Sign of the times

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Shepard Fairey. Lisbon, 17 Oct 2023.

Custom Clusters

 

Ancestry Custom Clusters. Oct 2025.

Yesterday a new feature within Ancestry's ProTools appeared for me, allowing for the creation of custom clusters. This is an improvement on the Clusters tool launched earlier in the summer. I'm still testing this out. I created a cluster using a known match on my Dad's side of the tree who is part of the Pennsylvania O'Briens group, and the tool did pull in many of the people who I've already looked at with Shared Matches of Matches that I think are connected to each other.

You can start a cluster with a match of interest who has less than 20 cM in common with your tester, and the tool will pull in some of those people who have been 20 cM and 1300 cM in common with the match of interest and who also may have cM in common with your tester. I tried this to isolate a group who might be connected with my Bridget side of the tree. You can generate up to 25 clusters, and these will stay on your page for 30 days unless added to a group.

I then tried this with the mystery Guerrero-Leyva matches on my Mom's side of the tree. While there's a lot of overlap, it does show a group of people connected together. This gives me some new ideas to try and people to investigate to see how they are related. It's definitely faster than the DNAPainter method I tried in August.

Ancestry. Custom Cluster.

Group Projects

In most cases, DNA research works better in combination with others. FamilyTreeDNA hosts a wide range of group projects based on YDNA lines, mtDNA, regional and surname specific questions. With my own test, I previously joined the A2 mtDNA haplogroup, the Mexico DNA, and the R-U152-FGC22501 projects. I've now added my interest to join the Diaz/Dias project as my mtDNA result descends from my 2nd-great-grandmother Teresa Diaz.

I recently added my Dad's result to the Guthrie genealogy project. Today I added his kit to the Lemon project on FTDNA and the Thorne/Thorn project. I was previously in contact with Earl Layman on his Lehman Genealogy and own a copy of his 2006 book and the 2011 supplement.

For the Thorne/Thorn project, we're waiting on the mtDNA result for cousin Lynn, which will provide the haplogroup for Elizabeth Thornhill of Culpeper, Virginia and Jefferson County, Tennessee. I've already heard back from an administrator of the project. This has prompted another search for a living Thornhill male from this branch of the family for a potential YDNA test.

As for YDNA tests, FTDNA currently has a sale underway through 12 November 2025 on various kits, including YDNA, mtDNA, autosomal (FamilyFinder) transfers from other sources such as Ancestry, and bundled savings for multiple types of tests. This is a great opportunity to get a lower cost test, one that could break through some brick and adobe walls for anyone interested in more targeted DNA testing.

On the maternal side of the tree, I've also reached out to the Gibson project to see if participating in this effort with autosomal DNA will identify a clear connection to the family of James Robert Gibson and Nancy Street. On Ancestry, my Mom has 121 DNA matches to descendants of James Robert Gibson with ThruLines. My aunt Linda has 101 DNA matches from James, while my aunt Patty has a 116 DNA matches from James. I think that's a really strong indicator of a connection.

Indigenous Peoples

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Apitatán at STRAAT Museum. 12 May 2023.

In our locality schools are closed today recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day. In our tree, there are traces of connection to native people in the Americas, and we've seen from the recent update to Ancestry's Origins there are definite signs of indigenous people from Canada to the Andes of Peru, Bolivia and northern Chile.

Source: Ancestry. Origins. Oct 2025.

Origins looks at your DNA compared to reference panels with deep, documented roots in specific geographic regions. Even looking back 300 years to 1725, that time frame roughly connects to the 7th-great-grandparent level. Doing the math without factoring in pedigree collapse or loops in the tree, at the 7xgreat level, that's 512 people. While I do have some 7xgreats in my tree, on the maternal side I only know one. Going back another level to the 8xgreat-grandparents, that's 1024 people (again assuming no loops or pedigree collapse).

The percentages for Indigenous Americas Bolivia and Peru are definitely connected to a branch from my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez, who was born in Valparaiso, Chile in 1838. Somewhere three or four generations back from Gabriel is an indigenous woman from the Andes region. On another mystery branch of the tree is likely a woman from the Yucatan, perhaps near the port of Campeche or Merida. Her distant family was perhaps Yucatec Maya. I feel a real connection to this region from past travels.

Another branch likely shows an enslaved woman or family tracing roots back to the Nigerian woodlands. She and this family perhaps were brought to Mexico in the 16th or 17th century.

Our largest area for indigenous ancestors is in Mexico and my Mom and her sisters all have 12% Indigenous Americas - Mexico in their origins. Our links from Sonora to Arizona and Southern California are quite strong.

Source: Ancestry. Journeys. Oct 2025.

Even looking at the Ancient Origins feature in MyHeritage shows a link to indigenous people in North & South America and in Central Africa.

MyHeritage. Ancient Origins.

The painting at the top of the post is by Ecuadorean artist Apitatán and is on display at the STRAAT Museum in Amsterdam.

