Supplement to the HAM Country web site. A journal of genealogy articles related to the HAM, HAMM, HAMME, or HAMN surname. Includes some posts related to history, genealogy, DNA and genetics relevant to the HAM surname. Areas include United States, England, and France.
copyright 2008-2018 by Dave Hamm
Mr. Ham was featured playing the flute in the hit song "Down Under," and played the saxophone in "Who Can It be Now."
Friends said he hadn't been the same since 2010, when a court ruled against his signature flute riff from the song "Down Under." In 2010 Australia's Federal Court ruled band members partly copied the flute riff from the children's folk tune "Kookaburra
Sits in the Old Gum Tree," penned more than 75 years ago.
Men At Work won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1983 before disbanding in 1985.
Thanks to Kenelly Marka for posting to the Rootsweb Ham genealogy email list.
The HAM DNA Project has a new participant this week, Carl Hamm, kit #226942. Carl descends from Rufus HAM b. abt 1878 of Washington County, VA. Very curious history, because there is documentation on several Rufus HAM's from the area of SW Virginia during that time frame.
The DNA suggests some connection to the Ashe County, NC/Franklin County, NC, and the Patrick County, VA HAM lines. He appears to be the closest DNA match to the Ashe County lines, in particular, the descendants of John HAM (1780-1850) of Grayson County, VA.
However, we should keep in mind that the Washington County, VA lines have not yet been fully represented in the DNA Project. You can view his results here:
I got some FaceBook messages recently about how the Groupings are done for the DNA Project. I thought I would take a moment to re-arrange the HAM DNA Groups so that they better reflect the Phylogenetic tree output. I wanted to have the groups show the output from the "kitsch" program a little bit better. Basically, the thought is that the standard scientific tools should deliver the groupings in the best way that can be determined at this time. I think most of the changes to the groups have been driven largely by those few who have tested to 111 markers, as well as by the new participants. However, in one case of the new grouping, both participants have only tested to 25 markers.
Basically, the changes that have been made are:
Group # 1 Changes
New kit #226942 was added to HAM DNA Group #1 (226942 is Rufus HAM of Washington Co., VA).
His closest matches appears to be kits 212352 (William HAM b1780 d abt 1860 Patrick County, VA) and 68140 (William HAM Sr. son John HAM (1780-1850 of Grayson Co., VA).
Clearly belongs to Group #1, but it is still not clear which line from Group #1 that Rufus would belong to.
Group # 3 Changes
Kit # 107820 has been moved from HAM DNA Group #8 to Group #3 (107820 is Jacob HAM, Sr. b. 1721 Rhine Valley, Germany).
The phylogenetic chart (of the TMRCA) wants to group him with kit #43250 (Captain Richard HAM b. est 1761 Charleston, SC; d. 1855 Pulaski County, KY).
This grouping is still tentative, as the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor is estimated to be 1550 years ago. And, each kit has only been tested to 25 markers.
Aside from the DNA, the obvious items common to both kits are:
a) the same surname
b) both lines appear to have been in Kentucky by 1820.
The obvious differences are:
a) Jacob HAM, Sr. is known to have been born in Germany
b) Capt. Richard HAM is thought to have been from South Carolina.
I would think that an upgrade to 111 markers for these kits would help to better narrow down the time frame.
Group # 8 Changes
I have moved kit # 205092 from Group #12 to Group #8, and dissolved Group #12. Kit 205092 is Perry C. HAM born 1825 TN. Parents both born in North Carolina,
with children born in Illinois. Kit 126092 is WILLIAM HAM was born in 1821 in Georgia. Died ABT 1868 in Louisiana.
The TMRCA on the two is 900 years ago, so even this grouping is tenuous, but better than the previous grouping.
(For example, I have Valentine HAMME in a different group than DNA Group #1, largely due to the TMRCA.)
It might be worth noting that kit 126092 has only been tested to 37 markers, but 205092 has been tested to 111 markers. At 37 markers, I can't say that an upgrade to 111 markers would make a large difference in the TMRCA between the two.
What they do have in common is some matching DNA and the same surname.
Which tells me that there is a good chance that they could at least share the same city of origin.
Summary
My comment on these groups should be that Group #3 is not far in Genetic Distance from:
- Group #8,
- Group # 6 (kit #82227 Mordecai HAM of Stokes Co., NC).
- Also, the Genetic Distance for Group #8 is not far from kit #126092 in Group # 8, where I just moved kit 107820 from.
My thoughts on this is that the problems with these groups should eventually be resolved with more participants as well as an increase in the number of markers tested. This should be especially true for those who have tested to 25 markers, as 25 markers becomes unreliable for TMRCA estimates beyond about 800 years ago. I should think an upgrade in the number of markers should be important to these groups (#3, #6, and #8). Therefore, these groups could change again if more markers are tested, and as more people participate.
The Tax man is knocking at my door and taking some of my time, but I will get the phylogenetic charts updated with new kit 226942 as soon as possible.
The Wall Street Journal has an article by John Jurgensen about the new PBS series "Finding Your Roots" with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Premiered today, part of a 10 part Prime Time series.
The Premier episode includes Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Georgia Congressman John Lewis.
They were showing back to back videos here on my local PBS station tonight, so I was able to view the program without looking through the program listings.
Georgia Congressman John Lewis
Mr. Gates has done previous videos on African Americans, but I have to
say that the video interview with John Lewis was an interesting story to
view.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker
Preserving his previous video style, Gates combines genealogy with DNA and an historic perspective.
Scheduled for the series are Harry Connick, Jr., Barbara Walters, Geoffry Canada, Branford Marsalis, Samuel L. Jackson, and others.
In an upcoming episode, Mr. Gates will use DNA to find the connection in the ancestry of conservative commentator Linda Chavez and actor Adrian Grenier.
Mr. Gates is a Harvard humanities scholar, wrote each episode of "Finding Your Roots" and is a founding partner of African DNA, which offers African-American clients a method of tracing their history beyond 1870.
TV schedules are at the top menu of the PBS previews.
Roberta Estes has been quietly working on the Native Heritage Project.
This project seeks to document people who are Native in existing records. To do this, Roberta says she is taking the following steps:
1. She is collecting every instance of documents where Native people have surnames in some record that states they are Native, of Native descent, or have Native heritage. Initially, she has focused on the primary areas of Virginia, NC and SC and the Eastern Seaboard states.
These, for the most parts, are tribes that were annihilated. Tribes west of the Mississippi were often able to maintain their tribal and cultural heritage after those east of the Mississippi has all but disappeared.
2. Regarding the DNA, Roberta is matching the list generated by item 1 against people who are haplogroups Q and C, which are Native, to find a matches between the two lists.
3. Ultimately, she would like to combine that information, above, with historical research that maps oldest ancestor of those who are genetically Native and village/tribe locations and perhaps, in time, the hope is to find a correlation and a way to tell which tribe someone is descended from.
This is an unbelievable amount of work. Roberta has been working on it for almost 5 years now. Much of her early work was in documenting mixed race migrations and historical reading and references documenting early tribal locations.
Roberta is maintaining a separate page that shows resources she has already accessed.
If you have any record of a person that shows their Native ancestry, with documentation, please contact Roberta Estes. She would love to give them a voice by including their record in the project.
Y-DNA analysis of STR information can provide clues to Viking migration in recent time frames. The Y-DNA STR YMRCA estimates suggests that the Norse (Vikings) could have originated from seafaring peoples of the Mediterranean Sea.
In March, 2011, the results of grouping the DNA STR information by country for the I1 (M253) haplotype were studied.
These results suggested a migration along a sea-faring route in recent time frames. In order to visualize that, a possible migration route is presented here. As stated in the article in March, the method does have some problems. It may be worthwhile to visualization the difference in from currently posted maps of SNP's in order to contrast with what was found from the STR study.
Most SNP maps today show an overland route for M253 either through the mountains of Europe, or through the general vicinity of Germany. The STR map (below) suggests a sea-faring route, based upon TMRCA estimates for STR modal groups by country.
click on image to enlarge
Some of the resulting TMRCA estimates were stylized in order to represent the data in one graphic.
Drury Ham has to be my favorite HAM Revolutionary War Veteran. His account of his activities as an Indian Spy, combined with his recollection of the Battle of Cowpens is fairly colorful material. Mordecai Ham was a dragoon at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. William Ham was at the Siege of Yorktown.
If you are looking for a quick study regarding the battles of the Revolutionary War, Jeff Weaver has a few small (and inexpensive) books listed on his Lulu web site. These brief books would be a good companion to our history. These books (below) generally have a good overview of the action, maps, graphics, and an index. These battles are considered to mark the point where the Americans began to win the Revolutionary War.
In our book "A Short History of the HAM Surname in Virginia & NC," we list some details about the Revolutionary War veterans that carried the HAM(M) surname. There were HAM(M) Revolutionary War Veterans that fought in each of the battles that are considered to have turned the tide of the war. Jeff Weaver's books should be of interest to those who want a brief overview (50+ pages) of these battles.
There were Ham(m)'s who were Revolutionary War Veterans from each of these battles:
Battle of Kings Mountain
Battle of Cowpens
Battle of Guilford Courthouse
Siege at Yorktown
Battle of Kings Mountain(October 7th, 1780 Near Blackburn, SC and King's Mountain, NC)
During the summer of 1780, British commander Patrick Ferguson travelled through South Carolina into North Carolina gathering loyalist support for the British. After a string of small battles (Wofford's Iron Works, Musgrove's Mill, Thicketty Fort, and Cedar Spring) the campaign culminated in August with the defeat of the Americans at the Battle of Camden. The American "Over Mountain Men" retired to their homes in North Carolina to rest.
In September, British General Cornwallis ordered commander Ferguson to the north, before joining the main British forces again at a later time. By October 7, Ferguson had camped at King's Mountain.
American Colonels McDowell, Sevier, Shelby and Campbell gathered in Tennessee and marched to (present day) Morganton, joining those serving under Cleveland and Winston. On October 6th, they joined forces with Colonel Williams at Cowpens.
The American soldiers marched through the night and arrived at King's Mountain on October 7th. They surrounded the mountain in a horshoe formation, taking cover in the heavily wooded area. The battle lasted about an hour and 225 Loyalists were killed, 716 were taken prisoner. 28 Patriots were killed.
Battle of Cowpens(January 17, 1781 Cowpens, South Carolina)
Maj. General Nathanael Greene needed time to recover from the Battle of King's Mountain, and split his mobile force off to be under the command of Brig. General Daniel Morgan. The British Lt. General Charles Cornwallis recognized the strategy and sent his own mobile force under Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton after Morgan. After several weeks of maneuvering, General Morgan finally had to choose his ground before Lt. Colonel Tarleton overran him.
Morgan settled on Cowpens, South Carolina. Morgan's strategy was that the British would expect a retreat. Part of Morgan's plan was for Andrew Pickens' militia to feignt a withdraw by firing three times, and then falling back. When the battle took place, the British became undisciplined and broke ranks in pursuit. This loss of discipline allowed the planned actions of the Continentals to thoroughly rout the British and destroy General Cornwallis' light troops.
Battle of Guilford Courthouse(March 15, 1781 Greensboro,NC)
After Cowpens, the British General Cornwallis pursued the American General Nathanael Greene to Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina. By this time Greene had built a substantial force (mostly farmers who were nonprofessional temporary soldiers of short duration).
On March 15, General Greene deployed his men in three lines of battle across the Great Salisbury Wagon Road that led off to the southwest toward the camp of the British army. The front line was deployed against a rail fence that surround farm fields and extended into the forest. The second line was located within the forest behind the first line.
The British Highland Regiment attacked, and suffered heavy losses before breaking through the center of Greene's front line. The second line fought for about an hour and was broken by the British, but only after the British again suffered heavy losses. The heaviest fighting was at the third line, where the British General Cornwallis found his men being attacked from the remaining two sides of American forces. The battle culminated when Cornwallis decided to fire his cannon into the center of the struggle, killing his own soldiers in the process. When the smoke cleared, the American General Greene ordered a retreat. Cornwallis had won the battle, but suffered heavy casualties.
(Siege at Yorktown October 09, 1781 Yorktown, Virginia)
By midsummer, 1781, the Continentals under General Nathaniel Greene had gained virtual control of South Carolina. By September, 1781 Greene had an apparent loss at the Battle of Eutaw Springs to British commanders Arbuthnot and Stewart. Nevertheless, Greene put an end to British conquests in the south.
Also that month, French commander deGrasse defeated a British Fleet that had come to relieve Cornwallis (Battle of the Chesapeake). As a result of this victory, de Grasse blocked any escape by sea for Cornwallis. British General Cornwallis was stationed in Yorktown, Virginia and was surrounded by land and by sea when George Washington arrives. Trees were cleared, trenches were dug, and redoubts were taken. By October 9th, Rochambeau's French cannons would begin the bombardment.
