Robbins Bicentennial Reunion Update 

I have received a number of messages and emails about a possible 2022 Robbins Bicentennial Reunion in Decatur County, Indiana.  It’s wonderful to see the interest in this idea and I appreciate the offers to help.  While I don’t believe any of the people who contacted me are folks who actually live in Decatur County I’m going to continue to let the word spread and percolate and will come back to the project in the fall.  

Other Decatur County Surnames 

There are a lot of descendants of Jacob and Mary Robbins in Indiana, the United States, and around the world.  Focusing just on Decatur County descendants I wanted to list some of the “allied” families, that is, families who married into the Robbins family, no longer have the Robbins surname, and may or may not know of their Robbins ancestry.  There are likely Robbins descendants with these or other surnames in the county and some of you might recognize them.  

The list below is divided by the children of William, Absalom, Jacob, and James Robbins.  Besides those who moved out of state, a lot of family members moved next door to Bartholomew, Shelby, or Rush counties, or northwest to Indianapolis.  But this list, which is not complete, focuses solely on Decatur County. 

Children of William Robbins

Marmaduke:  House, Knarr, McCracken, Ralston, Scripture, Vanderbur

Elizabeth:  Owens

William:  Barnes, Evans, Kitchen, McCoy, Mendenhall, Mozingo, Pleak, Smiley, Smith, Stewart, Styers, Thornburg, Whipple, Wright 

Children of Absalom Robbins

Micajah:  Holcomb, Mozingo

Elizabeth:  Guthrie, Pavey

George:  Bower, Espy, Gannon, Giddings, Hood, Kutchback, Leisure, Meredith, Scripture, Shoemake, Stone, Voiles

Charity:  Allen, Jessup, Purvis, Skinner, Stout, Whipple 

Children of Jacob Robbins

William:  Harrison, Hartley, Miller, Spencer, Taylor 

Children of James Robbins

Matilda:  Terrell 

There are a lot of family members still in Greensburg and Decatur County but in compiling this list I was struck by how many families, especially since about 1940 or 1950, have left Decatur County.  Besides the neighboring counties mentioned above, and Indianapolis, many have moved on to Fayette, Boone, Scott, and other Indiana counties.  Much earlier in a time a very large group of descendants moved to Breckinridge County, Kentucky, while others moved on to Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and the Pacific Northwest.  I hope to discuss some of these families in future blog posts.

Ancestry to Remove 6-8 cM Matches Soon 

As they do every few years, Ancestry is making changes to DNA results.  If you are an Ancestry DNA customer you may have noticed that they periodically update and change your ethnicity estimates – sometimes the results seem reasonable and sometimes they seem way off.  It’s a continual effort to make the results more accurate.  Each DNA testing company does this. 

This time Ancestry is planning on removing any match you have where the centimorgans (cM) are less than 8.  Or I should say the segment is less than 8.  Because you could have a match at 10 cM on two segments.  That would likely go away because both segments would probably be under the 8 cM threshold. 

Now, I’m no expert in using DNA results, though I have tried to teach myself as much as possible.  If you want a good overview of Ancestry’s proposed changes (now postponed to the end of August due to push back from the genealogy community), I’d highly recommend you read the DNAeXplained blog written by Robert Estes.  In particular, her first post, which describes ways to preserve these smaller matches:  DNAeXplained.

 Ancestry will not delete these smaller matches if you have (1) exchanged messages through Ancestry with that individual; (2) assigned the match to a “group”; or (3) added a comment on that match. 

My method is to pull up the matches (and I also do this with my siblings’ DNA results that I manage on Ancestry) and then filter for “Common Ancestors.”  The “common ancestor” listed is not necessarily accurate, because the information is based on members trees, and trees are not always accurate.  I’ve run cross a few of those lately.  But out of all your thousands and thousands of matches, I’d rather spend my time on those who have trees – whether public or private – and that’s why I do a “Common Ancestors” filter. 

 You will probably still have a lot of matches in this group.  You can filter further.  You will notice that you can enter a custom cM range.  I started with 6 cM.  Note that on the right hand side of the entry for each match you can assign them to a group.  These are color coded.  A while back I created a “group” for each of my great-grandparents surnames.  In most cases I can identify each match to that level and assign them to a group.  By clicking on each match I can add a comment too, such as how they descend from our common ancestor.  I’ve been doing that with all of my matches, but starting at the top end, with those who I share a lot of DNA with. 

With these small matches, of which there are many, I may not have time right now to look at each individual match with a “Common Ancestor,” especially with an Ancestry deadline approaching and me planning on being away for a couple weeks of socially distanced camping and hiking.

So as Roberta Estes suggested, I created a group called “Holding Group.”  I can go straight down the list of these matches (without opening each one up) and put each one in my “Holding Group”, so Ancestry won’t discard them, and I can review them later at my leisure.  After working the 6 and 7 cM matches, I move up to 8 cM, then 9, and so on until I’m confident that the matches will survive Ancestry’s upcoming purge. 

What am I finding in these small – 6 and 7 cM – matches?  Between myself and my siblings I’m finding DNA matches with almost every branch of the Robbins family – not only through every child of William and Absalom Robbins of Decatur County, but also through their brother James Robbins of Jennings County and their sisters Martha and Mary who married Chastains and lived in Washington and Scott counties. And, surprising to me, even more distant cousins who descend from brothers or cousins of our most distantly documented ancestor, Jacob Robbins.  And I’m finding matches with descendants of the siblings of Bethiah Vickrey (who married William Robbins) and Mary Ogle (who married Absalom Robbins), as I descend from both of those couples.  I might have not found any of these if I had ignored these smaller matches. 

So, if you’ve tested with Ancestry, and have the time and interest, I’d highly recommend preserving those small cM matches.