William Nelson Tucker

One of my Great,Great,Great Grandfathers was William Nelson Tucker. His son was Harvey Nelson Tucker,whose daughter was Elsie Magdalene Tucker. Below is his obituary, along with a note from his diary:

WILLIAM N. TUCKER: Mr. Tucker had been in failing health for several months but his good constitution and wonderful tenacity on life kept him among the living until 10 o'clock on the morning of April 23, 1912, ages 80 years, five months and seven days, his wife and four surviving children and six grandchildren giving him devoted care and attention until the end came peacefully as stated above. Funeral services will be held at the Methodist church at 10 o'clock this (Friday) morning, Rev. Griffin conducting the services. The members of Capt. Knight Post attending in a body, thus paying the last sad tribute of respect to their beloved comrade. Commitment to earth will be made in Oak Ridge cemetery .

The following brief extract from the diary of the late Wm. N. Tucker was handed us by a member of his family for publication, and although it leaves out all his traits of character, such as honesty, strict integrity, loyalty, charity for the faults of others, loving fondness for his family and friends, yet they will go down in history and not soon will this kindly old gentleman be forgotten.

"I was born in Richland County, Ohio, Nov. 16, 1831. My father's name was Hosea Tucker, a Virginian by birth; his father being one of the first settlers. My mother's maiden name was Catharine Garrison, born in the state of New York; my parents were married in Ohio on Nov. 16, 1830, and one year from that date I was born. was raised on a farm and attended school in a log school house until I was 20 years of age. "In the spring of 1850, we changed our location from Ohio to Whitley County, Ind., at that time a new country. September 27, 1858 occured my marriage to Rachel Windell who died in December of the next year. "On the breaking out of the civil war of the Rebellion I enlisted on Aug. 5, 1862 as a musician in Co. B. 74th Inc. Vol. Infantry for the term of three years and served to the close of the war in the army of the Cumberland. I was mustered out at Indianapolis, Ind. on the 9th day of July 1865, and reached home on the 12th, after serving two years, 11 months and seven days. "After arriving home I went to work in a steam saw mill as engineer. In Nove,ber of '68 I located in Whiteside County in Fenton township, became acquainted with Miss Mary J. Montague to whom I was united in marriage on Sept. 1, 1869, and farmed three years in Fenton, four years in Garden plain, nine years in Newton. In March of 1881, I with my family located in Albany which has since been our home. "Five children were given to us, namely: Harvey N., Henry S., Etha B., George M. and Hattie E. "With my wife I united with the U.B. Church at Fenton in April of 1869."

Contributed by Cynde Greer and brought to you by http://genealogytrails.com/ill/whiteside/obitT.html#WNT

Cornelius Swartout and Lucinda Platt

Cornelius Swartout and Lucinda Platt were my Great,Great,Great Grandparents.

The Mercer County Historical Society produced a book in 1882 with profiles of various persons in the county.

"The History of Mercer County" You can read the book online or download it in PDF format http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmercerc00merc


Below is the sketch on Cornelius and Lucinda.  Click on the picture to make it larger.
 
 

Berber In Illinois

When tracing your familytree and your genetic heritage, you have a few different ways to go about this.

Autosomal testing, were you test your own DNA for heritage. Y-Chromosome testing, this is passed down by males through the male line for centuries and mtDNA testing which is passed down through the female line for centuries. Autosomal testing is still in its infancy so getting a genetic breakdown can be hard. Males have their mothers mtDNA and their fathers Y-Chromosome but thats still only two lines in their trees.

One way to find more information about your family is by testing as many males and females that you can in your line. Ive been researching as many Y-Chromosome and mtDNA lines in my family that I can in my free time, and have had fun creating a "Heritage Chart". I recently received results for the "George" line of my tree.

My Paternal grandmother "Violet Irene George" was the daughter of Stanley John George and Elsie Magdalene Tucker.

I had researched this portion of my tree for a few generations, but was so busy working on a few other parts of my tree, it had fallen by the wayside.

