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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Gail Riddell on Friday 04 January 13 12:31 GMT (UK)
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I am new to this forum - I am from New Zealand. My domicile is irrelevant to my request but I am travelling to the UK in February and will be in Northumberland (Ashington, Woodhorn) in late February for research.
I am the administrator for the Riddell/Riddle Surname Project for a DNA firm titled Family Tree DNA (FTDNA). I have some 150 members from all over the globe and they have been working for months to raise the funds for me to offer free Y-DNA tests to Riddell/Riddle men who possess a pedigree back to around 1800.
Currently those members hail from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, North America, Scotland and England. But because I know that not all the RIDDELL (or Riddle or Ridley) families are represented in the project, I am pushing to recruit more members.
If you live in the UK and can provide me with a pedigree back to around 1800 (or earlier), you automatically will qualify if your surname is a derivation of Riddell or Riddle or Ridley or Ridel etc.
If this is you or if you (on this forum) know someone who might be interested, please contact me. The test consists of a cheek scraping - no blood - no hassle - no cost. In return you will have full participation in all the results of the project plus access to learning or advice or genealogy via me as the administrator.
I shall also be in Edinburgh and Melrose and will be issuing the same invitation. (It will be a race to see whether the funds are extinguished by the English or the Scots) :-)
Kind regards
Gail Riddell
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Hi - I am married to a Riddell, I have traced the family back to Thomas Riddell born 1793 in Ponteland Northumberland, am fairly certain if I could find Thomas's birth I'd eventually get the family back to Scotland. I'm not sure my husband would be willing to have a DNA test but I have two sons who would be..both in their 30's by the way, not small children! Just really wanted to wish you luck in your quest and if there was any info that could be shared that would be useful
Chris
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Welcome to rootschat Gail.
What an exciting project. Good luck with it. Um, I have some Ridleys somewhere in Northumberland ... :)
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Hi Chris,
I am uncertain if this is the correct procedure to follow when wishing to reply...
One of the advantages of Y-DNA testing is that although the results cannot give you the name of your ancestor, when compared to others and matches are found, the other person may have the name of the ancestor being sought. That is one of the purposes of 'Surname Projects' under the administration of someone like me.
Even if your husband is not interested, his biological sons will have the same Haplogroup and haplotype that he has, so either of them will qualify if you wish to take this further. While you are considering it, have a look at http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Riddle/
And as for the name, be aware we have people who arrived in New Zealand 150 years ago using RIDDELL as the surname and within 10 years it was being spelling RIDDLE. Equally similar are those who arrived with RIDDLE as the name but within 10 years was being spelled RIDDELL. I have one family in the project - some use RIDDLE and others use RIDDELL and they are all cousins. Pronunciation has played a part in this...
Kind regards
Gail
Hi - I am married to a Riddell, I have traced the family back to Thomas Riddell born 1793 in Ponteland Northumberland, am fairly certain if I could find Thomas's birth I'd eventually get the family back to Scotland. I'm not sure my husband would be willing to have a DNA test but I have two sons who would be..both in their 30's by the way, not small children! Just really wanted to wish you luck in your quest and if there was any info that could be shared that would be useful
Chris
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Hi
Thank you for your welcome note.
I have two unrelated RIDLEY men in the project, so if you can locate the males with that surname and they have a pedigree, then please contact me again.
Kind regards
Gail
Welcome to rootschat Gail.
What an exciting project. Good luck with it. Um, I have some Ridleys somewhere in Northumberland ... :)
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Hello Gail
What follows is peripheral to your project but may be of some interest. Apologies in advance if this is a waste of your time!
My paternal grandmother's sister, Gertrude Hill, Emigrated to NZ to marry a Riddell who was a sheep farmer in Dannevirke. According to the family ( always suspect), and my investigations, this was in 1908 sailing to Wellington. Mr Riddell appears to have been a man of some repute as his picture appeared in a national newspaper in England (the Daily Mirror).
I have found references to Riddells in Dannevirke both in the past and more recently. The website "Papers Past" has a copy of the Evening Post of 3 Sept 1917 (p.11) listing C.B. Riddell (Sheep Farmer, Dannevirke) among other recruits, I believe for WW1, in the Wairarapa District.
