Wednesday, January 29, 2025

British Home Children

British Home Children arriving in New Brunswick, Canada [1]


As I'm sure has happened to most people who do genealogy research, I occasionally get sidetracked by interesting events in the lives of the people I am researching. At times it is annoying because it slows me down, but most of the time I enjoy learning something that I might not otherwise have had a chance to learn. I recently experienced this while researching British and Canadian Ackley families in pursuit of data for the Ackley One-Name Study that I have started. I came across an Ackley family from England who wound up in Canada, and as I dug into the details of their immigration, I stumbled upon the story of over 100,000 British children who were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. I will tell the story of the Ackley children at the end of this post, but first some details about the British Home Children program.


What Was the British Home Children Program?

The British Home Children Program was a scheme that operated in England between 1869 and 1948 to find homes for impoverished children living in England's workhouses (poor houses) and charitable institutions. The first Industrial Revolution in England caused a huge migration of people from rural locations to the larger cities in search of work. There were not enough jobs for the influx of people, housing was scarce, and lack of sanitation allowed disease to run rampant. These conditions created a pauper class in England that the government responded to with the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. According to the "Who Do You Think You Are?" website, "The government’s answer to this situation was to put the poor into the workhouse, and to make the experience so unattractive that people would do anything rather than go there. However, this was no real choice and the destitute would end up living on the streets and often resorting to crime to subsist."[14]

Between the poor conditions and the sheer number of people needing assistance, the work houses were overwhelmed, and charities stepped in to try to fill the gap. British Home Child Group International describes the situation thusly:

"Moving to urban areas, families were cut off from this traditional support system, and when death, illness or abandonment of one parent forced the remaining parent to look for alternative help, philanthropic organizations sprang up all over the country to help these needy children. There were no governmental institutions in place. Contrary to popular opinion, most of the children were surrendered to these institutions by their parents and were not found on the street.

Started with good intentions, Annie MacPherson, Barnardo’s, Quarriers, The Salvation Army, The Liverpool Sheltering Homes, and The Church of England, to name but a few of the over 50 organizations, were quickly overrun with impoverished children.

An appealing solution was quickly found – send these children to the colonies to fresh air and hard work on farms and domestic jobs in a new country. Farmers, some poor themselves, were all too happy to pay low wages for help. Canada was especially marketed to the parents and young, as a safe haven amidst the storm of their lives."[15]

As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." However well-meaning Annie MacPherson, Dr. Barnardo, and others were, the program was flawed from the beginning and caused life-altering trauma to many of the children who were sent to Canada. According to the BBC, "Although the incentives were to give these young children a better life, the reality was very different. Children were unpaid and had no choice in their move. They were separated from family, and many were abused or neglected by those that took them in as cheap labour."[13]

It is estimated that about 4 million people (about 10% of Canada's population) are descendants of children brought to Canada under the program.[13] Below is the story of an Ackley family whose children were sent to Canada under the British Home Children program.


Ackley British Home Children


The family I was researching when I stumbled on the British Home Children information was from the Stoke-on-Trent area in Staffordshire. A large number of the Ackley families I have found in my British Ackley research came from this area. I found many variations on the surname spelling during this research, from Ackley to Hackley to Ackerley. In many cases all three spellings were used for the same family in different records.

Map of Stoke-on-Trent, England



The earliest known ancestors of this Ackley family are William and Mary Ackley.  Records for their birth dates and locations are not consistent. Dates for William's birth range from 1784 to 1790, and his birth place is given as either Penkhull or Newcastle, which are both districts in the city of Stoke-on-Trent and are about 3 miles from each other. Mary's maiden name is unknown, and her birth date ranges from 1776 to 1796 in various records. Her birth place is given as either Monmouthshire, Wales or Staffordshire, England. 1776 seems very unlikely; her last known child was born in 1837, which would have put her at 61 years old at the time of birth.

William and Mary are found in the 1841, 1851, 1861, and 1871 England Census residing in Longton, Staffordshire (another district of Stoke-on-Trent) in all four time periods. William's occupation is given as iron works laborer or iron furnace laborer. William died on 4 Dec 1873 in Longton, Staffordshire. The home address given on his death certificate is 46 Edensor Road, Longton. A possible death certificate for Mary (last name given as Hackley) gives her death date as 20 August 1873 at age 97 (giving a birth year of 1776), living on Edensor Road, Longton, wife of William Hackley, coal miner. Edensor Road is the address given for William and Mary on the 1871 Census. William and Mary had 4 children: Harriet Ackley (1825-1884), Mary Ann Ackley (1829-), Elizabeth Ackley (1837-), and

William Ackley, who was born between 1816 and 1824, most likely in Monmouthshire, Wales. He married Hannah Monks (1825-1890) probably before 1844, the birth year of their first child. William and Hannah were found together in the 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1881 England Census, while William is listed as a widower in the 1891 England Census. William and Hannah lived on Edensor Road in Longton, Staffordshire for many of those years. William's occupation is given as coal miner in 1851, laborer in 1861, and furnace man in 1871. Hannah died in 1890 in Longton; William's death date is not known, but it must be after 1891 since he was counted in the census for that year. William and Hannah had 6 children: Emily Ackley (1849-), James Ackley (1850-), Hannah Ackley (1858-), William Charles Ackley (1860-), Thomas Ackley (1871-), and

Richard Ackley, who was born about 1844 in Longton. He was found in the 1871 England Census still living in Longton with his parents and siblings, but also with his wife Mary Turner (1845-1913) and their son Samuel. In the 1881 England Census, Richard and Mary are found living in Longton with their children Samuel, Jane, and William. In 1871 Richard's occupation is given as furnace man (same as his father) and in 1881 it is iron furnace labourer. Richard died on 25 May 1886 in Longton. His cause of death was given as asthma and bronchitis. Although I could find no official death records for Mary, the British Home Children Registry gives her date of death as 1913 in the Essex County Asylum.[2] Essex records office says this about Essex County Asylum: "Essex County Lunatic Asylum, known later as Brentwood Mental Hospital and finally as Warley Hospital, was built as a result of the Lunatic Asylums Act of 1845, making it compulsory for all counties to build an asylum."[6] I could find no census records for Mary in 1891, 1901, or 1911; she seems to have disappeared from public view. This is only speculation, but it is possible that after Richard's death in 1886 Mary may have been committed to the asylum, leaving her children with no means of support, necessitating their stay at the workhouse in Stoke-on-Trent and eventual inclusion in the British Home Children Program detailed below.

Richard and Mary had 7 children:

Sarah Ackley was born in the 4th quarter of 1866 (Oct-Nov-Dec) and died during the same quarter. She was buried in Edensor, a district of Stoke-on-Trent, on 4 Dec 1866.

Samuel Ackley (1871-1923) would have been 17 years old when his siblings were sent to Canada. He was probably old enough to fend for himself, but too young to care for his four young siblings. Samuel married Sarah Harris in 1891, and they had 6 children: John (1890-), Mary Jane (1892-1961), Hannah (1894-1916), George (1899-1961), Samuel (1902-1935), and William James (1904-1963). 