Violet George

                                              
I finally got back to the George's a few months ago and I started by searching for familytrees on Ancestry.com that matched our George family. You will often find others researching your line, more people as you go back in time.Many trees are amateurish, or projects that were started and have few facts or documents to back up associations. But sometimes you find one or two people that have done a lot of work on the tree and have sources for their work. I was very lucky to find Austin George a direct male descendant of John Swaddock George.

Stanley George also descends from the John Swaddock George, so having Austin test his Y-Chromosome was the same as having Stanley test his.




                                              Stanley George

All males descended from John Swaddock George would carry the same Y-Chromosome. So I was very excited to hear that Austin had already tested with the National Geographic Society's "Genographic Project" and would receive his Y-Chromosome results any day. When Austin received his results, he emailed me and gave me his results. I was actually quite surprised but intrigued.

His results: Haplogroup E1b1b1 (M35)

I was able to get onto ySearch and find another male that descended from the same John Swaddock George a "Richard George" that lives in Florida. Richard had done further testing and I was able to see a more exact Haplogroup.


The full haplogroup: E1b1b1b2 (M183) which is also known as the Berber marker.

 This means that there is a good chance that our ancient "George" grandfather descends from the Berbers in North Africa. Ive read this marker is possibly associated with the Morocco area, but its safe to say Northern African in origin. Im sure our Berber blood has been diluted from centuries in England and America, but we can add this to our heritage.


Below is the entire list of George males back to England were it presently stops. Before then, it gets kind of speculative....


James George
Birth 1645 in Norfolk, Norfolk, England
Death in Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States

John George
Birth 1675 in Charlestown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States
Death 28 Feb 1716 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts, United States

John Swaddock George
Birth 15 Dec 1702 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts, United States
Death 28 Jul 1785 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts, United States

David George
Birth 31 Aug 1724 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts, United States
Death Apr 1799 in Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire, United States

Austin George
Birth 19 Mar 1760 in Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts, United States
Death 1840 in Bartlett, Carroll, New Hampshire, United States

Daniel George
Birth 1 Apr 1789 in Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire, United States
Death 7 May 1830 in Conway, Carroll, New Hampshire, United States

Austin Moody George
Birth 16 Feb 1813 in Burton, New Hampshire, United States
Death 24 Dec 1888 in Garden Plain, Whiteside, Illinois, United States

Charles George
Birth 17 JAN 1841 in Boston, Massachusetts,United States
Death 11 MAR 1920 in Cordova, Illinois, United States

Earl Batchelder George
Birth 03 Dec 1873 in Cordova, Illinois ,United States
Death 15 DEC 1961 in Albany, Illinois , United States

Stanley John George
Birth 6 Jan 1900 in Cordova, Illinois, United States
Death 1962 in Fulton, Illinois, United States

Violet Irene George
Birth 1 Jun 1926
Death 1980 in Reynolds, Rock Island, Illinois,United States

Family Finder

My name is William Bernard Allen and if you have received this link, you match me in the New Family Finder test at Familytreedna.com. 

EDIT (I also took a test at 23andMe and recieved my results Jan 2011. Im sending this to you 23andMe folks as well)

http://www.familytreedna.com/landing/family-finder.aspx

"With our autosomal Family Finder test you may extend the power of genetic genealogy to all of your ancestors. Using a test of your own DNA, you can discover connections to descendants of all sixteen of your great-great-grandparents!"

So if we go by FTDNA's estimates, our match's should be within these generations:

 Instead of sending each of you a gedcom or an email, I thought I would create a blog posting with this information and send the link. The following 4 JPEG's are my grandparent's and their families. The surnames I am primarily interested in, along with the areas of the country they come from are listed as well.

I'm getting the feeling that most of us match further back in history than 5 generations. I have 20+ match's so far through Family Finder and have only been able to match one or two names in my line. Even those titled "close relatives" are beyond the five generations I believe. Every line I can trace back far enough is either Irish, English or German. Supposedly we have some Cherokee in us as well on my mother's side, but not proven.

