FamilyTreeDNA's Big Y-700 Uncovers Family Relationships

Genetic genealogy provided evidence that three men - all contemporaries who shared the same unusual name - were closely related to each other. But what exactly was the relationship between them?

My fourth great-grandfather was Vachel Kirk. He was born in 1805 in Ohio to Thomas and Sarah (Bonar) Kirk and lived in Licking County where he married Jane Delzell.

He was my family tree’s first Vachel. When I discovered two other men with the same peculiar name living in the same era and in generally close proximity, I had to take a closer look.

• Vachel Kirk #2: Born in 1783 in either Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Virginia (his children couldn’t agree on a location), he married Rachel Hall. Records place him in Fayette County, Pennsylvania through 1815. Beginning in 1820, he appeared in Butler County, Ohio, where he lived the rest of his life.

• Vachel Kirk #3: Born in about 1803 in Ohio, he married Susanna Allstaff. Records place him in eastern Ohio (Belmont, Harrison, then Morgan counties) from 1825 through 1850. In 1855, he moved to Hendricks County, Indiana where he lived the rest of his life.

Mindful of traditional naming patterns, I wondered if they were related.

Y-DNA Testing Establishes a Connection

A third great-grandson of Vachel Kirk #2 took an autosomal and Y-37 DNA test with AncestryDNA and FamilyTreeDNA respectively. The Y-DNA results indicated that he was a close genetic match to a dozen direct male descendants of Thomas Kirk, including his son Vachel. The autosomal test also surfaced more than a dozen matches with descendants of Thomas Kirk. However, the low levels of shared DNA make it difficult to pinpoint a specific family relationship with any certainty.

Encouraged by the initial matches, we upgraded the descendant’s Y-DNA test from Y-37 to Y-111 and then finally Big Y-500. At each level of higher testing, the matches with descendants of Thomas Kirk remained the closest.

In April 2023, I finally located several living direct male descendants of Vachel Kirk #3. One of the men, a descendant of Vachel’s son Isaac Kirk, agreed to a Big Y-700 test.

The results showed that he was a close Y-DNA match to all of Thomas Kirk’s descendants and the descendant of Vachel Kirk #2.

Finally, I had evidence that all three Vachel Kirks were indeed genetically related to each other.

 

Y-DNA Mutation Suggests Close Relationship

The Big Y results for the descendants of Vachel Kirk #2 and #3 suggested a particularly close relationship.

In fact, Vachel #2 and #3 are so closely related that both men belong to their own recently identified haplogroup, branching off from the haplogroup shared by Thomas Kirk and his descendants, including his son Vachel Kirk #1.

Y-DNA matches are defined by naturally yet random occurring mutations in the Y chromosome. These mutations are what allow us to distinguish Kirk men from any other man you pass on the street. They define our paternal ancestry. Men pass these mutations or haplogroup on to their sons which makes it possible for genetic genealogists to trace patterns of relatedness (source: David Vance).

Both Vachel Kirks have a newly identified Y-DNA mutation or haplogroup called R-BY100766 that is unique to them.

So why is this important and what does this reveal about my genealogy?

First, if Thomas Kirk (1778-1846) and Vachel Kirk #2 (1783-1836) were brothers (as I initially theorized), then the R-BY100766 mutation had to occur in Vachel #2 because Thomas’ descendants are negative for this haplogroup. 

However, if the R-BY100766 mutation occurred in a generation before Vachel #2 and he inherited it from his father, then he is NOT a brother to Thomas Kirk who is negative for the mutation.

Focusing on the relationship between Vachel #2 and #3, their shared R-BY100766 mutation suggests that they could be:

Father and son

Hypothetical father and son relationship for Vachel Kirk #2 and #3

Although the Y-DNA indicates it is a genetic possibility, a father and son relationship seems unlikely because Vachel #2 and his wife Rachel Hall eventually named one of their children Vachel in 1834 – over three decades after the birth of Vachel #3 (note that this child is not accounted among the three men referenced in this study). Why would Vachel #2 name two of his sons Vachel – especially if the first son of that name was still alive?