John Ackley (?) The British Home Children directory for Jane Ackley [4] lists a sibling John Ackley with no other information, but I haven't found any information for him yet.

The other 4 children from this Ackley family were sent to Canada under the British Home Children program. They were in the workhouse in Stoke-on-Trent when they were taken in by the Liverpool Catholic Children's Protection Society as part of the British Home Children program.[12] They left the port of Liverpool on the ship Polynesian on April 30, 1888, and arrived in Quebec on May 11, 1888. A note in their records at the Library and Archives of Canada states: "Party of 117 Souls from the Catholic Protection Society of Liverpool. Mrs. Lacy in charge. Males 13 and over listed as 'labourer'; females 13 and older listed as 'domestic'; those 12 and under listed as 'child'."[11]

S.S. Polynesian [7]

The children were brought to the House of Providence in Kingston, Ontario, which was run by the Sisters of Providence. 

House of Providence in Kingston, Ontario [8]


Jane Ackley (1874-) was initially placed with the John Hogan family in Kingston Township, Ontario.[4] She is found living with the family in Kingston in the 1891 Canada Census. She married William Charles Hogan, son of John Hogan and his wife Mary Craig, on 16 March 1897. [25] William and Jane had 6 children: John Hogan (1897-), Mary Kathleen Hogan (1899-1987), Mabel S. Hogan (1901-), William James Hogan (1904-), Thomas Hanley Hogan (1907-1912), and Henriette Frances Hogan (1909-1909). Jane and William and all of the children except Frances (who died of cholera 2 months after she was born) are found in the 1911 Canada census living in Kingston. Jane and William and their son John were found living together in Toronto in the 1921 Canada census. William died in 1925 [26]; I have not yet found a death record for Jane. 

William Ackley was born 28 November 1878 in Longton. He was initially placed with the Barrett family in Latimer, Loughborough Township, Ontario.[3] He was found still living with the William Barrett family in the 1891 Canada Census, living in Kingston. By 1901 he had moved on, living with the Spooner family in Kingston working as a farm servant. In 1909 he married Mary McClusky in Jefferson, New York. I did not find them in the 1911 census, but he and Mary were probably living in Kingston at that time as they were mentioned in the 1910 obituary of their infant daughter Loretta.[23] William and Mary had two other children: William Richard Ackley (1912-1961) and Rose Ellen Ackley (1915-1931). The family is found living together in Kingston in the 1921 Canada Census. Rose Ellen died in 1931 at the young age of 15. William, Mary, and their son William were found living together later in the 1931 Canada Census in Kingston. I could not find a death record for William, but it must have been after 1937 because Mary is listed as "married" on her death certificate dated 2 August 1937.[24]

Margaret Ackley was born 28 April 1881.[5] Her initial placement upon her arrival in Canada is not mentioned in the British Home Children Registry, and evidently she did not stay long in Canada. She is found in the 1891 England Census living with her aunt Hannah (Ackley) Harding and Hannah's husband George in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England. Margaret married John Bryan on 4 February 1900 in Longton, and they are found together living in Longton in the 1901 and 1911 England Census. John and Margaret had five children: Noe (1904), George (1907), William (1910), Hannah (1911), and Margaret (1914).

John Bryan enlisted in the Army and died on 19 Sep 1915 from wounds sustained in combat in Calais, France. Margaret is identified as a widow in the 1921 England Census, and is found living with her children Noe, George, Hannah, and Margaret. There are also only four children in the photo of Margaret and John and their family below; it is presumed that the son William must have died before 1914 since the youngest child, Margaret, was born in 1914 and is in the picture.

Margaret is found in the 1939 England and Wales Register, still listed as a widow. Her daughter Margaret and Margaret's son Edward are living with her. Margaret's occupation is listed as pottery thimble maker; previous census records also listed her occupation as thimble maker. Margaret died in 1958 in Stoke-on-Trent.[22]
 
Margaret (Ackley) Bryan and her family [10]


George Richard Ackley was born 11 October 1884, which means he was only a little over 3 years old when he was sent to Canada. He was placed with the family of John Cassidy in Hungerford Township, Ontario, Canada.[2] George is found in the 1891 Canada Census (name spelled Ekley) living with John Cassidy and his wife in Hungerford.[18] In the 1901 census he was found living in the household of the John Davis family. John Davis's occupation is given as farmer. George's relationship to John is given as servant, and his occupation is listed as field labourer servant.[17] I did not find him in the 1911 Canada Census. 

George married Amelia Florence Knight (1887-1949) on 18 May 1914 in Frontenac, Ontario. Amelia was also from England.[19] In March 1915, George enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force.[20] In November 1915 he was sent to Bramshott Camp, a temporary army camp set up on Bramshott Common near the village of Bramshott, Hampshire, England. In February 1916, he was sent to serve in the 8th Battalion, Canadian Mounted Rifles, landing in Havre, France on the 16th of that month. By the 3rd of March 1916 he had joined his unit in the field. His unit was eventually absorbed into the 2nd Battalion, Canadian Machine Gun Corps. George Richard Ackley died on 22 Sep 1918 from wounds suffered in battle, just 3 days after returning from a 14-day leave to England.[21] World War I would end just 2 months later on 11 November 1918. He is buried in Queant Communal Cemetery British Extension at Queant, Departement du Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.[9]

George Richard Ackley [9]




George Richard Ackley Headstone in
Queant Communal Cemetery British Extension [9]


As mentioned earlier, an estimated 10% of Canada's population are descendants of the British Home Children, yet many of them are unaware of their history because many of the children chose not to talk about it with their families. The British and Australian governments apologized for the forced migration of child laborers in the 2010s, but the Canadian government has not yet issued an official apology.[13]

Link of the Day



Quote of the Day


“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., 

Sources


1. Library and Archives Canada, "Home Children, 1869-1932," https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/home-children-1869-1930/Pages/home-children.aspx
2. British Home Children Registry, "British Home Child Information Sheet," BHC Registry ID#283,  https://homechildrencanada.com/registry?id=283
3. British Home Children Registry, "British Home Child Information Sheet," BHC Registry ID#286,  https://britimechildrencanada.com/registry?id=286 
4. British Home Children Registry, "British Home Child Information Sheet," BHC Registry ID#284,   https://homechildrencanada.com/registry?id=284
5. British Home Children Registry, "British Home Child Information Sheet," BHC Registry ID#285,   https://homechildrencanada.com/registry?id=285
13. BBC, "British Home Children: Antique box tells heart-breaking history," https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67809153
14. Our Media, Ltd., "Who Do You Think Your Are? - Who were the British Home Children?," https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/feature/who-were-the-british-home-children
15. British Home Child Group International, "Who are the British Home Children," https://britishhomechild.com/history/
16. Ancestry.com. Canada, World War I CEF Attestation Papers, 1914-1918 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006. 
17.Ancestry.com. 1901 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. 
18. Ancestry.com. 1891 Census of Canada [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.
19. Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada). Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1942 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. 
20. Ancestry.com. Canada, World War I CEF Attestation Papers, 1914-1918 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006. Images are used with the permission of Library and Archives Canada.
21. Ancestry.com. Canada, World War I CEF Personnel Files, 1914-1918 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.
22. Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2007.
23. The Weekly British Whig, September 15, 1910, Page  3. via Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-weekly-british-whig/131768061/ : accessed January 28, 2025), clip page  by user genealogy_mra
24. Ancestry.com. Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1950 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
25. Ancestry.com and Genealogical Research Library (Brampton, Ontario, Canada). Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1942 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
26. Ancestry.com. Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1950 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.







Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Using Y-DNA and Autosomal DNA Together to Close a Gap in the Nicholas Ackley Family Tree

In past posts on this blog, I’ve written about members of the Ackley Surname Project who have learned that they are descendants of Nicholas Ackley through Y-DNA testing, but did not learn enough to know exactly how. At this stage, the project has enough descendants for each of Nicholas’s sons to define a branch for each son. But each son does not yet have enough branches to allow us to trace lineage down the generations without encountering gaps.

As noted in earlier posts, associations can be determined using more than one method. This project uses Y-DNA, which traces only the males in a lineage. Autosomal DNA traces both the male and the female lines and is used by companies such as Ancestry and MyHeritage. What follows is an example of how both types of DNA may be needed to bridge the gaps and  resolve lineage issues.

This story starts with Nancy Mattison, the author of the excellent book Discovering Nicholas Ackley, Early Connecticut Settler 1630-1695. Nancy also writes a blog on Nicholas Ackley and his descendants, and sometimes gets questions from people looking for help with their Ackley genealogy. Someone who is a descendant of Zebulon Ackley had asked her for help, and she thought DNA might help answer his question and contacted me (see her description of this query here [1]; be sure to click on the link in the post to get a PDF document with all of the details about the process and Zebulon research). We soon learned that this person's father was actually already a member of the Ackley Surname Project who can trace his male Ackley line back to Zebulon Ackley, born about 1775 and died in 1812 in New York. This relationship is pretty well documented up to Zebulon, but at that point it reaches a dead end. This member had done a Y-67 test and matched all of the Ackley men in the project who have known relationships to Nicholas Ackley, so we are nearly 100% sure he is a descendant of Nicholas, but he wanted to discover the connections all the way up to Nicholas.

First Step: Big Y

The first step was to take a Big Y test to try to place this member on one of the branches in the haplotree representing one of Nicholas's sons. A Big Y test was purchased, and the results placed the member on the branch for Nicholas's son James (in fact it created a sub-branch, which will be discussed shortly). We are confident this is the James branch because we have a couple of project members with well-documented paths through James to Nicholas. The block tree before the new Big Y results were obtained is shown below. The numbers in the white blocks at the bottom of the tree are test kit numbers for Big Y testers in the project, and the R-XXX codes in each block represent the Y-DNA mutations that define the branches (blocks) in the tree. Each of the testers has tested positive for the mutations in all of the blue blocks above them. For example, tester 947514 is positive for mutations R-FTA50959, FTA49307, R-FT165378, R-FTA24085, R-FGC52286, BY53874, and FGC52298.


Note that the leftmost block under the James block (R-FGC52300) is a sub-block of the main James branch (R-FT82490). This branch became separate because the two members on it are closely related (a father and son). They matched each other on the mutations listed in that block (which no other testers have), so they established their own block under James. They are known descendants of James's son Nathaniel, so their block represents Nathaniel's branch. On the other hand, the two testers who are in the James block are not closely enough related to create their own branch under James and each one still has some private variants (mutations found in no other tester so far), so they remain in the more general James block. Tester 754287 has a well documented path to James, while tester 985409 has a gap between his earliest known Ackley ancestor and James.

After the new Big Y results for tester 205619 were available, the block tree looked like this:


Note that the new Big Y tester and one of the previous Big Y testers now occupy their own block under the James block. This happened because the new tester (205619) had some variants that matched some of previous tester 754287's private variants; i.e., mutations that were only found in tester 754287 so far. These private variants are now named because they were found in more than one tester, establishing a new branch under James. Tester 754287 is a known descendant of James's son Nicholas (we'll refer to him as Nicholas-2 to avoid confusion with our original immigrant ancestor Nicholas). At this point we can conclude that the new tester is also a descendant of Nicholas-2, but we still have a gap. Nicholas-2 was born in 1708 and died in 1763, while Zebulon was born about 1775, so Nicholas-2 cannot possibly be Zebulon's father. There must be at least one more generation between Zebulon and Nicholas-2.

Translating that to a more traditional family tree, we have this for the testers who are descendants of James:



I have marked the last few generations in each tester's line as private to protect their identities. Note that tester 985409 is left "floating" since we only know he is a descendant of James, but not which son yet. Tester 177515 does not appear in the block tree above because he has only done a Y-37 test and thus does not have his branch identified in the haplotree yet. Having him do a Big Y test remains a goal for the project.

The question is: How do we close the gap between Zebulon and Nicholas-2? One approach would be to find more known descendants of Nicholas-2 to do Big Y tests and establish sub-branches for Nicholas-2's sons on the haplotree. This is certainly a long-term goal of the project, but there are a few problems with that approach. Identifying known descendants and then persuading them to test is a tough task, Big Y tests are expensive ($449 at regular price and $399 on sale), and they take a long time (up to 12 weeks from receipt of sample at FTDNA to final results). While not insurmountable, these issues caused us to look for a different way to try to solve the mystery of Zebulon's parentage and hopefully close the gap between Zebulon and Nicholas-2.

Before jumping into the next section, it is worth discussing the possibilities for Zebulon's father here. Nicholas-2 had four known sons: Jeremiah (1742-1761) and Abel (1746-1835) with his first wife Jerusha, and Lewis (1758-1823), and Nicholas-3 (1762-) with his second wife Sarah Wilson. Given Zebulon's birth date of 1775, Jeremiah could not be his father since he died in 1761. Lewis (born in 1758) and Nicholas-3 (born in 1762) are too young to have been Zebulon's father. This leaves Abel or an as yet undiscovered son of Nicholas-2 as possibilities for Zebulon's father.

Another DNA Tool

Here is where we turned to autosomal DNA to help solve this mystery. Autosomal DNA testing is the most common type of DNA testing used in genealogy, and is the type of test that can be purchased from many companies, such as Ancestry or MyHeritage. Ancestry provides the following description of autosomal DNA:

"DNA comes in long stretches called chromosomes. Humans typically have 23 pairs of chromosomes for a total of 46. There are two broad categories of chromosomes—autosomal and sex chromosomes.

