GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN
Vol. 19, No. 6, August 30,
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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CONTENTS
**
General Comments
**
Famous People Descended from Graves and Greaves Ancestors
**
Reminder of Graves Family Gathering in Virginia, Oct. 25-28, 2017
**
Finding the Ancestry and Connections of Capt. Thomas Graves of VA (Gen. 169),
Thomas Graves of Hartford, CT (Gen. 168), etc.
**
We Need More Males With Graves/Greaves Surnames to Take Big Y
**
Benefits of Working With Other Surname Projects
**
Something to Think About
**
The Importance of Taking Y-DNA Tests for Both STRs and SNPs
**
Updates to the GFA Website
** To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other
Things
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GENERAL
COMMENTS
There
are 3 main points I have tried to make in this issue of the Bulletin: (1) We
are beginning to close in on the ancestry and origin of some of the
Graves/Greaves genealogies; (2) We need people to help with Graves/Greaves
research; (3) We need more Y-DNA testing, and the DNA test sale at Family Tree
DNA (ending at midnight, Aug. 31, Central Time in the U.S.) is a good
opportunity for furthering that objective.
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FAMOUS PEOPLE
DESCENDED FROM GRAVES AND GREAVES ANCESTORS
There
has been some recent discussion on the Graves Family Association Facebook page
about famous people with Graves or Greaves ancestry. There is a page on the Graves Family Association website for
this. You can see who is included there by going to the website, hovering over
History/News, and clicking on Famous Family Members.
One
of the comments on Facebook was that John Wayne, the movie actor, was descended
from a Graves ancestor. The
suggested ancestral line was Rear Adm. Thomas Graves (gen. 28) through his
great-grandmother Margaret J. Good.
Although I havenÕt been able to confirm that line, I did find that he
was descended from Abigail Graves (gen. 345), probable sister of Thomas Graves
of Hartford, CT (gen. 168) and George Graves of Hartford, CT (gen. 65).
There
was also a comment that Mamie Eisenhower, wife of General and President Dwight
Eisenhower, had Graves ancestry.
If anyone can find either this ancestry or the second Graves ancestry
for John Wayne, please let me know.
Also, if you have suggestions for other people who should be added to
the list of famous descendants, contact me with that information also.
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REMINDER OF
GRAVES FAMILY GATHERING IN VIRGINIA, OCT. 25-28, 2017
As previously announced, there will be a Graves Family Association
Gathering in Virginia on Oct. 25-28, 2017. An updated schedule with full information has been posted on
the GFA website (click here) and on the GFA
Facebook page. This event is
especially for all those whose ancestors lived in Virginia in the 1600s and
1700s, but all Graves descendants are welcome.
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FINDING THE
ANCESTRY AND CONNECTIONS OF CAPT. THOMAS GRAVES OF VA (GEN. 169), THOMAS GRAVES
OF HARTFORD, CT (GEN. 168), ETC.
The
finding mentioned in the preceding article about actor John WayneÕs descent
from Abigail Graves caused me to look more closely at the ancestry of
genealogies 65, 168, and 169 (the line from son John Graves). Unlike most other Graves families in
America, we know the European ancestry of the family. It was from Hertfordshire and Essex, England, and we have
information about early family members there and in London, so we should be
looking at parish records, wills, and other documents that are generally
available. Those of you descended
from this family need to organize a research effort to find the family in
England. In the meantime, I will
continue to try to find living descendants in England to be DNA tested.
To
see a summary of the information we have now, go to the GFA website, hover over
the Research tab at the top of the page, and click on Ancestral Research
Program. Then click on the link
for Graves Families of Hertford/Harlow Area toward the bottom of the page. To go directly to that page, click here.
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WE NEED MORE
MALES WITH GRAVES/GREAVES SURNAMES TO TAKE BIG Y
Especially
for Graves/Greaves families that do not have any male descendants with the
Graves/Greaves surname who have taken a Y-DNA test, it is very important to
find a male to be tested at Family Tree DNA. For anyone who has already taken a Y-DNA test, upgrading to
111 markers would also be helpful for differentiating between lines.
For
those of you willing and able to spend a little more money, taking the Big Y
test would be even more helpful, especially for those in genealogies where no
one has yet taken a Big Y test.
The
Friends and Family Sale at Family Tree
DNA ends at midnight August 31.
The prices for Big Y and other tests are the best yet. If you have considered one of the tests
mentioned above, now is the time to place the order!
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BENEFITS OF
WORKING WITH OTHER SURNAME PROJECTS
There
are two Graves families that we are trying to learn more about and for which we
are cooperating with other closely related surname projects to try to benefit
all involved.
