The Branch DNA Project.....Is Your Surname Branch?

If your surname is Branch, and you are searching for your ancestors, you may want to consider joining the Branch DNA Project affiliated with FamilyTreeDNA. The Houston, Texas-based company is offering its FamilyFinder test kit for the reduced rate of $99 this week. First off, I am not affiliated with the company, but I have had my own DNA tested by FamilyTreeDNA and was quite satisfied with the results of my FamilyFinder test. My DNA results, however, cannot be used for the Branch DNA Project - samples must be from male members of the Branch family who are willing to submit a sample for y-DNA testing. 

If you are wondering why I am writing about the Branch DNA Project, my answer is a simple one. I have searched unsuccessfully for years trying to determine the names of my 5th great-grandfather's parents. Here are the facts:

Edward Branch, born circa 1750, married Martha Tilman in 1797 in Amelia County, Virginia. Martha Tilman was a daughter of Richard Tighlman/Tilman. Edward had been married twice before, to Martha Botte and to Sara Goodrich, and according to most researchers, he had as many as ten children by the two women.  My own family line is descended from Edward's marriage to Martha Tilman, a relationship that allegedly produced only one child. Edward Tillman Branch, born in 1798 in Brunswick County, Virginia, was the youngest son of his father's children. He served as a rather young man in the Virginia Militia in the War of 1812, and later, he migrated, possibly with other family members, to Mississippi. In 1830, Edward Tillman Branch married Winiford Ragland in Hinds County, Mississippi, and from that point on, my lineage is clear. If you are interested in reading more about the descendants of Edward Tillman Branch, who married Winiford Ragland Branch, in Hinds County, Mississippi in 1830, you may want to grab a copy of my new book, The Juke Joint King of the Mississippi Hills: The Raucous Reign of Tillman Branch, scheduled for publication by The History Press on March 11, 2014. 

But in the meantime, I'm still searching for my 5th great-grandfather's parents. So if your surname is Branch, and you are male, and if you are related to Branch family members who lived in Tidewater or Southside Virginia in the 1700s, North Carolina, Tennessee, or Mississippi, please consider participating in the Branch DNA Project. Once you have purchased the test kit, the rest is easy.......you are only a cheek swab away from helping Branch researchers place some more branches on their family trees.

Does DNA J1 Haplogroup Finding Prove Samuel Porter is Related to Landlot Porter?

It all started when I contacted an individual named Carol Hughes about her post on an Ancestry.com message board.  According to the post, Carol and I were researching the same individual, Anastacia Porter Lawson Porter. Known as "Gracy" to family members, Anastacia was the second wife of William Porter, who died in Hinds County, Mississippi in the 1800s. According to most accounts, William Porter was the son of Landlot Porter and Winnie Palmer Porter. More about the Porter family of Hinds County, Mississippi can be read here. 

Source: Carol Hughes Personal Photo Collection
Gravestone of Landlot Porter
Fortson-Porter Private Cemetery
Hinds County, Mississippi

Shortly before reading Carol's post on the message board, I had read about a small family cemetery near Raymond, Mississippi that allegedly contained the graves of Gracy, her husband, William, his father, Landlot Porter, and other Porter and Fortner family members. I shared this information in an email to Carol, and was struck with amazement when I received her reply telling me that she lived within a few miles of the cemetery's location.  

Although she had no previous knowledge of the cemetery's existence, Carol readily volunteered to locate it and kindly offered to photograph whatever headstones she might find. As most of us know, family obligations, weather, and life in general often take precedence over family research activities, and almost a year went by before Carol was able to make the trip to the cemetery. Although Carol had actually located the cemetery early on, she discovered it was located on private property and she needed permission from the owner. Carol was persistent, and soon her visit to the cemetery, albeit a bittersweet one, was realized. Although the cemetery is located on privately owned property, it has been vandalized and some of the heavier stones and monuments have been toppled.  Gracy Porter's stone was one of those that had been overturned. Landlot Porter's grave marker is still standing, and the photo appearing in this post was included with Carol's permission.

Will I ever know how my great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel Porter, b. circa 1799 in South Carolina, is related to Landlot Porter or to his son, William? I don't know, but I haven't given up searching. I have joined the WorldFamilies Surname Project and I submitted a DNA sample provided by one of the oldest living Porter males in Samuel Porter's lineage to FamilyTree DNA's lab in Houston, Texas. Test results showed the DNA sample submitted by this elderly Porter male matched Y-DNA samples belonging to descendants of John Porter (b. 1690 in Virginia) and to a descendant of Shadrack Porter, one of Landlot's sons by his first wife, Winnie Palmer. The most interesting information about these DNA matches, however, is that each of those tested that matched at the 12 to 37 chromosome range also belong to the J1 Haplogroup (M267), including the Porter male relative I mentioned. 

Now what does that mean? Specifically, the J1 Haplogroup finding means that individuals with this result have ethnic ancestry in many of countries that make up the Arabian Peninsula, as well as some of the countries in Northern Africa. In addition, the majority of academic information about the J1 Haplogroup indicates this finding is indicative of Jewish ancestry, pointing to the "Cohen gene model."  DNA findings can get rather complicated even without involving Haplogroup designations, so I invite you to read more about J1 Haplogroup results here. 

The J1 Haplogroup finding in my father's ancestry (and mine) does not surprise me. Physical attributes common in my paternal grandmother's Porter family, particularly those of her brothers and her father, were characteristic of Middle Eastern men. Fascinating information.....and it's difficult to believe that it all resulted from just two cheek swabs! 

Will this finding change the direction of my research? Most definitely. Since the Porter family came to Mississippi from several areas in South Carolina, I need to find out more about the family and its collateral lines before they migrated to the Mississippi Territory. Of historical significance is that South Carolina, specifically the cities of Camden and Charleston, had the largest Jewish population in the U. S. in the early 1800s.  You can read more about this segment of our country's history in the Enclyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities, an online history department located on the Goldring-Woldenburg Institute of Southern Jewish Life website.

So one of my directions for researching Porter family history for the coming year is researching South Carolina history....and who knows what I might find!

Genealogy and DNA Testing

DNA testing is one of many tools in the family researcher's toolbox today, and it is absolutely a hot topic of conversation within the genealogy community. Thanks to a plethora of crime shows on television, most of us know how DNA works.  But genealogy testing goes beyond what is done on tissue and body fluid samples during a crime scene investigation. DNA results obtained from one tiny cheek swab can assist a researcher in finding a connection to an individual's ancestor as well as the part of the world in which the family originated.  Sounds so easy, doesn't it?  Although the test itself is a simple one, the results are much more complicated.  More about DNA testing, the process and the results, can be found here. Several months ago, after searching for years for some of my own paternal ancestors, I decided to join one of the surname projects sponsored by WorldFamilies.net.  Watch here for more posts that chronicle a quest for the name of a paternal ancestor that began with a simple cheek swab sample from a male relative and the Y-DNA results from a lab in Houston, Texas.