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Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.
Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Thanks to MyHeritage for their generous support to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen! Follow us on social media and subscribe to HTB with Kathleen in order to enter your name in our monthly MyHeritage Complete Package giveaway starting Jan 2024!
Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City on the other side of the mighty Moe, welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen, the Do it Yourself genealogy podcast that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and we'd like to say Who'd Vese you to New Listeners in Hungary. On this episode we'll be talking to Alexis Bagal from the Mitten State, Michigan, so let's start Hittin' the Bricks, so okay. So, Kathleen, now that we're already into it and we are already recording, Alexis, your Middle Eastern is from which ?
Alexis:My grandpa's Palestinian, but that's actually the other side of the family, that's my mom's side. (Kathleen: I'm only asking because of your DNA). Oh sure, yeah, no, that's my mom, the Leventine.
Humble Hubby:What is the question? What was the big question? What brought you two together?
Kathleen Brandt:I'm going to let Alexis answer that.
Humble Hubby:Okay, okay.
Alexis:So I reached out about my great-great-grandmother, Ellen Conard. I know very little about her. She died when my great-grandma was fairly young. Nobody in the family knew anything about her and I was never able to find anything about her before her marriage to my great-great-grandfather, which she was about 17. He was about 30 years older, which even then was a little unusual, and she's just a ghost before then.
Alexis:So I had turned to DNA and found that most of my matches that also had the last name Conard which is like Conrad, but with the A and R transposed were African-American, and my initial thought was, oh my gosh, my family owned these families' ancestors.
Alexis:But when I was able to find the common DNA link, which was a Mississippi cotton planter named Andrew Conrad, he is not the father, or at least Ellen is not one of his white children. You know I have a lot of census documentation, I've probate documents. I don't see anything indicating she was his child and the DNA matches with the African-American Conards who, I was told, changed their name after Andrew died because his widow didn't want them getting mixed up with her family. I don't know if that's apocryphal, but that's what I've been told, that the African-American Conards are much closer DNA matches to me and my family than the white Conrad descendants of Andrew and his two wives, and my theory is that my Ellen was the daughter of Andrew and former legion slave woman, also named Ellen, who had multiple children with Andrew over the years. But I can't find any actual evidence to put them together and the DNA isn't inconclusive, it's just, you know relationship Dr Darrell Bock.
Humble Hubby:So, kathleen, how is that theory?
Kathleen Brandt:Dr Kathleen, dr Darrell Bock, that's the way your family pronounces it, dr.
Alexis:Kathleen, no, my great-great-grandmother. Her marriage certificate says Conard, c-o-n-a-r-d. Andrew was a Conrad and all of the white, his white children went by Conrad and his African American and well, I guess their biracial children initially went by Conrad but at some point you can see them starting to change, like initially they had signed documents and marriage certificates etc put Conrad, but at some point they started all using Conard. Dr Darrell Bock.
Kathleen Brandt:Well it gets even more exciting there are about six different versions of this surname Conn is Conard, conrad, connard with a U instead of the O. They're all related. Dr Kathleen Okay, dr Darrell Bock, connors with a K. Dr Kathleen oh, I haven't seen that one. Dr Darrell Bock yes, I've seen Conrad, dr Kathleen and Connored and a Conrad with a R-A-E-D. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions about your DNA and know that you'll get all my notes. Anything I talk about. I will be sending that to you. They're raw but you'll get them. Have you tested in DNA beside, or you or your Aunt, cheryl John? We were working with her aunt, who took a DNA test also, which I love because it's closer to our target. Has anyone tested on anything beside ancestrycom?
Alexis:Yes, I have tested on 23andMe family tree DNA and my heritage, living DNA or family tree. I think I just uploaded it to my heritage and several of my cousins who are Ellen's direct female descendants have tested as well. So I'm on 23andMe.
Kathleen Brandt:That was one of my questions is we need a larger pool. So one of those larger pools is to have the full thing analyzed, make her ancestry results and populate the other tests with them. You can't do that on 23andMe so great that you took the 23andMe but you can populate them on the other sites and so if you've done that and you need to have as many cousins do the same thing, free version is fine for my heritage family tree DNA and I believe I added my aunt and my cousins on both of those.
Alexis:Okay, perfect, and I didn't say those. And my half sister as well. We have the same father.
Kathleen Brandt:Okay, but what I did note that we talked about the surnames just a little bit already what I did note is that you have had analysis of your family tree already done by another group and that I want to mention that a little bit about it. I looked at their documentary, their next steps for you, and I have to tell you I agree with absolutely every one of them because there's too much open. So I would say you know it's worth you either going back to them, if they know, or hiring another company to help you with a DNA analysis.
Alexis:What kind of DNA analysis specifically, do you think I need to look for? That's going to be the bulk of our conversation, so let me just and then just pulling up the document that I had sent you about next steps.
Kathleen Brandt:Yeah, this one has a title of documentary where they say search probate records in Jefferson city and so forth. Every one of those is accurate. But before I do those I would suggest you do an ex chromosome analysis. They did not do that and there's probably several reasons why it's fairly new out of all of our analysis on DNA.
Alexis:Is that the same as a mitochondrial DNA or no? No, it is.
Kathleen Brandt:So I'm going to talk about that in just a second, and I'm sorry, just because I'm curious.
Alexis:Is that something I could do, or do I have to have a direct female descendant? Do it?
Kathleen Brandt:You already have all the tests you need. So, john, this particular job. We haven't talked on the show about ex chromosome analysis. We've talked about other types of DNA analysis, but what this will allow Alexis to do is to follow just the ex chromosome, which is passed down to all of the children of the mother, but it stops with her son and continues with the females, because the woman needs to X, x. The man passes down his ex chromosome from his mother to all of his daughters. Thank you, aunt Cheryl, for taking a test, because Aunt Cheryl has a copy of the X chromosome from Ellen. Oh, she wouldn't.
Alexis:She doesn't pass to male generations in a row, exactly, but she only had one my grandpa.
Kathleen Brandt:Yeah, she has Cheryl to Harold, which he has, that X that he passed completely to Cheryl.
Humble Hubby:So Alexis just said because it doesn't pass two generations in a row of a male Right. You can't pass male male. They're not just carrying it Right. What happens to it?
Kathleen Brandt:They get the X of their mother. Right, you always carry the X of their mother, so two males aren't going to have a father, son, or having the same ex.
Humble Hubby:Got it, got it. Okay, I didn't. I didn't know if it just evaporated or it's literally replaced.
Kathleen Brandt:It's replaced by the male's mother and, thanks to Cheryl, who was the daughter of Harold, harold had the X, which means he got the X from his mother, martha, who got a recombined X from her mother. And that takes us to Ellen.
Humble Hubby:Okay, hang on, I'm going to, I'm going to hit you on what do you?
Kathleen Brandt:mean, she got a recombined X. Because a woman has two X's. Yeah, she's getting it from. She has her father's X and her mother's X.
Humble Hubby:Right.
Kathleen Brandt:So thank you. Yeah so they're recombined, as she's passing it down.
Humble Hubby:Okay.
Kathleen Brandt:But it doesn't mean that she doesn't have it. All that means is she is going to do a DNA analysis and eliminate all of the Richters because the Richters married right.
Kathleen Brandt:Okay, ellen, that was Ellen's husband Got it so her first job would be look at my ex, how it's inherited, and I've done two handwritten charts for you so you can see it and from that you're going to first eliminate the excess of the Richters and I'm going to suggest you start with second cousins which are going to have like a shared chromosome around 200 to 50 something around there.
Alexis:Well, I do have two second cousins on the side who are and they're the ones who did 23 and me that I specifically asked to because they're Ellen and Martha's direct female descendants. So would comparing them to Cheryl's be the best start? Yes, that's right, but that's still giving me all the Richters too.
Kathleen Brandt:Well, you're going to get rid of the Richter side if they are still part of the same couple of Ellen and Henry, so what you're now also going to look for is someone who's related to Ellen but not Henry, and then that way you'll know all the Richters. Oh, that's a good point, right? So you're going to have plenty of them. If they did it on 23 and me, though, I would ask them to download their raw DNA and upload it to, like my heritage that's my favorite my heritage and family tree DNA. So now you have enough to do an analysis with. Excellent.
Alexis:And my aunt does have a very strong match on the Conard side. I think it's 100 and some centimorgans. It's a good one. Unfortunately, I think she's the descendant of two males in a row, so I don't know if hers would be usable. But yes, that would be. I bet we can find somebody.
Kathleen Brandt:I know you will be able to, because we're working with the second cousin of Cheryl. That level there are plenty of them, right? I mean, you're going to have a lot of ancestors there.
Kathleen Brandt:So, that is the way you can definitely solve a lot of your issues. I mean, solve your major question is your answer to your major question, and that is who was Ellen's father, where does she come from and how am I related to the African-American side? Where do they fall in? All of this will work together. The key is to have a big pool, eliminate directors and voila, you're going to work with that. I love working with the X chromosome. A lot of people do not work with it yet, even though it's been out probably 10 years. But it didn't really become popular until about the last maybe seven, six, seven years.
