Genetic Communities and the Lies we Buy Ourselves

With much aggravation taken as penance I have finally been able to put to rest a cluster of four supposed Ancestor Discoveries (Beta). Turns out the four were Grandparents of second cousin 3x named Jessie May Kelly, a grandchild of the Day family. I am fairly disappointed that they were none relatives to me and indeed come from a branch I was just pondering over regarding the percentage of shared DNA.

I have had a week recently where I have been contacted only by paternal relations to me, and those I think are outside of my x-inheritance. It makes me wonder then about the randomness of dna assignment and how much if any I can really trust Ancestry.com services. I am up to five genetic companies which have my dna sample and have rendered ethnicity lists. There is some major variation between them all, but yet also a seeming obvious underlying cause. Clustering populations together creates a wide variety. My initial thought was that where France goes so do I, but there is also a question of whether France itself is one unit. Northern France is flavored with Britain as much as east and south are peppered with other border countries. Ancestry.com is the only of five companies to declare any Irish, while FTDNA tells me I have recent Amerindian...on 23andMe my West African is disappearing by the minute.

The New Genetic Communities feature looks quite fun and I have wanted an aggregated list of birthplaces for a map for quite sometime. While I made my own by hand once or twice they never are very accurate when new data is arriving each day or even week. A major problem that seems to show up is first degree relatives getting drastically different communities. My Father for example, has at least four or five with many placed overseas or in the American south, think Confederacy. I on the other hand have only a single group for French settlers along the St. Lawrence, excluding regions relevant to my father. It seems quite odd to be sharing no groups with a parent and I have heard this from other users as well.

So what is the basis for communities? It would seem to be a macro version of dna circles, of which parents and children should share. Yet I am only seeing confusion and complaints. Given the differences in my parents ethnic background there should be more. There just isn't...

The Curious Trail of Catharine Dufour

It’s always great to hear from people interested in family history, at least that’s what I tell myself. I let my website go stale for some time now as I was finishing undergraduate school and wasting my free time on video gaming. I gather that at some point Google updated its service protocols making my page live in Web searches. Suddenly I have people who were wholly uninterested to help seeing my document list and deciding they have loud opinions to share. I ranted some posts ago about people not understanding the organic nature of self publishing versus professional works. No doubt the comments and demands would eventually fall onto my favorite topic, Catharine Dufour. I was lucky that the third party relation who wanted my work indeed contacted Mr. Charpentier of my post “midnights are not for making friends”. He was kind enough to look into the information our family has especially as he is in my opinion a specialist in French river region history. The work has come out most fruitful this time, a majority of that owning to Mr. Charpentier’s access not mine.

Catharine’s birth date has always been passed down since her sons based on the interview she gave in 1905. While her husband was alive however documents including her in his household indicated an 1813 birth year. The summative works of French genealogy do not have an individual born in 1805 to any of the Dufour, Deveaux couples. The death certificate that I was provided an image copy of by a 3^rd cousin does state Mr. Duforse as Catharine’s father. Nay, the Duforse name is nonexistent in records of that period. Adjusting her birth date uncovers a slew of records due the family most especially while they lived in Canada for some years. Three of the known children now have French catholic baptism statements. One of these children was of the missing portion of eleven that did not survive to adulthood. Marie- Agathe Jones died the same year that Edward Junior’s baptism took place. Indeed it was Catharine’s grandmother, Josephe Garand, who sponsored his baptism as Edouard Jones at her local parish. The same parish had baptized Henry John earlier as Honoré Jones. As French culture in that area was dying out it is not surprising that the children simply lost sight of their heritage.

