Part 1 – The Big Breakthough in Sproule DNA

 Like all of us, I get a great thrill when there is a big breakthrough on my family tree. But lately, I have been getting an even bigger buzz from helping Sproules from all over the world to get closer to their breakthough. So it was with huge pleasure that I wrote this email to Tommy, a man who had searched for many, many years to find his family’s home...

This was the reason I had become involved with Joe Sprowl on the Sproule DNA Project - this was the dream. Could we find a specific piece of Sproule DNA that would allow us link a Sproule somewhere in the world to a specific family? Something like a  magic DNA diagnostic tool to help those Sproules who had no clue where their family came from. And here it was.

The Sproule DNA Project had been going for some years. The late Philip Sprowl had begun working with Sproule folk, collecting their Y-DNA, and this mantle was then taken up by Joe Sprowl. Joe does trojan work canvassing project members, analysing the data and managing the whole project.

Joe had made contact with me, and we quickly realised that we shared the same aims. Y-DNA is the male DNA, passed down from male to male, from Sproule to Sproule. But there are problems in making use of this, even with this special Y-DNA, and I had very strong feelings on the topic. I found that Joe shared the same views.

It is terrific to have this Y-DNA. However, DNA on its own is useless. We need a database to compare it to. It’s like the police having the DNA of a suspect, but then find they have no database to turn to to search for him/her. 

Only, in our case in genealogy, the situation is much worse! We have databases online, family trees. The problem is that a lot of the early information, the pre-1850 information, on many of these trees is just plain wrong.  It is like the police having a database that is full of forgeries, mistakes, or incorrect information. We needed validated exemplars of family trees to compare the DNA to.

So we worked together, Joe on the DNA side and me working on the different family trees.

And then came that special day. Joe emailed me:

“Kate we have found a mutation BY105178, it is shared by just 4 project members. The others do not have it. What does this mean? They are:

1. Fred Jun
2. Ben
3. George
4. Tommy

When I looked at that first name, Fred Jun, I knew we were in business – we had found something special. I was very familiar with Fred Jun's family tree, it is the family tree of Fred Sproule who passed away in 1998. Fred was a meticulous Sproule researcher, he loved facts and figures, and he double checked everything. His tree was totally validated. 

We had a single, specific mutation for someone who had a validated Sproule family tree - and not just any Sproule family tree. 

This is the family that Elder made famous - this is the Grennan Sproules.

(The names of our project members have been changed in this post)

Part 2 – The Big Breakthough in Sproule DNA, the Timeline

Part 3 – The Big Breakthough in Sproule DNA, Using the Mutation