Tennessee settlers

 

Source: Ancestry Journeys.

With all the excitement around this week's update to Origins on Ancestry, I thought it useful to look back at the Journeys feature within AncestryDNA. While origins are updated once a year, journeys can be updated anytime, and can show where family may have lived within the past 300 years. I know I have some deep connections to Tennessee on both sides of the family, but the focus today is on the Jones and Thornhill lines in Eastern Tennessee.

Above is an extract from Ancestry showing the Tennessee Settlers journey description. When I look at this and compare with some matches in common from my Dad's DNA results on Ancestry and on FTDNA, I see some patterns sticking out on previously overlooked Jones and Thornhill connections. With ThruLines, I have 50 DNA matches descending from two older sisters of Joseph Jones, my 3rd-great-grandfather. There are 20 matches to descendants of Catherine Jones Murray and 30 matches to descendants of Elizabeth Jane Jones Barbee.

Ancestry's ThruLines.

I know this isn't the complete field of matches connecting up to Robert Thomas Jones Sr and Elizabeth Thornhill, but it gives a useful hint of where to look on shared matches of matches for additional possibilities.

Maternal side Ancestry Origins 2025

 

Ancestry Origins for BAJ. Oct 2025.

After a webinar yesterday, Diahan Southard of YourDNAGuide wrote, "it's just a good reminder that our ethnicity results are best handled as a group project." There are enough changes in all the kits that I can access, I'm breaking up my posts reviewing the update. Previously I reviewed my own update, then my Dad's side of the tree. Now I'm switching to the maternal side, and this definitely is a group project as I have access to my Mom's update and updates for my Aunt Patty and Linda.

Last year, my Mom had 9 regions, and for 2025 those regions doubled to 18. My Aunt Linda now has 20, and my Aunt Patty has 19. I'm taking them as a group, and looking closer at three areas: Americas, then England, Celtic & Gaelic plus Western Europe, and separately at the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean and Africa. As Ancestry's Crista Cowan noted yesterday on Connie Knox's GenealogyTV YouTube channel, get multiple people in your family tested because "the aggregate of information is what will lead you to those brick wall breakthroughs that we're all looking for."

For the Americas, both Aunt Patty and Linda have 12% Indigenous Americas Mexico, 1% Bolivia and Peru, 1% Indigenous Canada and the United States (there's our shared A2d2a mtDNA), and 1% Yucatan Peninsula. My Mom only has the 12% Mexico, not the 1% amounts in South America, Yucatan or Indigenous Canada. The Bolivia and Peru percentages almost certainly come from Gabriel Vasquez' distant maternal side in the Andes.

For England, my Mom now has 28% Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, and 5% East Midlands. Linda's update is 26% Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, 3% East Midlands, and additional micro-regions: 9% West Midlands, 4% Cornwall and 3% Devon and Somerset. Patty has 23% West Midlands (that's a big difference from Mom and Linda), 9% Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe, 8% East Midlands, and 2% North East England. For Celtic & Gaelic, Patty has 9% Central Scotland and Northern Ireland, Linda has 6% plus 1% North East Scotland, and my Mom has 10% Central Scotland and Northern Ireland, 1% North East Scotland, 4% Hebrides and Western Highlands, and 4% Leinster, Ireland.

When I look at the paternal side of the tree for my grandfather Leo, the surnames are heavily English. The Read family came to America from Hampshire, England (Southeastern England). Other family names from England include Ballard, Carter, Gibson, Wheatley, Lawrence, Grinstead, Matthews, Davis and likely more. Thomas Key came to America from Lincolnshire (East Midlands). McKinley is a Gaelic surname that we also have on this side of the tree.

Shifting to the Iberian Peninsula and Mediterranean, here's where the 2025 update is really interesting when comparing between the sisters, and with known Campuzano and Amado cousins in Arizona. My Mom's 33% Spain changed to 9%, with with additional micro-regions 8% Northern Spain (Cantabria's in the middle of that), 4% Azores, 2% Madeira, and 1% Portugal. She also had 5% Northwestern Italy (centered around Genoa), 2% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa, and 1% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean. Linda has 11% Spain, 7% Northern Spain, 5% Portugal, 2% Basque and 1% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean. She also has 5% France (Nicolas Martiau was French). Patty has 13% Northern Spain, 4% Spain, 3% Azores, 3% Portugal, 2% France, 2% North Africa, 1% Basque, 3% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa.

Comparing with a cousin in Arizona, AA, he has 33% Mexico, 17% Spain, 15% Northern Spain, 5% Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean, 2% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa, 2% Azores, 1% Portugal, 1% Madeira, 1% Northwestern Italy, 5% Basque and 4% North Africa. He also had 1% Ashkenazi Jewish in Central & Southeastern Europe. Comparing with a Campuzano cousin, she had 27% Mexico, 14% Spain, 9% Northern Spain, 8% Basque, 5% Portugal, 5% Sardinia, 4% Sephardic Jews in Northern Africa, 4% Sephardic Jews in Eastern Mediterranean, 3% Canary Islands, 2% Northeastern Italy, 1% Yucatan, 1% Crete, and 1% Ashkenazi Jewish in Central & Southeastern Europe.