    • Autosomal chromosomes—22 matching pairs—make up the bulk of your DNA. Almost everyone has a complete set of them. An autosomal DNA test looks at the DNA from these 22 chromosome pairs.
    • Sex chromosomes are made up of X and Y chromosomes, which differ in size and function. People usually have either a pair of X chromosomes or X and Y chromosomes." [2]
The Y-DNA testing discussed at length in this blog is done with the sex chromosomes mentioned above and gives only information about the patrilineal line. We turned to the autosomal chromosomes to help us close the gap. Autosomal chromosomes contain DNA from both parents and thus can be used to gather information on the male and female ancestors in a tester's family.

I don't want to get too far down into the weeds on the biology of autosomal chromosomes, but I wanted to provide a look at how autosomal matches are measured and evaluated. The unit of measure for autosomal DNA is the centiMorgan. Family Search has this to say about centiMorgans:

"A centimorgan is a unit of genetic measurement. It’s what experts use to describe how much DNA and the length of specific segments of DNA you share with your relatives. These shared segments are divided up into centimorgans. The more centimorgans you share with someone, the more closely you are related. A centimorgan is different from the physical units we use in everyday life, such as inches or kilometers. It is less of a physical distance and more of a measurement of probability. It refers to the DNA segments that you have in common with others and the likelihood of sharing genetic traits." [3]


All you really need to remember is that a centiMorgan is a relative measure of the amount of DNA shared between two testers, and the more centimorgans shared, the closer the relationship.

The various testing companies have come up with estimates of relationships based on the amount of shared DNA, but I prefer to use real data to evaluate matches. Blaine Bettinger, a genetic genealogist, has collected mountains of real data from fellow genealogists and has made it available to the genealogy community. He asked users to report the amount of DNA they share with people whose relationship is known to them. He then summarized the data for all different levels of relationship, from parent/child all the way up to 8th cousins and everything in between, including half relationships and "removed" relationships. The table below shows the data for common relationships. The average column is the average shared cM reported by users for each type of relationship, and the range column gives the low to high values reported for that relationship. We'll use these values below to evaluate some of the matches we found.

Shared cM Project Relationship Data [4]
  

Tester 205619's daughter did an autosomal DNA test with Ancestry, and we sorted her matches into family groups representing maternal and paternal grandparents to help reduce the number of matches we needed to analyze. Then, we began looking at the matches for the paternal Ackley group. This type of analysis is somewhat time consuming because we had to either verify existing trees for the matches or even build out sparse trees to go back far enough to be able to compare to what is known about Zebulon. We found many matches who were descendants of Zebulon's children, especially for his sons Ira and Salmon. While not necessarily helpful for discovering Zebulon's parentage, these matches serve to verify the tree is likely correct up to Zebulon. A summary of these matches is shown in the blue and orange boxes in the "Autosomal DNA Matches on Ancestry" chart below.

There was another group of matches who are descendants of Abel's children, which is good news for the theory that Abel and his wife Hannah could be Zebulon's parents. Remember from above that we ruled out Nicholas-2's sons Jeremiah, Lewis, and Nicholas-3 as possibilities for various reasons, but we left open the possibility that Nicholas-2 had another son that we don't know about. So, we need to evaluate the matches we've found to see if we can rule that in or out. To do this, I created the table below that shows the relationships between our tester and her matches if we assume Abel and Hannah are the parents, along with the associated expected shared cM and ranges. This is compared with the same information if we assume Zebulon's parents were an undiscovered son of Nicholas-2 (we'll call him Zebulon, Sr.) and his wife (probably named Elizabeth - it seems like half of the women alive during that time were named Elizabeth!). In that case, there would be another generation between the tester's daughter and her matches who are descendants of Abel and Hannah because Nicholas-2 and Jerusha would be the common ancestors. Here is the table:



You can see that in both cases, the shared cM of the tester's matches are within the observed ranges suggested by real data for the relationship. Match number 1 is very close to the top of the range in the Zebulon Sr. scenario, but still within it. The shared cM values are not too far off from the expected values in either scenario, so overall there is really nothing in the data that would cause us to choose one theory for Zebulon's parentage over the other. We need something else to help us solve this problem.

What we found was a group of matches who were descendants of Richard Shevalier, who is the brother of Abel's wife Hannah Shevalier. These matches to the Shevalier line appear to be independent of the Ackley line; i,e., we found no intersection between the Shevalier and Ackley matches. Although it is possible that our theoretical Zebulon, Sr.'s theoretical wife Elizabeth was an unknown daughter of Hannah and Richard's father Elias Shevalier, it is far more likely that the tester's daughter has autosomal matches to both the Ackley and Shevalier lines because Abel Ackley and Hannah Shevalier are Zebulon's parents. Big Y testing of a known Ackley male descendant of Abel Ackley could solidify this conclusion, but the autosomal matches discussed above are strong evidence that we have discovered Zebulon's parents.

The various groups of matches are summarized in the family tree below, with the number of matches found for the family members in the colored boxes. Side note: there are probably more matches to be found for each group, but given the time it takes to identify them and verify/build their trees, we chose to use what we had as a representative sample. Additionally, there are more Shevalier and Ackley children that were left off of the chart in the interest of keeping the diagram uncluttered and readable.


Link of the Day

This is a link to a technique called the Leeds Method, which is a simple, systematic way to segregate autosomal DNA matches into family groups. It was the method used to sort the matches into groups by grandparent discussed in this post.


Quote of the Day


“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Sources

1. Nancy Mattison, "Was Zebulon Ackley a Son of Abel?," Discovering Nicholas Ackley (blog), June, 2024, https://ackleygenes.com/2024/06/25/was-zebulon-ackley-a-son-of-abel/.

2. “Autosomal DNA Testing | AncestryDNA® Learning Hub,” n.d. https://www.ancestry.com/c/dna-learning-hub/autosomal-dna-testing, accessed 11 Jan 2025.

3. FamilySearch. “Untangling the Centimorgans on Your DNA Test,” October 3, 2023. https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/centimorgan-chart-understanding-dna, accessed 14 Jan 2025.

4. International Society of Genetic Genealogists. "Autosomal DNA Statistics," October 17, 2022. https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_statistics, accessed 14 Jan 2025.








Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, February 29, 2024

New Results in the Ackley Surname Project - February 2024

We have recently had two more Big Y-700 tests complete in the Ackley surname project, and the results are quite interesting. These two tests resulted in the creation of a new branch and the splitting of a block in the Y haplotree, which will be described below.

The first test was for a U.S. man who is a descendant of Zebulon S. Ackley (1773-1813). This man's original Y-67 test matched all of the other Ackley men who are descendants of our immigrant ancestor Nicholas Ackley, but the connection between Zebulon and Nicholas is not known. He did a Big Y test hoping to learn more about how his line is connected to Nicholas. One prevalent (and most probably incorrect) theory found in many online trees is that Zebulon is the son of Jeremiah Ackley (1742-1761), who was the son of Nicholas Ackley (1708-1763). The younger Nicholas (referred to as Nicholas 2 from here on to distinguish him from the original Nicholas) was the son of James, Sr. (1677-1746). Many of the online trees with Jeremiah seem to have some of his facts confused with another Jeremiah Ackley who lived in Erie County, New York. In any case, although Zebulon's descendants are most surely descendants of Nicholas Ackley due to their Y-DNA matches with known Nicholas descendants, no clear path from Zebulon to Nicholas has been discovered yet.

