My DNA Goals

Genealogy is about finding records that document family relations. Until recent years that documentation was either verbal, passed down through the generations of a family, or written, whether in official records, or family bibles, or personal letters that survived the years.

The ultimate record of one's heritage, however, is written in your DNA. Each of us is born with a mix of DNA from our parents, and that DNA can tell the story of our ancestry, often more accurately than any other source. With the advent of affordable and widely available DNA testing, a whole new aspect of family research has opened up.

For genealogical research there are three kinds of tests, Y-DNA, mt-DNA (or mitochondrial DNA), and autosomal DNA (sometimes call Family Finder DNA).

Y-DNA testing identifies the nuclear DNA that is passed only by males and only to males; in other words, only from fathers to sons. If your culture gives children the surname of their father (a fairly common practice in western Europe and the Americas), then the Y-DNA will generally coincide with your family name. I say generally, because there are always exceptions, whether because of adoption, or name changes, or infidelity.

In my case, my last name, Hill, is very common. Official records from cities or counties where lots of Hill families lived do not necessarily make it clear which family is which. Y-DNA can at the very least help you rule out certain family connections, and if you are lucky can help you connect to a paternal family history you were not aware of.

A few years back I chose to participate in the Hill Surname DNA Project (HillDNA.Com). Surname projects based on Y-DNA group you with other individuals whose Y-DNA test indicate they are related to you. In my case, I expected I would be placed in HillDNA.Com Group 6, because two individuals that I knew to be 3rd cousins were already in that group. When my Y-DNA test results came back my expectations were fulfilled; I am in Group 6. However, that did not actually help me extend my family tree.

Three of us in Group 6 can trace our ancestry back to James Hill, born about 1801 in either Georgia or North Carolina. Two can trace their ancestry back to William Hill, Sr. born about 1774 in North Carolina or Virginia. Three more can trace ancestry back to Foster Hill, born about 1809 in Virginia and believed to be a son of William Hill, Sr.. One can trace ancestry to a George Hill born in Ohio about 1820 or 1825. And then there's the "flyer" - Alan Barlow of Liverpool, whose Y-DNA indicates he shares a paternal ancestor with all the Group 6 Hills, but with no idea where that connection came from. It could be that he has an unknown Hill ancestor, or it could be that our Hill family was named Barlow in the distant past.

So we all know we are related, but the common ancestor is not known. Most of us can trace our Hill ancestry back to 1800 or 1775, but that is not far enough back to tell exactly how we are related.

I have two particular goals with regard to Y-DNA testing. One is to extend my Hill ancestry back far enough to know exactly how I am related to what I call my "DNA Cousins." A second goal revolves around a family mystery, the "two brothers who went to Texas" that I wrote about earlier (http://hillfamily.org/dp/node/18); it is my hope that Y-DNA will help me identify one or more cousins descended from one or both of those mystery brothers, and help me fill in those blanks in my family tree.

Let's move on to the second DNA test I mentioned, mitochondrial DNA, sometimes referred to as mt-DNA.

mt-DNA is passed down only by mothers, but passed to both their sons and daughters. In the same way that Y-DNA follows the paternal ancestry, mt-DNA follows the maternal ancestry. In other words, my mt-DNA is identical to my mother's (excluding random mutations), who got it from her mother, who got it from her mother, and so on for generations.

I know my maternal lineage back to my 4th great grandmother Lucretia Black 1791-1860, who married Robert McCutchen 1788-1865. So, one goal with regard to my mt-DNA is to possibly identify Lucretia Black's mother. There is another project I have, however, that involves mt-DNA, but not my own.

According to the family tree that I believe is primarily based on research by my great-grandfather Rev. Edward Mack (Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States in 1939), through his mother we are descended from John Knox (the Reformer) by his second wife Lady Margaret Stewart (which means we are descended from Scottish royalty and ultimately from William the Conqueror and beyond). When I became interested in genealogy one of my first goals was to validate the family tree that I and my cousins all grew up with. A few years ago I noticed that our connection to John Knox and Lady Margaret included seven generations of maternal ancestry.

Here's why that is important.

In "proving" my ancestry, I found many sources corroborating the line from my great-great grandmother Harriet Hudson Banks 1845-1937 to her great-grandmother Janet Gregg 1771-1843. I also found many sources corroborating the line from John and Margaret Knox to their 2nd great-grandchildren John Witherspoon 1670-1737 and Janet Witherspoon 1670-1734 (first cousins who married).

The two generations between those two corroborated lines, however, are "iffy".

I believe that Janet Gregg's parents were James Gregg 1752-1789 and Mary Elizabeth Wilson 1744-1799. I believe that Mary Elizabeth Wilson's parents were David Wilson 1700-1750 and Mary Witherspoon 1707-1765, and that Mary Witherspoon's parents were the aforementioned first cousins John and Janet Witherspoon.

The records for those two generations, however, are spotty.

It occurred to me that the six generations between Harriet Hudson Banks 1845-1937 and Janet Witherspoon 1670-1734 were all maternal. That means that if I can identify maternal descendants of each of those women, and if they do mt-DNA testing, and if their mt-DNA all matches, then that will prove the connection between Harriet Hudson Banks 1845-1937 and Janet Witherspoon 1670-1734.

So far I've found a 3rd cousin who is maternally descended from Harriet Hudson Banks 1845-1937 who is willing to be tested. I have identified a 5th cousin who is maternally descended from Harriett Elizabeth Hudson 1804-1898 but who has not indicated any willingness to be tested. I have identified a seventh cousin who is maternally descended from Elizabeth Gregg 1788-1856 but who I have not yet communicated with.

I'm still looking for maternal descendants of Mary Witherspoon 1707-1765 and Janet Witherspoon 1670-1734. If I can find proven maternal descendants of these two women and their mt-DNA matches that of my 3rd, 5th, and 6th cousins, then that will be very strong evidence that my proposed family tree is correct.

That brings me to my goals with regard to autosomal DNA testing. I don't know what my goals are with that, because I don't really know what that proves or disproves in terms of relationships. Autosomal DNA is not as definitive as Y-DNA and mt-DNA. As best I understand it, autosomal DNA testing really only makes suggestions about possible relationships. I can see where that might help, if you can show a connection to a distant cousin who knows the family ancestry further back than you do, but it still feels nebulous, not definitive.

All that being said, I must confess that the possibilities opened up by DNA testing are enormously exciting, and I hope they yield as much fruit as the tree seems to promise.