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)

From the First Mate's Photo Album

Five guys take same photo for 30 years...

every 5 years the next group photo is repeated and hung on the cabin wall at Copco Lake!

By Kelly Andersen, Special to CNN

updated 6:37 AM EDT, Fri July 27, 2012 

 Original photo in 1982

 1987

 1992

 1997

 2002

 2007

2012

(CNN) -- When five teenagers sat down and posed for a picture at Copco Lake in 1982, they didn't plan on making it a tradition. But that's what it became.  Every five years for the past three decades, John Wardlaw, John Dickson, Mark Rumer, Dallas Burney and John Molony have been meeting at the California lake and taking the same photo.  The first photograph of the high school friends was just happenstance. Wardlaw, known as Wedge in the group, had a family cabin at the lake where the friends gathered in July 1982.  [See the rest of this story @ http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/26/travel/friends-summer-photo-tradition/index.html]

These 5 friends have such a cool tradition!  The Abram West family of Amo (Hendricks County), Indiana started a family reunion in 1900 and continued every year until 2000 plus a few more years... the reunions lasted for over 100 years.  Abram West was the grandson of Ignatius West of Chatham Co., NC (the brother of my ancestor Thomas West, Jr. who brought his family to Christian Co., KY.  Abram's father, William West died in Christian Co, KY in 1812.). 

Do any of you have neat traditions that you would like to share with the followers of this blog?

- Compiled by JGWest

"Shirt-Tail Kin"

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Shirt-Tail Kin?

What in the world is "shirt-tail kin?" I "Googled" this term to see what I might learn about it. If your family had close friends for many years & especially over a couple generations, these friends might be dubbed as shirt-tail kin. Maybe it is a distant relative like a fifth or sixth cousin... you just barely know that they are blood relatives. Another example would be those who married into your family (the "in-laws"). We have heard of cousins that were "once-removed" or even "twice-removed" -- these would possibly qualify as shirt-tail cousins.

Speaking of these "removed" cousins, just exactly why were they removed and removed from what? I remember someone telling me about a fourth cousin three times removed! People get removed from voter lists, church rolls, honor groups or the team; but, what are we talking about when we say a "fourth cousin three times removed?" To explain this we have to go back to a common progenitor (the person two people share as the closest related ancestor). Lets use my third great grandfather, Charles H. West who was born in 1775 Chatham County, North Carolina and died in 1845 Christian County, Kentucky. He had at least five sons and several daughters. Two sons were Jesse West (my second great grandfather) & a William Ellis West. Charles H. West is in the first generation in this example with the sons in the second generation as siblings (brothers, in this case). Jesse West named a son William Ellis West after Jesse's brother (the younger William's uncle). Jesse's brother, the "Uncle" William, had a son, James Harlan West. Now, this William Ellis West, the younger and James Harlan West are in the same generation (the third) from Charles H. West and they are first cousins to one another. William Ellis West (the younger) and James Harlan West had sons: John William West & James H. W. West, respectively... that make up the fourth generation from Charles H. West and the two are second cousins with their children being third cousins. Ok, but how does the removed business work? Well, John William West & James Harlan West are in different generations from the common progenitor, Charles H. West. They would be one generation removed from each other. Making John William West & James Harlan West first cousins once removed, since John William's father William Ellis West & James Harlan West are first cousins.

Charles H. West (Common Progenitor)
[First Generation]
_____________________
Jesse West {Brothers} William Ellis West
[Second Generation]
William Ellis West {1st. Cousins} James Harlan West
[Third Generation]
John William West {2nd. Cousins} James H. W. West
[Fourth Generation]
James Harlan West & John William West are 1st. Cousins, Once Removed
We use the closest "cousinship" to the common progenitor... in this case First Cousin.

Hope this makes sense!
- Submitted by JGWest

From the FIRST MATE's PHOTO ALBUM...

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1966 Polaroid Photos!
I found these old "Swinger" Polaroid B&W photos in a little tin index card file box as we were moving things into our new storage barn. This box was in my room in Mom & Dad's house on East Indiana Street. My last year in 4-H was 1966... we had moved from our "farm" in Warrick County between Heilman & Tennyson, Indiana close to the old Loafer Station crossroads to Boonville to graduate from BHS in 1965 (we are having 45th. Reunion this summer) and then to Evansville. Mom was so glad to get back to her beloved Evansville! The move to Indiana Street was close enough for me to walk over to Evansville College (now University of Evansville). I left the Loafer Station 4-H Club when we moved to Boonville and joined the Thorny Grove 4-H Club in Chandler, Indiana (still Warrick County). In 1966 I was President of the Thorny Grove club and very active in Warrick County 4-H. The little tin box held instructions on playing games and dances for the 4-H Recreation Project for the 1966 County Fair. I held a Kids Neighborhood Party at our house and had someone take these Polaroid shots (probably Mom). These Swinger Polaroid photos never were of very good quality, but were adequate. I am positive that it has been 43.5 years since I have seen these photos... I strongly suspect that the box was put back somewhere in my old room right after the fair not to be seen until this past Sunday!
My sister, Tina, & I demonstrating one of the dances for the party.

This photo was not taken during the party, it was taken at the Christmas home in Chandler with the block building being our meeting place. Here I am showing kids of the 4-H Club how to be really "goofy" while dancing. We had fun and that was what it was all about. Wow! Young, thin & energetic!

Back at the party at our house. In the foreground is Keith Gibson dancing with Faye Gibson from two doors down. Next facing us is my little brother Don dancing with Debbie Conover. Then you can barely see Tina and me. [See the old wooden garage behind us, lightening hit it one night & it quickly burned to the ground.]

Above is most of the kids that came to the party. In the back from left is my sister Tina, Faye Gibson, Me, Keith Gibson, Debbie Conover, my brother Don. Cheryl Conover, Clifford Gibson. Butch Conover next to Wanda Gibson.

- Photos submitted by JGWest