GENEALOGY 130
One
family is genealogy 130 (Constant Graves and Comfort Bates of Rehobeth, MA and
Scituate, RI. This family has only
one person who has done a Y-DNA test, and we are trying to get another
distantly-related male to take a Y-DNA test to confirm the result of the one we
have. The person who has already
tested matches a number of men in the Wolcott project, and we are beginning to
work together to find where the two families diverge. There is a possibility that Constant Graves (born 1751,
possibly in Scotland or Ireland) may have changed his name before fighting for
the Americans in the Revolutionary War.
Doing SNP testing and comparing the Graves SNPs to the Wolcott SNPs
should give us the approximate date when the families split from each other.
GENEALOGIES 85 AND 35
The
second family is the group listed as I1-085 on the Master Table of Y-DNA Test
Results, consisting of genealogy 85 (Thomas Graves of DE, Quaker) and genealogy
35 (William Graves of Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland). The I haplogroup is associated with Scottish and
Scandinavian ancestry, and both of those locations were late in adopting the
surname customs of other European countries, so it would not be surprising to
find connections with other surnames fairly recently. For some conjecture about this, see the article in the GFA
website Research section here.
The
family that shows as a match most frequently is
Hollandsworth/Hollingsworth. We
are working with the Hollingsworth DNA project to try to pinpoint where and
when the split between that family and the Graves family happened. There are other matches, especially
with the Huff/Hough and Grimes families, that we might want to pursue also.
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SOMETHING TO
THINK ABOUT
As
part of her blog, DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy, Roberta Estes
published an article called ÒThe ShoesÓ on Aug.
13. This title refers to a memorial
on the bank of the Danube River in Budapest, consisting of cast iron shoes
affixed to the pavement, where 3,500 people were shot and dumped into the river
in 1944-45. This is an article
about the irrationality and wrongness of hating and grossly mistreating those
different from us.
She
writes: ÒThe DNA of all humans is 99.9% the same, with very few
differences. While we depend upon
those differences for genetic genealogy, for the most part, we match every
other human being.Ó Nelson Mandela
said: ÒNo one is born hating another person É People must learn to hate, and if
they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.Ó
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THE IMPORTANCE
OF TAKING Y-DNA TESTS FOR BOTH STRS AND SNPS
THE BACKGROUND
There
was an extensive discussion recently on the ISOGG list of various aspects of
genetic genealogy. One part of the
discussion was about the best way to achieve the objectives and expectations of
the people doing the testing and managing the testing programs. I am including parts of the discussions
here because it illustrates the rapid progress that is being made in getting
DNA testing to be able to pinpoint lineages down to the present
generation. The discussions also
showed the importance of taking both SNP tests (such as Big Y) and STR tests
(such as Y-DNA37 and Y-DNA111).
One
person in the discussion (Mike W) posted the following:
ÒThere
are published scientific studies that show that a new Y SNP occurs in a lineage
every 3-5 or even down to every 2-5 generations. These are really
father-son transmission rates so if a father has four sons it is likely one
will have a new Y SNP.
On
top of that Y STRs mutate and are passed father to son. There are several
hundred Y STRs but we have legacy matching databases built on select STRs 1-37,
38-67, 68-111. If you look at all 111 STRs, we are seeing an STR
change about once every 3 father-son transmissions.
Let's
look at what this means for the opportunity for granularity in Y DNA testing.
Let's
go with the 1 every 4 generations for an SNP. That's a 25% odds chance of
a change in any given generation. I'll talk more about variants in
general and SNPs but they are very stable so we can use them as fencing to
minimize faster mutating STR aberrations.
We
know there is a 75% chance there is NOT an SNP in a given generation but there
is still a 33% chance (1 in 3) of a Y STR change on the 1-111 set. 33% of the
75% is roughly 25%. We can add the two 25%'s together and we
have roughly a 50% chance of change via either Y SNP or Y STR in every
generation. That's not requiring any futuristic test to get this done. Just Big
Y and 111 STRs. FGC Elite and 111 STRs improves on that.
Roughly a 50% chance of a variant in every father-son transmission is
getting pretty granular and is therefore applicable to close-in genealogy.Ó
MORE BACKGROUND
Also
from Mike W
Here is a little more about some the
properties of Y SNPs and STRs. They are just variants. They are
just variants from a reference model.
There are also other kinds of variants found
on the Y chromosome. The most talked about is an Indel, an Insertion/deletion
event. This is not really an SNP. An SNP is a Single Nuclear
Polymorphism. It is a one for one swap of an allele (value) at a specific base
pair location on the Y chromosome. An Insertion/deletion event involves
more than one for one swap.
However, Indels that are deemed as SNPs.
In my opinion, this was done because of the problem with the correct
term. The term we'd like to use is UEP.
