Taking the Family History Writing Challenge

For the month of February, I am taking the Family History Writing Challenge.

I am committing to 1,000 words of Family History on this blog each day for the entire month of February.  Join me in the challenge!  For those of you imtimidated by 1,000 words/day you don't have to commit to 1,000 words a day, you can pick your own daily word count.  Let's get those family histories written!

Harvey McMaster Lloyd

Harvey was born 9 Jan 1885 in Gladstone, Manitoba, Canada.  He was the son of John Thomas Lloyd and Grace Elizabeth Slocum.  

In the city directory for 1903 Harvey was living with his parents at 1124 Cheyenne Ave in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Harvey signed his name "H McMaster Lloyd".

For a short while Harvey was the minister of the Baptist church in Grenville, Quebec.  It was likely there that he met Florence Gertrude Townsend. Family tradition is that they were engaged.  

On 25 Jan 1916 in Leamington, Ontario, Canada, Harvey married Nancy Ruby Mae Manery.  

His daughter Lillian, was born 5 Jul 1916 in Montreal, Quebec.

He does not appear to have publicly acknowledged Lillian. 

Harvey and his wife went on to have 2 children, Deuel Dewitt Lloyd in 1917 and Juanita in 1918.

Harvey died 15 Dec 1918 for the spanish flu epidemic.  

THE DNA SIDE OF THE STORY:

For many years the story that "Harry" Lloyd was the father of Lillian was an unconfirmed family story.  My grandmother has at 23andme, and she had a Relative Finder match to a predicted 4th cousin.  This person (S. G.) is actually her 4th cousin once removed.  This person is also a descendant of Abraham Slocum born 1777 and his wife Mary Murphy.  This cousin matches my grandmother 34.5 cM.  In that same segment my grandmother matches another person, who also matches S. G. in that segment, and they are a descendant of Abraham Slocum born 1777's grandfather Abraham Slocum b 1730 and his wife Abigail Smith.  So this person is my grandmothers 8th cousin, and they match only 6.2 cM.

Given these DNA results, I am convinced that the story was (mainly) true.

I find it important to note that S. G. does not match my father or myself (at least not in a segment 5cM or more, required to show as matching even when sharing at 23andme).

So the match with S. G was the 3rd paper trail and DNA match discovered via 23andme.  The other matches are 4th, 5th and 6th, altho they are all closely related.   I am currently working on the paper trail connection with a 5th match in that segment.

23andme Ancestry Finder

To access 23andme's Ancestery Finder tool (usually called AF for short) you go to the Ancestry Labs tab on the left the screen under "My Ancestry"

Then you select "Ancestry Finder"

The first time there will be a survey for you to fill in.  Fill this in, even if you dont know who your grandparents are.  "Unknown" is an option.   By filling in the survey you will appear in other peoples AF.  If you are not a Public match :( you will appear as Anon.  But really, do the world a favor, and be a Public match!

Now, this is what my AF looks like at the initial settings:

You can download your AF spreadsheet by clicking on the button.  I added a red arrow to help you see it.

So, if you're reading this just to learn how to download your AF, your done!

AF at its initial setting shows you the %s of your chromosomes where you match with a person who reports that all 4 of their grandparents were born in the same county.  You can see mine shows that 1.6% of my chromosomes are matched with a person with 4 grandparents from the UK, and 1.3% from a person with 4 Irish grandparents.  I would expect as the database grows at 23andme more of everyones DNA will be shown in this chart.   I am certainly more than 1.6% UK ancestry and more than 1.3% Irish ancestry.

If you click the "Show Advanced Controls" above the graph, you can change things to show people with 1, 2, or 3 grandparents from the same country, and change to show matches primary from US, Canada etc. You can also change the segment size to smaller or larger as the threshold of match required to show on the chart.  By selecting 1 grandparent you will see a lot more of your DNA.

Here is what mine looks at for 1 grandparent setting, when I show matches from the US etc:

Not surprisingly, I show a great number of US matches.

