DNA Genealogy Basics

DNA has become a wonderful resource to break through brick walls in genealogy. Here are the basics of how it works.

Remember back in biology class, where you learned that boys get X and Y chromosomes and girls get X and X chromosomes? Besides the sex chromosomes, there are other chromosomes with DNA sequences for hair color, facial features, etc.

Y-DNA

Fathers pass Y-DNA to their sons (that Y chromosome). Your father, his father, and his father's father have matching Y-DNA, except for small variations that happen through the generations. While no women are allowed in the Y-DNA-testing club, a woman can use Y-DNA for genealogy by having her brother or her uncle tested. Seriously, there can't be a woman in the equation — a grandson won't match his mother's father. Because direct paternal lineage is required, Y-DNA testing is useful for finding a surname.

mtDNA

DNA in the nucleus of a human cell comes from both parents. Mitochrondrial DNA (mtDNA) is found outside the nucleus and only comes from the mother. Mothers pass mtDNA to all of their children, male and female. Therefore you, your brother, your sister, your mother, your mother's brother, and your maternal grandmother all have identical mtDNA. But your brother's children don't have it; neither do your uncle's children. Men receive it, but they can't pass it on. Before deciding on a test, it helps to draw a family chart and color-code family members who share the same mtDNA.

Autosomal DNA

Autosomal DNA is "the rest" of the DNA in the nucleus. Since it consists of the non-sex chromosomes, there's no way to tell which parent contributed which part. The combination and sequence of parts (nucleotides) get more and more "scrambled" with each generation. So, why test it? Because close relatives, not too many generations distant, have longer sequences of DNA that are identical. Nicknamed the "family finder" or "cousin finder" test, autosomal DNA is useful for confirming a relationship up to third cousin, and both men and women can be tested.

For genealogy, a DNA test is useless you have somebody else's DNA to compare. Best results come from following a paper trail (research) as far as you can, and finding a suspected relative that you can't prove. Use DNA to fill in the blank, then continue research from there (see the case study below). The exception is in cases of adoption, when a genealogist may want to start with DNA and then research.

Several companies offer testing. Ancestry currently has the largest database of customers, but they only offer the autosomal test. Family Tree DNA offers all three tests. They also have volunteers that manage certain surname and regional groups who can help interpret your data. If a potential relative has already submitted their DNA for testing, you'll want to use the same company for easy comparison. You can transfer your results to another database, either for free or for a fee.

Case Study – Climbing Up and Down My Family Tree

Genealogical research and oral history made me suspect that my great-grandfather Thomas S. Maness, who disappeared from Randolph County, was really Swain Maness, who lived in Moore County.

My uncle, a living paternal descendant (Thomas' son's son's son), took a cheek-swab sample to test for yDNA. We compared the results with a potential cousin (Swain's father's brother's son's son). In other words, we climbed up the family tree, then back down to find a living male relative.

The results were disappointing — no match. Yet, the names, ages, description (tall with black hair) and even the occupation (woodcutter) fit. I had no documented evidence about Swain's parentage, just oral history. I wanted to test his (other) descendants, but he had daughters and granddaughters.

Then autosomal DNA testing came along. It can confirm close relations regardless of gender. I found Swain's granddaughter and compared her autosomal DNA with my uncle. It was a close-relative match — Thomas and Swain were the same man!

The results told me that Thomas Swain Maness really was my great-grandfather, but that his father is unknown. He might have been illegitimate (but that's another story).

A version of this article was originally published by Elizabeth Saunders on the Guilford College library website. Reprinted with permission of the Quaker Archives, Guilford College. 

The Great Book Purge of 2019

I wasn't always an antiquarian bookseller. Maybe I thought I was, in some way, when Tannery Books opened its doors nearly nine years ago. But the only thing I knew about bookselling was what I had seen and enjoyed as a customer: shelves and shelves of books for browsing, places to sit and meet with people and just enjoy that bookish energy. 

Alas! Having everything I'd want as a customer doesn't always equal a good bottom line, especially in a small town. I keep adapting, as you can read about in Evolution of a Bookshop. In August 2019 I closed the booth at the antique mall. Not only was it not making a profit, it was a different audience from the wonderful bibliophiles I met at book and genealogy fairs. 

While I'm still a generalist in antiquarian books (whatever looks intriguing, from 1940s diaries to an 1875 German atlas), I needed more time — and shelf space — for my specialties: Quakers, genealogy, and American history.

Moving shelves and books into my home — What?! I wouldn't have room to walk! Time for a purge. Paperbacks, older inventory, things my best customers wouldn't want, time to go. I wasn't totally ruthless (lots of Star Trek is still on the shelves), but I can proudly say at least ten boxes of books went out the door. Now to implement some of the things I learned at Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, such as using time and space for better books.

