Breaking through brick walls with Y-DNA

Who was the father of my ancestor Electious Thompson, and how did DNA prove it? It is unlikely that this mystery could have ever been solved without Y-DNA testing which zeros in on the paternal line.

What we know from genealogical research

Electious Thompson was a Revolutionary War soldier who married Eliza Alexander 14 August 1780 in Prince George's County, Maryland. He died 30 December 1840 in Morgan County, Alabama. 

I wrote about this in a previous blog post, but I will remind you of what I knew about his father. This came from a newspaper article published in 1841, the year after Electious died.

-From the Huntsville Democrat, July 17, 1841:
THOMPSON, ELECTIUS-"We are assembled, on this interesting occasion, around the grave of Electius Thompson, a revolutionary father, to pay to his memory the last tribute of respect.
 "But we hasten to give you a brief sketch of Electius Thompson. He was born in 1750, near the place where the city of Washington now stands, and died at the advanced age of ninety years. Losing his father when an infant, he was committed to the charge of an uncle, who placed him on a vessel at sea at the early age of nine years, to learn the arduous duties of a sailor . . ."

In the 1840 Federal Census of Morgan County, Alabama, Electious is listed as age 90-100. He is also listed in the column "Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services, included in the foregoing" where his age is listed as 91.

Electious Thompson in 1840 United States Federal Census

As mentioned in my previous post, Finding the father of Electious Thompson, family tradition says that his father died with General Braddock in the French and Indian War (1755). I could never find any record of this, but now, with DNA testing I had a clue.

Thompson DNA

In the Thompson DNA project at Family Tree DNA, here are the men who match my brother's Y-DNA. Only the first 37 Y-STR markers are shown in this image. My brother is kit 38962. Thompson is a very common surname, but the Y-DNA was screaming, "You're related to THESE Thompsons!"

Thompson DNA Project

The only person on this list of matches who had traced his ancestry further than the 1700s was kit 101921. He traced his ancestry to Robert Thompson, born circa 1640. 

I contacted the owner of kit 101921 because I knew from DNA that my ancestor was related to his ancestor. 

I found out that Robert Thompson was the immigrant ancestor to Maryland and had died 1697 in Saint Mary's County, Maryland. Here was kit 101921's ancestry:

Family Tree of Bennett Thompson

On this tree the Robert Thompson who was born in 1720 could not have been the father of Electious because this Robert died in 1807. 

So the father of Electious had to be one of the other sons of George or a grandson of Robert the immigrant through a son other than George. 

I traced down Robert's lines looking for any of his male descendants who had died in the 1750s.  

Y-DNA forces me to rethink my previous assumptions

Decades ago, I had assumed that the newspaper article and 1840 census record were incorrect about the birth year of Electious and that he had really been born in 1755. I made the assumption because the father of Electious had died when Electious was an infant, and because Braddock died in 1755.  

But these many years later I know that the word "infant" legally means a minor. So the father could have died anytime before Electious was nine years old and was "placed on a vessel." 

Y-DNA indicates that I am related to Robert Thompson. But out of all of Robert's male descendants, I found only who died in the 1750s. His name was James Thompson, and his estate was probated in January, 1759. 

This is the only man who could have been the father of Electious, but the information did not fit with the tradition that the father had died with General Braddock. 

Was it possible that he had served with General Braddock and died in another battle in late 1758? I had to look for Maryland soldiers who served in the French and Indian War.  

In the Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 5 No. 3, September 1910, I found this article containing a roster of Maryland troops in the French and Indian War, 1757-1759:

Roster of Maryland Troops, 1757-1759

Now came the nail-biting part. Would I find a James Thompson in this roster? I cried when I got to that page.

James Thompson, Captain Dagworthy's Company, Killed

There was only one James Thompson. He served in Captain Dagworthy's Company from October 9, 1757 to October 11, 1758. He was killed. 

I looked up the history and found that James was killed October 12, 1758 at Fort Ligonier, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. 

His estate was probated in January 1759 in Saint Mary's County, Maryland. If Electious was born in 1749-1750 (as the census and newspaper stated) he would have been nine years old at the time. His uncle then put him in an apprenticeship so that he could learn a trade. 