Yet what about Catharine’s account in the newspaper, does this all not invalidate it? Not exactly.  Catherine’s parents by document consensus were Pierre Louis Dufour and Archange Garand married in 1811 as St. Anne Cathedral. As a family they lived in Frenchtown, a small settlement south of Fort Detroit. While Catharine was born at the height of the war she could not have witnessed the surrender. However she may well have been mistaking the final abandonment of the Frenchtown settlement due to increasing raids and attacks. The emerging soldiers in uniform may well have been coming to protect the settlement. The direction as well that she describes her home from the Fort agrees with the assertion she is recalling Frenchtown. Now while I am ashamed of my third party relative’s reaction to this data I can also say that my own qualms regarding it are just as silly. Indeed this would seem to dismiss the assertion that Catharine was a Métis child. Yet not enough is known of her mother Archange Garand to me yet as well as Louis Dufour’s mother also being undiscovered. I look forward to finding more documents to uncover the Dufour/Dautour/ Garand connection. Meanwhile I have work to update my website to keep me busy!

Unzipping My Raw DNA, Part One

It's no secret that I was wholly unimpressed with the ethnicity finder on Ancestry.com and it's lack of features. So now that the voices of the many have been heard and my raw data is available I've tried to resist the urge to spread it around like jam on the internet. My first stop was GEDMatch who unfortunately are having server issues because of so many new Ancestry submissions. Moving on then I headed over to Interprenome that is headed by Stanford university science department staff/students.

This new emulator took me from too little data to quite substantially too much!

One of the questions that came about for me was the only unique factor on my AncestryDNA page was a small portion of unspecific southern european. I have been racking my brain and looking for any cooralation in my records that could account for that. The only match I made was to the obscure Italian women who married into the FitzAlan royalty quite far back in my tree's centuries. I am of the opinion that I also need a more specific study journal of my findings since I recall while working inside the Aleramici family in my tree I also came across some women of Spain. The non-specificity even lead too some uncomfortable considerations of probable NPE's and adoption excuses. Interprenome has provided me a unexpected answer in the pan-euro scale. I am quite well into Spanish distribution.

The issue remained of my Cryptozoic-Jewish history supposedly among the women of my father's father ancestry. So using the Asia logarithm I found myself well placed among the Pathan, Sindhi, and Hazara. My closest east/central asian is the Miao Zu people of southern china. To be honest I had no expectations of the Asia group so to find myself clearly defined as a Persian descendant I abesolutley had to know whether I placed on the Pan-Judica map.

Yet another surprise lay for me. I do not place close enough for an exact kinship among the Jewish sample studies. My personal opinion on this is then that I don't have actual Jewish ancestry except to such a minor degree. My Persian history however is echo'ed twice over by my closest match being Iranian and Turkish.

The accuracy of this information of course isn't proven until I run the raw data through GEDMatch. I am hoping to learn my MTDNA haplogroup which according to Interprenome is probably (N1 derivative), but that is just a random guess with very little knowledge behind it.

I look forward to my GEDMatch being finished...hopefully sooner than 4-6 weeks... in order to review these findings and demolish any errors or misgivings I have.

Forms of Respect

So I'm dog sitting this week and with the house empty I've located the records the Canadian Military sent my mom about her Father. Besides copying them I decided to look up some specifics. For one thing my grandfather Harvey was in twice as long as I thought. He began in September of 1944 with the 1st Battalion of Kings Own Rifles of Canada. What's more interesting is the rank waffling he did. Before he was moved to the RCAF he achieved the rank of Colonel. Yet because he did at most costal defense he relinquished that rank and pay increase. After a leave of absence that I believe resulted in my uncle he returned to the war. This time not as a rifleman but a instructor he obtained the rank of acting Sargent. Yet again and to the annoyance of my grandmother I'm sure he relinquished the rank and pay privileges. I wish he was alive today to talk about he rationale for not keeping a military legacy.

I'm thinking that I may try to collect flashing and medals to create a framed memorial. Considering I have little to know hand me downs from my grandpa I'd love to make representations I him. Another interesting find this week was looking into the pedigree of some of my father's grandmothers I came across more Welsh relatives. That echo's the genetic profile I have from Ancestry's DNA test. There is also a new addition to my extended family this week which prompts me to think about children. My fiancée and I share a strong Irish and Austro Bavarian percentage. I imagine our children will be named in that fashion but of course I am titillated alone by the Jones of Wales tartan I found online during some late night browsing. 

...and that's why I like Highland Cows!

