Pryor and Taylor Marriages Cloud AncestryDNA Results

I’ve created a mega chart of Pryors from AncestryDNA kits. These are the Pryors in Sumner County and Overton County, TN. I will share what I’ve found in a few posts. I’m going to follow the same guidelines I used as admin of the male Y-DNA project through FTDNA– I won’t divulge test names, names of the testers, or other identifying info. I will refer to refer to dead people, most of whom passed more than 50 years ago.

A few years ago I started off with one test from a descendant of Allen L Pryor b. 1816 and tried to figure out how it matched with others. One of the worst methods of searching was searching by the surname Pryor– it picks up on all Pryors many of whom have no relationship to you (that’s me!).

Gradually more descendants of Allen L Pryor have tested. Tests matches include descendants of his children John Edward, Betty, Annie, and Lycurgus. What’s especially splendid is that Ancestry predicts the same generation distance as predicted through paper research.

Using the Autosomal Ancestry DNA test to match up people only goes so far because of all the marriages between lines. For instance, there’s a test that can matches to Allen’s projected sister Louisa. It’s helpful in matching her to the Pryor line until you look down the list of Louisa’s descendants and realize they married into the same Taylor family as the Taylor grandparents of both Allen and Louisa. This means the match can be for Pryors or Taylors or both.

There are now AncestryDNA tests for descendants of the children of William Pryor and Spicy Taylor who lived in Overton County. They match to tests on the Allen L Pryor side of the tree. However, Allen’s parents were John Pryor and Massey Taylor, the known sister of Spicy Taylor. So are the tests matching on the Pryors or Taylors or both?

See how the marriages between lines can cloud things?