GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN
A
Free, Occasional, Online Summary of Items of Interest to Descendants of all
Families of Graves, Greaves, Grieves, Grave, and other spelling variations
Worldwide
Vol.
14, No. 1, January 26, 2012
===============================================
Copyright
© 2012 by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves. All rights reserved.
Information
on how to start a free subscription to this bulletin and how to be removed from
the subscription list is at the end of this bulletin. If you received this bulletin directly, then you are already
subscribed.
Visit
the GFA web site at https://gravesfa.org
and our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/groups/gravesfa/.
===============================================
CONTENTS:
**
General Comments
**
Report on GFA Meeting in Arlington, VA
**
Ancestry of Capt. Thomas Graves of VA
**
Johann Sebastian Graff (John Graves) Website
**
More About the 2000 U.S. Census
**
Ancestry of U.S. Republican Presidential Candidates
**
Shrinking Size of Web Addresses With TinyURL.com
**
Top 100 Genealogy Websites
**
Old and New Genealogy Programs on Television
**
To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things
===============================================
GENERAL
COMMENTS
I
hope all of you had a great holiday season and are eager to start a new
year. Make this the year for doing
more family research and sharing it with others, joining our Facebook page, and
getting a DNA test for yourself and other family members. If you have questions or suggestions
about the Graves Family Association, our website, or your research, please let
me know and I will try to help.
===============================================
REPORT
ON GFA MEETING IN ARLINGTON, VA
The
meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Graves Family Association was held
at the Army Navy Country Club, Arlington, VA, on January 15. About 30 people from many different
Graves families attended. After an
excellent buffet lunch, John Graves of West River, MD, Chapter Coordinator,
made a few announcements, and then everyone introduced themselves and told
something about their Graves ancestry.
Ken
Graves then gave a PowerPoint presentation that included the accomplishments of
the GFA, DNA testing and how it is being used for Graves/Greaves genealogy, GFA
website development, publication of genealogies, and future plans.
The
weather was very cooperative, and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet some
new people and see some we haven’t seen for a while.
===============================================
ANCESTRY
OF CAPT. THOMAS GRAVES OF VA
A
recent question on our GFA Facebook page was: Do you
know where the DNA "starting point" for Capt. Thomas Graves is? Since
his burial place is unknown, and his DNA cannot be extracted, would DNA of
Henry White Graves be available?
First of all, our ancestors were not buried in
air-tight coffins or mummified like ancient Egyptian royalty, so even if we
knew where a person who died in the 1600's was buried, the chances of finding
any remains for a DNA test would be extremely small. Also, we have never done
DNA tests on exhumed remains, and I do not advocate trying to do that. However,
our problem in knowing the DNA of Capt. Thomas Graves is not that we don't know
the DNA of some of his presumed descendants. Henry White Graves was a presumed
4th generation descendant of Capt. Thomas Graves, and we have at least 6
descendants of his who have been DNA tested. We can be certain of the DNA (and
thus the ancestry) of many of the presumed descendants of Capt. Thomas
Graves.
The problem is that not all those descendants
have the same DNA, which means that not all could have been descended from
Capt. Thomas Graves. So some of the traditional research evidence must be
wrong, but we aren't presently sure what is correct and what is not. Of the 4
DNA groups previously thought to have descended from Capt. Thomas Graves, we
have the strongest evidence for non-descent for what is now gen. 270 (previous
thought to have been from Thomas's son John, and before that from his son
Thomas). In my opinion, the strongest evidence for descent from Capt. Thomas
Graves is for his son John (see Adventurers
of Purse and Person, compiled and edited by John Frederick Dorman). The DNA
of this line from son John is also that of Henry White Graves, and matches
perfectly the DNA of genealogy 168, etc. I cannot explain why the DNA of the
descendants of Francis Graves (gen. 220) don't match that of the descendants of
John Graves other than the obvious conclusion that he was not a son of Capt.
