Intro
When you have a yDNA disconnect in a tree, those three words "New Relative Found" followed by "We found 1 new Big Y match(es) for ..." are indeed magic.
The match was with my very first DNA testing guinea pig, 2nd cousin Bill, helping out to explore our Henderson brickwalls. That was back in 2007. Since which time he had no matches beyond y25 other than our own 2nd cousin roped in to check all was kosher given the lack of yDNA matches. It was, at least as far as our shared great grandfather William.
Below you will find the history of the search, who the new match is, where to from here, and yDNA details as at 9 Apr 2023 (including snapshots of the FamilyTreeDNA Discover TimeTree before and after the match). Along with the takeaways from this journey.
Thank you to all the Henderson and Jenkins descendant testers that have made this journey, and answer, possible. And rest in peace Bill, thank you for doing all those tests I threw at you over the years. We did get some answers in the end.
The History
Roll on from 2007 to 2019 when a spanner was thrown into the works with results from a 4th cousin whose yDNA was meant to prove our yDNA signature back to our papertrail 3* great grandfather Archibald Henderson who sprang to life fully formed to marry in Stirling in 1804.
You've guessed it, not a match.
Hint to self: don't jump straight to BigY without testing y37 first, to test the waters (unless the test is for yourself). A small smattering of autosomal matches to 4th cousins can be from the other 3*great grandparent!
But even worse for our side, James, the 4th cousin did have y67 /y111 Henderson matches to families claiming Henderson from Stirlingshire. We still didn't.
So a 3rd cousin, also sharing Archibald's son James with Bill also tested, and matched our side. James' signature now looked solid with 2 tested descendants of his son William plus one from son David, all sharing SNP R-BY19859.
By this stage autosomal matches had accumulated showing that one or other (or both) of our 2*great grandparents, James Henderson and Amelia Millar, had connections somehow to many descendants of Robert Buchanan and Janet Monteith, and the extended Doig and Paterson Perthshire families that are all very inter-twined.
Two very very distant y67 matches had also popped up, not showing at lower levels of testing, to two families claiming Jenkins descent. As a surname this had also featured on our radar from autosomal matches, but the two matches' trees did not look very easy to establish a connection to, being American, with scant information and a Genetic Distance of 6 at y67.
So were we Buchanan or Jenkins?
Buchanan seemed a little unlikely as there are many Buchanan testers with Scottish ancestry, no yDNA matches to us, however distant.
Jenkins seemed much less represented in yDNA testing and needed a tester from the target family, that of Patrick Junkine and Mary Buchanan who married 1781 Port of Menteith, Perthshire.
This family in theory at least enables us to connect to the autosomal matches to both Jenkins and Buchanan et al.
Plenty of descendants to work down for candidates, which is slow, disheartening work as yet another yDNA line is found to have died out, or candidates found have yet to respond. I'd taken a break.
But wait, yes of course there is more, or this wouldn't be being written.
Who was the match?
A Jenkins, claiming an earliest direct paternal ancestor James Jenkins born about 1680, Scotland.
Sounded very promising. Was this the answer to my question in my Jan 2023 Stocktake, ie Was James Henderson really the son of Archibald Henderson? And also a Wanted! subject of my WikiTree yDNA Tester Wanted page
A very quick, excited email was sent (at 2 in the morning) to the match asking whether or not his James Jenkins was from Perthshire. It also pointed him to the above WikiTree page about the yDNA disconnect.
A reply was promptly received confirming that James Jenkins was indeed the James Junkine from Thornhill that autosomal matches were pointing to as a family "of high interest" and confirmed his connection to Patrick Junkine and Mary Buchanan's grandson Peter Jenkins (married Jane McNee) via Patrick's son John.
It has only taken nigh on 50 years to get further back on the Henderson branch of the tree. Mind you, I've only known that we had a bit of a problem yDNA-wise since 2019.
See below for the yDNA details.
Where to from here?
A sole signature, however solid the match at BigY700 does make me a little nervous, despite the matching haplogroup, and autosomal matches between the respective lines across many testers on both sides.
It would be fantastic to gain further corroboration of this Jenkins yDNA signature from a direct male line descendant of another branch than Patrick Junkine/Jenkins' son John, preferably down from a brother of Patrick's to refine any branching that may occur and the timescale estimates that result. Particularly as the post result review has now occurred and shows that the descendants of my James now have their own SNP, R-BY19865, a new subgroup formed under R-BY19859, which latter is where the new match remains. awaiting new results. I expect the timescales for the R-BY19859 branch to be updated in this week's review. Again, see below, which includes snapshots of the Discover TimeTree which time estimates have already had a preliminary change now with four testers.
The yDNA details:
Do keep an eye on the FamilyTreeDNA Discover haplogroup tree at Discover haplogroup tree for R-BY19859. Those 4 Scottish flags represent the 3 Henderson and 1 Jenkins BigY testers as at now, Apr 2023. Timeframes and any future progress as other testers refine all this usually appear on Mondays, Houston time.
To get the Discover project display with the self reported earliest known paternal ancestors, showing all these matches, the testers need to be in the same project - either the Jenkins project or my FFLornaHen project - or both :)
At the moment not all four are. The two project views to check for updates are: FFLornaHen and Jenkins
Discover R-BY19859 TimeTree snapshots
With just the three Henderson kits 29 Mar 2023:
The common ancestor for all three is James Henderson born 1813 Stirlingshire.
ie before the new BigY result review:
My current belief is that the common ancestor is Patrick Junkine born 1751 Perthshire - BUT James' father could actually connect further back - hence the wish for another Junkine / Jenkins branch tester.
ie after the new BigY result review:
Shows our James Henderson newly created subgroup, the average of the timespan shown is 1822, not bad for a James born 1813!
Block tree
Dendrogram Jenkins project Group O
STR Genetic differences
The Takeaways
- Make the DNA work for you - use all the DNA types - autosomal and yDNA in this case but also mtDNA and X chromosome if applicable.
- Work all your DNA hints for as many cousins on the line "of interest" as you can;
- Don't believe those who say there's no point in doing BigY for close mysteries. Without this new match testing BigY I would still be floundering around in autosomal matches and still looking for a yDNA candidate.
- Use as many of the DNA testing and comparison sites as you can and are comfortable with their terms and conditions.
- Never give up hope.
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