Thank you James E. Dowell!

For the last quarter century James E. Dowell has been my genealogical mentor in all things Dowell -- well at least until we got to DNA testing. :-) Soon after we moved to California in 1990, I found in the Los Angeles LDS Library the Index of Dowells he had put together in collaboration with Dick Dowell. After exchanging many emails, I visited him in his home in Walnut. We hoped that would be the first of many in person meetings but that turned out not to be. Shortly thereafter he moved to Colorado and I moved to the Central California coast in Morro Bay. We have never been physically together again in spite of a few attempts. However, we have continued to collaborate over the years. 

That index has now been digitized and can be downloaded.

Over the ensuing years James and I, in collaboration with Tadd Bartley, built the "Dowell Family History Site" at MyFamily.com. This became a much used venue for attracting and sharing a great deal of Dowell history materials until Ancestry.com made the unfortunate decision to pull the plug on these sites a few years ago. 

Then came yDNA testing. One of our earliest successes was when Tadd's dad and James were compared and were found to be closely related thus confirming that the Bartleys descended from a woman who cohabited with a male Dowell but never married him. She gave her descendants her maiden name.

The next finding was jolting to some longtime Dowell surname researchers. Even a year or two after receiving the conclusive DNA results, some otherwise rational and objective genealogists were still in a state of disbelief. It long had been assumed that all Dowells were related in some way. If they just were able to push the paper trail back one more generation to the immigrant, they believed he would turn out to the “missing link” between his descendants who settled in both Maryland and Virginia. There were some Dowell researchers who could trace their ancestry back to early Colonial Virginia and some who could trace their roots back to early Maryland. No big deal. Back then, people traveled by water when they could. Roads were barely passable at best since President Eisenhower had not yet built the Interstate Highway system. It appeared obvious that upon passing through Hampton Roads some Dowells had gone west up the James River in Virginia and some had turned right and gone north up the Chesapeake Bay into Maryland. These were the paths that goods took when they came from England and were reversed when tobacco was exported. It would have been a relatively easy trip from central Virginia to southern Maryland via these waterways. But it didn’t happen like that. DNA results have established that the Maryland Dowells and the Virginia Dowells have not had a common male ancestor for about three centuries—a period that would extend far earlier than when surnames like Dowell began to be used. The use of this name had emerged independently in at least two separate locations. [David R. Dowell, NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection. Libraries Unlimited, 2015, p. 29.]

Big Y SNP testing has recently confirmed that the closest common male ancestor of the Virginia Dowells and the Maryland Dowells lived at least four millennia ago. The male progenitors of both Dowell groups were part of the invasion of Haplogroup R1b which sweep into Europe from the steppes five to seven thousand years ago with their horses and chariots thus overwhelmed the hunter gatherers and early farmers who were already there. However, genetically, they soon parted.

In spite of this family split, James has continued to mentor Dowells of all persuasions by willingly sharing the massive amount of family data he has accumulated over the last half century. Most recently he allowed me to copy more than a hundred 3 1/2 inch diskettes to a Dropbox location from which it will be easier for Dowell family researchers to extract data.

Thank you James for continuing to mentor us and to share your research data! We hope to spread far and wide the fruits of your research labor and your willingness to share.

Unraveling BIG Y Test Results: R-DF97

Yesterday I wrote about a BIG Y discovery that got my Maryland Dowells past SNPs R-L21 and R-DF13. The Virginia Group 1 Dowells in our surname project had long been known to have come forward in time from those two SNPs and were known to have reached R-M222. Thanks to the informative charts that citizen scientist Mike Walsh tirelessly updates at the site of the R L21 and Subclades Project, we have the opportunity to almost keep up with the current SNP tsunami:

The chart above is offered only to give overall perspective. The new subclade R-S1026 discussed in yesterday's post is represented by the four boxes colored pale pink in the middle of the chart. The more robust subclade R-DF49, which includes SNP M222, is the blue/aqua on the extreme lower left corner of the chart. Our Maryland Dowells and the Virginia Dowells have not shared a common male ancestor in about 3,500 years even though both followed the same SNP trail down from yDNA Adam to SNP DF13. You will need to visit the linked project website to be able to read the details of this chart. 

The DF49 corner of the chart is blown up below:

I request the reader's indulgence to ignore the gold and yellow boxes in the upper right corner of this part of the chart. The Virginia Group 1 Dowell who took the BIG Y test, was able to trace his SNP migration pattern several hundred years and eight SNPs closer to the present. He now is confirmed to be DF97 and beyond. DF97 is at the bottom of the third column from the left in the above chart.

