Developing the full potential of the X-family tree

Date: 12 Aug 2023 to 12 Aug 2023
Location: [unknown]
Surname/tag: dna endogamy emigration x-matches x-chromosome one place studiesCorato emigration history X-friends Connect-a-thon

What we know

The X-friends app designed for Wikitree by Greg Clarke can be used to trace the potential trajectories of X-matches of any ‘root person’, whether or not that person has taken a DNA test.

In a single operation, the X-friends app traces potential X-matches both up to ‘terminal ancestors’ and then down through the generations of potential carriers of the root person’s X, including living persons.

The app needs to be used in a large family tree, such as the albero genealogico coratino, which has more than 25,000 interconnected people in it, as a result of 7 years’ research. In this case, the app is used with a gedcom extracted from the tree on Ancestry, which is managed since 2016 by the Atelier Généalogique, a French association that has set up a project entitled ‘A tale of two twinned cities : Corato and Grenoble’ (see : www.emigrazione-corato.org). The project is followed by a scientific monitoring committee composed of some of the leading migration historians in Italy and France.

The Corato One Place Study created in September 2022 at Wikitree is part of the above project. It was set up primarily to conduct further experimentation with the X-friends app. As well as with a gedcom, the latter can, of course, be used in the Wikitree main tree. It would be interesting to see how it could be used by other One Place Studies or One Name Studies connected to the main tree.

What the X-friends app can do

The app was set up originally to help identify “lost“ people in an endogamous context, which creates so many cousins and namesakes that it creates difficulties for genetic genealogy research. In this context, the project uses the app to search for the birth parents of a friend.

However, the project’s large family tree, and accompanying database, is intended also to be a primary resource base for writing the history of migration from Corato, using a nominative approach to the subject. In other words, to document the effects of migration from the point of view of the families that were involved. This approach is consistent with present-day historiography in Migration Studies. Improving access to primary resources is a goal common to both genealogical and historical research.

In March 2023, CRIAT (Centro Interuniversitario per l’Analisi del Territorio), a coalition of 4 universities of the Puglia region, responded positively to our request to set up an international database on emigration from Puglia.

I’m working on presenting translations of some of the Corato One Place Study texts. This could be productive in terms of informing potential partners and project participants in Italy and France about the nature of our work together at Wikitree.

What could be done to enhance the effectiveness of the X-Friends app?

Much of my questioning here is speculative…and I apologize for any repetition. The X-family tree presently shows the potential inheritance of the X in an upwards trajectory. Could similar trees be drawn of the potential inheritance on the downwards trajectory, showing the country and place of death of recent carriers (ie of original migrants) ?

By starting from each ‘terminal ancestor’, the X-family tree would show the potential carriers of the X, right to the present day. In so doing, the app could identify ‘transnational families’, formed when some members of the same family emigrated to various countries, while others remained in Corato. Transnationality is a concept of interest to historians working on migration, The capability to identify transnational families could help to link families that have been separated by migration.

In the search for birth parents, could the X-Friends app, studied in combination with MtDNA, help to show on which side (paternal or maternal) a person is (with regard to a DNA tester) ?

It is worth noting that Ancestry is able to say a person is on the side of parent 1 or parent 2, on both sides, or on undetermined sides : could the X-Friends app improve on this, with reference to the above ? Perhaps Peter Roberts might have something to say about this…

Perhaps it might also be possible to tweak the present Wikitree ‘relationships by degrees’ app by setting time limits in a relationship calculator that would include siblings, as well as contemporary cousins. This could help to identify what a person’s inner circle was before migration, making the best possible use of the indication of witnesses and godparents in certain records.

As I said in an earlier email to Greg a few weeks ago, one might place that limit at 1850 (or even a bit later) when looking for relationships of a person born around 1900. The 1850 limit would oblige the application to look for connections between people born after that date. I have in mind, of course, the search for possible birth parents…but perhaps I’m expecting too much !

In summary, within the context of our historical project, which aims to evaluate what migration has brought to the places of both destination and origin, there is also a potential here for developing “genealogical tourism“. This could be particularly relevant, in the context of Puglia, where the development of a voluntary digitisation capability could perhaps make a contribution towards making certain of the region’s archives accessible.