Gertrude's grandfather , William Hill, was born c. 1803 in Nottinghamshire and died 1877. His forebears on his mother's side (the Creech family) I have traced back to about 1700 in Dorchester.
Hope this is of some interest and the best of luck for the success of your project!
Regards MalcolmH
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Hi Malcolm
Delighted to have heard from you.
I have tracked down the grandson of C.B Riddell if this is of any interest to you.
If he tests for me, would you also be interested in doing same?
Kind regards
Gail
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Malcolm
I apologise but I have just re-read your email and find I need to withdraw my offer made to you because you are not a paternal Riddell and of course it was through your female relative that you have the connection. So disappointed! For both of us. In terms of proving via Y-DNA I mean.
But that does not mean I cannot put you and your Dannevirke cousin in contact if you both desire this... Let me know.
Gail
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Gail
Thanks for the reply and the offer to put me in touch with my distant cousins. However I have no evidence that I am related to C B Riddell. The only information I have is that my grandmother's sister married a Riddell from Dannevirke. It may or may not be the same family. If you do come across her descendants/ family I would be happy to be put in touch with them if, of course, they wish it.
Thanks once again
MalcolmH
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Hi Gail
Colin Riddell here, I am doing my DNA through ancestry now,my Riddells Glasgow,London NZ Omaru ,and Victoria Australia .
Cheers Colin
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Hi Colin,
Welcome to rootschat.
I’m afraid Gail hadn’t been on rootschat since 2013, but if she has the same email address she should be notified of your reply.
After you make a couple more posts you can contact her by Personal Message by clicking on her name.
Good luck.
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Many thanks cheers colin
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My cousin comes up as DNA match to people with surname Riddle
His closest match is someone in Texas who had Melanie Pritchard as birth mother weve worked out that John Pritchard Must be half brother to my
Cousins grandfather John William Dobson birth mother Harriet Dobson .
Both single mother were maids in
Yorkshire area and both named sons John which could mean it was his first name
The DNA match only had 1 English grandparent
The fact the he came fromYorkhire too
Cousin and I have 1 welsh gparent and 1 half Jewish so we knew connection could only be thru the Dobson side .
Harriet was also child of single mother .
So could be g g grandfather was a Riddle .
I've clustured & colour coded all Riddle connection
Some very small or unlinked trees but if you DNA match to BD please contact me
If you haven't DNA tested please see if you have locations Beverley.sculcoatd
There is a thread on here about Harriet s complicated family with all datea and location
can some kind person copy link I'm having fatfinger small screen problem .
Ps any photos of Riddles from Yorkshire or sculcoats appreciated for family likeness comparisons
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There are probably a great many legal repercussions -- so buyers beware.
There might be dreadful hidden traps.
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My Riddell line came from Scotland Glasgow area and then NZ then Australia I have just sent my DNA sample off the Ancestry and will see what it says . cheers Colin
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There are probably a great many legal repercussions -- so buyers beware.
There might be dreadful hidden traps.
Can you elaborate?
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I think a y DNA kit would certainly help my cousin and other males who have several single mothers in their lines
How / where / what company is best to purchase with ?.
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I think a y DNA kit would certainly help my cousin and other males who have several single mothers in their lines
How / where / what company is best to purchase with ?.
B
FTDNA is the best company for a yDNA test.
There are multiple versions which as the depth of the testing increases so does the price.
The 111 test is a good starter but the 37 will also provide results and any can be upgraded retrospectively.
I took their 111 yDNA test and the closest matches indicate the MRCA 6 generations away. Whilst this might seem quite a while it does give the surname that I was expecting to find.
If Haplogroup knowledge is important then the lesser test will only give a partial result, the Big 700 is needed to get the detail, i.e.mine is RM269 which is a common European one so not really worth knowing from a Genealogy perspective.
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I think a y DNA kit would certainly help my cousin and other males who have several single mothers in their lines
How / where / what company is best to purchase with ?.
B
FTDNA is the best company for a yDNA test.
There are multiple versions which as the depth of the testing increases so does the price.
The 111 test is a good starter but the 37 will also provide results and any can be upgraded retrospectively.
I took their 111 yDNA test and the closest matches indicate the MRCA 6 generations away. Whilst this might seem quite a while it does give the surname that I was expecting to find.