The father/son relationship theory is also undermined by the fact that Vachel #2’s future wife Rachel Hall was only 13 in 1803 when Vachel #3 was born. While not biologically impossible, it seems unlikely that she was his mother. There is currently no evidence that Vachel #2 had a relationship prior to Rachel Hall that resulted in children.

It may also be telling that there were just a dozen autosomal DNA matches between the descendants of Thomas Kirk and the descendant of Vachel Kirk #2. A previous case study examining siblingship between Thomas and Mary (Kirk) Geiger surfaced over 100 paired matches. The fewer number of matches between Thomas and Vachel #2 may be a sign that the relationship was more distant thus explaining the drop off in autosomal matches.

Because of the genealogical unlikelihood that Vachel #3 was a son of Vachel #2, it seems probable the R-BY100766 mutation was inherited from a previous generation, suggesting Vachel #2 and Thomas were not brothers.

A more likely relationship scenario is that Vachel #2 and #3 were:

Uncle and nephew

Hypothetical uncle and nephew relationship for Vachel Kirk #2 and #3

FamilyTreeDNA estimates that the most recent common ancestor of the R-BY100766 haplogroup was born around 1770 which they round down to 1750. Although not conclusive, this age approximation would fit well with the birth of Vachel #2’s father.

This would mean that the R-BY100766 mutation was inherited by Vachel #2 from his father (whose identity we don’t yet know). Vachel #2’s unknown father would then be the grandfather to Vachel #3.

In this theory, Vachel #3 would be the son of an unknown Kirk who was brother to Vachel #2.

What do you think? Does this seem possible to you?

Regardless of the scenario, to surface answers, our path forward will require more testing (both Y-DNA and autosomal). Thank goodness for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals! 

We're getting closer to definitive answers. One cheek swab and saliva sample at a time.

FamilyTreeDNA's 15th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy

I've just returned from a long weekend in Houston, Texas, where I attended FamilyTreeDNA's 15th International Conference on Genetic Genealogy.

Tailored exclusively for FamilyTreeDNA's Group Project Administrators, sessions provided deep dives into many facets of genetic genealogy, including, of course, Y-DNA, for which FamilyTreeDNA is the industry's mainstay. Project Administrators play a pivotal role in fostering a dynamic learning community. They manage the many surname, geographic, and haplogroup projects that engage FamilyTreeDNA's network of users to help them deepen their knowledge about their genetic genealogy.

The agenda featured a variety of sessions that shared best practices across group projects, highlighted FamilyTreeDNA’s anticipated new features, and provided a forum to connect and share experiences with other administrators.

Highlights included:

• Attending two sessions facilitated by David Vance whose book, The Genealogist’s Guide to Y-DNA Testing for Genetic Genealogy, I devoured earlier this summer. It’s an excellent primer for understanding Y-DNA research and a must read if you’re looking to get the most out of your patrilineal history.

• Meeting Katherine Borges, a founder and current director of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG), who highlighted the organization’s work to promote the use of DNA testing in genealogy. ISOGG is a great resource if you’re looking to grow your understanding of genetic genealogy and has played an important role advocating for legislation and standards favorable to the sector. The society also produces the free and open-access Journal of Genetic Genealogy (JoGG) which is edited by Vance. One of my conference takeaways is to spend time catching up on back issues, which feature illustrative case studies that may inform my own work.

• Meeting FamilyTreeDNA founder Bennett Greenspan, who Borges called “the father of genetic genealogy.” Greenspan shared his own foray into genealogy and the genetic genealogy business.

FTDNA founder Bennett Greenspan and Family Sleuther

• Connecting with many experienced Group Project Administrators with decades of experience including Tim Duncan, an administrator for the Clan Donnachaidh Surname DNA Project, and Mags Gaulden of Grandma's Genes, who generously shared their experiences with genetic genealogy and as project administrators. It’s helpful – as a newbie – to see what successful projects can achieve.

• Touring FamilyTreeDNA’s lab and seeing firsthand how test kits are processed from receipt, DNA extraction, and providing results. It was a fascinating look at the mechanics that go into processing hundreds of kits, including the 100,000th Big Y kit just this past October – a major milestone!

