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I am setting up the "plot ancestral locations" section of my account, and I noticed it asks for my most distant known paternal ancestor. Am I to assume this means my most distant ancestor on any side descended from my father's line? Or does it just mean ancestor for his surname? My paternal line is "Robinson," however I can trace much farther back to my dad's maternal line of Hudson. So should I use the Hudson ancestor? Thanks for any help.
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no, it's intended for your paternal line only, since that's the line by which your y-DNA is passed down.
of course if you venture into the FamilyFinder realm then all lines are in play, but i don't think the map was set up with that in mind (just my observation)
Originally posted by sbrobin View Post -
They want the information for your father's, father's, - - -, father.Comment
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Any Guesses
I have traced my ancesters on my paternal side to my GGGG grandmother who was enslaved in PA. but was given her freedom in 1776. She was listed as being a "mulatto wench". I believe this term was used to describe women mixed with African and other admixtures. She had three sons with the oldest one being born about 1767 who were also descibed as being mulatto. I can't find any mention of the man that impregnated her. Now my Y-DNA is O1a2 which is that of a Taiwan Aborigine. So my question is: where and how did the person that impregnated her eventually get from Taiwan to PA? I do'nt believe there were any Asians in PA at that time. Any guesses.Comment
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^^ Actually it wasn't uncommon to have Asians who where slaves as well. You may want to look into that aspect of it.Comment
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Well, you certainly do have a tough mystery to crack there.
I can't offer much insight into the distribution of that haplogroup or the history of slavery in the U.S. But I would just add the thought that perhaps your genealogy is a little more complicated than you think. There's an off chance that your O1a2 haplogroup may indicate some type of non-paternity event ("NPE") subsequent to that ancestor born 1767.
I think this happens more often than we'd like to think, mutliple non-paternity events within the history of one family. I myself am wrestling with the possibility.
I won't go into specifics because it'd bore you to death, and the lack of close matches in my case means there's a lot of moving pieces yet, but I knew about and just about confirmed one NPE when a series of potential "near matches" with a completely DIFFERENT surname showed up. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, this new surname has a historical georgraphic distribution very close to the one I suspected from the original NPE.
My current reaction is disappointment and frustration. A little premature, maybe, because I don't really have any super-close matches, and the trend I'm seeing could well be within the range of statistical noise. Nonetheless, it does reinforce, in my mind, the need for skepticism when approaching paper trails.
Originally posted by charleslow View PostComment
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The term "mulatto wench" was ascribed to women with mixed with African ancestry AND who were deemed sexually promiscuous. This term was subjected by either having children out of wedlock (usually forcibly by white men) or by profession. This was not uncommon.Originally posted by charleslow View Post
As for your haplogroup, that is an exciting one for sure, given the coordinates. My guess would be that this person was not directly from Taiwan, and without a photo it would be difficult to say which status he held (slave or free "white") That is perplexing indeed, but worth the efforts. What is your surname??Comment
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At this point, there isn't any way to know when your Taiwanese ancestor entered into your genealogy. Just as an NPE may have occured after 1767, your gggg grandfather, whoever he was, may himself have been admixed; he wasn't necessarily "full" Taiwanese. Barring a paper trail discovery, your best hope is to locate a very close yDNA match, based on at least 67 markers, that could give you a TMRCA within a few hundred years. From there, you could look into what is known historically about Taiwanese/East Asian/African interaction for that time period and then develop a working hypothesis. Of course, if you're fortunate enough to find such a match, he might have a paper trail and/or anecdotal family history that could should some light.
VinnieLast edited by vinnie; 10 February 2011, 11:17 AM.Comment
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Yes. The name of your earliest known mtdna ancestor. It is voluntary. You can put fill it out if you want to, but you don't have to.
I put my my earliest known mtdna ancestor.
For father's line, I chose to delete my paternal line info and am keeping it blank.
Originally posted by sbrobin View PostComment
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I have two guesses/ideas:
1) Was your ancestor living in Philadelphia? Maybe the Taiwanese father was a crew member of a ship carrying tea or spices or cargo from Asia or Indonesia that docked in Philadelphia. Maybe there are ship records you can look at to see if any cargo ships docked 9 months prior. Dutch East India Company may have had Asian employees.
2) If the father was black with a Taiwainese ydna, he may have been descended from a slave the Portuguese got from East Africa. Most European slavers got their slaves from West Africa, except for the Portuguese who extended slaving to East Africa. Ancient Asia traded with East Africa and Asian tradesmen visited Somalia and Zanzibar. If this is your line, the Portuguese got your ancestor from Mozambique.
Originally posted by charleslow View PostLast edited by rainbow; 21 February 2011, 06:23 PM.Comment
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Why did you do that if I may ask? Won't it be beneficial to learning results some kind of way?Originally posted by rainbow View PostComment
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I don't think I agree with this. The term wench originally meant young woman. Then the term morphed over time to describing servant girls/young women. Then the term further morphed from that to describing low class females. I've seen many southern slave related documents, and the term wench (as in mulatto wench) seems to me to be a common term used to describe female slaves, most likely because of the servant/slave connotation. The term was also used for both Negro women and mulatto women. If you searched, you would probably find the term "wench" used for white indentured servant women in the earliest colonial times as well.Originally posted by Zaru View Post
As an example, examine these documents
Virtually every female is described as wench. Even
George Lacey, 42, stout man marked with small pox, (John Finch). Born free in the family of Mr. Churchill in Virginia with whom he served until 30 years of age. GBC.
Fanny his wife, 33, stout mulatto wench, (John Finch). Born free, her mother being a white woman; served 31 years with George McCall, Rappahannock, Virginia. GBC.
Kate her daughter, 16, stout mulatto wench, (John Finch). Free.Last edited by smallaxe; 24 February 2011, 10:41 AM.Comment
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I wish we could input our entire maternal line, given that most people match ancestors by surname and the maternal surname changes every generation for much of the world. instead of one name to match, I have 15 but I only get to put in one. I would completely miss a match to my ancestress's mother if someone else were lucky enough to know who she was.Comment
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Originally posted by michellehall View Post
It is meant for just the most distant mtdna ancestor because the idea is get as close as possible to the original location. If your grandmother was from England but her mtdna great grandmother was from Norway, it is best to put Norway. That way the people who match you on the mtdna who are adopted or don't know where their mtdna line came from can have an accurate (or as close as possible) clue to their own mtdna origin.
If you have your heart set on listing all the mtdna surnames, do that.
But put the oldest known location.
Many people list their maternal surnames on mitosearch.Comment
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