Thomas Graves (or that the descendants we have tested were not his descendants,
which seems a bit more unlikely), but at least the descendants of Francis
Graves do match the DNA of genealogies 28, etc.
Considering that the commercial availability of
DNA testing for genealogy is only about 10 years old now, and the discoveries
and advances in testing have advanced very rapidly, and the prices are still
dropping rapidly, I think there is a good chance that we will be able to answer
many of these questions with DNA testing within a few more years. A key
ingredient of that is for many more people to have their DNA tested so that we
are able to make the necessary comparisons.
===============================================
JOHANN
SEBASTIAN GRAFF (JOHN GRAVES) WEBSITE
John
Graves (Johann Sebastian Graff) (genealogy 105) was born in 1703 in the German
Palatinate, arrived in America in 1730, settled in Berks Co., PA, moved to NC,
and died in TN. The web page at http://www.joelgraves.com/index.php/graves-family-genealogy/
was created by Joel Graves, a descendant through Eli Graves of California, and
was recently called to my attention.
On that website you can also see information about his artwork and the
books he has written.
This is the largest of
the genealogies on the GFA website for a Graves family of German origin.
===============================================
MORE
ABOUT THE 2000 U.S. CENSUS
COMMENT
ON AFRICAN ANCESTRY
In
the article on this subject in the last issue of the Bulletin (Dec. 28, 2011)
was a statement: “It is interesting to see that more than 23% of [those with
the Graves surname] identify themselves as black. This indicates that black Graves families in the U.S. are
under-represented in the genealogies on the GFA website.” A cousin of mine pointed out that many
former slaves took the surname of a former owner or other person of European
ancestry but were not necessarily (or perhaps not even usually) any relation to
that person or that family.
I
responded: “You are correct that some descendants of former
slaves with the Graves surname were descended from people of European ancestry
with the Graves name, and some weren't. I have no idea how many were in each of
these two categories. In addition, I am sure that some descendants of former
slaves with surnames other than Graves were descended from Graves families of
European ancestry, but I have no idea how many.
My comment in the article wasn't meant to imply
that the black Graves families were necessarily related to those of the same
surname identified as white. On the other hand, not all white Graves families
are related to each other either.”
OTHER VARIATION OF OUR SURNAME IN THE CENSUS
In
the last issue of the Bulletin, I gave some information about the name of
Graves, the most common spelling of the name in the U.S. The following table gives similar data
for other variations of the name in the 2000 U.S. census. A search was done for names containing
Grave, Greave, Greeve, Grieve, and Greive, and only names occurring at least
500 times are listed below. The
names preceded by an asterisk are the only ones I consider variations of our
surname. Also, I am showing only
the percentages of those who identified themselves as white or black, since the
other groups are small and I have limited space.
It
is interesting to see the differences between white and black percentages for
different surnames. A lower
percentage of black respondents with a particular surname could mean that
Europeans with that name arrived too late to be slave-owners, that they lived
in the northern U.S., that their surname was newer, etc. The two names that stand out as
different are Belgrave (76% black) and Grave (12.74 % Hispanic, whereas typical
is about 2% Hispanic). A higher
percentage could mean a higher percentage of those with that surname were
slave-owners.