My son & I inherited the Nigerian Woodlands trace percentage from the maternal side of the tree. My Mom has this too, so does Linda, along with a trace from Senegal.

A new region on this side of tree, likely from a distant maternal-paternal branch, is Germans in Russia (also known as Volga Germans; see also this collection from North Dakota State University). Linda has 1% from this new region, while my Mom has 2%. These people were living in the area of the present day war zone of Eastern Ukraine.

My big takeaway from this side of the tree is that we have a very diverse set of roots, from all over the map.

Paternal side Ancestry Origins update

 

Ancestry Origins for KDJ. Oct 2025.

On my Dad's side of the tree, his Ancestry Origins update for 2025 also shows a big change from 2024's four regions. His results now show nine regions, although centered in the macro-regions England, Celtic & Gaelic and Western Europe. Last year, his England and Northwestern Europe was 62%, now it's 59% but divided across four micro-regions within this larger area. Again, it's not a surprise to see both sides of the English Channel represented. It is very interesting to see new areas such as East Midlands (7%), West Midlands (3%) and Devon & Somerset (2%). Our son was interested to see the Midlands, as this area features prominently in the Netflix/BBC series Peaky Blinders.

When I compare this with LivingDNA for his results, they have England and Ireland at 85.4%, with Lincolnshire at 20.7%. Devon is 4.6%. North Yorkshire is at 7.1% For the new Ancestry Origins update, they have Central Scotland and Northern Ireland as 23%. Last year, Scotland was 3%, and Ireland as a whole was 12%. Leinster, Ireland is now 8%, and Munster, Ireland is 3%.

Comparing with my Dad's 1st cousin MO is really interesting as his Leinster is 7% and Munster is 7%. Maybe he inherited more of the O'Brien side from County Clare. MO also has 15% from Connacht, Ireland. This is northwest Ireland, covering major towns Galway and Sligo, also County Roscommon. This county borders Longford, and perhaps points to distant family on my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget's side of the tree. Looking at JM, a connection with the mystery Pennsylvania O'Briens, he has 13% Leinster and 11% Munster. EM, another member of this Pennsylvania O'Briens group, has 22% Leinster and 15% Munster.

The updated result for Western Europe shows 6% Southern Germanic Europe and 1% Northwestern Germany. Previously Germanic Europe was 23%. SideView shows this 7% as coming from my Dad's mother's side of the tree. The Felmey/Völlmi line came from Switzerland on Blanche Lamon's maternal side, and the Lamon paternal line was also Swiss/German. SideView also says 14% of the Central Scotland and Northern Ireland was inherited from Dad's maternal side, which tracks with John McIntosh being Scottish.

My Dad's 1st cousin on the Jones side, BJ, has more Welsh (15% Southern Wales), also 3% Devon, and very interestingly 3% Connacht, Ireland and 1% Donegal, Ireland. Maybe this points to a location for the McLaughlin family on that side of the tree. He also has 30% Central Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Comparing the new Ancestry Origins update with 2024

 

AncestryDNA Origins. Oct 2025.

Ancestry has started the global release of its 2025 update to AncestryDNA Origins (see this video on YouTube). There's a lot of new information to digest, with macro-regions England, Celtic & Gaelic, Western Europe, Indigenous Americas, Italy, Iberian Peninsula, Northern Africa and Western Africa appearing in my results, along with new micro-regions (Madeira as an example within the Iberian Peninsula macro-region). Compared with last year's update, this is definitely a big one, as I went from six regions to eleven this year.

Looking more closely, last year England and Northwestern Europe were grouped together, and my result was showing as 38%. Scotland and Ireland were separate, and my results were showing as 14%. For the 2025 Origins update, England is 52%, but now broken out for me as 50% Southeastern England and Northwestern Europe, and 2% Devon and Somerset. That's super interesting. On my Dad's side, I know the Oylers came to America from Kent, clearly in Southeastern England. Northwestern Europe also includes parts of northern France, Belgium and southern Netherlands. We also know my Walloon ancestors came from this region through Amsterdam and helped found Dutch New Amsterdam in 1624. 

Central Scotland and Northern Ireland is now at 18%, and when you add in the Scottish Highlands (2%) and Leinster, Ireland (4%), this whole macro-region is now at 24%. Between what I already suspect about my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget's family coming from County Longford, Ireland, and my 5th-great-grandfather John McIntosh coming to America from Scotland, this tracks as well.

Southern Germanic Europe is a new sub-region for me within Western Europe, although last year I did have Germanic Europe at 26%. Now it is 12%, but this area has been floating around the 5 to 7 to 10% range since 2021. When I think about my 3rd-great-grandmother Marianna Haiss, her family came from Hausen im Killertal in present-day Baden-Württemburg, Germany. This is directly in this Southern Germanic sub-region.

