Our Tidwell Y-DNA

The Tidwell's receive my highest amount of autosomal cousin matches.  So this year I asked Uncle Oliver to test, and more than one-third of my dad's autosomal matches also match him. One of my first DNA success stories with a confirmed paper trail back to my great great grandfather Andrew Tidwell born 1844, was discovered prior to Uncle Oliver testing has since been confirmed to also match him and higher than the way he matches either my dad or myself. Oliver is my dad's mothers brother my paternal (maternal side) grand Uncle. I also learned that my Uncle is a haplogroup E1b1a8a1*  which means his ancient paternal families, father's father's father direct male line can trace back to a single mutation of a male born 20,000 years ago in Sub Saharan Africa. I checked the Tidwell surname project on Family Tree DNA to see if any Tidwell male lineages on there were haplogroup E* and this is what I found:

Family Tree DNA Tidwell surname project

Most of the Tidwell men who tested, tested to haplogroup I* which means my great great grandfather Andrew J Tidwell was probably not a direct descendant of a Tidwell male. This doesn't mean however that we are not autosomally related to the Tidwell's who are haplogroup I*.

So far Uncle Oliver has the most Sub-Saharan African matches on Countries of Ancestry  on 23 and me having all four grandparents from the Continent. This includes two matches with all four grandparents from Edo Nigeria, four grandparents from Mauritius, four grandparents South Africa, four grandparents Kenya, four grandparents Uganda, and four grandparents Niger.  Also, our cousin from Ecuador triangulates with my grand Uncle Oliver.

Recently, my dad received another high match on AncestryDNA to a Tidwell cousin with Tidwell relatives from Texas. Her Tidwell family traces to Thomas Tidwell born 1835 and ours to Andrew Tidwell 1844.  I asked her to upload to gedmatch which she did and learned that she also matches Uncle Oliver we have yet to determine who our most recent common ancestor is. This is how she matches Uncle Oliver:

Haskins vs Hanskins DNA proven

I can't STRESS enough the importance of getting as many known family members

to test as possible! I found that my dad matches 3rd cousin WHaskins on Ancestry DNA but Haskins doesn't match me! To find out how see my blog: Getting my groove back here.

 My newly discovered cousin WHaskins from AncestryDNA and 23 and me and myself share absolutely nothing between the two of us on DNA.  I never would have found him if I didn't have other family members tested. I had the marriage certificate of Joe Elliott and Bette Haskins but the transcribed record on ancestry.com misnomers Bette's surname Hanskins instead of Haskins.  Without WHaskins DNA results matching my dad, my Uncle Oliver Tidwell and my brother Ralph C. Bass so highly I would never have made this connection. WHaskins also matches my brother Marcus E. Bass too but not as high. My dad and WHaskins share great great great grandparents which would be 5th great grandparents to me and my brothers and the reason why WHaskins and myself at fifth cousins have a less likely chance of sharing DNA according to ISOGG. Look at the variations of our match!

 

My dad and brother Ralph seem to have inherited more Haskins DNA in ways that Marcus and I didn't. Marcus only shares 8 cM of DNA with WHaskins on chromosome 2 as indicated above.  To confirm that it is indeed the right line my Uncle Oliver matches him too at 41 cM. Carrie Elliott was Uncle Oliver's mother and Bette Haskins his grandmother and the woman he says raised him as a child. WHaskins and Uncle Oliver share great great great grandparents. Uncle Oliver  also orally confirms for me that Bette's correct name should be Haskins and not Hanskins but I will be obtaining the marriage certificate very soon still.

Will post more on this match soon!

Helix in a Haystack

Do you ever wonder how you are related to some of your DNA matches?

My dad's family lines are a maze of huge brick walls and just when I think I have conquered one brick wall another arises and still another. In my blog Figured Out the Ferguson's I discussed the possibilities of how my paternal line could be related to the Ferguson line. The Ferguson surname is one of my dads highest surname matches. Lucy Bell-Henry was my dads, great grandmother and my great great grandmother, according to her marriage license her paternal surname was Bell was she also possibly a maternal surnamed Ferguson?