A while before I got heavy into genealogy itself I had stumbled upon physical anthropology. While it has been debunked for quite sometime there is a certain level of accuracy it portrays. Most people would remember it from it's use for eugenics during the Nazi regime but that is truly not it's purpose. Today shows like "Bones" still use it to determine ethnic range for deceased and often facial reconstruction has to incorporate some of it to give a accurate result. It is simple fact that Asian's have higher and more delicate nasal cavities whereas African peoples tend to have a wider ridge across the nose. These facts have really no purpose at all except for being used as a tool themselves.

So after learning what I was looking for in the sub-race characteristics I began the process of taking profile pictures and head measurements. For the most part I came up with the generic Dinaric group which is most profound accross europe itself. Upon asking some other intrested students to also look at my findings they came up with East-Baltid and I simply laughed it off as a result of my weight. After all the majority of my research has led me to geographic populations that would have the Dinaric classification or even a Nordic trait. However I should not have overlooked it so quickly I think.

A while back I discovered a cousin on ancestry named Jane Storm. Until then I hadn't focused on the German grandmother of my own french line at all, Lezelie Brunner. However Lezelie's parentage leads straight back to the Sturm (Storm) family that I share with Jane. Today i have come across an interesting fact regarding the couple at which I join Jane's heritage. Johann Jacob Brunner who married Maria Barbra Sturm, had parents that both came from the Kingdom of Bavaria. This would be close enough to the edge of Germany that it would fall within the range of the East-Baltic characteristic type. So perhaps I was not only a bit to quick to judge but also a bit biased against Germany itself. After all it is quite put down in American classrooms as the mastermind of both World Wars. Obviously I have more to learn.

My genetic profile on Ancestry however leans towards a Nordic and British heritage at least in my active DNA. British however brings up the Borreby group trait which is in someways mistakable with East Baltic because of the wide face. Being over 86% north European though makes me more inclined to believe that my hybridization of types is within those groups. My mother, for example, is naturally blue eyed and dark blonde yet my Dad is a obvious Borreby with Mediterranean hints. Speaking of disparity my Ancestry DNA match to my father was unlocked recently and I see that my 8% southern European does not come from him! This was a bit of a shock but it is interesting since I have yet to match my mother to anything except it's neighbors Germany and France. If I am a Borreby at my core however that explains why I think Highland cows are the most adorable barn animals I've ever seen.

Merry Christmas from Brittania

The time has come that my long awaited DNA testing results are in. As mentioned before my Father didn't like his results but I've been reading more about that. As the Genetic Genealogist puts it "Everybody has two tree's!" So I expected the unexpected but also held fast to the fact that I probablly inherited the more obvious traits from my French line in my mother's tree and now a suspected grouping in my Father's. Much to my surprise I came up with results more like what my Father had expected for himself.

To the left is the snippet from my results placing me well into the Welsh/Irish and English inheritance both my parents carry. It was also looking at this that I realized some of the birth locations for my relatives in France must be formatted wrong because they aren't even on the map here. I assumed that I inherited the Scandinavian from my Dad but in relative finder we don't match there which is odd since he has a high percentage as well.


So this has led me into a bit of a History lesson. Having just watched the "Monarchy: UK" show on Netflix I was rather refreshed on some of the Norman conquest details from my supposed 'Stewart' connection. I used this to explain to my Father why his Central European was probably so high since Norman soldiers settled mostly in that area taking indigenous wives as did there sons for generations.

The southern European is my big surprise which also led to some historical research. I came across two theories besides of course a recent 'npe' (Non Paternity Event). The first is that recent studies have shown that Scottish stock was descended from a paleohispanic peoples called Iberians. Their fisherman it said crossed the bay of Biscay about 6,000 years ago into the Isles.

As an after thought it is also possible that a portion of my southern French families could have actually been Italians living abroad. The Boissil's (Boussey) and Grossejambe's both dead end about 1600.

