Graphing FTDNA for Native Blood

It's common for people to find a unsubstantiated family myth regarding a long lost great grandparent of some tribe. It's part of the Rousseau ideal that native culture is somehow noble through its simplicity and to be admired. Indeed looking just at the surface of things at the time of first contact they had more advanced systems of hygiene and significant ecologically-sensitive agriculture. Those of us with genealogical evidence often find it scant due to the nature of the times regarding the personage and citizenship of a native person in the imperial Americas. As a Metis woman I am at a disadvantage that besides the myth and a lucky interview provided by James Sweinhart, a published journalist, that there is no physical connection I can grasp.

Cherokee Nation at Kansas City, 1994

As a anthropologist, I maintain a certain outlook from multicultural perspective but I have found it fails me when working with more traditional native american individuals. Often I am met with hostility which I believe is less to do with how I look, as some might presume, and more to do with the socioeconomics of tribal living. I certainly don't intend to be a bother and the only community I intend to pursue citizenship with would be the Metis peoples in my local Canadian/US sector. Due to the degree of mixture it simply seems idiotic to sequester anything more specific when indeed I am not specific. 

It is that mixture exactly that is the true topic of this post. After my 3rd party transfer to Family Tree DNA completed I uploaded it into GED Matches album to compare with ancestry original interpretation. It is notable to mention that ftdna actually reevaluated the chip itself not just the raw composite to my knowledge. For the most part I saw predictable and minute changes. Side by side I noticed that ftdna cited more africanized Moorish DNA as apart of my Iberian spectrum. When I reviewed MDLP 22 by chromosome it suddenly occurred to me to class out the asian decent populations and revise it for my native american blood. Trycyclic populations including the middle east are often misplaced amounts of plains native which is so intermixed that it more often registers as middle eastern.

On average I found that 20% of each chromosome was Asiatic derivative. Since the middle eastern connection is still debatable I also went a step further in removing the trycyclic and Asian components to search for individualized known samples of native american DNA. On average this left a 10-12% of each chromosome to be confirmed native american source which is above the threshold for founder markers. Each of the remaining populations confirmed in my chromosomes were set in known genetic regions allowing me to percentage out the confirmed strains by region. Of the 10-12% confirmed; 53% was Northern Hemisphere (Inuit derivatives), 38% was Americas proper, & 21% was trace matching aboriginal societies in the eastern hemisphere. Percentage peaks for the northern group rested on chromosomes 7, 16, 18 & 22. The Americas group peaked at 13 & 20, but only 20 was highly above the margin of error. Lastly the trace societies were highest peaked on 8 & 15 but not as impressively as the other groups. Overall it was North Amerindian which received the highest proportion spikes but it was also one of the least spread matches across the 22 chromosomes.

So I may be lucky enough to have numbers but it also comes down to personal experience and identity. Personal experience has always pushed me to look at aboriginal life in a learning capacity much like a child watching their parents. Even now I am writing my final paper for my degree program on Native American Studies. The expectations of that work is for me to be a participant but I've always been a participant even in times where I was so far away from the source. Part of my most loving experience was the short time I spent with the Cherokee Nation in Missouri. Despite outward appearance I was drawn in and allowed to participate culminating in a honorary membership. While it may have just been words it started me off on a journey I am still following now, as a Metis.

Family Historian: Hit or Miss

I've had a wonderful set of short messages this past week with a second cousin of mine. She brought up the woes of being a family history researcher. In particular she has been rather glum about family secrets and salacious stories. I've encountered a few of those myself and it seems that once you get past someone's reluctance you then have to deal with the next persons dismissal and anger at the facts. Some of my closer family has just discovered my work which apparently was of no value to them previously. I've suddenly found myself put upon with questions and angry dismissals of fact. Whatever romantic notion my father gave me of how important a family historian is must be on its last legs by now.

As a anthropologist I've been trained to look at the qualitative information but not to the disregard of hard quantative sources. I happen to revel in cultural quirks which seem irrelevant to other people. Corrections are one thing to approach but flat out disgruntled and condescending relatives are another. It is a part of my adaption into a specialization instead of a entire pedigree. In fact with the last angry message I've considered jumping ship. Then again I have to remind myself that the person complaining is not apart of my specialization itself. I am barely scratching the surface as it were of my French family history of the Detroit region.