Author Jeffrey C. Weaver holds degrees in American history from Appalachian State University, and after serving in the U.S. Army for several years, he worked as a contracting officer for the U.S. Department of Energy. Former manager of the Chilhowie Public Library, he founded the New River Notes web page in 1998.
An analysis of time frames using Y-DNA STR TMRCA estimations
It may be useful for family historians to use Y-Search data in order to understand ancient migration patterns for their family line.
A number of folks disregard the results from Y-Search that do not provide a DNA match beyond a Genetic Distance of 6. That's because most are only interested in genealogical time frames. Deep ancestry is usually left to obscure SNP notations that may or may not make sense to the average genealogist. The general migration path for an SNP can trace out a migration path dating to tens of thousands of years ago.
However, a family historian might be just as interested in what happened within the last two thousand years, in the hope that some day, supporting documentation may be found, or at least put on their search list.
If you have an idea of where your line originated from within the last two thousand years, then you have an idea of whether or not you should be interested in, for example, Normans. Or Saxons. Or Romans. I had not completed my migration study of HAM DNA Group #1 when I posted the article (about being in a line from England that also matches Y-DNA for Norway and France. http://hamcountry-blog.blogspot.com/2011/05/england-traces-in-france.html - see cluster #2). However, from the chart listed there, I could have just as easily listed out the data in chronological order, such as:
present............U.S.
1577 AD........Virginia 1288 AD........County Somerset, England 913 AD........Broennoeysund, Norway
855 AD........Gloucester or London, England
638 AD........Dirksland or Margraten, Netherlands
465 AD........France
335 AD........Devonshire, England
Which should represent a broad outline of the migration of my own line (HAM DNA Group #1). Not a whole lot of movement there, apparently a fairly stable group. And, my analysis was not really completed (not all of the data was analyzed). The curious entry there (for my group) would be to determine where the group from Devonshire was at 335 AD.
The basic idea is to create the phylogram from the Y-Search data such that you know where the other Y-Search kits may have branched off. Then use Dean McGee's Utility to find the TMRCA in order to estimate an approximate timeline for the migration of your family group.
Without getting into very much detail, I have done this for another I1 haplotype group (WIDEBURG surname). For this study, the Y-Search data was divided into small groups, then Dean McGee's utility was run to get the TMRCA's, and the phylograms were run on the groups in order to determine what was branching off and what was not.
The Wideburg results resembled a migration pattern such as this:
Wideburg............ now.........Sweden
England16........ 1505.........Harpole, Northampton, England; London, England; Thurlby, England
...............................................Bristol, Gloucestershire, England Scotland06.........1030.........Renfrew (Port Glasgow or Paisley), Scotland; Pike County, Georgia, Scotland
Sweden05...........155..AD.........Lindesburg Parish, Sweden Which suggests an I1 migration pattern perhaps originating from Slovenia, and perhaps migrating through Germany via the Danube, through Denmark, France, Scotland, and finally arriving in England, then Sweden. A lot of movement for this group, and the analysis was done by placing similar kits within each country into small groups. The curious point here being to try to understand where the Switzerland group actually was located in 405 AD, as well as the location of the Sweden group in 155 AD.
