Help Us Find Christopher’s Birth Mother: DNA Provides Clues

 

Dr. Christopher Harris of Toronto, Ontario

Revised and Updated: January 1, 2015

On May 10, 2013, I received the following message on Facebook from Raquel Tomlinson. She stated, “My husband is one of your cousins on 23andMe. His name is Christopher Harris.”  I checked my 23andMe DNA account, browsed my Relative Finder database, and found his name among my 400+ “DNA cousins”.  However, what was most interesting is that he is a Black Canadian!  How am I related to a Black Canadian?  Dr. Christopher Harris resides in Toronto, Ontario. He recently received his Ph.D. in Education from the University of Toronto.

In helping her husband find his birth mother, Raquel shared more information, and I soon spoke with Cousin Christopher on the phone.  He was born on November 1, 1978 in Canada in Windsor, Ontario.  He does not know his birth mother’s first name, but her last name is believed to be Harris.  He knows that his birth mother’s mother (his maternal grandmother) is a Black Canadian who descends from former slaves who migrated to Canada via the Underground Railroad.  He also knows that his birth mother’s father (his maternal grandfather) is an African American from Detroit, Michigan. His occupation was welder.  Christopher knows that his biological father is from Tanzania, a country in East Africa.

His birth parents met while his biological father was a foreign engineering student at the University of Windsor. His birth mother was 18 years old when she gave birth to him. She herself had been in foster care for all of her life; she was given up for adoption after her birth, as her birth mother (Christopher’s maternal grandmother) allegedly got pregnant with her outside of her own marriage.  Coincidentally, Christopher's adopted family’s last name is also Harris (no relation); they are from Barbados. His adoption was a closed adoption. However, the information thus far is based on his adopted mother's memories. Christopher recently filed an application to receive his birth parents' names, a process that could take a year in Canada.

But how is Christopher related to me? Is he on my Mom’s side or my Dad’s side?  Utilizing the family inheritance tool in 23andMe, I compared him to other known cousins in my database. Lo and behold, my findings raised eyebrows and helped to determine more!  Christopher also shares DNA with Lenro Morgan and NeNise Smith, my cousins on my Dad’s side.  We are the direct descendants of Robert “Big Bob” & Jane Ealy, as well as Lucy Kennedy, from Leake County, Mississippi. They were my father’s great-grandparents. 

As of Jan. 1, 2015, a total of 11 descendants of Bob & Jane Ealy have taken the 23andMe DNA test. Three people (in red) are closely-related to Bob and/or Jane Ealy. See note below in blue. Christopher matches 10 of us! Additionally, he matches the family members in blue and red in the following chart on the X chromosome. This verifies that the connection is on his mother’s side. The DNA matches to Christopher as of Jan. 2015 include the following:

Note: Andrea, Mahadji, and Lisa are great-granddaughters of Charles & Annette Atkins of Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. There is no family knowledge of family members being in that parish in Louisiana. However, they all match Ealy descendants, and they also match Christopher, Violet, and NeNise on the X chromosome, too! After analyzing family trees, I strongly suspect that the unidentified mother of Charles Atkins was either a sister or daughter of Jane (Parrott) Ealy.

All branches of the Bob & Jane Ealy Family Tree can be seen on the Ealy Family page. Branches E5, E6, and E11 are actually three children (Paul, Bob Jr., & Martha) of Bob & Jane Ealy who married three children (Adeline, Mattie, & Albert) of Lucy Kennedy. Therefore, those three family branches are double related. However, there’s little doubt that Christopher’s maternal grandfather is indeed a direct descendant of Bob & Jane Ealy and Lucy Kennedy, placing him in one of those three family branches. He suspects that his maternal grandfather may still be living in Detroit.  He would love to connect with his biological family.

To all of my Ealy and/or Kennedy family members, especially those in Detroit who read this post, please share this blog post with other family members. Someone may know something and can connect him with his family. If anyone has additional advice to help Christopher locate his birth family, feel free to post a comment here or e-mail me at melvinjcollier@ yahoo.com or Dr. Christopher Harris at wasun67@hotmail.com.

