DNA as a Genealogical Research Tool

The mystery and ensuing frustration regarding Deborah (---) Wallace, possibly the daughter of Josiah Berry, and the lack of documentation for the principal players and have brought up the notion of using DNA to prove or disprove this relationship.  My colleague who is working on his own Hidden ancestry (Mary Hidden the wife of Josiah  Berry was the daughter of a (---) Crockett) has mentioned this to me more than once.  Can one use MtDNA (mitochondrial), which is the DNA passed mother to child, and thus through females it is the same in some form for generation after generation, to prove a relationship more than 200 years ago?  I've already had my MtDNA identified and "stored" with the accompanying paper trail for future generations.  I'm part of the haplotype U5.  And my MtDNA line does not include Deborah, so it's a moot point.  I know that it would be possible to prove such a relationship, but is it practical? Let's explore that possibility.

Deborah (---) Wallis had three daughters, one of which never married.  Of the two daughters that did marry both had daughters of their own.  So, I would start off with trying to research down to the present, the female lines of: (i) Meribah Drew, born Holderness, N.H. 1801; (ii) her sister, Aseneth b. 1814; and (iii) their cousin Mary B. Whipple, born 1828 in Moultonborough.  The first two women are daughters of Joseph and Elizabeth (Wallis) Drew and the last the daughter of John and Deborah (Wallis) Whipple.  I'm pretty sure that Mary B. Whipple is the same woman who married at Rochester, N.H. on 5 December 1865 to John S. Blaisdell.  So we have these three lines to research and document.  At the end of this we must find a living person, either a female or male, whose line is female to female back to Deborah and have them take a DNA test.

So, the first impractical thing, outside of the research, which is tedious but do-able, is convincing a total stranger to do a DNA  test.  Of course, you would have to pay for it so, chalk up $400.00 there.  Then you need to convince that person to share their results or get the DNA testing company to give you a copy.  Let's say you get all that done.  That's only half of the equation, and quite frankly, it's the easy half.

Next, you have to find a MtDNA descendant from your proposed ancestor.  In this case, a sister or some other female to female relationship of the Berry family in question.  Deborah Berry had a sister Mary, but she doesn't appear to have married.  That means you go up to her mother Mary Hidden and see her sisters.  Only one, it seems, married: Anne Hidden married Benjamin Billing in 1742.  Then you have to trace all the female to female descendants for this couple, some 200+ years worth.  Now, in this particular scenario, we could kill two birds with one stone.  Since we also don't know the identity of the mother of Mary Hidden, we could trace all the known sisters of our potential (---) Crockett, that is, the other daughters of Joshua Crockett and get them, female to female, down to the present, some 300+ years worth of research.

Again, let's say that was possible.  Then you have the same scenario as above, convincing a total stranger to have a DNA test (shelling out yet another $400).  I've set aside the possibility that (i) these lines "male" out or die out; (ii) female to female is the hardest sort of genealogy to do because it involves constantly changing surnames and multiple marriages; and (iii) tracing a tree down is, IMHO, tougher because of the movement of families.  All told, if you were to do this correctly, with the documentation to prove this line has this type of DNA and we can prove genealogically they were related then ergo, this line must be related because they have the same DNA, I'm guessing the bill would be roughly about $2,000.  That includes DNA tests and research time and money.  So, that's quite an investment.

Someday, there will be a critical mass of people's DNA being studied and in databases.  Matches will be made by descendants seeking each other.  However, today, seeking out another descendant is a costly and, I believe, impractical research route.  Some people are paranoid about turning in their census forms.  How do you convince a total stranger to take a DNA test and turn over the results to you?  And how frustrating would it be to find such a person only to have them turn you down? However, if you've turned over every other research stone, it may be the only thing left.  I've yet to see a scholarly article that used DNA a part of the genealogical proof.  I know male to male lines have articles written about them, but not yet MtDNA.

Comments

[James Lively]

Mr. Hollick:
The only article I've come across using MtDNA as part of the genealogical proof appeared in the journal of the Richard III Society in 2006. Here's the link to the table of contents

http://www.richardiii.net/the%20ricardian%20volume%2016%202006.htm.

Unfortunately, I didn't make a copy, but the journal should be in any major library.

James R. Lively
jamlively@yahoo.com

[Heather Rojo]

The Mayflower Historian General Ann S. Lainhart and Assistant Historian General Alicia Williams recently accepted a line — on the basis of a Hawes DNA study of the Hawes Y chromosome. It is the first time DNA was used to prove a Mayflower lineage. You can read about it in the 2007 Mayflower Quarterly. John Hawes married a granddaughter of John Howland, Desire Gorham, making John and Desire Hawes’ children descendants of the Mayflower. They had a son John who went to North Carolina, thus muddling the line and making the DNA neccesary. The Myles Standish family and the Pilgrim Edward Doty Society are starting Y-line DNA projects, too. You are correct in saying that a "critical mass" of DNA samples are needed before this kind of testing works. Thus, many lineage societies are pushing their members to join in on the DNA tests.