Although this Dowell has been able to discover the trail of his ySNPs through a significant part of the last few millennia, he still has discoveries to make to connect his paper trail to his SNP trail. As was the case with my Maryland Dowells, The Big Tree of Alex Williamson gives many more recent SNPs to try to arrange in the proper chronological sequence. It is necessary to visit the original website to get a clear view of the SNPs that the yDNA of this Virginia Dowell has accumulated as his paternal clan moved toward the Atlantic coast of Europe. 

The Virginia Group 1 Dowell is the third column from the left in the above chart. SNP DF85 is in top row and DF97 is in row three. There are still many SNPs to arrange in the proper sequence in recent centuries as attempts are made to tie the SNP path into the documented path and to identify his nearest relatives.

Unraveling BIG Y Test Results: R-S1026

For a long time I have been stymied in my efforts to trace my SNP trail through the most recent three or four millennia down to genealogical time. Now we are beginning to make some headway due largely to the herculean efforts of the citizen scientists of the R-L21 and subclades project. The BIG Y, Full Y, Chromo2 and other discovery tests are providing multiples of the numbers of SNPs that had been identified prior to the beginning of 2014. 

R-L21 is the most prevalent male haplogroup along the western coast of Europe. In some areas it approaches 80% of the male population. Therefore, knowing that one is part of this mega clan is interesting but not very useful genealogically speaking. I had tested positive for DF13 which is a SNP just below L21. This still is not that useful as the vast majority of R-L21 men also belong to this subdivision. A dozen subclans of DF13 have been discovered in recent years but one by one I had tested negative for all of them prior to getting my BIG Y results. Now I know that I belong to the newly identified S1026 subclan. Below are the results of nine of us who have BIG Y results: 

This chart lists the SNPs for each of us that have been discovered downstream (toward the present) from S1026. At least six men have been identified by the Chromo2 project at ScotlandsDNA. 

My results are those in the middle column above. The man whose results are my closest match in the SNP chart above (just to the right of mine) is a sixth cousin-once removed. He and I share 105 of the 111 short tandem repeats (STRs) over which we previously had been tested. We appear to share five SNPs that so far separate our migration trail from that of any of the other members of this emerging group. He and I share a common ancestor who died in Southern Maryland in 1733. Even more recently I have four additional SNPs and he has seven.

The McDaniel man represented by the SNP trail in the column to my left above is my next nearest relative in this grouping. He and I previously had discovered we shared 35 of 37, 64 of 67 and 102 of 111 STR markers. He has seven identified SNP mutations since his ancestral DNA trail separated from mine and that of my Dowell cousin. The three of us share nineteen additional so far identified SNPs in common before our common trail merges with that of the three men in the columns to our right. Then the six of us share five earlier SNPs before we converge with others with whom we share SNP R-S1026.

It is going to take test results from additional men to sort out the exact sequence in which all these SNPs should be arranged chronologically. For example, we know that the five SNPs recently named (see chart above):

Z16886 Z16887 Z16888 Z16889 Z16890

are grouped together but we don't know in what chronological sequence they occurred. Only as more are tested and some are positive and others are negative will this more precise arrangement be possible. This sorting of other SNPs which are lumped together above will follow a similar process. As a result the SNPs will appear to be out of sequence as their correct ages and thus their actual locations along the migration path of our paternal DNA begin to appear. This will result in the nice orderly naming progressions to be scrambled.

Isn't genetic genealogy fun? The more we discover the more we have yet to learn. 

Power in Projects

I finally got my own BIG Y test results back Monday night. Of the kits I personally am monitoring, 2 kits remain unreported. Those were contributed by my late father-in-law and my distant cousin George. Both of their results pages still project that their results will be available by March 28th. Cousin George has been asked to provide an additional backup sample "just in case" it is needed. I haven't heard anything about my father-in-law's test. That's a little nerve wracking since he is no longer available to provide another sample.

Trying to find meaning in BIG Y results can be overwhelming -- at least at first. I am fortunate enough to belong to a haplogroup R-L21 that has a very active project that is led by some extremely talented leaders who are incredibly generous in sharing their time and expertise. 

I downloaded my raw data Tuesday without a hitch but was a little unsure about the protocol for uploading it to my haplogroup project. BIG Y results are a lot like other genetic genealogy reports. Individual reports by themselves are essentially meaningless. However, they can take on powerful meaning when they are compared with the results of others.