Suited up in a lab coat for a tour of FTDNA's lab

After the conference, I capped my time in Texas with a quick day trip to the suburbs of Austin to meet with a fourth cousin twice removed, Dee, who is a third great-granddaughter of my paternal ancestor Thomas Kirk. A decade ago, when I was puzzling my way through a misattributed paternal event and trying to identify my paternal great-grandfather, Dee stepped up and persuaded her brother to submit a Y-DNA test that helped me link my paternal line to Thomas Kirk (1778-1846) of Licking County, Ohio.

 
Back in Houston, I connected with a maybe cousin Scott. We’re researching the possibility that his ancestor John Kirk was an uncle to my Thomas Kirk. Scott has built a compelling case and we're now after DNA to help provide supporting evidence of his link to my line. This research has the potential to expand my Kirk family and surface new clues about the Kirks' immigration journey to the American colonies. Will we determine the link? With our dogged persistence, I’m certain the brick wall will eventually give way.

 
You know it's a good conference when you come home with plenty of research to-dos that will keep you busy for the foreseeable future. Now, where to begin...

21st Century Paternal Line Research: Next Generation Y-DNA Testing

Y-DNA testing is a marvelous 21st century genealogical tool that helped me identify my biological paternal ancestry and may - one day - pinpoint my precise ancestral origins.

Truth In Testing

After an autosomal DNA test uncovered a Non-Paternal Event, I quickly moved to confirm my father's ancestry through Y chromosome (Y-DNA) testing. Inherited by men only and passed down from father to son, it's tailor-made for surname research.

The Y-DNA revealed that I was a Kirk, and traditional genealogy helped identify Thomas Kirk (1778-1846) as my fifth great-grandfather and most distant known paternal ancestor.

Thomas was a very prodigious family man with seven sons who each lived to adulthood and had children of their own. Fortunately, each of those sons had direct male descendants who were living and walking the earth today with Thomas' Y-DNA coursing through their veins.

Eventually, I connected with each of those living descendants. Eager to help re-create Thomas' unique Y-DNA signature, the men each tested their Y-DNA with Family Tree DNA (FTDNA). The men's common genetic signature or Y-STR markers (Short Tandem Repeats) confirmed that all seven men were closely related. Their collective test results essentially re-created Thomas Kirk's genetic signature without exhuming his remains.

That signature would be important in searching for genetic cousins, particularly men living overseas who could help us pinpoint Thomas' ancestral origins. 

A Deeper Examination

During the course of this testing, I stumbled across a very close match to Thomas Kirk's genetic signature. Curiously, the match didn't share the Kirk surname. Instead, he was a Quirk.

The genetic markers suggested this Quirk and all of the tested Kirk men shared a common paternal ancestor.

Best of all, unlike the Kirks, this Quirk family could trace their ancestral origins back to the Cashel area of County Tipperary in Ireland. According to the science, the Kirks were, at one time, Quirks who hailed from Ireland's south (spelled Quirke on the Emerald Isle).

My curiosity was piqued and I wanted to learn more. What else could Y-DNA testing tell me?

Family Tree DNA's Big Y-500 DNA test - a higher level test that's billed as next generation full sequencing - revealed the Y-DNA haplogroup for both the Quirks and Kirks giving an identifying code or name to each surname's specific branch of the Y-DNA haplogroup tree. 

Technically, these codes are more colloquially referred to as the terminal SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms), or the most recent mutation to the SNP. (For a more detailed and technical overview of Big Y testing, check out Roberta Estes' blog on Why The Big Y Test?)

In the context of my research, the test identified the haplogroup for the Kirk men as R-BY30547. This in itself is fascinating. As citizen scientists, we have identified a branch of mankind's Y-DNA haplogroup tree that represents a mutation specific to my own Kirk clan. 

But there was more to learn from the test results. Testing revealed that the Kirk haplogroup was a descendant or step down from the haplogroup for the Quirk men (R-BY15517). 

At some point, a man who was either a Quirk or already a Kirk was born with a SNP mutation, which resulted in a distinguishable genetic difference from his predecessors and was passed on to his descendants including my father.