Tears were streaming down my face. James was my ancestor!

So, to my brother, here's what your DNA did for me:

Thompson family tree expanded after DNA testing

Thank you!

What's next?

Am I done now, or can I use my brother's Y-DNA even more? 

I have proven the lineage of other men in my brother's list of DNA matches and found that we all descend from Robert Thompson. I have gone as far as I can with Y-STR testing, and now I want to find the origin of my immigrant ancestor Robert Thompson. Several researchers have different dates and places of birth for him. 

So to go back even further in time, I have to switch to Y-SNP testing. I ordered the Big Y test from Family Tree DNA. This could be another very long process, but I'm up for it! 

We'll start examining SNP testing in my next blog post. See Y-DNA STRs, SNPs, and haplogroups. 

Will there ever be a reason to upgrade my STRs? See I took a Y-DNA test. Should I upgrade my Y-STRs?

Find out about the amazing connection I found with the Thompson Big Y test results! See The Big Y test from Family Tree DNA can knock your socks off!

Continue the journey further as another Thompson takes the Big Y test. See The Big Y test could be the best DNA test ever!

Family Tree DNA and Hurricane Harvey

As I have been writing about Y-DNA testing at Family Tree DNA, I have been wondering how the business and its employees are doing since they are located in Houston where Hurricane Harvey has wreaked massive devastation this week. I am so happy to see the following news that Family Tree DNA posted on their Facebook page today:

Family Tree DNA Update:
We are extremely thankful for your patience and concern for our employees. The Family Tree DNA building has remained fairly unharmed by the floods but our first concern is for our employees. Therefore, we have closed the office until it is safe for them to commute. We expect the office to open up later this week and will keep you updated.
In the meantime, we want to address many of the questions we are getting from our extended family at Family Tree DNA.
Is my DNA safe?
Yes, your DNA is safe. Our building has remained fairly unharmed and the lab is located on one of the top floors of the building. We’ve had people monitoring everything and can tell you that your DNA is safe and protected. We were well prepared for this at the building.
If I’ve bought a test recently is it okay to ship back or should I wait?
Yes, it is okay to ship back. The post office will hold it until they are able to deliver.
Can I still order a test, add-on, or upgrade?
Yes, you can still place orders online. Some customer service members are working from home but they are stretched thin. Therefore, we ask that you place all orders online.
Order fulfillment and shipping:
NEW KIT ORDERS: As soon as it is safe for our employees to commute we will hit the ground running to get any new test kits shipped out. We hope to be back in the office by the middle or end of this week. Therefore, shipping may be delayed by a few days.
EXISTING KIT ORDERS: If you have ordered an add-on test or upgrade we do not expect your results to be delayed by more than one or two days from the average fulfillment time. This is due to the fact that we already have your DNA at the lab.
I ordered a kit but have not received a confirmation email:
Our servers are currently turned off in the building. If you did not receive a confirmation email, expect to have one in your inbox in the next day or so. We apologize.
Again, we appreciate your patience and will continue to update you.
Sincerely,
Family Tree DNA

Setting up for great DNA matches

If we hope to find more DNA matches, we have to first get our DNA accounts set up properly, create some online family trees, and then advertise like crazy.

Since I was in the process of finding my paternal surname line, I first ordered a Y-DNA test from Family Tree DNA (FTDNA). Then I had to properly set up my FTDNA account. Here are the important steps.

ACCOUNT SETTINGS

First, log into www.familytreedna.com (or ftdna.com -- they both work) with your kit number and password. Next, click on your name in the upper-right of the screen to bring up the drop-down menu.

Whether you click My Profile, Privacy Settings, or Account Settings, you will see the following tabs. You will want to click on each one of them.

On the Contact Information tab, make sure that your email address is correct so that people on your list of matches can contact you. Make sure that your mailing address is current in case Family Tree DNA needs to send you another kit (this Thompson kit is now on its second DNA sample because I have run so many tests).