After some investigation I discovered the appropriate way to upload my results to my project. For our R-L21 project which contains several hundred members, the process has been automated by talented volunteer members. This morning, within a couple of hours of uploading the zip file of my raw data, I got an email from James Kane, one of the volunteers:

Hi Dave,

It looks like you are in the S1026 group in case you hadn't already known. You will be in the Big Y Matrix later this morning.

James

James was true to his word. Later this morning I started showing up in various project reports along side six other men who share this SNP. This group will grow as more test takers report their results.

S1026 is one of the new SNPs reported in the last few months by James Wilson of ScotlandsDNA. Context in genetic genealogy is everything. Where is SNP S1026 located? So far I know that it is downstream, more recent, from SNP DF13 which was the most recent SNP for my parental line than I knew about yesterday. All of you reading this, except for 1 or 2, are scratching your heads and wondering what I'm talking about. How about a picture? Thanks to the tireless work of volunteer Mike Walsh I can show you one:

That is S1026 in the small red box at the bottom of the chart. Some of you may remember that a few days ago I discussed the movement of the Virginia Dowells down the SNP trail in the red box on the right side of this chart. On the vertical blue line that appears to bisect this chart, the Virginia Dowells branched off to the right and the Maryland Dowells continued to the bottom of the chart. So far we have been able to track my Maryland ancestors a step closer to the present to SNP S1026. 

Without the dedicated work and amazing expertise of those who lead our projects we would not be able to unravel the messages of our DNA. The haplogroup projects are a very powerful force in helping us learn. 

BIG Y: My First Genealogically Relevant Find.

The first thing I learned from the BIG Y test is that the Virginia Group 1 Dowells in our surname DNA project can finally be moved out of the logjam at SNP M222. What? You didn't know that they were jammed up there? Read on.

One of the first things we learned in 2004 in our surname project was that my Maryland Dowells were not recently related to the Virginia Group 1 Dowells. Previously we had assumed that we were closely related. We had our own variation of the multiple brothers myth. I'm sure you have heard a similar tale about one or more of the lines you have researched. 

It goes something like this. Two (or four) brothers came across the Atlantic. When they disembarked one went north and one went west. Which ever branch you descend from never heard from the other branch again. Of course there is enough truth in some such stories that they need to be investigated. However, most of them have remained impossible to verify. One of the Dowell versions I heard decades ago was that four brothers came over from Wales. I still don't know exactly where my Dowells came from before they revealed themselves in Maryland.

Prior to 2004 the working hypothesis among Dowell surname researchers was a variation of the migration myth that claimed upon arrival in Hampton Roads one Dowell turned right and sailed up the Chesapeake Bay and the other continued up the James River. Waterways were the interstate highways of the time so this story had a ring of truth. Based on this story many of us assumed that if either group would be able to extend its paper trail just one or two generations further back, we would find our common male Dowell ancestor.

Then came yDNA testing. It soon became apparent that the two groups of Dowells shared the surname only by historical coincidence. Biologically, we were no more related that we would be if we each had different surnames. Our closest shared male ancestor lived at least three thousand years ago -- long before surnames were adopted. These two groups remain the two biggest clusters in our project. 

SNPs (pronounced "snips") are permanent changes in a person's DNA that are passed down to all descendants. yDNA SNPs are permanent changes that are passed down by fathers to all their sons. As we have learned more about yDNA SNPs, we been able to sketch in more and more of our ancient ancestral lines. The BIG Y test has offered many of us an unprecedented chance to explore our SNP history in much more detail than had previously been available. This is not a test for novices. Even most of us who have considerable experience with genetic genealogy are overwhelmed by the results that are coming back.

Both groups of Dowells descend from a large haplogroup (ancient clan). Membership in this clan is distinguished by a mutation located at position called R-L21. The heat map below is from my results from the Geno 2.0 test at National Geographic which focuses on deep ancestry. The more intense the yellow and finally the red become, the larger percentage of the population carry this SNP. You will note that men who carry it are very prevalent along the Atlantic Coast of Europe and have particularly heavy concentrations in the British Isles.

The chart below shows what we thought we knew about where the two groups of Dowells had traveled down the SNP highway of history before BIG Y. The top of the chart has been truncated for simplicity. It begins as our ancestors migrated out of Central and Western Asia. You will note that L21 is represented by a green box in the upper middle of the chart below. We are very fortunate that a group of dedicated and knowledgeable citizen scientists also belong to the group and have done an immense amount of work to sort all this out. You may click on the chart to open a larger version in your browser. 
   

