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Is DNA testing useful for genealogists? I have received an Email from “Family Tree DNA”, a testing company in the USA, advising me of the results of a 37-marker high-resolution test submitted under my name of Walter John Keynes of South Australia. I have been advised that my test matches exactly Albert Leslie Caines of Ontario, Canada, and a match with a genetic distance of 1 with Christopher C. Keene of California, USA. A genetic distance of 1 means that the value of one of the 37 markers of Chris’s Y-Chromosome varied from mine by 1. Receipt of this information was quite exciting and distant cousins in Lincolnshire and Isle of Wight in England and those in Canada, USA and Australia were equally thrilled. So what was there about this result that caused the excitement? What is significant about the names, what do the results mean and how do they help with my family history? A significant aspect of the testing was the rarity of the Given Name involved. To answer these questions it is necessary to add some of my family history. My great-grandfather Keros Keynes (1818-1892) emigrated with his family of wife Elizabeth (née Neil) and 4 children to South Australia in 1851. His home village was in Wiltshire, England and he was an agricultural labourer (the ubiquitous ‘ag lab’). Research showed that his father Jacob Cain Caines married twice with Keros being born to the second marriage. The family seemed to use other old biblical names like Kadmiel and Kish. Most of Keros’s siblings and half-siblings seemed to remain in England and so did most of their descendants. A significant exception was Kish Caines, born in 1816. While records of most of Kish’s siblings were found in England, he seemed to disappear and in the family research it was assumed for many years that he had left the home village, but to where remained unknown. Several years ago I put up a web site and included a ‘gedcom’ of my data base and over the years made contact with people who found my site while placing a surname in a search engine like ‘google’. So it was that Fay Herridge of Newfoundland, Canada, while researching the Caines name, found my site and noted the entry of Kish Caines. Because of the unusual given name she thought there may have been a connection between an ancestor of hers in Newfoundland named Kish Caines and the site’s Kish Keynes/Caines in Wiltshire, England. Fay and I exchanged information on our ‘Kish’s’ and concluded that while it seemed possible and even likely that they were the same man, we could not find corroborating evidence. The most likely possibility was that Kish in England went to Newfoundland when it was a British colony, perhaps with a fishing fleet which was known to fish off the coast of Newfoundland in that era during the fishing season before returning to England. He may then have stayed there. While our research continued, we heard from Molly Harris in Newfoundland, who was also a Kish descendant and was able to supply much information on Kish and his descendants. But nothing surfaced which could link the Newfoundland Kish back to England. Newfoundland lacked a parson in that era and births, marriages and deaths went mainly unrecorded, During our discussions, Fay, Molly and I considered the possibility of a DNA test on a male descendant of each Kish. For some time we searched for a male descendant of the Canadian Kish, but it was not until August 2009 when Albert Leslie Caines of Ontario, Canada advised that he was willing to take a 37-marker Y-chromosome test with me with the USA company, ‘Family Tree DNA’. Albert Leslie and I sent away for test kits, submitted them and sat back to await results. The test laboratory does its testing in stages, first the 12-marker test, then the 25-marker test and finally the 37-marker test. Participants are advised of the results at each stage. There were over 400 matches at the low-resolution test of 12 markers, 3 exact matches at the 25-marker stage and then the exact match between Albert Leslie Caines and me at the 37-marker stage with Christopher C Keene having a genetic distance of 1 from Albert Leslie and me. So what has been achieved?! Before the DNA test I think we cousins had little doubt that there was only one Kish Keynes/Caines in our family. The timing each side of the Atlantic seemed right, the fishing traditions between England and Newfoundland seemed possible for his departure from England, the unusual given name and some given names for the next generation in Newfoundland all seemed to reinforce the assumption of one Kish. In the absence of any birth, death or marriage certificates, usual proofs of identity could never apply and so the DNA result can now be applied as the catalyst for complete acceptance. So Albert Leslie Caines in Canada and Walter John Keynes in South Australia are 5th generation and 4th generation respectively, descendants of Jacob Cain Caines (1767-1833) of Berwick St Leonard, Wiltshire, England. The relationship with Christopher Keene is less straight forward. The similarity of the name and the DNA result came as a surprise. It is accepted that there is a connection between the families, but the most recent common ancestor of the 3 may be many generations ago. Research in England and USA will continue to try to find the connection. Communications today are quite extraordinary compared with a few decades ago. While there are a few negatives about the Internet, mobile telephones and various forms of communication, for the genealogist there are many positives. How helpful has been the Internet with its web sites, mailing lists and Email? And now we have DNA analysis to assist. But what I find most invaluable is the human contact right around the world established through the facilities computers and the Internet offer. As a child many of us will remember ‘PenPals’, children with whom we would communicate by mail: in my present world-wide circle of cousins established by using a variety of modern facilities, we updated our call-sign to ‘KeyKin’, replacing the ‘Pen’ with a ‘Key’ from the keyboard and although we might be writing to a ‘Pal’ it would certainly be a ‘Kin”. The pleasure in communicating with newly-found cousins around the world is incalculable. |