A little genealogy humor

Edmund Burke 1729-1797

“The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.”

You have to check out this website..Family Tree DNA

      http://www.familytreedna.com/

The world’s first and largest genealogy driven testing site. The Ancestry DNA Project

The Genographic Project is a real time effort to map how humankind populated the earth. It is a five-year research partnership between National Geographic and IBM with support from the Waitt Family Foundation, and public participation through Family Tree DNA. The three main pillars of the project include:

Global field science: The core of the project is the collection DNA samples from indigenous populations, which contains key genetic markers that have remained relatively unaltered over hundreds of generations making them reliable indicators of ancient migratory patterns. Dr. Wells and a group of 10 scientists from prominent international institutions will conduct the field and laboratory research. One additional research center will focus on analyzing DNA from ancient remains. The Waitt Family Foundation is funding this component of the Genographic Project. An international advisory board will oversee the selection of indigenous populations for testing as well as adherence to strict sampling and research protocols.

Public participation and Awareness Campaign: The general public can take part in the project by purchasing a Genographic Project Public Participation Kit and submitting their own cheek swab sample, allowing them to track the overall progress of the project as well as learn their own migratory history. These personal results are stored anonymously to protect the privacy of participants. National Geographic will regularly update the public and the scientific community on project findings, including through the website and through National Geographic’s many other media platforms worldwide.

Genographic Legacy Fund: Proceeds from the sale of the Genographic Public Participation Kits helps fund future field research and a legacy project, which will build on National Geographic’s 118-year-long focus on world cultures. The Genographic Legacy Fund will support education and cultural preservation projects among participating and other indigenous groups.

Family tree information of some familiar names

From the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/arts/14reun.html?pagewanted=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/S/Sharpton,%20Al

A recent genealogical study indicated that ancestors of the Rev. Al Sharpton, for instance, were once slaves owned by ancestors of Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist. A genealogical researcher has said that the white mother of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, had ancestors who owned slaves

NYTimes Story in part “At a Harlem Reunion, a Rancher From Missouri Meets His ‘DNA Cousins’ “

Ms. Higginsen, who would not reveal her age, said she had been interested in her genealogical background ever since watching the television mini-series “Roots” in 1977. She assumed she was descended from slaves, and her maternal grandmother, Anna West, used to say the family had some American Indian blood. So in 2005 Ms. Higginsen took an ethno-ancestry test.

“I was stunned,” she said. “It said I had no Indian blood, but that I did have, in addition to my African ancestry, 28 percent European blood and 8 percent Asian.”

She persuaded her uncle, the Rev. James O. West Jr., a minister from Washington, to get a Y chromosome test.

Relatives always considered Mr. West black, but she said the results showed 52 percent European lineage and DNA that could link him to British royalty and the original settlers of colonial Jamestown, including Thomas West, an Englishman born in 1577 also known as the third Baron De La Warr, who became the first resident governor of the Virginia Colony.

“I was expecting Kunta Kinte,” Ms. Higginsen said, referring to the character in “Roots,” “but I got Lord De La Warr.”

From NewEnglandAncestors.org

http://www.newenglandancestors.org/publications/NEA/8-2_004_announce.asp

Barack Obama’s American Ancestry

In early 2005 I began researching the ancestry of recently-elected Illinois Senator Barack Obama. I was particularly interested since my own mother is from Kansas, as was his. Senator Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father, mentions an ancestor, decorated Union soldier Christopher Columbus Clark. Searching online databases, I quickly found Obama’s mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) and maternal grandfather (Stanley Armour Dunham) in the Social Security Death Index. The latter appears on the 1920 and 1930 censuses of Wichita and El Dorado, Kansas, respectively, living with his parents (in 1920 only), maternal grandparents, and matrilineal great-grandfather, the Christopher Columbus Clark above.

I found a useful Dunham website at www.journeyback.com. This site mentioned Obama’s maternal grandparents and claimed a patrilineal lineage for S.A. Dunham back to John1 Dunham of Plymouth. Recent generations of this lineage can be verified online back to the 1850 census. The above website gave the parents of Obama’s fifth great-grandfather, Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) as Samuel Dunham (great-great-grandson of John1 Dunham above) and Mary Lucas. However, family group sheets posted on July 29, 2004, by David Lee Dunham (on http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/ d/u/n/1930-L-Dunham/PDFFGS3. pdf) show Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) as a son of Jonathan Dunham (grandson of Jonathan2 Singletary alias Dunham) and Mary Smith. A Dunham DNA project (see http://pcdunham. net/DNA%20Project%0Review%20%20May%202005. pdf) found two separate Y-chromosome sequences for descendants of (1) John1 Dunham above and (2) Jonathan2 Singletary alias Dunham. Agnate descendants of Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) share the Y-chromosome sequence of the latter. This Jonathan2 Singletary alias Dunham is the subject of articles by Diane Rapaport (New England Ancestors 6 [2005], 5-6:50-51) and Noreen C. Pramberg (The Essex Genealogist 21 [2001]:144-47).

