Tags
Alabama, Coffee County, Coffee County Alabama, DNA, genealogy, genetics, Henry Andrews, Henry Nance, Nashville, Nashville Tennessee, slavery
I think I was about 9 years old when I first heard that my great-great grandfather Henry Nance had two families. His first family was in Tennessee– Nashville to be exact– and then he left and started another family in Coffee County, Alabama. I descend from the Coffee County family– the Nances of Lower Alabama.
For years we’ve wondered about that first family– who were they? Why did Henry leave? And most importantly, where are our cousins?
Thanks to DNA and a newfound cousin, we now have some answers.
I recently had a new match on ancestry.com that showed up as a 3rd or 4th cousin, meaning we share a great-great grandparents. I looked at his tree and noticed that one of his great-great grandparents was named Henry and was from Tennessee. My great-great grandfather was named Henry and was from Tennessee. The only difference was the last name. His ancestor’s last name was Andrews, and mine was Nance.
But this supported my theory that Henry Nance had changed his name at some point. So I messsaged my newfound cousin to compare notes. Thankfully, he responded. We discovered that we were both thinking the same thing– Henry Andrews and Henry Nance are the same person.
Consider the following:
-Henry Andrews and Henry Nance were both from Nashville and born in the early 1830s
-Henry Andrews doesn’t appear on a Census record after 1880. Henry Nance doesn’t appear on a Census record before 1900
-In the 1900 Census, Henry Nance’s marriage to my great-great grandmother (Annie Cotton) is listed as his second marriage. My newfound cousin found an 1866 marriage license issued in Tennessee between his great-great grandmother (Tennessee Jordan) and Henry Andrews
-the naming patterns among the children and grandchildren in both families are similar. “Henry” and “William” repeat, and there’s even a “Lula.” William and Lula were Henry’s parents
DNA Don’t Lie
My newfound cousin has a keen understanding of how DNA measurements work and explained to me that the centimorgans support our theory. A centimorgan is a unit of measure used to how closely genes are linked. The more centimorgans you share with a person, the more closely you are related. My cousin and I compared the centimorgans with our shared matches and saw there was an inverse relationship. In other words, the matches that I shared more centimorgans with, he shared fewer. The matches he shared more centimorgans with, I shared fewer. This helped us determine who among our matches descended from which family.
He and I share 66 centimorgans, which is to be expected between third cousins. Third cousins are people who share a great-great grandparent. He and I also share an unrelenting desire to find out as much as possible about our family. Must be in the DNA.