GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN

Vol. 16, No. 6, June 9, 2014

A Free, Occasional, Online Summary of Items of Interest to Descendants of all Families of Graves, Greaves, Grieves, Grave, and other spelling variations Worldwide

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Copyright © 2014 by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves. All rights reserved.

Information on 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. If you received it from a friend and want to subscribe, send an email message with your full name to ken.graves@gravesfa.org.

Click on these links to visit the GFA website and our Facebook page.

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CONTENTS

** General Comments

** Ancestry.com Discontinuing Several Services and Businesses

** The Future of Genetic Genealogy According to FTDNA

** Father’s Day DNA Test Sale at Family Tree DNA

** Changes to the Master Results Table for the Graves/Greaves DNA Project

** More Suggestions for Tracing Ancestry in the U.K.

** More About Maps, Interactive, Animated and Viral

** Mills and Home in Delaware and Pennsylvania Once Owned by the Quaker Family of Genealogy 85

** Problems With Receiving This and Other Online Newsletters

** Website for Old Letters That Have Been Found

** To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things

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GENERAL COMMENTS

As often seems to happen, many of the articles in this issue are about DNA. Ancestry is making changes to focus more on its core businesses and products, and Family Tree DNA has a sale on a couple of products and is expanding its offerings of analytical tools. And I am trying to make the GFA website and DNA summaries more helpful.

Don’t forget to let the organizers know if you want to go to either of the Graves gatherings in the U.S. this summer. Contact John Graves at johngtmti@aol.com for information about the one in Washington, DC, or vicinity on Aug. 15 or 17, and contact Ron Graves at gravesronn@cs.com for the one in San Antonio, TX on July 25 and 26.

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ANCESTRY.COM DISCONTINUING SEVERAL SERVICES AND BUSINESSES

A blog posting on Ancestry.com stated in part: “We’re always looking to focus our efforts in a way that provide the most impact, while also delivering the best service and best product experience to users. To that end, we’ve decided to retire some of our services: MyFamily, MyCanvas, Genealogy.com, Mundia and the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests.

We will note that the AncestryDNA (autosomal) test is not affected by this change and will continue to be available as we continue to invest in this new technology. Only the y-DNA and mtDNA tests will be retired.

Starting September 5, 2014, these services will no longer be available to access. Genealogy.com is the exception to the rule, and will continue in a slightly different form. If you are an active member or subscriber to one of these services, you will be contacted directly with details of how to transition the information you’ve created using these services.”

There are some links at the end of the blog article for more information.

Recent blog articles discussing this are by Dick Eastman and Debbie Kennett.

In a reaction to the announcement by Ancestry.com, a recent communication from Family Tree DNA to DNA group administrators said:

On Thursday (June 5), Ancestry.com™ announced that they will no longer sell Y-DNA and mtDNA tests. Additionally, the results from past Y-DNA and mtDNA tests will no longer be available after September 5, 2014.

There is no guarantee on what the future holds for Ancestry.com's™ autosomal DNA offering so we strongly recommend that you tell people that tested with Ancestry.com™ to transfer their Y-DNA and Autosomal DNA to Family Tree DNA where our main focus is genetic genealogy. mtDNA is not transferable because of compatibility issues.

Family Tree DNA is committed to supporting these valuable genealogical tests today and in the future. You should encourage anyone who has tested with Ancestry.com™ to transfer their record to Family Tree DNA as soon as possible.

