One of my longest standing brick walls is to discover the parents of my 3rd great grandfather James T Serviss. James was born in about July 1812 and died in 1879. He died prior to the legislation of the registration of deaths by New York State, so there is no death record to give a hint. He married wife Catherine Hall in about 1836 (+/-), however research has not yet turned up a marriage record that could give clues. I’ve thrown a lot at this brick wall in the past year or so, and I think there are dents. I’ve worked with other genealogists and have been able to rule out some candidates in an area that was rife with potential daddies. But the answer remains elusive.
I’ve looked at land and probate records of the potential Serviss men and cross referenced those to other records such as baptisms and censuses to see if James fits into any of the families. Though the answer thus far is no, that’s valuable in itself. The field is narrowing.
Once I’ve found a few strong candidates, I may turn to DNA testing to help solve the problem. James is my 3rd great grandfather- matches that are not from his descendants, but from his parents descendants (i.e. the descendants of his siblings) would match me at about 5th cousins. Potentially even more remotely. According to my research, 5th cousins share about 0.05% of their autosomal DNA (source: 23andMe Customer Care Tools:Average percent DNA shared between relatives) with a little less than 3.5cMs shared (source:ISOGG wiki:Autosomal DNA Statistics). Where matches at this level can be valuable, at this point (I’m still reading and learning) it seems like I would miss quite a few people who I am related to and with those I match it would be hard to have a definitive answer of which ancestor we match on. In addition, according information on the blog “The Genetic Genealogist” by Blaine T Bettinger, …”it is entirely likely that actual cousins at this level will not share DNA” and “Lack of sharing at the fifth cousin level or beyond is unlikely to support or refute a hypothesis”. If I use DNA to help prove that James T Serviss is descended from a candidate father, the Y-DNA test may prove more beneficial.
As background here’s a brief description of Y-DNA. As a female, I can’t take the Y-DNA test. Y-DNA is passed from father to son only. As its name implies, it is passed along the Y chromosome. Males possess and X and Y, females have X and X. Mothers can only pass X to their children, sons or daughters. That X will be some combination of the 2 Xs Mom has. Fathers pass either an X or Y to their children, determining the sex. If he passes an X, that Y line stops there. Because men have only 1 of each, X or Y, the chromosome they pass down is not a recombinant. It is passed largely intact (save for any occasional typical mutation). Because the Y chromosome is passed largely intact from Dad to son, generation after generation, it is useful in determining if a male falls along a particular line of a family. In America, it had been customary for the child to receive the surname of the father (doesn’t always work that way!), and so, generally, the Y-DNA is closely tied to a surname.
James T Serviss and his wife Catherine had nine children. Of all the children, only 2 were boys, Hiram and John. The seven girls did not receive a Y chromosome so their sons would have gotten the Y-DNA of their father, not of their grandfather. Tragically, youngest son John died at just 18, leaving no children. Hiram, the ancestor along my Serviss line, did marry, twice in fact, and had children with both wives.
With his first wife, Hiram fathered 5 children. Two were girls, thus those lines “daughtered out”. Of the 3 boys, one died young and had no issue. The other two continued the line, the eldest son had 7 sons and the youngest had 3 sons. So from his first marriage, Hiram had 10 grandsons that carried his (and his father, James’) Y-DNA.
With his second wife, Hiram fathered 4 more children, 3 of who were boys. All of the 3 boys lived to adulthood and marriage, but only 1 son had children. That son had both a girl and a boy, but unfortunately the male only had female children so his line “daughtered out” in the next generation.
Back to the 10 males, the grandchildren of Hiram and his first wife. First I’ll look at the younger son. Of the 3 grandchildren of the younger son, only 1 any children. One child died in infancy, the other lived, married, but had no known children. That one child had 14 children, evenly split. Of the 7 males, 2 died in infancy, 1 died as a teenager, 2 lines “daughtered out” and of the other 2 there were 3 male children.
The older son of Hiram, grandson of James had 7 male children. In four of those lines there were only daughters, or the sons died in infancy. Of the 3 lines that remain, one I’ve been unsuccessful in discovering the existence or not of any children, the other 2 had 1 son each.
To recap, by the time of his great grandchildren, there are only 5 known males who carry James’ Y-DNA. Some of these candidates are now deceased, some did have male children (for privacy reasons I’m stopping my countdown on the blog here). But these 5 men, their sons and in some cases grandsons (many of who are complete strangers to me) are my target “James T Serviss line” people who’s Y-DNA I would compare to known descendants of candidates. Then I need to take my daddy candidate, trace his Y-DNA down and convince some more strangers to test.
A limitation of Y-DNA is also its strength. Because it is passed largely unchanged from father to son, a match to someone may not prove that ancestor is James’ dad. It could be James’ granddad that we match on, or great granddad. So although it may place someone along the same line, we won’t know for sure, where that terminal end may be.
Because we are looking not only at the sameness, but the differences in the Y-DNA, it would be most helpful to test many candidates. This would allow me to look at the different STPs and try to determine where mutations took place. Comparing several descendants of Hiram’s older son to the younger son’s descendants would allow me to approximate where certain genes mutated. Comparing those to descendants of the daddy candidate may help in determining in how many generations a common ancestor may be found. So there are a bunch more descendant charts I’ll need to create!
Because James T is already 5 generations back from my generation, it would be beneficial to test many more people that if say I was looking for a 1st cousin match.
I think there is generally less value in non-targeted testing of Y-DNA. I’ve tried that already on another line, hoping that something would stick out, but largely I’ve found nothing useful. So, this is a BIG project I may eventually undertake to supplement my research and finally, hopefully, together they will break down that wall.
Diggin' up Dead People 