More Wright DNA Test Results

Two more Wright DNA test results (http://www.danstone.info/wrightdna.htm) have come back:

1) Test 293820, a descendant of Hosea Wright (http://www.danstone.info/g2/p2666.htm) through his son, Caleb Wright (brother of my fourth great grandfather, Hiram Wright), was upgraded from twelve markers to sixty-seven markers. This upgraded test result matches my uncle’s test on sixty-four out of the sixty-seven markers, well within the range to be considered related. Matching at the sixty-seven marker level means that it is very highly probable both of our paper trail lineages back to Hosea Wright are likely accurate.

The match also helps to verify that the Wright bible pages which are posted online (http://glennfletcher.com/?page_id=734) are indeed referring to my fifth great grandparents, Hosea Wright and Sarah Ladd Crew/Crews (http://www.danstone.info/g2/p2663.htm), and their children. This is important because many family trees I have come across attribute Hosea and Sarah’s son, Hosea Wright (http://www.danstone.info/g3/p3225.htm), as being born in 1802 and marrying Mary Rankin (http://www.danstone.info/g5/p5716.htm). Looking at the bible pages shows that he was actually born on February 11, 1820. This means the Hosea Wright who married Mary Rankin on April 23, 1820 (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XZLY-6HD) was not the son of Hosea Wright and Sarah Ladd Crew. Instead, the Hosea Wright who married Mary Rankin is believed to be the son of Job/Joab/Jobe Wright (http://www.danstone.info/g2/p2914.htm), who was the son of Gabriel Wright and brother of the Hosea Wright who married Sarah Ladd Crew. A DNA test of a descendant of the Hosea Wright who married Mary Rankin is currently pending. With there being at least four men named Hosea Wright located in early 1800s Ohio, it’s easy to understand how they can get interchanged.

2) The DNA test results of the descendant of Samuel B. Wright (https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/2030248) have come back and show, even at just the basic twelve marker level, that there is not a close relationship between his line and my line. Out of the twelve markers, three of them are different, with one of the three being two steps off. This is simply too great of a distance to be considered a match and closely related. While the information found at the link for Samuel cited above sounded extremely promising, especially as several generations of men named Gabriel Wright are mentioned, the DNA shows that further research of Samuel’s line is in all likelihood a dead end for locating the ancestors of my ancestor, Gabriel Wright. Helping to refine which lines to further explore, and which lines not to, is one of the big benefits of genealogical DNA testing.

Research Activity Updates

It has been quite awhile since I last posted. There has been much activity with my genealogy research, and I need to be better about documenting my progress through this blog. Here are some of the new developments:

1) My dad, mom, and paternal grandmother have taken the Ancestry DNA autosomal test. My dad and mom’s test results came back late last week, and my grandma’s should be coming back any day now. Even though I’ve had their results for only a few days, I can already see some of the big benefits to having their results to use in conjunction with mine. It makes it very easy to narrow down which line(s) to examine to try to locate the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) I may share with a match. It also allows for the use of some very handy tools for working with and comparing matches, such as gedmatch.com and Jeff Snavely’s AncestryDNA Chrome Extension.

2) I have located a descendant of Hosea Wright and Sarah Ladd Crew who is taking the Y-DNA test so that the link from my Hiram Wright to that Hosea Wright can be verified. Based on the number of autosomal matches my mom has to members of the Crew family who have connections to Sarah’s line, I will be very surprised if the results of this Y-DNA test do not show a match.

3) My maternal grandma’s brother was able to provide me with several bits of information which provide additional details to family events, as well as some potential new angles to explore in the search for additional Hill ancestors. He will be taking the Ancestry DNA autosomal test as well.

4) I have had several cousins, and potential cousins, contact me because of genealogy information I’ve posted at my website (www.danstone.info), and/or the FamilySearch.org Family Tree, GEDmatch.com, and WikiTree.com sites. These contacts are proving to be very beneficial, and are sources of new information as well as giving me new leads to explore.

5) I have updated my Wright DNA page (http://www.danstone.info/wrightdna.htm) as I continue to try to sort out how my line connects with the Wright line of Flushing, Long Island, New York and/or the Wright line of Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. Based on the Wright Y-DNA matches of my uncle, along with the Wright autosomal matches of me and my mom, my current hypothesis is that the Flushing and Oyster Bay lines are actually related, but I’m still working to try to prove this. My hypothesis of a relationship between the Flushing and Oyster Bay Wright lines differs with what some other researchers have concluded, so I’m gathering as much information as possible and proceeding cautiously with my examination of the data.

6) My several month old hypothesis of a connection between my Stone line and the line of Phillip Stein (http://www.crewfamily.com/descendants_of_philipp_stein.htm) may finally have a possibility for some scientific backing, based on an autosomal match my dad has. The MRCA seems to be John Sebastian Stein, but much more examination is needed to be certain. Ideally, as I examine my dad’s list of matches further, I hope to locate matches with other Stein descendants to further support the possibility of the connection to the Stone line.