I also had a awkward conversation with my sister this week after having reviewed some DNA research with my father. The insanity of patriarchal naming hit me out of no where in the fact that I carry the surname Grant yet don't have any of its DNA as a daughter. Then again the same would be said for my mothers side that by a juvenile interpretation of genetics I could also not be a Jones. Unspoken irony then to the fact that my research is focused almost distinctly on my matriarchal lines. Still perhaps that is the answer to having any work undervalued that in truth the relevance of that complaint comes from your perception of your place in those families. Simply adjust ones world view and it seems to seldom matter what facetious opinions people hold except for the sake of accuracy. Then again when people are suffering under the delusion of self serving bias its a fat chance that they can admit to the validity of facts even in the presence of documentation.

So who am I researching for myself or my family? I started this all to learn about my origins and connect to family members that were lost. Now suddenly the ones I've always known are resentful that I'm searching. As the black sheep you'd think I'd have more freedom but maybe that is what they are afraid of...finding family more like myself. I am lucky at least to fit into my own little immediate group of four.

DNA Updates and Forthcomings

Well GEDmatch has finally finished with the re-tokenizing of my DNA pack. It seems that some of the simulations had errors which were pinging mostly in unrelated ethnic results but nonetheless gedmatch decided to rerun new editions for errors. This changes my results to a small degree. The smallest changes are to do with my largest portions. My European percentages are now farther east with 47% a solid mix of Fennoscandia and the Slavic countries bordering Russia. At this time my Celtic/British strains are only 6%. I am still left unsure which country provides the dominant amount of my 34% Mediterranean. Northern Italian and Iberian are both cited. The near east populations matches continue to tantalize me if only because I cannot find their source genealogically.  Roughly 10% of my blood is still Persian which I find amazing.

The more drastic changes have come in the form of my smallest amounts. While initially HarappaWorld and MDLP both cited my mesoamerican DNA from the Muscogee it is now something else. In a sense it could be a more accurate result. About 5% of my result is from South Amerindian and Arctic Amerindian. The latter would correspond to my mother's Mi'kmaq heritage. From what I've gathered online the south is most likely representative of Cherokee. I rather guess that does make more sense since there were only small amounts of exogamy in my direct relations. As the Cherokee are fairly wide, the bands can simply interchange children without looking in another region. Eurogenes still says Mayan...Ugh! But it also indicates a southeast Asia portion as well as oceanic which are barely above threshold.

What I do still find strange is my Samoyed and Berinigan DNA. They are very small amounts but I'm not sure which region to classify them under in my processing of this. I gather for the most part I work on a three category system; European, Asiatic & American. If it doesn't fit those groups than it's wasteful knowledge.

I also took a look at the new ancestry ethnicity predictor. I do find it helpful that they separated my Irish and British blood apart. That makes me confused however about whether Scottish is really the same as British. According to their diagrams it is separate and I have none. My new ancestry numbers are: 52% Great Britain, 21% Scandinavian, 15% Irish, 8% Iberian, 2% Grecco-Italian, 1% Eastern European and <1% Western European. At least that is more interesting than my original pie of British, Scandinavian and unknown. Still I find it very odd that Ancestry states my British as high as 50% when all other groups dictate that it is <26%. Consider for one that as of currently all the calculators for gedmatch place me at 6%. I think it makes ancestry look stupid. I still hope however to upload to FTDNA for my maternal test and correspond my admixture there. My tight budget might make it a Christmas gift to myself.

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. 

Habits and Coincidences

There is something funny about following family legends through quantitative data and that funny thing is seeing the unreported legacies we leave behind. My ancestry-DNA sample was finally received at the laboratory within the last week. I pray it hasn't decayed to much since it took about a month to be shipped thanks to the holiday seasons.  Hearing that I have 6-8 weeks before a major surprise I couldn't help but ponder once again over my Father's results of dominantly central European despite the family stories that he was distinctly Nordic-Celt. There are of course some holes within the maternal lines for him which I believe might fill many percentage gaps. Adding to the mystery is my hematologist's discovery that I have yet another inherited condition that is distinctly of Mediterranean descent lines. I just find it so darn humorous since genetics obviously does not lie. Thalassemia, my newest suspected diagnosis, does confirms my Fathers genetic testing results however.