The Y-DNA and Autosomal DNA transfer options are listed below:

$19	Y-DNA 33 Marker Transfer	• Store your results on FTDNA. • Participate in group projects. • No matches or haplogroup predictions
$19	Y-DNA 46 Marker Transfer	• Store your results on FTDNA. • Participate in group projects. • No matches or haplogroup predictions
$58	Y-DNA 33 Transfer +	• 25 Marker Upgrade* • Store your results on FTDNA. • Participate in group projects. • Y-DNA matches • Haplogroup predictions • Additional standard FTDNA Y-DNA features
$58	Y-DNA 46 Transfer +	• 37 Marker Upgrade* • Store your results on FTDNA. • Participate in group projects. • Y-DNA matches • Haplogroup predictions • Additional standard FTDNA Y-DNA features
$69	Autosomal DNA	• Store your results on FTDNA. • Participate in group projects. • Family Finder matches • Additional standard Family Finder features

· Those unable to provide new samples can still be upgraded to receive 12 marker matches for Y-DNA33 and 25 marker matches for Y-DNA46

For anyone who orders a test transfer to FTDNA, be sure to join the Graves DNA project when you do that. You can order the transfers and other tests directly from the Graves project order page here.

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THE FUTURE OF GENETIC GENEALOGY ACCORDING TO FTDNA

Bennett Greenspan, founder and president of Family Tree DNA recently spoke at the Southern California Genealogical Society conference about “The Future of Genetic Genealogy.” According to a post by Roberta Estes in her DNAeXplained blog, the high points of the presentation included:

1. There will be a new Y SNP matching capability released in the next few days.

2. “Regulatory issues are a larger issues than the science.” Bennett discusses “armwrestling with the FDA.”

3. If prices of SNP chips that test over 2 million locations don’t drop substantially in the next couple of years, then genealogy testing likely will not utilize the next generation of SNP chip, but will move directly to full genome sequence testing. This may happen in the 3-5 year range but will, for sure in the 5-10 year range.

The first point, that of Y SNP matching capability is something that is greatly needed, and which may be extremely helpful as we begin to rely more and more on SNPs to determine relatedness and ancestry, rather than the STRs that have been used in Y-DNA testing for the first 15 years of genetic genealogy testing.

A video of the livestream of Bennett’s presentation can be seen here. Many other videos from the conference can be viewed also.

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FATHER’S DAY DNA TEST SALE AT FAMILY TREE DNA

Family Tree DNA has just announced a Father’s Day sale for the Family Finder autosomal DNA test and the Big Y SNP test. Their announcement states:

From 6/9/2014 to 6/17/2014, we will be offering:

Family Finder - $79 (regular $99) – Available to everyone, since this is an autosomal DNA test.

Big Y - $595 (regular $695) -- Only available to existing FTDNA customers, and only available to males, since this is a Y-chromosome test.

Additionally, customers that have already purchased a Big Y test will receive a coupon for $100 off another Big Y! This coupon is valid through 6/17/2015 and can be used on any Big Y order. The best part is that if you combine it with the Father's Day sale, customers can get Big Y for only $495!

If you are already a FTDNA customer, order from your personal page. Otherwise, click here for the order page.

Since I have taken the Big Y and do not want to offer my $100 coupon to any close relative, I will donate it to a male with proven Y-DNA Graves/Greaves ancestry who would like to take the Big Y test and save an additional $100. If there are multiple people who contact me about this, I will give it to the one I think can most help our study.

See discussion of this offer by Debbie Kennett and Roberta Estes. Anyone who plans to take the Big Y test should plan to join their appropriate haplogroup project. A list of those projects is here.

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CHANGES TO THE MASTER RESULTS TABLE FOR THE GRAVES/GREAVES DNA PROJECT

I have recently been spending some time with the master results table on the Family Tree DNA website for the Graves/Greaves project. The main thing I have been doing is to add the number of the genealogy that each Y-DNA tester is descended from. In some cases I don’t know that number, and I or someone else will have to find what that is. This task is not yet finished.

The project summary page also lists all members of the group, including those who have not tested for Y-DNA, but have taken an mtDNA test or an autosomal DNA test. It is my intention to add the Graves/Greaves ancestries (occasionally more than one such ancestry) for those people also. The main reason for this is to more easily group results and to make it easier to find connections between various parts of a family. This will also make it easier to do things such as being sure that all of the latest results are included in the pertinent chart.

