Wordless Wednesday

Anyone Want A Family Finder Coupon?

     I received a bunch of emails from FamilyTreeDNA yesterday, offering me coupon codes for their Family Finder test.  With the code, customers can purchase the Family Finder test for $179 (a savings of $110!). The only fine print it that each code can be used once and must be used by June 10th. Remember that the FF test can be taken by both men and women and finds cousins on all lines of the family tree, as well as an geographic origins breakdown.

    I'm holding a few of the codes for myself, but still have 6  2 codes to offer up for the first six  next two people who contact me (email vrc84@yahoo.com). I'll edit this space if I run out of codes.

Finding Connections in the Final Episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?'

     I was excited to watch the final episode of 'Who Do You Think You Are?,' knowing that Paula Deen's episode would cover Georgia genealogy. I was surprised at how closely the story shown in this episode mirrored a branch of my own family tree.

     Paula's 4x Great Grandfather, John Batts, had a lot in common with my 5x Great Grandfather, Willis Craft. The most remarkable connection: they both served in the Georgia House of Representatives as pro-slavery Democrats from 1857-1858. Paula did some research at the Georgia Archive, similar to what I've done, including using their General Name File. Here's a photo I had taken of my ancestor's card, as well as a screenshot of Paula's ancestor:

     Paula learned that after the war John Batts suffered, due to his politics pre-war and a bad economy. The listing for Willis Craft in the 1870 census lacks estate and property value information and I have not seen tax information from this time. However I imagine that my ancestor suffered much like Paula's did.  He lost his ten slaves, which were valued at $8,800 in a 1860 tax record. If he managed to maintain his land during the war, it would now cost him a lot more to cultivate it.

     Due to their political activity, both John Batts and Willis Craft, would have needed to seek a pardon from the post-war government to participate in certain activities, such as voting. John did this, and can be found in ancestry.com databases for a pardon and voter registration. For some reason Willis chose not to seek a pardon and never re-registered to vote, though his sons were registered.

     John Batts died in 1879 of suicide after economic ruin. Willis Craft died in 1874 at age 64, only a few months after selling 320 acres of his property, on which he lived, to his son, John. In the land deed, it is specified that Willis and his wife, Martha, will live on and cultivate the property until they died.  I always thought it a bit strange that Willis didn't just will the property to his son, though Willis actually left no will at all. Perhaps he needed the money to pay off personal debts? Somehow, I am under the impression that Willis was in financial difficulty.

A Half-Brother's DNA

      During Family Tree DNA's recent DNA Day Sale, I purchased a Family Finder test for my half-brother, Allen. Since I'd already done a y-DNA test for him, he still had a DNA sample on file. Thanks to this, I was able to get his test results back in less than a month.

     You can see the chromosome chart on the left, which shows the DNA I share with my brother. Because we share only one parent, we share less DNA than full siblings: an average of 25% vs 50%.

     Allen and I share 1,610.77 centiMorgans of DNA in 51 segments. What's this mean? Honestly it can be hard to understand. For me, this number has the most meaning when seen in comparison to other results. For example, my mom shares 2377.55 and 2324.45 with her full brothers.

     This is one aspect where I think 23andMe's results are better, as they present these results as a percentage. It can makes DNA results easier to understand for the average customer. Another problem is that this chromosome view does not differentiate the difference between full and half chromosome matches (which again, is something that 23andMe does do).  Thus, the ftDNA chromosome chart of full and half siblings resemble each other in a somewhat misleading way.

     I'm getting a little off topic, but look at the different ways that the DNA comparison between my mom and one of her brother's is represented by the two different companies. On the left, ftDNA shows similarities in orange. On the right, 23andMe shows similarities in light blue and dark blue (half and full  matches, respectively). The match areas are the same, but 23andMe gives more detailed results.

     Other results from my brother's DNA test include his population finder results: