Recently, a fourth cousin agreed to a yDNA test. The preliminary results show that he is a closer match to a descendant to one of the ‘other’ James Crawford lines that I’ve had to ‘untangle’ than to my brothers. At 111 markers, there is a genetic distance of 4 between this cousin and the descendant of James and Rebecca (Anderson) Crawford. There is a genetic distance of 6 between this cousin and a descendant of James and Martha (Knight) Crawford. Both of my btothers also are a genetic distance of 6 from this cousin.
I find these results exciting and possibly disturbing. Since the BigY results aren’t back yet, we don’t know how this will affect the haplogroups. Currently, the descendants of the two other James Crawford lines are in a haplogroup (R-Y88686) and my brothers are in their own haplogroup (R-FT99108).
Thus, these results could
- support a biological relationship between the three James Crawford lines that all go back to Garrard County, KY
- suggest a non-parental event
- suggest that our paper research is faulty and this cousin is not actually my fourth cousin
While I can’t prove/disprove a non-parental event from the 1860s, I can work on the paper trail. Since I have records tying James Crawford to Nelson G. Crawford of Warren County, Indiana, I’m working on improving the documentation for Nelson’s son William and his grandson William Clay Crawford.
William Clay Crawford was born in January 1861 after the death of William C. Crawford in November 1860. The probate records for William C. Crawford tie William to Nelson Crawford and Nelson’s oldest son, James H. Crawford. Since I don’t have any guardian records for William Clay Crawford in my files, I have contacted the county to request a copy of any existing records.
I’m also searching for William Clay Crawford in other records to hopefully find ties to his Crawford relatives. The 1870 census shows 9 year old Wm C Crawford in a Bell household along with his mother, Mary E (Bell) Crawford.
Since I haven’t found William Clay Crawford in Warren County, Indiana on the 1880 census, I’ve been trying to find him with other family members or in Adair county, Missouri where he was married in 1886.
A search of the 1880 Adair County, Missouri census for the surname Crawford turns up 54 people with two of them born in Indiana. Unfortunately, none of them are William Clay Crawford. Hoping that one of these 54 people is related to my Warren County, Indiana Crawford families, I decided to see whether I already had anyone with the Crawford surname with a tie to Adair County.
To do this, I created a group in my RootsMagic file. Basically, I had RootsMagic search my file for any fact that had a place containing ‘Adair, Missouri’.
This search turned up several people in my file with the surname CRAWFORD. One of those was Lucinda Crawford who was born in 1869 in Adair County, Missouri. The 1880 census search includes a Lucinda Crawford.
That’s where the coincidence comes in. This family on the 1880 census for Samuel and Emma Crawford is for the grandson of Edward and Abigail (Trowbridge) Crawford. Thus, this family connects to the yDNA line with haplogroup R-FT344803.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found William Clay Crawford on the 1880 census in Adair county. And I’m still not sure what caused him to move from Warren county, Indiana to Adair county, Missouri.
I also have not been able to find any connection between the Edward Crawford of Tennessee line and any of the James Crawford lines of Garrard County, Kentucky. Thus, it is currently just a coincidence that a descendant of Edward Crawford is living in the same area that a descendant of James and Sally (Duggins) gets married in.