There are many other tasks that need to be done, such as splitting up a couple of groups that have too much variation within them, communicating with new project members as they join, etc. I plan to finally take action on adding some additional project administrators to help me administer the project so that we can provide everyone with better support and more timely actions. If you have volunteered to help in the past and don’t hear from me very soon, or if you have not yet volunteered but would like to, please contact me. Thanks.

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MORE SUGGESTIONS FOR TRACING ANCESTRY IN THE U.K.

In the GF Bulletin 16-4 of April 22 was an article about “Finding Ancestry of People in the UK From Current News Articles.” In the section about William Greaves of Burnley, Lancashire, Gary Taylor responded as follows. Although his comments didn’t provide the answer to my question about the ancestry of the individual in question, the approach he used may be helpful to others.

It’s worth noting that as well as FreeBMD, which covers the whole UK, there are also several county pages, which may be more specific if you know where you are looking. Personally I use Lancashire BMD a lot as much of my family originates here, and it is often more up to date than Free BMD.

Another really great site for Lancashire (which is the historic county, so covers modern day Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, as well as modern Lancashire) is Lancashire Online Parish Clerk. As with Free BMD, this is being transcribed by volunteers and is constantly growing, but covers church records for every parish in Lancashire. Even better, they include surname indexes with hyperlinks, so if you find a name of interest you can jump directly to their record and quite often find the whole family. The level of detail varies. Some parishes stop at 1837 when civil registration began, but some carry on to modern day records, and some go back to the 1500s. It depends how lucky you are.

I had a look for the people you mention below (in the article of April 22) on Online Parish Clerk. Haslingden records stop in the 1840s. Burnley has modern records for some parishes, however. I noticed the Lancs BMD record for Edward Greaves and Mary Parkinson says Register Office or Registrar attended, which could mean they actually married in a register office, or they may have been Catholic or Methodists and so needed a registrar to attend the marriage (as I think officially you can only be married in a Church of England church without a registrar – not sure of the rules but I know there are some). The records aren’t always as good yet for non Church of England churches and won’t be there at all for civil marriages, so I couldn’t find Edward and Mary Parkinson. Whilst it didn’t help in this case it does work sometimes though, so is another resource.

I did have some luck finding John Greaves born in Lathom about 1896. On Online Parish Clerk in the Parish of Burscough, which is local to Lathom (I have other family from that area, which includes Boat families in Burscough!!) I was able to find:

Baptism: 19 May 1895, St John the Baptist, Burscough, Lancs., John Greaves - [Child] of Robert Greaves & Mary, Born: 8 Apr 1895, Abode: Burscough, Occupation: Boatman

Notes: (Child privately baptised by me JHE Bailey but no entry recorded) Received May 19, Baptised by: J. Barnes Brearley, M.A., Vicar, Register: Baptism 1894 - 1919, Page 5, Entry 36, Source: Original Parish Register

I actually searched in Google for John Greaves, Robert, Lathom, 1896, based on your article and found this straight away.

However going to the baptisms surname index for St John, Burscough, reveals at least 4 children being baptized to Robert and Mary in this church:

Greaves, Ellen, 13 Dec 1896

John, 19 May 1895

Ralph, 12 Feb 1898

Richard, 10 Jun 1900

There isn’t a marriage there for Robert and Mary, but that could be in the larger local church of Ormskirk or you also mention Manchester and Warrington, so it would need more work. They also include burial records, which have helped me eliminate people who died young in the past too.

I have used this site on many of my family lines and have traced back to the 1600s on several of my Lancashire families. There are transcription errors, as with any resource like this, but it then works like an index, as you know exactly where to look if you can check the original registers.

My Greaves line (Gen 407) originate in Bacup, and just looking under the “G” surname index in Bacup, and the neighbouring larger churches of Newchurch in Rossendale and Rochdale, show there are hundreds of Greaves going back to the 1600s. I can’t link anyone before 1782 to my line, but I keep trying.

