GRAVES FAMILY BULLETIN

A Free, Occasional, Online Summary of Items of Interest to Descendants of all Families of Graves, Greaves, Grieves, Grave, and other spelling variations Worldwide

Vol. 5, No. 3, March 22, 2002

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Visit the GFA web site at http://www.gravesfa.org

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CONTENTS:

**Keeping in Contact

**John Graves of Concord, MA Book

**DNA Analysis Project

**More Participants Needed for the DNA Study

**Financial Help Still Needed for DNA Project

**To Submit Material to this Bulletin & Other Things

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KEEPING IN CONTACT

Every time I send one of these bulletins I receive many automatic responses of e-mail addresses that are no longer valid. In many cases that means that I have lost all contact with the person who had that address, since some people have not sent me their postal mailing (snail mail) addresses. At the least, it means you will no longer get the latest news about the Graves/Greaves family happenings. Since I keep track of everyone who has corresponded with me, including their ancestry, and continue to try to find connections for all parts of the families, I have had many experiences of finding an ancestor for someone long after they first contacted me but not being able to contact them to let them know.

To maintain contact and assure that you hear of new discoveries, you should do the following things.

**Notify me of any change in your e-mail address.

**Send me you postal mailing address if you think I may not already have it, and notify me of any change in it.

**Consider getting a permanent e-mail address. There are a variety of ways to do this, including getting your own domain name and getting a forwarding address.

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JOHN GRAVES OF CONCORD, MA BOOK

The John Graves of Concord, MA book has been received by me from the printer. Some of you may already have received the book, and all copies that have been ordered have already been shipped.

Additional books are available and can still be ordered at $75 including shipping (some additional charge for shipping out of the U.S.).

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DNA ANALYSIS PROJECT

OVERALL:

Some of you have mentioned difficulty in figuring out what your DNA test results mean. I can certainly understand that, since I am continuing to struggle with how to interpret some of the results. In general, the approach is to first look at the master results table on the GFA website and see where your sample falls. If the sample matches another sample 12 of 12 (for the first 12 markers) or 11 of 12, it can be considered a match. If it is within a colored group or within 2 mutations (a 10 of 12 match), it probably is descended from the main family in the group or at least has a common ancestor. If the above conditions are not met, then there are probably no other samples with common ancestry in the study, although matching samples may be added in the future.

We have received a few more test results from our testing lab, Family Tree DNA. A total of 87 samples have now been analyzed and the results posted on the website. In addition to these results for the basic 12 markers, we have also now received results for the additional 9 markers (total of 21 markers) for 57 samples. We also now have a total of 120 participants. The additional 9 markers have made it possible to separate some branches of families more precisely, but they have not had any separating effect on the largest group of testing results that includes John Graves of Concord, MA (gen. 166).

To look at the results summary and the preliminary conclusions, you can go to the website at http://www.gravesfa.org and click on the DNA link at the top of the page. Or you can go directly to that specific page at http://www.gravesfa.org/DNA_test_results.html. To look at the chart page that attempts to show the probable connections between the various Graves/Greaves families for which we presently have results, either click on the link from the main page of the website or go directly to http://www.gravesfa.org/DNA_charts.pdf. (If you cannot read this because you don’t have the Adobe Acrobat reader on your computer, follow the instructions on the website.) You will be able to easily see which lines of some of the major U.S. families have participants and which ones still need testing.

INTERPRETATION OF GEN. 166/247 GROUP RESULTS:

It may be that for some unknown reason the large group (the blue group that includes gen. 166 in the master results table) had fewer mutations in their DNA than some other groups. A more likely possibility is that these families are more closely related than was previously believed. Perhaps all the families in this large group of identical results are actually descended from John Graves of Concord (gen. 166). If that is true, then John Greaves of St. Mary’s Co., MD (gen. 247) would have been a grandson of John Graves of Concord (that is, he would have been of the third generation in that genealogy). There is the likelihood that there are untraced lines from John Graves of Concord, including a possible son Abraham and at least one grandson John (son of John). If we find that John Greaves of St. Mary’s Co., MD was a son of William Greaves of Greenhill, Norton, South Yorkshire, England (as believed), then perhaps William was an older son of John Graves of Concord, or at least William’s father was a brother of John of Concord. While this kind of speculation does not yet give us answers, it certainly does provide many leads for research. To find the ancestry of all the families of this group, we need to research the family of William Greaves of Greenhill (gen. 336) and that of Rear Adm. Thomas Graves of Charlestown, MA (gen. 28 and 28A).

