Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana’s RLP with DNA 4 Study Group project to prove the parentage of Hickman Monroe Shults, her 3rd-great-grandfather. Long standing documentary research has shown that Hickman was the son of Martin Shults, but Diana shares how she wanted to test this research with DNA evidence. She shares the first four steps of the research like a pro with DNA process and her progress.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 203, proving the parent and child link using ancestry through lines. Part one, Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.
Diana (43s):
Let’s go, hi there. Welcome toResearch Like a Pro. Hi, Nicole, how are you today?
Nicole (50s):
Hi mom. I’m great. I’m excited because I found a lot of answers in my research project for the DNA study group. This last two weeks that we’ve been doing our research phase. And, you know, I thought I would need to have mitochondrial DNA to prove the answer to this case, but I, I don’t. I found the answer with a lot of auto mall DNA test takers. And so it’s been exhilarating to be able to take brushy Bez mother’s line back several generations. Some of these segments just seems like they pass down in tact through the generations from the colonial period.
Diana (1m 26s):
That’s super exciting and so interesting. You happened into a really good family to work with on the DNA. And it’s funny how some families do not have that and others do.
Nicole (1m 39s):
Yeah. I think what happened with this particular test taker whose matches I analyzed, she inherited this a couple of segments of DNA that came from a family that settled in Virginia in the 16 hundreds and had a lot of descendants. This Arnold family. I was looking for descendants of
Nicole (2m 26s):
And as I continued to investigate shared matches for those matches, I found that even though the segments were still in the range of 20 to 35 Santa Morgans, that some of them were coming through Humphreys parents and grandparents. And great-grandparents all the way back to this Thomas Arnold and Grace Arnold, who lived in Virginia in, I think it’s prince William county and maybe king George county. Anyways, they lived there and had a bunch of descendants. And luckily that line was really well-documented by this Arnold association of the south who had a newsletter and I was able to find it online and they had a lot of the sources they use put the families together. So it was really helpful and just fun to, to see this line develop for Bessie, but Arnold, who was the grandmother of Barsha with AARP taking her line all the way back to Thomas Arnold.
Diana (3m 13s):
So were you looking at matches on ancestry?
Nicole (3m 16s):
I was.
Diana (3m 17s):
And we’re using Thrulines?
Nicole (3m 20s):
No. So I did it first. So Thrulines, I added Joanna west and Barsheba Arnold, the mother and grandmother of Barsheba Tharp and then Thrulines did pick up some matches to Humphrey and Harriet, Humphre Arnold, the father of Barsheba Arnold. And so Thrulines did give me a few. And then I used those to find more through tree building because most people didn’t have their tree back this far. So I would look at shared matches for these known descendants of Humphrey Arnold. Then I would look at people who had big trees, then I would extend their trees even further by looking at family search for like their end of line ancestors. And then I would just, oh, there’s an Arnold. Oh yeah, sure enough at all.
Nicole (4m 1s):
They always went back to, to Humphrey Arnold or his father Thomas Arnold, or his father, Isaac Arnold, and then his father Thomas Arnold.
Diana (4m 11s):
Nice. So you use through lines to find some key matches. Then you looked at their shared matches to find more matches going back.
Nicole (4m 18s):
Yeah. And I just had to extend their trees because through-lines, won’t pick them up if the trees don’t go far enough.
Diana (4m 23s):
Right. And so then you had to look at family search to help you extend the trees. Were you building a tree?
Nicole (4m 29s):
No.
Diana (4m 29s):
Of your own. You’re just using family search and what people had out there.
Nicole (4m 34s):
My preference for these is to just cause there’s so many matches that I just pick the people with big trees, look for places or surnames that I recognize because I start to recognize them with the collateral lines that descend down. And then I just take a person in the tree, type their name into the family search tree search box, and then view their tree and click the extend arrows at the end of the family trees. Until I see a name that I recognize,
Diana (5m 2s):
I love doing that. And I saw a presentation at the east coast, genetic genealogy conference where the presenter was using Pazilla do you remember Pazilla where you can put in a family search ID and then it shows you like in this neat puzzle type thing, all of their descendants,
Nicole (5m 21s):
I love Pazilla and you know, I haven’t used it for so long, but it’s such a good idea to use in DNA research.
