A few years ago, I learned that I have ancestors among the Filles du Roi, kind of Quebec's version of the Mayflower immigrants. I was fascinated by the story of these brave women leaving France to help colonize Quebec, some maybe seeking a better life or more opportunities in the new world (though given its underpopulated state, I'm not sure what opportunities they were expecting). As I began researching my French-Canadian ancestry, I found several of these Filles du Roi in my family tree. I thought this was really cool, and wanted a way to commemorate these ancestors.
After a few minutes of searching on Google, I found a lineage society called "La Société des Filles du roi et soldats du Carignan," based out of Virginia interestingly enough, not Quebec like I would have imagined. I asked them if I would be able to join, given that my link to my French-Canadian ancestors was discovered through DNA research and not via paper trail genealogy. Surprisingly, they hadn't seen genetic genealogy used to prove a relationship to a specific individual. They knew about ethnicity results, and how that could show a general relationship to an ethnic group, but they hadn't seen it applied to a specific individual and family. I wrote back, and sent them a proof argument I'd written a few years ago, where I showed how I came to the conclusion that I was a descendant of William Vadnais. They wrote back and said the argument was very interesting, and I should apply for membership!
It took me a while to get my documentation together. Part of the delay was the amount of documentation I felt I needed to prove the connection between my chosen ancestor, Marie Boisleau (born about 1651 in Dercé, Vienne, France) and me, her ninth-great-grandson. That's 12 generations covering over 300 years, and I wanted to prove every birth, marriage, and death in the chain that I could. Then I realized that some of my documents were pretty poor quality images, so I needed to go dig up better images of them. Then came the task of filling out the application with all these names, dates, and places. But I kept at it, and eventually I had everything together. I sent it off, and didn't hear anything for a while. Then just yesterday, I got an email back welcoming me to the society!
The society seems to have some cool benefits, chief of which is access to the society's newsletter. As I don't have a ton of personal research time, this is a great way to get access to information (hopefully a lot of historical context too) on this branch of my family tree without having to spend a ton of time learning it all on my own. They also have a really cool medallion you can buy, which would be neat to have. Most of all, I'm just excited that I was able to apply for this organization in a way they hadn't seen before, and was able to prove my ancestry well enough to be accepted. It makes me feel like I really do know what I'm doing, and it gives me a way to honor and celebrate another branch of my family history. I have a few other lineage societies I'm interested in joining - there's one for descendants of War of 1812 soldiers (my ancestor Elisaph Sanford was one), descendants of Civil War Union Veterans (I have at least two of those), and one I just learned about for descendants of American Farmers. At first I thought that was a joke, because who doesn't have ancestors in the US that were farmers? But then, don't all of our ancestors deserve to be celebrated and remembered, even (perhaps especially) those that don't seem to have the glamorous or noteworthy story or background? So yeah, lots still to do. Which is why I love this work!
Showing posts with label French-Canadian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French-Canadian. Show all posts
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Friday, January 22, 2016
Genes Day Friday - What I have learned so far through DNA testing
I thought it would be fun to recap some of the things I have learned genetic genealogy and DNA testing. Let me begin by saying THANK YOU! to the dozen or so relatives that have spit and swabbed for me. None of these breakthroughs would have been possible without your help.
1. Genetic genealogy and paper genealogy are in some ways very opposite. In paper genealogy, you start with a known person, and work outward from there, painstakingly creating family groups and pedigrees by searching through the records left behind by ancestors, friends, associates, and neighbors. You connect to people through chance and happenstance as often as known connections. In genetic genealogy, you are connected to other testees by the scientific confirmation of shared DNA, proving a blood link to that person. Sometimes (hopefully often) you can use paper genealogy to determine where and how that link was made. Sometimes you can't, and you're just stuck knowing that somehow you are related to that person.
2. Sometimes genetic genealogy helps you break through brick walls that would otherwise be impossible to penetrate. This was the case in my Grandma Blossom's maternal line. DNA testing led me to a relative who not only lives in Europe, but was intimately familiar with the area, history, and people. Within a few short weeks, he helped me put together nearly 300 years of family history for my great-great-grandmother Maria (Zitzmann) Hoffman, when I had long assumed I'd never get beyond her.
3. Sometimes you uncover things you never expected were there. Such was the case when I found out one of my ancestors was not James Harris, but in fact was William Vadnais. This discovery changed a significant portion of my genetic family tree, and has taught me to never assume that everyone listed in the paper trail is actually my ancestor by blood.
4. Everyone has two family trees - one that's genetic, and one that's genealogical. CeCe Moore taught me this. Not all of your paper ancestors will appear in your DNA - you only get half of each parent, who only got half of their parents, who only got half of their parents, etc. Within a few generations, ancestors will drop out of your genetic family tree because their DNA was simply not passed on to the next generation. That doesn't mean they aren't your ancestors though, just that they aren't represented in your DNA. Likewise, my paper family tree still includes Jim Harris because he raised that ancestor of mine and put his name on her birth certificate, even if he wasn't her biological father. His life and his family history influenced the way he raised my ancestor, so knowing about his family tree is just as important as knowing about the biological tree of William Vadnais.