INTERPRETATION OF GEN. 169 RESULTS:

The DNA results from the descendants of Capt. Thomas Graves of VA (gen. 169) have shown much more variation than those of John Graves of Concord, MA. We do not yet know why. I believe that all the families in the large red group in the master table are closely related, and that the families in the smaller light blue group are also closely related, but I am not yet positive that all the reported descendants of Capt. Thomas Graves really belong in gen. 169. All the gen. 169 results in the light blue group are descended from Capt. Thomas Graves’ grandson Ralph, so it is very possible that there have been 2 mutations in the 22 generations separating the descendants of grandson Ralph Graves and the descendants of Ralph’s brother Thomas (11 generations in each line gives a total of 22). On the other hand, the results for the descendants of Ralph are more like those of the descendants of gen. 168 (Thomas Graves of Hartford, CT) and gen. 65 (George Graves of Hartford, CT) than they are like those in the red group.

For the Capt. Thomas Graves genealogy, it is becoming increasingly clear that the results that ended up in the large blue group with the John Graves of Concord results are not descended from Capt. Thomas Graves. In all cases, analysis of the documented records has shown either serious questions or a strong likelihood that those branches are connected with the John Graves of Concord, MA and the John Greaves of St. Mary’s Co., MD families. When we get results for more of the branches of the Capt. Thomas Graves family, it will be possible to make more definite statements.

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MORE PARTICIPANTS NEEDED FOR THE DNA STUDY

If you have not yet returned your DNA samples, PLEASE do so as soon as possible.

For the major North American families that have been tested, additional branches need to be included, and some with unexpected results need to be verified. These include Capt. Thomas Graves of VA, Thomas Graves of Hartford, CT, John Graves of Concord, MA, John Greaves of St. Mary’s Co., MD, Rear Adm. Thomas Graves, Samuel Graves of Lynn, MA, George Graves of Hartford, CT, the Quaker family of Thomas Graves of New Castle Co., DE, and John Graves of Frederick Co., VA. Take a look at the charts on the new website page mentioned above to see which branches are already included.

At least as important are the other families that still need to be included in the study. There is a list of families participating in the DNA study on the GFA website. There is also a list of some of the families that we would like to see added to the list. Even if you can’t participate yourself (for instance, because you are a female or not descended through an all-male line), we still need your help. Maybe you can help sponsor or encourage a male descendant. Remember, because of the requirements of the Y-DNA test, participants must be males with the Graves/Greaves/etc. surname. Cost for the basic test is $199 and the supplemental test is $49 (for a total of $248 if you get both). Don’t let the cost keep you from participating (some or all of the cost may be paid for you). Families needed include:

**Graves Family of Yorkshire and Mickleton Manor, Gloucestershire, England (68)

**Greaves Family of Beeley, Derbyshire, England (228)

**George Graves of Plaistow, England (64)

**Other families of the British Isles, especially including families of Grieve, Grieves, Greve, and other spellings

**Graves families of Netherlands, France and elsewhere

**John Graves (Johann Sebastian Graff) of PA, NC & TN (105)

**Joseph Graves and Rachel Pratt of Framingham, MA (133)

**Richard Graves and Polly Lucy of SC & AR (189)

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FINANCIAL HELP STILL NEEDED FOR DNA PROJECT

All contributions toward the DNA study will be much appreciated. Many thanks to those of you who have already contributed. We especially need funding for testing of descendants in the British Isles, some of whom will probably be less apt to pay the cost. You may also want to consider sponsoring a relative as a way to get a test for your part of the family.

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ABOUT THIS BULLETIN:

This bulletin is written and edited by Kenneth V. Graves, ken.graves@gravesfa.org. Ken Graves is also editor of the Graves Family Newsletter, the official publication of the Graves Family Association. This bulletin will contain announcements and news of special interest to Graves descendants with Internet access. It will not contain queries, genealogies, photos, and the kind of in-depth articles that appear in the Graves Family Newsletter.

TO SUBMIT MATERIAL TO THIS BULLETIN:

Send any material you would like to have included in this bulletin to ken.graves@gravesfa.org. The editor reserves the right to accept, edit or reject any material submitted.

TO JOIN THE GRAVES FAMILY ASSOCIATION:

If you do not already belong to the GFA, you can join by sending $20 per year (for U.S. & Canada) or $30 per year (for all other countries) to Graves Family Association, 20 Binney Circle, Wrentham, MA 02093 (more details on GFA website). Note that membership is for a calendar year so if you join late in the year be sure to specify which year dues are for. Benefits include 6 issues of the newsletter, membership directory, and help with learning more about your Graves/Greaves family. The purpose of the GFA is to bring together as many descendants as possible to work toward learning more about the Graves/Greaves families, to help other descendants, and to instill pride in our ancestry.

COPYRIGHTS:

Although the contents of this bulletin are copyrighted by the Graves Family Association and Kenneth V. Graves, you are hereby granted rights, unless otherwise specified, to re-distribute articles to other parties for non-commercial purposes only. Do not re-distribute the newsletter in its entirety.

TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE TO THIS BULLETIN:

To subscribe to this bulletin, send an e-mail message to ken.graves@gravesfa.org. Please include your full name. Your postal mailing address and information on your Graves/Greaves ancestry would also be appreciated, although not essential.

To remove your name from this subscription list, send an e-mail message to ken.graves@gravesfa.org asking to be removed.