On the Account Settings tab there is a section called My Story. Here is where I post links to my online family trees and any other information I think is important. You may want to add a profile photo because people are more likely to contact someone with a photo.

On the Genealogy tab you will want to pay special attention to all three links: the Family Tree, Earliest Known Ancestors, and the Surnames link.

On the Family Tree link, change the default settings, and at least set Deceased People Born 100+ Years Ago to "Public."

In the Earliest Known Ancestors there is a section for Direct Paternal and Direct Maternal. These are for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). In the Direct Paternal section you enter the name of your most distant known ancestor on your father's side (your father's father's father's father . . .). This is the name that will appear on all Y-DNA projects. Enter a name, date, and place.  Here's an example: "Electious Thompson, b. 1750 Maryland."  In the Direct Maternal you enter your mother's mother's mother . . .). This name will appear on all mitochondrial DNA projects.

The Surnames section is for autosomal DNA (the Family Finder test). Here you will edit surname information that will be created once you add your family tree.

Next, click the Beneficiary Information, and enter the contact information for someone who can take over your account when, at some time in the future, you are no longer able to do it. Remember, we are setting up for the long term!

Last, click Privacy and Sharing. This one is critical. Change almost all of the default privacy settings.  For example, change "Who can view my DNA results in group projects?" to "Anyone." Otherwise you will join a project but nobody will be able to see your results. Our results are only useful when we compare them to others.

THE ESSENTIAL FAMILY TREE

Now, let's look at the importance of adding a family tree. This is critical for autosomal DNA (FTDNA's Family Finder test) because you will be trying to find matches on all of your ancestral lines. Family Trees are very important for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA too. 

Below is a portion of the Thompson surname project at Family Tree DNA. Notice that on the DNA Results page of Y-DNA surname projects all I can see is the name of the most distant known ancestor.  It appears in the Paternal Ancestor Name column. 

The name that appears is the information that each man entered into the Earliest Known Ancestors setting above. I can see the ancestor's name, but I can't see how each man is related to his ancestor.

However, I can see a family tree for each of my matches, if they have added one to their account. I need to log into my Family Tree DNA account and go to myFTDNA>Y-DNA>Matches to see my list of Y-DNA matches.

Here is my list of Y-DNA matches:

Notice that many of these people have a blue icon under their name that looks like this:

This means that these people have added a family tree. If I click that icon I can see their tree. Family trees are absolutely essential to DNA testing, so you will want to create one immediately and keep it updated as you make new discoveries.

BUILDING YOUR FAMILY TREE

Log into your Family Tree DNA account. On the left side of your screen click on myFTDNA, then Family Tree.

You will be taken to this screen where you can build your online family tree:

You will start with yourself and then add your parents, grandparents, etc. Add as much birth and death information as you can. You can also add descendants of all of your ancestors--the more, the better! You will be using this tree for all of your DNA tests including Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and autosomal DNA.

Adding each ancestor one-by-one is fine if this is your first tree, but what if you already have a family tree? You certainly don't want to start over from scratch!

If you have a family tree in a genealogical software program or in an online database, in most cases you can export your tree and upload it to other software programs or websites. You will be using something called a GEDCOM file which stands for GEnealogical Data COMmunications.

EXPORTING A TREE FROM ANCESTRY.COM

Since a large number of people have family trees at Ancestry.com I will show you how export your Ancestry family tree and load it to Family Tree DNA.

Log into your Ancestry.com account. Click on the Trees tab, then select the tree you want to export. I named one of my trees "DNA tree," and that is the one I will export.

Next, click on the name of your tree, then click Tree Settings in the drop-down menu.

Once you're on the Tree Settings page look at the right side of the screen, and scroll down until you see the "Manage your tree" section. Click Export Tree.

This will start the process of downloading a GEDCOM file for you.

Once the processing has finished you will see this ink:

Click Download Your GEDCOM File. This file will be downloaded to your default download folder (usually the "Downloads" folder on your computer). The file name will be the name of your tree followed by .ged.