If Haplogroup knowledge is important then the lesser test will only give a partial result, the Big 700 is needed to get the detail, i.e.mine is RM269 which is a common European one so not really worth knowing from a Genealogy perspective.
Can I please ask why folks wish to know their exact haplogroup? What other specific useful information can be gleaned from knowing it? Thanks
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Thanks For your example Biggles
I don't understand the hapalog bit but if it can help identify surnames of great grandfather s father to single mother HD it could confirm distant matches and confirm or disprove current theory
But if it's males thru generations
It wouldn't help with the birth father of SD single mother to HD
What kind of cost would be involved.
Southsea if there is a single mother in the line the paternal surname is different to the testees given surname so it can help solve that kind of mystery regardless of a hapalog group
( Which to be honest I don't understand)
Looking at 1850s ggggfandfathr
3rd cousin matches so not really that far away
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Haplogroups in a nutshell:-
At the dawn of man/woman there became Tribe A
Over time the Tribe expanded and separated into Tribes AA, AB, AC
Over time these in turn separated such as AAA, AAB, AAC etc the same with Tribes AB, and AC who also expanded and separated.
As each Tribe expanded and genetic mutations occurred the DNA markers of these mutations can now be identified.
So a haplogroup “tree” would all go back to a common source ie mitochondrial Eve as she is called and yet the various branches and nodes on the tree each have their own specific Haplogroup reference.
Using haplogroups is how the remains of Richard III were identified.
Mapping the migration of a specific haplogroup is possible and said mapping shows where the group originated and where the subsequent “Tribe” separations took place and the migration route of the haplogroup of interest. So one has to be a real nerd not to mention have deep pockets to be able to afford the high cost of the test and have results that only a die hard really is interested in. I’m pretty sure I would be asleep standing up very quickly if someone started talking haplogroups at a party that I was at.
Hope that crude explanation helps.
Now yDNA is only passed Male to Male hence it is useful yet limited.
Conversely mtDNA is passed from Mother to all her children, it cannot be passed on by her Sons but her Daughters pass it on to her children.
Hence both these tests have limited usefulness in determining Parentage.
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Yes it does thanks, very much so. Excellent message. I have taken the 37 marker test and the results are pretty unremarkable with about half the matches having a similar name to mine and with a closest genetic distance of 2 which could be a very long time ago!! I believe it is pointless upgrading one's own analysis unless your matches of interest have also similarly upgraded to 67 or 111 etc markers. Unfortunately all my "close" matches have only tested 37 markers like myself so I will hang fire. They are however presumably waiting for me to upgrade mine before upgrading theirs!!!
I apparently belong to the very common West European R-M269 haplo group. Am interested to know what I would get after paying $319 for a Big 700 Y test apart from a lot more letters and numbers, albeit in a unique combination, to my haplo group. Cheers
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biggles how wonderfully you explain things
I hope i can persuade my cousin to take a Ytest he might like the idea of belonging to a tribe .
+ after all the hours i spend looking at his distant matches it would be good to obtain the likely surname
do they give indication of the Family name of the eldest patriarch in a group + your close + distant matches like ancestry or do you have to work out fromthe Hapalogue group
ie this post was originally about RIDDLE
but if his male line descends from HARRISON FARNSWORTH OR WORLEY woud the 111 test reveal that
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The results are presented merely as a list of names (no handles or nick names here) and they in theory should correspond to your own paternal name. Like I say, about half of mine are variations of my family name. It should be clear what name you belong to and there are named discussion groups you can join. You get all sorts of other haplo information, maps and the like but its all quite generic and certainly of no genealogical use, which I knew when I took the taste. That was the origin of my question - what would my $300 specific haplo group really tell me!! ftDNA is awful at answering that simple question
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The results are presented merely as a list of names (no handles or nick names here) and they in theory should correspond to your own paternal name. Like I say, about half of mine are variations of my family name. It should be clear what name you belong to and there are named discussion groups you can join. You get all sorts of other haplo information, maps and the like but its all quite generic and certainly of no genealogical use, which I knew when I took the taste. That was the origin of my question - what would my $300 specific haplo group really tell me!! ftDNA is awful at answering that simple question
Upgrading to Y700 would provide a better idea of when branches occurred.