My DNA results will most likely not match my Fathers at all, at least in percentage. Now I do know that within my maternal grandfather's line there is a influence from southern France. Most men of the Welsh and English descent chose French wives. In reverse of this having just worked on some of my more recent German ancestors I see that they favored English wives. In fact while they remain so proud of being German they carry almost no cultural influence from it in recent generations and no one speaks the language naturally. I might say this has something to do with the influx of English wives since they ran the household. There is also the matter of joining a culturally deficient religion in the recent years.

The French left their Catholicism and the Germans left Mennonite beliefs to join the Joseph Smith fad. My families on both sides are proud of being so involved generationaly with RLDS (Community of Christ), though its not as many as they assume. I however feel that its stolen away a lot of the traditions that are unique to earlier generations who practiced more classical religions. For the most part my family doesn't see their descent lines anymore. We divide ourselves as American or Canadian at this point. It's a shame to let go of so much yet with each generation we gain a lot. I gather at this point I've torn the threads of my history apart so far that's it hard to enjoy the fabric now as a unit. I have a feeling that my results from DNA sampling might inspire me to look elsewhere. As an example my Father thinks that our history might be boggled by assumptions past three generations above him. This brings up the possibility of a different heritage line stemming back to Italy and France...I can't help but see that it is reminiscent of his DNA results. What a coincidence..?!

Always Check Your Sources

For Thanksgiving I had initially created a post following the Swan family of Plymouth  Massachusetts back to the 11th Great Grand parents, Sarah Allerton and Degory Priest. This was quite a exciting find and I immediately started a blog post for the Thanksgiving Holiday about pilgrims. By happy accident when I was editing it with a disclaimer last night it was deleted.

While the initial research led the correct direction there was a oversight regarding the Swan and Swaine families that settled in Massachusetts  Both had daughters named Sarah born about 1665/70 with similar brood of children after marriage. The real key to discovering my unfortunate oversight was the marriage record of Sarah and her husband Joseph Norton which indicates the Swaine surname not swan as is seen for the Plymouth county records. Unfortunately the Swan woman from the Pratt(Priest/Allerton) and Swain  family convergence is often misspelled in her records as Swain.

Of course Pilgrim history is more exciting still this true family line seems to lead to fairly respectable people who immigrated to the US in roughly 1635 in the New Hampshire and Nantucket Bay area of Massachusetts. Nantucket had been sold by the Wompanoag people to Thomas Mayhew, one of the Plymouth Company owners, and it was not until he lost interest in the area and sold it that real colonization began there in earnest about 1659. Richard Swaine, of the correct line, was one of the purchasers who bought the land for "30 pounds and a beaver hat for Mayhew and his wife".

Grace Swaine, Daughter of Richard would later be accused of Witchcraft during the famous Salem Trials, along with her daughter eldest Mary Boulter. This finger pointing came after the death of a small child of John Godfrey died in 1680. Rachel Fuller originally accused of the crime gave many names under diress of questioning including Grace and Mary's. John Godfrey was apart of the Swan family from Plymouth by marriage. One of the motivations for accusing Grace and Mary is that they were the majority property holders of the Swain estate from Richard.

Ironically most of the Swaine family men went on to have thier hands in law and court. Further research will no doubt provide better details of the more current generations. Judgement errors like this both prove that I shouldn't mass record dive at night and that it is always important to check sources no matter how polished/legitimate the material looks.

Spitoons and Silver Spurs

The Ancestry DNA test arrived last week for me. I was expecting a cotton swab but unfortunately they need a larger sample. My father is excited to see the results which I must say makes me laugh to imagine it not connecting us as relations. What I'm really looking for is unknown's such as perhaps more Boussey relatives like Alyce or perhaps even a accidental finding of my mystery aunt who was adopted out of the Morford family.

I mentioned in a earlier post that a lot of my cousins I've been able to contact all specialize in a certain corner of the family. I was hoping to fill this niche by focusing on my part of the Jones's. I was able to get a freepage with Roots web for my own use. After framing it up it occurred to me that I may not truly have time to deal with this all considering I already have 3 blogs and am still going strong in school. I may reduce the page to something more direct such as the generational family listing I began in PDF.