Indigenous Americas - Mexico is holding steady at 5%. Again, this is not surprising given what I know about my mtDNA haplogroup and indigenous Mexico connections.

It is a bit surprising to see Spain fall away for me, as last year this was 16%. In its place is 2% Madeira (still part of the Iberian Peninsula macro-region). These islands were settled by the Portuguese. I also have a new region, Northwestern Italy, centered around the port city Genoa. This gives me some hints to look at my Mom's results and compare to see how she and her sisters' results may have changed for Portugal and Northwestern Italy.

I have not had North Africa in prior results, but others in the tests I oversee have had trace amounts for this region. I now have 1% North Africa, and 1% Nigerian Woodlands remains. This Nigerian trace is passed down from my Granny's side of the tree, according to Ancestry's Sideview tool.

There's much more to unpack, and I'll have separate posts on changes in the percentages from tests on the maternal side and my Dad's updated results.

October is Family History Month

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Lovework at Culpeper, 17 Oct 2024.

October is designated as National Family History Month, officially named in 2001. Yesterday Ancestry's Crista Cowan led a virtual session on YouTube, focusing on Five Stories Every Family Should Tell. The talk is really interesting and has me thinking back to a post I shared last September, titled If your family story could be streaming.

The five stories described by Crista were:

1. The love story
2. The resilience story
3. The values story
4. The origin story
5. The identity story

Diving into these, she provided some examples. For the love story, tell how your parents met, or grandparents. Has a story of the marriage of a great or great-great-grandparent been passed down? Try to write that story down.

For the resilience story, try to document something an ancestor survived or did that made them stronger. I have written a lot about Agnes Atherton O'Brien, the actress in the family who overcame a childhood placed in the care of the Sisters of Charity in La Salle County, Illinois after the death of her mother around 1859. I've also shared the story of Nancy Jane Flatt, who delivered my 2nd-great-grandmother Mary Alice while she was a pauper in the Metcalfe County Poor House in 1878. Or the story of Guy Hankins, a cousin of my Gumpy who survived being shot down in World War II and being held as a prisoner of war for six months. We also have the amazing story, recalled from two perspectives, of my Gumpy, his brother and two cousins traveling from Indiana to California and back in the summer of 1937. There's so many more.

For the values story, Crista says, what did your people stand for, what religion did they follow, or careers, cultural practices or community involvement did they have.

On the origin story, this is "where did they come from," the immigration stories. Origin stories help build identity and belonging. I am lucky we have several immigration stories, on both my side and my wife's side of the family.

On the identity story, this is your own story, capturing "who am I in this family." Try to document more current aspects of your own history, as it may be interesting for your children, their children or grandchildren. I have done some of this with travels, and with photos.

The photo at the top of the post is a metal LOVE sculpture, taken at the Culpeper Amtrak Station in Downtown Culpeper, Virginia. This is a place I return to regularly for work as we have space in a data center in Culpeper. This town also was the home for the Read family, and the Thornhill line before they moved to Tennessee. I also have a deeper family connection to Culpeper through Germanna ancestors. More on that link in a future blog post.

The Guinness Toucan

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Guinness, Dublin. 26 June 2025.

This mural of the Guinness Toucan is outside the Guinness Storehouse at St. James's Gate in Dublin. We're currently in the middle of the new Netflix series House of Guinness (see also Wikipedia), which is also timely as I'm heading back to Dublin later this month. The series so far is a fun watch, drawing from the history of the brewery and other events in 19th century Ireland. It is definitely a dramatization, but it's been good so far and another season is likely.

Source: Netflix. House of Guinness (2025).

Patience

As I listen to the iconic whistling intro to the Guns N' Roses classic Patience (video on YouTube), I am reminded to keep waiting and slow down. This is the time of the year when I want the weeks to pick up, and time to accelerate between travel, to get through Halloween, and generally looking ahead to close out the year. I'm also waiting on information - Ancestry updates, FTDNA to fix their issues displaying matches after rolling out two-factor authentication last week, waiting on the mtDNA result for a distant cousin or two.

Some more patience...

AncestryDNA updating this week

Ancestry is preparing to update its ancestral origins (previously ethnicity estimates) later this week, beginning from Thursday. Along with adding macro-regions (such as Nordic grouping together the Scandinavian countries), decimal percentages instead of rounded percentages similar to MyHeritage, and using a larger reference panel, there are likely other big changes to AncestryDNA.

For the various kits I manage, I am really curious to see what changes from last year's update, and how this compares to similar results with MyHeritage, FTDNA and LivingDNA. I am also waiting to see if new ancestral journeys are added or new sub-regions within countries like Spain and Ireland are added.

Irene

 

Irene and I. Los Angeles, 23 Sep 2016.

