Genealogical Roots

DNA testing is the new super-quick genealogy substitute! At least, for me it does sort of work that way.

Some genealogists are interested in finding out how everyone's connected, and they want to know all their cousins and who they're distantly related to in this modern world. Frankly, though, I'm only really interested if they're my direct ancestor or quite closely related. I figure we're all connected eventually, somehow, so all that genealogy work is just 'semantics', in a sense.

I started researching my genealogy when I was 12. I'd heard about the 'melting pot' that was America, and I was curious to find out about my ancestors. I started by interviewing my grandparents and getting the basics about them and their parents and grandparents. I also interviewed a couple of other relatives at family reunions. When I went to college, I lived in downtown Charleston with Michael in a tiny studio apartment near the library. I spent hours and hours perusing the old South Carolina census microfilm there, and I did find a huge amount of information on certain ancestral lines. I also started borrowing old ancestral pictures and having them photocopied.

It was fascinating to make the connections while looking at neighbors on the microfilm, and much of it felt like detective work. The simplest, best, and quite common Census clue was found when the widowed mother-in-law had moved in with a family. I could often immediately go back a whole extra generation with that new surname and even more, up the paternal side, once I'd found her earlier family census records.

I've had various bouts with my genealogy hobby over the years. I have a great computer program called Family Tree Maker that helps keep it all organized and accessible. I also found quite a bit of information on-line. However, I've also followed some wrong leads on-line and received tons of information on incorrect family lines.

Between this confusion and the very real fact that we can't be 100% sure that even the purported parents are the real parents, I have lost much of my enthusiasm. I always had a goal of tracing my roots to their original countries of heritage, but so much of it seems guess-work that I'm a bit disheartened.

Anyhow, all this to say that I've been very excited about the advent of genetic DNA analysis looking for heritage patterns. I'd been told many times that I was Scotch-Irish by my family, and I was a bit disappointed to receive results declaring me primarily...Scotch-Irish. It's alright, I suppose, but I had been hoping for some more exotic results, or at least some strong French genes or SOMETHING!

For a Christmas 'surprise', I had Michael's analysis done. This time we hit the jackpot. Mr. Always Irishman found out that he is quite a bit Portuguese--about equal Portuguese to his northern Irish genes. PORTUGUESE?!?! How extremely strange, since we'd never heard even the mildest hint from that direction! Yes, I have worked on collecting his family's genealogy (done mostly by others), and nothing remotely Portuguese ever came up! He also had some Spanish genes as well.

I have a great photograph (somewhere?) of him getting ready for prom, wearing a white shirt and black slacks. He's slim and looks the picture of a Spanish toreador! I always figured the dark hair and not-fair skin had come from somewhere, but of course many of the Celts originated from areas of Italy before settling modern-day Britain, so it only seemed a personal fantasy of sorts.
I am tickled about this to no end, and I'm not certain I'd ever have unearthed these Portuguese roots in the traditional genealogical fashion.
Michael looks much like his dark-haired mother, Elaine, and she is currently having her own test done. I expect to see those results in her chart as well...we'll see! Michael's brother, Jeff, was quite excited by the results. However, while his results may be nearly identical to Michael's, he could possibly have inherited a whole different batch of genes and have very few of the Portuguese markers. He doesn't have Michael's dark hair, but he does have darker eyes and a similar skin color, but he would simply have to test to be sure, unless Elaine reveals purebred Portuguese status!

Actually, I'm afraid I was negligent in studying the DNA information supplied with the test, and I was quite disappointed to not see Native American in my results. Michael recently pointed out that it seems that they are not including East Coast Native American results unless you tack on an inexpensive additional test.

I did read an anecdote once that a man who provided DNA analysis sent a woman results showing she had Native American roots, and she had an immediate heart attack upon hearing it! Given the conservative nature of many genealogy buffs, perhaps it's safer and better for business not to include the Native American roots as a matter of course.

Anyhow, Elaine should be receiving her results soon, and she did tack on the Native American test.

I'm inclined to get my paternal grandaddy tested, too, as his maternal grandmother, Laura Surepsi Hodge Pack, was supposed to be half-Native American. They say Cherokee, but that was a popular claim, as the Cherokee had the best reputation with settlers and were the richest. I doubt she is Cherokee, honestly, given the other local native tribes of the area (Catawba?) and the fact that she was illiterate and dirt-poor!

Oh, I had my Grandaddy's mitochondrial DNA tested a year or so ago, and it revealed Mediterranean origins for his incredibly distant strictly maternal ancestor. This makes sense, given Emmett Ard's Scottish roots, as the Celts came up from the Meditteranean area before settling Britain. I had been hoping that his grandmother Laura might have received her Native American blood from her strict maternal side, but her mother, Mary Hodge, is listed in the Census as white and single, so perhaps she had a Native American 'husband'? She has her maiden name as well, and it's all a bit hazy and unclear.

My granny, Virginia Mae Gamble Ard, has blue eyes and is quite fair, so I assume she has British roots as well. I am not THAT interested in tracing her exact ratios of European blood, but I've always been stumped on her family line. Denied rumors of adoption and unusual family birthing patterns are quite curious... her mother, Jessie, had no children for TEN years of marriage and then suddenly had TWO and only two girls. When I asked my granny's sister, Aunt Kat, about the rumor of adoption my mother had heard from a town local, she denied any knowledge of adoption, but she did say that it would explain why her childless Aunt Maude would frequently say it wasn't fair and that she should have one of the girls! Of course, that might simply be the teasing of the childless sister Maude to the fortunate, natural mother of two.

However, my Uncle Donald (my father's brother) looks incredibly like an 'unrelated' man from the same town whose birth father was a Salters. That older man was adopted and spoke quite freely with me about his personal history. The older man was at least ten years younger than my own granny, but those rumors of her own adoption, along with the adopted look-alike for my Uncle Donald, suggest to me that this man may very well be my own granny's brother or other close relative. He looks uncannily like my Uncle Donald, except that the man has big blue eyes, like my granny, whereas my Uncle Donald has dark brown eyes, like all of my grandfather Emmett Ard's children do.

What a mess! No birth records, and of course granny had to be born in 1921, so no Census records until 1930--so no clues as to her very early history. My granny does know much of her history and simply refuses to tell me. She wants to say nothing that is less than flattering, and I have unearthed some things that she would prefer not to talk about, though she prefers not to give any information in general. She will doubtlessly take much information about my heritage to her grave. Grr...she's the same about recipes! What's the point of that? What a secretive woman!

Once, when I asked her how she and grandaddy had met, she claimed to have forgotten. However, when my grandfather started telling me the story, she nodded her head along with him and corrected him several times. She even provided names where he forgot them. She hadn't forgotten, and I am baffled as to why she wouldn't share even an innocent story with me!

However, I suppose the more information that I have, the more I leads there are. I found that her father, Charles Gamble, was an illegitimate son of Amarintha Gamble and was sometimes claimed by her parents (his grandparents) as their son--or at least is recorded that way on the census records. I have no leads on who his father might be, except for the very vague possibility that Charles' middle name, Mouzon, could have been his father's surname. However, it could also be a friend or family name.

Oh, despite all that I said about Granny possibly being adopted, I actually do think that she looks quite like her father, to include a marked, characteristic chin dimple. My theory is that she might be related to him and be a family adoption--perhaps he was an uncle? Or maybe it wasn't an adoption at all...

Geesh, I NEED to add photos to this blog!