Surnames:

Allen   Texas, Illinois

Brady   Florida,USA

Bryant   Florida,USA

Debord   Kentucky,USA

Drinnen   Illinois,USA

George   Illinois,USA

Loftus   Albany,Whiteside,Illinois,USA

Miller   Hopkins County, KY

Montague   Illinois,USA

Owens   Kentucky,USA

Phillips   Florida,USA

Platt   Illinois,USA

Rice   Cordova,Illinois,USA

Scott   Georgia,USA

Sheppard   Georgia,USA

Swartout   Illinois,USA

Tanner   Georgia,USA

Timmons   Kentucky,USA

Tompkins   Georgia,USA

Tucker   Illinois,USA


These are a little further back. I'm not 100% sure of all of these and am open to debate or suggestions.
Feel free to email me at any time.

The portion of the tree that I have the littlest information on is through my maternal side. The Tanner line has been pretty well gone over but Minnie Lee Scott's parents end abruptly. They were from the Georgia area we believe. My grandmother Juanita's father was listed as Brady, but it could have been a Philips or even a mystery man. Missouri Bryant has been questioned as well as being her mother, there has been talk of Juanita being adopted by Missouri as a young child, but I believe she is her mother. So if you match me and have family that lived in Georgia or North Florida, then this could be where we match.

Heritage Chart

I have tried to gather as much information that I could on my heritage genealogically and anciently. So far I'm mostly Northern European. This is a work in progress and ill add more information as my various DNA tests and research turns up new information.

Here is a chart I created using Open Office draw. If you need a Visio substitute, try it out, it works great.

http://www.openoffice.org/

John Tanner

Chief of the Saulteaux Indians, Peguis (below) led his people in the 1790s from Sault Ste. Marie to settle on the banks of Netley Creek, south of Lake Winnipeg.

Here is an interesting story about John Tanner a white boy abducted by Indians as a child and his life with the Saulteaux. I couldent find a picture of Tanner, so old chief Peguis will have to do.

http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=37809

DNA Genealogy

So a friend on facebook asked about pointers for DNA genealogy, and since there is a limit on how much you can type on FB, I will type my response and pointers for genetic genealogy here.

I have always been interested in genealogy and have worked on the family tree on and off over the years. I have an account at Ancestry.com and that's were I keep our tree and do most of my initial research. Well about 2 years ago Ancestry.com started offering DNA tests for genealogical purposes. I love science and decided that it sounded pretty cool so I purchased a test for myself and my wife. I knew nothing about DNA and each test was 75-80 bucks, so why not see what we can find right?

I purchased a Y-Chromosome test for myself and an mtDNA test for my wife. A few months later I received our results.

What you get is a high level overview of your ancient ancestry and a haplogroup designation. A haplogroup is a grouping of the same type of people, say a tribal designation. There is a lot more to it, but to make it simple, the world is split up into various groups (haplogroups) and each portion of the worlds people are in different groupings. Native Americans are usually A,B,C,D or X. The most common mtDNA haplogroup in Europe is H and there are many more. These groups can be subdivided more like H1 H1a etc. till you can try to get a very localized designation. You can read more here  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroups

So we found out my wife was in mtDNA haplogroup H  which is very European, and very common, and this made sense since her grandmother was from Germany. That's pretty much all we found out for her. We didn't find any match's within several thousand years so it was basically interesting from an anthropological standpoint but not very useful for genealogy.

My results were much more useful for genealogy. The Y-Chromosome mutates much faster than mtDNA so if I find a match, it means that it is usually within a genealogical time frame. mtDNA,  the test my wife took, mutates so slowly that if you find a match, it can be 10,000 years ago that your common ancestor lived.

My results went into a database were I could compare my DNA (Y-Chromosome) to other males that took the same test. I found many Allen Match's and immediately contacted these match's. Several had already researched their tree's and I was able to ride on their research to a much deeper place in my tree.

So I started reading more about DNA and how to use it and understand it. I found out that the company I used, Ancestry.com was kind of the b team in DNA testing. The company all of the big dogs use is familytreedna.com. I do all of my testing over their now.

familytreedna.com has a much larger database,more tests,better tests and projects that you can join like surname projects (Allen) or geographic area projects (British isles).

Ive tested with:

Ancestry.com : the results were ok, high level, kinda vague.. the Walmart of DNA testing.