The second test was for an English man who does not have the Ackley surname and who is not a descendant of Nicholas Ackley, but who matched a few of the Ackley men in the project at 67 and 111 markers. These matches were at high genetic distances, so were assumed to indicate a fairly distant relationship. Tools from Family Tree DNA indicated the common ancestor of this man and Nicholas Ackley's descendants was likely someone who lived around 1100 AD, which would pre-date Nicholas.

The results from these two tests can be summarized by looking at the block tree before and after the new tests, shown below with notes highlighting the changes.

Before and After Comparison of Ackley Branch of the Y Haplotree

Block Split


Before the English tester's test, the Ackley block (R-FGC52286, the blue block at the top of the "BEFORE" picture) contained 7 equivalent mutations (R-FGC52286 plus BY53874, FGC52295, FGC52297, FGC52298, FGC81756, and FT83233). All Ackley men were positive for these 7 mutations, and the mutations were grouped in one block because they could not be distinguished from one another.

The English tester tested positive for 4 of the 7 mutations (the 4 circled in yellow), but not the other 3 (the 3 circled in red), so the block was split into R-FGC52286 and equivalents BY53874 and FGC52298 (mutations only found in the Ackley men) and R-FGC52295 and equivalents FGC52297, FGC81756, and FT83233 (the new parent block above R-FGC52286 in the "AFTER" picture). The 4 mutations in the English tester's block were found in him plus all of the Ackley men.

This is a good thing – it refines the Ackley block and establishes a new block for the English tester and future related testers, who will likely end up in his block (or sub-blocks) if they do a Big Y test. The ancestor represented by R-FGC52295 is the most recent common ancestor for the Ackleys and the English tester.

New Branch


The new U.S. tester's results ended up creating a new sub-branch in the Ackley portion of the haplotree. Note that in the "BEFORE" picture of the block tree, project member #754287, a known descendant of Nicholas Ackley's son James, is listed in the block labeled R-FT82490, which is the general branch for all of James's descendants. Member #754287's branch could not be refined further because no other tester had matched any of the 6 private variants that he had in his results. However, the new U.S. tester (#205619), came along and matched 2 of #754287's private variants, which were then named and added as a sub-branch (R-FTD69462) under James.

Practical Implications of These Results

The value of the new branch created with the results of the new U.S. tester is straightforward; the descendant of Zebulon is placed on the "James" branch of the haplotree, and in fact the new branch under James (R-FTD69462) can be labeled as the "Nicholas 2" branch since tester #754287 is a known descendant of James's son Nicholas 2. The missing connection between the new tester and Nicholas has now been narrowed down to finding which of Nicholas 2's (1708-1763) sons could have been the father of Zebulon since there is likely only one generation missing given the birth and death dates of the men who are now known to be on the path between Zebulon and Nicholas (1630-1695). The family tree below will be used to illustrate the situation.

Nicholas had 4 sons; with his first wife Jerusha Graves he had the previously mentioned Jeremiah (1742-1761) and Abel (1746-1838), and with his second wife Sarah Wilson he had Lewis (1758-1823) and Nicholas 3 (1762-). Lewis and Nicholas 3 seem unlikely to be Zebulon's father since they would have been 15 and 9 years old at the time of Zebulon's birth in 1773, and Jeremiah could not be the father since he died in 1761. This leaves Abel or another unknown son of Nicholas 2 as the only possibilities to be the father for Zebulon, and the search has been narrowed considerably.

This situation is a great of example of traditional genealogy research and genetic genealogy coming together to solve a problem. Traditional research on the line of Zebulon Ackley reached a point where a brick wall was encountered, and DNA testing has filled in most of the gaps in the path from Zebulon to Nicholas. While the final answer has not yet been found, the descendant of Zebulon, tester #205619, has valuable information that will greatly narrow his search.

The Ackley portion of the haplotree has now developed to the point where new testers are likely to be placed on existing branches of members with known genealogies or create new sub-branches that could be helpful in solving brick wall genealogy problems. I would invite any Ackley man who has questions about his genealogy to consider joining the Ackley Surname Project at Family Tree DNA and taking a Y-DNA test.

Link of the Day

Below is link to the Ackley Surname Project for anyone who might be interested in learning more about the use of DNA testing in Ackley genealogy. 

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/ackley/about

Quote of the Day

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." 

--Winston Churchill

Posted by at 2 comments:

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Runaway

The bulk of the words in this post are not my own. My grandfather, James Edward Ackley Sr. (1902-1988) took the time to write down his life story near the end of his life. He was a terrific story-teller, and my words could never come close to telling the story of his runaway as a teenager as well as he does. The following is the story of how he and a friend ran away from home (Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee) in May 1920 and spent the summer working on a steamer on the Mississippi River. Most of the words that follow are his; I have lightly edited and added a few notes that provide context for some of his comments. Here is my grandfather's story...

James Edward Ackley senior portrait, 1921


There comes a time in everyone’s life that you do something – that you are ashamed of. What I am about to put on this paper is such a time. I had one month to go to finish my junior year – I ran away from home. I had been skipping school for a week – caddying – to make enough money to buy a tuxedo – formal party. By Friday night of that week I had earned about 50 dollars – enough for the suit. At 7 o’clock that night I got a call from my friend Howie Morton – “Jim we are going to run away.” Howie's mother had caught him doing something she found unacceptable and all hell broke loose. One more phone call and our plans were made. We met at Kummers drug store with nothing more than the clothes on our back, and a total of $90.00 between us. Once our minds were made up, there was no turning back.

We took the street car to Milwaukee then to the North Shore depot and took the electric line to Chicago where we made our way to the Chicago & Alton railway depot. (While I write it comes to mind that the physical things I write about are long gone, the street car tracks & trestle, the North Shore electric line and the Chicago and Alton RR are gone). We spent the night sleeping on benches. When the agents window opened in the morning we bought tickets for St. Louis – why St. Louis, no one will ever know. I’m afraid Howie nor I ever had good grades in Mathematics – that $90.00 was going fast. We enjoyed the ride to St. Louis but realization came with a bang when we got off that train. Now what?

We spent that first day walking thru the business section, then found our way to a park where we spent the balance of the day. Some of what we did on the second day has slipped my mind but one thing was becoming very apparent – we were fast approaching bankruptcy. After breakfast on the fourth day – the money was gone. That day for the most part escapes my memory – except that as the day wore on came the realization – no lunch or supper money – and certainly no Y.M.C.A. for another night’s sleep. We did keep clean – up to a point – using the wash room in the depot. That night we gathered up newspapers and made our way to the Chicago and Alton freight depot – crawled underneath and spent the night on cold ground covered with newspapers.

