Shaky Leaves: Death of Peter Swafford, 1885, Owen County, Indiana

Found additional information at Ancestry regarding Peter Swafford, my maternal 4th great-grandfather and his date of death.  According to the WPA index, his death occurred at age 58 on August 18, 1885 in Spencer, Owen County, Indiana.

Name:	Peter Swaffar
Date:	18 Aug 1885
Location:	Spencer
Age:	58 Yr
Gender:	Male
Race:	White
Source Location:	County Health Office, Spencer
Source notes:	The source of this record is the book H-12 on page 70 within the series produced by the Indiana Works Progress Administration.

I would almost bet that I already had this information, but for some reason it wasn't in my database. I find it strange that his death occurred in mid-August and yet it took until the first week of September for any mention of his death in Bloomington paper.  Perhaps there was a Spencer newspaper that would have more information.  Now that I have his exact date of death, I can seek this out.

The spelling of the surname also gives me an indication of how the name was pronounced, likely without a hard 'd' at the end.

DNA : Crockett connection

Made a connection through Ruby's DNA for a match (Elizabeth) who had Crockett listed in the list of surnames.  I reached out to her and heard back quickly that she is a descendant of the Joseph Crockett, who was the brother of David Crockett - the ancestor of Ruby and I.

In her email, she stated she was in contact with another Crockett researcher who I was familiar with and mentioned that DNA had tied our Alexander Crockett into the line of David Crockett the elder, the grandparents of Davy Crockett of Alamo fame.

There is a Crockett DNA project at FamilyTreeDNA, if you are male Crockett descendant, I would encourage you to join and do the Y-DNA test.

Here is how Ruby compares with Elizabeth, the largest match is on Chromosome 11.

I don't have all of Elizabeth's line yet, so the exact relationship is not known, but the prediction would be 2nd-4th cousin to Ruby.

I'm looking forward to continuing the correspondence and see what the Crockett DNA group has found out about the ancestry.

DNA : Ruby's Top Matches at FamilyTreeDNA

These are the top eight matches at FamilyTreeDNA for my maternal great-aunt Ruby's by relationship range.  I've removed the last names of the matches. Of course, I am her closest match at 998cm with a predicted relationship range of 1st cousin, half sibling, grandparent/grandchild, aunt/uncle, niece/nephew. 

The next closest match is Mildred, who matches Ruby at 272cm and is predicted to be a 1st - 3rd cousin.  Mildred is a known relative, a 1st cousin once removed with common ancestors being Mary Ellen Swafford.  Mildred comes from the Gilliland side of the family, so actually she would be a half-1st cousin once removed.

The next two matches, Judith and Thomas, are the children of Mildred and match Ruby at 173cm and 135cm respectively.  These would be Ruby's second cousins (technically half-second cousins).  Interestingly, Judith and Thomas do not share the same amount of DNA with Ruby, which just shows why you should test as many people as you can as not even brothers & sisters will share the exact same amounts of DNA.

The next match, Justin, is the son of Judith.  He shares 108cm with Ruby. He is also predicted to be a 2nd - 4th cousin, but is actually 2nd cousin once removed.

The next match, Elizabeth, shares 81cm with Ruby and is predicted to be a 2nd - 4th cousin.  She doesn't have a family tree on the site, but in the list of surnames was Crockett, the name of Ruby's 2nd-great grandmother. I've heard back from her and she descends from Alexander Crockett & Elizabeth Watkins through Joseph, the younger brother of Ruby's ancestor David Crockett of Owen County, Indiana.

The next match, Sherrol, shares 77cm with Ruby and is predicted to be a 2nd - 4th cousin.  She has a family tree on the site, but I didn't see any names that looked familiar.  Will have to reach out and see if we can compare notes for the connection.

The next match, Mark, also shares 77cm with Ruby and is predicted to be a 2nd - 4th cousin.  He has no family tree or surnames listed.

The next match, Dale, shares 75cm with Ruby and is predicted to be a 2nd - 4th cousin match.  Dale is Ruby's 3rd cousin, a descendant of David & Ellen (Lambertson) Mengle.  Dale and Ruby's common ancestors are John Lambertson & Sarah A. Willson.

The last match on the first page, Vaughn, shares 74cm with Ruby and is predicted to be a 2nd-4th cousin match.  No family tree provided, but several surnames listed - none that are familiar.  Will have to reach out to see if we can make the connection.

At first blush, there are some known relatives and good potential matches in the list of the first page of highest centimorgans shared.