robertmackayclan

testing program at least, put Gerard McKay's quest for which Mackay, McKay, Mckee group etc...he belongs to rest. So it is a worth while program for him and you and rest of descendants of Robert Mackay Sr.

Mr. Smith, will have to try to equal Gerard's effort in doing his family history.

Gerard McKay's Autosomal will be showing up on Family Tree DNA.

According to my computer he to me:

5th cousin once removed common ancestor Jacob & Rachel (Ridgeway) McKay

6th cousin once removed from Robert MacKay Sr.

8th cousin once removed from Richard Stockton

Since we are both missing wives names he for Asa McKay and I for John McKay, who knows we could share another family. My guess is both men married a member of Quaker families of Hopewell Meeting House.

It will be interesting to me to see how much less my son Brandan shares with Gerard McKay than I.

I want to place Travis Dee Buck (eldest son) into the pool very interested in Sowers. Travis' has the red hair which he got from his great-grandmother Daisy L. (McKay) Shipp who got it from her grandfather George H. Sowers. Will Travis show more coming from his Sowers ancestors than Brandan did.

None of my grandmother's children had her red hair. My sister had the red hair, but Travis is the only one on our line who got the red hair.

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

I have just received this morning another Autosomal Match with a descend of Robert Mackay Sr.

Ancestry DNA project "JC" has Ancestry Tree JonesHoover_2012-04-25. She or He descends from Robert Mackay Sr. son

James McKay husband to Mary Chester their son
Robert Mackay husband to Lydia Leith their son
James McKay husband to Elizabeth Hambaugh
James L. McKay husband to Eliza Ellen Hall their son
Cyrus J. McKay

I have no idea if this branch of the family has a Y marker to be tested or not. Free testing is still offered if you have McKay Y marker in your branch of the family that can be tested for "FREE".

If Mr. Smith wants to claim descend from Robert Mackay Sr. through his son James Sr. he would be showing a match with this DNA sample. He or his family members just enter a DNA sample with Ancestry DNA or Family Tree DNA.

A descend of James Sr. is also on file with Family Tree DNA. Since this site has Chromosome Browser will show the amount of DNA shared.

I have lost count of the various Autosomal DNA matches from all the other descends of Robert Mackay through his various different children.

Still looking for descends of Mary Mackay & Leah Mackay.
I believe all other children have descend's DNA on file.

If you claim descend from Robert Mackay Sr., just to the test and safe yourself lots of time and monies. Male or Female will or will not show matches with other Mackay/McKay samples.

Like the Derryberry Y marker test results, this test is just showing they share a distant male ancestor, who could have lived in Germany or Switzerland. There are no documents filed in Burke Co. NC or PA which clearly show they were brothers, near cousin etc....

The same could be true with Y marker of Mr. Smith on Mackay DNA site. He merely has a common ancestor with us back in early Scotland. But he can not claim descend from Robert Mackay Sr.

Gerard McKay's Autosomal will be showing up on Family Tree DNA.

According to my computer he to me:

5th cousin once removed common ancestor Jacob & Rachel (Ridgeway) McKay

6th cousin once removed from Robert MacKay Sr.

8th cousin once removed from Richard Stockton

Since we are both missing wives names he for Asa McKay and I for John McKay, who knows we could share another family. My guess is both men married a member of Quaker families of Hopewell Meeting House.

It will be interesting to me to see how much less my son Brandan shares with Gerard McKay than I.

I want to place Travis Dee Buck (eldest son) into the pool very interested in Sowers. Travis' has the red hair which he got from his great-grandmother Daisy L. (McKay) Shipp who got it from her grandfather George H. Sowers. Will Travis show more coming from his Sowers ancestors than Brandan did.

None of my grandmother's children had her red hair. My sister had the red hair, but Travis is the only one on our line who got the red hair.

Had dinner with Gerard and wife yesterday and viewed his Family Finder with Family Tree DNA. He is not matching with me or other known McKay samples.

He is a closer distant cousin than others I have matched in the past.

First you need to read records in Bates Co. MO & St. Clair Co. MO to see if there was a blood relationship with your John D. Smith with Charles H. Smith living next to your known Mendenhall family. Their path into MO does not seem to be the same as Smith family.

Through census records the known man Charles H. Smith lived in Lake Co. IL where his children were born and he might have been married ?
So the records of Lake Co. IL need to be read. That county right on the line with Wisconsin (Kenosha) so those records also might be needed.

Then he is found living with his father John D. Smith in Lewis Co. NY, not far from the line with Canada. Those records in that location need to be read. Said John D. Smith might have come into NY from MA. You will have to hope the records exist in NY to say where he lived before that location.

You might be able to find orginial records on line, but in the end I believe you will have to spend $$$ for film rental through L.D.S. library systems.

The above locations St. Clair Co. MO from Lake Co. IL from Lewis Co. NY, I do not see that L.D.S. Family Project Task has records on line for those locations. I do not know about Ancestry.Com.

All of this means, of course, there is no way your Smith line is a descendant of Robert Mackay Sr.

Good luck with your research.

I have many Family Finder Matches with researchers who have McKay from Scotland to Canada 80 or more years after our Robert Mackay was living in NJ.

I have been waiting to see if other of my known McKay have some of these same matches.

I am very interested in watch to see if Mr. Smith can get his line back to this area of US. It would be a major break through if I could see his numbering pattern in Canada.

Had dinner with Gerard and wife yesterday and viewed his Family Finder with Family Tree DNA. He is not matching with me or other known McKay samples.

He is a closer distant cousin than others I have matched in the past.

I spoke to a Family Tree DNA rep about the lack of "McKay" matches in my Family Finder results. He said that Family Finder is predictably effective to the 4th or 5th generations. He said that due to autosomal DNA mutation rates, Family Finder matches beyond the 5th generation are random and unpredictable. I questioned him why, even if random, there are no "McKay" matches in my Family Finder. The FT-DNA rep had no good answer other than to say it was just random chance. This is even more puzzling because I am finding in my Family Finder results, dozens of matches with individuals with "Brown" and "Miller" ancestors. My "Brown" and "Miller" ancestors extend beyond the 5th generation just as "McKay".

I also have Ancestry-DNA. There are 5 "McKay" matches in the 5th-8th cousin range. Only two of them had trees:

"Jane Molen" is the 5x great-grandaughter of Jacob McKay & Rachel Ridgeway descended through their son John McKay. She has "McKay", "Ridgeway", "Brown" and "Job" ancestors in her tree so it's uncertain in which line the DNA match (9. cm) occurs.

"rmgriffiths" is the 7th great-grandaughter of Robert MacKay & Ann Brown descended through their son James McKay Sr. She has "McKay", "Brown" and "Miller" ancestors (19.7 cm).

There is another match (6.8 cm) with "sfnewsgal" who is a descendant of "Magdalena Hite" (b. 1713), a daughter of 'Hans Jost Hite & Anna Merckle'. This was an unexpected surprise.