Hemingway's cats

Hemingway's house seen from Key West Lighthouse

I went to Cuba with a group and it was a fantastic trip. During the months leading up to the trip, though, I was a little bummed that I couldn't go to Havana (on the other side of the country from our planned itinerary). I wanted to see Ernest Hemingway's house. So, the day before we met up in Miami, I made a quick side trip to Key West to see his other house.

I'd been to Key West years ago, in the 1990s, including a visit to the house. But a misunderstanding with security during tense international events left me with no pictures. Also, I'd always flown in, and I wanted to drive and see the other islands.






The scenery was beautiful, the weather gorgeous. But it's a really long drive from Miami to Key West, especially when you woke up early to catch the plane to Miami!

I stopped by the Caribbean Club, inspiration for the movie Key Largo. They don't serve lunch, and it was too early for a drink (if I wanted to make it to my destination), so I didn't stay.





I made it to Hemingway's house about a half hour before closing (that's how long the drive is!).

The tour guide was excellent. Ernest Hemingway lived here 1931-1939, writing some of his best known work.






Our guide gave the impression that Hemingway needed a new house with each new wife — his Key West wife stayed here when they divorced, and he moved to Havana, Cuba with his next wife.

The Key West home was actually built in 1851 by Asa Tift. He did something unheard of on islands: he dug a basement. He used the hard coral rock in the construction. As a result, the house has weathered many storms.




During a recent hurricane, museum staff spent the weekend in the house with the more than 50 descendants of Hemingway's six-toed cats.

Some of them like to be petted, but most just want to sleep during the day. Less friendly tom cats have special collars to warn people of their preference for solo strolls.

Hemingway had a catwalk (yes, a second-story walkway) to a smaller building, so he could walk from the beautiful wraparound porch outside his bedroom right over to his upstairs study.

This is where the man wrote, every morning.














Cats everywhere, even in the gift shop!



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Books of 2018

I devoured business books in 2018, plus a few historical memoirs and some entertaining fiction. Here's a fun infographic from Goodreads about my 2018 choices.

Movies and shows I liked led me to read Interstellar, Altered Carbon, and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Interstellar and TATBILB were enjoyable complements to their movies. The book Altered Carbon gave me some insights into the show's back story. For example, envoys aren't just badasses in combat, they're the elite few who travel between star systems by mental download (i.e. almost instantly) rather than via a century of cryosleep. However, the book is harsh and seems more male-oriented (yes, the show's pretty harsh already). I prefer the Netflix show, which adds all the family ties and a little humor, over the book. The little audiobook Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was based on the movie.

The reverse order was true for Ready Player One — my nephew told me to read the book, first. Then I watched the movie with anticipation, and enjoyed them both. I also read Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie (the generic cover in the bottom row) and then watched the 1978 movie.

Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild was one of those unexpected books that came through the bookshop and sucked me in (and it sold quickly, after I read it). A poor Brooklyn kid from a dysfunctional family, Clara became Hollywood's first sex symbol — she was Marilyn Monroe before there was a Marilyn Monroe! (Both women admired each other, but never met in person.) Clara had affairs with the most famous men in Hollywood, including Gary Cooper. But she was too honest and open — meaning she didn't know how to play the publicity game. The new "talkies," betrayal, and her forgotten past turned her success into anxiety attacks and broken contracts. Clara is 400 pages of nonfiction that I couldn't put down.

Walden on Wheels was a fascinating memoir of a young man who decided to go to grad school without incurring debt. To make that happen, he used his outdoor skills from life as an Alaskan guide to live in a van — hiding in plain sight on the prestigious campus of Duke University.

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly was deep and spiritually warm. I recommend it for Christians wanting to dig deeper in their faith and those who long for simplicity in life.

The Bookman's Tale and The Thirteenth Tale were very entertaining, especially if you love books and old libraries and mystery.

As for the business books: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz is life-changing for a struggling entrepreneur. I highly recommend it. It referenced the older bestseller, The E-Myth Revisited. E-Myth gave me some good, basic concepts that I now recognize in other books, but the tone is condescending and dated. Michalowicz's latest book, Clockwork, is a more updated, actionable version of the concepts in E-Myth. Clockwork pushes single-owner entrepreneurs to make themselves obsolete — in a good way — so they can actually have a life.

Traction was another excellent read, and I'll be referring back to it often. It's more focused on a company, not just a single person, but has great ideas for constant improvement, from quarterly goals to more efficient meetings. The ideas can apply to small businesses or big companies.

Friends recommended two books to me as preparation for writing a book about my great-great-grandfather. The Perfect Storm gave me ideas about how to present facts and interviews, but I hated reading it! The author seemed to put every fact he ever found into it, from the history of storms to every macabre detail about how to drown. Bleh! (but a good learning experience for an aspiring writer). Empire Made: My Search for an Outlaw Uncle Who Vanished in British India isn't very well known, but it's well done. The mix of personal memoir and historical biography is exactly what I want to do, and Kief Hillsbery's book flows like a novel.