The St. Louis levee in 1919. My grandfather would have encountered a similar scene in 1920. [1]


We were up with the sun, and after stealing some fruit from a stand across the way, we knew something had to be done – find a job of some kind or head for home. This time we went down to the levee where boats were being loaded and unloaded. A man standing near the river watching the proceedings looked like authority, and we soon found out he had that authority, was most kind when we came over and talked. We ask him if there was any kind of work we could do – he smiled and said “boys look at the type of man you see working here” – all large, grown men. “Do you mind washing dishes and polishing brass?” Good heavens no. We went aboard his boat and that’s when we told him we had not eaten anything for a whole day. His cook prepared enough eggs – bacon and toast to last for more than a day. This man’s name was Jim Lax and believe me he knew what we were – run-aways. He wrote a note – told us where the office of the “Streckfus Lines” were – told us to present the note at the window and we would be taken care of. We received passes for the Chicago and Alton railway and our destination was Keokuk Iowa. [Blogger's note: My grandfather’s memory was pretty accurate here. There was a captain named Hilmar Lax who worked for the Streckfus Line in St. Louis. According to his obituary, he worked for Streckfus for 35 years and died in St. Louis in 1940.]

We located the steamer Capitol – it was to be our home for the next three months. We were indoctrinated to a life so foreign to anything we had ever experienced – it was almost frightening. The Capitol was a huge excursion steamer with a complete restaurant on the lower deck – a beautiful dance floor on the second deck – and living quarters and deck house on the upper deck. Once I set foot on the deck of that boat I never left it until we were ready to get off at LaCrosse to come home. The Capitol had not had an excursion on the day we arrived so our time was spent trying to get acquainted with some of the crew. We did have some success – but when we enquired about sleeping quarters – Surprise – go to the top deck – they will furnish you with a mattress and one blanket – you sleep on the dance floor. During the next few months I never experienced a warm or comfortable night’s sleep – but I learned to live with it.

The steamboat Capitol was built in 1879 at Cincinnati, Ohio. It was originally named Pittsburgh. It was rebuilt in 1896 at Dubuque, Iowa and renamed Dubuque and ran for the Diamond Jo Line. Streckfus Lines took her over after she sank in 1901. She was converted by Streckfus into an excursion boat in 1920 at Keokuk, Iowa and finished out at Davenport, Iowa. and renamed Capitol. Capitol was dismantled at St. Louis, 1945. Image from University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse. [2]


Ad for the maiden voyage of the Capitol out of Keokuk. Given the timing of his running away (end of his junior year in high school, which would have been May, 1920), it is probable that my grandfather and his buddy Howie were on the maiden voyage on June 4, 1920. Ad from The Daily Gate City Constitution-Democrat, Jun 3, 1920. [3]


The next morning we were introduced to our chores. I was given rags and brass polish and was told that before I left any one section it should shine like the sun. That afternoon we had a large group of women for an excursion – they were also fed. At four o’clock that afternoon I was introduced to a chore so loathsome and monotonous, it should be eliminated from man’s way of living – washing dishes. Hundreds of them – greasy – dirty, but it was to be my main chore from then on. One thing happened that day that had its reward – I found a way to bathe and wash what few clothes I had. A cat walk along the huge rear paddle permitted me to get to a lower paddle – enough room next to the water to do whatever I wanted to do.

Things were a little monotonous that first week, but during that time an older man seemed to want to be a friend. He seemed to want to be sure no one took advantage of us. There were times when we helped him in some of his chores. During our third week we were steadying a tall ladder for him – he was changing bulbs in the ceiling of the dance floor. Two men in business suits walked across the dance floor toward us. When they were within talking distance, one of the men said, “Couch?” (That was our friends name). I pointed to the top of the ladder and this one man asked him to come down – he did. When he was on the deck this one man pulled out his wallet – opened it – and that’s when I saw the badge and identification. Couch never said one word – just started to walk off with this man. That’s when we asked the second man what that was all about. “Boys – that man murdered his wife – but the gruesome part of it all – he carved her up.” Kind, gentle Couch – what prompted that man into that situation.

On a pleasant note. Going from city to city – always new people – new scenery was so satisfying. One other plus – music – some of the finest bands I ever heard played for dancing. It would be a different band for each new town but they were all top flight musicians. Sometimes life on the boat became very monotonous – brass – dishes. [Blogger's note: My grandfather was a musician himself. He learned to play the piano at a young age and played background music for silent movies. He also played the organ at his church for many years. Unfortunately, I hadn't done the research that revealed the identity of one of the bands he heard on the Capitol. He would have been thrilled to know he had seen the incomparable Louis Armstrong at the beginning of his career.] 

One of the bands my grandfather no doubt heard was the Fate Marable Band, pictured above on the Capitol in New Orleans in 1920. Members of the band: L-R: Henery Kimball, bass; Boyd Atkins, violin; Johnny St. Cyr, banjo and guitar; David Jones, sax and alto horn; Norman Mason, sax; Louis Armstrong, cornet; Norman Brashear, trombone; Baby Dodds, drums; Fate Marable, piano. That is the Louis Armstrong. Image from Louisiana Digital Library. [4]


Before I forget – an incident with the dishes. One Sunday afternoon after an excursion – with lunch – the dishes were stacked mile high – greasy and grimy. I looked at them and said “Howie we will be two days cleaning this mess.” They had given me a key to the hold of the boat – so I could replace broken dishes. Now – washing dishes with a little dust – versus the grime – seemed like a good deal. With every tray of dusty dishes I brought up – a tray of the grimy ones went overboard – and part of the river bottom at Davenport Iowa is lined with porcelain.

It seemed that the police would come aboard every new town where we stopped. Someone was always being taken off the boat – I guess the river was a good place to hide.

I witnessed one of the biggest dice games ever played. [Blogger's note: I laugh every time I read that line. I'm sure the dice game was nowhere near the biggest dice game ever played, but I suppose in my grandfather's 17 year-old mind it seemed huge.] On our first pay-day the men were putting the long lunch tables in a row – blankets were spread over the surface – and chairs placed along the entire length of the tables. That night the entire crew – and many from off the boat gathered up and down the entire length of the tables – either seated or standing on chairs in back – there must have been a hundred men playing. They had six bankers to handle the dice and at seven o’clock that night it all started. It was hard to believe that there would be that amount of money to be gambled. It was real excitement all of the time. I went to bed long before it was over – when I got up the next morning there were four men still playing – and I was told that all the money gambled found its way in the pockets of these men. During those weeks I wished so often that I was home – my mother’s cooking – a warm bed to sleep in – but it was not to happen for a while. I made the best of it all – but one thing was becoming apparent – I was losing more weight than would be considered healthy for a man as thin as I was. We discussed more than once, our going home – but for one reason or another it never happened.