Folks who are better versed in the science of Y-DNA have worked to establish age ranges for the mutations of each step of the haplogroup tree. The ranges are broad and expansive, but perhaps the science will continue to get better and these dates will narrow. 

The Road Ahead

In support of my research, four men have completed the Big Y test. 

• A US-based Quirk who traces his paternal ancestry back to a Michael Quirke of County Tipperary, Ireland. 
• Two US-based Kirks who descend from Thomas Kirk, my fifth great-grandfather.
• A US-based Kirk who descends from a Vachel Kirk that I speculate was a brother to the above-mentioned Thomas.

My next research step is to test a male Quirke from Cashel to help us confirm our ancestral origins were indeed from southern Ireland. With that confirmation, research efforts could then focus on the Quirke family's genealogy and see if it's possible to identify when the Kirk clan split off - genetically and for America.

Surname Evolution: A Y-DNA Journey From Ohio to Ireland

My interest in family history was piqued in 2012. That year began a journey of surprises.

Whispered family rumor was finally substantiated by autosomal DNA. A laboratory confirmed that my paternal grandfather was the product of a relationship between my great-grandmother and a man named Samuel Kirk. This was shocking news, of course, because Samuel was not her husband - and he was not the man I had believed, without question, was my great-grandfather.

I quickly learned my first lesson of genetic genealogy: DNA doesn't lie.

In an instant, I discovered my biological patrilineal surname was Kirk.

Patriarch Guards Brick Wall in Ohio

With a hard-earned appreciation for genetic genealogy, I was careful not to make any assumptions about my new paternal ancestry. In other words, I didn't hop a jet to Scotland, buy myself a kilt, or enroll in bagpipe lessons. Although Kirk clearly seemed Scottish, I was cautiously discerning in my ancestral origins research.

Instead, I carefully traced my newfound paternal line back several generations, studiously pairing the paper trail with DNA tests. I left nothing to chance or assumption - the results of the lab and archives reinforced each other. Every preceding generation was confirmed in blood (okay, not really blood, but saliva or cheek swab sample doesn't hit the same dramatic note). Suffice it to say, there was an abundance of autosomal and Y-DNA testing involved.

Ultimately, the pedigree ground to a halt at a man named Thomas Kirk - my fifth great-grandfather. Thomas was born in 1778 in Virginia (most likely) and died in 1846 in Licking County, Ohio, where he lived much of his life.

Who were Thomas' parents and what were their ancestral origins?

Damaged and heartbreaking records loss have foiled efforts to move beyond Thomas. Ohio census records before 1820 are non-existent. An 1875 fire in the Licking County courthouse destroyed many probate records, including the bulk of Thomas' file. There is no known family bible. County tax and property records are interesting, but do not include any obvious smoking gun.

The paper trail is frustratingly sparse when it comes to the question of Thomas' parentage and ancestral origins. Except two curious bits of information.

A Census and Family Lore Pinpoint the Emerald Isle

In the 1870, 1880, and 1900 US Federal census enumerations, Thomas' children gave their father's birth location as US-based and, beginning in 1880, the majority specified Virginia.

However, in 1880, his daughter Jane (Kirk) Tracy Bottenfield went rogue and indicated her father was born in Ireland (contradicting her US-born response in 1870).

What should I make of her response? Was Thomas of Irish descent?

Perhaps Jane's Ireland response hints at her father's ancestral origins and not necessarily his actual birth location. As author and family historian Barry McCain noted, "Scots-Irish in Colonial America ... often described their ethnicity as simply Irish."

Dovetailing nicely with Jane's answer, is a second fragile clue regarding Thomas' ancestral origins. It comes from a snippet of family lore. A third great-grandson of Thomas shared with me his family's understanding of our Kirk history:

"I was told the following: The family originated in Ireland. 4 or 5 brothers left in the potato famine for Scotland. They changed their name to Kirk (very common name) and emigrated to America. I have no dates for any of this. 3 or 4 landed in Ohio near what is now Cincinnati."

A lot of history was packed into those few short sentences.

We know Thomas was in the US well before Ireland's Great Famine (1845-1852). Records show he paid taxes in Fairfield County (the predecessor to Licking County) as early as 1806, and purchased land in Licking County in January 1812.