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MORE ABOUT MAPS, INTERACTIVE, ANIMATED AND VIRAL

In the March 30 issue of this bulletin was an article titled “Given Names and Naming Patterns in the U.S.” The first map in that article showing the changing popularity of names in the U.S. over time is both interactive. In the April 22 issue of this bulletin was an article, “A Genetic Census of America”, that included a series of maps of the U.S. showing the ethnicities in all 50 states and the changes over time. In the May 22 issue of the bulletin was an article about the “Maps of the Changing Boundaries in the United States.” A similar series of maps was on the website of Slate on May 13, titled “Tagalog in California, Cherokee in Arkansas”, that shows the second and third most common spoken languages (after English) in each of the 50 U.S. states. This kind of information, in addition to being of general interest, could be helpful in understanding migration patterns. Although the information for the maps in the Slate article was from American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau, other helpful information to create a series of maps can be found for other countries. More of Slate’s maps are here.

Interactive maps are what were in the April 22 bulletin article. These allow the user to select the data to be displayed on the map from a list of choices. Interactive maps can be displayed as animated maps if the creator chooses to do so. The May 22 bulletin article was about animated maps. These are like a slide show, automatically displaying a series of maps. The March 30 article in this bulletin discussed maps that were both interactive and animated. Viral maps, on the other hand, can be almost any kind of map, but they are usually non-animated, non-interactive maps that are simple and easy to use, and make a quick popular point. The reason they are viral is that they catch on and spread like a virus throughout the Internet. The increase in viral mapping can be attributed to good freeware GIS (Geographic Information Systems) programs, the availability of shapefiles, and numerous websites that offer access to data and mapping capability. For instance, free shapefile maps can be downloaded here.

In a previous article in Slate, Ben Blatt wrote about the fun and pitfalls of viral maps. He pointed out that the maps can often be misleading, and gave some examples of that, including the maps of names in the U.S. discussed in the March 30 bulletin. He writes that the maps are often misleading, crucial information can be left out, and patterns can emerge where there are none.

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MILLS AND HOME IN DELAWARE AND PENNSYLVANIA ONCE OWNED BY THE QUAKER FAMILY OF GENEALOGY 85

Thomas Graves of New Castle Co., DE, born about 1650, is thought to have arrived in America about 1680. He was probably one of the Irish Quakers who settled near Philadelphia, and is said to have been friends with William Penn and Lord Baltimore. His part of the family seems to have spelled the surname in various ways, and the ancestral line may go back to the 1300s, when the surname was MacGregor. For more information, see the introduction and first generation of genealogy 85.

The following information was sent by Gerald M. Graves of Iowa, a descendant of this family.

Graves Mill Historic District in Delaware

Northern New Castle County Delaware is home to the Graves Mill Historic District, a National Historic Place since 1978. It encompasses 7 contributing buildings and 2 contributing structures that are associated with Graves Mill. They include the Samuel Graves Mill, the Hayes Graves house and barn, the David Graves house and barn, and two houses associated with William Armstrong. This is an historic district of Yorklyn, DE.

Several structures are somewhat visible from the roadway. None are open to the public and modifications have been made. The land most likely originally belonged to Thomas Graves, the first of the Delaware Quaker Graves branch, genealogy # 85. There are no signs indicating that the district is there.

The historic district application states: “The Graves Mill Historic District is significant for its associations with the development of industry in the Red Clay Creek Valley and northern Delaware, and the view it offers of the development of a small-site industrial community. The Graves Mill Historic District reflects the earliest type of family-run industrial operation to move into the Red Clay Creek Valley and illustrates the typical late-eighteenth-century building practice and design in northern New Castle County, Delaware.”

Red Clay Creek is a decent sized river and had as many as 13 mills at one time. The Graves Mill was 0.3 miles east of Red Clay Creek is on a small tributary creek, Burris Run. The mill was a sawmill and indications are the DuPonts made at least one large purchase.