UPLOADING YOUR GEDCOM TO FAMILY TREE DNA

Now, again, log into your Family Tree DNA account. On the left side of your screen click on myFTDNA, then Family Tree. On the next screen click Upload GEDCOM, and select the file you downloaded.  Mine was called "DNA Tree.ged"

You're ready to go!

FINDING FAMILY MEMBERS FOR DNA TESTING

In 2005 I only had one Y-DNA match, so I needed to find other men to test, too. I wanted to find descendants of my ancestor, Electious Thompson, and determine what his Y-DNA results would have looked like. I needed to find descendants from different lines to compare. I also wanted to advertise my Thompson DNA results to leave a permanent record and to encourage other people to test.

Although genealogists may have family trees on multiple websites, a large number of them will have a tree at Ancestry.com. So on my tree at Ancestry.com I traced descendants of Electious Thompson. I then took screen shots of my paternal DNA results and posted the image to every direct-line male ancestor.  Here's an example:

The most important thing is to MAKE YOUR TREE PUBLIC! A private family tree is useless for DNA testing. You want other people to see your documented ancestry and your DNA results. You want them to contact you! 

I have had many people contact me about my tree. When they do, I look to see if they are a good DNA testing candidate and ask if they'd be willing to do a DNA test. I also go looking for people, not just on my Thompson line but on all family lines. 

For example, if I want to find more about my mother's father's family through Y-DNA testing I have to look for a male cousin who is in the direct male line. I trace up each family line, then back down to find a male descendant still carrying the surname of interest. 

I search public family trees for my ancestor's name, then see how the owner of the tree is related to my ancestor. I contact these people, establish a relationship, then ask if they'd be willing to take a DNA test so that we can extend our family line. 

This has worked many, many times. I now have Y-DNA for several of my ancestral surnames.

I recruited a few descendants of Electious Thompson to take a Y-DNA test. Other people showed up as matches by testing on their own. They have not all joined the Thompson DNA project, but most have.

DNA PROGRESS

After establishing family trees, posting my DNA in multiple places, and recruiting others to take a Y-DNA test, here are the people related to me in the Thompson DNA project:

All of these people are related, and all except one were stuck in the 1700s. But Kit 101921 stated that he was descended from Robert Thompson, born about 1640. Of course, I could only see Robert's name, not any details about him or his descendants. 

I knew I was somehow related to Robert Thompson because we have matching Y-DNA, but I didn't know how we were related. So I contacted the owner of Kit 101921. Did he have a family tree? Yes, he did. And his tree solved my mystery. 

Who was the father of Electious Thompson, and how did DNA prove it?  You're going to find out, and it's incredible! See Breaking through brick walls with Y-DNA.

Surname Projects: Examining my first Y-DNA match

After I ordered a Y-DNA test from Family Tree DNA, I wanted to join a surname project.  I should have joined the project before ordering the test because I would have gotten a discount on the test.  So after receiving my results, how did I join the Thompson DNA Project? Here's the general procedure. Log into your account, then click Projects>Join a Project.

On the next page you will first see a section called Matching Projects. This is a list of projects that include your surname. Some of these projects will be relevant to you, but some will  not.

Click the name of the project you wish to join. The Thompson surname project appears on my Matching Projects list.

If you want to see other projects go to the bottom of the Matching Projects section to see all projects. There are even more sections which are not shown in the image below.

You will want to become very familiar with this process because you will be joining multiple projects to get the most from your DNA results.  It does not cost to join any projects, so you can join as many as you wish. If you wanted to find the Thompson surname project you can see that there are 296 surname projects that start with the letter T.  Click on T:

Then go through the alphabetical list of surnames. You may need to check variant spellings. Now we will click on Thompson.

You can click the website link to see the project before you join, or just click the orange Join link to become a member of the project. Some projects screen participants before they join, but most do not.

So now we're in the Thompson project. You will immediately appear in the project, but your placement within the project may change after your project administrator looks at your results. You can access any of your projects by going to Projects>Manage My Projects.