Thus, as David Lee Dunham argues, Samuel Dunham (d. 1824) is very likely a son of Jonathan Dunham and Mary Smith, daughter of Shubael Smith and Prudence FitzRandolph, this last a great-granddaughter of Edward FitzRandolph of Massachusetts and New Jersey. FitzRandolphs, one of a very few Norman families in England who likely date from the conquest of 1066, are treated briefly by Sir Anthony Richard Wagner in English Genealogy (3rd ed., 1984), pp. 44-45. The immigrant Edward FitzRandolph also shares, almost certainly, a descent from William I the Lion, King of Scotland (d. 1214) and Magna Carta surety Robert de Ros. Other FitzRandolph descendants include Elllen Louise Axson, first wife of President (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson (see Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants [2004, 2006], pp. 431-32).

Soon after starting this research, I learned that William Addams Reitwiesner of Washington, D.C., was also working on Obama’s ancestry. My research, and that of others, was added to Mr. Reitwiesner’s website at www.wargs.com/political/obama.html. Recent news articles have noted that this website includes 1850 census data of some interest – two of Obama’s ancestors, George Washington Overall and his mother-in-law, Mary (Grable) Duvall, then owned two slaves each (Duvall kinsmen of Mary’s husband were also ancestors of President Harry S Truman). Slave ownership by a few ancestors of Obama’s mother – a white Kansan with some Southern background – is certainly not unusual and almost to be expected. G.W. Overall and his mother-in-law lived in Nelson Co., Kentucky. A brother of one of my mother’s ancestors (Adam Shake) lived in Jefferson Co., Kentucky, and also owned a slave in 1850. Slave-owning ancestors have also been reported by Mr. Reitwiesner for Senator John McCain, former Senator John Edwards, and the two Presidents Bush.

Mr. Reitwiesner’s website (www.wargs.com) covers the known ancestry to date of a large variety of political figures (and other historical and contemporary notables) and is carefully labeled a “first draft,” neither “exhaustive nor authoritative.” Other topics in the ancestry of presidential candidates are under study as well. Those of particular interest to me include a likely link to French Canada for Hillary Clinton and close cousins of Bill Richardson in Nicaragua.

To view a chart of Senator Obama’s Dunham and FitzRandoph maternal ancestry, please visit www.notable kin.org/obama_lineage.pdf.

- Christopher Challender Child, Genealogist of the Newbury Street Press

Meanwhile 700 miles away….

While the Pilgrims were struggling to survive in their new home, what was happening in the land that became Ohio?    “900 AD to 1650 AD

During the Late Prehistoric Period, several distinctive cultures arose in different parts of Ohio. Late Prehistoric people lived in large villages surrounded by a stockade wall. Sometimes they built their villages on a plateau overlooking a river. Late Prehistoric people grew different plants in their gardens. Maize (or corn) and beans became the most important foods. Squash was another important plant, but ancient Ohioans had been growing squash since the Late Archaic period.

 

 Arrowheads – These small, triangular points are arrowheads. The bow and arrow came into Ohio during the time of the Late Prehistoric tradition.”All this information and much, much more is available at  www.ohiohistorycentral.org/

Map of the Western Reserve

  

  

Click to enlarge the map

 

From www.ohiofarmmuseum.com/?page_id=9

 

“In 1662, King Charles II granted the colony of Connecticut a charter. The charter included all the lands from Conn. to the Pacific Ocean. In 1786, Conn. gave to the newly established United States Government all it’s western charter lands except for the land bordering Lake Erie in the territory of what was later to become northern Ohio. This strip was known as the Western Reserve of Connecticut and covered 3,667,000 acres. In 1800, Connecticut and the United States Government agreed to attach the land to the Ohio territory. Ohio, (an Iroquois Indian word meaning “something great”), became the 17th state in the Union in 1803.”

Welcome to the Ohio Mayflower Descendants Blog!

  

Traditional Wampanoag and Pilgrim attire.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This site has been created by the Toledo Colony of Mayflower Descendants. If you enjoy camaraderie and learning more about historical events, please contact us about our next meeting, March 29, 2008, in Toledo. We meet three times a year all over Northwest Ohio. Everyone is welcome to attend.