Last month I received some text messages from Irene, a cousin on our extended Campuzano side, letting me know she had been in declining health, that she wanted to reach out and hear how I was doing. We had a nice back and forth of messages, and I closed our exchange by letting her know to take care and best wishes on recovery in hospice. I said it was good she still had her phone and can hear from family. Irene passed away this week, a few months short of her 99th birthday. 

In February 2016, I reached out over Ancestry's Messages feature to a Campuzano DNA connection from my Aunt Patty's results. About a month later, I received a reply from Irene, kicking off a long exchange of messages, visits and calls over the past nine years. We met in person for the first time in September 2016, and I last saw Irene and some of her family in January 2025 during the terrible fires in LA.

Irene shared many stories and photos from her side of the Campuzano family, including memories of my great-grandfather and his siblings. Irene's grandfather Jose Jesus was the brother of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Vicente Plutarco Campuzano. She filled in quite a bit of gaps, and shared a lot of a information. 

Irene was born in Tucson, a few months after my Granny. They grew up in the same part of town. She remembered my great-grandfather Plutarco painted a ceiling at their home in Tucson. Irene's father worked for various newspapers in Tucson. She told me he took a job with a small newspaper in Taft, California and they moved there in the summer of 1935. They next moved to Culver City (Los Angeles) in 1944, and her father worked for the Culver City newspaper until 1961. She thought it was funny that my office is only a few miles from where she lived growing up in Culver City.

Irene. 1947 in Los Angeles.

Irene and Tommie married in 1946, and they had a long life together until his passing in 2008. She told me her husband had been a crew chief in the Army Air Corp (now the Air Force) from December 1941 to 1945. He was an airplane mechanic, similar to my Dad's role in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Irene said "we met in Culver City while I was on a double date...and we were never apart for 61 happy years...we invested in real estate and had four homes built. Thank heaven because we didn't expect to live so long."

Irene and Tommy. 1947.

She told me she "worked in retail, waited tables and at Mattel's toy factory. [I] decided to let my husband take care of me after 1955. But it must be in the genes as I was a political rabble rouser in the 1970s and was appointed by the Ventura Board of Supervisors to a four year service on the Architectural review board and several other superficial committees...It taught me that nobody knows much but had lots of fun."

After our initial visit in 2016, she sent me the note below:

"Patrick, thank you and the children for a very pleasant visit and the lovely sunflowers. That is my first bouquet of sunflowers and they reminded me so much of Tucson. As you know, Tucson had very few native flowers, sunflowers and oleanders were the most abundant. Maybe that's why I love oleanders and sunflowers. You may have noticed we planted several oleanders on this property, they will probably be the favorite now in California because of the drought, I never water mine and they just grow and bloom. Hope your drive to the beach wasn't too stressful, the freeway looked terrible."

Irene sent me regular texts and email to check in on my travels, on the family and to let me know how she was doing in Los Angeles. I am grateful for the time I had to connect with Irene.

At the Bijou

Theatre Bijou program. 1906/1907.

Le Canada. Montreal. 13 Jan 1906.

Above is the 1906-1907 program from the Theatre Bijou in Montreal, Quebec, found on the wonderful Quebec Archives website. I previously shared a set of articles from Agnes Atherton's 1906 quick Montreal performance.

Life of a Showgirl

 

Agnes performing in 1890. Made in Ideogram.

In honor of the new Taylor Swift album Life of a Showgirl releasing today, I have another post on a performer in our family and regular recurring topic on the blog. Agnes Atherton O'Brien was a sister of my 2nd-great-grandfather John J. O'Brien. Agnes was featured in my proposed RootsTech 2026 talk. While I'm still rethinking how to use the bones of that talk for something else, I'm sharing some of the likenesses generated in Ideogram depicting Agnes during a snapshot of her career on the stage and life on the road.

In November 1890, Agnes performed at Huber and Gebhardt's Casino in Brooklyn, New York. Her appearance was part of her fall tour from Philadelphia to Brooklyn to Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo and Brooklyn again between September and November 1890. The article below from the Brooklyn Citizen describes Agnes as dancing "with and without skirts."

Brooklyn Citizen. 11 Nov 1890.

Agnes' performances over the years in Brooklyn and New York City reinforce a family link to the area. We have deep family connections and recurring visits to the Big Apple throughout hundreds of years going back to the founding of New Amsterdam in 1624 (although on the maternal-maternal-paternal-maternal line, so not direct) As with my diverse family connections to Los Angeles, New York is a place that appears regularly in the travels for members of the family tree.

Agnes enjoyed a 30+ year career, singing, dancing, producing, and more. She was well known as a "queen of burlesque". Swift's album release for Life of a Showgirl was written for a different time, but I think there may be parallels to Agnes' life on the stage.

