The Effect of AncestryDNA's Purge on my Family's Test

I'm probably in the minority, but I've been looking forward to the purge.  I have felt it will make it much easier to work with the matches that I have that are closer and perhaps keep me from falling down a few rabbit holes.  If you look at the numbers and the percentage that were lost among my family's tests it seems like a lot.  I feel like it is more focused now though.  Before the purge I went thru and looked at the matches in the 6-7 cM range who shared a Common Ancestor with me.  Some of those shared more with one or both of my siblings so I will still see them in their match list. I still have plenty of matches to work with and those matches are at a higher confidence level.  

I was really glad to see that the purge took care of the Thruline that was making me crazy.  I had a match of  6 cM who was showing in Thrulines as the grandchild of my Paternal Aunt.  It was caused by someone attaching my Aunt's census records to a woman with the same name who was born in the same year and who also had parents similar in name to my Grandparents, Thomas DeWitt Cooke & Pearl G. Jakes Cooke.   The DNA match was a maternal one though which I could see when I viewed my Mom's test though she shared the same small amount with that tester.  

I hope this will show improvement across all of my Thrulines and keep me more focused.  It would be nice if we had the ability to filter similar matches at FTDNA.  I know you can download and filter matches at FTDNA but an onsite filter is so much more functional.  All of the DNA testing sites could do a better job of match list presentation.  AncestryDNA has really made improvements in theirs which make all the others look "clunky".  Perhaps now they can add a search location which will search more fields than just the birth location.  

Jakes Siblings in Delayed Certificate of Birth Database

Searching for siblings of Pearl G. Jakes Cooke(my paternal grandmother) in the TN Delayed Certificate of Birth database

Pearl's sister, Katherine "Kitty" Jakes Bell filed hers in February of 1957.  The documents she used for her supporting evidence were:

1. Old Family Bible(could it have been the same one my grandmother used?)
2. The Original(Delayed)Birth certificate of sister(my grandmother who got hers 6 years earlier)
3. The Original Birth Certificate of Child:  her son James Benjamin "J.B." Bell 

Pearl's sister, Fannie Cora Jakes Gibson filed hers in November of 1951 less than 2 weeks after my grandmother filed for her delayed certificate of birth.  The documents Cora used for her supporting evidence were:

1. Old Family Bible
2. Original Death Certificate of Sister--Ella Ruby Jakes Pirtle(my grandmother also used this document)
3. Original Birth Certificate of Child--Delayed Certificate with her Affidavit as Mom showing age
4. Original Birth Certificate of Child--Preston Cartwright Gibson

I tried searching for the Delayed Certificate of Birth(Item #3 above) by the number(listed on Cora's doc), as keyword, and browsing(using the year and month of birth and looking for the Cert. # within each year for each of Cora's children) but was never able to locate it so I could see which child's document she used.

Pearl's brother, Frank Euless Jakes filed his in January of 1942.  The documents Euless used for his supporting evidence were:

1. Affidavit of Andrew L Gibson(brother in law who married sister Cora)
2. Affidavit of J. W. Drake
3. Old Bible Record

The affidavits are on the back of the document.  Andrew L. Gibson's affidavit states, "I was present when Frank Euless Jakes was born.  I lived near the home of his parents at the time of his birth."  J W Drake's affidavit states, "I lived on the adjoining farm with the registrant's father and mother at the time of his birth.  My wife was present when Frank Euless Jakes was born.  I visited him immediately after his birth"

Pearl's brother, William Bryan Jakes filed his in  December of  1941.  It looks like he and Euless began gathering their paperwork around the same time but that Will's was completed first.  The documents Will used for his supporting evidence were:

1. Affidavit of Andrew L Gibson(husband of his sister Cora)
2. Affidavit of Jim Drake
3. Old Bible Record

The affidavits given for Will's application are identical to those used for Euless with the exception of the name.  The statement by the non-relative J.W. Drake makes me wonder if his wife helped delivered Will and Euless or if she was just there supporting Annie.  

I have not yet found Pearl's sister,  Lula Jakes Gibson's application for a delayed certificate of birth.  She passed in  1977 and I would think should have had one. She was widowed in 1929 under tragic circumstances and never remarried.  Pearl's siblings Ruby and John died in 1934 and 1937 respectively which was likely before the need for a birth certificate.  I did search for them within the database and couldn't find an entry for either of them.

Thomas DeWitt Cooke--TN Delayed Certificate of Birth

I looked at the Delayed Certificate of Birth of my paternal grandmother in my previous blog post and wanted to see how my paternal grandfather's delayed certificate of birth compared with his wife's certificate.  He filed for his in the summer of 1951 and Pearl filed for hers at the end of the same year. While they both used their children's birth certificates as evidence, they did not use the same children.  I'm not surprised that neither of them used their son's death certificate as a supporting document of evidence.  

The documents used in Thomas DeWitt Cooke's application were:

1. Original Death Certificate of his father, William Green Cook.
2. Original Birth Certificate of Child--Billy Joe Cooke(my Dad) 
3. Delayed Birth Certificate of Sister--Eliza Amacy Cook Rowland
4. DuPont Employment Record

I was glad to see Fruit Valley listed as his birthplace.  The Fruit Valley P.O. existed from 1877-1905.  The back section of this form was blank as there were no witnesses used in filing this form.   I would love to see his DuPont Employment Record.  So far no luck with that.  I did contact several people including the Hagley Museum which holds the majority of the Dupont Company's items that are available to the public.  Employment records aren't one of them but I still have hope that the ones from Old Hickory will one day be donated to TN State Library and Archives if any do still exist.

Do you have ancestors who may have filed for a delayed certificate of birth in Tennessee or elsewhere?  What documents were used by them to support the date of birth, place of birth,  and names of their parents?  

Source:  

Ancestry.com. Tennessee, Delayed Birth Records, 1869-1909. Database with images.  Ancestry http://www.ancestry.com : 2012. Imaged from Tennessee Delayed Birth Records, 1869–1909. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.

Pearl Gray Jakes Cooke--TN Delayed Certificate of Birth

 My paternal grandmother was born in 1891 in Bell Buckle, Bedford County, Tennessee, USA.  The state of Tennessee did not began keeping birth records statewide until 1908.  It was 1951 before my grandmother applied for her delayed certificate which means she was 60 years old at the time of her application. 

It's interesting to see what documents are used for evidence.  The image below shows what my grandmother used.  I've marked thru the certificate number and the date for item 2 because it is that of my Aunt Bobbie who is still living.  I left the date on the column to the far right which is the date the original document was made which can vary a good bit from the date of birth.  

1. Original Family Bible--I have no clue where this Bible is but think it would most likely be that of James Jakes, Pearl's father.  He died 10 yrs prior to her application and did live with her the last few years of his life. Her mother died 31 years prior to her application.
2. Cert. Copy--Child's Birth Cert- This is the birth certificate of her youngest daughter who is still living.
3. Cert. Copy--Child's Birth Cert- This is the birth certificate of her next to the youngest daughter, June.
4. Orig. Death Cert. of Sister--This is the death certificate of her oldest sister Ella Ruby Jakes Pirtle.  

Tennessee's Delayed Certificates of Birth are two sided forms but this particular one didn't have a notarized statement from a witness or witnesses so the back of the document was blank other than the vital records office's not of address at the top left.  

Source:

Ancestry.com. Tennessee, Delayed Birth Records, 1869-1909. Database with images.  Ancestry http://www.ancestry.com : 2012. Imaged from Tennessee Delayed Birth Records, 1869–1909. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.