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Help with DNA deductions
Two very interesting letters in FT December.
First, Pauline Marples writes re Gordon Honeycombe’s series. It was preceded of course in 1977 by Alex Haley’s Roots, which inspired many, including me, and Gordon was a well-known newsreader. The book by Don Steel, published as a BBC companion, was one of the best on genealogy I have read. The marriage at St Cleer which was filmed for the series was of two friends of mine, so I saw the very tall Gordon in action.
The second letter with an excellent editor’s reply, was from Peter Marles about DNA. I am no expert but have been playing with DNA since 2007. Autosomal DNA works really well when it confirms a paper trail you have worked hard on, but I fear Mr Marles took the wrong direction. These ethnicity reports are notoriously unreliable, but in my opinion if he wanted one he may have been wisest going to LivingDNA who give the most detailed UK breakdown. Were he to upload his Ancestry raw data to Gedmatch, he may find much more information on cousins, some who may come from Devon, but he must not be surprised if a distant cousin does not match him. His best initial course, given the same surname/ village, would probably have been FamilyTree DNA’s Y test, from which he could have later easily upgraded to autosomal. That would have conclusively told him whether NPEs (non-paternity events) were involved in his or the other person’s ancestry.
John Fletcher
orcop1986@gmail.com
Editor: It was nice to hear of your memories of the early TV programmes for genealogists.
Thank you also for your advice to Mr Marles as to how he might gain a greater understanding of his DNA results and, in doing so, how he might even put his mind to rest.
Too good to be remembered?
It always strikes me as funny how excited we all get whenever we discover scandal and rogues hiding amongst our family history. We are normally more excited to find a highwayman lurking in the branches of the family tree than a respectable accountant! It also makes me a little bit sad that unless I get a move on and do something illegal, or at least a trifle bad, future generations are going to find me boring, and I’ll end up as a footnote instead of a chapter in my family’s genealogy book!
I have been lucky so far peeling back the ages, and one thing that has amazed me is that although my family is predominantly British (apart from one Spanish branch a couple of generations ago), we seem to have several family ties to Australia where my family emigrated in 1983. One of my ancestors married the nephew of Captain Cook, my great-grandfather was in the Northumberland Fusiliers and died in 1917 at Hill 60, and my 2x great-uncle signed up with the Durham Light Infantry and died at Helles in 1915 during the Gallipoli campaign. As well as chasing up my Spanish connections I have also been informed that there may be an illegitimate connection to Admiral Edward Pellew, who was 1st Viscount of Exmouth. I’m also investigating whether we could be the poor relations of the Burdon’s of Castle Eden, as my grandmother’s family were called Burdon and they came from Castle Eden as well. In addition, I have been lucky enough to trace one ancestor back to 1135 – he was a Saxon baron called Featherstonehaugh, so as you can see there could be some strong competition to get even a mention in the family biography.