I've posted a number of times that I'm using Ideogram to generate imagined scenes involving different ancestors, extended family, or just to add color and creativity to the blog. There's a lot of controversy this week around Tilly Norwood, an AI generated character and potential Hollywood threat, not too different from the Spanish AI-generated influencer Aitana Lopez who debuted in 2023. I try to be clear when I'm using images made with AI tools. I think these tools are going to get better, and be more prominent for a number of uses, including family history. MyHeritage introduced AI-generated videos in its Ancient Origins tools earlier in the year, and there were many talks on AI & genealogy at RootsTech 2025. This isn't going away.

Agnes in New York, 1890. Made in Ideogram.

After the show. Made in Ideogram.

Research Progress October 2025

The second of the month brings another update on the progress for my DNA research questions. There's been some major developments since the last update.

Paternal side research

1 - Identifying the parents of Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother. Not much new here, but I am hopeful the new AncestryDNA update launching on 9 October will show more information that may pinpoint family links back to Ireland. We have some strong hints back to County Longford, Ireland and it would be great to find a breakthrough here.

2 - Generation of connection for the Pennsylvania O'Briens. Again, not much new here either.

3 - Determining the mtDNA haplogroup for the maternal line descending from Elizabeth Thornhill Jones [Updated]. Huge thanks to distant cousin Lynn who has ordered the mtDNA test from FamilyTreeDNA. Maybe we'll get some Thanksgiving news on the mtDNA result. This will be pretty huge, as her maternal ancestor Catherine Jones, shares the same mtDNA haplogroup with my 3rd-great-grandfather Joseph Jones, and this will give us the haplogroup for their grandmother, my 5th-great-grandmother Sarah Westall. Our knowledge of her line ends there, so perhaps having the mtDNA haplogroup will open up a path backward in time on her maternal line.

4 - McIntosh side of the tree and McIntosh DNA matches. I may change this question, based on the approach with the new #6 below.

5 - Finding Jones cousins for YDNA testing. I've reached out to one cousin through Ancestry's Messages tool, and I am hoping this cousin will log in & reply with the new AncestryDNA update coming next week. Perhaps that will spur some renewed interest from matches.

6 [New] - Through managing my Dad's DNA results on FamilyTreeDNA, I've added his autosomal kit to the Guthrie DNA project, and I've been exchanging messages with Ann from the GuthrieGenealogy blog. I'm now trying to expand out the tree descending from Susan Ann Guthrie and Isaac Smith. We're looking for a direct maternal line descendant from Susan who might take a mtDNA test. This would give us a mtDNA haplogroup for Susan and her siblings, her mother Priscilla and might possibly help determine more information about Priscilla's maternal line.

7 [New] - Looking at other branches on my Dad's side of the tree for potential YDNA and mtDNA participants.

Maternal side research

1 - Identify possible siblings of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez. Nothing new since last month.

2 - Working with DNA matches on the Amado side of the tree. While I don't have a direct update on the Amado side, I do have another set of matches to work with on FTDNA using cousin Catherine's results, as she's also a descendant of Maria Concepcion Amado. Her FTDNA kit also provides us with the other big update of the month in #3.

3 [Update] - mtDNA haplogroup for the maternal line path of Maria Jesus Vasquez. As I wrote about late last week, Catherine received her mtDNA results. With this new information, there's a lot more analysis to do with her mtDNA matches. We also have another mtDNA kit soon in progress for another descendant of Maria Jesus.

4 - Identifying the connection to the Guerrero-Leyva mystery matches. I did dive back into the Portillo line, and I have a feeling these people are connected somewhere here.

5 - Resolving descendancy from the daughters of John Carter (1715-1783) using mtDNA. I've now heard back from the President of the Carter Society. This is a big research question, and would likely involve an effort similar to the research study titled Identification of the Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroup of Elizabeth Martiau (Jeffrey A. Wright, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, Spring 2024).

6 [New] - Identifying a direct maternal descendant from Mary Alice Cain Read to encourage to take a mtDNA test. I see a few possibilities already, but this may take some time.

Yom Kippur 2025

I do not yet know exactly how my Amado family line connects into a larger Sephardic lineage, but the signs are there. Tomorrow, schools in our locality are closed in observance of Yom Kippur. I am not Jewish but I feel a connection, even if I also feel for Palestinian friends and colleagues, whose families are still there, dealing with the current issues on the ground.

Earlier yesterday I watched an episode on YouTube featuring an older episode from a season of the UK version of Who Do You Think You Are featuring comedian and former Great British Bake Off host Matt Lucas. This seems new to YouTube but very timely given the date and issues of the day. Without too many spoilers, Matt follows his grandmother's family back to Berlin and Amsterdam, and learns what happened to them prior to and leading through World War II. It is a heartbreaking episode, with many historical connections, but timely and important viewing.

I don't have much else to say, but I'm trying to learn. 

Autumn Vines

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Gainey Vineyard, CA. 22 Oct 2022.

Target testing

 

Made in Ideogram.

With the month closing out, in a few days I'll have a recap on my research question progress. The success of learning the mtDNA haplogroup descending from Maria Jesus Vasquez and the pending test result for the mtDNA haplogroup for Elizabeth Thornhill Jones and her mother Sarah Westall has me looking into other potential target testers for using mtDNA and YDNA to resolve some additional research questions.

