This and that!

I apologize for the delay in publishing this post. Before a new season of commitments begins, I wanted to share a few additional items with readers.

My employer has been extraordinarily supportive throughout our family's recent health struggles. During the first year in which two family members were bedridden and required around-the-clock care, I was permitted to reduce my hours to thirty per week. The following year, that was further reduced to twenty hours per week. Over the past two years, I worked perhaps ten hours per month in 2019 and no more than forty hours in total this year. Despite my extended absence, my employer retained my position through two rounds of layoffs, for which I am deeply grateful.

Recently, I have been looking to take advantage of falling interest rates, which requires a steady income. My employer needed someone to oversee the Chattanooga office at least through the end of the year. Given where I live, the commute to Chattanooga is not as burdensome as it might sound. That said, since I am committed to caring for my mother an average of more than twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and will be commuting to Chattanooga daily, this may be my last post for approximately six weeks, barring any unexpected change in circumstances. After that, it may be close to Thanksgiving before I am able to continue.

In the meantime, I wanted to leave readers with my first five generations of documented ancestry. Marriage records are typically included in my research, though I did not take the time to list them here. Each individual in these five generations—excluding any typographical errors—is a well-documented ancestor. Below the image, I will begin from the top and provide my best estimates for additional generations. These estimates are grounded in research. I do not rely on member-submitted family trees from genealogy services such as Ancestry.com or MyHeritage, though I maintain accounts with both. In my experience, member-submitted trees are incorrect more often than not, even within just a few generations. This appears to result from one member copying another's tree without careful examination or independent documentation.

From previous posts, readers will be aware that I have uncovered a lengthy and complex story regarding Eli Johnson's parentage. His mother was Phoebe Johnson. She married Reuben Johnson but subsequently left him. Although she carried the Johnson name—and legally, I presume, we all do as well—the laws of the time were not forgiving toward divorce or toward women generally, and Phoebe had not lived with Reuben for five to ten years by the time Eli was born. Based on several documents and my own DNA results, Eli's biological father was Benjamin Roper. I have not yet traced Benjamin's lineage, nor Phoebe's, in full. There is some evidence that Phoebe's maiden name was Dennis and that Benjamin Roper's father was David. Because the Dennis line is so far removed in our ancestry, determining her parentage through DNA alone will be difficult—though it does provide some useful clues. As previously noted, the Y-chromosome typically passes from father to son without alteration. We have a sufficient number of Roper cousins to assist in tracing that line once time and resources permit.

Eli's wife, Mary "Polly" Winchester, appears to have had a grandmother who was the daughter of a tribal chief of the Tuscarora Nation—a people whose territory extended from the Carolina coast to the Piedmont. There is some evidence to support this, though not yet enough to publish with confidence.

The next six names on the chart appear to be traceable at least one generation further, though genealogical research has a way of yielding surprises.

The Hill line has been traced by other researchers. Based on their work, as best I can recall, it passes through a Revolutionary War soldier with the surname Dick and connects to an Irish family named Wiley. That is from memory, but I believe it to be accurate. The Hill line is reportedly difficult to trace beyond Foster Hill; however, DNA evidence has confirmed Foster Hill's place in this lineage.

For my own research, I have submitted DNA samples to five or six testing services and uploaded my data to additional databases in order to identify relatives. The results were surprising to me—though perhaps less so in light of my sister's genetic condition, which led to a fatal illness. I will compile those results and present them in ranges in a future post. Most services cover only the first four or five generations, and their findings are broadly consistent with one another. One service I used extended its genetic analysis back twenty generations.

It is worth noting that one's ancestors theoretically double with each generation. Most individuals have two biological parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. By the seventh generation, one has 128 ancestors. Accordingly, a single ancestor from that generation could represent less than one percent of one's total genetic heritage—particularly given the complex and varied ways in which DNA from two parents combines. If inheritance were not a random process, all siblings would be genetically identical. The reality is far more nuanced, and what we commonly think of as "race" or "ethnicity" has origins of remarkable complexity. Our understanding of the Punnett square is to genetics what basic arithmetic is to calculus.

Several individuals have generously contributed their DNA to help resolve some of these questions, and I am deeply grateful for their assistance. I have samples from siblings on both my mother's and father's sides. In time, I may ask some readers for similar assistance. For example, a male Lambert could help identify the precise Y-line of that family, provided other Lambert family members have tested with a compatible service. I also recognize that some people have reservations about genetic testing, and I respect that entirely. There is almost always an alternative path to the same information. In my view—for whatever it is worth—there is now so much DNA data in public and private databases that a determined party could already approximate the genetic profile of most citizens. If I were ever to ask for your assistance and you prefer to decline, please do so without hesitation. I will always respect that decision. When I do ask, I am prepared to administer the test and cover the cost.

The various testing providers each maintain distinct databases and specialize in different areas. Most today focus on dietary and nutritional recommendations based on one's genetic profile. Others maintain the largest databases for identifying relatives. Still others specialize in Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA analysis. Nearly all can provide an ethnicity estimate for the most recent four to five generations—but as Eli's parentage illustrates, that is often insufficient to trace one's deeper roots. At the twenty-generation level, my genetic profile resembles what one might call a thoroughly mixed heritage. I carry a substantial proportion of British, Scottish, Irish, and Germanic DNA. The remaining thirty percent, however, would likely surprise most readers.

