DNA Results

I knew that my g-g grandfather, James Mullins (or Booker James Mullins as he is referred to in one court document of 1837) had married Rebecca Hays on September 29, 1859 when he was 72 and she was 18. They were married for 16 years and had four children, the youngest of which was my great grandfather, Joshua Mullins.

I did not know that anyone questioned that James was the father of Rebecca's children until I ran into other Mullins researchers from other lines than James who held the opinion that because of James' advanced age, he could not have fathered Rebecca's children. They referred to them as "the supposed children". I had never heard that Rebecca had been unfaithful to James, and the only reason for their opinions were the age thing.

I was glad to have run into a cousin who headed up a group collecting the DNA on the Mullins family. The findings were good and bad. James' father was Booker Mullins. His father was supposed to have been William M. Mullins who was married to Katherine Elizabeth Varner. Only when they did DNA tests of some of Booker's descendants and some of his brother's descendants the two brothers DNA matched, but Booker's did not. Booker's matched an Adkins family line. Booker was brought up as a son of William and Katherine, but it means that either Katherine had a child by an Adkins or one of her daughters had one which they raised as their son or something of that ilk (a niece, a neighbor) happened.

The DNA tests only males in a direct line from their ancestor. So, for example, we go Booker, to James (g-g gpa) to Joshua (g-gpa), to James (gpa), to James (father), to James or David (brothers) -- with those relationships in parentheses being how the person relates to me. Now my Uncle Jesse had no sons and his grandsons were fathered by Murphys, so they were not eligible to be tested for the Mullins line.

I didn't like this automatic assumption that James was not the father of Rebecca's children nor that Rebecca was an unfaithful wife. Things get carried down the line and when there is another person involved, someone usually hears something about it. This was just opinion.

I believe that there is a letter from one of Sherwood's grandchildren which in effect said 'well if our one grandpa had married our grandma, we would be be Adkins instead of Mullins' which would mean it wasn't too far of a stretch when the DNA came out saying Booker's genes matched the Adkins group and not the Mullins group. The person thought to be Booker's father is a Sherwood Adkins.

Anyway, back in December or January, I had Dad do a DNA test. I wanted to prove the connection of Joshua to James. I did have a cousin throw in a monkey wrench when he told a story about another person who he thought was my dad's father. I didn't buy the story, but I didn't discount it since anything is possible. Another cousin told me that story was ridiculous that it was my grandmother's sister who had been with the person my cousin thought was my dad's father. I just hoped that it wouldn't interfere with the test results for Joshua because there were few descendants from James and Rebecca who could be tested and the other known potential person had decided not to be tested.

At first the tests seemed inconclusive. On March 11th they finished a second set of tests and Dad matched totally back to Booker which means he is the son of James who married Cora Wright, who is the son of Joshua who married Annie Houston, who is the son of James who married Rebecca Hays, who is the son of Booker only known to have been married to a Sarah. Booker's DNA matches the Adkins family.

If James, the son of Booker was born in 1787 as is most often reported, he was 81 years old when he fathered Joshua. Rebecca, born in 1841 was 28 when she conceived.

James died in 1875 when Joshua was six years old.

And they thought Tony Randall was old when he had his children.