Humble Hubby:Is there a reason for that?
Kathleen Brandt:It's just as we learn, and then we wait on some of our genealogy DNA people to practice first and then teach the rest of us. In the meantime, Alexis, I have put on my DNA for genealogists the flipboard page, which is a magazine of just DNAs. I put two up there today for you, and both of those articles talk about the X chromosome. I will also send you a third one that I don't feel comfortable publishing it on that particular site, but I will send you a link to a third one, and again it shows a case study of other people who have worked with the X chromosome. But they're used for educational purposes.
Alexis:Fantastic. You know I've looked at it before because I thought well, this seems like the most obvious place to start. But I know it's been confusing in the past because it seems like the DNA inherits differently, like you'll get big chunks that you share with someone, but you have no idea how on earth you're related to this person, even if you both have very complete trees. It's like way back there. So I've been frustrated working at it with it in the past, but I'm excited to do some work with it.
Kathleen Brandt:As I said, I would definitely stick with like a second cousin couple. Always use couples. If you think of DNA couples, that's the best thing, Because that way you can work with your cousins you know who has what cousin or what couple also versus eliminating with someone who's not related to both.
Alexis:Yes, unfortunately the only other way to do that is if they had multiple spouses or something.
Kathleen Brandt:Right.
Alexis:You know, I have another great great grandmother who was married twice and it's been surprisingly helpful for isolating her DNA versus, you know, the first husband. Half brothers are wonderful.
Kathleen Brandt:Half siblings are absolutely wonderful in this case. So that is one of the things I want to make sure that we did talk about was the X chromosome, Because to me I would do that against the paper trail that the other company actually gave you. We always say DNA supports the paper trail, but it's nice if you already have this kind of analysis so you're just not swimming wildly around.
Alexis:And yeah, the lack of records in Arkansas has been a real brick wall. I just, yeah, I've struggled a lot with that, especially since, I think I told you, my other side of the family is mostly French, canadian and you know, the records are so easy, it's almost boring, exactly, and so this is just a whole kettle of fish. You know no death records till like 1907. You know the records there are. Don't really tell you anything except names and a date. You know there's no parents listed, not nothing.
Kathleen Brandt:It's because a state and not federal right. So every state how they handle marriage, birth, even how they handle guardian records or probates, and yesterday I was looking for a particular marriage record that was in the probate record book. You know it should be in a marriage book or separate somehow, or even in a deed book, but it was in a probate book. So I am going to suggest one more thing for you, and that is join family tree DNA projects. Have you done that yet? Because I did not notice you on there.
Alexis:I have. I think I might have joined one or two, but they tend to be either very specific or very broad, the ones that come across.
Kathleen Brandt:So that might be one called Conrad Connard. No, I think I know.
Alexis:People are on there. Okay, is it? Conrad Connard, a C-O-N-A-R-D.
Kathleen Brandt:Yes, but you want to join that group because they'll do this whole spreadsheet that's colorized and it tells you which one of these groups you belong in. I don't know if you've played with it. It's a full DNA project.
Alexis:Okay, and could I start my own?
Kathleen Brandt:No, you're just going to join it out there and I'm going to send you the link. You want to join that, especially if you have any male cousins you want them to join.
Alexis:I mean, why DNA related, like direct mail? No, I do not Join any. That was okay. I will Okay, and I'll send you some information on that, okay.
Kathleen Brandt:So there are things called one name studies. As you do your DNA and I would wait again to see what kind of results you get on your DNA analysis with the X chromosome you may be interested in a one name study working with your name. What other research is out there and you might find that you're related to some of these at a distance. Now remember, the autosomal is only good for about five generations because you'll you'll inherit so little, but luckily, and Cheryl will have a little bit more. So we want to make sure you're always working with hers in all of these.
Kathleen Brandt:Yeah, and I have them for the most part. It looked like that to me also that you had. Those were the main things that I had on your case in general. Now I'm just going to show you what I'm talking about with the X, Can you?
Alexis:see this. Yeah, oh, is that an X DNA?
Kathleen Brandt:inheritance chart Exactly, and so I would just scribble names in there for you. The other two things that I'm very interested in is who is pinky One?
Alexis:thing that's been challenging about this is we have a lot of mutual relatives shared amongst all the various Connards and Conrad's and Coonrod's and most of the Mhamsa ancestors coming from York or Chester County, south Carolina, and Andrew says in all known sentences he was from South Carolina and from there many of them split up and one branch went to Florida.
