any death record or place of burial for his wife. He died in the local House of Refuge (a combination of old age home and home for the unwell). His Ontario death record lists his nationality as Irish! He had no will, or at least none that I could find.
For the most part his children moved to the United States, in and around Chicago. His son Samuel Jnr. became a mover in high society in Chicago, living in the right neighbourhoods, being socially active. He was a highly successful builder. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 it all came apart. He appears to have been estranged from his wife and children. The 1920 census lists both of them, each claiming to be widowed. She was in Portland living with their son Allen Samuel Halls, he was in Chicago, apparently living in an apartment or boarding house. He died in 1930 in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Samuel has a will, but it has been misfiled, so like his father, we have no record of the final disposition of his effects.
There are no pictures that I have been able to find of either Samuel Snr. or Samuel Jnr.
All in all, very frustrating. Why can I not find pictures? How likely is it that the wills of both father and son would be un-findable? What happened to Samuel Jnr. that made it all fall apart? Why would Samuel Jnr. and his wife and son be estranged from each other? If Samuel and his wife were estranged from each other, why are they buried next to each other in Chicago?
Lots of questions and no answers. Stay tuned for more.
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