Demarest and Variant Surnames

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Comment by Kirsten Saxe on January 11, 2010 at 8:27pm

I am actually a little confused about Samuel and Sarah, but I may just need to look at the book again.

I need to ask my neighbor a little more about her Keepers family.

Kirsten

Comment by Mary Keepers Helgevold on January 11, 2010 at 8:10pm

Sorry that the formatting got messed up in this narrow area but hope you understood it even if others can't. Also meant to say that baptism dates were NOT added regularly until 1810 in the Pompton Records. Who are the Keepers from NW New Jersey that you know? Mary

Comment by Kirsten Saxe on January 8, 2010 at 1:33pm

Here's that message from Mary:

Dear Kirsten,
I recently discovered that I, too, am probably descended from John and Susanna Demarest. My Elizabeth Demorest, b. Feb. 19, 1809, NJ, married William Keepers on July 9, 1831 by Esq. Lawrance in Byram Twp. This marriage did not get recorded in Sussex Co. records. The couple moved to Illinois in 1846. There was never any oral or written information about her siblings or parents, just an oral tradition that "her family were French nobility driven out of the Alsace-Lorraine region." Could never find her in the Demarest family books so had given up the search that began 30 yrs. ago. Just before my subscription to genealogy.com expired recently, I ran her name and birthyear one more time and got a hit in the typescript Reformed Dutch Records of Pompton Plains. . . , p. 145. There she was! The birth year was not written after Feb. 19 but she was among several pages of 1809 birthyears that preceded her entry and followed these two entries:

other 1809 entries, then

CHILD PARENTS WITNESSES
Elizabeth John Demorest John P. Tindle
b.o. Feb.19 Susanna Tindle Elisabeth Hulsta

Elizabeth George Tindle
b.o. 29, 1808 Caty Sanders

more 1809 births

Descendants of George TINTLE and Catherine Sanders claim that the name was Tintle and that John Peter Tintle and Elisabeth Schulster (and other variants) were the parents of George. There's a Susan in the list of children of John P. Tintle but either no birthdate or a guessed one of 1815 or something. The second Elizabeth above was born Aug. 29, 1808 per those descendants. Anyway, the above looks like a family gathering to baptize two little girls named after their grandmother Elisabeth. The record also seems to state the actual birthday of the children with unknown baptism dates except when there was a note such as "the following baptized on Apr. 2, 1809 at Newfoundland" or somesuch. Because this is a typescript, I can't interpret the cutoff lines well. Baptism dates were added until 1810 with any consistency. Salt Lake City only has a microfilm of this same typescript version and it appears that the original may be at the Holland Church of New York or wherever.

The same records show under marriages:
1806 Jan 25 Johan Demoray & Susannah ?-indel
(In other words the transcriber couldn't figure out what the beginning letter of her name was supposed to be!)

With the above information in hand, I turned to the Demarest Family 1964 and found them but with lots of errors, in my opinion. Elizabeth was listed with a bp Feb. 19, 1807, which was a mistake made by assuming that the year above the 1808 must have meant 1807 rather than note that all the other dates before and aft were 1809. And those were not baptism dates but birthdates.

The correction brings up an immediate problem with John P.'s birth occurring only 7 months previously!

Notice the book's mixing facts or typing errors by having John marry "Susanna Sindle dau. of John P.-Elizabeth Hubsta." It was clearly Tindle & Hulsta in the typescript baptism record. Perhaps the question mark was interpreted as an S by the researcher as I doubt that the original was available. The typescript version looks early, like WPA work of the 1930's or through the 1950', perhaps? It was an old typewriter.

Next problem: Child 7-944 Samuel b. 1814 is listed with a wife Catherine and children that belong to a James Demarest (8-432). Samuel does not appear in the Sussex Co census records for 1850 or 1860. Kirsten, I would not be surprised if Samuel turns out to be your Sarah! Wish we knew where the book got it's information because the sources cited so far have contradicted what I've seen. John Demarest list of children from the 1830 census may have given number of boys and girls but who had the names?

