It's been a long steep slide downward through the generations from my fifth great-grandfather, colonial Virginian John Carter, but I think I've located a Carter DNA match whom I can successfully document. Starting with John himself and his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Armistead, the next step was to their daughter Sarah. She, in turn, married William Sutton and, still in Virginia, became mother of several children.
Fortunately for us, the specific line of descent for my DNA match flowed next to one of Sarah's children with a distinctive name: Norborne Elzy Sutton. Once again, an old genealogy book served as trailblazer for me: Trible Dix Sutton's The Suttons of Caroline County, Virginia. The record there for this particular Norborne Elzy Sutton—yes, there were other relatives also carrying that same name—led me to the son he named after himself, detailing the next generation in this DNA match's lineage.
From that point, we moved from the junior Norborne Sutton to his daughter Alice. It is fortunate to have this outline from a book—which presumably also relied on guidance from family members themselves—for Alice married someone by the unhelpful surname of Clark, not quite as impossible to research as a Smith or a Jones, but still common enough to present a challenge. However, by this point, the search has entered well beyond the pre-1850 stage of hard-to-trace documentation, so that line of descent could more easily be verified by multiple means.
Alice herself, born about 1870, was my DNA match's grandmother, and from that point, the rest of the line fell into place in the family tree fairly easily with documentation. Once that generations-long trail was confirmed, it turned out my DNA match and I are half fifth cousins, once removed—at least on paper.
The half relationship, owing to my descent from John Carter's second wife, augments the distance even more, but just considering the relationship of fifth cousin and beyond makes me almost question how any genetic material can still be there, waving at us, after such a long slide through the generations. The likelihood that no genetic material could be discernible to demonstrate a connection is far greater than the probability that it would be spotted.
Still, surprise or novelty or scientific fluke, this descent through the generations has been an exercise which helped guide me in documenting at least one branch of a family line pointing to that multi-great-grandfather. Silly as it might sound, I feel so connected.
Gosh, what a story! And how wonderful technology is, along with good old fashioned reading, researching and documenting!
ReplyDeleteI still stand in awe of what we can find through DNA testing, Miss Merry. But I'm still thrilled at finding these old genealogies from a century ago, as well. What a blend of tools old and new!
DeleteI do look at them with caution - but they are a great starting point. It is great you were able to connect with a person! I see a lot of misinformation on trees about my dad's family - my grandfather was raised by his widowed grandmother (mother's mother) when his parents died when he was 1 and 7. Then she moved in with him and his wife when they were married. Surname and census confusion show her alternately as his mother or his wife's mother. And then this gets repeated and repeated. I know the true story as a direct descendent.
DeleteGood point, Miss Merry--and thanks for sharing that example from your dad's family. I've just run across an example like that, myself, so you inspired me to continue the conversation in tomorrow's post.
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