Now more intresting is a more recent migration via conquest before the Normans. When Rome was at it's end as an empire around 300 AD it had just worked it's way into the British Isles. As the war period broke down the Military men settled in Britain, however it was for 200 years (since the winning of Britain), illegal for Roman men to marry local women. This meant that they shipped in women from other countries in the roman empire like Spain, Italy and France. So by the time the law was lifted there was a strong genetic group of Romans within the confines of Britain. This is why a distinct level of Roman survives today in people of British descent despite their lack of knowledge to it. I look forward to more detail being added to the algorithms in the future especially to uncover my 6% unknown which is twice the amount of my fathers. For now I will plug away trying to find this Italian or Hispanic connection I have.

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Read More about Iberians: Independent News/ Wikipedia
Rome in Britain: Surprising DNA

Endless Discovery

Today I am off to Amherstburg, Canada to visit my Grandmother Lucienna. I intended to have many questions to ask her but the Wismer family is fairly well researched already so I have little need except to enjoy humorous tales. I do of course have some hope that she may have pictures of her maternal grandparents, the Mills, who don't seem to be researched anywhere else. This may be due to the fact that like my Grandfather Harvey Jones's family most of the generations have since passed on and what little grandchildren my age remain have no interest. I thoroughly enjoy collecting images on my family especially since I don't particularly match any living relatives that closely.

Yesterday I considered the idea of tracking down a history course on Canada that I could take. It seems most colleges do not offer it so I settled into a quick reading of the Wikipedia page. The word Acadian came up and I was curious enough to read through it wondering what background this cultural group had. It seems Acadian could be in both of my parents tree's with my Paternal lines in Maine and now it seems through so quick luck today I have my answer in my mother's tree.

It is no new knowledge that I greatly honor my grandfather's Metis heritage from his father and as it turns out his mother also had a metis heritage of her own. Within a maternal offshoot from the Boussey's to the LaPierre's I came across my 9th Great Grandmother, Anne Marie Fauconnier Dit Metisse, born between 1616-1631 at the Metis settlement in Port Royal, Nova Scotia. She had married a Acadian man named Rene Raimbault, whose daughter Jeanne married Francois LaPierre. Jeanne's grand daughter Angelique married Nicholas Boissy (Boussey) my 6th Great Grandfather. All of this is such an amazing find since I so recently stumbled upon the new knowledge of the Acadian's perhaps it is serendipitous.  It appears that Anne Marie may have been Micmac Indian and luckily she has more records than most Indian women of that time. Further research into both the Acadian's and the life of Anne Marie will of course be a new focus for me.

Finding Cousins

My sister Heather has been commenting that I spend too much of my research time on dead sources when we have plenty of living cousins to find. She is right of course that I have almost no focus on living relatives. This is mostly due to how proliferative my 'Wismer' family has been up in Canada. Cousins upon cousins.

After the Leitzke, Neitzke debacle last week I am slightly more interested in living relatives than I have been in the past. As a change I ended up diving into the Boussey (Boissy) line of my Maternal Grandfather's tree. This would be the famous 'Fillies du Roi' decendency for which I have considered putting in a application to the society. A lot of my data has come from a user named 'AlyceBoussy' on Ancestry and I was curious enough to track her line from our common ancestor down.

It was fairly exciting to see that for the most part she was in a similar family design as I was with one or two families marrying siblings doubling our genetic comparisons. Closer however to recent I find that while her Father was predominantly french he married a lovely Italian woman. Following my own tree you have a predominately French woman marrying a Welshman. The difference that these  derivatives might make was tantalizing. I began to wonder whether she would have a interest in conversing with me.

So as I found Alyce's information I found that she had unfortunately passed away about 4 years ago and the family had not taken down her work. Four years is when I began doing research and so I missed a chance to reach out to a cousin I didn't know I had and find a connection that I am missing to French culture. This is especially disheartening since it is my Grandfather's family that I have little to no knowledge of.  His mother had been a Boussey and so I am grateful to Alyce's family for not taking down her work. Yet here I sit still missing my contacts as well from the Jones family line for most of my Grandfather's brothers: Murray, Floyd, Henry, & Ralph all predeceased him. After my grandfather's death the families separated and the 'Jones & Sons, LTD' was dissolved.

As of now I have placed in over 1700 unique people into my tree and most of those in the past week are cousins that I am no longer willing to miss out on. Perhaps I will find the secret to the Jones' in the old reunion papers that my Grandmother Lucienna has sent to me through my mother.