Mary (see note from Kirsten next)

Mary, I'm so glad you found me. As I guess you read earlier, the Demarest book definitely seems to have things wrong when it comes to my family, and I have thought that if I could get just one or two more generations further back, it would be easy to verify the line further back using the information in the book as a guide. I think that you have put a big crack in my brick wall! Thank you!

I have a neighbor with the surname Keepers in her family, and I believe they were from northwest New Jersey, too.

Kirsten

Comment by Mary Keepers Helgevold on January 8, 2010 at 1:08pm

Just sent a private message to Kirsten about our mutual Demarests but it belongs here in the hopes that we can get assistance.

Mary

Comment by Pamela Ann Drake on December 13, 2009 at 12:40pm

Do you know Kristen there are two Drake pages here on Genealogywise?

Pam in IN.

Comment by Kirsten Saxe on December 13, 2009 at 11:44am

Pam, you mentioned the Drake DNA Project. I am another descendant of Captain Francis Drake of New Jersey. I think my line is in the genealogy for his descendants, and I have verified it back at least as far as William Drake and his wife Rachel Dildine. William's parents were John Drake the Minuteman and Phebe Hunt, and I don't have much doubt about that, but I don't think that I have managed to substantiate the link. The circumstantial evidence that I have found certainly does support the genealogy.

I have not found a cousin to participate in that project, but I have visited the website, and I think it is neat to see that the Captain Francis Drake line is part of a genetic grouping known as Haplogroup R1a. I have recruited relatives to do DNA testing for a few lines of mine, and I have found that my lines include members of some of the most common haplogroups in Western Europe, including Y chromosome haplogroups R1b and I( I1), but Haplogroup R1a is the third most common haplogroup in the parts of Europe where my ancestors lived, and none of the lines that I arranged testing for personally are in Haplogroup R1a. It's neat to think that I have a share of this group thought to have originated in the Eurasian steppes in my ancestry.

I have a first cousin once removed who has done some work on the genealogy of our Drake family, including contacts with living Drake relatives. I wonder whether any of them has tested through the Drake project. Time has stopped me from looking into this possibility more than any other factor. I guess you know that there are a lot of Drake families around, so I'm glad that we have a well-established Drake project helping us, because large projects can be a lot of work.

Kirsten

Comment by Kirsten Saxe on December 12, 2009 at 10:18am

Thanks, Pam. I know of two motivations for starting private projects, and I think that they are both red herrings. One is to protect participants from revelations of problems with their paper trail ancestries, but results can be posted without identifying the participant, who can decide whether or not to share details about his paper trail with individuals researching their matches with him. In cases where a potentially embarrassing mismatch between men who are supposed to be related is found, the individuals involved can consider having their results removed from the project's results tables. There are ways to accomplish this. I am not sure, but in some cases, they might have to formally withdraw from the project to avoid the display of their results on a company website, but they might also be able to remain "stealth" members of the project if their project administrator agrees to keep a copy of their results in a private database, so that if another matching person joins the project, the administrator will be able to compare their results and see the match. Finally, if anybody out there is very cautious and worries about discovering a mismatch when their results are first posted and so would like to avoid having their results posted linked to their surname before they find out whether they match others that they would expect to match, there are ways that they can prevent that, and I would be happy to explain them to anyone with such concerns. Most people don't have that concern, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, I don't think that having one's non-matching results posted for a short period of time will cause problems for anyone.

Another reason that I think is also a red herring is to discourage free riders. One might worry that some descendants of a family might just visit the website of a project to learn from it without even considering contributing to the project in some way. In some cases, this probably does happen, but I think that the overall effect of having results posted publicly is to encourage participation, especially by individuals from lines that are most needed within the project.

