Should You Consider Using DNA?
The following is a true story
A 35 year search could not solve family problems
DNA solved the problem in 30 days.
For 35 years 6 individuals, with help from hundred of others held joint meetings, phone calls, exchanged data, 4 national family reunions and all of the things you would expect a group to do. Yet there were problems and no one could solve the problems.
Short Family History:
In Pennsylvania a Jacob Brinley, according to his tomb stone was born in 1721 and died in 1785. He had 12 children. There was a lot of support data available from various sources which verified his age, the birth, baptism and marriage of his children.
Also in Pennsylvania was Mathias Brinley. Mathias and Jacob were witness for the baptism of each others children however nothing could be found showing how they may be related. Jacob’s daughter Barbara married a son of Mathias, which was also named Mathias and we assumed cousins married each other but had no proof this was correct.
After Jacob died some of his family remained in Pennsylvania however others were in the Louisville, Kentucky area in the late 1780’s and early 1790’s. This included family members from both the Jacob and Mathias families. One of the children in Louisville was a Jacob, however both Jacob and Mathias had a son, Jacob. Was he son of Jacob or son of Mathias?
Also in Louisville was a John and he moved to Harrison County, Indiana about 1800. Who was he? His tomb stone dates did not match any known John Brinley.
Problem
With all of the research no one could prove for certain who the Jacob in Louisville would have descended from. The John in Indiana was unknown. While some of us thought he was the son of Jacob, the dates on his tomb stone did not match the baptism dates for Jacobs son, John in Pennsylvania.
Thus we had 3 problems which we worked on for more than 35 years:
1. Who was the Jacob that was the fore father of the Brinley’s in Kentucky?
2. Who was John Brinley in Indiana?
3. How were Mathias and Jacob related? Descendants were together in Pennsylvania and
Kentucky however we had no proof they were related.
In Ohio there is a 6th generation descendant of the Pennsylvania, Jacob, named Keith.
In Kansas there is John a 5th generation descendant of John of Indiana.
In Missouri is Clyde, which is a 7th generation descendant of Mathias.
In Kentucky is Bill, a 7th generation descendant of Jacob in Louisville.
It should be noted 12 markers DNA was previously completed and all matched with this DNA, however they also matched many others at the same time. After consulting with the DNA folks, it was decided to do a 37 marker DNA, which is the current ultimate standard and will seperate families into groups.
The purpose was to see if anything could be proven to help solve the 3 known problems, however we were in for one very major surprise.
We thought Bill and Keith or Bill and Clyde would match with each other, with John, descendant of the Indiana John being an unknown.
Results
Keith and John matched all 37 markers thus we now knew John of Indiana would have descended from Jacob of Pennsylvania and most likely the dates on his tomb stone is in error. According to the DNA folks there is a 50% probability that Keith and John had a common relative in 5 generations and 90% in 16 generations. This data agrees with our own results as Keith was a 7th generation and John was a 6th generation.
Clyde in Missouri had 4 markers different. According to the DNA folks most likely Jacob of Pennsylvania and Mathias of Pennsylvania were probably cousins with a common relative prior to Jacob in Pennsylvania.
Bill was the surprise. He didn’t match and is not blood relation to Keith, John or Clyde. It should be noted, we have an excellent paper trail showing Bill descended from the same family. There are two possibilities: (1) Was there an unknown adoption (2) Was there some unknown activity in prior generations that no ones knows of?
As the time of writing this, we went back 5 generations in Bill's family and are doing DNA testing on a different family line. The objective of this DNA is to see if the DNA trail was broken in Bill’s line, or if it was prior to both Bill and the new DNA which is being conducted.
If you are having problems with your family line, we suggest you consider DNA with
familytreedna. Here is a link directly to their website where you can obtain more information.
We here at Big Tree Books highly recommend
FamilyTreeDna. They have been very nice to work with and always willing to answer DNA questions.
Written by Clyde Brinley
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