The Sorenson Molecular Geneology Foundation : free, but takes literally years to get results into the database.


Familytreedna.com : This is were to go if you are serious about Genealogy. The prices are a little higher than Ancestry, but considering you will be able to use and upgrade the test for years, its a great value. They have sales often. I think I paid 140 ish for a 37 marker Y-Chromosome test and an HVR1 mtDNA test combined.

Here are a few sites to get you started if you decide to go down that route:


http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/

http://genealem-geneticgenealogy.blogspot.com/

http://www.isogg.org/

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/

And of course for those nights that you just can't sleep, my mtDNA blog and project:

http://u4haplogroup.blogspot.com/

I have also used my results along with 18 other Allen's to start a project with professional genealogist John Robb.

http://www.johnbrobb.com/JBR-ALLEN.htm

Without DNA It would be much tougher to separate the Allen's into the appropriate bucket by decadency.

I advise everyone I know that does genealogy to take a DNA test first and test all living males that you trace. Things happen and its easy to trace a guys family for hundreds of years only to find out when you test a male descendant that that line isn't even his line.

If you ever have any questions at all or want to take a test, feel free to email me on FB or gmail and ask questions. I do this maybe 10 hours a day, everyday and can help you from making the same mistakes I made in the beginning.

Y-Chromosome Chart

Argiedude over at DNA Forums made this Y-Chromosome chart. I really found it fascinating:

http://dna-forums.com/index.php?/topic/1871-y-dna-of-the-world/

Descendants of John Morgan Tanner

My grandfather was a Tanner from Ireland. We know we are many things, but Irish we are sure of. Here is a map showing the Tanner name in Ireland

U4 mtDNA

mtDNA is passed from mother to child and females pass this on to their children. So Missouri Sarah's mtDNA is in me.

Missouri-Juanita-April-Me

Here is an animation from smgf explaining:

http://www.smgf.org/education/animations/mitochondrial.jspx

So any mtDNA tests I take are essentially Missouri Sarah's and her mothers etc.. on for thousands of years. Since I am a male, I wont pass on my mtDNA. My children will get their mothers mtDNA wich is the H haplogroup.

But Juanita and her mother Sarah Missouri's haplogroup is what we are talking about here and it is haplogroup U4. So if you decend from Juanita through a female like me, then you are a u4 mtDNA. If you decend from a male like Krista or Kim, you are no less related, but don’t have the u4 mtDNA to test.
If you want to know more about u4 mtDNA go to my u4 mtDNA blog: http://u4haplogroup.blogspot.com/
Below are my and Sarah Missouri's mtDNA results:

Very boring stuff, I agree. U4 is a very Europeon haplogroup, meaning it originated in Europe. We are some of the original hunter gather's of europe and come from the Siberia region or Finland.

Missouri Sarah Bryant

My Great Grandmother Sarah Missouri Bryant was from Jasper, Hamilton County, Florida. I'm presently looking for her parents and have been exploring DNA connections to her via mtDNA testing and the new "Family Finder" from familytreedna.com

Missouri Sarah Bryant was married twice. Once to Walter Lee Brady 1875-1938 and later in life to James A. Phillips 1885-1958.
Missouri Sarah had 4 children that I know lived.

Annie Ester Brady 1906

Frank James Brady 1909

Council Daniel Brady 1912

Juanita Melviney Brady 1920

A W.M. Brady is listed on an earlier census,but hes a mystery to me since no one in the family has any knowledge of another child.

My grandmother was Juanita Brady Sarah's last child. Juanita always told us different people were her father over the years. The only census we have with her on it, the 1935 Florida census, lists her as a Brady, she was 15 years old. By then Missouri had already married James Phillips and I dont know when they were married.

Juanita had said at different times that even though she was listed as Brady, she was really a Phillips. But then she also said her father was a man named Albritton, as she aged she would mention different names, so we were never sure.