I'd love to see if mtDNA could help sort out descendants of the wives of John Carter (1715-1783). I wrote about this question in August and am currently reaching out to the Carter Society. Perhaps this is something they have already started to research.

In the meantime, to help sort out potential descendants for a YDNA or mtDNA test, I have added custom tags in my Ancestry tree to mark "End of line" for those people who mark a spot where there is no known possible descendant to follow for a test. I also have added a custom tag for "mtDNA known" for those people who have a mtDNA haplogroup confirmed based on a downstream tester.

While looking for Jones descendants who might be able to take a YDNA test, I've found some descendants of Mary Catherine Green Jones. If one of them took the mtDNA test, this would give a haplogroup for the maternal line path, including her mother Sarah Sally Hickey, and her mother Rachel Cannon. As an example of how this mtDNA information can be useful, see this post from Diana of FamilyLocket (May 2024).

On the Armstrong-Martin line, there may be some descendants who could take the mtDNA test. This would also provide the mtDNA haplogroup for Deborah McLaughlin, putting us into Ireland for this 5th-great-grandmother.

I'm in the process of adding to my tree, following these extended branches to see if there might be potential connections. Something I had not considered last year, but may now be possible, would be to identify a direct maternal descendant of Nancy Jane Flatt who might be able to take a mtDNA test. This would give a haplogroup for Nancy Jane and Mary Alice Cain. Lots more to do.

The Hidden Dog in the Night Watch

 

Rembrandt. The Night Watch. 1642.

One of the premier paintings on display (and currently being restored) at the amazing Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is Rembrandt's The Night Watch. I was able to take in the museum and the painting during a layover in October 2013. The painting was in the news this week (read this article in the New York Times if you have access or this version on CNN). It is really hard to see the dog in the painting (bottom right in the shadows), but maybe it will be clearer once restoration is complete.

It is a cool bit of art history, and it involves a dog. The Amsterdam Night Watch served as the foundation for the New Amsterdam Rattle Watch and that involved my 10th-great-grandfather Lodewyck Post.

Inspiration for the dog in The Night Watch. Adriaen van de Venne. 1619.

One more pitch for the Rijksmuseum. It is one of the best art museums in the world and it is located near the Museumplein park, the Van Gogh Museum, and the super cool modern Moco Museum. I've been to the Rijksmuseum a few times, and I want to go again sometime on a future visit to Amsterdam. It's really great.

Revisiting empty spots on the tree

 

Photo by L. Campuzano. Saguaro National Park.

A glaring spot on the Mexican side of the tree involves the branch of my 2nd-great-grandfather, Manuel Portillo. I have looked into his parents and have some information, but more questions than answers. We have even bigger gaps stepping back a generation. In November 2013, I shared a death record for Manuel found in the Sonora, Mexico Civil Registration files. I also have a possible record for a Manuel Portillo in the 1899 Tucson City Directory as an employee at the Legal Tender Saloon. Unlike other branches, there's been a definite lack of records. Please FamilySearch, add Sonora, Mexico to Full-text search!

Manuel appears in the baptism record for my great-grandmother Manuela Portillo in Hermosillo, Sonora in 1905. According to his death record in March 1906, Manuel was 48 years old, putting his birth date around 1858 or 1859. That document also names him as the son of Manuel Portillo and Maria Bernal.

A marriage record for Manuel and Maria appears in the Sonora, Mexico Catholic Church records from San Miguel de Horcasitas on 25 February 1859. That record also listed Jesus Bernal as a testigo (witness). I do not yet know how or if Jesus Bernal was related to Maria Bernal. 

Source: Ancestry. San Miguel de Horcasitas, 1859.

A baptism record from September 1864 in Hermosillo names another son of Manuel Portillo and Maria Bernal, Jose Luis Joaquin Portillo.

Manuel Portillo Sr died in Ures, Sonora on 30 August 1880. That record also names his spouse Maria Bernal as of Hermosillo.

It also looks like Manuel Portillo may have had a second family. A baptism record in Hermosillo from November 1866 names Teodoro Alejandro Portillo, "h l" or "hijo legitimato" of Manuel Portillo and Maria Lopez. In April 2020 I looked into this branch, and there's definitely a lot of Portillo DNA connections. I'll pick this up in another post.

Some additional complications - I have Maria Bernal's mother listed as Maria Manuela Calles. If this is accurate, Maria Manuela's brother was Juan Bautista Calles. He married Maria Antonia Campuzano, and adopted his nephew Plutarco Elias Calles after the death of his mother (Maria Antonia's sister, Maria Teresa de Jesus Campuzano) in 1881. On Ancestry we have DNA connections directly descending from both Maria Antonia Campuzano and Maria Teresa de Jesus Campuzano, including a descendant of Plutarco Elias Calles.

Hermosillo, Sonora. 18 Apr 1903.

