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>As far as I know, no one has ever found the grave
> site for Zachariah. Logic says it most likely
>will be on his original property or that of one
>of his sons.
That has been a frustration for me in more than one situation. The best I've come up with is to narrow it down as much as possible with the records and paperwork and then assume those older/unreadable stones were the patriarchs of the family. Doesn't sit well with me, but I agree, the cost and grave desecration to find out for sure (just for family curiosity) might be going overboard. Not to say the thought of digging great...grampa's alleged grave up and testing for ancestorship hasn't crossed my mind! :)
I do enjoy field work. It is great to find someone who knows/cares about the area history, inclusing your family. A funny story; a couple weeks ago, I was in my Conway families territory looking for the homestead/family cemetery. John Conway was soldier/hunter at Fort Boonesbough and a well-known settler/pioneer in the area I was in. Met one man, admitted he didn't know much about the area history. I described the records I had, mentioned that the house I was looking for had as a guest Simon Kenton (a well-known Kentuckian). The man said, "Well, I haint never heard of Simon Kenton, but I do believe I've heard the name of John Conway in these parts."
I did eventually find the property/house (foundation) and cemetery. Alas, only the sons graves were to be found. Lots of older/ruined stones.
Jon
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You are right Orin. There is math/statistics, then there is the real world. Interesting to think about though.
BTW, I was able to find Chang's article if someone wants to follow through on this. He discusses population isolation and other problems.
http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers.html
Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: OrinWells <orinwells(a)wells.org>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 08:52:49 -0800
To: ZachariahWells-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [Zachariah Wells] Re: One recent common ancestor?
> At 09:13 AM 1/20/2003 -0500, Dafydd47(a)aol.com wrote:
>
> >"Under the conditions laid out in his [that is, Chang's] paper, the most
> >recent common ancestor of every European today (except for recent
> >immigrants to the Continent) was someone who lived in Europe in the
> >surprisingly recent past--only about 600 years ago. In other words, all
> >Europeans alive today have among their ancestors the same man or woman who
> >lived around 1400."
>
> I have to comment on this. I don't know if this is Steve Olson's estimate
> or Chang's or simply Olson's comment on Chang's conditions, but this is
> nuts. Many of us can document many different physical ancestors who came
> from Europe, most notably the UK, nearly 400 years ago. There were a LOT
> of them who came during this time. The population of London in 1200 alone
> is estimated to have been 20,000 to 25,000. For this condition to be true
> one has to presuppose that descendents from one person will have
> intermarried with descendents from all other families in order to introduce
> his/her genetic material to all living Europeans today. A lot of the
> Europeans keep pretty much to themselves as a nationality even to this day
> although they all have experienced immigration constantly over the
> centuries. The Swiss in particular are not as much into the melting pot
> concept of the mixing of nationalities as are the Americans.
>
> Having said this, I think I see what the basis is. That is if you take one
> individual from 600 years ago and make an estimate of the number of his
> descendents today based on a 25 year per generation cycle you can say the
> number doubles every 25 years. Or, in 600 years you have 24 generations or
> 2 taken to the power of 25 (counting the original pair) which would give
> you 33.6 million people. Half of whom would be living today. Increase
> this 5 fold allowing for an average of 5 surviving children per family over
> this time span and you have about 83 million people. This is only the
> current population of England, but you get the idea.
>
> The problem with this is you have to presume that at no time do any of the
> offspring ever intermarry with cousins no matter how distant. We all know
> that happened a lot. So, yes the math can give you this estimate, but if
> you were to simply take the population of London in the year 1200 and let
> this carry on for 600 years you would have a population of about 2 trillion
> people in 1800. That is almost 1,000 times the population of the world
> today. So to make this work you have to make a lot of invalid assumptions
> such as all descendents had at least 5 children who reproduced, they did
> not marry cousins no matter how distant, they did not "daughter out", they
> didn't get killed in wars and plagues etc. and there were no family lines
> that did not intermarry with these base families.
