GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN

Vol. 19, No. 3, April 26, 2017

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 © 2017 by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves. All rights reserved.

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

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CONTENTS

** General Comments

** Graves Family Gathering, Oct. 25-28, 2017

** DNA Sale at Family Tree DNA

** Future Plans for the Graves Family Association

** Updates to the GFA Website

** News Article About Sanford Graves of Florida

** Still More for Jamestowne Society/Mayflower Society Eligibility

** To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things

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GENERAL COMMENTS

For anyone interested in taking advantage of sale prices, see the DNA sale of Family Tree DNA in one of the articles in this issue. Since the sale ends at midnight, April 27, I decided I better send this bulletin, even though I have other articles not yet finished. They will have to wait for the next issue.

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GRAVES FAMILY GATHERING, OCT. 25-28, 2017

A Graves family gathering for all those whose Graves ancestors lived in Virginia in the 1600’s and 1700’s will be held in Virginia Oct. 25-28, 2017. See the complete description and schedule on the GFZ Facebook page here or on the GFA website here. The schedule includes Spotsylvania Co. (home area of Thomas and John, sons of Capt. Thomas Graves of genealogy 169), Historic Jamestowne and Jamestown Settlement, Hungar’s Church and Curtis Plantation, and Colonial Williamsburg.

Those who have attended the previous couple of gatherings organized by Steve Graves (of St. Petersburg, FL, gen. 215) and others have been descended from genealogies 270 (John Graves/Greaves of Northamptonshire, England & VA) and 220 (Francis Graves of Gloucester Co. & Essex Co., VA), and other families probably descended from or sharing a common ancestor with 220 (including genealogies 77, 94, 118, 150, 152, 215, and 511). Both of these families had many members living in Spotsylvania Co., VA, in the 1600s and 1700s.

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DNA SALE AT FAMILY TREE DNA

National DNA Day is April 25 in the U.S. Beginning Thursday, April 20, and continuing through midnight (Central Time) on April 27, Family Tree DNA will be holding a National DNA Day sale. Upgrades of tests already taken (Y-DNA and mtDNA) are not included. The table below shows the special prices. You can see more information on the FTDNA website by clicking here.

If you are descended from a genealogy headed by a male with the Greaves surname where no one has yet taken a Y-DNA test, I strongly urge you to take a Y-DNA test (if you are a male with the Graves/Greaves name), or get someone else who is to take the test. If you are part of one of the major Y-DNA groups for which we are trying to connect individual genealogies within your group, you should probably consider taking a Big Y or SNP Pack test. If we don’t yet know where your genealogy falls on the Y-haplogroup tree, you should consider a Big Y test or at least a SNP backbone test.

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FUTURE PLANS FOR THE GRAVES FAMILY ASSOCIATION

Help is needed in planning for the future of the Graves Family Association and its activities, and implementing some of those plans. We need some people (other than me) thinking about the knowledge and information of the Graves Family Association, and how best to preserve it and make it more available to everyone. I have been doing what I do for more than 40 years, and I'm not going to be around forever. Plus, there are things that need doing that I don't have time to do.

In a recent article by Dick Eastman (Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, Jan. 2, 2017), he suggested the following (published here with permission of the author), modified to apply specifically to our organization:

• Use electronic publishing. Don’t produce hard cover books or other printed publications unless full cost can be charged to whoever wants them.

• Increase GFA publications, do it electronically, and charge for most of them.

• Hold more meetings (including with presentations and Q&A) and do it electronically.

• Post frequent GFA updates on our Facebook page. Look at whether we have the right kind of Facebook page to allow us to do that.

• Update the GFA website frequently.

• Recruit new members, especially those with technical expertise.

• Form special interest groups (SIGs) to address special interests (such as how to research your Graves/Greaves ancestors, Y-DNA groups for common Graves ancestors, etc.)

Some of the activities Dick suggested may not apply to the GFA as much as to local genealogy societies, and some are undoubtedly more important than others.

Some of the other things I would like to see are:

• Convert the genealogies into a format that is easier to update; they are presently created as word processing documents because when they were started there were no genealogy programs. I am the only one who can update them, and I will never have enough time to do that.

• Convert the GF Bulletin into a blog, and post articles regularly.

• Get more people to help manage various aspects of the Graves/Greaves DNA project. I am presently the only one doing that.

• Establish research project to address high-interest areas such as finding and proving the identity, ancestry and descendants of Capt. Thomas Graves of genealogy 169. I can create a plan and provide guidance, but other capable, interested people are needed to follow through.