Some of my dad's paternal ancestry derives from the small town of Marion, in Union Parish Louisiana with it's population being 765 in 2010, many of the families from this small town are interrelated. On AncestryDNA I have several matches who trace to  the State of Louisiana. To narrow it down further, if the historian (DNA relative) documents not only the State but, the City or Parish his/her  ancestor was born in, then I can perform a "search by birth location," similar to the one shown here:

Out of my dad's 48 Louisiana matches on AncestryDNA only 9 of them have recorded Union Parish as the place of residence for their particular Louisiana ancestors. His maternal lineage is found living in Clay, Bradley Arkansas in the 1870 census. 49 of his matches on AncestryDNA also descend from Arkansas, only 5 specify Clay, Bradley Arkansas or Warren Arkansas. The proximity of known ancestors to the ancestors of our DNA matches are good indications that a relationship existed. Also, when 3 or more people trace to the same ancestor this is also a good clue in.

Some  of the Surnames of my matches that I am following:

Ferguson:

Second and third cousins how hard can it be? Right?

My dad and I have one 23 and me predicted SECOND, gdboyt and one 23 and me predicted third cousin sfergie.  Although, AncestryDNA contradicts that and reduces sfergie's relationship to fourth cousin,  and two fifth cousin matches M.A.C and T.A.D  who trace to the same Searcy B Andrews born 1888 in Union Parish, Lousiana who married Etta Ferguson born 1890 of the same place. My dad has one other AncestryDNA predicted third cousin who traces to Gus Ferguson whose son Marvin born 1908 married Ruth Hardaway also related to this same Ferguson lineage. All of my paternal Ferguson matches also trace back to Columbus Mitchell 1845 who married Caroline White born 1851. All of these matches except gdboyt who shares great grandparents with my dad, share great great grandparents, which would be on the level of Lucy Bells parents. Great grandmother Lucy's parents were William Bell and Annie (nee possibly Ferguson?).


Wysinger:

Who in the world was Mack Wysinger?

We have two AncestryDNA cousins who trace to the Wysinger surname in Union Parish, Louisiana at fifth cousin. G.b traces to Mack Wysinger born 1840 who married Katie Long on 10 Nov 1881. When Mack Wysinger shows up on the 1880 census with his son Eugene Wysinger Katie isn't there. So Katie Long may not be the mother of Eugene Wysinger. Eugene was born 1869. All we know about Mack is that he worked at the sawmill, and in 1880 he had a 47 year old woman living with him in his home named Mollie Barton, a cook, and her child Naomi who was 17. Was this a common law marriage?

The Fresno Bee Republican page 25 Newspapers.com

Eugene Wysinger migrated to Fresno, California where he died. The other predicted 5th cousin moniker mswoods, Wysinger  surname cousin match on AncestryDNA traces to Mary Wysinger from Union Parish Lousiana who married Mack Cleveland. On 23 and me we have one 4th cousin IMattox who traces to W. Rubin Wysinger born in 1892, and who migrated to Texas.  Lastly, we have one 4th cousin Wysinglep who traces to Charlotte Wysingle Natchitoches, Lousiana who was a widower in the 1930 census.


Well who are these kinfolk? More on them to come and more mysteries....

DNA Success Stories!!

HAPPY DANCING

Jackson and Martha Davis-Tidwell

One of my first success stories in genetic geneaology was on my Tidwell side. Neoma Tidwell my dad's mother died in his infancy. My dad doesn't have any recollection of her because she died before he formed a memory. Neoma married my grandfather Roosevelt Bass Sr. at a young age. Her father Millard Tidwell also died young he was working at the Bradley Sawmill in Warren, Arkansas when his heart failed. When I first performed 23 and me I had a cousin match to Aubrey G.  23 and me predicted our relationship to be 4th cousins 3rd to Distant. After communicating with Aubrey I learned that he also had Tidwell in his list of matches, he told me:

Aubrey: "My grandfather's name was Steven Jones, and his mother's name was Ocie Tidwell, and his father's name was Johnnie Jones. Ocie Tidwell's father was Jackson Tidwell...

