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My Blooming Family Tree

My Blooming Family Tree

Tag Archives: Genealogy

Trust me

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by My Blooming Family Tree in Genealogy

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Tags

Ancestry.com, Booth family history, Genealogy, genetic genealogy, NPE

I know the competition for your attention is fierce. How many Facebook notifications came in even as you read this sentence? Should you keep reading or return to the familiar world of cat videos and political memes? To get you to hang with me, I need to convince you that I have some amount of cred.

First off, I am not a professional genealogist. I am an amateur although a serious one. Since my early days of freely copying ancestors from other trees, I’ve learned the value of starting from a well-documented base and working back from it. I now understand the relative importance that different types of evidence provide. And painfully, I know that using DNA to find your ancestors is not usually the easy breezy task that Ancestry.com makes it appear in its commercials.

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Symmetry

Paper trails are absolutely wonderful, but few trees are perfectly documented generation-by-generation back to antiquity. And even then, the perfect paper trail may not reflect the actual genetic trail. For just about forever now humans have been ineptly practicing monogamy and celibacy before marriage. Those human activities can result in non-paternity events (NPEs). Some of these NPEs are known ahead of time, but others come as surprises.

Genetic testing has made NPEs more apparent while providing tools for resolving them. For me, the fun starts here. Some tools are quite sophisticated. One of the most basic, known as fishing, is about baiting your tree to catch ancestors in your DNA matches net. Sometimes the right fish takes the bait, but beware the scrod when you were casting for cod.

While this preliminary talk may sound dull and boring, it will become more lively in following topics as the research yields surprises, validates some ancestors, but releases impostors back to await the lure of another researcher’s hook.

My general disclaimer is that I am as accurate as I can be at any moment given the amount of information available and the knowledge I have to analyze it. I reserve the right to modify my conclusions due to changes in either of those variables.

So that’s my pitch for your attention. If it worked, please be sure to click the Follow button to be notified of updates to My Blooming Family Tree.

Are you related to…?

19 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by My Blooming Family Tree in Genealogy, Uncategorized

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Tags

Booth family history, family tree, Genealogy, James Ami Booth

Hearing that “are you related to?” question so often in my childhood is surely what sparked my initial interest in genealogy. But answering the most logical follow-up question has proven to be even more challenging: If I’m not related through him, then who were my paternal ancestors?

My dad’s family line always carried an air of mystery. There were the rumors and theories, the various versions of family lore discussed within the extended family about “the problem” with my dad’s lineage. The scenario that remained implanted in my memory into adulthood was that at some unspecific previous generation, specifically in Alsace-Lorraine, a paternal ancestor had been adopted.

With the paucity of information and tools available last century, that was it. We accepted that we would never know.

As it turns out, the possible break in our family line hit a lot closer to home when my great grandfather James Ami was born in Iowa on April 2, 1855. His unmarried mother, Sarah Berry, remained a single mom for 4 years. In 1859 she wed the man who provided a surname for James and his prolific progeny, including me. But is that all he contributed?

GrandmaAndGrandpaUnreadable-with-BoothDaleWendellAndHazel-2-MBFT-story2

My grandma Hazel, dad Wendell, grandpa Dale, great grandma Elizabeth, Lelia, and great grandpa James Ami Booth

As to answering the “are you related to?” question, at some point during my schooling I learned that famous, even infamous, people have biographies and that you can find out about their families. I found the answer. Back in the 1900s, however, illegitimacy was not commonly mentioned except discreetly among close friends and family. So my honest response would often produce a shocked look on the face of my school-aged inquisitors:

“No, I am not related to him unless it was illegimate because he was never married and had no known children.”

Thus, I could finally deny any link to the assassin who took the life of the most beloved American President in Ford’s Theater on April 15, 1865.

The second question remains more elusive. Despite much research and countless hours analyzing and comparing DNA tests, I still lack a completely satisfactory answer. I continue to search, and I hope that DNA tests will eventually provide a unequivocal answer. Whether it is someone on the current suspect list, including Sarah’s husband Benjamin Franklin Booth, or someone as yet unknown, I remain open. I just want to know the truth if it is possible to find it.

Recent Posts

  • Who were Elizabeth Rogers’ parents?
  • Using Your Senses along with the Census
  • These aren’t the Babers you’re looking for
  • Trust me
  • Are you related to…?

Recent Comments

beveridgejacquie on Are you related to……

Archives

  • September 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016

Categories

  • Genealogy
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Who were Elizabeth Rogers’ parents?
  • Using Your Senses along with the Census
  • These aren’t the Babers you’re looking for
  • Trust me
  • Are you related to…?

Recent Comments

beveridgejacquie on Are you related to……

Archives

  • September 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016

Categories

  • Genealogy
  • Uncategorized

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