My senior year was not one of my best at Wauwatosa High. Our escapade of the previous summer did nothing to give us the friendship and understanding we needed to complete our senior year. We had at least five weeks of our Junior year to recover – no small task – but Mr. Kolb – the school super was very understanding and this was a big assist – our teachers were a big help. Getting back to a respectable social position was just a little difficult – it was hard for most people to understand why we did such a crazy stunt. Dating did not resume until the second month of our senior year. Gradually we were able to resume normal school living and we were able to enjoy our last year. Our make-up work consumed many extra hours. I played very little basketball – and all other activities were curtailed.

Blogger's note: The story does have a happy ending - my grandfather did make up all of the work he missed during his junior year and graduated on time with his class at Wauwatosa High School. His diploma is below.



Link of the Day


Here is a link to the Wikipedia page for the Streckfus Steamers page that has a good summary of the company's operations through the years:


Quote of the Day


“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sources


1. Wikimedia Commons contributors, "File:St. Louis Levee.jpg," Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:St._Louis_Levee.jpg&oldid=705320202 (accessed November 26, 2023).

2. University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, "UW-La Crosse Historic Steamboat Photographs .", Downloaded from website: https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/ALaCrosseSteamboat.

3. "Excursion De-Luxe." The Daily Gate City Constitution-Democrat (Keokuk, Iowa), Jun 3, 1920, p. 6, col. 1 (found at newspapers.com at https://www.newspapers.com/image/174417765/).

4. Louisiana Digital Library, "Fate Marable Band.", Downloaded from website: https://ingest.louisianadigitallibrary.org/islandora/object/lsm-jaz%3A11187.







Posted by at No comments:

Monday, November 20, 2023

Family Tree DNA Black Friday Sale 2023

The Family Tree DNA Black Friday Sale runs from November 20th through November 30th this year. If you are thinking about taking a DNA test, these are great prices, especially the Y-37 and Big Y-700 sale prices. If you want to take a test and have any questions, let me know. Here are the prices for all of FTDNA's DNA tests for this sale:



Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Summary of Ackley Surname Project as of November 2023

It has been a while since I have written a summary of the data from the Ackley Surname Project at Family Tree DNA. We've had some new results recently that I have not yet reported on. This post is quite long, but I thought it was important to take a comprehensive look at what we know about the various groups of Ackley men who have joined the project.

STR Testing - Description and Results

Before jumping into STR testing results, a little refresher on STR testing is in order. Family Tree DNA offers three levels of Short Tandem Repeat (STR) testing: Y-37, Y-67, and Y-111. It is not necessary to understand all of the science behind this testing, but a few words on the basics might be helpful for understanding how these tests are used. According to the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG):  “A short tandem repeat (STR) in DNA occurs when a pattern of two or more nucleotides are repeated and the repeated sequences are directly adjacent to each other.” [1] According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH): “A nucleotide is one of the structural components, or building blocks, of DNA and RNA. A nucleotide consists of a base (one of four chemicals: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C)) plus a molecule of sugar and one of phosphoric acid.” [2] STR testing counts the number of repeats on specific segments of Y DNA (called markers), which are designated by the letters “DYS” followed by a number. The marker values for two men are compared, and if the number of non-matching markers (a measure known as genetic distance) falls below established thresholds, there is a high likelihood the two men are related. We have used Y-37 STR testing in the Ackley Surname Project to determine group membership; i.e., to check if a tester is in the group of Nicholas Ackley descendants or a member of some other group.

The table below gives a list of all men in the project who have tested at the Y-37 level or higher. Although most of the members carry the Ackley surname and are descendants of Nicholas Ackley, we have a number of other men with similar surnames who have joined to see if they might be related to the Ackley surname. The testers are grouped by surname and color-coded for easy identification in later data tables. I realize the font in these pictures is quite small, but you can click on any table/picture to open a larger version. Note that the Nicholas Ackley descendants are divided into two subgroups; the men colored in darker orange are descendants whose connections to Nicholas Ackley are known, while those in lighter orange are men whose connections to Nicholas are not known, but are presumed to be descendants because they match all of the other Nicholas descendants whose relationships are known. The descendancy column shows how each tester descends from their earliest known ancestor.

Among the light orange group are men who are members of what has become known as the "New Jersey Line" (kit numbers 938425, 947514, and 950608); they are descendants of Daniel Ackley of New Jersey. While the exact line of descendancy from Nicholas is not known, we now know from Y-DNA SNP testing that they are likely descended from Nicholas's son Samuel. Likewise, kit number B16608 belongs to a man who is a descendant of Lewis Ackley, who is the progenitor of what is known as the "Ohio Line". See this post for a discussion of these two lines.






As mentioned above, relatedness between two men is measured by genetic distance. In theory, the higher the genetic distance, the less chance two men are related. The table below shows the degree of relatedness based on the number of markers tested and the calculated genetic distance.




Note that at 37 markers, any two men whose genetic distance is greater than 5 are considered "Not Related". FTDNA does not report genetic distances greater than 5, so I used a program called Still Another Phylogeny Program (SAPP) [4] to calculate genetic distances between all men in the project at 37 markers, which are shown in the table below. Note that there are many genetic distance cells that are red, indicating that the men being compared are not related. Most of these cells occur for comparisons between men who have different surnames; i.e., Ackley vs. Hackley, etc. There are a few exceptions, which will be discussed in more detail below.  Also note that the genetic distances in all red cells are greater than 30, further validating the conclusion that the groups are unrelated to each other.



Ackley Men Who Are Not Descendants of Nicholas

As mentioned above, there are a few men with the Ackley surname in the project who are not descendants of Nicholas based on their Y-37 test results. The first group of these are men who are descendants of Johan Hendrick Eckler whose ancestors changed their surname to Ackley (darker brown grouping toward the top of the table). We have three project members in this group. A more complete discussion of the Eckler-Ackler-Ackley group can be found in this blog post.

We also have two Ackley men with English heritage who have tested and are not related to the U.S. Ackley men or to each other (lighter brown grouping at the bottom of the table). One of these men was born in England and has a paper trail of English ancestors. The other was born in Australia, but his father was born in England and also has a paper trail of English ancestors. For more information on these men, see the posts here and here.

The newest members of the project are two men who have the Ackley surname, but turn out not to be descendants of Nicholas Ackley. The Ackley line of descent for the first of these new testers is: 

Jacob Ackley (1764-1840) -> Samuel Jacob Ackley (1794-1874) -> James Lawrence Ackley (1823-1918) -> Elmer Ellsworth Ackley (1861-1946) -> Keith Ellsworth Ackley (1905-1999) -> Kit 998479

This man does not match any of the other Ackley men in the project, but somewhat surprisingly he does match two men with the Ackerly surname in the project (grouped with them in the aqua grouping at the top of the table). I have seen plenty of evidence in paper records (mostly England census) where the two names seem to have been used interchangeably for the same family over different census years. In those cases it is always difficult to know which of the names is the "correct" name. It is entirely possible that the two names originated in England as a single name (I don't know if Ackley or Ackerly was the original name) that split when they came to America. More testing and more research is needed to sort this out.