At the end of 1772, John Graves bequeaths to his son Samuel the land that John inherited from his father Samuel. There is no mention of a mill at that time. An agreement was made (day not legible) the second month (February) 1793 between Jonathan and Samuel Greave of Christiania Hundred. It states that their land lies contiguous and a dam is erected on the land of Jonathan Greave on the stream Burroughs Run. The dam has been in use for a considerable time for a saw mill and for watering the meadow of Samuel Greave being taken by a race or artificial water course from the dam.

The agreement allows use of the water and access for repairs by the parties and successors to the land for 999 years (nine hundred ninety nine). Payment of yearly rent of one grain of Indian corn to be made, if demanded. This was one of the earliest mills in the area and continued in operation until about 1908.

The historic district is bisected by Graves Mill Road; which has been renamed Way Road. While this is only a couple miles south of the Pennsylvania state line, the approximate street address is 808 Way Rd., Willington, Delaware. The mill race is plainly visible on the north side of Way Rd immediately east of the foundation remains of a walk out “bank” barn. The race was 5 feet deep, 15 feet wide, and 450 yards long to a dam north on Burris Run. Today it looks like an abandoned farm lane.  East of the dam location is the David Graves house and historic barn well off the road. The next farm east is Cloverdale Farm Preserve.

The Graves Mill is located on the south side of Way Rd across from the bank barn. It has been remodeled into a private home and only the upper portion is visible from the road. More may be visible from near the Run or from one of the new subdivision roads on the south depending leaf cover.

The original Samuel Graves house is gone, but just southwest of the mill on Way Rd is a house built by Hayes Graves in the mid 1800s when he owned the mill. It also is a private home with only the upper portion visible from the road.

The NPS historic district application is very descriptive of the buildings and their construction. The Delaware State Historic Preservation Office supposedly has photos from 1978 before much of the remodeling in their on-line database, although I was not able to locate the photos.

Longwood Gardens:

The home of Samuel Graves’ first cousin, Hannah Graves, is about 7 miles away.  The Peirce-duPont House is in close to original condition, easy to find, and open to the public with nearly a 75,000 visitors a year and 900,000 visits to the grounds and greenhouses.  Longwood Gardens is one of the biggest and best attractions in southeast Pennsylvania and easy to find with it’s own exit on highway 1 (Baltimore Pike). The land was purchased by Joshua Peirce in 1704. He died a few years before the marriage of his son Caleb to Hannah Graves in 1755, when she would have moved into the house.  They added an addition in 1764, which is noted by a date block high on the west wall gable with the initials CHP 1764 (Caleb & Hannah Peirce 1764). The original block is displayed inside.  The Peirce south wing is kept original with historical displays throughout when last visited.  Among the displays are a baby outfit (dress) made by Hannah Graves and a beaded purse made by her. A hand wool carding tool found in the attic is attributed as hers. Later Hannah’s decedents and Pierre du Pont added wings and a greenhouse, but Hannah’s house is quite intact. The Christmas ornament for sale is a good representation of her house.

“In 1798, Hannah’s twin sons, Samuel and Joshua, actively pursued an interest in natural history and began planting an arboretum that eventually covered 15 acres. The collection included specimens from up and down the Eastern seaboard and overseas. By 1850, the arboretum boasted one of the finest collections of trees in the nation and had become a place for the locals to gather outdoors – a new concept that was sweeping America at the time.” In 1906 the Pierre du Pont purchased the property to preserve the Arboretum and expanded it to one of the best and largest in the world. See more about the history of Longwood Gardens here.

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PROBLEMS WITH RECEIVING THIS AND OTHER ONLINE NEWSLETTERS

The problem of not receiving online newsletter, including this one, was discussed in the April 22 issue of this bulletin. The same general problem was then discussed on the list of the Guild of One-Name Studies (GOONS), and the following comments are an edited version of that. This isn’t exactly the same as the problem some subscribers have had with receiving the GF Bulletin, but it may be of interest, since it is caused by overzealous attempts to reduce the amount of spam we all receive, and many people do subscribe to mailing lists which have most of the problem described below.

