DNA Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

DNA Day is April 25

Your DNA Guide

According to Your DNA Guide and other sources, today is DNA Day. Their resident storyteller developed a framework for writing about 300 words. I’ll have a go at it with a previously shared tale.

The beginning of your story: What was your DNA question, or what were things like before your DNA discovery?

My sisters and I have known since we were children that the man we knew as our paternal grandfather, McKinley Green, was not the biological father of our dad, Leslie H. Green (1926-2000). I don’t think my father knew we knew.

We learned this info from our mom, Trudy, and HER mother, Gertrude Williams. Grandma Williams referred to vague details about a minister in Pennsylvania.

The middle of your story: What happened, or what did you learn? What did you think or feel about it? Then what happened?

In 2018, I took my first genealogy tests. When I looked at my DNA matches, I discovered ten people were second cousins. The Yates, Walker, and Williams folks I recognized.

But who were the other four people? Three of them had trees, and two common people were on each, Carl Lorenzo Cone (b. 1915) and Raymond Cornelius Cone (b. circa 1888). But who was Raymond, and how did he meet my future grandmother, Agatha Walker (1902-1964)?

I wrote about this on my blog. On December 26, 2019, my dear friend Melanie discovered an article from January 1927 in a newspaper in my hometown of Binghamton, NY. The Reverend Raymond Cone was acquitted of impregnating Agatha and being the father of Les!

And then…

The end of your story: Where do things stand now? Why does this story matter to you?

By 1918, Raymond Cone’s first wife and father had both died, and he had a certificate to be a preacher. I followed his trek that brought him to Binghamton in the fall of 1925, departing two years later.

I have learned more about him than people I’ve known in person. He died of an apparent heart attack at his church in New York City in December 1947 before he turned 60. My Grandma Green also died of a heart attack at 62. That’s sobering medical news for me.

#mydnastory

Redefining the DNA in me

It’s all Greek to me.

AncestryDNAStory-Roger-210920 Once again, Ancestry.com has updated its “most precise DNA update yet. In this latest update, you’ll notice that at least one of your previous regions has been split into two smaller, more precise regions. We’ve increased our precision this way in Europe, Africa, and Asia by updating our algorithm and expanding the size and diversity of the populations in our reference panel.”

What this means for me, most notably, is that Ireland and Scotland have split. I’m more Scottish than I imagine. It probably explains my affection for the Blackwatch color combination. If I were select a tartan, that’s what it would be.

Nigeria 25%
Ireland 25% – Munster, Ireland > West Cork> South West Cork> southwest Munster
Cameroon, Congo & Western Bantu Peoples 15%
Benin & Togo 7%
England & Northwestern Europe 7%
Senegal 7%
Scotland 6%
Mali 3%
Greece & Albania 1%
Norway 1%
Indigenous Americas—North 1%
Ivory Coast & Ghana 1%
Wales 1%
Sweden and Southern Bantu Peoples each less than 1%

The mild surprise is the first appearance of Greece and Albania on the list.

You may have noticed when you did your Census – I hope you completed yours! – that the race question additionally asked what particular geography you identify with. This was particularly interesting to my daughter, who selected the various strands of her background when we answered it way back in March.

Roots

Another aspect of the Ancestry report is that my people of African roots likely ended up in eastern North Carolina. It is actually a region east of an area from Virginia Beach, VA to Raleigh, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC. “You, and all the members of this community, are linked through shared ancestors. You probably have family who lived in this area for years—and maybe still do.”

This turns out to be quite true. Wilson, NC is about 50 miles east of Raleigh. It was the home of Raymond Cone, my biological grandfather, my father’s biological father. And the home of Willis Cone, Raymond’s father. At least four of the 10 closest relatives I have on Ancestry who were previously unknown to me are descended from Raymond Cone.

Agitate!

On September 29, I attended a ZOOM thing called Agitate!: Frederick Douglass and Ireland. Douglass wrote how he was “captivated” after attending a speech made by Daniel O’Connell, ‘The Liberator,’ in Dublin in 1845.

The event was sponsored by, among others, The African American Irish Diaspora Network, The Embassy of Ireland USA, Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University, Irish Network-DC, and University College Cork.

Learn about the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship. “Outstanding students of color” may “participate in a customized summer study abroad program focused on leadership and intercultural communication skills.”

Les Green, Pop, ancestry, DNA, anger

It would be Les Green’s 92nd birthday tomorrow

On the same day this month, I read two oddly similar stores. One was in the Boston Globe: “DNA test tells man the bittersweet truth: His father was a Catholic priest.” The other was a piece by Times Union blogger Robert S. Hoffman When your dad is not your father.

And it got me to thinking, again, about the parents of my father, Les Green. Something in the Globe story stuck out: “For decades, James C. Graham was tormented by a simple, but profound question: Why did his father seem to dislike him so much? The South Carolina man confirmed the bittersweet truth: The man who raised him wasn’t his father at all.”

My father seemed to have at least a mild antipathy his stepfather, for the man we all called Pop, McKinley Green. Clearly, he knew Pop wasn’t his biological father, and that might have been the source of his distress. Or maybe it was Pop’s family, who, even after Mac died in 1980, said disparaging things – “bastard son” – about my father within his earshot.

Regardless, I’m still hoping that DNA will someday help me to identify the identity of my biological grandfather. There are at least five people in Ancestry that are noted as my second or third cousins. One is cousin Lisa, a second cousin on my maternal grandmother’s side. And just recently, there’s a guy named Charles with a very distinct surname, clearly a third cousin on my paternal grandmother’s side.