A specific example of one of our needs is what Steve Graves recently wrote on Facebook: “Something all of us researchers should be reminded of: WE EACH DON'T LIVE FOREVER. That while actively looking to uncover the past, we should also be organizing what we have - culling out and making clear that which we believe to be most accurate.

This past year, as I looked at a few other GFA genealogies closest to me (per Y-DNA111 testing), I reached out, with Ken’s help, to two resources named R-1 and R-23 in their GFA genealogy text, only to find out that: (1) they had passed just recently, (yes we should be reminded too that we all ARE racing the clock to get to more primary sources), and (2) the children of those who'd passed knew little or nothing about the parent's genealogy work...and in one case had already shipped parts of it off to distant relatives who requested this or that or given photos to one child, papers to another, record copies to another...breaking up the collection. In each case, for me, these were key researchers / key contributors to their GFA posted genealogy text....and had I gotten to them sooner, I could have said "Please tell me how you came up with such and such" and I would have understood or been able to carry further because of what they had done. But that all was lost.”

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UPDATES TO THE GFA WEBSITE

Updated pages:

· Numerical Listing of Genealogies and Charts, charts.php

· Graves Family Newsletter Page, gfnl.php (added links to many of the newsletters)

· Main Page, index.php (added note about links to back newsletters and Graves gathering in VA)

Updated charts:

· Y-DNA Group R1-047 SNP Tree, Y-SNP-Tree-R1-047.pdf

New Genealogies:

· Gen. 646, Thomas Graves and Ann Ferguson of NC & AL

Revised genealogies:

· Gen. 77, John Graves and Margery Harvey of Randolph Co., NC

· Gen. 270, John Graves/Greaves of Northamptonshire, England & Virginia

· Gen. 354, John Douglas Graves and Mary Magdalene Zeigler of GA & AL – (I thought there was a connection to gen. 270, but that was wrong)

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NEWS ARTICLE ABOUT SANFORD GRAVES OF FLORIDA

Joyce Graves recently posted a comment on the GFA Facebook page about something she saw on Fox Channel 10 in Phoenix, AZ. The story was about 93-year-old Sanford (“Sandy”) Graves and 95-year-old Marshall Clark, the last two surviving pilots of a World War II bomber squadron, and their recent reunion in Bradenton, FL.

I responded that this is Dr. Sanford Graves, son of Cecil Frank Graves and Lucille Whiteneck of genealogy 277. Someone should contact him and ask him or one of his sons to take a Y-DNA test so we know which Graves family in England he is part of.

In this picture they are taking care of some unfinished business. By military tradition, as the last two survivors, they are drinking from a bottle of Cognac saved for this occasion. To see a video and more information, click here.

The first reunion of the 451^st Bomber Squadron was in Chicago in 1946. The squadron started in 1942 at what was then MacDill Field in Tampa, FL. Later, they flew their B-26 Marauders to Europe to fight the Nazis.

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STILL MORE FOR JAMESTOWNE SOCIETY/MAYFLOWER SOCIETY ELIGIBILITY

In the GF Bulletin of Jan. 31 (vol. 19, no. 1), D. Alan Smith wrote about an ancestor eligible for membership in both the Jamestowne Society and the Mayflower Society.

In GF Bulletin, vol. 19, no. 2, Gerald M. Graves wrote: “I am afraid that Mr. Smith ran together his two ancestor societies and gave a false impression in his comment on the Jamestown Society at the end of this month’s bulletin. He stated that descendants of Roxana Rose Graves are eligible for Mayflower Society membership based on the VA Company shares owned by John Vassall. That should make them eligible for Jamestown Society membership. But only descendants of the passengers on the ship Mayflower on the 1620 voyage can join the Mayflower Society. Roxanna Rose may be a Mayflower descendant, but not through John Vassall.”

D. Alan Smith wrote in response: “Roxanna Rose is a descendant of William White and his son Resolved, thus a Mayflower passenger descendant.  Resolved's wife Judith Vassall is the granddaughter of John Vassall, a VA stockholder.  Thus any descendant of Roxanna Rose Graves is indeed eligible for both societies.  John Vassall''s father was a Huguenot refugee to England.” He also wrote: “Sorry if original email was not clear. I simply wanted people to know that Roxana Rose Graves was a viable avenue for at least four lineage groups (including at least one Huguenot society), especially since most people don't connect Plymouth, Boston, and Jamestowne.”

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ABOUT THIS BULLETIN:

This bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves, ken.graves@gravesfa.org.

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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.