I would like to confirm whether I have the mother correct for Maria Bernal, or there are other mystery connections in Sonora (and possibly a lot of endogamy too). I think this line could also be the link to the Guerrero-Leyva group of matches. There's definitely more work to do. 

Additional Connections

 

Eileen Monahan Whitaker. Two Navajo Maidens. 1967.

Yesterday's post on the discovery of the mtDNA haplogroup for the maternal line working backward from Maria Jesus Vasquez opens the door to further connections for A2a5. Catherine's Mitotree mtDNA haplogroup is still processing, and we expect some additional detail will be available soon.

We now have another big set of DNA matches to work with using FTDNA's tools. I am hoping this might uncover some previously hidden autosomal matches on our shared Campuzano-Amado and Vasquez sides of the tree. 

A place on the mitotree

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Venice, CA. 7 Mar 2022.

In July I asked my cousin Catherine on my Mom's Campuzano side of the tree if I sent her a mtDNA kit from FamilyTreeDNA, could she take it to help us identify the mitochondrial haplogroup for our shared maternal line descending backward from Maria Jesus Vasquez (for a color enhanced photo, see this post from 2022). She agreed, and a little over two months later, we now have an answer.

mtDNA is passed down on the maternal line. While men and women both inherit mtDNA from their mothers, men do not pass down their mtDNA. For the descendancy chart above, all of the women descending from Reyes Valdes, my 5th-great-grandmother, will share the same mtDNA haplogroup, along with all the children of Maria Jesus Vasquez. Ana Maria Orosco and Maria Jesus Suastegui also had other daughters who might have had children, so there may be other descendants out there. For now, my focus is on the above. 

In March, I received my own mtDNA haplogroup update, with some very cool ancient connections to the Indigenous people of Southern California. Since I started seriously diving into DNA about a year ago, one of my research goals on my maternal side has been to try to identify the mtDNA haplogroup for the women in the line descending backward from Maria Jesus Vasquez.

Photo at the top of the post shows a mural from Venice Beach of an Indigenous woman, with the words From Diné to the Tongva, Still Here. The Diné ("the People" in the language of the Navajo) and Tongva (the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles basin) are among the many Indigenous groups populating the Pacific Coast and Southwest.

Catherine's result was A2a5, not too far off my own A2d2a within the larger family of A2 people who came across the Beringia land bridge from Siberia into Alaska thousands of years ago. This means everyone in the descendancy chart above (but not necessarily all their descendants not shown) would have also carried the A2a5 mtDNA haplogroup, and further back a maternal ancestor of Reyes Valdes would have been an Indigenous woman.

FTDNA. A2a5 Discover Report.

About 2900 years ago, when A2a5 was formed, the Athabaskan speaking people this woman came from may have been in the Pacific Northwest or Alaska (we do not know for certain).

I'm grateful to know the haplogroup on this branch and now I'm even more curious to see if we can identify another mtDNA line on the Mexican side of the tree. While a lot of my research has identified professions for some of the men on these particular branches, mtDNA puts the focus on the maternal side. mtDNA discoveries are really cool and I encourage anyone to take a test and add to the growing MitoTree of Humankind.

RootsTech 2026 registration is open

 

Registration for RootsTech 2026, the world's largest family history conference, is now available. Online registration is free, and in-person registration has two levels for early bird pricing depending on whether one chooses a 1 day or 3 day pass. With other travels I have during the same week as RootsTech, I've opted for online registration. I hope to attend in person again in 2027.

Biggie Mural, 2017

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Brooklyn, 16 Aug 2017.

A child jumping over a fire hydrant in Brooklyn, taken during the summer of 2017 as I took a street art walk after meetings at the United Nations. This was the same day I enjoyed a stroll over the Brooklyn Bridge and a wood fired pizza from Roberta's in Bushwick. The mural above of Christopher Wallace (also known as the Notorious B.I.G. and Biggie Smalls) was located near the Bushwick Collective (see here for some examples of murals in the area). I was lucky to capture a whole set of murals that afternoon.

The Interstate and West Indian Exposition

Yesterday's post reminded me to look at what events might have been happening in Charleston, South Carolina when Agnes Atherton was producing her ten week run at the Star Theatre in the Spring of 1902. Between December 1901 and late June 1902, Charleston was host to the Interstate and West Indian Exposition, which was a World's Fair style event to stimulate business and trade through Charleston's port. This would have been similar to the Trans-Mississippi International Exhibition in Omaha, Nebraska in 1898, an event that Agnes definitely performed in.

Charleston, SC. 1902.

Agnes very likely attended the exposition in Charleston, and certainly would have entertained audiences who might also have been in the city for that event. The grounds became Hampton Park and the new campus for The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. A guest registry book of attendees from the exposition is available on The Citadel Archives, including one page with this great doodle of a cadet among the many signatures in April 1902.

Guest registry, Interstate and West Indian Exposition.

Season pass. Citadel Archives.