Chasing the Connections
Adding a relative to a family tree adds one more piece to the puzzle every genealogists is trying to complete, but simply writing in a name can be misleading. Glenn is never satisfied without solid proof.
Everyone has their family stories, the famous relatives. Genealogists with the surname of Whitlock all over the world are part of a one name study, that is, research into the genealogy and family history of all persons with the same surname. The family members are all working together to solve the big puzzle that is the Whitlock family.
One of those members decided that a relationship to the House of Windsor had been common knowledge within the family for years and it was time to make a connection. She shared the research with a contact in Great Britain, with a very welcoming response.
Just imagine receiving a phone call from Kate and William,
with His Royal Highness Charles in the background.
Sometimes those family stories are real. Sometimes those famous relatives cannot be bandied about lightly.
Peter Whitlock and his sister began researching their family history in 1968. They contacted Whitlocks throughout Canada and the responses they received quickly revealed that there was a lot of duplicated research. Peter and his sister became the hub of sorts for Whitlock family members to exchange copies of research documents. This collaboration developed into the Whitlock Family One-Name Study (https://whitlock.one-name.net/home/index.html).
Peter has commented that “After 60+ years our Website has become a library of images of original documentation sent in by hundreds of researchers who shared their research with us.
One of the maxims I learned early on is always consult the original document. This became very important as transcripts of documents such as census records and vital records and Wills became more available. Census record transcriptions were particularly bad.”
Glenn Whitlock has been Peter’s primary researcher for years.
Genealogists working on their family trees rely heavily on documents: census records, marriage records, death certificates. They search out land records, deeds, and tax records. They know the value of family bibles, wills, and newspaper birth, wedding and death announcements. But eventually every genealogist gets into those tenuous connections. The educated guesses.
Glenn Whitlock specializes in genetic genealogy, looking for proof of those tenuous connections. He uses DNA testing to help identify common ancestors, specifically, Y-chromosome DNA. Y-DNA, particularly from several men in a family line, can provide an estimated date for a common ancestor. Once a time frame is established Glenn searches out the paper documents to verify the DNA estimates. When he is finished, every "i" will be dotted and every "t" will be crossed, with each document examined in it’s original form and having complete and irrevocable citations.
Glenn’s understanding of DNA as a research tool combined with his exhaustive search for properly cited supporting documents turns family stories into reality.
