There are two questions which friends ask when they know that you are researching your family tree, (i) "How far have you got back?" and (ii) "Have you found any famous/notorious relatives?"
We have only found three people (four if we can count Chevalier de Bayard) who could be in any way called 'famous/notorious' and these three, whilst not being in our family tree do have Byard somewhere in their name.
In answering the first question we have traced our tree on the Byard side to about 1650. We have been unable to locate with any certainty any links before this date. For most researchers getting back as far as the mid 17th. C. is quite an achievement, but earlier research has become quite difficult since records are very few or non-existent. We are also aware that this research has concentrated on the male side of the family. This was because other researchers (notably Kath Benny and Edna James) had also made inroads into the Derbyshire Byards and we were able to use some of their data. Tracing the male line is much easier than tracing the female line, since one is looking for one name most of the time. However it may well be that tracing the female line is the only secure way of establishing just where we came from, since the mother gave birth to the baby but the father may not be the one who was indicated on the birth certificate. Indeed many women who gave birth to an illegitimate child cited a father whom they felt would provide adequate support for them rather than the actual father of the child, who could well be penniless.
In Genealogy all research is undertaken through looking at records, whether they be in the family bibles which have been handed down from generation to generation or through parish records, so in effect we are looking to the past record keepers for our information and we rely very much on their accuracy. However we all carry in our DNA a genetic representation of our ancestors which may be a truer indication of our forebares than that in the records. The only problem is that we cannot start digging up our relatives and asking for DNA tests! There is however one type of DNA, namely mitochondrial DNA, which is particularly useful to genealogists.
Mitochondria exist in all our cells, in a region outside the cell nucleus, called the ctyoplasm. Its purpose is to help the cells use oxygen to produce energy. There are many mitochondria in each of our cells and each mitochondrion is enclosed within a membrane and in each mitochondrion there is a tiny piece of DNA. The interesting thing about mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) is that it is inherited from one person only, namely the mother. This is unlike the DNA in the chromosomes of the nucleus of our cells which is inherited from each parent. In short, fathers pass on their nuclear DNA to their offspring, their mtDNA stops with them; only females pass on their mtDNA.
The surprising finding is that for 95% of modern-day Europeans there are only seven distinct mtDNA groups. By looking at the mutations in each of these groups it appears that all seven groups had ages of between 45,000 and 100,000 years (1 mutation occurs about every 20,000 years). This data puts the oldest of the groups back with the Cro-Magnons in the Palaeolithic period of history. Additionally it means that for each of the seven cluster groups there was just one woman who carried the foundation sequence. Thus 95% of Europeans are descended from one of the seven women.
Professor Bryan Sykes (Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford) has named these seven women, Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine and Jasmine. For genealogists the implication of this is that they can now trace their ancestral roots as far back as the Cro-Magnons albeit without knowing much of the intervening period!
By having our mtDNA sequences analysed Hazel and I have found that we are descended from the Jasmine and Ursula clans respectively.
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Further information on mtDNA can be found in "The Seven Daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes, published by Bantam Press in 2001.
Details of mtDNA analysis can be found at www.oxfordancestors.com