|
Surname |
Rank |
Count |
Number/
100,000 |
%
White |
%
Black |
|
*Graves |
340 |
82179 |
30.46 |
71.95 |
23.56 |
|
Hargrave |
4677 |
6930 |
2.57 |
78.59 |
17.46 |
|
Musgrave |
6310 |
4970 |
1.84 |
93.24 |
2.9 |
|
*Greaves |
6608 |
4731 |
1.75 |
65.06 |
28.28 |
|
Seagraves |
8973 |
3351 |
1.24 |
90.09 |
7.22 |
|
Hargraves |
9276 |
3230 |
1.2 |
76.5 |
19.57 |
|
Gravely |
9782 |
3050 |
1.13 |
63.34 |
33.64 |
|
Graver |
11158 |
2608 |
0.97 |
87.96 |
8.9 |
|
Gravel |
12737 |
2225 |
0.82 |
97.21 |
0.0 |
|
Gravelle |
12995 |
2163 |
0.8 |
94.08 |
0.46 |
|
Hargreaves |
13052 |
2152 |
0.8 |
95.35 |
1.39 |
|
*Grieve |
13266 |
2110 |
0.78 |
95.88 |
0.28 |
|
Segraves |
19695 |
1266 |
0.47 |
92.5 |
2.53 |
|
Belgrave |
21590 |
1126 |
0.42 |
10.57 |
76.47 |
|
Graven |
22870 |
1045 |
0.39 |
94.35 |
0.77 |
|
Gravett |
25524 |
909 |
0.34 |
91.97 |
5.28 |
|
*Grieves |
26419 |
869 |
0.32 |
95.74 |
1.04 |
|
*Degrave |
27105 |
840 |
0.31 |
96.67 |
0.71 |
|
Graveline |
27258 |
834 |
0.31 |
96.04 |
0.0 |
|
*Grave |
30003 |
738 |
0.27 |
75.07 |
8.4 |
|
Seagrave |
36189 |
585 |
0.22 |
93.85 |
1.54 |
|
Hardgrave |
40987 |
502 |
0.19 |
92.23 |
3.78 |
===============================================
ANCESTRY
OF U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
Ancestry.com
issued a press release on Dec. 20, 2011 (at http://tinyurl.com/7nh5o7l)
about some of the connections of some of the Republican presidential candidates
to former U.S. Presidents. This
release was used for an article by Al Kaman in the Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2011 (http://tinyurl.com/777aohx),
and by many others elsewhere. No
information was provided about Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and other candidates.
The press
release and the article said that Mitt Romney is related to six
former presidents. He is connected to Presidents George W. Bush (10th
cousins, twice removed), George H. W. Bush (10th
cousins, once removed) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (8th
cousins, twice removed) through Ann Marbury Hutchinson, a key figure in the
development of religious freedom in America and early settler of Rhode Island
and New York. Romney is related to
Presidents Calvin Coolidge (10th
cousins), Herbert Hoover (10th
cousins) and Franklin Pierce (6th
cousins, 4 times removed) through Thomas Richardson, an English landowner in
the late 1500s from Hertfordshire.
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman — himself a
distant Romney cousin — boasts four former presidents among his
relatives: Roosevelt, Coolidge and both Bushes.
Alas, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has only one
former president in the family. He's a fifth cousin, four times removed, to
Harry Truman. (He is, however, a first cousin, six times removed, to colorful
Texas founding father Sam Houston). Fifth cousins, 4 times
removed, Perry and Truman are related through Thomas Shipp, who was born in Virginia
in the early 1700s, the son and grandson of early Virginia settlers. Governor Perry is a first cousin, six
times removed, of Sam Houston, former President of the Republic of Texas, Texas
Governor and State Senator. Perry
and Houston are connected through John Paxton, a Revolutionary War patriot.
Although Houston resigned as Governor rather than swear allegiance to the
Confederacy, Governor Perry has many other ancestors who fought on the side of
the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Ancestry.com looked at the family trees of some of
the GOP hopefuls (though they're still working on Newt Gingrich's lineage) as a
way to highlight the "surprising" things people can learn once they
start tracing their roots, says Anastasia Harman, the company's lead family
historian.”
OTHER OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS
Several
observations can be made about this information: (1) Big deal, who cares, if we
go back far enough we will find we are all related to everyone living and dead,
(2) none of the candidates are descended from these former Presidents, just
cousins with them, (3) all the connections were pretty far back, in the
1500-1700’s, (4) if we could trace more ancestral lines, we would find that
these candidates were connected to many more Presidents.