Alexis:Some are still in South Carolina and the ones in Florida and I believe a couple others went by Coonrod I believe Pinky is from one of those branches. I have, unfortunately, what I found is a lot of families trees that appear to go back before Andrew. You know I'm related to this person so and so is related to this person. But when I end, compare the trees from like the 1700s, we have this little chunk and sometimes that's a little chunk it seems like kind of sticky DNA, you know, with those segments that just keep together. But I can't fit Andrew in because we don't know who his parents were. I have not been able to locate them yet. So these may be people I'm related to through Andrew's ancestors or different family members. That's possible.
Kathleen Brandt:If it was, really I can't figure out how. So remember I said you want some of these other comrades that you're related to, that you might not know, to take the white DNA. This is a time to be generous and send them white DNA. You contact them and say would you be willing to do this white DNA test? A lot of people say yes, especially if you're paying for it. But I would say Pinky's, andrew's, these kind of families are the ones that you want to send a white DNA to and I'm only talking about two or three to see how they're related to one another, and then you can compare it to you, because if they are far behind, that's why you're not getting the right hits on your autosomal test.
Kathleen Brandt:Alexis, basically that's where I'm going to tell you to start, in your tree, I think it's nice and clean, but if it's not, and you're not sure who's on the tree, make sure you mark it as possible or take it off your tree, because people are copying bad trees. So just make sure your tree is cleaned up and really review that last report and I can see your issue, but it's really partially because there's not enough data yet. When you get the X chromosome in the analysis, then I think, when you turn to another company or you have someone else analyze it, you will see that some of those questions you have can be answered. And so those are the five things, though, that I wanted to tell you. It went faster than expected because you're familiar with the X chromosome, but do you have any questions for me?
Alexis:I'm trying to think. Are there any other records in Arkansas I can look for, because I have tried to find Alan numerous ways. You know I cannot find her. So she was born about 1860, married in 1877 in Jefferson County. I cannot find her in an 1870 census there or in 1860, though that may be a fee depending on the time of year and if she was a year or two off about her date, about her birthday. But I can't find anybody with an even remotely similar name living in that area at that time. So are there other places I could look that I have not yet?
Kathleen Brandt:Well, one of the things I would start with is a guardianship records, because if her mother died there, the mother normally had to have some sort of a guardianship that probably was managed by a male. Those records should be there. I also trace land records. Who inherited what land record? It is possible also that Ellen has different siblings who inherited some of these land records, especially the brothers. I would really start widening your search versus narrowing. So I would make sure you are combing guardianship records, land records and the county next to theirs. Don't just stick in their county because they went to the closest. If you know where they came from before Arkansas, remember they may have kept something there also.
Alexis:She does say in one census her parents were born in Georgia. I have not found them in Georgia either, because I have looked there, but I don't have first names either. So and Conrad, if you're looking up that version is very, very Gavin.
Kathleen Brandt:Yeah, do not rule out the Georgia group, because a lot of them came up with the Eastern Cherokee and settled in Georgia and then in Arkansas.
Alexis:Okay, so I would not rule that out.
Kathleen Brandt:Matter of fact, our last podcast, john, one of the podcasts we did about three podcasts ago.
Humble Hubby:Oh no, the Eastern Cherokee band. It was Jack, yeah.
Kathleen Brandt:Listen in on that one, because we do talk about that Arkansas-Georgia connection of the non-native Americans.
Humble Hubby:I've been uncharacteristically quiet, I think, in this one, because I've really been taking in a lot of the information. I don't think we've had anything that's been so deep in the DNA before, so this was a walkthrough, unchartered territory for me. So I'm learning quite a bit, which I'm going to forget as soon as I possibly can.
Kathleen Brandt:I will put out a blog, as well as send Alexis all of our notes and all of my notes, rather, and I will send Alexis all of my notes, and I will also write a blog on Justice Topic.
Humble Hubby:So, alexis, thanks very much. We really appreciate you taking the time, especially out of a work day.
Alexis:Yeah, I'm really excited to start digging some more. I you know every now and then I take a break because I get frustrated and then I come back and. I can poke it with a stick again and then I, you know, stomp off and come back and poke it a little more Poke it a little bit more.
Humble Hubby:Exactly exactly, it's a good way to do it. Alexis, thank you very much.
Alexis:Thank you. You guys have a great day, you too, cheers Okay bye.
Humble Hubby:Well, congratulations, you've made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying, thanks to Alexis for her questions and thanks to Chuuichu Baka Brand, our part-time knocker-upper and full-time sticklebacks, for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hit in the Bricks is written and performed by Tony Fisknuckle and the Protons Watch for their next appearance at the Oceans of Venus. You can find us on Apple, spotify and, of course, buzzsprout. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast, so stop by our Facebook page at Hit in the Bricks with Kathleen and let us know.