Me (far left) with cousins at the 2010 Ealy Family Reunion in Detroit, Michigan

DNA Continues to Amaze Me!

This week, my cousin NeNise Smith’s DNA results were calculated by 23andMe. She told me several weeks ago that she had taken their DNA test.  As predicted, she appears in my Relative Finder database! Recap: 23andMe asserts that their “relative finder finds relatives by comparing your DNA with that of other 23andMe users. When two people share identical segments of DNA, this indicates that they share a recent common ancestor. Relative finder uses the length and number of these identical segments to predict the relationship between people.” (Source: 23andMe.com)

I am especially excited about NeNise’s results because now I can compare our results to a mutual cousin, Lenro Morgan, who took 23andMe’s DNA test last year. NeNise, Lenro, and I all share two sets of ancestors – Robert Ealy & Jane Parrott Ealy and Lucy Kennedy Cherry and the father of Lucy’s oldest children. (See this post This is Frustrating! for an explanation concerning that father).  Three children of Robert & Jane Ealy of Leake County, Mississippi married three of Grandma Lucy’s children. 

Robert Ealy, Jr. – Mattie Kennedy = Lenro Morgan’s great-grandparents

Martha Ealy – Albert Kennedy = Melvin Collier’s great-grandparents

Paul Ealy – Adaline Kennedy = NeNise Smith’s great-great-grandparents

This is how our DNA results compare:

The average DNA sharing between third cousins is: 0.78% (See chart.)

The average DNA sharing between third cousins once removed is: 0.39% (See chart.)

But, what is particularly interesting is to see on which of my 22 chromosomes I am related to NeNise and Lenro:

DNA enthusiasts, feel free to share other observations from this DNA comparison. I love gaining additional knowledge and thoughts from others.

Still Amazed by DNA

  Louisa “Lue” Bobo Danner

1842 – 1921

Como, Mississippi

     By now, many can probably tell from my recent blog postings, Grandma Was Right! and That DNA is Something Else!, that I am truly fascinated by the advances in DNA technology.  I am awestruck how DNA can detect if someone is as distant of a relative as sixth cousins.  I have often heard that after third or fourth cousins, the “blood link” is not there anymore.  I facetiously express that this has been an erroneous rationale used by many who have considered “having relations” with someone they heard was a distant relative.  However, as I have shown in That DNA is Something Else!, DNA can even detect if two people may descend from the same fifth-great-grandparents.  Therefore, the “blood link” is there, indeed. 

     Today, I logged into my 23andMe account to see if my number of “DNA cousins” in my Relative Finder database had increased. Indeed, it had.  Last week, it had increased to 244 people.  Today, I now have 247 people.  To my sheer delight, I immediately noticed that one of my new “DNA cousins” was a close cousin – Orien Reid Nix of Philadelphia, PA.  She made her profile public, which enabled me and others to see her name, her picture, and the surnames she listed in her profile.  I was beyond thrilled.  Cousin Orien is one of my favorite cousins, and I had no idea that she also had recently taken 23andMe’s DNA test.  She surprised me!  Cousin Orien and I have been in touch since 1998, the year I received an e-mail message from her stating that she was the granddaughter of Laura Danner; she had seen one of my Internet posts about the Danner name.  Not long after that, she flew to Memphis, TN to meet me and other family members. 

     The first woman to ever hold the position as Chair of the National Board of Directors of the Alzheimer's Association and a retired Philadelphia consumer news reporter, Cousin Orien is the granddaughter of Laura Danner Reid, a sister of my mother’s grandmother, Mary Danner Davis.  They were the daughters of ex-Civil War soldier Edward Danner and Louisa Bobo Danner, my great-great-grandparents and her great-grandparents of Panola County (Como), Mississippi.  This made Cousin Orien my second cousin – once removed.  Based on genealogy research, I also strongly speculate that her great-grandfather, Robert Reid of Chickasaw County (Houston), Mississippi (born c. 1844), was a cousin to my great-grandfather, William “Bill” Reed of Tate County (Senatobia), Mississippi (1846-1937). I’ve traced both of our Reed/Reid histories to the same slave-holding Reid Family of Abbeville County, South Carolina.  The fascinating saga of Grandpa Bill Reed’s stories is told in 150 Years Later: Broken Ties Mended.

