PBS "Finding Your Roots" starts 3/25

[Brunetmj]

What company used for testing was confusing.
23andme dosent use cheek swabs. They use spitting into a vile .
I think it was FTDNA testing but 23andme pie charts.
My hope is it will entice more people to use DNA testing services.

[Javelin]

My grandmother who was from Vermont, was married to a Falkenbury. I had not previously seen the surname again until your posting.

Were these originally Van Volkinburg by any chance?

[Zaru]

Were these originally Van Volkinburg by any chance?

I haven't any genealogical information on this gentleman as he was not a genetic relative to me and they did not have any children together. But it does seem plausible that they could have been.

[Javelin]

Thanks -- I have the same story, some Van Volkinburgs are non-blood relatives of mine from NY.

[Lincoln]

Do they talk of African cousins?

I couldn't see the show, and wondered if they talked about matches, and if so, were any in Africa? I remember watching "Who Do You Think You Are?" or whatever the heck that show is called, a while back, and someone went over to Africa to some village. I know it wasn't focused on DNA per se, and this is, but there is something very moving about finding where onesself came from.

[ragnar]

I only saw 1 episode, not the one with Marsalis. They did mention ftdna co.. They said the (cousin) dna test kit was from ftdna. I thought it was funny when later they have 23andme explain the dna cousin test. I bet the producers thought that having the testers repeatedly spit into a vial (the 23andme test) would be too gross for TV audiences, so they opted for the ftdna swab. But to be "fair" they then had 23andme explain the test. Ha Ha.

[PDHOTLEN]

Regarding the Falconbury surname, it supposedly goes way back to Van Valkenburg of New Amsterdam and on to the Netherlands. Valkenburg was an old fortress or castle down in that SE tail of the Netherlands. I don't really know what all is fact and what is fiction. I get a lot of my info from Ancestry.com. My maternal grandmother has threads going back to colonial times (she once claimed the Mayflower). The Falconburys (under other variations of that name) migrated south before the French and Indian War to North Carolina (spilling over into South Carolina) via Virginia at first. Land ownership disputes in Virginia caused them to move on down the Great Wagon Road. My thread eventually moved up to Indiana via Kentucky. But the rest remained in the south as Falconberry and Fortenberry. I saw on a forum that Britney Spears is connected to the Fortenberry branch, but specifics weren't given out. As for myself, I am a dead end. But I like to uncover the history of my tree.

[Javelin]

Cool, thanks!

[PDHOTLEN]

To drag out my observations a bit more, within the past few days I found a direct female link from the Mayflower itself to the area in North Carolina where my own maternal line dead ends. It could even connect to mine, although it looks rather doubtful, based on my current assessment. That line does connect to the Falconburys, however, via a George Helms who married a Mary Margaret Falconbury (Falconborough). He didn't have that Mayflower mtDNA, but is connected to an earlier Rachel Craig who traces directly back to the Mayflower. Her maternal line appears to go back to Essex, England. If mine is somehow connected to Ann Johnson back in early Massachusetts, then mine seems to go back to Norfolk, England. But this is a lot of speculating.

[Zaru]

Walters/Canady Episode.

I thought this was a much tighter episode in terms of tying the actual scientific applications with the theoretical. This is something that WDYTYA? falls short on doing. Knowing that Ancestry does have a small DNA component, one would think this would give them a cause to integrate and expand in future episodes.

There is much, dare I say, that we still do not know and shows such as these hopefully will assist in expanding the databases.

[PDHOTLEN]

To drag out my observations a bit more, within the past few days I found a direct female link from the Mayflower itself to the area in North Carolina where my own maternal line dead ends. It could even connect to mine, although it looks rather doubtful, based on my current assessment. That line does connect to the Falconburys, however, via a George Helms who married a Mary Margaret Falconbury (Falconborough). He didn't have that Mayflower mtDNA, but is connected to an earlier Rachel Craig who traces directly back to the Mayflower. Her maternal line appears to go back to Essex, England. If mine is somehow connected to Ann Johnson back in early Massachusetts, then mine seems to go back to Norfolk, England. But this is a lot of speculating.

Someone in my expanded tree, in some communication or other, claimed to be related to Elvis Presley. I may have stumbled onto the origin of that. I was just adding a few tidbits to an extra tree I added to Ancestry. The above ^ mentioned Rachel Craig had a daughter Mary (b.1760) who married a Richard (or M. Richard) Presley in Anson/Mecklenburg County, NC in 1786. To set the record straight, Rachel married a brother of George Helms.

[Zaru]

Someone in my expanded tree, in some communication or other, claimed to be related to Elvis Presley. I may have stumbled onto the origin of that. I was just adding a few tidbits to an extra tree I added to Ancestry. The above ^ mentioned Rachel Craig had a daughter Mary (b.1760) who married a Richard (or M. Richard) Presley in Anson/Mecklenburg County, NC in 1786. To set the record straight, Rachel married a brother of George Helms.

That's pretty cool- so does that make you the Prince in Waiting of Rock and Roll?

[PDHOTLEN]

That's pretty cool- so does that make you the Prince in Waiting of Rock and Roll?

I never really got into rock and roll. I went to high school in the conservative 1950s when Eisenhower was President. I also saw a claim that the late Senator Helms and President carter were somehow connected to this expanded tree. But anyone with a tree extending back into colonial times probably has famous people attached.

[Swennilsson]

I generally like the show, but am of the opinion they spend way too much time on the biography of the guest, and would be better spending more time on the ancestor hunt.

[PDHOTLEN]

To drag out my observations a bit more, within the past few days I found a direct female link from the Mayflower itself to the area in North Carolina where my own maternal line dead ends. It could even connect to mine, although it looks rather doubtful, based on my current assessment. That line does connect to the Falconburys, however, via a George Helms who married a Mary Margaret Falconbury (Falconborough). He didn't have that Mayflower mtDNA, but is connected to an earlier Rachel Craig who traces directly back to the Mayflower. Her maternal line appears to go back to Essex, England. If mine is somehow connected to Ann Johnson back in early Massachusetts, then mine seems to go back to Norfolk, England. But this is a lot of speculating.

A slight correction (after looking at my tree some more): That maternal line of Rachel Craig (paternal Craig line from Ayrshire, Scotland) goes back to a Judith Vassall, who became the wife of a Mayflower traveler (Resolved White). She herself arrived later (1635), and they married in 1640.