Diana (5m 27s):
I had never thought of it. And he was using it to look for mitochondrial and why DNA candidates, because you can easily, easily see pink or blue and you can see lines that have maybe daughtered out or, you know, an end of the line, male, who wouldn’t have to sentence the test. Anyway, I thought that was brilliant. I can’t believe we haven’t thought about using Pazilla in our DNA work.
Nicole (5m 51s):
Yeah. We should do a blog post about that because if it’s a very fun resource and it works really well, if you have a family search tree, because it just takes your info information from there,
Diana (6m 0s):
Right? Oh, it’s always fun to think of new ways to use DNA or to kind of solidify the methodology, which is, you know, what you’ve given us right here really good way to keep working on identifying matches. And so then as you found each match, you put them in your lucid chart and air table. Right?
Nicole (6m 16s):
I kept track of all of them in air table, but for my proof argument, I decided I don’t want to use the matches that go back beyond Humphrey Arnold, his generation for this report. So I’m keeping them in my log, but I’m not adding them to my air table yet, since it was so many generations, I just didn’t feel like I wanted to spend the time and effort proving each of those, even though the linkages are not probably that difficult, but my main purpose for this project was to find Barsheba Tharp’s mother. And I feel that the matches descending from Humphrey Arnold are enough evidence for that.
Diana (6m 52s):
That’s neat. Well, thanks for telling us all about your project. It’s always fun to see how you’re making progress on Barsheba Tharp.
Nicole (6m 58s):
So what have you been working on or reading?
Diana (7m 1s):
Well, I’ve been working on my steady group project as well, which we’ll talk about as the main part of this podcast. But this morning I was reading somewhere of Martha Hoffman, Rising’s book, the family tree problem-solver, which I highly recommend for anyone who hasn’t heard of that yet. And it’s the chapter on the fan club. And so she’s talking about the friends’ families, associates and neighbors, and, you know, we always attribute that fan club to Alyssa, Sean Mills. And she talked about that in the very first part of this chapter, how Elizabeth introduced the idea in the 1990s at the Georgia Institute.
Diana (7m 42s):
So I thought that was so interesting that she’s the first one that really said, this is a methodology that really works, especially in the south and, you know, IGH, our Institute is the acronym for that. So the Institute of genealogy and history research, that’s a lot of Southern researchers and discussing how to do Southern research and the fan club is so important with that. So anyway, it was just fun to read that that’s when it was first introduced. And before that genealogist were really just focused on tracing lines, going straight back, or they were just focused on the surname and not paying attention to all the people around their ancestor that would be related and how to use those people to break through brick walls.
Nicole (8m 27s):
I never knew that that’s where Elizabeth started teaching the fan club methodology, but I am so thankful that it’s a methodology that I know about now, because it has really helped me with a lot of projects.
Diana (8m 40s):
Me too. It’s amazing. And it’s interesting that people before didn’t really catch on to that, or maybe some did, but they just didn’t get their work out there. So anyone else could use it. So we’re so grateful to Elizabeth for teaching and publishing and doing so much to help the genealogy world.
Nicole (8m 58s):
Well, for our announcements, we have a reminder that our false study group begins on Wednesday, September 7th, and that’s going to be our eighth research, like a pro study group. It’s going to be fun. We’re going to meet every week for nine weeks. And we’ve added in this break week during the research phase, so that there’s two weeks to work on your research plan and following that research plan and in all of your results. So if you’re interested, just put July 20th on your calendar. That’s when registration begins and registration will go from July 20th until August 25th. And if you’re interested in helping as a peer group leader, go on our website and apply.
Nicole (9m 38s):
So our listener spotlight today is from Ruth. She listened to our episode about proving your pedigree with DNA. And she said, Nicola Diana’s interview with Deborah on proving your pedigree with DNA was inspiring. The takeaways from attending SLIG’s DNA class to write your report. As you research was inspiring. Recently, I had my uncle take a Y DNA test to verify an extend my mother’s paternal line, and it showed we had a surname change. We do share autosomal DNA with the six matches from the Y DNA. This podcast was helpful in helping me take a few moments and start writing up my DNA findings in a report so I can share it with my extended family. I am very interested in the macro that they discussed and maybe a future podcast on specifics of writing up DNA report when using the different kinds of DNA, autosomal DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and why DNA DNA is a fascinating piece of evidence to include improving your pedigree.
