2020 has been a year of recruiting new testers and building out the Crow Genetic Tree. A lot of behind the scenes work went into this. Countless emails, messages on the DNA sites, and loads of investigative work on family trees. We've talked with a lot of folks all across this nation and made some friends along the way. This Project is fun and a worthwhile adventure.
The Gold Crow family now has 110 testers, with 30 at the BigY700 level. Those are incredible numbers, I have not seen any other surname project with these kinds of numbers in one family grouping. There are two reasons for this, 1. Participation by all of you, recognizing the value of purchasing a Y DNA kit and even going all in on the expensive BigY test. This is the most advanced test that FTDNA offers and brings the best clarity on dating estimates. 2. Phil and I have worked well together, we live on the opposite coasts, but we have a shared goal on finding out how we all connect and where our ancestors came from. Its a blessing to have two active project administrators for one family along with countless hundreds of researchers
Most of the BigY kits in our group have been purchased this year. This has revealed an incredible amount of info for us. The main discovery was the creation of SNP I-F22033. This has been found to have been created around the year 1200ad somewhere in Europe. Likely in or around Germany. Give or take a few hundred years. All Gold Crow's have tested positive for this SNP, if you are a descendant of any of the Spartanburgh, SC Crows, then you will more than likely test positive for this SNP. It is even likely that we have cousins in Europe that may have this mutation. On top of I-F22033, we have created 9 other SNPs. Think of these SNPs as branches on the family tree. When a future tester takes a BigY and test positives for a SNP we discovered, then that person shares a common ancestor with that person when the SNP was created. This has incredible value, because many of our family trees have brick walls in the 18th century. In fact, all of our BigY testers cannot be connected on paper. This has been a challenge for us, it is has been coupled with the fact that our Y chromosome is unusually slow mutating. The men in our families are creating SNPs far below the average. In most haplogroups, you could expect to see 5-7 mutations every 4-600 years. In our DNA study, there are 8 testers who we have found that have not created any mutations in excess of 300 years. So we are not even close to the average, but an outlier. This has not created the more elaborate branching we would have liked to seen that would have shown us defined common ancestors.
Below is an image I created to help explain the formation of our Haplogroups and our connection to the Bender family. These estimates can continue to change, as science is never settled. The more data we receive from testers that test into our Project , the more refined the dates become. I would like to continue to find and Y DNA test the Bender family as they may show a more recent match in time. One issue with this is Bender is one of the most common Mennonite surnames. Finding the right descendants with the right y chromosome may be difficult
With the information we have available to us now, time to the most recent common ancestor for all the discovered Gold Crows, goes back to approximately 1400-1600. But with the issue of our Y chromosome slowly mutating, we do not fall into the average. I believe it could be after 1700. Which might indicate that all Gold Crows are descendants of a handful or even one Crow man that arrived in America in the 17th or 18th century. If we did not have the number of testers we do, we would have been left to think the common ancestor was much further back than reality. When the first half of the BigYs started to report, I felt that our family was part of a large community migration to the southern states, maybe they still were, but there is not any evidence now that shows there were many Gold Crow men back then.
Another avenue we are pursuing is the fact that there were 3 Crow families that were unrelated living in Spartanburgh, SC in the 18th century. I cant help but wonder if there were family connections but the genetic trail was broken by adoptions or some other non paternal event.These are the Red and Teal groups. It could be possible the answer of our families migration into the States lies with the two other Crow groups, that go back into Europe. Further testing may reveal similar haplgogroups that may tie our families to a geographical area in Europe.
Listed below is one of many successes this year using the BigY DNA test. Abraham's family had a brick wall at 1811. His father was unknown. Because Abraham's line tested into FT225611, he was connected to John Crow Sr.s haplogroup. It was already believed John Sr. was Abraham's grandfather based on autosomal DNA evidence. Because of the placement of other SNPs, it is believed SNP FT225611 was created in John Sr. himself. All future John Sr descendants will test positive for this mutation! With some more work, Abraham's decadents can narrow the search for his father.
Moving forward we are looking for new testers and those that have tested to upgrade to the BigY. More Benders are always welcome. I would like to find more distant cousins from between 1200-1700ad, to better fill in our Genetic Tree . Also coming in 2021 will be a new Haplogroup Project on FTDNA, I-F22033. This Project will be specifically for all that test positive for this SNP. Which currently is only the Crow family, but as time goes on and we gain new testers, new names should be added. This project will be to better understand the lineages and deep ancestry portion of our genetic trees. Our surname Project has grown significantly this year, So I figured it was time to expand.
Here is a a graphic courtesy of Dave Vance
The hunt goes on. 2021 will be a good year
Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year
Mike
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