>
> While it makes for an interesting play on math, I don't think the premise
> is valid. I believe that many of us do not share any ancestors with
> everyone. But we certainly do with many. In my opinion it is just not
> always going to lead us back to the same mutual common ancestor. But if it
> did, we still have a LOT of other ancestors. Doing this same math trick up
> your tree will give you over 32 thousand ancestors after 15 generations
> (most of us never get that far) and 33.6 million ancestors after 25
> generations. More than the population of the world in 1400. So it is
> obvious that if we were able to follow all the ancestral paths and identify
> all of our ancestors we would see some of the same ancestors re-appear over
> and over again.
>
>
>
> Orin R. Wells
> Wells Family Research Association
> P. O. Box 5427
> Kent, Washington 98064-5427
> <OrinWells(a)wells.org>
> http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
> Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb
>
>
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> when posting messages to the list. When replying,
> please use the name of the original poster and topic
> so everyone will know what you are talking about.
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Last year I called the DAR headquarters and asked about the grave
markings by them. (We have not been able to find Robert Wells (1753)
grave ). The DAR representitive said, if the ladies who searched out the
graves could not find one in the area that it should have been in, they
noted it as actually being there.
Robert is noted as being in the Wiggonsville Cemetery as a Rev. War
Vet...but the cemetery has no records of him being buried there. The
Wells family does have a cemetery on the homestead that is deeded to the
Township. We surmise he is buried there, but there is no headstone or
record for him.
So we probably will never find the actual graves of these two men....It
is not that important. There are other records verifying their lives. I
would like to know where they were born....Carolann
Talking about food for thought....Robert.....How about Thomas (
abt.1740), Zach (abt.1750), Robert(abt.1753), Augustine( abt
1760),Aaron(abt.1762) and Joseph( 18 Feb.1768) all being brothers? with
William a nephew along the line.There are no differences with any of
these men in the DNA study even down to the 12.15. Just food for
thought....now if we can just find out where they spent their
childhood.......Carolann
On Mon, 20 Jan 2003 20:09:30 EST RWR1946(a)aol.com writes:
> With no differences between Aaron and Zach could Zach have been his
father
> by a previous marriage. Just food for thought.
>
> Robert Richardson
>
>
> ==== ZachariahWells Mailing List ====
> Visit the Wells Family Research Association website
> to keep up on new Wells genealogy information.
> http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
>
>
>
I have been reading the post and we seem to be definitely getting pretty far
afield of our goal. Pretty soon we will be back to debating what came first
the chicken or the egg. It would seem a good genetisist could establish a
close relationship among these families. Meaning cousins, brothers, fathers,
sons etc. I know not fro experience though that they can go to court and tell
if if a man is a childs father with 99.99999 percent accuracy. With no
differences between Aaron and Zach could Zach have been his father by a
previous marriage. Just food for thought.
Robert Richardson
I always figured the cemetery with the graves of Jeremiah Wells and Elizabeth
Culbertson was the same one referred to by the DAR. This would be the Wells
family cemetery in "Strawberry Patch" outside of Big Stone Gap on what is now
the Horton Farm. There are several old unmarked stones and rock markers
there. (The Horton cemetery is in front of it, cared for and fenced. The
Wells one is in back, mostly covered in leaves and debris. Cows have access
to it, or at least they did at one time.) More of the stones could be
legible. It was fall when I went, and I was fairly wading the leaves. Also,
chalk to rub the stones may have helped, but I didn't have any with me.
I've been told that area was the Wells farm and that it stretched over the
hills from Strawberry Patch toward what is now Appalachia, ending at where
the old Hawks store is now. Geographically, that is a couple of miles. I
don't know enough about the supposed acreage that Zachariah Wells was
supposed to have owned to know if that is plausible.
Maria
PS - The other photos Joe Wells took were of Z.T. Wells grave. That grave is
in "Wildcat." I'm not sure if that area is part of a farm or not, but Robert
Richardson (on this list) would know.
I would like to make some comments about some statements made in this sites
discussions. Allow me to mention that I am a science teacher who uses
statistics in my Doctoral dissertation, currently in progress. I also
consider myself to be a religious person.
1. It is ridiculous to attempt to prove science with religion, or prove
religion with science. They are two different things. Science attempts to
describe physical or chemical things or functions through the use of
repeatable, verifiable experiments and observations. Religion attempts to
address how humans should act, based on faith. Since faith cannot be
subjected to repeatable, verifiable experiments, and science cannot be based
on faith, religion and science cannot be used to prove or disprove the
other. Pseudoscientific attempts to confuse the two areas of study are a
disservice to both.