Nicole (10m 32s):
I always tell myself and my family that DNA doesn’t lie. Thanks, Nicole and Diana for sharing your knowledge and experiences on how to be a better genealogist. So thank you to our listener, Ruth, for sharing that. And we will definitely have some more podcast episodes in the future about writing and including DNA. I think that’s a very important topic and it’s a challenge to do that. The macro she referenced was the word template from Brent Chadwick that helps you to write your narrative genealogies, and then do the numbering. So sometimes it’s difficult to do all the numbering of the children and of the people in your narrative genealogy.
Nicole (11m 12s):
So that really helps. And you can look into that macro for word at Brent Chadwick’s website, which is Knox trail ancestree, spelled A N C E S T R E E, like a tree, .com, just click on store. And that’s where you can see his, his templates.
Diana (11m 33s):
I love your comment that we all need to work on writing about DNA, especially when we are trying to share what DNA is telling us with people who aren’t working with it. And we talked a lot about that in the study group. In fact, I just did the lesson on that, on how to write about DNA and incorporate that with documentary evidence. And we have to use a lot of explanations and charts and diagrams to really explain to the non genealogist how DNA really does confirm some relationships.
Nicole (12m 7s):
Right? And I think sometimes with DNA, we don’t remember all of the foundational information that we have about our test takers and how they’re related to each other. The building blocks of setting up the DNA to be able to tell us actual evidence for our research. So it’s always good to brainstorm and think of all of the assumptions we’re making, then all of the things we assume people will know or understand so that we remember to talk about those things,
Diana (12m 37s):
Right?
Nicole (12m 37s):
Well, for our topic today, we’re going to go over Diana’s research project that she’s doing for the study group. So this might be applicable to you. If you have a parent child link in your family tree that you haven’t personally researched, but has just been a longstanding fact in the family. You may want to try doing what she’s doing to use DNA evidence and revisit the documentary research to prove that link. So if you’ve tested your autosomal DNA at ancestry, and do you have attached to family tree, then ancestry has a program called three lines that will generate hypothetical placements for where your DNA matches could go as descendants of one of your ancestors or suggesting one of your ancestors sometimes.
Nicole (13m 22s):
So these are really great clues, but it’s up to you to verify that placement and see if it’s accurate and check the parent child links. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Diana (13m 31s):
So as part of the research cycle, prof DNA for study group, I decided to tackle my paternal Schultz line. And when you and I, and Nicole had started researching, we looked at that Schultz line and it was built back all the way to the 1600s in France or Germany. I think it was Alsace. And so, you know, when you have a line that’s built back so far, often you don’t really feel the need to do a lot of research on it. Cause we have plenty of other lines that dead ended in the 18 hundreds, but I decided I wanted to use DNA to verify each generational link of that line. And I had done a previous project on our ancestor, Hickman Monro Schultes.
Diana (14m 11s):
And I realized that there was really no documentary evidence that showed his father was Martin Schultz. And there’s a lot of fan club research all around the family. You know, they all are migrating together and it makes total sense that there is a parent child link there, but there really is no document. And so I decided to have that be the focus for the project and looking at my through lines, I have 96 matches, but this is quite a ways back for me. And so most of those were under 15 Ms, which is, you know, getting down in the danger zone of, of smaller matches, but I’m using the DNA of my cousin Lacretia and she’s one closer and she has better matches.
Diana (14m 57s):
She has 149 matches and through lines. And many of those are over 27 cMs. So we always want to work with that person who is the generation closer, if we can find them and use their matches. So anyway, I was excited to dig into this project and the DNA and see if through lines would confirm this longstanding family link.
Nicole (15m 22s):
Wow. 149 matches and through lines. I think that’s incredible. And it just makes me think about the post that Heidi Mathis wrote for our blog about colonial ancestors and how they have a lot of descendants. And we may have a lot more matches to those ancestors because, you know, they have many lines in the United States and a lot of people in the United States take DNA tests. So it was just an interesting discussion, which I will link to in the show notes. But I wonder if that’s why this line has so many matches.
