robertmackayclan

Dee Ann,

I appreciate your comments and I understand the principal in which you are speaking. However you mention statistics which are much father away from the data than my statistics.

From Michael's original post I will clarify the names and percentages. Based on the Y-DNA match between myself and Bibby McKay's brother, the following percentages are the likelihood of that person being a direct ancestor. The furhter you go back the higher the percentage likelihood. As you mentioned It is certainly possible that my connection is further back than these generations. However based on the probability that Michael is connected to Junior and that Michael is connected to Bibby's brother, and than Junior is connected to Bibby's brother, my DNA is so close to Bibby's that it is VERY unlikely that we are not as connected as she is to Michael and Junior. Therefore the chances are VERY high that I do descend through at least Robert Mackay. It is slightly more probable that I would descend through James Mackay and not Robert Jr. (Michael's line) or Moses (Junior's line). But is is certainly possible.

For the names and percentages according to FTDNA's statistics in comparing my Y-DNA to Bibby's brother I am likely to be a descendent of each successive generation based on the percentage show. To your point I may be a descendant of Rober Mackay Sr.'s father(s) rather than him. If that was the case I have nothing to work from since we don't have that data.

Gen 1 - Robert Mackay – 79%

Gen 2 - his son James Mackay – 70%

Gen 3 - his son James Mackay – 57%

Gen 4 - his son Robert T McKay – 41%

Gen 5 - his son Issac McKay – 22%

But as I said earlier, the mutations between Michael, Junior, and Bibby's brother would normally suggest they did not all descend through Robert Mackay Sr. Again given that deviation in the data my probability for being related is Robert Mackay is much higher than normal mutations would suggest in the family line.

In the end I have been researching many different lines and so many people have helped me along the way. If my research can help others, I will feel good about returning assistance to the genealogical community.

Thank you so much for your continued support and concern for my wasting time on dead ends.

Kent Smith

Since you are interested in the blood line of Robert T. McKay, said Bibby McKay should be able to have all the information of all his children and grandchildren. You only need down to 1850. Since your oldest known Smith ancestor born 1851.

I still have not ruled in or out James McKay's slave Sam. About the same generation as his two sons.

As I have stated before I do not see any of them leaving for Bates Co. MO and you have not shown your family living in Switzerland Co. IN.

Just because I have found the parentage of Robert MacKay Sr. does not mean your line shares a common ancestor with us far beyond 10th generation. We do not limit our research to fit a DNA profile.

I suggest you wait until you find the parents for your John Smith and where they lived. What will you say if they came from places other than IN or VA ?

Welcome to my world, L.D.S. library !!

I did check today to see if there were any films or fiche dealing with Bates Co. MO--none.

A librarian showed me a on line site you will want to check out if you have not.

Missouri Historical Society

Has death certificates on line. You might want to poke around on it to see what other records they might have.

Good luck.

P.S. have you ruled out Elisha Smith on the 1850 Bates Co. MO as being the parents of your John Smith ? He is not on the 1860 Bates Co. MO. He was born in TN and his wife in KY and eldest children in IN and rest in MO.

It could also be a possibility that Kent does not descend from James and I'll explain why.

The only person he is showing a 67/67 match is with David Wilson McKay. I haven't done a 67 marker test. What if I also match with those markers? What if Junior upgraded to a 67 marker test and got the same results?

What we really need are more Robert Mackay descendants doing 67 marker tests and also with a genealogy record to go along with them. That way we can see how the mutation pattern goes.

I look at our comparison and I don't look at how many markers we differ on, but rather which markers we differ on. From there I can say we all share this particular marker but Kent differs on this one and the rest of us currently being tested don't. Who else will differ on that same marker?

Same thing being said, David, Junior and Kent share a particular marker in our test results but I don't share that one. Who else also doesn't share it?

With only four Robert Mackay participants so far we don't have a big picture to look at.

Yes, I definitely believe Kent is a Robert Mackay descendant because he matches the same pattern the rest of us have shown so far in comparison with the Kee/Key test subjects who obviously connect prior to Robert Mackay Sr.

We just need a good bit more test subjects to know how the mutations drifted in each branch.

I hope this letter finds everyone doing well.