The Danner Sisters – left to right, Great-Grandma Mary Danner Davis (1867 – 1932), Francis Danner Howard (1869 – 1951), Laura Danner Reid (Orien’s grandmother, 1871 – 1955), and Madam Mattie Danner Hockenhull (1873 – 1937).  They also had 6 brothers, Jim, Mack, Alfred, Alexander, Phillip Isaiah, and Edward Jr.

     According to 23andMe, Cousin Orien and I share 2.48% DNA across 9 chromosome segments (186 cM).  As of April 25, 2012, she is now the closest relative in my database.  The average amount of DNA sharing for second cousins-once removed (when a person’s great-grandparents are another’s great-great-grandparents) is 1.563%. A complete DNA sharing chart can be seen here. We share above average DNA for second cousins-once removed.  Perhaps, a possible double connection may explain our numbers?  Well, a poster in the “23andMe Community” forum shared that she know of two people, who are also second cousins-once removed, who share 2.63% DNA across 9 segments, which are very close to our numbers.  Therefore, our above average numbers are not necessarily proof that we are indeed double related.  Nevertheless, seeing how much DNA we share, in conjunction with our already-close relationship, I am thrilled that she took the test!  Hopefully, this post will inspire more of my known (and unknown) relatives to take 23andMe’s DNA test, too.

 Cousin Orien (right) at the 2007 Danner Family Reunion in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband, Charlie, and daughter, Traci

For an interesting story about Mattie Danner Hockenhull, who ran her own beauty palor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas during the early 1900s and who established her own line of beauty products, see Angela Walton-Raji’s post, The Search For and Discovery of Madam Martha Danner Hockenhull.

Grandma Was Right!

My father and my Grandma, Willie Ealy Collier

Taken in 1941, Lena, Mississippi

       Growing up, I was very fortunate to have a very close relationship with my Dad’s parents, George C. Collier & Willie Ealy Collier.  My childhood days were filled with fishing trips with them and driving them to church, to family and church functions in Leake County, Mississippi, to grocery and retail stores in Canton, Jackson, and Carthage to shop, and I even spent numerous days at their house just "chillin" or working in their garden with them.  Although they lived within the town of Canton, Grandma and Granddaddy still maintained a very large garden in their back yard – an extension of their rural upbringing.  I would not take a billion dollars for the close bond I had with them; that special bond helped to shape who I am today.  During the eighteen years I was blessed to have them in my life, Grandma would often observe me and would say to me, “Buster, you sure do have plenty of my blood in you.”    

       One may say, “Of course you do. She was your grandmother. That’s like one-fourth (25%) of your DNA.”  But, Grandma was not my biological grandmother – she and Granddaddy were Dad’s adoptive parents.  It was not a secret.  I have always known this every since I can remember.  The tall (6’3”), slender, and caring man who was biologically responsible for my father’s existence was Grandma’s double first cousin, Hulen Kennedy.  Everyone mostly called him “Newt”.  He was also responsible for making sure that my father was raised in Leake County among his side of the family and in a loving and stable household that contained two school teachers – my wonderful grandparents.  “Newt” Kennedy was adamant that no child of his would be raised in the Mississippi Delta, a place he considered “neo-slavery,” so to speak.  Grandma would often explain her “double kinship” to him by saying something like “brothers and sisters married brothers and sisters.”  As a young teenager, this didn’t sound quite right to me. Almost sounded kind of incestuous, but it was not.  Nevertheless, I didn’t ask her to go into details to explain what she meant.  I was more interested in going outside and riding my red Honda Elite motor scooter that she and Granddaddy purchased for my 15th birthday. Yes, they spoiled me. LOL

 Willie Ealy Collier (1904 - 1990) and Hulen "Newt" Kennedy (1888 - 1970)