Who is Henry Dupuis?

My Great (x3) Grandmother Catharine is a enigma. Upon her death in 1912 she had stated that she never left the great lakes in all her life. According to limited genealogical data her father was Peter Duforce of Fort Detroit, a Frenchman. Her death certificate written at a Nursing home in Big Rapids, Michigan tells a different story. (K)Catherine according to that document was daughter of Henry Dupuis, a Belgian immigrant. So who is this Henry Dupuis and how could he possibly be her father?

In searching the back story of Peter Dufour born of Bonvivant in New France (1754) one comes across the general consensus that Peter was a traveling man. Thinking back to the research shared with me by Guy Carpentier,of the Dufour Family organization, we have evidence that post revolution Peter traveled under assumed names between the lakes and river fronts. Peter eventually retook his name over time and it is here that we find him mentioned in the journal's of  John Baptiste Perrualt II, which are published in "Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections" in 1909". Perrault began traveling in 1783 with the local fur trade alliances down the Mississippi. His companions for this trip are named as Canadian men: Mr. Sacharit of Quebec;  St.Germain, Mr. Robert & Mr. Dupuis of Maskinong; Antoine & Francois Beauchemin, Manard, L.Lavalle of Sorel & Yamaska. Marchesseau sold all his goods in the trade to Chouteau, of St-Louis.
It is here that we have the first appearance of Dupuis alongside a trip that would fall headlong into a encounter with Peter Dufour (alias Dufaut).

"...Upon entering the river the next day and doubling the point of the little lake, we saw a wintering-house. It was that of Mr. Dufaut, come from Grand Portage, clerk for NW. and we stopped before his door. As Mr.Kay had perhaps taken only one drink he now took the second which made him ill-tempered so that instead of receiving politely Mr. Dufaut, who came down to meet him on the beach, he treated him rudely... "


At this time Dufour and children of related surnames began to be birthed in the area in which both Dupuis and Peter Dufour travelled. A Pierre Dufault for example appears in one of the areas know to be propagated by Pierre son of Bonvivant.

Pierre Dufault, Ojibwa Metis, b-1815 Sault Ste Marie son of Ojibwa Metis parents, listed March 28, 1836 treaty.

It was popular at the time for Frenchmen to have multiple families because the Catholic church did not always honor marriages between frenchmen and Indians. It is possible that Catherine's mother was never legally wed which explains the lack of documentation. However family story claims that there is a existing newspaper announcement from the times stating that Pierre Dufour had wed an indian woman. For now information like that remains a holy grail. Yet I cannot dismiss the existence of Henry Dupuis from Belgium.

A History Divided

As readers no doubt would know my focus on genealogy always seems to come back to the War of 1812 within the Detroit River area. At the time our nation was liberal and as such the peoples straddled lands that today are quite separate. While renewing my research interest I came to the realization that this division is a great hurdle to my record finding.

My maternal line consists of a strong influx of French and German Canadians all of who traveled quite often into Michigan. This creates a disparity between records. While I can easily search the Library of Canada's Genealogical supply I am limited in my findings due to coresidency or immigration. Sadly during this period not only were the first generational wave immigrants themselves, from France (or otherwise), but their children then became Canadian immigrants into the United States. 

Growing up in my day I have always visited my family still residing in Canada so I can understand how living so close in the Detroit River area one simply considers it a skip across the stream. Our Secretary of State would of course not agree since I have to hold a Enhanced license as supplement for a Passport. Historical Detroit's records are measly at best from what can be accessed online and I feel as if the States has failed me in this respect.

Yet new information always appears such as my stumbling upon a possible site for my Ancestors wedding site. I had been given the name "Eagle Hotel" in Detroit, Michigan to which nothing existed. However a pleasant surprise in my search today lead me to the Eagle Tavern of Greenfield Villiage.Possibility is high that this tavern was the site of my Great Grandparents wedding as the groom was a Ferryman for some years running the water trail from New York to Detroit originally. I can only look forward to what more study might bring and perhaps more records may open up here in Michigan.