My review of Promethease

After poking around a couple of NC genealogy groups on Facebook, I came across  Promethease, a site that promises to give you results of potential inherited health conditions, based on the raw DNA you upload to the site. For five dollars, they will analyze your DNA against their data. Not a bad deal if you are a curious person like myself. I uploaded my raw DNA from AncestryDNA onto the servers and in a few minutes, got results.

I got some surprising results!

The Good:

• Dry earwax. No body odour. Likely Asian ancestry. Reduced colostrum. [not so sure about the colostrum since I successfully breastfed two babies with no problems. I am also not of Asian ancestry, according to AncestryDNA...but who knows. I DO have dry ear wax...it's like rocks in my ears.]
• reduced risk of acute coronary events
• 90% reduction in HIV viral load
• 0.71x decreased risk for dry age related macular degeneration
• probably able to digest milk
• reduced risk (0.59x) of pancreatic cancer
• 0.75x risk of narcolepsy compared to (A;G) genotype
• 0.78x decreased Basal Cell Carcinoma risk.
• 0.75x lower risk of Male Pattern Baldness. [phew! lol]
• Lower 0.87x risk of Type 1 Diabetes.
• Smokes normal (lower) number of cigarettes if a smoker. [I have never smoked cigarettes.]
• better odds of living to 100
• Lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Higher good cholesterol.
• Able to taste bitterness.
• 0.8x lower risk for migraines

The Bad:

• 2.6x risk of rheumatoid arthritis; 3.10x risk of SLE; 2.28x risk of Sjögren's syndrome; increased risk of type-1 diabetes; and increased risk of primary biliary cirrhosis.
• 1.7x increased risk of melanoma; increased risk of squamous cell carcinoma [apparently I carry one allele associated with an increased risk for melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma.]
• 1.2x risk Rheumatoid Arthritis
• 2.6 times higher odds of developing early stent thrombosis
• 1.5x - 2x increased risk for cervical cancer, HNSCC, and breast cancer [my half sister had breast cancer and a double mastectomy.]
• you are part of the 88% of the population who will not lose weight unless you perform high energy exercise [gah]
• 2.8x increased risk for psoriasis
• higher risk of ischemic stroke
• 3x higher risk for age-related macular degeneration
• higher risk for chordoma
• 2x higher risk of lupus
• 1.2x increased risk for type-2 diabetes [that's a given being that 2/3 of my family has the disease.]
• 1.28x increased Basal Cell Carcinoma risk.
• 2.1x increased risk of Crohn's disease
• increased risk of gastric and bladder cancer
• 2.67x increased risk for systemic sclerosis

The indifferent:

• I am female. [Well, yes.]
• probably light-skinned, European ancestry 
• Blue eyes [nope, green]
• ~0.8cm taller [yup]
• Lower HDL cholesterol in women and late-onset Type-2 diabetes
• possible risk for allergic asthma
• least likely to be able to smell asparagus metabolites in urine
• Associated with (slightly) increased coffee consumption

No, I won't take this as verified medical conditions I may or may not have, only a doctor can perform those tests. I think it's just something I should know in case there ever was something to come up, then I would have had a head's up.

All in all, I give it a thumb and a half up for information and two thumbs up for being entertaining. 

Places Where My Ancestors Lived: Skyland, NC

My great-grandparents Floyd and Maggie Searcy lived and raised their brood in a little place they called "Booger Bottom", which is in the unincorporated town of Skyland.

When I think of Skyland, I think of hills of trees and grass; of hairpin curves and convex mirrors at the end of every road. Traffic is usually light, but can be harrowing on ice-covered roads.

My Grandpa Searcy bought the home place for fifty dollars and a mule, or so I have been told. There was a log cabin on site and this is where the Searcy family lived, until each child grew up and married off. Grandpa Searcy lived there after Grandma Searcy passed away, in 1977, and continued to live there until he couldn't take care of himself [and the home started falling down.]

As a child, I remember my grandparents driving up and down the beaten path that led to the home place when we came to visit. I vaguely remember my Grandpa's milking cow, Bessie and trying to get out there to pet her. I will always remember the sight and smells of this little slice of heaven.

Thomas Herbert Cook, Sr.

Well, well. It looks like I have broke through a brick wall concerning Grandpa Tom. I have never really had much luck tracking information down on him, just scant census reports and names on his children's death certificates.