Double First Cousins

       Born in 1888 near Lena in Leake County, Hulen “Newt” Kennedy was the fourth of five children born to Albert Kennedy and Martha (Sissie) Ealy Kennedy.  I vividly recall Grandma relaying to me how her father’s sister (Hulen's mother) was blown away in a storm – I’m assuming a tornado – that struck southern Leake County, Mississippi when her five kids (Dora, William, Robert, Hulen, and Wilson) were rather young.  This happened around 1895.  She never called her aunt’s name because this tragic event occurred before she was born.  Still, that “double kinship” between her and Hulen didn’t become very clear to me until I started researching my family history two and a half years after Grandma had passed away.  It didn’t take long to figure out why she would say “brothers and sisters married brothers and sisters.”  To better understand this, here’s a diagram: 

 

       However, finding the marriage records for these three “siblings marriages” made Grandma’s statement very clear.  Indeed, siblings had married siblings.  Also, my grandfather Hulen’s 1940 social security application, one of many genealogical sources to learn the names of parents, also revealed his parents’ names. You can click here to access the Social Security Death Index. 

 Hulen Kennedy's Social Security application, Nov. 4, 1940

        On Sunday night, March 26, 2012, over 20 years later, this double kinship was confirmed by DNA analysis that was conducted by 23andMe.  Three weeks prior, a new male relative appeared in my Relative Finder database, and our predicted relationship was second cousins. I was excited. This was close kin!  Who could this person be?  Names are not shown until an invitation to connect is approved, so I immediately sent an introduction in order to find out this male relative's identity and to determine how we could be second cousins.  After three weeks of anxiously waiting, he finally accepted my invitation that Sunday night, and his name became visible.  I was lucky because many people have reported that their invitations are not being answered.  He was Lenro Morgan of Seattle, Washington. Although Lenro and I have never met in person, I knew exactly who he was and how we're related.  We had been Facebook friends for several months, but I didn't know that he had also taken 23andMe's DNA test.  Lenro is the grandson of Bobbie Ann Ealy Morgan, the daughter of couple no. 3 in the diagram above – Robert Ealy Jr. & Mattie Kennedy.  Bobbie Ann, Grandma, and my grandfather Hulen were all double first cousins; therefore, we were actually double third cousins, not second cousins. 

       Geneticists have calculated that third cousins share an average of 0.781% DNA.  Click here to see a complete DNA sharing chart. Therefore, the average for double third cousins will then be 1.562%.  23andMe determined that Lenro and I share 2.07% DNA across 7 chromosome segments (155 cM), which is greater than the average and enough to be classified as second cousins.  When I compared our numbers to the average and saw how much DNA that we share, I could hear Grandma’s words loud and clear, “You have plenty of my blood in you.”  Grandma was right!

(Update: My father's DNA results are in, and he and Lenro share 3.68% across 14 segments [274 cM]. My father also shares 2.30% across 6 segments [171 cM] with Violet Jones, the great-granddaughter of couple no. 1 in the diagram above - Paul Ealy and Adaline Kennedy.)

 Couple no. 1 – Paul Ealy & Adaline Kennedy Ealy (Grandma's parents)
Paul's picture was shared by Lynda Rowe-Campbell. Adaline's picture was shared by Helen Crump.

 Couple no. 2 – Albert Kennedy & Martha (Sissie) Ealy Kennedy (Hulen's parents)

Couple no. 3 - Robert Ealy Jr. & Mattie Kennedy Ealy (Bobbie Ann's parents)

Click HERE to read the full history of the Ealy Family of Leake County, Mississippi.

That DNA Is Something Else!

     On September 28, 2011, I got an automated e-mail notification generated by Karen Meadows-Rogers of Spartanburg, South Carolina from a DNA company called 23andMe.  Karen and I had been communicating with each other online periodically for over 7 years because we both had ancestors from Union County, South Carolina.  However, my direct ancestors were taken to northern Mississippi during the 1850’s.  Karen was also a lover of genealogy research. Since we didn’t share any common family surnames, we assumed for years that we were probably not related.  Many times, as you will see, the assumptions we make can be totally inaccurate.   