Suppose that all that I can find out about a project is that it exists, or that it exists and has a certain number of members. I don't know whether of any of them can be connected to my line or not. I will think twice about investing in a test for a potential cousin, because it might be that our line is already well-represented in the project, or that none of the lines in the project are related to mine. In the latter case, I might invest in a test at some point, but I might take my time, especially if I am confident that time is on my side when it comes to recruiting a participant, i.e., I think it is unlikely that the line that I want tested is likely to die out in the near future. On the other hand, if the project has a public website and shows that some men that I believe are distantly related have been tested, but nobody from a close line has been tested, I will be motivated to order a test if I can find a willing participant from that line. If one or two people from close lines have been tested, I would still be motivated to think about ordering a test, because it can help to have at least 3 results for a specific line. Let's say I find a testing candidate or maybe another researcher interested in helping me find such a cousin. It would be best if I could share a link to the project website with the interested party. I have run across cousins who are suspicious about genetic testing, and the privacy for Y chromosome projects doesn't help with them. Some may question the value of testing. Again, it would help to be able to point them to a website and offer some explanation of the value of the displayed results.

If I did order a test for a line with a surname for which there is a private project, I don't think that I would enroll the participant in a private project, especially if it does not allow members to join other projects. There are too many problems with private projects.

Connecting with distant cousins can definitely be problematic with a private project. I think that many private projects do have a website where members can log in and see results. As long as their project administrator keeps their website updated, they can learn whether they have matches by visiting the website, and they may also be able to contact their matches through the site. Otherwise, they would have to go through the project administrator. In fairness, I should say that many public projects also use their own websites as opposed to websites provided by the testing companies, and if administrators fail to keep those websites updated, participants may have to rely on their lists of matches in the company database to learn of new project members who are related. Note that in any case where an administrator neglects a project, members have the option of informing any testing company that recognizes that person as an administrator, and a new administrator may be selected if the situation persists, but who wants to go there if it can be avoided? If members of a private project aren't using other databases like the testing company customer databases or the databases for use by customers of different companies because they are discouraged from doing so, they may miss some related people who have already been tested. There are some private projects that allow people to disclose their own results, and this solves some of the problems of private projects, but not all of them.

The reliance on the project administrators is more of a problem for private projects. If for any reason they do not keep up with the project, the members will be stuck without them. If some of the existing members have contact with each other, they can try to work around the lack of support, but the project will suffer until an active administrator surfaces. In a public project, members can find each other through their match pages, through public databases such as ysearch, and through groups like this one and the ones on Rootsweb and Genforum. Private project administrators may try to prohibit that sort of contact, or may simply discourage it.

If the administrator of the project does not completely understand certain aspects of genetic genealogy, they might miss out when it comes to the interpretation of results. For instance, there are times when related persons do not show up as matches for each other at certain levels. If the administrator is not sufficiently knowledgeable, they might dismiss the connection as a coincidence. In an open project, it's more likely that someone else will come along and see the connection. Even if the administrator is very good, many heads are better than one.

Project members may benefit by joining other projects. In some cases, they may join other surname projects, but there are also geographical projects and projects based on similar results pointing to descent from a common ancestor. Generally, these projects are most helpful to people interested in their deep ancestry, or ancestry in times preceding the era of paper records, and I think most people interested in testing have some interest in this subject for its own sake. Furthermore, there are cases where connecting with these very distant cousins gives a person a valuable pointer to a possible point of ancestral origin that may help them with their genealogical research. If a project is so private that members are forbidden to join such projects, the private project is probably more of a detriment to researchers of that group than a help, considering the fact that people who join that project may feel, rightly or wrongly, that once they have joined the private project, they can or should never join a public project. In other words, the private project might ruin the chances for establishing a vibrant public project.

With some private projects that do allow members to join such projects, members may still be at a severe disadvantage when it comes to finding those projects. My experience with one project based on genetic similarities is that only a small minority of people eligible to join it find it on their own. Some of us who are working with the project use databases like public project websites or ysearch to find potential members and invite them. We can't invite people whose results are not posted somewhere.