A few days ago, I reopened his file and was doing what I always do, and that is scrolling through the Family Search and Ancestry sites, plus Googling. Low and behold, his name appeared in some things from Jamestown, NC. I clicked on a couple of links and found out that he was one of the proprietors of Logan Manufacturing/Oakdale Cotton Mills! How exciting is that? The icing on the cake is that there is a book out there written by Mary A. Browning called, "Oakdale Cotton Mill" which goes through the history of the business from its earliest beginnings to when it officially shut its doors in the 2000s. Even better was that the author enclosed a copy of a tintype with Thomas. I was nearly in tears when I saw his face for the very first time. I could definitely tell parts of me came from this man.

If you are interested in purchasing this book, you may click here to find book sellers who carry it.

Now, on to Mary Jane Preddy Cook, his wife....

Ancestry DNA

My apologies for not updating this blog.


So, I finally sprung for the Ancestry DNA test kit. I have been going back and forth deciding whether or not it was worth splurging the $99 for, and I finally said, "Hey, ya know...this might be a wise investment. You always wondered the who's, what's, when's and where's."


The test came in and it was pretty simple. You just spit in the vial and put it in the enclosed box and ship it to the Ancestry lab, postage paid. About six to eight weeks later, you get a notice from the website that the DNA has been processed and you can see your results.


These are my results [Your results will most likely differ:]


Europe: 99%


Great Britain: 26% [pretty much had a clue about that since most of my family are from the British Isles]

Scandinavia: 23% [I had NO IDEA. Awesome!]

Ireland: 21% [much higher than I expected]

Europe West: 14% [This covers Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein; also found in England, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic]

Iberian Peninsula: 11% [This covers Spain, Portugal; also found in France, Morocco, Algeria, Italy]

Finland/Northwest Russia: 3% [That three percent makes me AWESOME. I love Finland!]

Europe East: <1% [ This covers Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia; also found in Germany, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Estonia, Bulgaria]



West Asia: Caucasus <1% [This covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey; also found in Bulgaria, Jordan, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Palestine, Romania, Turkmenistan]



It also linked me to distant cousins I never knew of and to those of whom are related to my biological father.


I also uploaded it to gedmatch.com and even though I don't know much about the technicalities of DNA testing, it did correctly predict my eye color. So there's that.



If you are curious to know where you came from, I would suggest buying a DNA kit. Ancestry DNA, 23andme, and a few more offer some great stuff.

Captain Abraham Kuykendall

    Abraham Kuykendall was like Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson's character in "The Patriot") and a brilliant businessman. He was a very early settler in Henderson County, North Carolina, having made it his home before 1770.


    He and his Dutch family had emigrated from Ulster County, New York, and made the very long journey into the unknown. They had reached the area of Flat Rock and decided to put down roots in the fertile, but rocky ground of Henderson County (in his time, it was known as Tryon County). Abraham was a very wealthy man, whose wealth went into building a tavern and an inn. He also fed travelers coming to and fro very well. He had lots of help running his tavern, inn, and farm from his enormous brood of kids.


    His first wife, Elizabeth Fidler Kuykendall, who was the mother of his first eleven children, died in 1800.


    To protect his and his neighbors' homes from attacks by the Cherokee and other local tribes, he joined the North Carolina Militia, whose troops were commanded by Captain Corbin during the Revolutionary War. Kuykendall was eventually made a captain. He was also a member of the Safety Committee of Tryon County; procured supplies from North Carolina and sent them North to George Washington's troops; was appointed Commissioner of Tryon County, responsible for building a courthouse, prison, and stocks, and for establishing a boundary line between Tryon and Mecklenburg Counties. He also became Justice of the Peace of Tryon County in December of 1778, and continued in these roles when Rutherford County was formed during or after the Revolutionary War.


    Abraham was a well-respected man and citizen of North Carolina. Because he was a veteran, he was given a land grant of six hundred acres, courtesy of North Carolina. Over time, he had amassed over a thousand acres, which covered most of Flat Creek. On that land is where he built his fortune.


    After Elizabeth's death, Abraham married a much younger woman named Bathsheba Barrett. She loved the fact that her husband was very wealthy and she was able to buy all the pretty things she wanted. She loved bright, flashy dresses, the finest jewelry, and everything else money could buy. She knew she was able to buy everything she wanted as long as the money was flowing in.


