Fauquier County Tapscotts and DNA Testing, Revisited

I was very pleased to see a comment on my 1 Feb 2014 blog “Family Finder” That comment questioned the use of DNA to solve the Fauquier County Tapscott question. My blog of Friday, 17 May 2013, “Fauquier County Tapscotts and DNA Testing,” addressed this issued, but it, I believe, was somewhat unclear and a little too pessimistic. Let’s look at three things: (1) the question to be answered, (2) an analysis of the problem, and (3) a potential solution.

Question

Are at least some of the Fauquier County Tapscotts related by blood to Ezekiel Tapscott and his son, James E. Tapscott? (Here I use the term "Fauquier County Tapscotts" to denote people who are descended from Fauquier County ancestors bearing the name "Tapscott," whether or not those descendants have that name.)

Analysis

There are three types of DNA tests of interest to Genealogists:(1) yDNA (all male), (2) mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, all female), and (3) autosomal DNA (any combination). The first two cannot work when there are both males and females in the line. The only reasonable connections between Fauquier County Tapscotts and descendants of Henry the Immigrant include Harriet or Elizabeth and, therefore, all the lines involve at least one female (Harriet or Elizabeth) and one male (James or Ezekiel). I am including Ezekiel because some people believe Harriet was his daughter (not true according to my research). This uncertainty has no bearing at all on the present problem. If Harriet were a daughter of neither Ezekiel nor James, that would be a difficulty.

Note: I recognize that mtDNA allows a male when that is the person being tested, but that has absolutely nothing to do with this problem.

Potential Solution

Thus, the only test that can be used to answer our question is the autosomal test, which works for any mixture of sexes in the line. Autosomal DNA matches of Fauquier County Tapscotts with know descendants of Henry the Immigrant would provide strong evidence for a blood relationship. There are two companies that can be considered: AncestryDNA, which does only autosomal testing, and FamilyTreeDNA, which does autosomal testing through its “Family Finder” test (be careful, FamilyTreeDNA also does yDNA and mtDNA testing). Either AncestryDNA or “Family Finder” can be used. Both have good points and bad points and they cost about the same. It is possible to transfer results from AncestryDNA to FamilyTreeDNA to get an increased overall database for comparison. I have done autosomal testing with both companies. I have found the most connections with Ancestry.com, but FamilyTreeDNA appears to have a better knowledge of the science. More Tapscott descendants have undergone autosomal testing with Ancestry.com than with FamilyTreeDNA. Right now I lean towards Ancestry.com for autosomal testing.

Pro

(1) Autosomal DNA will work for any line, women, men, or a mixture. It is the only thing that will work here.

(2) It is the cheapest DNA test

Con

(1) Autosomal DNA works best for close relatives. It is often stated that the maximum distance it can cover is six or seven generations; however, there are known exceptions. Recently, I appear to have gotten a match at eight generations for another Tapscott line! I am seven generations removed from Edney Tapscott, the father of Ezekiel and grandfather of James. Thus, I am near the borderline for using the test to match sixth cousins.  We may get no autosomal matches for Fauquier County Tapscotts to other Tapscotts even when there is a relationship. Thus, a positive result would be a strong indication of a connection, but a negative result would prove absolutely nothing..

(2) Autosomal DNA is a shotgun approach. You will see everyone you are closely related to. Since there were almost certainly marriages between cousins of various degrees in Fauquier County, a Tapscott match would not reveal whether your line is through Harriet, Elizabeth, James, or Ezekiel nor how it reached them, but it would evidence a Tapscott blood relationship.

Final Comment

Although yDNA and mtDNA tests cannot be used to answer the Tapscott relationship question, they may provide other information of interest to the Fauquier County Tapscotts. And there is always the possibility that our entire genealogical analysis is incorrect and that we do see a Tapscott connection with yDNA, but the chances are very, very, very slim.