I ended the year with Tarzan of the Apes, the 1912 classic by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I didn't realize that this was the first book in a series — not just sequels as an afterthought, but that this first book ends on a cliffhanger! I liked it much better than Burroughs' Princess of Mars (John Carter no. 1). Although they were written about the same time, the latter book seemed to me over-flowery with Victorian prose. Tarzan still has helpless females (and males, if you didn't grow up in the jungle) and racist undertones from the contemporary culture. However, Tarzan himself is a deeper character and the excitement of battles and rescues is enhanced by human storylines. I've started the sequel, The Return of Tarzan.

Here's my list from 2017.

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Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy good books in 2019!

Edgar Allan Poe Museum

Last time I was in Richmond, I finally visited the Edgar Allan Poe Museum. The young tour guide breathed life into the antiques and artifacts with stories of Poe's life, even more intriguing than his writing.

Orphaned by his actor parents as a child, he and his two siblings were taken in by different families. John and Frances Allan of Richmond reared Edgar — Frances was fond of him, but John and Edgar did not get along.

On his own as a young adult, Poe struggled at various professions and found his way into writing. At 27, he married his much younger first cousin, Virginia Clemm. The following years were the happiest time in his life, with some writing success and family life with his wife and aunt in Baltimore and later New York.

Edgar Allan Poe's desk

Virginia died young of tuberculosis, after 11 years of marriage. Poe floundered after that, with less success in his writing career and a failed courtship.

Around 1849 he found work in Richmond and renewed a relationship with a childhood sweetheart. He planned a trip to New York to move his aunt/mother-in-law to Richmond to live with him. Mysteriously, he was found in Baltimore, disoriented and delirious.

After a few incoherent days in the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849. The cause of death remains a mystery. (The 2012 movie The Raven gives a fictional account of Poe's death as murder by poison.)

Poe's childhood home no longer exists, but its original staircase and other artifacts belonging to the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine (now Foundation) found a home with Richmond's oldest house, built ca. 1737.








The buildings are also home to two black cats, Edgar and Pluto. I only snapped photos of Edgar, who was patrolling the courtyard (Pluto was lounging at the bottom of a dark staircase), but I got to pet both of them.

The gift shop added to my wish list, including the book The Poe Shrine: Building the World's Finest Edgar Allan Poe Collection, a book about finding artifacts for the museum, including first editions of Poe's poems and books.



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Virginia Antiquarian Book Fair

I attended Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS) in 2014, thanks to a scholarship from the Independent Online Booksellers Association. It was a stepping-stone dream come true for a bookseller with just three years in the business. I'd just closed my open shop and planned to make it as an online business.  But our instructors, successful booksellers with a wide variety of experience and specialties, touted multiple options including book fairs and catalogs.

Although I haven't yet made it to Book Week in New York City, I attended the Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair in Denver. When I came home from CABS, I didn't feel like I had the inventory to support a real antiquarian book fair. And there aren't any in North Carolina.

As my antique books inventory grew over the past couple of years, I started looking around for a venue in nearby states and found the Virginia Antiquarian Book Fair in Richmond. Alas, they were already booked up months in advance. Bummer.











Then, on March 5, I received a message saying a booth had opened up and was I still interested? Wow! I decided to take the opportunity and mailed in a check. Scary and exciting — my first antiquarian book fair, and only a month to get ready!












I bought another portable shelf and worked really hard getting a "new" collection of American Revolution, Civil War and other books ready to go. I even brought a couple to finish up in the hotel room the night before the fair, handwriting the last few descriptions.











The Virginia fair was very organized and easy to set up. Here's my booth after I sold quite a few books — before the doors opened!







Nick Cooke of Black Swan Books was one of the VABA organizers. Very welcoming and friendly, he invited all of us to his shop in the historic district Friday night. What a fun bookshop! I'd describe it as one and a half stories, with little nooks where you can sit and visit or browse.




It was a nice opportunity to relax a little and meet other booksellers, including people with familiar names that I'd never met in person.

I was happy to see Lorne Bair at the fair, the instructor from CABS who told me I should attend a book fair in the first place!

Overall, it was a great, exciting, exhausting experience. I hope to do it again next year!

Reliving the end of the Civil War in North Carolina

Every year in April, a group of re-enactors converges on the small, rural town of Trinity, North Carolina. Trinity is historically known for Trinity College, which started as Union Institute and eventually moved and became Duke University.
(UPDATE: The April 21, 2018 event has been cancelled and Friends of Trinity has taken the event page down.)





I finally got the chance to go last year. Here are scenes from one of the battles.

This particular re-enactment, based around General Hardee's retreating battles with General Sherman, culminates in General Johnston's surrender of Confederate forces in the southeast, April 26, 1865.










In this scenario, the Confederate army waits by the historic Albertson house, which was actually built in 1865.

The great thing about re-enactments is that everybody gets to go home, and soldiers on both sides are buddies after the battles are over. 

Some folks camp out 19th-century style all weekend. The 4th Virginia Regiment, Company F, hosted the Medical Department tent.