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The following is a chapter from:
Trace Your Roots with DNA
by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and Ann Turner
(reprinted with permission)
REVERSE GENEALOGY GUIDELNES
If you have reason to use reverse genealogy to identify and locate potential participants for your study, a few straightforward guidelines can make your search much easier. Fortunately, we've had lots of experiences in this area, so we'd like to share some tactics we've found especially helpful. We have deliberately emphasized examples from the past 50 to 150 years (because many genetealogists will find themselves focusing on this timeframe) and widely available resources (such as those found online), but depending on your specific circumstances, you may find yourself dealing with earlier centuries and more traditional, non-Internet-based research. In either case, the following general principles still apply.
REMEMBER TO SURROUND AND CONQUER
Back in Chapter 1, If You're New to Genealogy, we suggested a surround-and-conquer approach to research, and that definitely applies when it comes to finding DNA testing candidates. Rather than fixating on one individual and allowing him or her to become a bottleneck, your search will often be more productive if you expand your scope to include relatives, friends, and other associates. You can use the information found this way to work your way back to the targeted person and then move forward in time to his or her descendants, your potential testing partners. Doing so, for instance, may reveal a previously unknown married name for a woman whose mtDNA trail you wish to follow - perhaps in her father's Civil War pension file, her brother's will, or her mother's obituary. This, in turn, would allow you to find records pertaining directly to her that would likely mention her children. It may seem like a detour initially, but you'd be surprised how much time these seemingly indirect routes can save you! And incidentally, the closer you get to the present, the more useful you're apt to find this approach. The living are well protected by privacy laws, unlisted numbers, and other mechanisms, so reaching them through associates - perhaps military or school buddies, neighbors, or fellow members of their sailing or antique car club - may be your most efficient means of contact.
REMEMBER THE WOMEN!
Since the majority of genetic genealogy that's being conducted today is focused on the surname projects, this seemingly cuts women out because they don't have a Y-chromosome. But bearing the surround-and-conquer tactic in mind, it's important to remember that women can participate by proxy. If they're interested in learning about their maiden name, for example, they can talk a brother, cousin, father or uncle into testing in their place.
Since genealogists are apt to be more interested in DNA projects than people contacted at random, it's useful to know that somewhere between 63 and 72 percent (depending on which survey you choose to believe) of genealogists are female. This means that anyone considering launching a DNA project would be smart to make an effort to enlist the help of women in recruiting related men to participate. In fact, it was interesting to learn from a survey we conducted of DNA projects that approximately a third of study administrators are women and that women are far more likely to run multiple surname projects than men. They may not have the Y, but the sure now how to find it!
CHOOSE YOUR INITIAL TARGET WISELY
If you're fortunate enough to have several names you could pursue - say a cluster of siblings born to a couple named Brown between 1850 and 1870 - begin your search by focusing on these:
- The most recently born
- The one with the most unusual name
- A male
The youngest person is your closest bridge of living descendants. If you start with the child born in 1870, you're essentially already a generation closer to today than if you opted to start with the one born in 1850. And if the children are named Thomas, John, James, Elijah, Mary and Anne, you're apt to have more success looking for Elijah Brown than the others, whose names are painfully common. Finally, although we don't wish to be sexist, it is true that males are often easier to follow through the generations because they retain their surnames, so all other factors being equal, you'll probably save time by starting with a man (unless you're tracing an mtDNA line that makes a woman your primary focus). If your efforts to find the first person fail to produce results, apply the surround-and-conquer axiom above, and move on to the others.
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North American office: P.O. Box 160, Carmine, TX 78932-0160 USA tel/fax: Toll free 866-7-DNA-DNA |
European office: 40 Preston Road, Weymouth, Dorset,
DT3 6PZ, UK tel:+44 (0) 1305 834936 fax:+44 (0)
1305 835925 |
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