WEST Surname y-DNA Family Reunion

 

FamilyTreeDNA

West Surname y-DNA Project

Family Reunion

St. Louis. MO

2013

 

 

Becky & I attended this year's y-DNA reunion.  We are Group # 5 in the West Surname Project at FamilyTreeDNA (known as the leader with the largest database of participants). We now have Y-DNA results for 310 WEST-surnamed males, identifying 113 unrelated WEST lines. We are a very diverse genetic group. Our surname was adopted many times by people in different locations. As more WESTs participate in the project, the benefit to all WEST researchers increases. We have 39 unrelated groups.  West is a somewhat common name.  We have learned that odds are not in our favor that we are related when we meet someone new by the name of WEST.

We stayed at the Renaissance Airport Hotel.  We were welcomed and honored by the city of St. Louis with a plaque, special cake, flowers and a very nice reception in the city hall.  Our reunion was covered on TV and in the newspapers.  We were treated as celebrities and everyone we met knew we were in town.  You would think we were some kind of very large International Convention.  There were about 20 or so of us.  We are a "colorful" and interesting family as we were described.  We all had a great time and discussed a lot of genealogy!

- submitted by JGWest

Family Reunions and y-DNA

Going to St. Louis this month.

My WEST Family Surname Group # 5 will hold their annual family reunion this year in St. Louis.  Those in attendance will be related to each other proven by matches in their y-DNA.  Many of us have found the documentation of records to confirm the y-DNA results.  In many cases it was the y-DNA that confirmed the documentation.

Our group used FamilyTreeDNA for our testing... Group #5 is still the largest of 39 groups of West families with 19 individuals.  Below is a table of the current status of the West Surname Project.

Number of Y-DNA participants	339
Test kits returned	311
Y-DNA results posted to web page	310
Number of Family groups identified by DNA	39

We now have Y-DNA results for 310 WEST-surname males, identifying 113 unrelated WEST lines. We are a very diverse genetic group. Our surname was adopted many times by people in different locations. As more WEST's participate in the project, the benefit to all WEST researchers increases. 

With so many West families being unrelated, it makes it more difficult to find cousins and very hard to find ancestors.  There are many tools to help us in our research... the more we can use the better chances we will have to break down "brick walls" and to find new cousins to help us research records in courthouses and libraries.  We have been able to resolve many long standing questions for researchers in our line of the West's and we are beginning to coordinate and focus our research more to solve other mysteries concerning our family history.

Our West family reunion is a great opportunity to get together in person and discuss approaches to zero in on issues that we can attack at different levels & directions.

If you have not yet tried DNA testing, check it out... you may be very much surprised at what you might learn.  Long-time TSGS member Chris Myers just recently took a y-DNA test.  Let us all wish him success in what he might learn!

- Compiled by JGWest (AKA: Nate Flynn, the Librarian)

A LONG Family Reunion - 1988

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[I promised to edit the list of those who attended this reunion if anyone could add to it... thanks to Clint Hadden, Lori Hanes & Ron Emory, we have a number of additional names! - JGW]

Yesterday, was my 65th. Birthday!
I am glad to have made it this far in my journey and I hope to travel a while longer. I hope to enjoy many more adventures along the way!!! For a birthday present, I am posting a photo of the 1988 LONG Family Reunion. You will need to click on this photo to see it a little better.

Right in the middle of this photo with his hands in his pockets wearing a white knit shirt is Mom's brother & my Uncle Norman Long. To the left of him [looking at the photo] in all white is Doris Helen Long who married Frank Stepp... she is Mom's & Uncle Norman's first cousin. Their fathers were brothers - Doris' dad was John Logan Long while Mom & Uncle Norman's father was Byron Allen Long.

To find Mom is a little tricky, but I can use Doris Helen's grandson to help locate her (he was named after Doris' uncle Byron Long). Byron Wallace is the boy knelling to the left of the little boy with the stripped shirt & baseball bat. Looking up of him is a lady with a pink shirt & to her left is Carol Sue [Stepp] Wallace (Byron's mother & Doris Helen's daughter!) wearing a white shirt. Just between these two ladies wearing glasses is my mother Bernadine Long who married Gaither Glennis West (my Dad). Right behind Mom (slightly to the right & in direct line with young Byron Wallace and the lady in pink is my younger brother Donald Gene West. I did not get to go to this reunion... Mom said that Uncle Norman had a great time. It was his only time to attend and he died in May of the next year.

Here is a list of many of those who attended: Don West, Bernadine West, Norman Long, Carol Sue Stepp Wallace, Byron Wallace, Alicia Stafford, Rusty Wallace, Connie Stafford, Betty Blandford, Bradley Hart, Stephanie Weeks, Traci Smith, Andrea Bailey, Dianne Elpers, Brandon Justus, Doris Jean Hanes, Lori Hanes, Joyce Bercegeay, Gail Bailey, Kevin Hanes, Rebecca Diane Stepp Hadden, Alice Marue Barker, Lora Rebecca Justus, Beverly Jones, Michael Jones, Darlene Beyke, Doris Long Stepp, Mary Jane Strehl, Ronnie. Added these names to the list on 03 March 2012: Rebecca Decker, Daniel Cutteridge, Clint Hadden, Mike Jones, Stan Bailey, Lisa Justus Emory, Ron Emory, Eric Elpers, Frank Ryan Hadden, Paul Jason Hadden, Rebecca Hadden. There are still others not named, if any of the Long family can identify others, I can edit the list and add their names!

- Compiled by JGWest