[JT]

Martin,

I happened to see an article the other day about just the sort of thing you describe--including the challenges, frustrations, and expense:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~streeter/NNC/mtdna.pdf

[Richard M. Hunt]

Martin,
It was a real pleasure to read your posting. I've thought many times about the practicality of using MtDNA for this very problem but have not been able to document it as perfectly as you have. I agree about all the work & expense involved and the low probability of convincing two strangers to take a DNA test. However, wouldn't it be something to be able to use MtDNA to solve an "impossible" genealogical problem? We still need to make sure we've turned over all other research stones, though.
I think Benjamin & Anne(Hidden)Billings had a daughter, Hannah, but I've not found any records for her yet.
I think you meant Joseph Crockett, not Joshua, in the next-to-last sentence in the 4th paragraph.
The MtDNA of Hannah(Clements)Crockett was passed to 7 daughters. At least 6 married, so that might prove helpful if this project is ever done.
Thanks for the great work you're doing on this blog.

[Martin Hollick]

Read down the comments are see JTs and the article he refers to. I read it last night. It does give one hope.

[Perry Streeter]

Thank you for the references to the article that I co-authored with Mike Morrissey:

Perry Streeter and Mike Morrissey, “Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Testing of Probable Eighth Cousins Confirms Their Kinship and Proves Their Matrilineal Lines of Descent from Aeltje Cornelis (COOL) (VAN COUWENHOVEN) STOOTHOFF; Simultaneously Proving Two Long-Held Theories Developed Sequentially Through Conventional Research; Mary (UPDIKE) RICHEY of Greenwood, Steuben County, New York Was a Heretofore Unidentified Daughter of Roliph-5 UPDIKE (John-4, Lawrence-3, Johannes-2, Louris-1 Jansen); Eleanor-5 "Nelly" LANE (Gizebert-4, Mathias-3, Gysbrecht-2 Laenen, Matthys-1 Jansen) Was the Heretofore Unidentified Wife of Roliph-5 UPDIKE” (April, May, June 2005; Volume 10, Number 2).

To read a version of this article, please see…

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~streeter/NNC/mtdna.pdf

Our miraculous success does give me hope to try the same approach again...

For more than a decade, I have been developing the theory that my great-great-great-great-grandmother, Dorothy (DYER) MINER, lastly of Greenwood, Steuben County, New York, was probably a daughter of James and Dorothy (WHITMARSH) DYER, originally of Weymouth, Norfolk County, Massachusetts and lastly of Plainfield, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. For more information, please see…

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~streeter/dyer.pdf

Unfortunately, conventional research has not yet yielded “the proof” to confirm this placement. However, definitive proof that Dorothy (DYER) MINER was the daughter of James and Dorothy (WHITMARSH) DYER could be obtained by comparing the Mitochondrial DNA of her living matrilineal descendants with the Mitochondrial DNA of living matrilineal descendants of Dorothy’s probable matrilineal ancestors:

Mary (GILMAN) (JACOB) BEAL/BEALES , wife of Nicholas-1 JACOB
|
Deborah (JACOB) THOMAS, wife of Nathaniel-3 THOMAS Jr. (Nathaniel-2 Sr., William-1)
|
Mary (THOMAS) (GARDNER) GOOLD, wife of Rev. James-1 GARDNER
|
Dorothy (GARDNER) WHITMARSH, wife of Ezra-4 WHITMARSH (Ezra-3, John-2-1)
|
Dorothy (WHITMARSH) DYER, wife of James-5 DYER (Joseph-4, William-3, Christopher-2, William-1)

If you have a well-documented and unbroken *matrilineal* (“umbilical”) line of descent from any of the women shown in this lineage, please contact me privately at perry@streeter.com, without fear of any further obligation. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed from mothers to their children so the only male that can exist in a line of descent for the purposes of this comparison must be the last living link in the chain. This situation is essentially the opposite of surname-based DNA projects which are based on the fact that the Y-Chromosome and the DNA it carries is only passed from fathers to sons; for more information on this topic please see…

http://www.familytreedna.com/inheritance-chart.aspx

Thanks for your help!

[genealogical services]

Your blog seems to be very informative.I was searching for such kind of information.

[Richard M. Hunt]

Martin,
I’ve thought about your post some more.
If DNA projects were to be done, it might be better to first test and prove the Nathaniel Wallis/Deborah Berry marriage before testing the John Hidden/Mary Crockett marriage. It’s attractive to go back a generation to “kill two birds with one stone”, but what happens if the results yield no match between the two living descendants? We would not know which marriage is disproved.
Let’s focus on the Nathaniel Wallis/Deborah Berry marriage and Deborah‘s aunt Anne. As you pointed out Deborah’s mother, Mary (Hidden) Berry had a sister, Anne Hidden, who married Benjamin Billings. Their four daughters, Hannah, Elizabeth, Mehitable, and Mary, carried the same mtDNA as Deborah. Finding one of their living descendants in a female-to-female line would make a DNA test possible and useful. A positive match with a living person in Deborah’s female-to-female line would prove the marriage. Also, half the job would be complete for a DNA project to prove the John Hidden/Mary Crockett marriage.
I’m no expert in DNA testing but I’ve read that mtDNA changes very little over the generations.