The
Ancestry.com press release also mentions previous releases about Barack Obama’s
Irish roots, his connections to Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh (conservative radio
host), Warren Buffet, actor Brad Pitt, and former Vice President Dick Cheney. It also mentions Sarah Palin’s
connection with Franklin D. Roosevelt and the late Princess of Wales.
In
the Graves Family Bulletin for June 4, 2010, was an article about famous
relatives from Ancestry.com. It
stated that both Presidents Bush were descended from Capt. Thomas Graves of VA
(genealogy 169) through his daughter Verlinda, and President Rutherford B.
Hayes (19th President of the U.S.) was descended from Thomas Graves
of Nahant, MA (genealogy 213).
Grover Cleveland (22nd and 24th President of the
U.S.) was descended from Thomas Graves of Hartford, CT (genealogy 168), and
Calvin Coolidge (30th President of the U.S.) was descended from Rear
Adm. Thomas Graves of Charlestown, MA (genealogy 28). There are probably other U.S. Presidents with Graves
ancestry, but we don’t know who they are.
So if you are descended from genealogy 169, you are related to both
Presidents Bush, and also to Grover Cleveland (since genealogies 168 and 169
share a common ancestor).
===============================================
SHRINKING
SIZE OF WEB ADDRESSES WITH TINYURL.COM
In
the preceding article about the connections of some of the U.S. presidential
candidates, I included links to web pages that were very long, wouldn’t fit on
a single line, and might not work if they spilled over onto a second line. I shortened the addresses by using a
website called TinyURL.com. See
more information there at http://tinyurl.com
Their website states: “Are you sick of posting
URLs in emails only to have them break when sent, causing the recipient to have
to cut and paste them back together? Then you've come to the right place. By
entering a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings
and never expires. TinyURL was created as a free service
to make posting long URLs easier.”
“You can add TinyURL to your browser’s
toolbar: Click and drag the following link to your links toolbar. Once this is on your toolbar, you'll be
able to make a TinyURL at the click of a button. By clicking on the toolbar
button, a TinyURL will be created for the page you are currently at. This is compatible with most web
browsers and platforms as long as your bookmarks or favorites allow javascript.”
===============================================
TOP
100 GENEALOGY WEBSITES
In
Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, Jan. 9, 2012, was a list of the top 100
genealogy websites, as of Jan. 2012, as determined by GenealogyInTime Magazine,
at http://goo.gl/HZcdD. The reason I am mentioning these is because it is likely
that few of us are familiar with all these websites, and if they are so
popular, there must be a good reason.
Perhaps learning more about them can help your research efforts.
The
top 20 are listed below.
|
Rank |
Website |
Category |
Country |
Free Pay |
Traffic Rank |
Address |
|
1 |
Ancestry.com |
ancestral records |
USA |
pay |
977 |
|
|
2 |
MyHeritage |
genealogy forum |
USA |
free |
3,581 |
|
|
3 |
FamilySearch |
ancestral records |
USA |
free |
6,504 |
|
|
4 |
Find A Grave |
cemetery/obit records |
USA |
free |
6,685 |
|
|
5 |
Geni.com |
genealogy forum |
USA |
free |
7,484 |
|
|
6 |
Archives.com |
search engine |
USA |
pay |
8,593 |
|
|
7 |
Genealogy.com |
genealogy forum |
USA |
pay |
10,825 |
|
|
8 |
Ancestry.co.uk |
ancestral records |
UK |
pay |
12,058 |
|
|
9 |
GeneaNet |
genealogy forum |
France |
free |
12,480 |
|
|
10 |
MyFamily |
genealogy forum |
USA |
pay |
14,977 |
|
|
11 |
FamilyLink |
search engine |
USA |
pay |
19,477 |
|
|
12 |
Newspaper Archive |
historic newspapers |
USA |
pay |
26,652 |
|
|
13 |
FindMyPast UK |
ancestral records |
UK |
pay |
34,051 |
|
|
14 |
Ancestry.ca |
ancestral records |
Canada |
pay |
38,298 |
|
|
15 |
23andMe |
family DNA testing |
USA |
pay |
39,953 |
|
|
16 |
Genes Reunited |
ancestral records |
UK |
pay |
40,843 |
|
|
17 |
Fold3 |
ancestral records |
USA |
pay |
41,742 |
|
|
18 |
Ancestry.com.au |
