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DNA: Stokes Brooks, Young Brooks, yDNA, Wilkes July 15, 2019 The Mystery of Stokes Brooks and Young Brooks The DNA results are in, and
the verdict is clear: Stokes Brooks
and Young Brooks definitely had different fathers. Stokes H. Brooks was born in
1802, and his brother Young Nathan Brooks was born in 1805. They were both sons of Rebecca Brooks who is
believed to have never married. The
family arrived in the area of Wilkes and Iredell Co, NC, before 1822. It was on 1/1/1822 that Stokes Brooks
married Clarissa Reynolds in Wilkes Co.
After a quick check, the earliest I’ve seen Young Brooks is the 1840
Iredell Co census. The story I’ve heard is that
perhaps Stokes’ father was a Mr. Stokes; and Young’s father was a Mr.
Young. I’ve never seen any evidence
for that, but it is curious that both are more common as surnames than as
first names. Stokes Brooks was listed as
born in Virginia in the 1850 and 1860 censuses. His daughter Permelia Brooks Adams’ 1914
death certificate says her father was born in Halifax Co. These are the only references I’ve seen for
his birth place. As for Young Brooks, the
1860, 1870, and 1880 Wilkes Co censuses list him born in Virginia. Unless something else turns up, Halifax Co,
VA, seems like the best place to start looking for them, but I haven’t found
anything in the written records of Halifax Co for this Brooks family. Below is a picture from last
year of Young Brooks’ headstone at the Brown Family Cemetery near Garden
Creek Church at Stone Mountain. With an absence of written
records, perhaps DNA can lead to additional clues. Several of my cousins have been generous
enough to take DNA tests to help me expand our family tree and learn more
about where we come from. Among those
tests, are male descendants of both Stokes Brooks and Young Brooks. For this mystery, we need
yDNA testing. A yDNA test identifies
the lineage of a man’s father’s father’s father’s etc line. Therefore, yDNA testing is only for men. The other type of DNA test, autosomal DNA,
is for everyone. Consider two men who are cousins,
and they each descend from different sons of their great grandfather. The next generation is through sons of
their grandfathers. This is called the
patrilineal line. Those two men will have
the same markers in their yDNA. I won’t turn this into a
yDNA biology class, but the point is that if two male-line Brooks descendants
had the same great great grandfather, then they would share yDNA. What I found is that descendants of Stokes
and Young don’t share yDNA. Therefore,
Stokes and Young must have had different fathers. One DNA test is from a great
great grandson of Stokes Brooks. The people
around the world who have also taken the DNA test and who share similar yDNA are
called his matches. That list of
matches is shown below. Notice that no one else in
this list has the Brooks surname. By
far, the most common surname is “Long”.
While this is not proof that Stokes Brooks’ father was a Mr. Long, it’s
certainly the best guess at this point.
The yDNA test coordinators have put his test in the Long Family Group “L”
which has proven ties back to a man named Ware Long who was born in Culpeper
Co, VA, about 1720. Perhaps a son or
grandson or cousin of Ware Long is the father of Stokes Brooks. I also submitted the yDNA
test of a great grandson of Young Brooks.
Below is his list of yDNA matches. The most frequent name in
the list is “Potter”. Notice that the Potter
matches are a genetic distance of 2, while the names toward the bottom of the
list have a genetic distance of 4.
That suggests the Potter matches are probably closer cousins. Initially it appears that the common
ancestor is likely through a man named James Potter who was born in NC or GA
in 1790. This James Potter is almost
certainly not Young Brooks’ father, but perhaps James Potter’s great great grandfather
was born in the 1600s and was the ancestor of the father of Young Brooks. This is like a bread crumb that tells us in
which direction we should search for more clues. The yDNA testing has
confirmed what was already commonly believed – that Stokes Brooks and Young
Brooks had different fathers.
Additionally, it has provided clues as to who their father’s actually
were. As more people participate
in DNA testing, we’ll be able to add more pieces to the puzzle that will
provide additional clues to solve mysteries like this. Eventually we’ll learn the names of the
fathers of Stokes Brooks and Young Brooks. If you’re interested in DNA
testing, the only company that offers yDNA tests is Family Tree DNA. I use them for all of the tests that I
manage. If you have questions about
which test to select, I’ll be glad to help. Comments? jason@webjmd.com |