Last of the Line

It's a very depressing thought to realize that in many ways your family will end with you. It occurred to me as I began the feat of typing up a new Jones family history and decendency list that I am the only record keeper that I know of for the Jones family. This of course may be a misnomer since I am removed from some of my Jones cousins and they may also be researching as well. I do have researching relatives that I just discovered for the Mills family through my Grandmother. These second cousins however are researching thier surnames Bryants and Mills as a main focus however. My Great Aunt Arvilla is also a genealogy hobbyist but she too is removed in her focus from me by being a child of the Wismer and Craig families. Recently she did show me a indirect relationship to the Jones but for the most part her research is Wismer centered. My cousin once removed follows his father's tree for the Kettlewell family.

David, my father and Joseph my grandfather had focused most of their energy strictly on the paternal line for Grant's so once my Father dies that will be it. I doubt it would do much good for me to pick up that research since the majority of it is taken up by Day and Morford researchers anyway, both popular families. In fact recently a Day family third cousin contacted me out of the blue for acquiring a photo of his grandfather. I must admit he was quite rude considering we haven't met. There is also the more personal side to this that I am the last of the Grant children carrying the Grant genetic line or more likely the Street family genetics. My Father once thought that neither my sister or I would have children and it truly broke his heart to think that he had failed to continue the family somehow.

Here I sit however the only researcher that I know looking into the Jones family. All of my Grandfathers generation has now past and most of the children are lost in time in my mothers age as well. I have yet to find a close relative my own age who researches which seems such a shame. In a way then I guess it is fate that I have such good instincts with the Jones/Boussey line since I might be the last to devote time to it.

Importance of DNA

The consolidation is going well for those that read me regularly. At this time I am about 200 people short (mostly in the Day family) of incorporating all of my Father's currently discovered ancestors. The other day I received a surprising message on Ancestry.com from a professional Genealogist (Dee Dee King) looking to find the family of my 1st cousin thrice removed on the Jones side. Within a few minutes search I verified the identity of cousin Freddie and had expanded my general knowledge of him. In fact his name had only shown up on a single census so far when I researched his parents and had been referred to as Fred.

Dee Dee did not present a very pleasant picture at first since she did not tell me why she wanted to contact next of kin or if perhaps she was a "lazy genealogist" going to let me do all the research for her. My Grandfather experienced a bit of this when working with a 'professional' on our published family history, at least she sourced him. After a message back and forth I finally opened the link that Dee Dee gave me and discovered her purpose for researching Freddie was much more noble than just getting paid. Ms. King is under contract it seems with the US Navy to research the men who died aboard the USS Oklahoma that was sunk in Pearl Harbor. The Navy it seems is still hoping to identify the remains through DNA sampling from living relatives.

Freddie Jones, (MM1c) is not the first war hero that has been in my tree. Most of the men born at the turn of the century served in WWI and in fact one of them was even willing to serve in both WW's despite his old age. Unfortunately I am a hop and skip relation to Freddie myself and could only have at best a 3-5% match on the M-DNA. The grand-kids of Freddie's sister Grace Jones seem unwilling to help or at best haven't had time to respond to Ms. King. I'm sure within the week or so they will have gotten back to her since the female relations would match well.

Speaking of DNA, last week I talked a bit about the Street family. It seems that the Mental defects are X-linked for the most part. The men not having a second X to counteract the deletion/mutations suffer the worst. It seems my grandfather's family all suffered a degenerative condition; Dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinsons, respectively by age. My father has made comments to my sister and I that we must get our bad health from his Mother's side because of a Uncle who suffers depression yet the evidence of inheritance says other words. Discovering Dementia and Alzhiemers so close to my generation is a recent development and no doubt a conversation I will have to have with my own Neurologist. This is especially pertinent since the degenerative diseases have shown up in at least 1 child each generation and my Aunt Debbie is the carrier in my Father's generation thus moreover proving the likelihood of a X-mutation.

Echoing the Past

A while back I decided to make separate ancestry trees for my parents respectively. I did this because I did not believe I could safely navigate anymore a populous list of over 4,000 relatives. I wanted to have details for each person and truly discover them as a form of respect.
Unfortunately I have not given my fathers lineage the attention it deserves. I updated my own file the other day only to realize that his tree needed duplicate entries that I would have to hand type again. This I feel takes away from valuable time I have to review censuses and data mine for long lost fellows.
Perhaps I have not mentioned them before but my fathers Grandmother was of the Street family in Missouri. After a horrible tragedy in the family involving a murder suicide they withdrew themselves from each other and in fact little records remain. I am having a similar experience in current time where I am both lacking resources to find data and have to deal with my fathers reluctance to share information. Geneology had been a hobby he shared with my grandfather and I don't think he could ever part with his many boxes of hand written notes.