Diana (15m 51s):
Oh yeah. And they all had a lot of children who had a lot of children and there’s just a lot of descendants at this family. I did quite a bit of research on them, even though the line was built back, I was doing a lot of collateral research, you know, researching the aunts and uncles and the cousins. And so it’s been fun because I’m seeing some familiar surnames like, oh, I remember that that daughter married that man. You know, so it’s been kind of fun because it’s been awhile since I’ve looked at this line and I’m seeing some familiar names,
Nicole (16m 27s):
Well, I love that strategy. And it’s nice that when you have people in your tree, then three lines are generated and it’s such a good hint and such a good starting point for finding people. So the first assignment in the research like a pro with DNA study group is to review your DNA matches and do some basic clustering of those matches and then evaluate them with the shared cM project tool. And then we were supposed to identify two or three research questions that could be answered with DNA. So how did that go?
Diana (16m 57s):
Well, I always have several research questions and I had already decided I wanted to do the testing that Martin Schultz is the biological father of Hickman Monro Schultz. Who’s my third great-grandfather. So I was pretty sure that was what I was going to do for my project. And I do have the good paper trail back to Hickman. So got censuses, you know, everything really goes back to him. And I decided to have that be my main objective. But one of the things that I noticed when I was looking at through lines of some of the trees was the fact that there are two men named Martin Schultz and those identities seem to have become merged.
Diana (17m 39s):
And so I’m hoping as I work through this documentary research and try to straighten out some things that I can really clarify these different Martin Schulz’s, maybe they’re the same man, but you know how just look at something and you think I’m not sure about that. So I thought that would be a fun part to add in with the documentary evidence is as well as I’m trying to confirm these trees going back to Martin Schultz and making sure everybody’s got the right one. So I am using Lucretia’s DNA matches, and I am not as familiar with hers as my own. So I decided to start at the very beginning with clustering and use the leads method.
Diana (18m 19s):
And I found very similar to my own leads chart that we have some pedigree collapse because we have these Southern ancestors and they don’t really separate out really nicely into the foreground parent lines. I think I had about 11 different lines, but it was fun because they recognize a lot of these matches as my own matches. I was able to pretty quickly find the line on this particular Schultz line that I think are the right matches. So that was fun. And again, it goes back to just having worked with your matches and putting some notes in there and knowing how people connect. It helps you see the pattern so much faster,
Nicole (18m 59s):
Right? It’s all about seeing those patterns after working with clustering and network graphs for a lot of people who have Southern ancestry, I’m noticing that like what you said, there’s a lot of connections between the groups and sometimes they don’t separate very neatly because they just look like a lot of overlapping colors and lines. Kind of like you mentioned in your leads chart, as you were talking, I just thought, I think another factor that in addition to, you know, some of these people have pedigree claps is that people just have multiple relationships with each other because they share more than one common ancestor. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have pedigree collapse in that case, but they have two relationships with any given testing early, maybe they’re related to them on their mom’s side and their dad’s side.
Nicole (19m 48s):
Not because their mom and dad are related, but just because they have two common ancestral couples, you know, because if you go back far enough and if your tree is all from the Southern United States or from colonial times, then there’s just a lot of the same founding ancestors of certain places and things.
Diana (20m 7s):
Yeah. That’s a great point,
Nicole (20m 8s):
But it’s tricky sometimes to be able to pinpoint exactly what’s happening. You just see a lot of overlap.
Diana (20m 14s):
Yep. And you have to dig into the trees and the matches and try to figure out what’s going on.
Nicole (20m 20s):
Do you ever see the notification on a common ancestor, hint and ancestry that it gives you like, oh, you’re coming and sister might be this person, but then there’s also a link that says view other possible common ancestors
Diana (20m 32s):
Every once in a while. And that is a really good clue that there’s many possible ways you’re connected.
Nicole (20m 39s):
Right. I think it’s so helpful to be able to look at those. And one of the people in the study group whose paper I was reviewing today, she had calculated the coefficient of relationship, which, you know, a great way to estimate how much DNA you might share with a person because it takes into account how many common ancestors you have, like if there’s four instead of two, and then how many steps between that DNA match into you. So it can kind of help you estimate, like how much you would expect to share with a person who’s your double cousin or triple cousin or something.