Perhaps, if there was any truth to the lore, the "4 or 5 brothers" leaving Ireland during a potato famine for Scotland were Thomas' father and uncles (or even grandfather and great-uncles) and the famine was an earlier event - maybe the Irish Famine (1740-1741) known in Ireland as Bliain an Áir, the year of slaughter.

Most curious to me was that the family purportedly changed their Irish surname to Kirk.

I began to wonder what role there was for DNA in helping me leapfrog beyond Thomas Kirk and his Ohio brick wall. Could genetic genealogy help me find my ancestral homeland in the Emerald Isle?

Y-DNA Recreates Thomas Kirk

Thomas Kirk had seven sons who lived to adulthood and had children of their own. Fortuitously, there are living direct male descendants of each of these seven sons.

After a great deal of sleuthing, I tracked down seven of these men living in seven states. Each were distant cousins who were third and fourth great-grandsons of Thomas Kirk. Committed to uncovering our shared ancestral origins, they all agreed to complete a Y-DNA test.

The Y-DNA (111 Short Tandem Repeat) results of the seven men allowed us to control for genetic mutations - a naturally occurring phenomenon - and identify Thomas' likely original Y-DNA markers.

Having essentially pinpointed Thomas' original genetic signature, we could now confidently search for other men who matched him in the hopes of identifying new family members - perhaps even in Ireland.

Something Kind of Quirky

Thomas' recreated Y-DNA results did indeed identify two close genetic matches.

The first high-level match was to a man who shared the Kirk surname. But this man was not a direct descendant of Thomas Kirk (1778-1846).

Instead, he was, I believe, the descendant of a man named Vachel Kirk (1783-1836) who lived in Fairfield, a city in Ohio that stretches across both Butler and Hamilton counties. Fairfield is about 20 miles north of Cincinnati.

Yes, Y-DNA testing found a Kirk cousin who descended from a Kirk, a contemporary of my Thomas, who lived near Cincinnati - the city identified in the family lore.

Suddenly the family lore was earning its spot in the library's non-fiction catalog. The alleged Ireland origin increasingly seemed more plausible.

A second high-level Y-DNA match was to an American man with the surname Quirk. His ancestry traced back to a Thomas Quirk (1802-1882) who was born in Ireland's County Tipperary near Cashel. Thomas was the son of Michael and Catherine (Keating) Quirke, also of County Tipperary, Ireland.

If Quirk's genealogy paper trail was correct, this close genetic match may have helped my Kirk family pole vault over the Ohio brick wall and land in southern Ireland. 

High Level Y-DNA Testing

Both this Quirk match and two of Thomas Kirk's descendants completed Family Tree DNA's Big Y-500 test, which "tests thousands of known branch markers as well as millions of places where there may be new branch markers." The higher level Y-DNA test identified unique (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) markers shared by the Quirk and Kirk men. 

A Family Tree DNA group administrator who helped guide me through this process offered congratulations: "This is just what you were looking for. The results cement the relationship between your Kirks and the Quirks."

Another researcher noted that our shared haplogroup (what the International Society of Genetic Genealogy defines as a genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on the patriline), "is Southern Irish in origin." She added that it "is considered to be strongly the origin of the Eóganacht dynasty with great numbers of our members [other tested members of the group] in this sub-branch having Eóganacht surnames." 

I had to quickly brush up on my southern Irish history. According to Wikipedia, the Eóganacht was an Irish dynasty based near Cashel that ruled southern Ireland (now the province of Munster) from the 6th to the 10th centuries.

There was a hiccup in linking this geography and my family. Kirk is not a southern Irish surname. It is a Scots Anglo Norman surname. Is this where the name change comes into play as suggested in the family lore and Y-DNA results?

What's In A Name?

A third researcher weighed in: "O'Quirk, by the way, is a Munster (Eóganacht Cashel) name and a Munster origin of your family is highly likely."

I subsequently learned that O'Quirk is believed to be a derivative of the original Gaelic surname O'Cuirc.