2. There appears to be some misunderstanding about carbon dating. It is
independent of catastrophic atmospheric events, etc.. A living organism
(tree, human, frog, whatever) maintains a certain ratio of carbon 14 to
carbon 12. When that organism dies, the carbon 14 radioactively decays to
carbon 12 at a well-documented rate, producing a change in the ratio between
them. After a period of 40,000 years, the ratio is so low that some other
method must be used to determine age.
3. Statistics also fail to prove anything. They can however, provide
estimates of the probability that a particular result is due to chance. For
example: the use of DNA evidence in a legal trial would present the data in
the form of probability such as the chance that the DNA belongs to someone
other than the defendant being 1 in a billion, or that there is a 99.999
percent probability that the DNA is that of the defendant.
4. According to Orin, there is a thought in the community of geneticists
that each mutation happens on average once every 20 transmissions
(father-son event). This is an average. A mutation might occur after
just 1 transmission, or after 40. However, the probability that a mutation
would occur after only 1 transmission for 20 transmissions in a row is so
EXTREMELY small that, for all practical considerations could be considered
impossible. Therefore, the idea that we all had a common ancestor only 600,
or even only 6000 years ago, is statistically HIGHLY unlikely.
Thank you for allowing me to contribute my 2 cents worth.
Raymond R. Wells
Andy,
The Aaron Wells family was heavily involved in the American "Second Great Awakening"/"Restoration Movement"/independant Christian Church movement. Aaron Wells' son William W. Wells donated lumber and property for a church in Mt. Olivet, (present) Robertson Co., KY. He had a son that fought in the Mexican War, was blinded, came home and became a circuit-riding preacher until his death, 50 years later. There are more preachers in the family. And my mother was a Bible School teacher in that same church. :)
Another trend of interest are the doctors and teachers in our family.
Jon
P.S. I think you'll find the same biases in carbon-dating, etc. as previously mentioned. It assumes no catastrophic atmospheric events, etc.
You may have heard some current theories talk of massive meteor impacts, although that is now being discarded by some. Of course, that type of thing would greatly disturb amounts of carbon being digested by living creatures, so there is evidence for controversy.
Understand, there is a circular logic present in pre-historic dating. The layers of rock are dated by the fossils. How are the fossils dated? By what layer of rock in which they appear! :)
Most people don't know that if the carbon dates don't match the evolutionary theory or rock layer, they are discarded. Some "scientists" "believe" in evolution pretty strongly...
Here is another link, if you're interested in the scientific explanations and references.
http://answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
P.S.S. I believe the Scopes Trial pitted a minister who didn't know his science against a defense lawyer. To me, those types of debates are pretty counterproductive...
If you're really interested in this, feel free to contact me off-list. It's something I've struggled with and come to some conclusions. I'm a fairly skeptical person and like to see the proofs.
----- Original Message -----
From: ZigZagAndy(a)webtv.net (Andy)
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 09:14:50 -0800 (PST)
To: ZachariahWells-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [Zachariah Wells] Re: Cluster analysis of Wells DNA data
> Hello Orin,Dave,Jon et all,
> Thank you ALL for the great posts.
> My deep apologies I misquoted(off the top of my head) the data on
> "eve"..going back and rereading....Orin is correct regarding the
> "stats"
> What about "radiocarbon dating?"Archaeologists and Geologist have been
> using this "process" since the late '40 to date some of their "finds?"
> Regarding my "Baptist family" I am recallig "The Scopps Monkey Trial" of
> the '20s......which is still relevent today.
> In a lot of my "searching" I use "church records"...a lot.......and
> reading about the "Three Forks Primitive BAptist Church." I began
> wondering about the religeon of these folks......
> I know this is "OFF Topic" in findig the parents of "ol' ZAch."
> Is there anyone on this list that traces their "ancestory" from William
> Wells and Mary Harden(sp).I would like to hear from you.
> Thank you all again....Andy Kidd,Seattle,WA.
>
>
> ==== ZachariahWells Mailing List ====
> To unsubscribe from this list send an e-mail containing
> the text "unsubscribe" to ZachariahWells-L-Request(a)rootsweb.com
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Hi, Jon!