Very close relatives (ie a parent) dont show on AF, or they would block anything else from showing.  At this time I find the graph interesting, but not overly useful.  The downloadable file is another matter, I find that VERY useful, and will explain how to use it in another post.

DNAgedcom.com

DNAGedcom  is a great site with free tools you can use to get your data on your matching segments at 23andme and FTDNA.

To use these tools you register, and log onto the site.  Then you click the 23andme link at the top of any page.

You enter in your email address and your 23andme password in the boxes, with the Run FIA box checked....I don't check the AF box, because I use another method to get those (I'll post about that soon)

Then you go eat, sleep, or do whatever you do when not logged onto 23andme, because you cant be on 23andme while this runs.  It takes quite some time, 30 min to an hour or longer if you have many shares...This is the hardest part for me, because I pretty much never log off 23andme.  

It is well worth the wait because you won't have to do the entire spreadsheet by hand which will take much longer than the tool does, trust me!

For people with many shares who are getting results on a new kit, this tool will save countless hours.  I wish it had been around when I tested my 2nd to 10th kits, and eagerly look forward to using it on #11 (see my post on my husband doing his spit test here) and beyond.  Time not spent on tasks automated means more time working on the family trees of matches :)

When the program is done, it will give you a zip file, which contains a spreadsheet with all the matching segments.  If I have asked you for this spreadsheet, you can send it to me unzipped or the entire zip file.  

When you get new acceptances to share at 23andme, rerun the tool. I keep all old copies, because, for now, the tool doesn't keep your old data, so if someone stops sharing for some reason you will not have their data in the latest spreadsheet.  

How to understand the spreadsheet is another post, or series of posts....I'll try to work on that soon!

23andme kit#11

Today, my husband and I were home from school for the day, and my latest 23andme kit arrived :)  This one was reserved for him, as I have been meaning to test him for some time, and someone else always takes priority.  So, today, for kit #11 at 23andme he did the test for me.  He videotaped it so if you are curious what taking the test looks like you can see it here:

After taking the test he rushed it back to the courier company so its now on its way to the lab.  Ill be posting his results here at my blog when they are in.

23andme: Ancestry Composition

A few weeks ago 23andme released their new Ancestry Composition tool.

You can find it on the left menu, under My Ancestry as, not surprisingly, "Ancestry Composition" .
I put a bold black and red box around the My Ancestry section

Here is what  my Chromosome View of Ancestry Compostion looks like as of Jan 15, 2013.  Set to "sub-regional" and "speculative":

 This shows the Chromosome view of Ancestry Composition is for my maternal half brother Brandon set to "sub-regional" and "Speculative", again as of Jan 15, 2013:

Notice his small .1% Native American.   So, if you are interested to see how much Native American, African or whatever,  DNA you have, you can look in Ancestry Composition to see.

Another view, called Split View is available *IF YOU HAVE AT LEAST ONE TESTED PARENT AT 23ANDME*

They have apparently designed the new Ancestry Composition to improve as they gain more samples, so we can look forward to more precise and accurate results over time.  I hope they also add the start and stop points of each segment.

Albert Gilby

Albert was born 1 Sep 1883 in Louth, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada. Albert was the son of Alfred Gilby and Elizabeth Ross.

Albert married Eliza Ellen Altoft 2 Oct 1906 in St. Catharines, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada.

Albert and Eliza had three children:

Albert William Gilby:

William Donald Gilby:

Eliza Ellen Gilby:

St. Catharines, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada

Albert William Gilby

Albert William Gilby was born 30 Sep 1909 in Grantham Township, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada.  Albert was the son of Albert Gilby and Eliza Ellen Altoft.

Albert married Isabella Kent 1 Nov 1930 in St. Catharines, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada.

Albert died 2 Feb 1984 in Toronto, York County, Ontario, Canada.