Diana (21m 12s):
Oh, that’s great. Because that really can skew your analysis. Having someone show up with all this DNA and then their connections are so far back. So yeah, I have that situation with a fairly large match and just clearly relates on both grandparents lines. So interesting.
Nicole (21m 32s):
The next step in the process is to create your research objective and discuss any limitations that might be related to the DNA that you’re using.
Diana (21m 45s):
So I wrote the following objective using DNA analysis and documentary research test. The hypothesis that Martin Schultz was the biological father of Hickman Monroe Schultz. Martin was born about 1800 in severe county, Tennessee and died 1854 in Johnson county, Texas. He married Sarah routing on 24, December 18, 14 in Rhea county, Tennessee Hickman was born on 13, June, 1821 in Alabama and died on 12 may, 1899 Nepal’s county, Texas. He married Rachel Cox on four, July, 1848 and Navarro county, Texas. So we have a lot of names, a lot of dates, a lot of places. And if you’re listening, you’re probably thinking, oh man, that’s a lot of details in there, but it’s so helpful in your objective to have it all right there.
Diana (22m 30s):
So you don’t have to keep looking at your tree and thinking, okay, where was he born? And when was he born? So I love having my objective have all those key identifiers right there for me. So limitations are interesting with DNA and it’s really good to write these out and we recommend you do this though. You clearly think through. And I wrote that all the white DNA could be used in the future. No candidate has yet been discovered because many of these lines have Daughtered out. Isn’t it so interesting, Nicole, that with 10 children in the Schultz line of my great-grandfather, I think there’s maybe one candidate that could still be living in Oregon.
Diana (23m 13s):
And I know I need to probably kind of try to track him down, but so many of the lines Daughtered out and there’s no white DNA test or that I’ve been able to find. So I’ve got to go back a generation and, and look there for a Schultz tester, because I’d love to have that further evidence. So that was one of the limitations that I don’t have wide DNA right now. And then another limitation was that the test takers are three to four generations removed from Martin. And so you’ve got smaller amounts of DNA to work with. And then another limitation was that it will use autosomal DNA suggested from ancestry DNA through lanes. So obviously if I needed to expand, I could work with other matches and other DNA testing companies.
Diana (23m 57s):
But because there are so many here, 149 matches through all seven children of Martin, I felt like this was probably going to be some good evidence. If I can just get everything verified. And then I also wrote the specific line. That’s not necessarily a limitation, but I wanted to make sure I had Lucretia’s line back to Martin. And then I mentioned that because this is a Southern us line, it likely has petty Creek collapse and the possibility of multiple common ancestors for a match exists. And then finally, probably in my opinion, one of the biggest limitations is that ancestry DNA through lines suggest relationships based on user trees, which are likely to have significant errors.
Diana (24m 38s):
So each link will need to be verified with documentary research. So through-lines are great until they’re wrong. Right?
Nicole (24m 47s):
Right. We just need to always consider the fact that they could be wrong and do our due diligence. But you know, in some of the projects I’ve done lately, a lot of them are right. But one thing that they often get wrong I’ve noticed is the half relationships. They don’t know which wife, a child descended from.
Diana (25m 5s):
That can be tricky. And interestingly enough, in this line, there’s only one wife all the way back, which makes it nice and easy. Oh
Nicole (25m 13s):
Yeah.
Diana (25m 14s):
At least for the main line, some of the other collateral lines might have more than one wife, but like our Schultz line going straight back, children are all descended from the same woman. Okay.
Nicole (25m 25s):
That’s helpful. Yeah. With Barsheba Tharp, she is the child of the first wife and Joanna, her mom is descended from the first wife, not the second wife. So I’ve had to really look at these different wives and try to figure out the timing and things.
Diana (25m 38s):
Yeah. Yeah. Those have relationships can be tricky. And when you’re going further back the cMs, they don’t take it. They don’t tell you anything that far back. Right.
Nicole (25m 50s):
It’s just happens to be that sometimes the half cousins, you inherit more with them like fourth or fifth cousins back not distant. Can’t really tell.
Diana (26m 1s):
Right.