I can think of administrators for 4 projects that I have had interactions with that are private projects. Of those 4 projects, 1 included only 1 possible member, who did join our project. I did not have repeated interactions with the project administrator, so I don't know whether he has any misgivings about setting up a private project. The administrator for 1 of those projects appears to be happy with her private project. She is very knowledgeable, and has worked hard on the project, so at least her project members have a dedicated and competent administrator. Administrators for 2 of the other projects have complained of the difficulties of working with a private project. One of those did not start the project for which he is one of two administrators, and I don't think he would have started it as a private project himself. I think that the other did start his project, and would not tie his hands again by starting a private project. He worked very hard to get the consent of his project members to share information with me because we were working on the expected connection between some men of his surname and a group of men in one of my projects. We are still working on it. Waiting for some of those members to respond has been been a source of long delays.

I do have a more upbeat comment to make about the Drake project, but some of our readers may be asleep by now, and I wouldn't want them to miss it, so I'll save it for later.

Kirsten in MD

Comment by Pamela Ann Drake on December 12, 2009 at 3:29am

I agree with you Kirsten. There really is no reason to keep DNA test results private.How would you hook up with your distant cousins? My cousin participated in the Drake DNA Project. Through his test results I was able to go back two more generations directly that broke through my brick wall.Also, we found several people, who like us, are directly related to Captain Francis Drake of Piscataway,Middlesex Co.,NJ. in the 1600's. What does it accomplish to keep it secret?

I hope Bob goes ahead with it.DNA testing is a VERY handy tool in genealogy research in my opinion!!

Pam Drake in IN.

Comment by Kirsten Saxe on December 11, 2009 at 7:13pm

Bob, I'm glad you're checking out those projects. When I first found out that there was a Demarest project partially set up at FTDNA, I e-mailed the administrator, who told me that he had also set up the project at Ancestry. I'm a little worried to see that nobody has joined the project at FTDNA, and I don't know for sure about the Ancestry project because I don't remember how to check or if it's even possible to tell how many men have been tested through an Ancestry project if you're not the administrator. The Demarest administrator wants to run a private project, and I wasn't too happy to hear that to learn anything about the results, I would have to pay for a test. I didn't even have a candidate in mind, and I was interested in being connected with other researchers who might help me find one related to me. All of the DNA projects that include relatives that I recruited are public, i.e., they post test results, and I really think that it's better to share information than to try to control it. Too much control can mean never being found by others with valuable information to share, or not being trusted by them enough for them to share with you. I would count DNA as one form of information among many.

It sounds to me like this guy is restricting project members from sharing their information, and I don't agree with that approach at all. If he is requiring that, and you would like to test outside those projects, I invite you to order a test through one of the projects that I have at FTDNA. That way you would get the group rate. There is currently a holiday special for the 37 and 67 marker tests at FTDNA through the end of the year, and I strongly recommend that any male wanting to order a Y chromosome test take advantage of it. I can ask the president of FTDNA if it is OK to start an open project for Demarest men if you are interested in joining one, and I would be happy to do that. Another move to make would be to let the administrator know that you are interested in joining the project, but only if you are allowed to share your data. Knowing the FTDNA president, I would guess that he would ask us to at least talk to that administrator before he would approve another Demarest project.

I wish this business was just a little simpler, because I know it would slow me down and has slowed me down, but I think it would really be worth it to start getting Demarest test results.

Comment by Bob Demarest on December 11, 2009 at 10:48am

In the 1938 and 1964 Demarest books, there is a distinct link to the desMares and desMarez lines of Norwich England and in Holland. I'm at work, but it mentions the 2 variants and one name I remember is Louis Trip desMarez. I also believe we are linked to a clergyman who called himself Marisius (David desMarets I believe his real name was). If European naming conventions were used, he may have been an Uncle of our David born in 1620.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas. I'll check out the DNA projects and see if there's any action there. Interested to see if the link is really there to the Merovingian Kings and on to Mary Magdalain (the rumored "Holy Grail" in the DaVincci Code theory).

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