Most recently he entrusted me with the published book following our Grant lines from the original Scottish ancestor who settled King George, Virginia. That data however has holes and many misgivings. My Grandfather Joseph was only interested in following his paternal line so any information gathered otherwise is most likely unsorted sitting in the boxes on my fathers attic floor. The crypto-Judaism line is also amoung that neglected work. While I do praise my dad's willingness to share stories by word of mouth I would love to see pictures and letters that I consider a real way to organically and emotionally connect. I of course cannot blame my fathers since I too have fallen pray to favoritism within my mothers tree, the Fillies du roi line and the Metis Dufour. I believe a rebinding is called for if only to realign my focus.

Major Aggravations

This week I have come to a pass where it is no longer a coincidence that I seem to be missing fringe folks in my Tree's. I came across the reference to the Dybbuk Box to which the most recent owner has the surname Neitzke and is from the general area as a spouse I just added into my work recently. I made a note about the box as it is featured in the newest horror flick, "The Posession".

Yet coming back to my tree's to coordinate data I cannot find a Neitzke at all and their are whole chunks missing. I have yet to check my backup files but finding a cousin featured in the news and then losing the information to fact check is highly aggravating. This also comes along with the news that I have a rare genetic form of anemia requiring transfusions and the only other recorded cases are from a singular family line in the Island nation of Sardinia. Within my Father's genealogical work their is also a claim of Jewish ancestry though the family claimed to be Mennonites when they populated the United States.

Another note is that I received my invitation to Ancestry DNA but was unable to accept it in time. My Father had his results updated from the Y-DNA panel he had done to the new system. His results were interesting especially when searching for Jewish ancestry. DNA testing results for him list- 54% Central European, 35% British Isles, 8% Scandinavian, and 3% uncertain. According to the given information this counter balances the data which gives no notion of Jewish ancestry for the bulk of his tree. History of course shows that most families changed their names and locales to escape persecutions. As for now my Father jokingly claims that the 3% uncertain is due to a crumb that must have contaminated his swab from the snack he had before hand.

##Update##. I have located the confusion as a name scramble. My relative's surname was Lietzke but the records are still missing from my old backup and recent live files on Ancestry.com.

This Changes Everything

A while ago I asked my mother for a picture of her paternal grandmother. As a great surprise she also came up with a small package of the Jones family history. Within this envelope was a original copy of the 1966 article featuring my Great (x3) Grandmother Catharine Dufour. I had been given what I thought was a copy of this small article already. Turns out it was a full page spread in the Saginaw News.

From the article I was able to gleam most of a interview she gave to a historian named, James Sweinhart, in c. 1900. Intimate details that explain some of the timeline distortion are available in just these small glimpses of her interview that was included in the 1966 print about Jonesfield Township.

Beginning in her childhood Catherine reffers to her father as Peter who owned a strip of land across the river from the fort. She had a sister who may not have survived into adulthood and she was close to a paternal aunt.Her family watched from accross the bank in fear as French nationals as the fort was taken.

“One night in summer I and my sister in bed. My sister asleep, but I awake. I hear my mother call fadder to the door, Peter to the door. Someone knock, I think the Indian come and I cry. I hear great noise cross the river.” “Next morning I get up and look out the window. All the bank of Canada side lined with solider. My dear boy, how fine they all looked in their red suits. Six O’ Clock come. They draw up cannon and fire at the fort.”

“Then Fadder come pick us up and hurry to the woods. After a time the solider go away. Pretty soon they come back and go straight into the fort.” “The officer come out and talk a long while. A white flag is on the fort. Pretty soon they take it down and a red English flag is put up. Then the blue coats all march out and the red coats march in. Then Fadder tells us the fort is surrender and we stay no longer.”

Other notable information bits include her mother's death date within two years of the Fort being taken. Her father than passed her on to his mother who was too old to raise another child and gave her away to a local young couple. The name listed on Catherine's death record as her Father may in fact be this man who raised her in his household from 10-20 years of age.