Nicole (26m 2s):
I wish. So the next step is fun. It’s diagramming and adding all your closest matches to lucid chart and practicing with that.
Diana (26m 10s):
Right. And this was really great because again, I’m using Lucretia’s DNA and I was not as familiar with her closest matches. And so I use it to diagram her closest matches with the common ancestor of her great-grandfather William Henderson, Schultz, and that’s the son of Hickman. And I really wanted to set a foundation and show that through DNA that is showing that connection is correct. And that was actually really easy to do. There are plenty of matches that clearly showed that. And I actually worked with this DNA before with Hickman Manuel’s wife, Rachel Cox. And so, because I worked with a lot of these same matches, it seemed easier to me to diagram that out.
Diana (26m 57s):
So the diagram is great and I love just having it down and in air table, I have a little column where I can match that I’ve diagrammed DNA match. And I put the information on ancestry in the little note section. And so every time you add more details and more information to your air table or to ancestry in that section, it just helps you. And it’s interesting how previous projects helped with this project.
Nicole (27m 23s):
Right? It’s so nice when you are recognizing names of matches. You can say that that person, I remember they descend from so-and-so or if you have added the dots, so you can quickly see, oh, the green color means that I’m on the right track here.
Diana (27m 37s):
Right. And the other valuable thing that came from doing the diagram was that I realized there is another Schultz ascendant who’s on the same generation as the Cretia descending through a different child and independent line. So I can ask this tester to share results with me and I would have another set of DNA to work with. So that’s another really great thing about diagramming out the connections, because then you get to see who is closer to the common ancestor and his DNA would be more valuable.
Nicole (28m 11s):
Absolutely. You know, that’s a really good point about making a diagram because you can see it so much better. And whenever I’m looking for test takers, I do, I go straight to my diagram and look and see who’s the closest to the research subject. And then I know who to message and say, Hey, can you share it? You know, with me, or, or sometimes I’ve even created a descendant tree of people who haven’t tested and just look to see who the living people are that are the closest
Diana (28m 37s):
To see if you can find a good test taker. Right.
Nicole (28m 41s):
And sometimes I’ll use that to like figure out X DNA inheritance, or just look and see who has an all female line going back so that I can ask them to take a mitochondrial test.
Diana (28m 52s):
Right. And we call that targeted testing.
Nicole (28m 54s):
It’s fun to do, but it’s scary. It can be challenging. I’ve had some, no responses where people say they won’t test.
Diana (29m 6s):
Yeah.
Nicole (29m 6s):
Very disappointing. Okay. So next the assignment was to create a timeline and add source citations and analyze these sources that you already have and analyze your DNA matches.
Diana (29m 16s):
So this is always fun. I like creating the timeline, gives me a chance to look at all of the evidence that I’ve collected through the years, or that’s been attached to a family search or to an online tree. And so I did the timeline for Martin and Hickman Schultz, and I used the air table template for the timeline and I created my source citations. And of course it always points out some of the holes in the research. And I also looked at each documentary source for the type of source information and evidence. And one interesting document I looked at was a tax record. And, you know, I was trying to decide, is this an original list or is this a derivative?
Diana (30m 0s):
Was this recopied? And I still am a little bit on the fence. I finally decided it was derivative because the names were all arranged by surname. And I thought that perhaps the tax collector, after going out, you know, surveying everyone then came back and made a nice copy with all the S’s together and all the teas together. So that’s what I thought. What are your thoughts on that? You’ve done a lot of texts work.
Nicole (30m 25s):
I think that’s probably a derivative as well because it’s alphabetically arranged. It could have been like the state copy or something.
Diana (30m 31s):
Yeah. We don’t really have any more information about it, but you know, when we’re thinking about analyzing our sources, it doesn’t mean we have to know exactly. It’s just good for us to think about it. So the one thing that I knew for sure that it provides direct evidence of his residence in Polaski county, since he was taxed for the poll tax that year. So it was fun to go through and analyze each one. And then an air table. I added a field for individual and noted whether it was for Martin or Hickman, then it was so nice because then I could group by individual and then air table magically separated the timelines for each man and group them together.