Jackson Tidwell is Aubrey G.'s great great grandfather! I reviewed my family tree. My great grandfather Millard Tidwell lived in the household of his father Andrew Tidwell and Eveline Bragg Faulkner in 1880 with their children:

Sarah A. (Sallie) Tidwell  F  14

  William Tidwell                M  12

   July Ann Tidwell            F  10

Jackson Tidwell             M  9

Edgar Tidwell                  M  8

Marsellar Tidwell            F  4

Millard Tidwell             M 2

      Columbus Tidwell           M 6mos

Source Citation: Year: 1870; Census Place: Clay, Bradley, Arkansas; Roll: M593_48; Page: 498B; Image: 203; Family History Library Film: 545547. Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

Excited, I wrote Aubrey back: Your great grandmother Ocie Tidwell was the neice of my great grandfather! My great grandfather Millard was the brother of your great great grandfather Jackson Tidwell, their parents were our shared ancestors Andrew J. Tidwell and Evaline Bragg Faulkner-Tidwell! Andrew J. Tidwell was Aubrey's great great great grandfather  Andrew Tidwell was my great great grandfather making us 3rd cousins!

Then there are the times when you KNOW that you KNOW you are cousins but you have limited information to go on just gut feeling, like with my cousin Lee. I met Leona Meadows-Walker on the message in-box of Ancestry.com in July 2003. She was researching Hollands and so was I at the time, Holland is my maternal lineage, my mother's mother was Alma Holland. Lee was also researching her maternal lineage her mother's name was Louvenia Holland. Louvenia Holland  was the daughter of John Holland and Annie Owens. Alma Holland and John Holland were brother and sister. The children of Lewis Holland and Clarissy Owens.

Leona sent me an invite to her tree on 07/07/07 and JACKPOT! We have been in communication ever since. Excited! I told my family about it who didn't necessarily respond as graciously as I had hoped. Some were skeptical of our relationship based on documentation alone.  They said, they doubted that John Holland even had children! Then, right before my Aunt Helen passed away she blessed me with a wealth of obituaries including Uncle John Hollands.

Funeral Services for John Holland 16 Apr 1977

Then, when I talked Leona into taking the DNA test last year 

C O N F I R M A T I O N!!!! Leona and I match as seconds cousins should! That shut up the naysayers! Woot woot!

Family Inheritance Chromosome Tool 23 and me

Pop's Paternal line

I reiterate here my dad is NOT a Y-DNA direct descendant of the Basse family line unless that Bass line was haplogroup E1b1a* which is unlikely and contradicts the historical account. Of course the Bass DNA surname project on Family Tree DNA.com traces to an African male A1a* who the Administrator now admits must himself have been a Non-Paternal Event. Read my post Pop's Paternity to find out more.

23 and me.com 3 of the 8 Bass listed above are children of Roosevelt Bass jr.

Amongst my dad's matches on AncestryDNA he has only 8

DNA matches who trace to this surname Bass all 5th to distant cousins, two trace to Elizabeth Betsy Bass 1758-1816 wife of James Williams Greene 1706-1805 . Elizabeth Bass was born in Brunswick County, Virginia and died in Hancock, Georgia. Elizabeth according to this book called, The Georgians by Jeanette Holland Austin was the daughter of Thomas Bass 4 Feb 1723 and Mary Clarke. Thomas Bass was the son of William Bass 1690-1746 Dale Parish and Cecilia Branch daughter of Christopher Branch and Ann Sherman granddaughter of Christopher Branch 1602-1681 the immigrant. William Bass 1690 was the son of William Bass 1648-1695 who married Hester Bass who later married Henry Farmer. 

On AncestryDNA my dad and I have several Farmer surname matches more so than Bass surname matches who trace to Hester Bass. But who was HESTER BASS? Did she marry a cousin? There is a William Bass who married Sarah Batton who had a daughter Hester Bass is this the same Hester Bass who married William first and later Henry Farmer? Confusing! Anyway, enough about the Bass family of ancestors distant, I'm certain that most Americans are related autosomally, in some way to that family descending from Nathaniel Basse who arrived in America in 1641.