     Nevertheless, the notification stated, “Karen Meadows-Rogers is using 23andMe to learn about her DNA and would like you to take a look.  Go here to view results for Karen Meadows-Rogers.”  I was provided a link to look at Karen’s DNA analysis.  Viewing her results piqued my interest in 23andMe’s efforts to collect DNA samples from 10,000 African Americans for health research. I took advantage of their then free test, mostly because of their ancestral analysis, and submitted my saliva sample which was received by 23andMe on November 10, 2011. On December 6, 2011, my results were ready to be viewed on their website.  They determined that I am 89% African, 10% European, and 1% Native American. However, I was mostly intrigued by their Relative Finder (RF) database.  23andMe asserts that their “relative finder finds relatives by comparing your DNA with that of other 23andMe users. When two people share identical segments of DNA, this indicates that they share a recent common ancestor. Relative finder uses the length and number of these identical segments to predict the relationship between people.” (Source: 23andMe.com)

     As I browsed through the 208 people in my RF database, I discovered that Karen was in my database!  23andMe predicted us as being “distant cousins”.  The connection was rather distant because she ranked last among my 208 “DNA cousins”.  As of today, March 27, 2012, I now have 232 “DNA cousins” in my RF database, and Karen ranks no. 229. Not all of my “DNA cousins” are African Americans.  Other predicted relationships with the people in my RF database are a 2^nd cousin (Len Morgan), 3^rd cousins, 4^th cousins, and many 5^th cousins. However, Karen is noted only as my “distant cousin”, and we only share 0.09% DNA (7 cM) across 1 segment.  For that reason, I figured that the connection is likely 6^th cousins or beyond.  

 Karen Meadows-Rogers and her grandfather, Johnnie Meadows. 
(Photo by Karen; Used by permission.)

     6^th cousins are defined as people who have a 5^th-great-grandparent(s) in common.  Yes, 5 greats (great-great-great-great-great-grandmother/father).  That’s going back seven generations.  Therefore, in order for us to figure out exactly how we are related, we would have to know a great deal about our family histories.  How many African Americans possess knowledge of their family histories going all the way back to 5^th-great-grandparents?  Very very few.  When many adult African Americans today trace back four to five generations, we are in the slavery era when many of our enslaved ancestors were forcibly separated from their family, never to see them again, and the knowledge of many familial connections is unobtainable.  I never admitted this to Karen, but I had very little hope of determining exactly how we are related. 

     During the next three months, Karen e-mailed me various family charts and trees of different branches of her maternal and paternal family.  I only recognized one of her family surnames – Ray – but none of my direct ancestors carried that name.  Karen also had her father’s brother to take 23andMe’s DNA test, and she informed me that I appeared in his RF database!  Therefore, this told us that she and I are related on her father’s side of the family.  Her father was a Ray.  Hmmm…  This alerted me that I truly needed to re-investigate why I was familiar with that surname.  It had slipped my mind -- excusable for someone who is approaching 40.  Right?

     I found it amazing that 23andMe was able to pinpoint Karen and her paternal uncle as my distant cousins.  Why?  Because 23andMe states, “Because there is randomness when DNA is transmitted from parent to child, the more distant a cousin pair, the less likely they are to share any stretch of DNA that was passed down through the generations. Note that even though there is a relatively low chance of detecting more distant cousins, Relative Finder will likely find a good number of them given the large number of distant cousins that exist.”  They estimate that the likelihoods of detecting a known cousin are the following:  100% for 1^st cousins, 99% for 2^nd cousins, 90% for 3^rd cousins, 45% for 4^th cousins, 15% for 5^th cousins, and 5% for 6^th cousins and beyond.  In other words, if 1,000 of my known 5^th cousins took 23andMe’s DNA test, the random transmission of DNA segments causes them to only detect approximately 150 of the 1000 as being my 5th cousins.  And the probability is lower for 6^th cousins – 50 out of 1000.  Therefore, it was quite monumental that Karen appeared in my database, when a known 5^th cousin of mine recently informed me that she also took the test, but she didn’t show up in my database.  The random transmission of DNA segments also explained why Karen’s daughter, Alexis, did not show up in my RF database.

