Monday, December 22, 2014

Millie Turner, Daughter of John and Patience Turner - Genetic Connection Found!

It seems like all I blog about these days is the Turner connection.  I admit, their story is so intriguing, that I've been focused on it for a good while now.  It's the tiny little sliver to the left there - the light pink one, that has just been itching to have a story told about it.  Also, it helps that I have some distant cousins hoping to find their own Turner DNA connection and I probably get the most email from them.

At any rate, today, I finally had the breakthrough I was hoping for.  I have definitively pinned down a segment of DNA that came from John Turner's daughter, Millie.

Initially, one of those cousins I mentioned above, emailed me about another possible match she found.  I logged on and sure enough, there is this new match for me and my mother who has the Turner and Hussey surnames on their list.  This new match confirmed through email to my cousin that she does, in fact, have a paper trail back to Robert Hussey, Millie and Samuel's son, brother to my 3rd Great Grandfather, John Hussey.  That would make Samuel Hussey and Millie Turner, my 4th great grandparents, our MRCA.

Then, I looked more closely at what we share.  I compared what she shares with my mom with what she shares with me and found that all of the smaller segments she shares with me, as well as a portion of one of the larger segments were IBS - pure random chance.  While they appear to 'match' on the website, because they didn't come to me through my mother, they are not IBD from Samuel and Millie.  

That left us with two large matching segments, one on Chromosome 4 and one on 21. Because I'd already done some sleuthing before hand, I already knew that my admixture shows the bulk of my Sub Saharan African on chromosome 4.  So I went back to admixture to try to narrow it down.

I use Dodecad k12b via Gedmatch as it's been the most accurate for me, to this point.  I ran the percentages by chromosome tool for both my mother and me.  I confirmed that we both have the bulk of our Sub Saharan African on chromosome 4, confirming, for me, that my Sub Saharan African on that chromosome came through my mother.  Given that my relation to Millie Turner is through my mother and I also match this other descendant of Millie Turner on chromosome 4, I admit, I was quite excited.

But then, I used the chromosome paint tool.  I was not prepared.  My eyes teared up to see the Sub Saharan African on chromosome 4 matched almost exactly (plus a little) to the segment on which I match this other descendant of Millie Turner.  It was painted there along side all of my other DNA.  It was like seeing Millie Turner looking back at me from my screen. That light pink in this one - that's Millie :

Likewise, the chromosome 21 segment is all Caucasian, Atlantic-Med, Gedrosian and European, up until precisely where that shared segment ends.  I'd found Samuel Hussey too.  He's the segment leading up to the light pink here :

Now, I have other Sub Saharan African in my genetic profile (on chromosome 21, for instance) so it's possible that I got more DNA from John Turner than what I share with this new match.  Millie could have passed on this plus something else to my 3rd great grandfather and this matching segment plus another bit to the other son.  And other descendants of John Turner could have completely different matching segments with other descendants.

But this is my story as told through my relation with the descendants of Robert Hussey.  Just like I have many pictures of myself, this is just one family snapshot of Millie and Samuel, inscribed upon my genes, where I finally found it today.

It provides evidence that Millie Turner, and by extension, her father, John Turner, was of Sub-Saharan African descent, or, according to Doug McDonald's admixture breakdown for me, specifically, Yoruban.  John was described as a mulatto when he was sold to Patience, so more than likely, his mother was a slave and his father was Thomas Weathersbee, her slave holder.  His mother or her ancestors before her would have been been ethnically Yoruban, purchased or taken from West Africa prior to 1760.

Not only does this provide evidence of my connection to Millie Turner and of her ethnic heritage, but seeing those images of them in my genes on the screen has profound sentimental meaning to me.  It's like a deep, peaceful breath.

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