However, the interesting point for the Wideburg surname is that they are found in Denmark at about the time of the Danish Vikings, and are found in France and England at about the time of the Norman invasion. However, dividing kits matched by country is no guarantee that you will see movement as clearly defined. When the study was run on the STANLEY surname, the results appeared to be unreliable for placement on the phylogenetic tree prior to 700 AD. The migration path for this R1b group traced out like this:
STANLEY..... ARJYZ .........Now
England046...........1360.....AD........GBWJC......Salkeld........Salkeld Parva, Cumberland, England Scotlan033............1216.5..AD........GSMDW....Guthery.........Scotland Germany017...........953.5..AD........4MRWP.......Harmon.......Woerttemberg/Wurttemberg, Germany England096.............910.8..AD........83Y4V.........Curtis...........West Farmington, England Sweden03...............836.0..AD........SKNTC.......Johansson...Jonsberg, Ostergotland, Sweden Scotlan034..............727.4..AD........N9SQE.......Downie.........Lanarkshire, Scotland Sweden07................684..AD........NHVM Anderson Goteborg, Goeteborg & Bohus, Sweden France08..................598 ..AD........JQXXQ Fousse Alsace-Lorraine/Elsass-Lothringen, France England075...............511..AD........England (490 - 517 Battle of Mons Badonicus - Romano-British under Ambrosius Aurelianus decisively defeat the Anglo-Saxon invaders.) Sicily01 ....................488..AD........Agira, Sicily Scotlan032 ...............440..AD........Scotland Sweden06 ...............408 ..AD........Nordmaling, V???sterbotten, Sweden (Visigoths under Alaric sack Rome in 410.) Norway03 ................398 ..AD........Mandal, Norway Germany019..............391..AD........Roethenbach an der Pegnitz, Bavaria/Bayern, Germany (Visigoths defeat the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 388) England097..............346 ..AD........Hertfordshire, England Germany021..............344..AD........Rheinland-Pfalz/Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Germany027..............316..AD........Wurzburg, Germany (Wurzburg is, perhaps, 150 miles from Trier.) Germany024..............306 ..AD........Germany (307 Emperor Constantine is in Britain, and sends troops against Germanic tribes along the Rhine, begins a major expansion of Trier.) England100..............303 ..AD........Plymouth, Devon or Devonshire, England England103..............285..AD........Baldwin, Isle of Man, United Kingdom England098..............285 ..AD........Chorley, England (Roman Carausius, is put in charge of operations against Saxon and Frankish pirates on the Saxon Shore.) Italy07 ......................196..AD........Mezzojuso, Italy (Roman Battle of Lugdunum was fought in 197 AD) Germany026..............180 ..AD........Schnait im Remstal, Wuerttemberg, Germany (Roman Praetorian Prefect Teratenius Paternus defeats the Quadi.) England106 ..............168..AD........Corby, Northamptonshire, England (The Marcomannic Wars ca 166 - 180) Germany028..............151..AD........Friedrichroda, Germany England108 ..............133 ..AD........England (Antonine begins construction on his wall in 142 AD) England110.................80..AD........England (Hadrian begins construction on his wall in 122 AD) Germany029...............59 ..AD........Hofheim, Bergstrasse, Hessen, Germany (Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo captures Tigranocerta) Netherla05..................57..AD........Domburg, Zeeland, Netherlands Australia3...................23 ..AD........Australia (Australia isn't settled by Europeans until about 1600) Germany031................8..AD........Wittenberg, Germany (Roman Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) France09 ....................3 BC..........Bourges, France [Caesar conquers Bourges (Avaricum) ca 50 BC]
Looks like the last 1,000 years have mostly been in England and Scotland. Prior to that they have a German element, with some indication of the possibility of some ties to Italy and Sicily. So, it looks like that STANLEY line may be Anglo Saxon, with something that looks "Romanesque."
The timeline for the period from 0 AD to 700 AD was updated on Nov 27. 2011, but the phylogeny did not appear to be stable. That is, it is likely that the timeline would may be correct (mostly due to the number of markers tested per kit for the period). The original article only listed the results back to 727 AD. Historical references for the date and location were taken from Wikipedia.
The oldest STR match found indicating possible origins in France.
For the Stanley surname, the Y-Search results had been divided into some 158 groups, mostly 67 markers with less than 20 kits that had been tested to 95 markers. Most of these beyond 67 markers were panel upgrades, which caused a little bit of manual effort to sort in correct order.
The dates do not really provide an explanation of the reasons for migration. It might be reasonable to expect that short periods of migration along coastal areas or waterways to be trading activity. But, it might be difficult to interpret the difference between trading activity and military operations. More information with regard to historical references may help in the interpretation of the activities during the time periods.
Dienekes' Anthroplogy blog has a note about the ongoing concern regarding dating Y-DNA.
You might recall my posting about using Y-DNA to date Viking migration to the last 2,000 years. (Rootsi et. al. had a much earlier dating for I1(a) origins in Europe.)
Well, the Viking migration article was not the first time Y-DNA dating techniques have been under scrutiny.
There is some disagreement on dating techniques when comparing SNP TMRCA estimates to STR TMRCA estimates. In this article, he is mostly talking about how to date Y-STR mutations. Here, Dienekes talks about a new study by Busby and Capelli.
HAM genealogy, using DNA and concentrating in the areas of North Carolina, Virginia, and England.
Author, genealogist, genetic genealogist. Compiled "A Short History of the HAM Surname in Virginia & NC."
Founded the HAM DNA Project at Family Tree DNA.
My web pages:
HAM Country, You Tube videos