Before BIG Y we knew that the SNP flow of the Maryland Dowells had continued down to DF13 -- the green box just below L21 above. Then we could find no more recent SNPs. On the other hand the Virginia Group 1 Dowells could be traced through more recent SNP mutations down the left side of the chart to SNP M222. 

This chart was recently expanded to better represent newly discovered SNPs but still does not incorporate the bounty of BIG Y. Note that M222 is now shown among the blue boxes in the center right of the chart below:

The lower right part of this chart (area enclosed by the red rectangle) is blown up below for easier viewing:

Can you trace the path of SNPs from M222 in the fifth row of the family tree down to DF97 in the lower right corner of this last chart? It is sort of a connect-the-dots exercise for genetic genealogists. The Virginia Group 1 Dowells followed that genetic trail. That is what I have learned so far from BIG Y. 

How do I know that? The one Virginia Dowell who participated in BIG Y tested positive for SNPs DF85 and DF97. That means he also would be positive for the intervening SNPs along the connecting line from M222 down to DF97.

I hope we will be able to learn more from the massive amount of raw data that came back from this one test, but this is quite an advancement of our knowledge of the migration of the paternal ancestors of the Virginia Group 1 Dowells. Now we have to put it all into historical context -- a daunting task.

Priscilla Dowell's Family--Part 1

Priscilla Dowell was part of the Maryland Dowell family who migrated to North Carolina right after the Revolutionary War. Priscilla’s grandfather, Peter Dowell, Sr., and five sons settled in what was then Rowan County in the 1780s. Prior to 1770 Rowan County included what today are 20 counties in the northwest part of North Carolina as well as a big part of present day Tennessee. Wilkes County was formed in 1777.

Priscilla’s great-grandfather, Philip Dowell, “appeared” in Southern Maryland in the 1690s as a fully functioning tobacco planter. Although several researchers who have published pedigree charts of the Internet claim to know who Philip’s father is, they don’t agree and I have yet to see proof that support any of their claims. In 1702 Philip married Mary Tydings, the daughter of Richard Tydings—a former indentured servant who had come to Maryland from England in the middle of the 17^th century and subsequently had acquired substantial land holdings. Although Philip, or his father, is assumed to have come from the British Isles, the exact origin of the Maryland Dowells is unknown.

Through analysis of the Y-chromosomes of living descendants of three of Philip’s sons, we have established exactly what the results of a 111 marker DNA test would be if Philip himself could be tested. These results have established that the Dowells who appeared in Virginia in the first half of the 18^th century have not shared a common paternal ancestor with the Maryland Dowells for at least 3,000 years—long before surnames were introduced in Europe. Neither of these groups have DNA results that come close to matching the handful of Dowells currently living on the other side of the Atlantic who have been tested to date.

Priscilla’s grandparents, Peter, Sr., and Elizabeth (Owens) Dowell moved from Southern Maryland to Frederick County Maryland about a decade before the Revolutionary War. That area is now part of present day Montgomery County in the western suburbs of the District of Columbia. Her father, Philip, Sr., and four of his brothers played various roles in the Revolution. Whether it was because of war related travel to Carolina or the land bounties offered to veterans after the war, Peter, Sr., and five of his sons moved to Rowan County in the 1780s. My 4^th great-grandfather Richard Dowell was one of these sons and Priscilla’s father Philip was another.

What little we know about Priscilla’s early life suggests she was probably the youngest of nine or ten children of Philip, Sr., and Priscilla “Nacky” (Owen) Dowell. Her age in 1860 according to the census was 70 and her birthplace was Maryland. One of these is probably incorrect. Priscilla’s family was probably getting established in North Carolina by 1790. Clearly many of her older siblings were born in Maryland but it is unlikely that Priscilla was born there. As I reported in an earlier post, Priscilla could not sign her own name to her 1859 will. Was this because she was illiterate? Were the Philip Dowell’s daughters not given even the most basic education although they came from a family of property? One cousin of mine has speculated about whether Priscilla could have suffered a stroke or other infirmity that prevented her from signing her name more elaborately that simply making “her mark”.

I have yet to discover additional circumstances of Priscilla’s life prior to 1859 with the exception of a bequest made to her by her father in his 1823 will. In that document Philip gave her “a Negro Girl by the name of Juda, and the Heirs of her Body.” Other enslaved persons transferred by this will to various of Priscilla’s immediate family carried the names that appear to be Siney, Lydia, Ginny, Catey, Timssey, Jacob, Joe, David, Richman, and Henderson. Is it mere coincidence that some of these names reappear a generation later?

To be continued.