The first project I joined was the Thompson project, but over the years I have done more testing and have joined multiple projects for my brother's kit:

Ok, now let's click on the Thompson project! The Thompson surname project has more than 1000 members (and some projects have many more), so it can be bewildering at first. My kit does not appear anywhere on the page below. In the image the arrow is pointing to the page size which is automatically set to 500.  I need to change the page size if I want to see everyone on the same webpage, or I can click page by page until I find my results.

I will reset the page size to 1200:

Now I can find my kit!  When I first started I had tested 37 markers and had only one match. Here is how it looked [The only difference from the results screen below and the original results is the Haplogroup column because we have both now been SNP tested--I have done the BigY test and the other man has tested an FTDNA SNP pack. We will examine what that means in a future post.]

If you refer to my previous blog post, What do I do with my Y-DNA results?, you will see that Family Tree DNA stated that my brother was a genetic distance of 4 from the man who descends from Augustus M Thompson. We can now see what that means. These two kits are mismatching by one number each at four locations: DYS448, DYS456, DYS576, and CDY. If they were very closely related there might be no mismatches. At a genetic distance of four at 37 markers, this is at the edge of what Family Tree DNA considers to be a match. So this does not appear to be a close match.  I tried very hard to find our genealogical relationship, but even though I've been doing genealogy for decades and even do it professionally I could not find our common ancestor. Our common ancestor was further back than my Electious Thompson.

How frustrating! What now? I had to hope that other Thompsons would test, and I even had to recruit some myself. We will next look at this process in the next post, Setting up for great DNA matches. We will then see the amazing power of Y-DNA testing.

What do I do with my Y-DNA results?

I ordered a 37-marker Y-DNA test for my brother in 2005 to see if we could extend the Thompson line with DNA. Let's examine what to do when you take a Y-DNA test.

When you first order the test, you will be given a kit number and password. You will use this to access your results online. But it is not obvious what to do when you get your results. You will see this section on your account page:

What do I do with all of that?  Where are my results, and what do I do with them?  Let's first click on the Y-STR Results (the 8th item above).

What does the term Y-STR mean?  The STR test is the first Y-DNA test that you order at Family Tree DNA. STR stands for Short Tandem Repeat. A Short Tandem Repeat means that a short series of bases (nucleotides) is repeated side-by-side several times, something like a hiccup.

Here's an STR example: AGATAGATAGATAGATAGATAGATAGATAGAT. In this example, the sequence "AGAT" is repeated 8 times. There are many known locations on the Y-chromosome where these Short Tandem Repeats occur. Each of these locations is identified by a marker. 

The Thompson DNA test was a 37-marker test, so Family Tree DNA examined 37 locations on the Y-chromosome and reported the number of repeats. 

The first location was identified with the marker DYS393 which is DNA Y-chromosome Segment 393. At this marker the number of repeats was counted and reported--my brother had 13 Short Tandem Repeats at the location DYS393. Here are the complete results:

If that's all we got, the results would be useless. The entire purpose of DNA testing is to see who matches you. 

So the good news is that you don't need to understand or remember any of the information about STRs to use Y-DNA. You need to see who matches you, find out exactly how they match, compare family trees, and find additional people to do DNA testing to prove your theories.

Family Tree DNA has a database that finds matches for you. We will now look at the Matches icon in the first image above. This is how the results appear today:

You can see by the Match Date column that in 2005 my brother had only one match. That 2005 match is at the bottom of the list and is a descendant of Augustus M Thompson. This man is not an exact match--we know that because the Genetic Distance Column says that he has a genetic distance of 4. This means that on his 37-marker results he is mismatching my brother by 4 numbers. 

Again, that's not very useful unless we know which markers he is matching and which ones he isn't. For that, the first place you will turn is to your surname project because all of the results will be displayed there. If your match has not joined your surname project you will want to contact him by email.

The links that appear below each name will provide a way to contact the person, view his family tree if he has submitted one, and more.

We will examine various other issues (like why are there all those other surnames on the list like Akins, Barton, Brown, . . . ?) in subsequent blog posts, but for the next one let's head to the surname project to see if we can make sense of all of this. See Surname Projects: Examining my first Y-DNA match.