Did the O'Quirks leave Ireland for Scotland, as the lore suggests, where their name was Anglicized to the phonetically similar Kirk? That doesn't seem too far fetched.

The Quirk family that is a genetic match to my Kirks may have protected the integrity of their surname by bypassing migration through Britain and heading straight for America. 

Whatever the circumstances, the Quirk (or Quirke) surname is still prevalent in southern Ireland, particularly around the Cashel area. Are these Quirkes distant genetic cousins and the roots of my Irish patrilineal heritage? 

A Path Forward

The journey is not over yet. I want to link my US-based genetic family (both Kirks and Quirks) with Quirkes in Ireland.

Accordingly, the next step is to identify male Quirkes in the Cashel area willing to participate in Y-DNA testing to help substantiate these research claims.

While all signs point to my Kirks having southern Irish origins and a DNA link with the Quirk surname, I need genetic proof to anchor the theories in the Emerald Isle. 

A Quirke male from Cashel, Ireland could play a pivotal role in confirming my ancestral origins, and bringing the evolution of my surname to its final conclusion - back to where it all began.

Y-DNA Raises Thomas Kirk From The Dead

The hunt for Thomas Kirk's (1778-1846) ancestral origins is a challenging journey.

Following his paper trail has been, at times, frustrating. Destroyed census enumerations for Ohio and Virginia, probate packets incinerated in courthouse infernos, and the spotty existence of 18th century records have created a perfect storm that shields Thomas' secrets from his modern-day descendants.

Despite these frustrations, the seemingly impenetrable brick wall occasionally yields small cracks that emit glimmers of sought-after insight if not outright answers (thank you tax and land records).

However, in examining only the documentary evidence, answers about my 5th great-grandfather's origins story remain elusive.

Fortunately, the science of DNA provides an alternate tool to bypass the records and peer back in time.

Answers Written In The Stars Double Helix
Who was Thomas Kirk's father and what was his ancestral extraction? Where was he from? Was he Scotch-Irish? Or just Irish? Or just Scots?

Could DNA, and specifically Y-DNA, help answer these questions?

As the chromosome responsible for making one a male, Y-DNA is passed - largely unchanged - from father to son for generations. This unchanging inheritance down the patriline is a powerful resource when researching paternal ancestry.

As a direct male descendant of Thomas Kirk, my Y-DNA should be very similar to his Y-DNA. Although he died 170 years ago, his paternal genetic markers still walk the earth.

With the western tradition of surnames passing down the paternal line of descent, Y-DNA has the potential to help us locate other men who have more of Thomas Kirk's family history.

Eliminating The Genetic Mutations
I could test my Y-DNA, but, on its own, would that be the most accurate representation of Thomas' Y-DNA? Occasionally, bits of the Y-DNA code - its individual numeric markers that make it unique to Thomas - may change during the inheritance process. Generally, we're not talking major changes, but enough to alter a marker or two from the values Thomas' Y-DNA originally contained.

With nearly two centuries and six men between me and Thomas, I wanted to take steps (just short of exhuming and testing his remains) that would provide the closest and clearest picture of his Y-DNA.

By expanding the group of test takers, it is possible to attempt to control for these mutations.

Thomas Kirk had seven sons who lived to adulthood and had sons of their own. By testing direct male descendants of each of his sons, we could identify the most common reoccurring values - the mode - for the group's Y-DNA markers.

The group's most prevalent markers (what's referred to as the "modal haplotype") are important, as genetic genealogist Maurice Gleeson noted, "because on the balance of probabilities, this is the genetic signature of our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA)." In this case, the group's MRCA was Thomas Kirk.

Finding and Testing The Men
I spent the past year tracing the descendants of each of Thomas' seven sons. Through months of focused genealogy and countless messages asking distant cousins to provide genetic samples for testing, we steadily built a Y-DNA Kinship Group.

This week, the Y-DNA Kinship Group was made whole. Results came back from the lab for descendants of Thomas' two remaining sons to be represented among the test takers. The group of distant cousins consists of third and fourth great-grandsons of Thomas Kirk who live in seven states across the U.S.

