Do you have a favorite ancestor or discovery?
I was never certain about the parents of my paternal ancestor, Jack Brinson Duke, until I made contact with another relative of his sister's husband. He sent me a document that described one of them coming to visit my family over 50 years later in Texas (where my family still owns that tract of land). It's the only solid connection I have that connects him back to a specific family in Alabama. That's definitely the most exciting contact I've made so far.
I have also been interested in Rev. Isaac Reed, an ancestor on my maternal side who was an early settler in Texas in the same county where my Duke ancestors later migrated from Alabama. His ancestry seems to be disputed, but I was able to find a descendant to do Y-DNA testing that we have been able to compare with other Reed families.
We knew almost nothing about my Watkins ancestor, but thanks to the work of another genealogist who had researched that family and preserved it online, her mother's part of the tree exploded with information that I was able to confirm with DNA testing.
Unfortunately, her father remains a solid brick wall.
What is your toughest brick wall currently?
Although I have several ancestors with names and very little other information to go on, the Duke ancestors are my most significant challenge. Not only is it my paternal line and namesake, but I feel like we are so close to a discovery. However, reliable records just don't seem to exist. I would love to know Catherine's maiden name, but we've never found a source to confirm any of the theories.
My biggest goal is to figure out how John and Adam Duke were related and who they came from. Based on Y-DNA, we now know that both of them go back to the same Duke ancestor around 1640, but we can't fill in the gaps between him and their generation 150 years later. I believe they were probably connected to the same male ancestor in the late 1700s, but I have not been able to prove it yet.
How long have you been on WikiTree and why did you start getting involved?
I only wish I had found WikiTree before I started using all of the other online services! I did not join until the end of 2021 after I had already filled out my tree and added sources everywhere else. Someone with the Duke autosomal study on WikiTree had asked for some of us in the FTDNA surname group to join WikiTree and upload our DNA to GEDmatch where we could compare with others here. Once I learned how WikiTree worked and saw the difference from all of the other websites, I decided that this should be the primary repository for my family's history.
Which projects are you most involved in?
Lately, I have been spending more time writing code for the WikiTree Browser Extension than I have on genealogy. However, I also recently set up the Duke Name Study and some related research pages. Those who conducted the original autosomal study did a great job, but I missed out on most of that because I joined so late. With my involvement in the Y-DNA groups, I wanted to add more research and additional discoveries that may help uncover some of the remaining Duke mysteries. I hope others who are searching for their Duke lineage will use it as a starting point for their own research and eventual DNA testing.