The line of descent for the second of the new testers is:

Benjamin Ackley (1758-1835) -> Benjamin Ackley (1810-1857) -> Uriah Ackley (1852-1928) -> Edward Ackley (1871-1946) -> Willard Ackley (1892-1967) -> Rexford Ackley (1913-2007) -> Private->Kit 1001089

This family lived in Bradford County, Pennsylvania for many generations. Some of the records for the earlier generations spell the name as Ackla or Acla rather than Ackley; as usual it is hard to know if those are misspellings or if the name was originally Ackla and gradually became Ackley. This tester did not match any of the other men in the project with any surname (grouped with the two UK men in the light brown group at the bottom of the table). As with the previous tester, more testing and research is needed.


SNP Testing - Description and Results

While STR testing has been used to test group membership as discussed above, we have used SNP testing to define the Ackley branches on the Y haplotree (sometimes known as the "Tree of Mankind"). This approach has been helpful in defining genetic branches for the sons of Nicholas Ackley, which in turn has helped some project members refine their genealogy research. SNP testing identifies Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. From Family Search: “A single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP is pronounced snip) is a DNA sequence variation occurring when a single nucleotide - adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), or guanine (G) in the genome (or other shared sequence) differs between members of a species or paired chromosomes in an individual.” [3] For example, the substitution of a C for a G in the nucleotide sequence AACGAT, producing the sequence AACCAT, is a SNP. The Big Y test examines over 700,000 locations on the Y chromosome looking for SNPs. SNPs found are compared to a known, named list of over 260,000 SNPs (named variants in FTDNA terminology), and the individual is placed in the tree at the lowest (most recent) named variant for which he has tested positive. The FTDNA SNP test is known as the Big Y-700 test.

Of the 19 men in the Nicholas Ackley group, 12 have done a Big Y test. The results of these 12 tests have created a branch on the Y haplotree for Nicholas and sub-branches for 3 of his 4 sons who had male children. We have not yet had a descendant of Nicholas's son Thomas join the project. A fifth son, Nathaniel, does not appear to have had any children. FTDNA uses a graphic known as a block tree to represent branches of the haplotree. Here is the block tree for the Nicholas Ackley branch and sub-branches:


I have labeled the blocks (branches) for Nicholas and his sons Samuel, John, and James, and replaced the names of the testers with their kit numbers to protect their privacy. The combinations of letters and numbers in each of the blocks represent the SNPs that a given set of testers have tested positive for. If there are multiple SNPs in a block, that means that current testing has not been able to differentiate the time of formation of that group of SNPs and they are considered equivalent. Typically one of the equivalent SNPs is chosen to name the branch represented by the block of equivalent SNPs. For example, R-FGC52286 is the current name for the large blue block at the top of the block tree that represents Nicholas. 

All testers below each block are positive for all of the SNPs in that block. Thus, the 12 Big Y testers from our project whose kit numbers are listed above were all positive for R-FGC52286 and the other equivalent SNPs in the Nicholas block. Moving down the tree, there are 5 testers who are positive for R-FTA24085, which we have been able to identify as the "Samuel Branch" based on traditional genealogy research.

Note that below R-FTA24085, block R-FT165378 spans only 3 of the 5 kits that have been identified as descendants of Samuel. This means that the 3 kits under that block (947514, 938425, and 950608) have tested positive for R-FT165378, while the other two kits (938369 and 938816) were negative for R-FT165378. The implication of this is that the 3 men under R-FT165378 must share an ancestor in which the mutation represented by that SNP formed, while the 2 men who do not have that mutation do not share that ancestor. The three men who are positive for R-FT165378 are in the "New Jersey Line" discussed previously. Although we know who their most recent common ancestor is (Jehu Ackley, see "Descendants of Samuel" family tree below), at this point we cannot label the R-FT165378 block with his name since we can't tell if the SNP formed in Jehu or some other ancestor between him and Samuel.

Going down one more level in the Samuel block, there is yet another block, R-FTA50958, which spans only two of the three kits under the R-FT65378 block. This again reflects the fact that the two men under that block (947514 and 938425) tested positive for the SNP known as R-FTA50958, while the other kit under R-FT65378 was not positive for R-FTA50958. The relationship between these two men is uncle and nephew, and the common ancestor between them is the father of kit #947514 and grandfather of kit #938425 (Paul on the "Descendants of Samuel" family tree below). We can in fact label this branch the "Paul Branch" on the tree, and we would expect any other descendants of Paul who do a Big Y test to fall under that branch.

The "John Branch" does not yet have any sub-branches below it because all 3 testers on that branch are closely related; in fact they are a father and two sons, and they are all positive for the same SNPs. As other descendants of John test, we would expect sub-branches to form under R-BY135594.

Similarly the "James Branch" does not have as many sub-branches as the "Samuel Branch". The two testers under R-FGC52300 are father and son and have defined their own sub-branch under the main branch of R-FT82490, but currently there are no SNPs separating the other two testers under R-FT82490, so we can only conclude that they are both descendants of James from the block tree. 

While the block tree is useful for displaying the relationships between Big Y testers and their haplogroups, it lacks the detail of more traditional family trees. Following are streamlined family trees showing the paternal lines of descent for Nicholas's sons Samuel, John, and James as well as partial trees for 4 men whose relationship to Nicholas is not yet known.








Next Steps


With the number of Big Y testers in the project and their distribution among Nicholas's sons, we now have a good structure to help other testers identify their connection to Nicholas. For example, if any of the four testers whose connections are not currently known were to take a Big Y, there is a high probability that those testers could learn which of Nicholas's sons they descend from. Further, if the right combination of members tested (such as members 648883 and 205619, who are both descendants of Zebulon Ackley), sub-branches could also be defined. As of this writing, two of those four members have recently purchased upgrades to Big Y, and we will soon learn more about their connections to Nicholas Ackley.

Even with the progress we have made, there is more that can be done to grow the Ackley portion of the haplotree. Finding the connection to England is still the highest priority; I will continue to search for English Ackley men and try to persuade them to test. Likewise, I will also search for Ackley men who are descendants of the untested sons of Nicholas's sons to try to define additional sub-branches. The detail provided by these additional branches could be helpful for testers who have not yet identified their exact connection to Nicholas.

Link of the Day


This is a link to an explanation of the Big Y test from FTDNA: https://blog.familytreedna.com/big-y-700/

Quote of the Day


“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” 

—Martin Luther King Jr.


Sources


1. International Society of Genetic Genealogy. "Short Tandem Repeat". ISOGG Website, accessed 25 Feb 2023.

2. National Institutes of Health. "Genetics Review - Nucleotide". National Center for Biotechnology Information Website, accessed 25 Feb 2023.

3. Family Search. "Y-Chromosome Single Nucleotide Polymorphism testing". Family Search Website, accessed 25 Feb 2023.

4. Vance, David. "Still Another Phylogeny Program (SAPP)." Available online at https://www.jdvsite.com/. Accessed 5 Oct 2023.




Posted by at No comments: