After struggling with the name of my business and obviously the title of my blog, I have landed on this new image for my professional business:  Trace My AncesTree.  This new name portrays what I want my objective in my profession to lean towards.  Now that's not to say I only want to trace client's trees but it's what I've enjoyed most about doing my own family tree research.  Putting the pieces of the puzzle together has been a favorite past-time and what better occupation can one have that extends from a life long passion.  Tracing family trees always has been enjoyable and now will be even more enjoyable doing it for someone else.

That's not to say this will take me away from my interest in my Vodden One Name Study.  Having just virtually attended the AGM and Conference while sitting in the comfort of my home office, I realize how much I have accomplished with connecting so many Vodden's throughout the world; however, there is so much more I could do.  Check back from time to time to see what we've put together and new data collections.  I will be posting my Vodden One Name Study on the Guild of One Name Study's site in the very near future.  Hopefully  reactivating interest in my Facebook pages and getting in touch with as many as I can, we will build our Vodden family into a lively community.

And of course, as the Canada East Regional Rep for the Guild of One Name Studies, my ambition is to make every provincial genealogical society aware of the Guild and hopefully generate interest in other genealogists to take on a One Name Study of their own.  See you at the Ontario Genealogical Society's AGM and Conference in Kingston at the beginning of June, 2012.  Please stop by and say hello!!!

Now for another new beginning!!  Having recently completing all the requirements for using the post nominals, PLCGS in General Methodology, from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies taken at St. Michael's College University for the University of Toronto, after all my years, more likely eons(!), of research on my family tree and other connecting family trees, being a member of the Guild of One Name Studies for over 10 years and researching my maiden name of Vodden and its variants, recently becoming more interested in DNA for genealogy and at the beginning of the current year, volunteering to be the Canada East Regional Representative for the Guild of One Name Studies, I feel my experience of almost 40 years now qualifies me as a Professional Genealogist!!!

This means I am now hanging out my shingle, so to speak, and am going to take on research for other people for a fee.  Please see my website at www.tracemyancestree.com for more information.  And, if you know of anyone who is interested, please pass my name along.  My business number is 905-898-0899.

I am looking forward to this next phase of my life as it has been such a passionate hobby of mine for so long, to make it my full time occupation is a dream come true!!

FTDNA results - Lionel Bruce Vodden 1921 - 2010

As I mentioned in my last post, I had received an email from Debbie Kennett, admin of the Devon Project, a portion of which I am copying here:
"The vast majority of R1b1a2 men who are deep clade tested fall within the two big supergroups P312+ and U106+ so it's quite unusual to find men who fall outside these big groups. I wonder if it might mean that your dad's ancient ancestors were amongst the original people who settled in Devon after the Ice Age. We will no doubt learn more as more research is published. Tibor Fehar, the admin of the R1b project might be able to tell you more.

Today I received an email from Tibor Fehar, an expert in DNA, with further interesting information:
"Hello Linda,

Your Dad's results are very interesting, he definitely belongs to the R-L11* group, so you qualify for joining the Ht35 project [which I have done], as Debbie suggested.

L11* is a very interesting group, "brother" clade of U106 and P312, which are widespread in Central and Western Europe. However, L11* is very rare, and it likely arrived to England at an early stage of the Bronze Age (Bell Beaker folk maybe).

 Best regards

Tibor"   [Note: Italics are mine.]

This, of course took me to Wikipedia to find the period that the Bronze Age occurred in Britain and discovered that it spanned a period from about 2500 to 800 BC!!!  The Bell Beaker folk referred to in his email were prevalent during the Early Bronze Age 2500 to 1700 BC and as quoted from Wikipedia, 

"Beaker culture is defined by the common use of a pottery style — a beaker with a distinctive inverted bell-shaped profile found across the western part of Europe during the late 3rd millennium BC. The pottery is well-made, usually red or red-brown in colour, and ornamented with horizontal bands of incised, excised or impressed patterns.  It has been suggested that the beakers were designed for the consumption of alcohol, and that the introduction of the substance to Europe may have fueled the beakers' spread. Beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples."  Copyright Wikipedia, website accessed January 17, 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture

Obviously our ancient ancestors were connoisseurs of the alcoholic beverages very early!!!

Vodden DNA Results - What do they mean?

It all started with a meagre interest in DNA & how it related to my research in genealogy & my VODDEN One Name Study.  I ordered a kit to test my Dad's DNA back in the fall of 2008 and when I visited my Dad in April, 2009, we got his sample & sent it off to www.familytreedna.com requesting a 37 marker Y-DNA test be completed.  This is the most common one for genealogists as the results will render possible matches with a 95% certainty in seven generations or approximately within 180 to 220 years.  Most family trees can be traced back that far especially in England (Devon) where census records start in 1841 with family members dating back to the late 1700's.  To test beyond that doesn't narrow the results down much farther. One of the projects I did join with my Dad's results was the Devon DNA Project (Debbie Kennett, administrator*).

At the time, I really didn't know what I was looking for so I ordered a further test to 67 markers in October 2009.  The only match that was consistent to the full 67 markers; however, with a genetic difference of 7, meaning markers that didn't match at this level (this match had been a genetic difference of only 4 markers at the 37 Y-DNA level).  Consulting the probabilities that the site provides, this person was really not related at all!  How disappointing!  As the results were so negligible, I decided that this wasn't going to work for me & ceased further testing.  My Dad passed away on June 21, 2010.

My interest in DNA was aroused again when I had casually listened to two webinars on DNA testing and how to interpret the results.  So I went back to my Dad's results.

When I had the original results done, one of the tests that I had not reviewed was the mtDNA which gives the Haplogroup of an individual.  A Haplogroup is the deep ancestral origins or where the individual originated thousands of years ago.  Both men and women can test for mtDNA.  I didn't think that this as significant since my Dad's results were of such a large Haplogroup of R1b.

With so many sub groups showing for this Haplogroup, I decided to order a Deep Clade test which would test to situate my Dad's sub-group in more detail.  The results are of tests done on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and please don't ask me to explain what these are!! Since the lab keeps remaining DNA stored safely for further testing, I was able to have this test done in October 2011, a full year after my Dad had passed on.

I first had notification that the test had been done but no results were released - they were verifying the results.  I wondered why.

When I got the results, the administrator of the Devon DNA Project, Debbie Kennett, immediately got in touch with me and said that FTDNA 'really went to town' on my Dad and that they didn't normally test this many SNPs.  He tested to the subclade P312 but whereas the normal category was a plus, my Dad was a negative.  She explained that he is the first person in the Devon DNA Project to belong to this particular subclade of R1b1a2 and in the records being kept of the results for the project, she had had to start a whole new group for him alone.  It appears that this Haplogroup originates in Eastern Europe (R1 being Central Asia about where Russia is 30,000 years ago) but the R1b subclade traverses across Europe which "spread and multiplied until its lineages can be found throughout Europe and until it became the most frequent Haplogroup in Western Europe" around 25,000 years ago!!!

Well, so much for Dad's theory that we came from Friesland, which is on the coast of Europe between the Netherlands and Germany/Prussia, in more recent times.  The Vodden line may have come from there and across to Devon but as suggested by Debbie Kennett, "My thinking therefore was that, as your dad's subclade is so rare and ancient, it was some sort of relic of the very early settlers in the British Isles." *

So, it appears that we are not going to find in current time, records that will indicate that we came from Friesland but we did come from somewhere in Western Europe and it appears the Vodden's (and variants, of course) are one of the most ancient settlers in Devon; however, we will not know this for sure until there are more samples tested to draw more firm conclusions.

So, my Vodden male friends, until some more of you are tested, this is where it remains.  I would love it if some of the direct male line Vodden's including Vawden's, Vowden's, Bowden's, Voden's and other variants are tested!!  Please use the same testing agency I used, my FTDNA, or Family Tree DNA at www.familytreedna.com.

In the meantime I have had myself tested for the mtDNA and my Haplogroup follows the same pattern as my Dad's.  I am having a further test done called Family Finder and will let you know those results when received.

I'm very excited!!

* emails between myself and Debbie Kennett dated January 13 & 14, 2012.