Diana (31m 12s):
So I could see just Martin’s timeline or just Hickmans. And if I ungrouped it, I’d see them all chronologically arranged. So that’s always really neat. And then I also added some of their fan club, as we talked about the beginning friends, associates and neighbors. So that was great. It was fun to get that foundation down. Also with the DNA I had been adding the DNA matches and checking the shared Sena Morgans against the shared set of Oregon project and predicted relationships. And I found that all my matches that I had been adding to my diagram worked, they all fell within the expected range. So that was what I did for the DNA portion.
Nicole (31m 53s):
With the tax records, where you just kind of looking to flush out Martin’s life and residence and timeline over the years, or were you trying to find connections between him and Hickman?
Diana (32m 3s):
I was just trying to learn more about him. I had done quite a bit of research on the family in Texas. They arrive in Texas about 1848, and Martin is not on the 1850 census with his wife, Sarah and two of his children. And so it’s always been the hypothesis that he died by 1850. And then there’s a land patent for his heirs in 1854, you know, so I was just trying to figure out, okay, when did he move to Texas? And when I found him in Arkansas 1841, you know, I knew he was at least there in 1841 trying to do a timeline.
Diana (32m 43s):
Cause it seems like the timeline goes Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and tax records are so helpful to pinpoint specific dates in between censuses.
Nicole (32m 54s):
Perfect. So you were just putting all the things you had already found in the past, into a timeline to really help you see what you needed to do for your research plan verbally. Right. Do you have any more thoughts or takeaways from what you learned from that timeline assignment?
Diana (33m 7s):
Well, I learned that I have a really large gap in actual records for Martin from 1820 to 1840 and hick my Monroe Schultz was supposedly born in Alabama in 1821. All the census records agree on that, the ones that he did for himself and you know, where he likely reported the information himself and for his children as well. So they always have this Alabama birth, but I don’t have any records for Martin in Alabama at all. And so I decided, wow, that’s a really large gap. And if I’m trying to prove a parent child relationship, I need to show that Martin was in Alabama, because that would give more evidence that this is a correct linkage,
Nicole (33m 52s):
Right? You want to find, did he really live there? Do I have the right father? Is this right? And sometimes people don’t know where they were born. So maybe he was telling everyone who was born in Alabama when really he wasn’t.
Diana (34m 4s):
Right, right. So that was, that was a pretty large gap in the records for him. That will definitely be part of my research plan.
Nicole (34m 12s):
Well, great. This was a good walk through of the first four steps of the research, like a pro with DNA process. And these really set the foundation for the project for making a research plan, what you need to know next. And I’m excited to see what you share in part two of this series.
Diana (34m 30s):
Well, thank you.
Nicole (34m 30s):
All right, everybody have a great week and we’ll talk to you again next week, by
Diana (34m 36s):
The way, everyone.
Nicole (34m 34s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
Links
Proving a Parent-Child Link Using Ancestry Thrulines Part 1 – by Diana – https://familylocket.com/proving-a-parent-child-link-using-ancestry-dna-thrulines-and-documentary-research-part-1/
East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference – https://ecggc.org/
Puzzilla Descendant Viewer – https://puzzilla.org/ (works with your FamilySearch login)
Knox Trail Ances-Tree Store – Brent Chadwick’s website where you can buy his Word template with macros for helping you number your genealogy – http://knoxtrailancestree.com/index.php/store
The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-and-True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors by Martha Hoffman Rising – affiliate link to Amazon – https://amzn.to/3OXHLcj
Using DNA for Clues with Colonial Ancestors: Quality vs Quantity – by Heidi Mathis – https://familylocket.com/using-dna-for-clues-with-colonial-ancestors-quality-vs-quantity/
Calculating Pedigree Collapse on DNA Matches – by Jayne Ekins at https://www.yourdnaguide.com/ydgblog/calculating-the-pedigree-collapse-effect-in-your-dna-matches
Research Like a Pro Resources
Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide book by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com – https://amzn.to/2x0ku3d
Research Like a Pro eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-e-course/
RLP Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-study-group/
Research Like a Pro with DNA Resources
Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist’s Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence book by Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin – https://amzn.to/3gn0hKx
Research Like a Pro with DNA eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-ecourse/
RLP with DNA Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-study-group/
Thank you
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