My name is Kent Smith. I am the GG-Grandson of John D(ennis?) Smith, b. 1851 in Bates Co., MO. His obituary stated that he was an orphan at about the age of 7 (~1858). I have been searching for his parents for about 10 years now with no success. Late last year I submitted my DNA to FTDNA expecting to find a match with someone in the hundreds of Smiths. To my surprise I found some close matches with 4 different McKay (various spellings) submitters. A few months ago I found a match of 65/67 with one David Wilson McKay.

They have traced their McKay ancestry back to Robert Mackay. According to FTDNA I have a certain probability of one of these Mackay men being my paternal ancestor with the following likelihood out of each generation:

Gen 1 - Robert Mackay – 79%

Gen 2 - James Mackay – 70%

Gen 3 - James Mackay – 57%

Gen 4 - Robert T McKay – 41%

Gen 5 - Issac McKay – 22%

I am currently working on searching through each generation to find out who may have ended up in MO where I assume John D Smith’s parents were killed. His obituary only states he went to live with relatives, but nothing about their names. We have no family stories about the family that raised him or why his last name does not match his DNA.

If there is a way I can get a message to the many Mackay researchers about my story to see if anyone might have a family story about a family who died in the 1850s and left a child or children that might help my efforts. I assume I could post it to one of the forums just as easily now that I think of it. J

In case you are interested, here is his obituary from 1947 in Oklahoma.

In memory of John Dennis Smith

I am interested in joining any distribution lists or other information pertaining to the Robert Mackay Clan.

Sincerely,

Kent Smith

Livermore, CA

You start with Robert MacKay 79 %, his son James 70 % and then a drop to his son James 51 %

Does have mean the percentage is drop down far down the line ?

Shame "we" do not have a Y DNA test for his slave Sam wonder if his percent in your line would drop the same degree.

It could also be a possibility that Kent does not descend from James and I'll explain why.

The only person he is showing a 67/67 match is with David Wilson McKay. I haven't done a 67 marker test. What if I also match with those markers? What if Junior upgraded to a 67 marker test and got the same results?

What we really need are more Robert Mackay descendants doing 67 marker tests and also with a genealogy record to go along with them. That way we can see how the mutation pattern goes.

I look at our comparison and I don't look at how many markers we differ on, but rather which markers we differ on. From there I can say we all share this particular marker but Kent differs on this one and the rest of us currently being tested don't. Who else will differ on that same marker?

Same thing being said, David, Junior and Kent share a particular marker in our test results but I don't share that one. Who else also doesn't share it?

With only four Robert Mackay participants so far we don't have a big picture to look at.

Yes, I definitely believe Kent is a Robert Mackay descendant because he matches the same pattern the rest of us have shown so far in comparison with the Kee/Key test subjects who obviously connect prior to Robert Mackay Sr.

We just need a good bit more test subjects to know how the mutations drifted in each branch.

It really makes no different about the markers you have.

Mr. Smith problem is that his oldest known generation has not been proven to have lived in Switzerland Co. IN. After he does his library work and gets the names of his parents and their birth places, the documents will take him back to the next generation. If they take him directly to Switzerland Co. IN (James Jr. line), then I will be proven wrong. But if the place they lived was not IN or VA then I will be very interested to see how the DNA test will then be spun.

He should only need two more generation to reach the established lines of Robert MacKay Sr. male lines.

As far as your line from Robert MacKay Sr.-- it was proven by documents as was Junior McKay and Bibby McKay the same.

DNA test is just a genealogy topping.

Yep, that's exactly right, a genealogy topping as far as our family goes. That's why I figured we need people who have had a 67 marker test done along side with a documented genealogy record.

That's pretty much what the Valentine Hollingsworth DNA project is doing.

However, the DNA testing can open up new doors as is the case with Kent and also has proved to be the case with the Kee and Key connections. All we need is to somehow find the necessary documentation that can tie these two things into place.

So far we haven't had any proven written connection linking our Robert Mackay to any other Mackay family and the DNA pattern suggests that a relationship exists with people whose last name is Key or Kee. It's not a surprise in that Kee and Key are corruptions of 'Mackay' in some cases.

You start with Robert MacKay 79 %, his son James 70 % and then a drop to his son James 51 %

Does have mean the percentage is drop down far down the line ?

Shame "we" do not have a Y DNA test for his slave Sam wonder if his percent in your line would drop the same degree.