Descendants of each of Thomas' sons have now contributed to a more refined picture of his Y-DNA. Collectively, we have accomplished the first phase of our initiative:

• Locate and test direct male descendants of each of Thomas' seven sons.
• Identify the group's most frequently occurring Y-DNA markers (modal haplotype) to give us the closest understanding of Thomas' probable patrilineal DNA.

With this information in hand, we can now focus on our search for men who are genetic matches to this specific modal haplotype. 

Will we locate Kirk matches in the U.S. who have secreted away hidden pieces of the paper trail (I'm rooting for a family Bible)? Or will we find Kirk matches in a small Irish village where the family has lived for centuries always wondering what happened to their rogue relatives who set out for the New World? 

Only time, dogged determination, and DNA will tell.

---

For a more thorough overview of Y-DNA that I admittedly glossed over in this blog, I recommend reviewing the ISOGG Wiki.

What's In A Name: DNA & Naming Customs

Who was Thomas Kirk's father? A burned county courthouse, destroyed census enumerations, and lost family lore have complicated the question. Understandably, all research options are on the table as I try to uncover my fifth great-grandfather's ancestral origins.

Born in 1778 in - most likely - Virginia, Thomas settled in Licking County, Ohio where he died in 1846. Most genealogies conclude that Thomas married Sarah Louise Bonar in about 1804. Together they had at least twelve children of whom ten survived to adulthood. The eldest child was their son Vachel (my fourth great-grandfather) who was born in approximately 1805.

What can Vachel Kirk tell me about his paternal grandfather?

Traditional Naming Customs
If the Kirk family followed traditional Scottish or even Irish naming patterns, the first son was named after the father's father. Was Thomas a man of tradition? Did he name his son Vachel after his own father?

A clue to Thomas' inclinations can be found by using his eldest daughter Jane Kirk as an example. Naming customs typically stipulated that the eldest daughter be named after the mother's mother. We know that Sarah (Bonar) Kirk's mother's name was Jane (McCulloch) Bonar. It seems - at least in the case of his daughter - Thomas did stick to tradition.

Vachel certainly was an unusual name. How many could be out there? Surely I could locate them all and quickly discern whether there was any family connection to my Thomas.

Broad name research is complicated in the early 19th century census records. Only heads of household were enumerated before 1850, eliminating any Vachels who were still living with their parents. Also, many states' census records were lost, including Virginia's 1790 enumeration (this is of particular concern since some of Thomas' children indicated on later censuses that he was born in Virginia).

Ultimately, I found two other Vachel Kirks, both in Ohio, who were near contemporaries of my Thomas Kirk, although not old enough to be his father. Given the shared unusual name and location, they required further scrutiny.

Vachel Kirk from Fayette Co, PA buys
land in Knox Co, OH in November 1809.

Will Vachel Kirk Please Stand Up
Vachel Kirk #1 was born in June 1783 in Pennsylvania and died April 6, 1836 in Butler County, Ohio. His death and approximate birth dates come from his headstone. His birth location was reported by his daughter Nancy on the 1880 census.

This Vachel Kirk would have been five years younger than my Thomas Kirk. Obviously this wasn't a father son relationship. However, it's possible that they were siblings or cousins.

A Vachel Kirk was enumerated in Fayette County, Pennsylvania in the 1810 census. The eldest male enumerated in that census was between the ages of 26 and 44. If Vachel was born in 1783 he would have been 27 in 1810 and would have fit this broad age range.

In November 1809, a Vachel Kirk from Fayette County, Pennsylvania bought land in Knox County, Ohio for $100. Knox County borders Licking County to the south. This land purchase put Vachel Kirk #1 within proximity of my Thomas Kirk.

Vachel Kirk #2 is a murkier fellow. He was perhaps born in the late 1790s or early 1800s in Virginia or Ohio. There were minor discrepancies between the census records. The one common fact that helped pinpoint him was his spouse, Susanna Allstaff, and children.

This Vachel Kirk married Susanna Allstaff on December 1, 1825 in Belmont County, Ohio. To-date, his last documented appearance that I've uncovered was in the 1870 census. He was living with his wife and daughter Sarah in Clay Township, Hendricks County, Indiana. I haven't discovered a grave or other evidence of when or where he died.