Thanks for finding the Atlantic article and giving the URL. I have a
subscription and didn't think to look up the on-line version for others on
the list who may be interested. The article was very thought-provoking for
me. We may all be much more related than we realize! Of course, the
challenge is to prove it through the sorts of family history research that
we're all involved in.
Dave Williams
>I want to point out an interesting article that
>treats our common origins. It is "The Royal We"
>by Steve Olson, and it was published in The
>Atlantic Monthly in May 2002.
Hey Dave,
I found that article online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/05/olson.htm
This is curious information. Made me think of the connectivity of the WWW. :)
Jon
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Orin,
Thank you.I was having a hard time accepting this...but was unable to
put it into words as you have done.
I AM Not my "own grandpa"(G)
As ALL of my ancestors from both sides are fro the "British Isles" we
get to take into consideration the influence of "The Vikings" .....and
the North Sea explorers.
Andy
Hello Orin,Dave,Jon et all,
Thank you ALL for the great posts.
My deep apologies I misquoted(off the top of my head) the data on
"eve"..going back and rereading....Orin is correct regarding the
"stats"
What about "radiocarbon dating?"Archaeologists and Geologist have been
using this "process" since the late '40 to date some of their "finds?"
Regarding my "Baptist family" I am recallig "The Scopps Monkey Trial" of
the '20s......which is still relevent today.
In a lot of my "searching" I use "church records"...a lot.......and
reading about the "Three Forks Primitive BAptist Church." I began
wondering about the religeon of these folks......
I know this is "OFF Topic" in findig the parents of "ol' ZAch."
Is there anyone on this list that traces their "ancestory" from William
Wells and Mary Harden(sp).I would like to hear from you.
Thank you all again....Andy Kidd,Seattle,WA.
Dear Wells Cousins,
Adding to this discussion of the scientific study of heredity, I want to
point out an interesting article that treats our common origins. It is "The
Royal We" by Steve Olson, and it was published in The Atlantic Monthly in May
2002. It does not consider DNA evidence, but instead reports on studies from
the theory of population genetics. The primary source for the article is a
recent technical paper, "Recent common ancestors of all present-day
individuals", by Joseph Chang, who is a statistician at Yale University. I
quote a couple of lines from Olson's article as follows.
"Under the conditions laid out in his [that is, Chang's] paper, the most
recent common ancestor of every European today (except for recent immigrants
to the Continent) was someone who lived in Europe in the surprisingly recent
past--only about 600 years ago. In other words, all Europeans alive today
have among their ancestors the same man or woman who lived around 1400."
Of course these are much more general results than we are considering when
doing genealogical reconstructions of individual families, but I pass it
along for your general interest. I suggest reading Olson's article for more
details if you are interested.
Dave Williams
> With due respect to the Baptist portion of the Wells families,our common
> ancestor was "Eve"(20-30,000 yrs ago.....if I remember correctly.)
Not just Baptists, Andy! :)
As Orin mentioned, there are crucial assumptions made when estimating average mutation rates. The study of DNA is still a very new (exciting!) and wide-open field. We will certainly have many more facts to base scientific guesses on in the years to come.
It is very important to know that scientists are very influenced by their biases. I think we are right to challenge the assumptions based on evolutionary premises. I have no problem with someone using these assumptions (we have to start somewhere). However, ruling out all other starting points is not scientific and may throw us off. As Orin mentioned, these estimates are just guesses, and are adjusted frequently, according to new discoveries. As noted, many of these tv shows are out of date. Many of the shows give the impression that a lot of their speculation is fact.
One bias is calibrating the 'molecular clock (i.e., that there is a more or less fixed rate of mutational substitutions per year in any population) on the evolutionary assumption that humans have been on the earth for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. I'm not interested in arguing evolution, but do want to point out that there ARE different hypothesis (as scientific as any other viewpoint). As Orin pointed out, in this case, the "assumption" of 500 years for one change may be extremely low. You have to also factor in that there might not be a "fixed rate". In other words, since we have no way to go back in time and scientifically" measure each change per real generation, in actuality, it might turn out to be as recent as a few thousand years since the "mitochondrial Eve".
Here is a part of an interesting article. I'll include the reference so you can follow up on the sources, etc.