Finding the father of Electious Thompson

For decades, all I've known is that my direct paternal line ends with a man named Electious Thompson who was born 1750 in Maryland and died in Morgan County, Alabama, in 1840.  

I lived in Northern Virginia for many years, and I made countless trips to the National Archives and to various Maryland archives and libraries to see if I could find the name of his father. Electious had lived long enough to collect a pension for his Revolutionary War service, so I read his pension application for clues. I went through land records, church records, probate records, and anything else I could find. All to no avail.

A tribute to Electious (spelled "Electius" in the newspaper) was published in the Huntsville Democrat July 17, 1841. It began:

THOMPSON, ELECTIUS-"We are assembled, on this interesting occasion, around the grave of Electius Thompson, a revolutionary father, to pay to his memory the last tribute of respect.
 "But we hasten to give you a brief sketch of Electius Thompson. He was born in 1750, near the place where the city of Washington now stands, and died at the advanced age of ninety years. Losing his father when an infant, he was committed to the charge of an uncle, who placed him on a vessel at sea at the early age of nine years, to learn the arduous duties of a sailor. . . ."

Family tradition states that the father of Electious was killed at the 1755 defeat of General Braddock in the French and Indian War. Even though the newspaper tribute stated that Electious was born in 1750, I determined that Electious was probably born in 1755 because he was an "infant" when his father died.  However, no matter where we looked, no researchers could determine the father's identity.

Finally, in 2005 I was so frustrated with the search that I decided to try DNA testing. The only tests that were available at the time were Y-chromosome STR tests and mitochondrial DNA tests.  

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was out of the question because mtDNA is inherited from the maternal line. I didn't have a Y-chromosome, and my male ancestors were all deceased. 

But I did have two brothers, and they should be carrying the Thompson DNA. I decided to test one of my brothers.

I asked my brother if he would take a DNA test for me. He said, "You know I really don't care about that stuff." I replied, "But I do, and I'm willing to pay for the test." He consented.

Could Y-DNA solve a mystery like this? I had to try. There was no other option. We will begin the DNA testing process in the next post by examining What do I do with my Y-DNA results?

Y-DNA Testing

I am going to start a long process of showing how to solve ancestry with Y-DNA. Unfortunately, you don't have a lot of choices with Y-DNA like you do with autosomal DNA. There is only one company that does Y-DNA testing and also has a large matching database. It is Family Tree DNA.

The Y-chromosome is only carried by men; that's what makes them males. So only men can do Y-DNA testing. What can women do? Test your father, brother, male cousin, etc. 

The Y-chromosome is passed from father to son, so it is a fantastic test to use for finding the origins of your birth surname. This test will help you find your father's father's father's father . . . which is the top line of a horizontal pedigree chart or the left line of a vertical pedigree chart.

Y-DNA inheritance

Y-DNA testing has radically changed in the past couple of years because you can now use two different tests to trace your paternal line: an STR (Short Tandem Repeat) test, and an SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) test. 

For many years, only STR testing was useful for genealogy, and SNP testing was for deep ancestry. But that changed at Family Tree DNA when they introduced the BigY test a few years ago. The BigY is a SNP discovery test which means that it finds new SNPs in your Y-Chromosome. So now SNP testing has moved into the genealogical time frame.

Ultimately, you will want to do two different tests to solve your paternal ancestry, an STR test and an SNP test. You will order the STR test first. To get the best price on your STR test, go to familytreedna.com (or ftdna.com) and join a project before ordering your test. Family Tree DNA gives a discount on the first test to project members.

You will order the Y-37, Y-67, or Y-111 test.  Each of these tests a certain number of locations on the Y-chromosome, so the Y-37 tests 37 different locations, the Y-67 tests 67 locations, etc. The Y-111 is, by far, the best test because obviously more testing is better than less. But because Family Tree DNA will store your DNA you can start with the Y-37 or Y-67 and upgrade later.

I will show how all of these tests work in subsequent blogs. Hang on! It's going to get amazing. We will start with trying to solve a mystery and then show each step in the progression. So next see Finding the Father of Electious Thompson.