So, which surname does Family Tree DNA assign as a Y-DNA match to my dad? At 12 markers FTDNA assigns him at a genetic distance of 1 to the surname Norris, at 25 markers FTDNA assigns my dad as a genetic distance of 2 to the following surnames Purcell, Hector, Harden, Walker, Amerson, and Howell, at 37 markers FTDNA assigns him a genetic distance of 3 to one Walker male and a genetic distance of 4 to the surnames Purcell, Hector and Amerson and at 67 markers, FTDNA assigns him a genetic distance of 7 to two Walker males and one Amerson male. What does this mean?

First, let me say that the descendants of Amos Young Amerson admit that Amos was probably himself a non-paternal event who should have been a Walker male instead. Now, FAQ of Family Tree DNA explains genetic distance this way, if two males share a common surname AND are a genetic distance of 0 (zero) then they are very tightly related, if they are a genetic distance of 1 or 2, they are tightly related of 3 or 4 they are related, 4 or 5 they are not recently related but still related, 5 or 6 also related, a genetic distance of 7 is probably related. My dad matches the two Walker males and the one NPE Amerson male at a genetic distance of 7 which means they are probably related. Should my paternal line have been Walker's instead of Bass? I don't know, but I do know so " far we have more Walker surname matches than we do Bass.

Following is what the Amerson's have to say about their family lineage:

First I want to make it CLEAR that the Amerson's that live in Tishomingo 

County and all the Amerson's that are older than my Amos Amerson are true 

Amerson's.

Eudoxia was married to Amos Young Amerson. We laughingly say now that we 

are 1st generation Amerson's. When we did the DNA last year on Two of 

Amos's grandsons the dna came out very different than the Amerson line 

including the DNA of 4 of Amos's great Nephews. We were all surprised. 

The two grandsons that we use for Amos's DNA were from two sons of Eudoxia 

and Amos, so it had to mean that either Amos's mother had not been the 

mother of Benjamin Jasper Amerson's older sons and had been married before 

she married Benjamin Jasper Amerson. It had been considered before that 

there was a possibility that Elizabeth McDonald was Benjamin's second wife. 

There is also a possibility that Amos had been adopted. Unfortunately the 

brother just older than Amos died in 1862 in the Civil War and there were 

two daughters possibly three daughters after Amos that we can not get the 

DNA on. There is one older brother who is questionable. He had some 

children but we haven't been able to find any of them. They disappeared 

after the Civil War. The Last I have (or any one else had) They were living 

Morgan Co., Alabama in 1866 when the State Census was taken. The children 

were young and so was his the brother's wife so she may have remarried. 

We were never sure that he was really Benjamin Jasper's son or a nephew. 

Last September a Walker e mailed me and said that the Amerson DNA No --- was 

the same as her Walker in the DNA Walker trials. We have been trying to 

sort it out ever since last September. I am working with two of the Walker 

people now. Waiting for further word. They just had their big reunion. 

Two of my G Grandmother Elizabeth McDonald sisters married Walker boys in 

Blount Co., Ala. There were also two other Walkers in the area about the 

time Amos was born.

A possibility - Amos was born in 1840 right at the time of the Indian 

Removal. He talked a lot about how terrible it was and to never let anyone 

know that they were part Indian. Now Elizabeth's grandmother was Indian. 

The Walker's also say they have some Indian blood. Maybe as one of the 

stories in the Tishomingo book tells of a Indian (or part Indian) baby was 

left by the Mill of a family and they took her in as their own. There are 

a lot of questions. Amos had said he was 1/4 Indian. But I am sure that my 

friends in Blount County will come up with some answers or more questions."

Hugs

Frieda

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/MSTISHOM/2007-05/1180411304

Figured out the Fergusons!

Ancestry.com Louisiana, Marriages, 1718-1925 [database on-line]. 