"According to one review of the data, these recent results would mean that mitochondrial Eve lived about 6500 years ago a figure clearly incompatible with current theories on human origins. Even if the last common mitochondrial ancestor is younger than the last common real ancestor, it remains enigmatic how the known distribution of human populations and genes could have arisen in the past few thousand years.
The review in Sciences Research News goes still further about Eves date, saying that using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old. The article says about one of the teams of scientists (the Parsons team5) that evolutionary studies led them to expect about one mutation in 600 generations they were "stunned" to find 10 base-pair changes, which gave them a rate of one mutation every 40 generations."
http://answersingenesis.org/docs/4055.asp
These folks are Christians, but are very scientific based. I highly recommend their site. If you find any mistakes (in this article or site), I'd be very interested in hearing from you.
Jon Hagee
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At 12:09 PM 1/19/2003 -0800, Andy wrote:
>I have been reading "The Sarch of Early Man""National Geographics..Nov.
>1985..and "The Peoping of the Earth".."In Search of Modern
>Humans"..National Geographics.. Oct. 1988(I collect National Geo. have
>them from 1961 to present date.)
I am afraid this stuff is a bit out of date. The earliest female line
seems now to be 80,000+ years and the earliest male about 60,000 years.
Be sure to watch "The Journey of Man" on Tuesday on PBS. This is part of
the topic.
>My question is;why did just the male with the Wells family name(still in
>tact)become the "DNA" subjects?
That is simple. Because the y-chromosome carried ONLY by the male is
essentially passed on father to son virtually unchanged. So your DNA for
the Kidd family probably looks pretty much like your ancestor 400 years
ago. With this knowledge we can match current descendents and be fairly
confident we can say that anyone who matches this DNA is from the same
family although not necessarily from the earliest identified ancestor. We
can not say anyone with the Zachariah Wells pattern is descended from
Zachariah's father, for example. We know he could be just as easily
descended from Aaron Wells, Augustine Wells etc. or the respective
ancestor. They may be descended from a brother, uncle or even a
5xg-grandfather. Without finding the confirming paper documentation it
would still be speculation. We CAN say they are related in some way and
share an early common ancestor who has not been identified (yet). And we
CAN say with complete confidence they are NOT descended from one of the
other families where the DNA is strikingly different (miss by 4 or more
markers).
For the females, the only equivalent is the Mitrochondrial DNA or MtDNA
which is passed from the mother to each of her children. The rest of the
DNA is passed pretty much 50% from the father and 50% from the mother and
gets diminished each generation. With the MtDNA the mutations come much
less frequently. So for any given pattern there are a LOT of people
running around and it is very difficult to play this into genealogical
research. Add to that the fact we seldom are able to track strictly
maternal lines you can get the idea. Now, if you wanted to prove something
such as that Zachariah's wife was likely Abigail Osborne, you would need to
know the identity of at least one female from her family such as her
mother, a sister, an aunt (on her mother's side) etc. Then you need a
direct female descendent from Abigail to present day and a direct female
descendent from one of the proven Osborne women. As with the y-chromosome,
you can not have a break such as
female-female-female-male-female-etc. But even if the two match you can
not be 100% sure as there could be a lot of matches due to chance. Much
more difficult to work with than the y-chromosome DNA.
Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<OrinWells(a)wells.org>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb
Orin et al,
Thank you Orin for your efforts,time,(money)and,tanacity in this
project.
The entire Wells Family World Wide owes you much!
Having said that.....I have been reading "The Sarch of Early
Man""National Geographics..Nov. 1985..and "The Peoping of the
Earth".."In Search of Modern Humans"..National Geographics.. Oct. 1988(I
collect National Geo. have them from 1961 to present date.)
With due respect to the Baptist portion of the Wells families,our common
ancestor was "Eve"(20-30,000 yrs ago.....if I remember correctly.)
I am now understanding clusters and weights etc.My question is;why did
just the male with the Wells family name(still in tact)become the "DNA"
subjects?
I have always pondered this.
With my "unscienctific mind"I assume there would be to many "variables"
there.
Have I missed something?
Thanks again Orin....I ALWAYS enjoy reading the "posts" from EVERYONE!