5. You learn funky new words and acronyms like SNP, haplogroup, STR, endogamy, and centiMorgan. It's like learning a new language, but in learning it you learn how to discuss your family history in a whole new way. Not only do you think in terms of shared ancestors, you come to think of how much DNA you likely share with that 1C1R, or where your paternal ancestry comes from not just 3 or 4 generations ago, but hundreds of years before records were kept. It's fascinating and difficult, and I love it.
6. And the most particular thing I've learned over the last couple weeks - just because you share a certain percentage of DNA, that doesn't mean you can tell right off how closely you're related to them. If you trace your lines back far enough, you'll start to see some ancestors popping up in multiple places on your family tree. That's called ancestor collapse - being descended from the same person or couple through multiple lines of descent. This affects how much DNA you share with someone, because if you and your match have the same ancestor, but if one or both of you have multiple lines of descent from that someone, their DNA will be over-represented in your genome. You'll share more DNA than you would if you only had one line of descent from that individual, so it'll look like you're more closely related than you actually are. For example, if you're doing genetic genealogy on your French-Canadian lines, you really do need to push the lines back as far as you can because there was a lot intermarrying of families, which leads to having some ancestors pop up more than once in your family tree. That's something you need to know if you're going to try and pin down common ancestors with your DNA matches.
Have you thought about taking a DNA test to help you in your research? Or have you taken one already? What have you learned from it? Leave me a comment!
1. Genetic genealogy and paper genealogy are in some ways very opposite. In paper genealogy, you start with a known person, and work outward from there, painstakingly creating family groups and pedigrees by searching through the records left behind by ancestors, friends, associates, and neighbors. You connect to people through chance and happenstance as often as known connections. In genetic genealogy, you are connected to other testees by the scientific confirmation of shared DNA, proving a blood link to that person. Sometimes (hopefully often) you can use paper genealogy to determine where and how that link was made. Sometimes you can't, and you're just stuck knowing that somehow you are related to that person.
2. Sometimes genetic genealogy helps you break through brick walls that would otherwise be impossible to penetrate. This was the case in my Grandma Blossom's maternal line. DNA testing led me to a relative who not only lives in Europe, but was intimately familiar with the area, history, and people. Within a few short weeks, he helped me put together nearly 300 years of family history for my great-great-grandmother Maria (Zitzmann) Hoffman, when I had long assumed I'd never get beyond her.
3. Sometimes you uncover things you never expected were there. Such was the case when I found out one of my ancestors was not James Harris, but in fact was William Vadnais. This discovery changed a significant portion of my genetic family tree, and has taught me to never assume that everyone listed in the paper trail is actually my ancestor by blood.
4. Everyone has two family trees - one that's genetic, and one that's genealogical. CeCe Moore taught me this. Not all of your paper ancestors will appear in your DNA - you only get half of each parent, who only got half of their parents, who only got half of their parents, etc. Within a few generations, ancestors will drop out of your genetic family tree because their DNA was simply not passed on to the next generation. That doesn't mean they aren't your ancestors though, just that they aren't represented in your DNA. Likewise, my paper family tree still includes Jim Harris because he raised that ancestor of mine and put his name on her birth certificate, even if he wasn't her biological father. His life and his family history influenced the way he raised my ancestor, so knowing about his family tree is just as important as knowing about the biological tree of William Vadnais.
5. You learn funky new words and acronyms like SNP, haplogroup, STR, endogamy, and centiMorgan. It's like learning a new language, but in learning it you learn how to discuss your family history in a whole new way. Not only do you think in terms of shared ancestors, you come to think of how much DNA you likely share with that 1C1R, or where your paternal ancestry comes from not just 3 or 4 generations ago, but hundreds of years before records were kept. It's fascinating and difficult, and I love it.
6. And the most particular thing I've learned over the last couple weeks - just because you share a certain percentage of DNA, that doesn't mean you can tell right off how closely you're related to them. If you trace your lines back far enough, you'll start to see some ancestors popping up in multiple places on your family tree. That's called ancestor collapse - being descended from the same person or couple through multiple lines of descent. This affects how much DNA you share with someone, because if you and your match have the same ancestor, but if one or both of you have multiple lines of descent from that someone, their DNA will be over-represented in your genome. You'll share more DNA than you would if you only had one line of descent from that individual, so it'll look like you're more closely related than you actually are. For example, if you're doing genetic genealogy on your French-Canadian lines, you really do need to push the lines back as far as you can because there was a lot intermarrying of families, which leads to having some ancestors pop up more than once in your family tree. That's something you need to know if you're going to try and pin down common ancestors with your DNA matches.
Have you thought about taking a DNA test to help you in your research? Or have you taken one already? What have you learned from it? Leave me a comment!
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