     Nevertheless, I decided to concentrate on Karen’s paternal family, the Rays, especially since I had seen that surname before. I finally realized that it was during my research of my great-great-great-grandmother Clarissa Bobo’s roots.  Karen had informed me that she and her cousins had traced back to her great-great-great-grandparents, Thomas & Melvina Ray.  Yes, MELVINA! (The ancestors have a peculiar way of showing you that you are on the right track. LOL)  She also informed me that she and her family had concluded that Thomas Ray, who was born around 1828, had probably been enslaved by a white Raiford Family, since he lived near them in 1870, but he shortened his surname to Ray.  Interestingly, white Ray slave-owners and white Raiford slave-owners lived in the area, so I silently questioned their conclusion. 

 Thomas & Melvina Ray, Laurens County, South Carolina, taken in the late 1800's 

(Photo by Karen; Used by permission)

     However, a light bulb went off when I looked at the names of Thomas & Melvina Ray’s children in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. Three of them were named Milly, Palina, and Sims.  Palina was also a name that was passed down in Grandma Clarissa Bobo’s family; she had a sister named Palina Boyce, who was also taken to northern Mississippi from Union County, South Carolina during the 1850’s with my direct ancestors.  I immediately thought about the names of the slaves that were listed on the estate inventory of James Law, who died in nearby Newberry County in 1836.  Those three names were common among the Law slaves!  I had found James Law’s estate record when I visited the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in 2007. Each county in South Carolina has a microfilm of estate records and estate inventories.  I was floored to see how his 36 slaves were divided into 6 family lots in 1836. The first family lot contained Jack, Milly, and their 6 children.  This family lot was inherited by James Law’s daughter, Martha Law RAY, the wife of William RAY. That’s where I had seen the Ray surname! Brace yourself, but this was that family lot:

One Negro man, Jack, $1000

One Negro woman, Milly, $500

One Negro girl, Martha, $700

One Negro girl, Polly, $550

One Negro boy, THOMAS, $600

One Negro boy, Martin, $500

One Negro boy, Henry, $325

One Negro girl, Jencey, $175

     By now, you are probably asking, “How are you connected to the slaves of James Law?”  As expounded in Mississippi to Africa, I was able to trace my maternal grandmother’s maternal roots back seven generations because my ancestors were passed down several generations within one slave-holding family, starting with Capt. John Turner of Fairfield County, South Carolina. Turner died in 1807, and his four married daughters inherited most of his 22 slaves.  Those 22 enslaved human beings included my 5^th-great-grandparents, Jack & Anika, and their 10 children.  Their son, Richard “Dick” (born c. 1785), was my 4^th-great-grandfather (father of Grandma Clarissa Bobo). John Turner’s daughter, Agnes Turner Boyce, who lived in Union County with her husband David Boyce, inherited Grandpa Dick, his sister, Bess, and their younger brother, Jack Jr.  Nearly 50 years later, during the 1850’s, Dr. William & Margaret Boyce Bobo, who was Turner’s granddaughter, took my ancestors – Grandpa Dick's offspring – to Panola County (Como), Mississippi.

     Another one of Jack & Anika’s 10 children was a daughter named Easter (born c. 1790).  John Turner’s daughter, Martha Turner Law, the wife of James Law, inherited her, and Easter was subsequently taken to the Law farm in Newberry County as a teenage girl in 1807. On the Law farm, Easter had a number of children; one was a son named Jack, whom she had named after her own father.  This is the same Jack in that family lot above -- the father of Thomas!  23andMe detected that Karen and I are distant cousins because my 4^th-great-grandfather, Grandpa Dick, and her 5^th-great-grandmother, Easter, were brother and sister – two of Jack & Anika’s 10 children.  Jack and Anika are our common ancestors.  Therefore, Karen is my 6^th-cousin-once removed, and I am still in awe that DNA analysis detected this distant relationship!  That DNA is something else!