Andy Kidd
Seattle,Wa
At 11:57 AM 1/19/2003 -0500, Dafydd47(a)aol.com wrote:
>Dear Orin,
>
>I never got any responses from my question a few weeks ago on the Wells
>DNA project, so I assumed that no one had done any further analysis.
Sorry, I missed the post. I think I was out of town at the time you posted
it and simply didn't pick it up in the email when I got back. I am going
to reply and copy this to the list as some there may be interested in
this. If they aren't or get bored they can use the delete button.
Dave Williams
> I entered the DNA data from your table "Family BaseLine DNA Patterns"
> into a file and then tried running several cluster analysis algorithms on
> it just for fun. I don't really know anything about the DNA markers, so
> I assumed that they were all of equal "weight" statistically speaking.
This is correct. EVERY male has them all. In some rare cases the lab is
unable to get a measurement on a marker and sometimes they will get two
peaks for reasons they do not understand.
Dave Williams
>I have attached one of the cluster trees generated (as a JPEG) for your
>possible interest. It was run using the "flexible" method (please don't
>ask me for details!). Another algorithm, Ward's Method, gave identical
>results.
I have examined this and I need some guidance on the "Flexible Beta
Distance" such as what does it mean? This seems to be the key to conveying
a relationship. Thanks for taking the time to do this. One thing that has
to be understood is that DNA mutations seem to be pretty random and there
is no nice mathematical formula that can be applied even though many have
claimed they have one. They just fall apart when you apply real test
results. Mother nature plays by her own rules in this game. In looking at
the distributions I am afraid this could give a viewer a false impression
regarding the relationship between families. I probably would be very
hesitant to post this in it's current form.
In your earlier message you asked the following questions (I went back and
found it). Let me respond to them as well as I can.
Dave Williams
1. Is the analysis posted the final quantitative analysis of the samples?
Yes. What you see is what we are going to get unless the lab expands the
markers further and we get additional markers but there is no guarantee we
would be retrofitted.
Dave Williams
2. I frankly do not find the current analysis very satisfying. It is
apparently simply a pairwise comparison of differences in markers of the
individual families, with no indication as to why the families were listed
in the order they were (or did I miss something?)
You are correct. There is no order of importance between markers. They
all have pretty much equal weight. The markers have been selected because
they tend to show a higher rate of mutations than the other markers on the
Y-Chromosome and are in a collection of markers identified by the industry
as most suitable. Clearly there are other markers and each testing lab
differs slightly from the other. As to the order, it is an arbitrary
sequencing based on the numeric progression of the marker values, nothing
more. That is DYS385a 11 will come before DYS385a 12. Where a pair of
markers match between two subjects, the next pair is used (DYS385b
etc.) In a very few cases they may appear to be out of "order" because a
close match between participants has been identified where there are
variances in the early order of markers.
Now, to solve this lack of meaning I plan to write an analysis paper to
provide more information on the ancestral families and what the DNA
patterns are showing this. I will try to write it in a way everyone can
understand it. It will take a bit but I am going to do it in conjunction
with some information I am going to give the fellow who plans to write a
piece in the Wall Street Journal on the project.
Dave Williams
3. It seems to me that something like a cluster analysis would be more
useful. It would use all the marker data together to show how closely the
various families are related. This analysis could be used to develop a tree
diagram to show the relative degree of relatedness of the families. (Or is
this sort of analysis not appropriate because of the nature of the marker
data?)
Of course one of the premises has to be that there is a relationship
between the families. While we all eventually trace back to a common
ancestor in pre-history, for all practical purposes this is generally a
false assumption. Remember that surnames were selected by an individual
nearly 1,000 years ago and many unrelated folks may have selected the same
surname including Wells. What we are seeing makes it very clear that we
are not all very closely related.
If I had read this I would have said "have a go at it". BUT understand
that based on the average mutation rates this is not likely to produce much
of interest in most cases. The reason is that when any two subjects are 4
or more variations from each other it is unlikely they have a common
ancestor much more recently than a couple of thousand years ago. So even
if there is a similarity it probably is not something that can be proven
for genealogy purposes which is the whole objective here. The fact we are
dealing with a surname in common may muck this up a bit and we really
don't understand that influence yet.