I apologize for that digression—I tend to write as I speak. Returning to the genealogical chart: after the fifth generation of the Hill line, which has been more thoroughly covered by other researchers, the Thomas Martin Johnson line reveals where half of my family tree, in a manner of speaking, becomes a vine. Note Thomas listed just before Eli at the top of the chart. This does not trouble me in the least. It simply is what it is—one of those circumstances, like one's physical characteristics, that we do not choose and cannot alter. To this point, aside from the absence of earlobes, everything appears to be in order.

The Lambert and Howard lines have long intrigued me. At least four people of my mother's generation told me that my grandmother, Corda Johnson, always identified herself as "Black Dutch" and instructed her children to do the same if anyone inquired about their ethnicity. My great-aunt Mae, my grandmother Doll, and my uncle Louie all confirmed this. My grandmother also told at least two of these same individuals that she not only identified as Black Dutch but that she had "some Indian" in her as well. That will be a rewarding line to unravel. I am told by most of the older generation that the Lamberts all had black hair and blue eyes—and that if you had seen one Lambert, you had seen them all. That particular combination of straight black hair and blue eyes is quite distinctive and points to specific ancestry that I will not speculate upon at this time. Once I have completed additional research and am prepared to release my twenty-generation DNA ethnicity estimate, I will address that question more fully.

I also need one additional link in the Lambert line before I can trace it back to Germany with confidence. Levi's father is buried in a cemetery in Loudoun County. His name is somewhat difficult to determine with certainty given the unusual naming conventions among his siblings, but I am fairly confident his full name was John George Lambert Jr.—not to be confused with his brother John Howard Lambert. He is buried beside his wife, Mary "Polly" Bryant. I am currently at an impasse on the Bryant line. The name presents particular challenges, as it is spelled in numerous ways—most commonly as "Briant." As a brief aside, I have good friends in Coker Creek whose family, despite sharing a common lineage, uses three different legal spellings of their surname depending on which branch of the family one belongs to. The Bryant line presents similar difficulties. I hope that some of my Hill cousins, whose mother was a Bryant, may be able to assist with that research in time.

The Howard line has recently become a stumbling block. I had expected it to be straightforward, given the prevalence of Howard-named landmarks in the area—Howard's Bridge, Howard's School Road, and others. I was mistaken. I have been unable to place our John Howard within any of the several Howard families present in the region during the relevant period.

From census records, I know that Oma Mae's father was John Howard and her mother was Katy or Caty. My grandmother confirmed that our John Howard married Katherine Grindstaff, and that marriage is documented in Carter County records, dated January 1819. There were many John Howards in the Carolinas at that time, and searching through them has proven difficult. The Howard family most thoroughly documented in Blount County history descends from George Sater Howard, who migrated from North Carolina to claim his Revolutionary War land grant. That family can be traced back to approximately 900 A.D. in England, through a line that includes Sir Thomas Howard, father of Katherine Howard—one of Henry VIII's wives. Every time I identify a Sater-Howard candidate who might be our John Howard, however, the name, timeline, or spouse proves inconsistent.

There are one or two John Howards listed on the Dawes Indian Rolls, though accessing those applications requires either a paid subscription or a visit to Washington, D.C. I intend to pursue that avenue once time permits.

Many years ago, I worked with two Howard brothers and their father, who operated Continental Aerial Surveys. They confirmed descent from the Sater-Howard line along Nine Mile Creek and mentioned that one brother in that line had married a full-blooded Cherokee woman. I was able to locate that family, and they did have a son named John Howard in the correct generation—but his listed spouse was not Katherine Grindstaff. His wife appears to have come from, or retired to, the estate of a prominent Georgia family connected to a well-known writer. That line is well researched, and I do not believe it connects to ours.

Our John Howard and Katy appear in the Blount County census before the Sater-Howards migrated to the area, as best I can determine. Mrs. Burns's history of Blount County contains considerable information about the Sater-Howards, as does a regional volume on prominent Southern families. According to Carter County census and tax records, there were many Grindstaffs in that county. Determining Katherine's parentage will likely require DNA evidence. Her father was not listed on the marriage license, and I was unable to locate a marriage bond in the Carter County archives, though one may have existed. The one consistent thread throughout the literature is that "Grindstaff" appears to be an Americanized rendering of the German "Cransdorf"—a transformation that likely occurred at the point of immigration. If that line can be traced further, it almost certainly leads to Germany as well.

In my older years, I have come to find humor in my own tendencies. I have noticed that despite genuinely enjoying conversation and the company of others, I share certain traits with the character Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory—particularly in moments requiring emotional comfort. Most of my ethnicity estimates returned a notably high proportion of German or Germanic ancestry, and I suspect that accounts for some of my more rigid personality traits: a strong aversion to tardiness, a task-oriented disposition, and a carefully planned daily schedule. Anyone who knows me well, or has worked alongside me, would likely confirm this without hesitation.

If something significant comes to light before Thanksgiving, I will post an update. Otherwise, there may be a period of silence. I look forward to sharing more information in the coming months, including the remaining depositions from Reuben Johnson's probate records—among them, Eli Johnson's own deposition. It is a remarkable thing to have a sworn, notarized record of something one of our direct ancestors stated—notarized, as it happens, by a Thompson, possibly connected to Thompson Bridge. Eli's deposition also provides considerable detail about his half-siblings, including whom they married and how many children they had.

Please stay safe.