"Unique Event Polymorphism (UEP): A mutation which
is treated as if it occurred only once in all of human history, so that all
persons sharing the mutation descend from a common ancestor. Most UEPs are
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), while some are insertions or deletions
(for examples, see LINE and YAP)."
https://isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_Glossary.html
We don't really what the variant is, but if
its mutation rate is so, so slow it can be considered to have happened only
once in human history then it wonderful marker for a branch. The original
concept is to use UEPs to mark branches. The consequence is that the term
UEP is rarely used and the term SNP has grown to substitute for UEP as a proxy.
I'll bring this up later to explain.
There are studies to dig this out of but we
can look at this simply. An NGS (Next Gen. Seq.) test like Big Y scans
over 10 million (10,000,000) base pair locations. If we are finding an SNP
about once every 4 or 5 generations then the mutation rate would be (using 4
gen) would be only 1 every 40 million (40,000,000) generations. Yes,
that's really rare. That's why stable SNPs are so valuable for marking
branches.
However since we are scanning so many locations
with NGS testing we still come up with SNP hits. This is why NGS is so powerful
and set us into a new era of paternal lineages from the head to the toe (from
the ancient to the current.) The power is in the combination of great
stability, great opportunity for mutations and a strict father-son inheritance.
Let us see why the UEP term is dying. There
are 59 million (59,000,000) base pair locations on the Y chromosome with only a
handful of allele changes available at each location. Not all parts of the Y
chromosome pass down strictly and some are unstable so we can't really count
that there are 59 million. On the other hand there are about 3.7 billion
(3,700,000,000) males out there in the world alive today. Yikes! That's billion
with a "B". There will be some recurrency of SNPs. This means
some will appear in more than one lineage. We've already seen this but the
problem will grow.
This is not an insurmountable problem though.
If we just test one or two upstream SNPs (on the tree of paternal lineages) the
odds are astronomically good that our SNP pattern of two or three have
identified the correct branch.
The same logic applies to any Y
variants. A pattern of Y STR off-modal variants is much, more valuable
and reliable that using any one STR. That's one an STR signature pattern is.
I'll save more on the usage of STR panels but
the principles are:
á
Variants are changes from a reference
model.
á
Variants have different mutation rates.
á
Variants with slow mutation rates are
extra good for marking or predicting branches.
á
Variants with faster mutation rates are
very good for high refinement or differentiation but are subject to both false
positives and false negatives as far as branch placement.
á
Patterns of variants are better than relying
on just anyone variant.
Robert Casey wrote:
The future is
even brighter than your estimates:
1) The Chromium enhanced
version of YElite 2.1 has a read length of 1,000,000 base pairs compared to the
Big Y's 150 base pair reads. To our surprise, usable YDNA location is being
expanded to 20M base pairs which is around twice that of Big Y. So instead of one YSNP per four
generations, in two to four years, it will be down to one YSNP per two
generations.
2) About the same time of much higher read lengths
for YSNP discovery, we will also have 333 markers for all new tests which will
be via WGS tests, so YSTR mutations will happen every
generation.
3) If you use another 100 YSTR markers like CDY, you
will get five to ten mutations per generation. This may sound good, but the
down side to these faster mutating markers will require 10X to 100X more sample
size to resolve. So sample size is the key issue.
Also, my
charting of L226 is at 80 % and should be at 90 % by the end of the year. So,
the number of SNP branches (and the ability to test them economically via the
wonderful new L226 SNP pack), means that we really do not need more YSNP
discovery since charting is already at 80 %. We really need much larger sample
sizes to make progress. At 30 % growth per year in 67 marker YSTR submissions,
this will be more of bottleneck than the need for more NGS testing. This is why
I am really trying hard to get 37 marker submissions to upgrade to 67 markers
so that I have more sample size to chart. There are three or four Gleason
testers under L226 at 37 markers - but I do not know they exist since my
charting requires 67 markers. Until these testers upgrade to 67 markers, there
can be no assignment to the L226 haplotree that requires 67 markers.
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UPDATES TO THE
GFA WEBSITE
Updated
pages:
á
Capt.php, Research project for Capt. Thomas Graves of VA
á
charts.php, Numerical listing of genealogies
á
dna.php, the Graves surname DNA project
á
DNA_testing.php, How to take a DNA test at Family Tree DNA
á
FTDNA_test_results.php, Y-DNA Test Results
á
Hertford.php, Research project for Graves Families of Hertford/Harlow
Area
á
notable.php, Famous Family Members
Revised
genealogies:
á
Gen. 130, Constant Graves and Comfort Bates of Rehobeth, MA &
Scituate, RI
á
Gen. 162, Richard Graves and Sarah ------ of Debden, Essex, England
á
Gen. 345, Abigail Graves of England and Hartford, CT
Other
changes:
á
The DNA drop-down tab now has an option for ÒHow to take a DNA test at
FTDNAÓ
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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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BULLETIN:
Send
any material you would like to have included in this bulletin to
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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
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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
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