Dave Williams
4. I wonder if a more thorough analysis planned in the future. Or are we
still waiting for additional samples?
Yes to both. In the first instance I hope to get Dr. R. Spencer Wells to
spend a bit of time with me (remotely) to see if we can identify anything
in the analysis that is of more interest than just subject A matches
Subject B and is only 2 markers different from Subject C. But we are
indeed waiting for more samples. My goal is to collect up to 600 samples
worldwide to expand our base and, hopefully, include as many of the
different origin Wells families as humanly possible. The cost is probably
the largest obstacle to this. But I don't give up easily.
Dave Williams
I am sorry if I sound critical. I definitely do not mean to be! You are
doing great work in shepherding the process along and keeping all of us on
the list informed. I thank you for all your time and effort. I am just
concerned that it seems like a lot more could be done with the data set as
it exists currently.
No need to apologize. I don't mind comments especially if they are
inquisitive and constructive.
Dave Williams
>As you can see, the cluster tree gives putative relationships among the
>family groups. The heights of the connections on the y-axis are strictly
>based on values of the test statistic and have no further interpretation
>(for example, as to time since divergence of the families). I don't think
>that there are any surprises here--on the Zach end of things
>anyway. Families W016, W020, and W028 are obviously very closely related,
>as one could tell just by scanning the data.
As you said, no surprise there. The trick remaining is to find the
documentation that links the common ancestor to them.
Dave Williams
>The next nearest kin would seem to be families W005 and W023, followed by
>families W008, W011, and W027. Hopefully you know better than I whether
>these relationships make any sense or were simply obvious from the raw data.
The difference between family W005 (Richard/Tunis Wells of Virginia and
Fayette Co., PA) is 18 values if we ignore the double peak at DYS394. That
is a VERY large difference with no possibility of them having a Most Common
Recent Ancestor (MCRA) much earlier than the last ice age or further
back. In fact there is another marker behind the scenes from BYU that
reveals another two-step difference making them 20 variances out of 27
markers. As I said before, 4 is considered to be unrelated and can occur
randomly with almost any two surnames that started out several markers
off. Of course if we go back far enough in time (60,000 years) we are all
related to a common ancestor.
Family 23 (David and Susannah Wells of Mechlenburg, Virginia) is equally
distant with 19 differences and one behind the scenes. Family 8 (the
"Little Wells" family of James Wells of Baltimore Co., Maryland) has 21
variances (again ignoring the double peak) and one behind the
scenes. Family 11 (Samuel Wells of Stafford County, Virginia) has 22
differences. Family 27 (John Wells of York County, Virginia) is 20
variations. Now some of these are closer to each other than they are the
Zachariah/Aaron/Robert/etc. clan. But they are still way off from each
other genetically. There are some markers that cause one to wonder if
there is not a relationship. For example on marker DYS455 where most of
the families carry a value of 10 there is a group of families that carry a
7. Also on YCAIIa most of the subjects carry a 19. But some of them,
apparently unrelated, carry a 21 including your extended family. Does that
have some significance? Is it typical of some group such as the Vikings or
Celts? I don't know at this point. But it is one of the topics I want to
discuss with Dr. Wells.
>I know nothing of the Wells families on the other main branch--that is,
>the left hand side. It is interesting that family W006 stands out all by
>itself in this analysis. Have the relationships of these families on the
>left branch been worked out historically?
You are referring to the Baseline families chart.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/dnaproje/baseline.html
Yes, they have 32 variations compared to your family and are clearly not
close to any of the other families. There is a thought in the community of
geneticists that each mutation happens on average once every 20
transmissions (father-son event). If you peg this at a generation of 25
years (I favor 35) this works out to a mutation once every 500 years. Thus
4 mutations would be 2,000 years. 32 mutations would require 16,000 years
to occur. The REAL numbers may be much shorter. For example if you were
to use this criteria on two brothers in our study one would conclude their
common ancestor lived 1500 years ago when in fact they are brothers. So
while the rule of thumb might be 20 generations for a mutation the reality
is it might be anywhere from 1 to 40 and I am pulling 40 out of the
hat. Some families seem to be more prone to mutation than others. A lot
of work remains to be done in this field. It is far from an exact science.