But what of the other three, two of which are closely related to each other as well as to me? One has a genealogy with 125 names and 10 distinct surnames, none of which are familiar. He’s very African, with lineage almost exclusively from Ivory Coast/Ghana, Nigeria, and Mali.

I should address a question from my friend Carol about Ancestry.com: “I’m concerned about the data storage and privacy issues. Have you researched that at all?” Well, yes, they do, though participants can contribute either pseudonymously or with real names. It is the open sharing of information that the best information will arise.

This is a picture of my dad at the ASBDC conference in Savannah, possibly the best time I ever had with him. It would be Les Green’s 92nd birthday tomorrow. I’ll figure this genealogy stuff out eventually.

Father and Son – Cat Stevens

Ancestry DNA: Scandinavian?

I have – somewhere – far more data than is currently presented.

I got the results of my second genealogical DNA recently, this time from Ancestry.

Like the first one, from NatGeo earlier this year, I’m barely half sub-Saharan African. The 23% from the British Isles doesn’t surprise me. The 11% Scandinavian does.

I shared that fact with an ex of mine, who believes she is 100% Scandinavian. Now she’s thinking of doing the DNA test too, hoping, actually, that she’s not.

There are four people in the database who are likely my second or third cousins. One of them actually IS my second cousin, Lisa. There are about a dozen candidates for third or fourth cousins. And a couple hundred fourth to sixth cousins.

One of these is a Walker, which is the given surname of my maternal grandmother. His first name is the same as one of her brothers, who has been long deceased. I have contacted him and a select number of others, hoping for more information.

There’s a way to share the family tree, and I am hoping that the combination of the DNA tests and the various trees of other contributors will lead to greater insight.

Of course, I need to fill in my own family tree more vigorously. I have – somewhere – far more data than is currently presented. Some of it just needs more specificity, such as exact dates of births and deaths.

I also need to go back a couple more generations, particularly on my maternal grandmother’s side, which I have on something called “paper.” Then I need to check old Census records to fill out more of the details. It’s a very interesting process but an amazing time suck.

Several people have wondered what I’ll do when I retire. Travel, probably and write, read, and sort a lot of stuff that’s stored in the attic.

The genealogy project undoubtedly will be a huge piece.

May Ramblin’

People DO confess to crimes they did not commit

If I think about the BP debacle, my blood boils. So I try not to, generally unsuccessfully.

***
DNA Clears NY Man Wrongly Convicted of 1988 Murder
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 28, 2010
Filed at 3:29 p.m. ET

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York truck driver who spent nearly 19 years behind bars for a 1988 slaying he didn’t commit walked free Wednesday after DNA testing exonerated him and instead pointed to another prison inmate.
The exonerated inmate, Frank Sterling, 46, was convicted of murder in 1992 based on a confession that he later recanted.
State Judge Thomas Van Strydonck vacated the conviction after Monroe County prosecutors agreed with lawyers for the Innocence Project that DNA evidence obtained from the victim’s clothing excluded him as the killer and pointed instead to
Mark Christie, who was convicted of strangling a 4-year-old girl in 1994.

There’s a couple things about this story that jump out at me;
1) that people DO confess to crimes they did not commit; Sterling “claimed he had slipped into a hypnotic state and parroted details police gave him about the crime”
2) DNA testing can and should be used to solve more cases. Yet there as a disturbing report this month on ABC News about tens of thousands rape kits go unprocessed, some for a period beyond the statue of limitations
3) I continue to oppose the death penalty because sometimes the authorities just get it wrong
***
Info sent me: Thirty years ago, Douglas Fraser, then president of what was still a million-member United Auto Workers union, presciently warned that the leaders of corporate America—in combination with the American Right—were waging a “one-sided class war.” He described it as “a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities, the very young and the very old, and even many in the middle class of our society.”
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A nominee we can all support for the Supreme Court
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HP takes cue from Dick Tracy to develop a solar-powered wristwatch for the military that can display strategic information.
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There is a search engine called Clusty. The technology has been purchased by something called Yippy.

From the Yippy MISSION STATEMENT
Oh, we should say that we are a very far-out group of people. Everyone is a certified genius here and we work together for our goals for the love of it all. Good vs. Don’t be Evil … We are too smart to sell out to Porn, Gambling and other things that infect our society for profit. Good always wins, and conservative values will bring us our victory in the marketplace.
God controls all creative thought, it’s what you do with it that defines who you are.
Search Samples: Search of the word pornography
Sorry! Your choice of keywords indicates that you may be searching for a type of content which YIPPY does not allow. Please try another search term.

As someone sarcastically commented on the listserv where I found this: “How wonderful to see a search engine doing God’s will. It’s incredible!”
***
I get bulletins from Los Angeles Times. This past week I see: Big Bear teen becomes youngest to summit Everest, about 13-year-old Jordan Romero, who has been on a quest to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. And what is my first thought? I didn’t know that “summit” was a verb.
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I get Google alerts for my name. Peculiar title: Indecent assault accused whacked with brolly. This is from Guyana. Then there’s the story about the German driver who narrowly escaped a fiery crash.
Finally, this obit for Roger Green of Nashville, TN. Only 58 – damn.
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Don’t use a public copy machine until you see this video from CBS News. If you’ve copied your birth certificate, passport, drivers license, social security card, or other extremely personal info on copy machines at places like Kwik Copy, Office Max, etc, you may never do so again.
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Google Pac Man is a permanent page. So if you missed it on the two days it was the main Google page logo, you’re in luck.
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This is the 40th anniversary of the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council, which is sponsoring two full weeks of Pride events.
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Evanier had this: Jonathan Ortloff Plays Springtime for Hitler on the Wurlitzer organ.