Genealogy
An Introduction
by Ruth Cherecwich
There is a mail list available to Kincaids of all spellings. This mail list enables Kincaid researchers to share information with each other and to ask questions that another researcher may be able to answer. We also discover and make connections with other folks in our personal Kincaid line.
Membership on the mail list is free. Sometimes there are hundreds of messages within a month's time, and other times the mail list is slow because people are busy withholidays or other projects.
To subscribe to the Kincaid Mail List that is sponsored by RootsWeb, send an email to: KINCAID-L-request@rootsweb.com
In the above you will receive each mail posted as an individual mail. To subscribe so that you get only one or two mails each day containing several postings, send an email to: KINCAID-D-request@rootsweb.com
In either case, you must put the word Subscribe in both the subject line and in the body of the message. Do not put anything else into the body of the message.
To search the Archives of the mail list, go to: http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/?list=KINCAID
To browse the Archives of the mail list, go to: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/KINCAID/
You are welcome to join the mail list and see first hand what it is that we do. You may be pleasantly surprised when you give or receive help from fellow Kincaid researchers.
Latest News
The Kincaid Surname DNA Project is alive and well!!! We have our own website now at www.kincaiddna.org provided by Grant Kinkead of Australia. We think you will find the information on this website to be interesting and informative. We are also excited to have Randy Kincaid, PhD. join our administration team since he has been involved in dna studies for many years.
We have 233 members who have tested at various levels and with different dna tests. DNA testing for genealogy has come a long way from it's start in 2001 testing for 12 Y dna markers, then adding mt-dna tests, later autosomal dna tests such as Family Finder and last year adding the Big Y SNP test which covers around 26,000 SNP's. As of July 1, 2015 our project has 221 participants who have done the Y dna 12 marker test, 214 have done the 25 marker test, 205 have done the 37 marker test, 82 have done the 67 marker test and 17 have done the 111 marker test. All these tests are for paternal ancestor so are for males only. We have had a few surprise results because of non paternal events but most results prove kinship to Kincaid's of some spelling and most times have shown kinship to several spellings of our surname. We have seen Kincaid spelled over 40 different ways in records and since knowing how to spell was not common until about 200 years ago the spelling was determined by how the clerk filling out the document thought it should be spelled.
We have 33 male and female participants who have done a mt-dna test. This maternal dna test is not as definitive as the Y dna test for men and requires a lot of contacting matches to come up with any helpful info.
The Family Finder dna test is an autosomal dna test for males and females and is proving to be very helpful in finding cousins and thus ancestors and other kin. We have 29 participants who have done the Family Finder dna test and 3 more have ordered it recently. It unfortunately does not pass down uniformly like the Y dna does but enough of the same dna will be shown to be very helpful. 2 siblings will not show the exact same autosomal dna results but enough will be shown to show they are siblings. The Family Finder test will match you with all kin who have tested on your maternal and paternal lines and is for males and females. In my case I have documented over 20 kin that I did not have the names or kinship for and some were very exciting to find. I had been told by my mother that we were kin to Davy Crockett but they did not know the exact way we were kin so when I got my Family Finder results and spotted a Crockett who was a 3rd generation cousin on the first page of my matches I immediately contacted him and he was able to provide the documentation to go with the dna result indicating 3rd cousin. There have been many success stories like this by our Family Finder participants. We are working on a way to display the Family Finder dna results, mt dna results and the Big Y dna results on our website but this is proving to be more difficult than the Y dna results.
One of my newest Family Finder dna matches is a descendant of General Sam Houston who commanded the Republic of Texas forces who won independence from Mexico and was the first President of the Republic. Since we know all Group A Kincaid participants will have a common ancestor back in time we believe all Group A participants will have kinship with Sam because his Houston ancestors intermarried with Kincaid's of Kincaid in Scotland who most researchers credit with being the ancestors of Group A Kincaid's. After confirming the Houston kinship we went to Texas and followed the Texas Independence Trail and found it much more interesting because of the Houston connection.
We now have 12 different haplogroups represented in our Kincaid Surname DNA Project and are shown on the chart on our website. In time we hope to discover the origins of all the haplogroups shown. Many are likely due to non paternal events such as adoption.
The Big Y dna test participants total 8 who are members of our project. 3 of the participants are in the Group A Kincaid's on our dna results chart on our website and 1 is in Group C Kincaid's. The others are surnames related to Kincaid's from long ago like Sinclair, Frank and Hamilton. Big Y dna results to date show the Group A Kincaid ancestors to show kinship with Sinclair's, Franks, Carlisles, Bledsoes, Wheatons and to a lessor extent other surnames back in time. We are hoping that the dna scientists will be able to show where and when Kincaid's lived prior to Scotland. At present our personal belief is that the Group A Kincaid's were in England. prior to Scotland, likely before the time of surnames coming into use because so many of the surnames on above were there. Prior to England our belief is that they were likely in what is now NW Germany. Study of Big Y results and more participants will tell more about our more distant ancestors. Prior to the Big Y results I would never have thought that ancient Kincaid's would have been in England prior to Scotland!
Current Kincaid Surname DNA Project administrators are Sue Liedtke, Ruth Chericwich, Randall Kincaid and Don W Kincaid.
We welcome any Kincaid to join our project and there is a Join link. Our website at www.kincaiddna.org.
Definitions
Y dna: Y dna is the dna passed down from father to son is seen on our chart for results from testing the STR dna. (Short Tandem Repeats)
mt-dna: Mt-dna is the dna passed down from mother to her children both male and female.
Y SNP: Y SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) passes down from father to son and is more stable than the STR dna, thus less mutations.
Y dna 12: There are 5 Y dna STR marker tests beginning with 12 markers, then 25, then 37, then 67, then 111. The more markers the more precise the dna results.
Family Finder: Family Finder is an autosomal dna test for both males and females. Autosomal dna passes down randomly but enough of the same dna passes down to show kinship up to about 4 or 5 generations.
Group A Kincaid: The Kincaid Surname DNA Project results chart divides the participants into Groups and sub groups called sets beginning with Group A, then B, C, D and etc.
Different haplogroups: A haplogroup is a designation for all dna participants who have similar results in their dna tests. Haplogroups are named using the alphabet beginning with A. Most Kincaids are in haplogroup R which is the most numerous haplogroup in Western Europe and Great Britain.