Following the Genetic Code
When the paper trail doesn't cooperate, I advocate turning to the genetic code. Underscoring the value of investigating people of shared unusual family names, I've just identified a genetic link between descendants of Thomas Kirk and both of the above-mentioned Vachel Kirks. However, I still haven't determined our shared common ancestor.

I mapped out a direct male descendant of Vachel Kirk #1. He agreed to take a Y-DNA test. The results - at 37 markers - came back as a match with a genetic distance of two. Family Tree DNA estimates that, at this level, there's more than an 88% chance that we share a common ancestor within the past eight generations.

If Vachel #1 was a sibling to my Thomas Kirk, that means the common ancestor - their father - would be eight generations ago. I'm hopeful we can upgrade this Y-DNA test to include more markers and yield more refined estimates.

Meanwhile, from a different lab, a first cousin twice removed on my Kirk line recently had a new 5th to 8th cousin match appear on Ancestry. This matching cousin is a descendant of (drum roll please...) Vachel Kirk #2.

This match estimate suggests that their shared ancestor was in the range of a 4th to 7th great-grandparent. In their case, the fourth great-grandparent level begins with Thomas Kirk's parents.

It seems highly unlikely that Thomas Kirk's parents would have named two sons Vachel Kirk who both lived to adulthood, so I currently hypothesize - based largely on birth year - that one of them was a sibling to Thomas (Vachel #1) and the other was a cousin or nephew (Vachel #2). Of course, there's much more research required to confirm these theories.

I'm excited to identify new Kirk family members who were contemporaries to my Thomas Kirk. It creates new research avenues to pursue. If the records are snuffed out on Thomas' line, perhaps results for the two Vachel Kirks will help shed light on our shared paternal ancestral origins.

A Birthday of Genealogy Serendipity

The Author's Maternal Grandmother

This was a week of milestones. Sunday was the two year anniversary of my maternal grandmother's passing. Thursday was my birthday.

While I'm not one to usually look for signs from above, it seemed like more than just a coincidence when the bill for my birthday breakfast came back matching the last two digits of each of our birth years: hers the dollars and mine the cents.

The chance pairing of those numbers stuck in my head and set the tone for the rest of my birthday.

A DNA Research Project
Readers of this blog know that I am researching my 5th great-grandfather Thomas Kirk. He represents a brick wall for my paternal line. I want to learn the identities of his parents and their ancestral origins. Given the spotty 18th century paper trail, I've turned to genetic genealogy.

Thomas had a large family with at least twelve children. Seven of his children were sons who lived to adulthood and had sons of their own. To accurately recreate Thomas' Y-DNA, I've been searching for male descendants of each of his seven sons.

After months of research and outreach, four men - descendants of four of his seven sons - agreed to participate in the Y-DNA initiative and tested. However, I still wanted to find male testers descending from the remaining three sons. I had feelers out to several men.

Genealogy Serendipity
Stopping by the mailbox on my birthday, I saw there was a letter from a gentleman who was a descendant of one of those three remaining sons. He's not online and doesn't have an email address, so we've been corresponding about our shared Kirk ancestry through letters.

I ripped open the envelope and pulled out his note: "Yes I would be willing to do a DNA test."

I was ecstatic! Testing another descendant of one of Thomas' sons was a fantastic birthday present. I quickly loaded up the DNA website and ordered his kit. Five sons tested only two sons to go.

When I logged into my own account, I saw that I had a new Y-DNA match. The match's surname was Kirk. I quickly recognized that the first name belonged to a gentleman I spoke with this past winter about testing. Months of radio silence later, here I was staring at another genetic match and, best of all, the descendant of one of the two remaining sons.

Chart of Y-DNA-tested descendants of Thomas Kirk's sons. 

What were the odds that two more men - much sought-after descendants of two of Thomas' sons - would both contribute to the Y-DNA research project on the same day? And my birthday to boot! It felt rather serendipitous. As a genealogist, I couldn't ask for a better gift, and I can't help but wonder if my grandmother had a hand in it.

My focus is now on Thomas' last remaining son. William Kirk, you're next!