ancestral records |
Australia |
pay |
43,486 |
|
|
19 |
Eastman's Genealogy Newsletter |
genealogy blog |
USA |
free |
43,745 |
|
|
20 |
GenealogyInTime Magazine |
genealogy magazine |
Canada |
free |
49,988 |
===============================================
OLD
AND NEW GENEALOGY PROGRAMS ON TELEVISION
WHO
DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
The
television show that started a resurgence of interest in genealogy was the 1977
miniseries based on Alex Haley’s Roots. After a long period of being ignored by
television, the BBC started a series called “Who Do You Think You Are?” in
2004. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Do_You_Think_You_Are%3F_(British_TV_series) on Wikipedia for a thorough
summary. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/welcome.shtml
or http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007t575
for the BBC information. It is
apparent that the UK version of the program is much more complete and more
oriented toward people who want to trace their own family tree. The BBC website even has many links to
helpful information about genealogical research. Versions of this program are now being produced for Ireland,
Canada, Australia, and the U.S.
This
is the third season for American television’s version of “Who Do You Think You
Are?” on NBC. If you go to their
website at http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/,
you can watch recent episodes from last year and see a listing and previews of
this year’s episodes. The people
featured this season will be: actor Blair Underwood, actress Marisa Tomei,
actress Helen Hunt, actor Martin Sheen, actor Rob Lowe, actress Edie Falco,
singer Reba McEntire, former NFL player Jerome Bettis, and actress Rita Wilson.
NEW
U.S. TV SERIES: FINDING YOUR ROOTS
Another
genealogy series is about to be launched on television in the U.S. "Finding Your Roots" with
historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. will launch on March 25. That will be the first
episode of a 10-part series on PBS stations.
The
new series will feature two people in each one-hour episode, including
husband-and-wife actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, who jokes she's afraid
they might turn out to be cousins. "They are indeed distant cousins,"
revealed Gates. "Talk about six degrees of separation, right?"
Gate’s
previous genealogical/biographical series on PBS was “Faces of America” (see http://www.pbs.org/wnet/facesofamerica/)
VIEWING
TV PROGRAMS FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY
Often
TV programs are “blacked out” for viewers from another country. In the next issue of this bulletin I’ll
explain how you can avoid that restriction and view programs anywhere.
===============================================
ABOUT THIS BULLETIN:
This
bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves, ken.graves@gravesfa.org.
TO
SUBMIT MATERIAL TO THIS BULLETIN:
Send
any material you would like to have included in this bulletin to
ken.graves@gravesfa.org. The
editor reserves the right to accept, edit or reject any material submitted.
TO
JOIN THE GRAVES FAMILY ASSOCIATION:
If
you do not already belong to the GFA, you can join by sending $20 per year to
Graves Family Association, 20 Binney Circle, Wrentham, MA 02093 (more details
on GFA website). Payment may also
be sent electronically via PayPal by going to www.paypal.com
and sending payment to gfa@gravesfa.org.
COPYRIGHTS:
Although
the contents of this bulletin are copyrighted by the Graves Family Association
and Kenneth V. Graves, you are hereby granted permission, unless otherwise
specified, to re-distribute part or all to other parties for non-commercial
purposes only.
TO
SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE TO THIS BULLETIN:
To
subscribe to this bulletin, send an e-mail message to
ken.graves@gravesfa.org. Please
include your full name. Your
postal mailing address and information on your Graves/Greaves ancestry would
also be appreciated, although not essential.
To
remove your name from this subscription list, send an e-mail message to
ken.graves@gravesfa.org asking to be removed.