That's one of the probability figures they use at Family Tree DNA. It's their way of saying 'based on our results there's a 70% chance you are descended from that person.' Since Y-DNA mutation rates can be very slow or moderately slow the percentage ratio isn't always an accurate representation.

I prefer to look at the matching markers and the specific mis-matching markers to see where a mutation occurred.

Here is what I have so far on John Dennis Smith

Rolla Smith Family Bible given to him by his father John Dennis Smith (currently in the possession of my father)
Birth date
Marriage date
Death date
No information on parents or guardians of John D. Smith.

Federal Census
1880 Hudson, Bates, MO
1900 Mustang, Canadian, OK
1910 Yukon, Canadian, OK
1920 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK
1930 Yukon, Canadian, OK

Obituary 1946 "The Sun", OK (copy posted by Michael a few days ago)
Excerpt:
"...John Dennis Smith was born in Bates county, Missouri, March 19, 1851. His parents died when he was, seven years old and he made his home with relatives until he was old enough to take care of himself. During the Civil War at the age of 12 he carried the U. S. mail on a mule from Germantown, Mo. to Calhoun, a distance of ten miles, being assigned the task on account of the threat of Bushwhackers killing the men. He was married to Marietta Mendenhall of Appleton City, Mo., January, 1876 and to this union seven children were born..."

Obituary Oct 4, 1946 "The Oklahoman", OK
Excerpt:
"...John D. Smith, 95, pioneer Yukon resident and retired farmer, died early Thursday in his home...Smith, who carried mail during Civil war days in Missouri, was born March 19, 1851, in Bates county, Mo. He came to Oklahoma in 1890 and settled on a farm nine miles southwest of Yukon. Living there until 1908, he then moved into Yukon and had lived there until his death."

Birth Records MO
I have contacted their department and they confirm they have no data on births that far back. They begin to hold birth records around 1880.

Death Records MO
They also do not have any death records back in the 1850s.

Marriage Records MO
Requested a copy, but the office claims it is not on file.

Missing Federal Census documents
I have not located any John Smiths in MO in 1860 or 1870 that I can say with any confidence would be him. I will eventually need to trace every one of them to see if I can eliminate them. However by his own claim he was living with relatives in 1860 and possibly 1870. With a name like John Smith there is a LOT of data to sort through with little hope of confidence any one of them is the correct John Smith.

Death Record MO
Here is one document which looks like I have not yet tried to obtain. At least I don't recall trying. I will have to get on that one ASAP to see if there is any other useful information.

Kent Smith

Not that census information can alway be correct, the birth place of your John D. Smith given as MO and both of his parents MO MO.

Welcome to my world, L.D.S. library !!

I did check today to see if there were any films or fiche dealing with Bates Co. MO--none.

A librarian showed me a on line site you will want to check out if you have not.

Missouri Historical Society

Has death certificates on line. You might want to poke around on it to see what other records they might have.

Good luck.

P.S. have you ruled out Elisha Smith on the 1850 Bates Co. MO as being the parents of your John Smith ? He is not on the 1860 Bates Co. MO. He was born in TN and his wife in KY and eldest children in IN and rest in MO.

Dee Ann,

I filed out my form and paid my $6.00 (fee recently went up here in CA) to get my first film. It is Marriage Records for St Clair Co., MO from 1855-1885. I am looking forward to the experience regardless of my outcome.

I have not ruled out any Smiths in Bates, MO yet. My approach to date has been to work on proving the information I find connecting people to each other. I have not started picking people who MIGHT be a relative and disproving it until I cannot disprove someone. To be honest I had so many different John Smiths in MO to run down that I moved to other lines very early on. I have spent hundreds to thousands of hours on all my other lines where at least I had names to lead me from one to the next; child to parent. I know those are the easier ones to trace, but they were more satisfying to me in the early days of my research. In the last year I started working very hard on my Mayflower line and I am nearly complete with the documentation to submit to the Mayflower organization for acceptance. Fortunately that was through my mother's side where I have a lot more data. In fact of all my lines, my Smith line is the shortest at 5 generations back.

I know that I just said I don't like picking a person and disproving them as a relative and in fact that is essentially what I am doing with the McKay data. However this is different for me since it involves the DNA work. I am very curious about that science and I am willing to spend some time in the information.