Something very spooky just happened. Long ago when I first started "genning" I'd found this marriage cert. that I thought was the marriage certificate of my great paternal grandparents Lucy Bell born 1853 and William Henry born about 1851 but it recorded them getting married in 1894 which would have been too late since my great grandmother Pheba was born in 1878. Anyway, it never made much sense but I got attached to the idea, and reasoned that because it was difficult days during Reconstruction, and possibly so much discrimination existed that it was necessary for them to wait until a better time to get hitched. The cost of a marriage certificate could also have been a factor. 

Well, I was working today on deleting a temporary speculative tree that I grew based on my new DNA findings.  Now that I know more I deleted the tree and re-vamped it. As I was entering my great grandmother's information and was just about to attach the marriage cert# I'd found so long ago, when oops! A strange thing happened, another of my DNA high matches who traces to Cyrus Ferguson born 1814 and Laura nee unknown, born 1834's, daughter Lucy Ferguson also born 1861 jumped up and attached herself to my great grandmother' Lucy's name instead. Although I have several matches to Bell, I have two high matches to Ferguson. 

Great grandmother Lucy whom I always thought was nee Bell born in 1853, was not born the same year that Lucy Ferguson whose birth year is recorded as 1861,was said to have been born! But, Ferguson, actually, makes more sense here! She connects my DNA matches!  Really! It's as if my great grandmother was directing my key strokes, as if she was correcting a decade long error that I had made. I have to wonder now was Lucy a Ferguson and a Bell? You see, Garland who is my second cousin and who traces to these same Fergusons whose family Lucy would be a member of, and myself have not been able to find our connection. He is my SECOND cousin! It should be simple! Duh...Thanks Grandma Lucy! 

I'm sure you were behind this. 

Pop's Paternity

  Pop

Roosevelt Bass Ancestry Compostion; Map view

 I have my pop tested on each of the three companies as well. 
23 and me.com still has him with more than 0.6% unassigned even in speculative view. I reserve that is more of his Native American segments that 23 and me initially assigned us, but later retracted.  According to 23 and me my dad has a high 90.4% Sub-Saharan African, 7.8% European, 4.7% of which is British and Irish, and the rest non-specific European, 1.1% Native American/East Asian, 0.8% South East Asian, 0.2% Native American, and 0.1% Middle Eastern, 0.1% North African.

Roosevelt Bass Jr AncestryDNA.com Ethnicity Estimate

 On AncestryDNA he shows as 91% West African, 2% Asian 1% from Central Asia and 1% from South Asia, 6% European with 4% from Ireland, 1% from West Europe, 1% from Scandinavia and 1% from the Caucasus. Pop's confirmed Y-DNA haplogroup on Family Tree DNA is E-U174 formerly, E1b1a7a. 

Rossevelt Bass Jr haplogroup Family Tree DNA

Roosevelt Bass Jr haplogroup 23 and me

He is not a direct paternal line descendant Y-STR match to the Basse family lineage who traces to John Basse whose progeny arrived in America in the1640's who according to Family Tree DNA, was haplogroup A1a* a haplogroup whose African origin is common amongst the Khoisan people in Central and Northwest Africa.  Haplogroups are families of chromosomes either Y (male) or mitochondrial (female) which trace back in a direct paternal lineage from, father's father's, father or a maternal lineage which traces from mother's mother's mother, to a single mutation at a distant place and time. It is my feeling, that Pop's Bass family chose the surname Bass prior to the 1870 census of Union Parish, Louisiana.  Through 23 and me, we have discovered a confirmed DNA match 4th cousin who traces to Jacob Bass an African American male born about 1810 in North Carolina. Jacob was the former slave of John Bass born 1775, in Wayne County, North Carolina. John Bass died intestate in Perry County, Alabama in 1822, Jacob was listed along with his father Peter and brother Peter in this 1822 inventory.

 This particular, John Bass was born 1775, and was married to Julianne Holliman. He was the son of Edward Bass born 1762 in Dobbs County, North Carolina who died in Wayne County, North Carolina, in 1802. His mother was Sarah (nee Farmer) born 1766 in Wayne North Carolina and she died in 1826 in the same place.