My interest in the Henson family originates in my family tree. My 3rd great grandfather was Richard "Dick" Henson who lived in North Carolina. Richard married a Cherokee woman and had a large family. The family is well documented, so I wont write about that here, my interest was confirming Richards paternal line as being European, and building genetic branches using BigY700. It was rumored that Richard was part Cherokee, and may still be, but I wanted to be sure. I set out by finding a cousin that I could be absolutely sure was related through this line. I found a Henson woman with a strong DNA connection to all my families kits that I manage on ancestry. There was no doubt the DNA and the paper trail was in line with the Henson family being our connection. She then directed me to her brother in Oklahoma who was more than happy to help me. So we sent him a 37 marker Y-DNA kit, (kit#952204) and awaited the results. 

When my cousins kit reported, it was clear this paternal line was European, he was assigned the very common R-M269 haplogroup. And was assigned into the line 4 group in the Henson Surname Project. https://www.familytreedna.com/public/hanson?iframe=ycolorized

I was please to see that my family was grouped into the largest identified group in this Project, "Line 4". With lots of matching to the Henson surname and its variants. Thankfully, there was one match that had chosen the most advanced test, the BigY700. This Next Generation Sequencing DNA test is far more helpful than the standard STR (short tandem repeat) tests that have been so popular at FTDNA through the years. STR's are not very reliable for determining genetic distance, even if one decides to take  the Y-111. The BigY finds SNP's (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that are much more accurate in estimating the time to most recent common ancestor. And builds the genetic branches down the haplotree. For instance, R-M269 is a very basic haplogroup, estimated to have formed 13k years ago. Or 11,000bce. So this haplogroup assignment is really old, as millions of men have descended from this man who lived that long ago. With the BigY, as seen with kit#865939,  this kit built down the branch to BY33654. This haplogroup is estimated to have been formed 2200 years ago, or 240bce. The goal of building a family sub clade, is to get as many cousins as possible to test at the BigY level. So as more Henson cousins test, the closer the branches will be built down into modern times, which will help decipher where branching points are in the modern family. Once built, this modern genetic family subclade, will have enormous value as it will help navigate the muddy waters of ancestry trees and patchy paper genealogical work. Because this Henson family has been in the states since at least the earl 1700's, some people have made  assumptions on family branches, some are related , some are not. This BigY test helps cut right through all of this.  

This is the families journey out of Africa, courtesy of the one BigY tester to date. As more cousins test, the better this map will be filled out. http://scaledinnovation.com/gg/snpTracker.html

I have worked the last few years on building my Crow family sub clade, I am the admin for that Project. Please see the Gold group in this link. https://www.familytreedna.com/public/CrowDNA?iframe=ycolorized. 

You can see the advanced stages this Project is in, We are essentially at the point of being able to tell new testers exactly which 18th century Crow man they descend from without even seeing the paper trail. We have pinpointed several genetic mutations that happened in specific men. I hope to duplicate this effort in the Henson Project. This goal is not just for my Line 4 group, if everyone upgraded their kits in all the groups, it will take us one step closer to building these genetic family groups in the genealogical era. I have been a big advocate for ancestry and family finder kits, these are wonderful for finding immediate up to 6th cousins, but this BigY kit should be in every family researchers tool box. We have the ability of recreating the family tree long before where ancestry or family finder dna can help. 

If you are interested in helping and participating, then visit familytreedna.com and purchase a kit. If the BigY is out of your price range, then the Y-37 is a great entry level kit that will get you represented in a group in the Project. Here is the sales code sheet that is good through April. 

In the next few months, the Line 4 group will had several new testers. I am looking forward to branch building in the modern era!

Michael Crow

Admin, Crow, Kilcoyne and Henson Projects 

mikec1120@comcast.net