I funded a test for one of my male relatives whose patrilineal lines leads back to Scotland. We're fortunate with this line that we have records back to the 1600s because they'd been granted land. According to these records the male line has been on the brink of extinction since the early 1700s when four sons were born. One brother died young before having children and two others had a daughter. The remaining son married and had several sons but two didn't have children and the other had daughters, leaving just the one son who was in his 40s and unmarried. He finally married and was the gtgt-grandfather of my tester. So, if the tree and records we have are correct anyone else matching on the line should be related from prior to 1700.
At the Y37 level there were 5 matches, 4 of whom with the same surname as the tester (just different spelling really). I was pretty excited about this so within a week purchased a Y700 upgrade, and a few months later one of the matches (in North America) were interested in doing the same, and one in Scandinavia (who descends from a soldier from Britain)
Dating is far more accurate with Y700 than Y37, and it shows the date of MRCA for the GD=2 match at Y37 is around 1650ish (give or take quite a lot) and for the GD=4 (different surname) it's around 1450.
This isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's been useful for the North Americans for pinpointing where their origins lie as they could only get back as far as a census record saying the ancestor was from Ireland. The one in Scandinavia has probably benefitted the most even if the connection is 600 years ago. My tester has gained less as we already had good information, but it has confirmed there has been no hanky panky up our line for 100s of years. I'm glad I paid for the upgrade, as it encouraged two of the closest matches to do the same. I have no doubt more matches will pop up who will further fill in the branching.
The other tester from another line paid for the test themselves, and we've found it very useful as there's a match whose MRCA is probably about 6 generations back (mid 1700s ish). Unfortunately he died several years ago (before my relative tested) but we've been able to connect with other members of the family and collaborate on our research. They're an exact Y37 match. Some other Y37s have the same surname - 2xGD=1 and GD=2. The GD=1 are from the same location as the tester's gt-grandfather. But most of the Y37 matches aren't very useful as Y37 doesn't separate the closer matches from the more distance ones as well as the higher level tests, which may explain your lack of enthusiasm for Y-DNA testing.
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Thanks for your example Hurworth
We " know there WAS some panky
So if I've understood correctly
the surname list could show the surnames of the unknown 2xgrandfather and his birth father
+ If people in USA are looking for their origins they could see the match + we could compare the paper trail + mutual matches .
There are clear DNA matches to a Kentucky group of people but no idea how they link to Yorkshire
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Hi brigidmac,
Autosomal testing is often better for finding an unknown father somewhere, but by the gtgt-grandfather level it gets harder to find the link. It works better if many descendants test.
If your cousin is a direct male descendant from this line (i.e. - going up his tree the unknown male is his father's father's father and so on) then it may be helpful.
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Thanks hurworth. That all makes sense. I think I will hang fire despite a ftDNA Upgrade Sale Offer coming through last night!! I have my Irish paternal line back to a specific house in 1830 (7 generations) confirmed by documentation as well as autosomal testing and Im pretty sure that is the absolute limit for documented ancestors on that lineage at least. Im just not seeing $300 worth of information suddenly becoming available with the Big Y test. Maybe things will change one way or another. Thanks again and apologies for somewhat hijacking this thread on more general named Y testing!!
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To wrap up my contribution to this thread.
For a few years I knew there was an NPE in my Paternal line but given the atDNA matches I could not resolve where that was.
I had a few different hypothesis and the problem was also exacerbated with there being a double whammy or rather a double set of gene transfers taking place, hence my Irish/Italian Avatar which relates to a double NPE.
One atDNA and a mass of Shared DNA matches all having a certain Surname in their past so the clue is there.
The yDNA test results have matches with that very same surname.
So positively YES, the yDNA test worked 100% for me.
My issue remains the tree from me to said Surname.
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I justified the upgrade as a Christmas present to myself! :D
And I guess it's a similar situation for the North American match - confirmed line back to a man born in North America around 1810s. Father's name not recorded anywhere they could find, and on a census the son had said his father was born in Ireland.
With the other match there wasn't any particular burning question. Turns out some of the Y37 GD=0's relatives are autosomal matches to some family members. Not many, and it was sheer luck that some people were at Gedmatch where it is easier to work with the info. This family had thought their earliest known ancestor had a Scottish forebear, but he must have been from the West Country.