What is important to us is who matches our DNA pattern and then usually
ONLY if their Surname matches Wells OR if we have reason to suspect they
might be the product of a non-paternal event. We have some of these in the
Wells study. Some have matched as expected, some have come as surprises to
the researchers.
Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<OrinWells(a)wells.org>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb
Andy, Isn't it amazing all that has happened in this
country....fortunately "one nation under God"....what a legacy !
Robert Wells was fighting for this country too...His DAR papers are
almost filled out and readied to be sent in..I have been distracted with
all the DNA and additional family connections.and trying to get up to
speed with Zach, Aaron, Augustine et all...This next week I will get on
it again....Carol
On Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:05:07 -0800 (PST) ZigZagAndy(a)webtv.net (Andy)
writes:
> Pat,
> Ohhhh thanks for this post.It is leading me to some theories I have
> had
> for some time.
> As Orin has said(if Im not mistaken) think Penn.
> off topic)....last nite I saw a wonderful program on
> PBT.....regarding
> The Rev. WAr......itactually gave me "goose bumps"
> to think what went on in VA. durning the Rev.War.......and our
> "common
> ansestors"
> They were all there......justmakes me proud to be an
> American.........and that my "family" was there.....
> If we never get to the "truth" of Zach Sr.......we know he must
> have
> been there when "America" was formed.
> Man.......what an exicting time......
> Andy fr. Seattle,Wa.
>
>
> ==== ZachariahWells Mailing List ====
> Visit the Wells Family Research Association website
> to keep up on new Wells genealogy information.
> http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
>
>
>
Pat,
Ohhhh thanks for this post.It is leading me to some theories I have had
for some time.
As Orin has said(if Im not mistaken) think Penn.
off topic)....last nite I saw a wonderful program on PBT.....regarding
The Rev. WAr......itactually gave me "goose bumps"
to think what went on in VA. durning the Rev.War.......and our "common
ansestors"
They were all there......justmakes me proud to be an
American.........and that my "family" was there.....
If we never get to the "truth" of Zach Sr.......we know he must have
been there when "America" was formed.
Man.......what an exicting time......
Andy fr. Seattle,Wa.
At 11:40 AM 1/17/2003 -0700, Carol A Williams wrote:
>Hello Orin,
>In going back over the Wells Chronicles I find in Vol 4, #1, pge.369 the
>notation as follows: "November 1787 Abraham Wells, Aaron Wells, &
>Charles Wells were in Ohio County, Va. in a place first called Black's
>Cabbins, later West Liberty,( by 1787), where they petition to establish
>the town. "
>
>Questions: 1. West Liberty, Ky. or West Liberty, West Va.?
What is NOW West Liberty, West Virginia. It was apparently Ohio Co., VA at
that time.
> 2. Where did this info come from ?
Don't know. It was a filler bit that came from somewhere. It appears I
did not note the source. Tsk, tsk. It would be nearly impossible for me
to track it down now.
There is a bit more on the town at
http://www.house.gov/mollohan/ohiohistory.htm
But nothing that will resolve this question
.
> 3. Do you have any idea which family they tie in to ?
I would guess (pure guess) that it was the Big Wells given the
vicinity. BUT Aaron and Abraham are not names used to my knowledge in this
family, so I guess the better answer is I don't know.
>There is a Charles b.1745 m. Michel Owning. Parentage seems to be tied to
>Benjamin.
This was the Big Wells
>Another Charles shows being born 1758, m. Mary Williamson and served in
>Rev. War as a Pvt. for both Va. and Md. #S3493.
He was also from the "Big Wells" family. His pension application
references children of one of his brothers living then (1832) in
Chillicothe, Ohio who had a family register. He lived in Brooke Co. near
Wellsburgh which pretty much nails him to the Big Wells. In fact he was
Charles Dorsey Wells. His father was Charles Wells, Jr. son of Charles
Wells and Sarah Arnold. The other Charles Wells b: 1745 was a son of
Benjamin Wells who was a brother to Charles Wells, Jr. and the only other
known child of Charles Wells and Sarah Arnold.
Orin R. Wells
Wells Family Research Association
P. O. Box 5427
Kent, Washington 98064-5427
<OrinWells(a)wells.org>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wellsfam/wfrahome.html
Subscribe to the "Wells-L" list on RootsWeb