A man looking for his father

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Dave Lewis

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Dec 17, 2023, 3:47:30 PM12/17/23
to Descendants of Edmond Lewis
Hi, all. I hope everyone is doing well.

I had an inquiry from a match on FTDNA Family Finder this week. The man is looking for his father. The match is Christopher Michael Lewis, who lives in Belize. He has very little information on his father. This is want he told me:

His father is John Lewis who lived in Belize in the 1970s. John was born about 1935 and was from Texas USA. He worked as a marine mechanic at some point of his life. He was married to Christopher's mother for a while in Belize. Her name is/was Peril Cabral.

Looking at our shared matches, he aligns best with my paternal great, great grandmother's side. She was Sarah M. Leggett. Given his surname, it is possible he could be descended from Zerah Lewis and Sarah Leggett, who relocated to Texas after the Civil War, along with most of their children. Many of the descendants of Zerah's brother Reu also migrated to Texas, but that does not explain the Leggett matches, but who knows who married whom back in the day. I explained that Lewis is a common name and my mother's line and most of my paternal grandmother lines going back three generations also have Lewis lines which are to my knowledge unrelated to my paternal Lewis line.

My shared DNA with Christopher is only 10 cM on chromosome 3. The overlapping segment falls within an area that appears to be Leggett based as several known and suspected Leggett matches overlap there. Most descendants of Zerah and Sarah that I know of share a much larger amount of DNA with me. Still, it is possible to have a 3rd cousin match with this little DNA, especially if they are "removed" a generation or two.

The only other Lewis surname on our shared match list is Dr. James Leon Lewis, Ph.D., who has done BigY and doesn't align with us.

I couldn't help him with my limited knowledge of relatives in Texas, as my line left there about 120 years ago. If anybody on this board might have a hint to who this John Lewis is/was, please let me know and I will pass it on. 

Dave

Joy Durrett

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Dec 17, 2023, 5:51:39 PM12/17/23
to descendants-o...@googlegroups.com
Hi Everyone

Merry Christmas to my Lewis family. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year. 

Dave where did he do his autosomal DNA?

I would encourage him to do a Y DNA to see if he matches our Lewis or another Lewis line. If he doesn’t that will tell you that he belongs to your Leggett line. Or you have 2 Lewis’s who married a Leggett. 

I have been taking a DNA class and I am now thinking my Lewis line has endogamy in it. My Lewis’s also match surnames on Ron’s birth mothers side. This makes it harder to figure out. 

This would be back further to Ron’s back to his 4th or 5th. Great Grandparents which is where I am stuck. 

 I know believe Diane and Ron’s line are 1/2 siblings. At least that is what the DNA is telling me. I still am working on it.  Hopefully one day I will figure out who these men and women were who married into each others lines. 

Dave I know it is hard for Christopher to wait. I have been there. All I can tell him is to watch surnames. I know before I figured it all out. I kept seeing the same surname Weatherman over and over again. It turned out Ron’s birth father’s mother was a Weatherman. 

The hardest part is waiting for the right match. Our best match came on Ancestry but who knows his could be at another testing company. 

Their is on DNA painter a tool called What a are the odds. He can watch Joni Pearl’s video to see how it works.  It helps you with matches when you are trying to figure out the odds of who your ancestor might be. You use your matches to figure it out. Right now the tool is free. Eventually you will have to pay to use it. 

I wish him the best in his search. 

Joy






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On Dec 17, 2023, at 12:47 PM, 'Dave Lewis' via Descendants of Edmond Lewis <descendants-o...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi, all. I hope everyone is doing well.
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Daniel C. Lewis

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Feb 11, 2024, 11:34:23 AM2/11/24
to descendants-o...@googlegroups.com
Joy; can you summarize what you are sure about at this point, when I look at the earlier emails I am totally confused with the Asa’s. Just a listing would help.  I am looking at the gap between who Dave calls 4Joseph and your furthest back reasonably certain Ancestor.  

I need to take a DNA class also!

Dan

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