A Study of Hine Genes

George Henry Hine with his grandsons in 1919.

I thought I’d do a post about DNA this week.  It is directly related to this photo.  It is a photo of my maternal grandfather Fred Bucklin as a child.  He and his male cousins are gathered around their common grandfather George Henry Hine.  (I will try to identify everyone later in this post.)  I wonder if Henry was the one that passed on that towheaded or blond hair trait.  It was very common in his grandchildren and their children and grandchildren as well.  Of course, some of them don’t have this trait.  DNA traits are randomly passed on to offspring.

In each generation each parent passes on half of their genetic information.  So children are made up of half of each of their parents.  But the half that they passed on to their children was not separated evenly from their parents.  Most of the time a parent passes on more of the traits of one parent than the other.  On average you have 25% of your grandparents genes, but it varies from 19% to 35%.  As more generations pass, the differences can be notable.  I’ll give you an example.

I am the great great grandson of George Henry Hine.  Joseph Connors is too.  We both descend from his daughter Addie Mae, so we are 2nd cousins.  Chad Foley is a great great grandson as well, but he descends from Henry’s son James.  That makes him 3rd cousins to Joseph and me.  DNA tests have been done on Joseph, his mom Louise Bucklin Connors, me, and my mom Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  And just recently Chad agreed to share his DNA results on the the website GEDmatch.com, which allows me to compare his results with everyone else who has tested.  Thanks again, Chad.

I found the results very interesting.  On average a 3rd cousin shares around 1% of their DNA, which comes to around 79 cM (centimorgans – a measuring scale for genetic linkage).  Since I discovered Chad’s DNA at Ancestry where aunt Loris tested, I will let you know that the average amount shared for 2nd cousins once removed is 129 cM.  Loris and Chad only shared about 62 cM, which was a little low but still in normal range.  I was curious to see if her siblings and cousins would share more.  And when Chad shared his results, I saw that they did.

My mom and Louise (and her brother Ray) shared more than 100cM with Chad.  This was still lower than average, but much more than Loris had.  The only one with the average amount was uncle Austin who shared 126 cM with Chad.  That’s what can happen with the random mixing of DNA through the generations.  And it can be even more random.  I compared my DNA to Chad and I share the same amount that my mom had.  All of the DNA that matches Chad just happened to pass on to me as well.  But when I compared Chad to Joseph, they had no matching DNA.  Even though Louise had about the same amount as my mom, she just happened to not pass any of it on to Joseph.  (I’m sure there was other Hine DNA that was passed on to Joseph, but the DNA segments that matched Chad were not.)

So this is an encouragement for all of you to do DNA tests.  Besides getting all of that fun heritage information and seeing whether you have Neanderthal DNA, you get to see who you are related to.  But most of the time it’s better to test the older generation.  Sometimes those little pieces that connect to certain distant ancestors get dropped out along the way.  There are a few Stanbrough (from Henry’s wife Susan Stanbrough Hine) segments that mom had that were not passed on to me.  Some of them were really interesting, too.  I’m still related to those distant cousins, but there aren’t any common DNA segments to easily prove it.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to try to identify the people in this photo from 1919.  At that time George Henry Hine had 11 grandsons.  His daughter Addie Hine Bucklin had 8 of them.  The rest were from his sons.  Let’s see who might be who.  The first one born was Leo Bucklin in 1898.  That’s him standing tall in the middle of the photo.  Next born was Ralph Bucklin in 1902.  He must be the one in the overalls.  Next born was Carl Bucklin in 1904.  He is in the back to the far left with his head turning away.  Finally Lonnie Hine gives Henry a Hine grandson in 1905.  He was named Arthur Henry and he is standing to the right of the oldest one (sans hat).

The next three are the hardest to identify.  They all look alike to me.  It doesn’t help that two of them are identical twins.  Herbert Bucklin (grandfather of Joseph) was born in 1906 and then Clarence and Fred (my grandfather) were born in 1907.  I’ll say that Herbert is the boy 2nd from the right in the back row, Fred is on the right in the back, and Clarence is 2nd from the left (sticking his tongue out.  Carla, if you want to switch those names in your mind, that is fine with me. Either one is representative of what he looked like.)  The next grandson born was Aulden Hine (son of James and grandfather of Chad) in 1908.  He is standing in front to the far left with plaid hat.  Robert Bucklin was born in 1911 and is standing in front on the right in the dark shorts.

Okay, we’re almost finished.  If there were any more, I’d have to number them and make a chart!  Roy Bucklin was born in 1915 and that’s him with his hand to his blond hair in front.  And lastly, there is little Kenneth Hine sitting in grandpa Henry’s lap.  He was born in 1916 to James.  There would be one more grandson born.  Bert Hine had a son named Harold in 1921.   There is not a photo of Harold with his grandfather because Henry died in 1919 at the age of 72.

So now we’re done.  Fini. The end.  The case study of Hine genes has been completed.  At least for now.