“When I grow up I go back to Detroit. In those days there was a hotel named ‘The Eagle’ and I work dere as a cook. Den after a long time I get married. I 29 years old.” (All during her story to Sweinhart and reportedly all during her life, Catherine fondly referred to her husband as “Johnny”. He was also 29 when they married.)“My Fadder get married too same year and I never see him again. My man his name John Jones. He come over from England (actually Wales). In 1832 and two year later we get married.”

Perhaps Peter Dufour can be gleamed from the new information but regardless I have the joy of hearing my frontier ancestor talk about her life in a intimate way. Not everyone gets to enjoy the words of their ancestors so freely.

“After a time our cornmeal begin to get short and we have no flour. In wintertime I cannot go to Saginaw and back in a day. The Injun gone long while and left us alone and I afraid to leave children by themselves.” “Den, ah den, my child, we begin to listen for the footstep of da Fadder. Every day we watch da stream dat flow by our cabin and listen far into da night. One day da sun go down and all the sky was red as fire. Everything was dry, da tree an’ branches above and the twigs on da ground.” “A leetle snow was on da tree. We all watch da sun as he sink down to sleep in a blaze of red fire. As we look suddenly we hear far away as it was a hundred mile, a cry. ‘Yo-HO! Yo-Ho!’. My child, how da warm blood ran from ma ole heart. We listen.” “Again it come a leetle louder, leetle clearer. ‘Eagle’ say the baby (Thomas). ‘No’ say Edward, the oldest boy, ‘it’s fadder, fadder, fadder.’ An it was. When it come again, I answer and it come nearer and nearer. Da sun been down and hour and it twilight. We had the fire heaped high. Da fire shown bright and warm and made da spur on da evergreen glisten, and we all stand round da door as da dark night settle down. Soon we hear a step and in come da Fadder with flour and other things we wished for so long. ”

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.

Six Family of New England, Surprise!

There's really something precious about finding unexpected family history. One of the strongest lines I have found within my own tree is that of the German 'Six' or Sixt family surname.

John Conrad Six, Jr. 1758-1842 came to New Harmony in 1826 with his daughter and her husband, Colin Grant from Vevay, Indiana. A low stone marks his grave in Maple Hill, New Harmony, the only inscription is his name. An Account written in a Bible in 1846, records him as a Revolutionary soldier.

New Harmony, Pennsylvania  was really a wonderful place, far up the hill away from the road and noise...and just steps from the famous Owens family markers. If you know any of New Harmony's history, you know that Robert Owens of Scotland bought the whole town of New Harmony, all 30,000 acres and buildings, from the Harmonists who had founded and built the town between 1814 and 1825. The Harmonists, some 700 members, moved back to the PA area and founded a new town. The Owens experiment in New Harmony, to establish a center for equality, enlightenment, research, and individual intelligent pursuits, didn't last very long. They forgot to also include people less enlightened who would be willing  to cook, do the laundry, till the fields, etc. but the Owens family stayed on and made a name for themselves in various pursuits. They had to stay...their money was all tied up in the land.

While he was alive John Conrad, Jr served in the first battalion under Captain John Guthrey as a Private Fourth Class.he enlisted in Virginia but moved his portion of the Six family to Kentucky followed by Indiana. He was very proud of all his married daughters and liked to boast of them.
 John, Jr was also listed in the will of his neighbor and friend Ignatius Dave as a money holder for his widow, Mary. Part of the relationship stemmed no doubt from the fact that they shared a land border.

What makes the Six family so amazing to me is the inter-relation to a more current generation of my family. My stepfather's children are related to John Conrad, Jr. by way of his older brother Henry Six (1757-1841). This small crossing of the history of my paternal line and their maternal lineage simply seems predestined as too them joining my current family this year.

Flow Chart for my Paternal Line following Margaret Six and her Husband Colin Grant

John Conrad Six Sr (1727 - 1783)
is your 6th great grandfather

John Conrad Six Jr (1758 - 1842)
Son of John Conrad

Margaret Six (1801 - 1878)
Daughter of John Conrad

Joseph David Grant (1827 - 1904)
Son of Margaret

William David Grant (1848 - 1925)
Son of Joseph David

Stanley Richard Grant (1886 - 1979)
Son of William David

Joseph Lincoln Grant (1920 - 2000)
Son of Stanley Richard

David Joseph Grant (1954 - )
Son of Joseph Lincoln

Hannah Maureen Grant
You are the daughter of David Joseph