A family member says that they had always heard her father was a traveling salesman that lived in a boarding house Missouri ran. So I don't know for sure who Juanita's father was, but I was hoping a match with a Philips,Brady or traveling salesman would help..
Here are the 1910 and 1920 U.S. federal Census's and the 1935 Florida Census and a screen shot of the Florida death Index:

1910

1920

Florida 1935 Census

Florida Death Index

Eye Color

Ive been thinking a lot about eyes lately. I'm creating an eye chart for my family tree, color of mother,father, grandparents etc. as far back as I can go. I actually have quite a few and have been surprised a few times. Here is a chart I created of my family's eyes. The top two are mine and my wife's. I have hazel,... she has Blue. My two boys have blue and my daughter has brown.

I also read an interesting article on eyes and personality

Here is the full text if you are interested:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.128.4188&rep=rep1&type=pdf


One of my sons seems to have crypts, which is associated with warmth,trust, tenderness and positive emotions. And that actually does seem like his personality. I was also looking for the crazy markers in my eyes, but the darn brown seems to distort, so Ill just have to trust my own gut feeling.

Cherokee Ancestor?

My family is from Florida and Georgia on my mother's side of the family and seems to have been moving south for many generations, slowly moving down to the Tampa area where we live today. Most of my relatives are Irish or English as far as we and they, knew.

My grandmothers mother and father were from White Springs, Hamilton county Florida and I have census's back to 1910 showing them living in the area. The 1890 Florida census was lost in a fire, so I have one piece of the trail missing. I'm looking for a marriage record now and hopefully that will list her mother and father.

    There has always been a strong history of Native American ancestry on my maternal grandmothers side of the family. My great grandmother was named Sarah Missouri Bryant she married a man named Walter Lee Brady. Supposedly it was her mother that was Cherokee.

I know, I know.. everyone has Cherokee in them in the south right? But I actually have an Uncle and Aunt's that look rather Native. Dark hair and complexion etc. So I have been looking for this mystery Indian and of course my maternal Great Grandmother is my dead end. This mystery has always fascinated me and we have many stories in the family on my grandmothers past, there has always been lots of missing information.

Sarah Missouri Bryant below:

      A year or two ago I took a DNA test at http://www.familytreedna.com/. They were having a sale and I was taking a test to join the Allen DNA project at FTDNA. I knew I was an Allen from family and confirmed this with my first test at Ancestry.com as well as a test at SMGF.org I matched many Allen's and all was going well with my Y branch of the family. But the test was a dual Y-Chromosome / mtDNA test.

I was secretly more excited to see if it was true that my grandmother was Indian. Now there are 5 "Indian" mtDNA haplogroups A, B,C, D and X. When I received my results I was a U4... U4 is a very Northern European haplogroup. What this was telling me was that my grandmothers direct female line came from Northern Europe. My closest match's in the database at FTDNA database percentage wise are in Austria. I was bummed. So where is the native ancestry? It could be any males in her line, or her father's mother. mtDNA is only one direct line of your tree and there are many other branches this could be on.

I've also taken a new DNA test at familytreedna.com called "Family Finder".

This is essentially a SNP scan, and it basically scans your entire genome. This test will automatically search the database for people who are related to you and give you the option of attempting to contact them so you can compare pedigrees.

I'm hoping this test will be able to break down my Grandmothers dead ends and add to my genetic info about myself. This is the biggest test I have ever taken and will give me data to mess around with for a few a while.

Ill also get access to my X chromosome it seems.

Men get one X from their mom and one Y from their father. So the X is all mom. She gets this from her mom and dad so I will have segments from my Grandmothers family to explore the Native ancestry if this elusive ancestry exists.

 

 

5 Generations of mtDNA

I also wanted to create a slide of the females that made me who I am today. I recently learned that males carry a little more DNA from their mothers than from their fathers Ex: 54% from Mom 46% from Dad. This is due to the fact that the Y-Chromosome we get from Dad is so much smaller than the X we receive from Mom.
So... I now present 4 generations of u4 mtDNA. Myself on to my Great Grandmother.
 

5 Generations

One of the genetics boards I read often asked the question, "How far back do your photos go?" They were curious about the direct male line and how far back you have pictures. I can go back 5 generations to my Great,Great Grandfather.

One of the posters on the board replied "Your bunch has managed for generations to... avoid male pattern baldness" So I guess I can thank my genes for my full head of hair.

Thanks Guys!