You have an advantage on me in that you have already done all your research on the McKays and know where they lived and where they moved. I don't have your book at hand to see how futile my research might be knowing that no one in any of these lines moved to MO.

Believe it or not I have identified over 400 ancestors of mine. I will admit that some of the names and connections do not have my first hand knowledge of a document proving the connection, but I have a fairly high confidence in that data to let me go back a bit further. So far I strive to take my lines back to the point where they leave the US (or their parents come to the US). I know I likely have some errors in there at the moment and I will need to prove to an even higher degree than I have done so far. For me I wanted to do two things doing it this way. First I would experience as many diffent parts of my family history as possible early in my genealogical research. It is a bit like building a scale model of a new office complex. I know what it will generally look like when I am done, but I expect as I build the complex there will be changes along the way. In the end I might end up having spend 2x the time redoing all that work. For me it is not the destination, but the journey and the chance to work with so many wonderful people in the world of genealogy.

Thanks for convincing me to order my first films. I look forward to this new segment of my journey and the learning experience.

Kent Smith

Welcome to my world, L.D.S. library !!

I did check today to see if there were any films or fiche dealing with Bates Co. MO--none.

A librarian showed me a on line site you will want to check out if you have not.

Missouri Historical Society

Has death certificates on line. You might want to poke around on it to see what other records they might have.

Good luck.

P.S. have you ruled out Elisha Smith on the 1850 Bates Co. MO as being the parents of your John Smith ? He is not on the 1860 Bates Co. MO. He was born in TN and his wife in KY and eldest children in IN and rest in MO.

I did some research on that site just now. Most of the Genealogical data appears to be focused on the St Louis area at this time.

Here is what I have so far on John Dennis Smith

Rolla Smith Family Bible given to him by his father John Dennis Smith (currently in the possession of my father)
Birth date
Marriage date
Death date
No information on parents or guardians of John D. Smith.

Federal Census
1880 Hudson, Bates, MO
1900 Mustang, Canadian, OK
1910 Yukon, Canadian, OK
1920 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK
1930 Yukon, Canadian, OK

Obituary 1946 "The Sun", OK (copy posted by Michael a few days ago)
Excerpt:
"...John Dennis Smith was born in Bates county, Missouri, March 19, 1851. His parents died when he was, seven years old and he made his home with relatives until he was old enough to take care of himself. During the Civil War at the age of 12 he carried the U. S. mail on a mule from Germantown, Mo. to Calhoun, a distance of ten miles, being assigned the task on account of the threat of Bushwhackers killing the men. He was married to Marietta Mendenhall of Appleton City, Mo., January, 1876 and to this union seven children were born..."

Obituary Oct 4, 1946 "The Oklahoman", OK
Excerpt:
"...John D. Smith, 95, pioneer Yukon resident and retired farmer, died early Thursday in his home...Smith, who carried mail during Civil war days in Missouri, was born March 19, 1851, in Bates county, Mo. He came to Oklahoma in 1890 and settled on a farm nine miles southwest of Yukon. Living there until 1908, he then moved into Yukon and had lived there until his death."

Birth Records MO
I have contacted their department and they confirm they have no data on births that far back. They begin to hold birth records around 1880.

Death Records MO
They also do not have any death records back in the 1850s.

Marriage Records MO
Requested a copy, but the office claims it is not on file.

Missing Federal Census documents
I have not located any John Smiths in MO in 1860 or 1870 that I can say with any confidence would be him. I will eventually need to trace every one of them to see if I can eliminate them. However by his own claim he was living with relatives in 1860 and possibly 1870. With a name like John Smith there is a LOT of data to sort through with little hope of confidence any one of them is the correct John Smith.

Death Record MO
Here is one document which looks like I have not yet tried to obtain. At least I don't recall trying. I will have to get on that one ASAP to see if there is any other useful information.

Kent Smith

I keep forgetting that John died in OK in 1946. I have his death record in front of me. The document states:

Died: Oct 3, 1946 in Yukon, Canadian Co., OK after 25 years in the community (this could read 35 years).
Name: John D. Smith
Vet: None
Social Sec: None
Mar Status: Widowed
Birth: March 19, 1851
Place: Bates County, MO
Parents Names: UNKNOWN
Parents Birthplace: UNKNOWN

Informant: Mrs. John Turner [wife of the funeral director and fiend of the family according to my father]

Kent Smith