THE PROBLEM

This message is not about a security threat in the normal sense of malware, viruses, scams etc. This threat is more insidious because it is caused by well-meaning ISPs (possibly including yours) who are trying to curb the delivery of spam to their customers. Unfortunately, however well-intentioned these ISPs are, the current developments are creating mayhem throughout the world as they are upsetting the delivery of messages sent via Mailing Lists such as those of the Guild. You may well belong to many other such lists.

What is currently causing problems is the implementation by some ISPs, in particular Yahoo and AOL, of a strict policy that means that your own ISP may be consigning your wanted mailing list messages to your spam folder or quarantine.

The e-mail policy is called DMARC and appears to be a development of the equally flawed SPF (Sender Policy Framework) which has already caused significant problems for the Guild in the last couple of years.

HOW DOES DMARC/SPF WORK?

When your ISP receives e-mail and has decided to take account of DMARC/SPF, it will look at the Domain Name record of the ISP that appears to be hosting the sender. That record will say from what places that ISP feels are genuine sources for its e-mails. This is designed to catch scammers who spoof the From Address on e-mails, as is common with spam. If the source of the e-mail doesn’t match what the records provided by the originating ISP state, the message will be sent to the spam folder or even deleted.

All well and good, but when you post to a Mailing List, your ISP detects the message as having come from the Mailing List and not the actual originating source. So depending on your ISP, you may well not be receiving all your Forum mail, in particular from senders who are on AOL or Yahoo.

For myself, I receive all my mailing list messages via Gmail and now find that any Forum messages from AOL or Yahoo addresses end up in the quarantine (which I can only inspect online). Such messages are prefixed with the warning: “Be careful with this message. Our systems couldn't verify that this message was really sent by aol.com. You might want to avoid clicking links or replying with personal information.”

There are many prolific contributors to the Guild Forum and SOG mailing lists that I can now only see by looking at my spam folder (but see later).

A new development has occurred in the last few days. Stung by the criticism from users, Yahoo have modified the behaviour of their own Yahoo Groups mailing lists such that all messages now show the sender as the Mailing List itself, so that DMARC does not trap it. (The real sender can still be found in the header and may be visible on your inbox list). This is fine for Yahoo lists, but doesn’t help us with Rootsweb lists.

WHAT CAN I DO AS AN INDIVIDUAL USER?

(NOTE: These suggestions are for members of GOONS, and will not necessarily help those who don’t reliably receive the GF Bulletin.) As a sender of e-mail: don’t use AOL or Yahoo accounts. Even better, leave AOL completely. If you own the domain from which you send mail, do set up an SPF record that kills DMARC/SPF (I can advise on the content of such records, though not all hosting companies allow their customers to alter the Domain Name Records).

As a receiver of e-mail: I have found that with Gmail and Virginmedia (whose e-mail is provided by a form of Gmail) you can set up a filter on incoming messages so that if the word [G] is found, then such mail is never sent to Spam. I am still experimenting to check that this solves the problem. All mailing lists tend to use such prefixes in the subject line. Another option is to switch to receive Forum mail in Digest Mode, as this gets sent with a list address.

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WEBSITE FOR OLD LETTERS THAT HAVE BEEN FOUND

Margaret Ryther recently found a neat website called Spared & Shared 4 on WordPress.com. On the GFA Facebook page she wrote: "Someone carefully transcribes "found" old letters so the content can be shared. There are at least two which contain references to people with the Graves surname. One is an 1844 letter of Benjamin Franklin Finley who married Susan Graves. They lived in Newton, Scott County, Kentucky. Another is written by John Graves who married Sarah Parham and lived in Davidson County, Tennessee. (That John Graves is part of genealogy 270.)

There are digital photos of the actual letters and, some photos and historical context. The author of this blog is giving a wonderful gift of time and effort so these letters will not be lost. I assume more will continue to be added."

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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 to gfa@gravesfa.org via PayPal.

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.