    Eventually, Abraham caught wind of his wife's doings and wondered if thieves might try to steal his treasure. He stored and buried most of his strong boxes on his property.


    One dark night, Abraham decided to transfer his money from strong boxes to an iron pot, common to colonists since there were no banks at that time. He awoke two of his enslaved men and blindfolded them so they would not know where he buried the treasure. Using torches to guide their way, Abraham told them to dig a hole, and when he was satisfied with how deep it was, he had them cover up the iron pot. After all this, he warned them to never speak of what they had done, and blindfolded them again, then led them away from the site.


    When old Abe was 104 years old, he went out alone to search for his treasure because he had a deal he wanted to land. It was dark, and he was pretty old. It is speculated that he fell down and hit his head. Abraham never left Pheasant Branch again as a living, breathing man. The slaves told the family where they thought the treasure was, but after frantically digging, no one ever found Abraham's gold and silver.


    It is said that Abraham still guards his treasure. Many people have claimed to hear or see him and are frightened away from digging for treasure. Some people are not scared and try to locate it still today.



Abraham Kuykendall History

The 1890 Census

In an earlier post, I had mentioned briefly about the 1890 census record being in pieces. For those who do not know, the Eleventh United States Census (or the 1890 census) was destroyed in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington D.C. 1921. If you were doing family research prior to that year, you were lucky. This is what you would have seen:

address

number of families in house

number of persons in house

names

whether a soldier, sailor or marine (during the American Civil War), (whether Union

 or Confederate), or widow of such person

relationship to head of family

race, described as white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian

sex

age

marital status

married within the year

mother of how many children, and number now living

place of birth of person, and their father and mother

if foreign-born, number of years in US

whether naturalized

whether naturalization papers have been taken out

profession, trade or occupation

months unemployed during census year

ability to read and write

ability to speak English, and, if unable, language or dialect spoken

whether suffering from acute or chronic disease, with name of disease and length of time afflicted

whether defective in mind, sight, hearing or speech, or whether crippled, maimed or deformed, with name of defect

whether a prisoner, convict, homeless child, or pauper

home rented, or owned by head or member of family, and, if owned, whether free from mortgage

whether farm is rented, or owned by head or member of family; if owned, whether free from mortgage; if rented, post office box of owner.

The 1890 census was the first to use Herman Hollerith's methods of data compiling. This data used a punched method, which was entered on a reader that could tabulate it. This particular method was said to reduce the census counting 8:1. For its time, it was very state of the art. 

The original data for the 1890 census is not available. The public was informed that 25% of the materials were presumed destroyed and 50% were destroyed by smoke and water. This led to a public outcry for a permanent National Archives. 

Even more records were destroyed when in 1932, the Chief Clerk of the Bureau of the Census gave the Librarian of Congress a list of papers to be eradicated, including the 1890 census schedules. The Bureau asked the Librarian to put aside any records deemed historical, and the census records were not designated to be saved. Congress authorized that list of records to be destroyed in 1933 and the rest in 1934-35. 

The other two census reports that are lost are the 1800 and 1810 enumerations. 

How could anyone deem any census record not worthy of saving? This particular census record is a major setback for a great deal many people trying to locate family members. Hopefully this will never happen again with any census records. With all the technology we have now, I doubt that would ever happen.

Anyway, good luck with your researching!

~Shasta

Hitting Road Blocks

I have been working on my family tree for years, just plodding away happily as I recorded each name and date and relation. Recently, I have found myself working feverishly trying to thaw some cold cases.


There are some great-grandparents who are escaping my finding them: Cora Burnette Cook, William and Susie (Susan) Greenwood Ward, Taylor and Julia Ownbey Searcy. Sure, I have bits of information here and there, like census and death records of children they're mentioned on. I have no idea of their real heritage (yet). I have no idea who their parents are, their lineage, marriage or death dates. This is about to be a very daunting task. My elderly aunts and uncles who are up in their years either forget the dates or get stories mixed up with the wrong people. The ones who really knew the dirt are long gone, of course.
.

The 1890 census reports were nearly all destroyed in a fire. Only bits remain. This is one of the difficult things we family tree researchers must deal with.


When, and or if I ever do finally find the records I need, I will report back. Maybe that can help someone with their own personal road block.

Until next time...


~Shasta