Sister and I have been looking for our Cooper ancestors. Looking at our family tree, we know all the surnames for 4 generations back from us. Family Search tells me that is 16 individuals, our 2nd great-grandparents. For the fifth generatons, 32 individuals, we are missing 2 surnames, Eli Cooper's mother and Sarah Kiff's mother. With Sarah we think we know her mother's first name, but with Eli we do not even have a given name for this mother or his grandmother. The sixth generation we have 64 grandparents. On that level we are missing a few more surnames.
We have the most detail on our Mother's Great-Grandmother Pheobe Ann Cox due to the Cox and Kinzer family haveing deep Quaker roots.
Sister just recently figured out through our DNA the surname for Elinda Adcock's mother, and she is now working to name Elinda's husband Eli Cooper's mother and grandmother. I think she has delusions of grandeur.
Family Search says total direct line ancestors go like this.
That's a lot of people.
Sister is trying to use our DNA to find our 2nd Great and 3rd Great Cooper Grandmothers. We are 6 generations to Ben Cooper's Wife's father's genearation, and 7 generations to Ben Cooper's mother'ss father's generation. On our Powell surname we have 50 plus DNA connectons to the 6th generation and 30 plus connections to the 7th generation. Our cousin Joe B. is one generation closer to each of these women, so we have a better chance of indenifying the female surnames thru his DNA.
We have already identified one of Ben Cooper's daughters thru Joe's DNA. John Bronw is 5 genereations from Ben thru Millie Cooper. Joe B is 4 generations from Ben. The shared DNA connections with John Brown tell us Millie is a proven daughter. The shares include our Merk, Still, Taber cousins plus John Savage Cooper and George Cooper, sons of our Eli Cooper. Then in Tennessee we share with descends of Peter, John Cooper mar. Sage, Eli Cooper mar. Ridenour and Sarah Cooper Benson.
Hopefully someday our DNA will tell us Eli Cooper's mother and Ben Cooper's father and mother. We know Ben had other son's and other daughters. We just need to find descendants from these other lines that we connect to.