Albert and Isabella had 3 children:

Ervin William Gilby:

Donald Gilby:

Albert Charles Gilby:

Eliza Ellen Altoft

Eliza Ellen was born 10 Feb 1892 in Louth, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada.  Eliza Ellen Altoft was the daughter of William Altoft and Ellen Magaline Weaver

Eliza Ellen married Albert Gilby 2 Oct 1906 in St. Catharines, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada.

Eliza Ellen died 11 Dec 1933 in St. Catharines, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada.

Albert and Eliza Ellen Altoft had 3 children:

Albert William Gilby

William Donald Gilby

Eliza Ellen Gilby

Elijah Spearman

Elijah Spearman was born in 1882.   He was the son of William Spearman and Margaret Ann Scharf.

Elijah married Margaret Beatrice Peck.

Anna Victoria Spearman

Anna was born 30 Jan 1906 in Quebec, Canada.  Anna was the daughter of Elijah Spearman and Margaret Beatrice Peck.

Anna married Joseph Walter Monette 28 Apr 1926 in Gracefield, Quebec, Canada.

looking for adopted children born 1969-1973 likely in Ontario, Canada

I have very little to go on and this is all speculation.   But I have to at least try....

When I was a teenager a family member told me that the man my mother told me was my father wasn't.  This family member said they knew who my father was (impression I got was they knew them personally, but perhaps they were dead or no longer around for some reason) but this relative was not willing to tell me who it was.

As it turns out, the man she always claimed was my father wasn't, but the man who is has never met this relative, and so since my mother had been away from home for some years before returning with a 4 year old me, I suspect that this relative knew of another pregnancy of my mothers, before me, before she moved out west to BC.  I know my mother was in BC from fall 1973 and had me there in Nov 1974.  The relative was back in Ontario and had no contact with  my mother at that time.  Then when my mother showed up with me when I was 4, they didn't really think through the math, and figured I was the baby from the pregnancy they knew of / from the father they knew.

After my mother died someone circulated a rumor that my mother had had twins before she had me, and that they were taken away and adopted out.  I have my suspicions on who started the talk, but no one would confess.  I asked family members who all denied the story, or didn't respond.  I did wonder though if it might not be true, because every time I was pregnant mother would comment about twins, and when I would say it doesnt run in the family she would always say you never know...and her behaviour about it seemed a bit off.

My father tells me a year ago when we found each other that he heard from someone my mother was living with before she conceived me that my mother had had other children who were taken from her and adopted out.  These children I figure would have been born 1969 - early 1973, likely in Ontario, maybe at Cambridge.  They could have been twins or there could have been more than one pregnancy and adoption.  Its entirely possible records were falsified and she had them under a false name.

I have registered with the province but havent heard anything back from them in one year.

When I was a teenager, I think maybe around when I was 14, my mother went through a period where she mentioned adoption to me many times, things along the lines of didn't I think it was best to leave adopted children alone and not search for them, that their adopted families were the "real" families and that it would only cause problems.  At the time, I didn't think it likely she had children before me, and I thought this was brought on by a daytime soap opera or talk show or something she read.  I reassured her that sure, leave things alone, and wish now I could take it back.

I now think that she was talking herself out of finding my half siblings, and really wish she would have told me about them.  I know that she would not have given them up willingly, and know a bit about the circumstances of her life when they would have been born.

I have tested at 23andme and transferred my data to FTDNA, and have no half sibling matches .......If you are one of these siblings I am looking for or have more information about them please contact me.  I and my other siblings would love to hear from you!

Robert Knox 1800-1878

Robert was born in 1800, son of John Knox.

Robert Knox married Grizetta Gowdy.

Robert died 24 Jun 1878 in Quilly, Dromore, County Down, Ireland.

Children of Robert Knox and Grizetta Gowdy included:

Jane

William

Thomas

Robert

Joseph

Grizetta Gowdy

Grizetta was born 1800.

Grizetta married Robert Knox.

Grizetta died 9 Dec 1866 in Quilly, Dromore, County Down, Ireland.