Welcome to the Slaven Genealogy Exchange.

Welcome to the Slaven Genealogy Exchange! Our purpose is to be a central location to collect and exchange information for Slaven, Slevin, Slavin, Slavey, and other surname variations. As a registered one-name study, the scope of this exchange is world wide. We hope there's something here for the beginning genealogist, the old hand, and the merely curious!

What's New?

Descendants of Richard Harve Slaven/Slavey might be interested in this newspaper story about hiking in the No Business area.

We have a new person on the Slaven Cousins DNA Registry, the first with the "Sleavin" spelling of our surname. Check out the family line in the registry.

Older News.

A Slaven Y-DNA Project member (ID B003) has upgraded his test to 111 markers, and it shows close kinship to the 111 marker test results of a descendant of John Slaven of County Tyrone, Ireland/Highland County, Virginia (ID B001). We currently only display Y-DNA test results up to 67 markers; however, you can see the full results at the FamilyTreeDNA Slaven Project results page. The two men do not share enough autosomal DNA to show as a match in the FTDNA FamilyFinder test; this is not surprising since the common ancestor would be at least 300 years and eight or more generation in the past.

FamilyTreeDNA has been running sales on Y-DNA test upgrades more often than in previous years. If you've done a Y test and are thinking of upgrading, or are thinking of getting the initial Y-DNA test, I'm always happy to answer questions.

If you've had a DNA test done and have a Slaven(s), Slavin, Slevin, etc. in your ancestry, please send me your information so you can be added to the The Slaven Cousins DNA Registry.

We have a new Y-DNA Project member-- sort of. The member recently upgraded their test to 111 markers, and I found that I didn't get his results into the results page or the extended results page. My apologies; he's there now.

The new member is a close match to "D001" in the project, a descendant of John H. Slaven of Pike County, Mississippi. Unfortunately, the administrator of that test has passed away, so it cannot be upgraded to see if the close match holds at 67 or 111 markers. However, there are likely other direct male-line descendants of John H. Slaven out there. He had seven sons-- James William, Jack Hyman, Joseph Cephus, William Marion, Henry Howard, and Grover Cleveland. All but Henry had sons, so there should be multiple descendants who could take the Y-DNA test.

Did your ancestor serve in the Union Army from West Virginia?

There are hundreds of Union soldiers from West Virginia with unclaimed medals from the Civil War, and the state is trying to find relatives to receive these medals. There are two Slaven(s) and a couple others who could be Slaven(s) misspelled:
Slaven, Daniel ; Company H; 1st Regiment Light Artillary Vols.
Slavens, Harvey; Company E; 5th Regiment Infantry Vols.
Slaver, Daniel; Company F; 5th Regiment Cavalry Vols.
Slayer, Jacob; Company A, 5th Regiment Cavalry Vols.

Attention Richard Harve Slaven descendants.
The Oneida (Tennessee) Independent Herald had a nice story on the (former) No Business community, and Richard Harve Slaven and a few of his descendants. It's probably not news to family who still live in the Big South Fork area, but it appears to be a good overview for the general public. You can find it here. A quick scan of used book sites don't come up with any copies of Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, which is mentioned in the story.

Ancestry has released some new DNA tools. The most interesting tool is ThruLines, which-- among other things-- harnesses other trees to bridge your tree with "stubby" trees of your DNA matches. This looks to be a great way to make contact with formerly unknown third or fourth cousins who may have family history or photos that you don't. Here's a video from RootsTech where Christa Cowan discusses ThruLines and the other new Ancestry features, and here's a blog from Leah Larkin discussing ThruLines, and a blog from Roberta Estes that goes into the benefits and pitfalls in more detail. Roberta also blog about clearing your browser cache and/or cookies as that can impact whether you see the new Ancestry features.

We have a new "cousin" in the The Slaven Cousins DNA Registry. Ask your new matches with Slaven(s), Slavin, Slevin, etc. in their family tree to join us!

Even more "cousins" have been added The Slaven Cousins DNA Registry. We're getting a nice grouping of late 19th century County Donegal Slavin/Slevin families. There's no reason we couldn't have similar groupings for other Irish counties, other locations around the world, or branches of a family-- just submit your DNA information, and encourage your matches with Slaven/Slavin/Slevin/etc. ancestry to submit their info!

About this site

This is a private, noncommercial educational site for the free exchange of information. It is not associated with Ancestry, Rootsweb, MyFamily, or any commercial site. (That means no banner ads, no pop-up or pop-under windows, no unsolicited email!)

All content on this site is believed to be compliant with U.S. copyright law and Fair Use provisions.

Because the site is an outgrowth of my personal research, it's tilted towards the Slavens surname. But that's easily fixed-- contribute your Slavin, Slevin, etc. data for the site! Here are some of the types of information that you can share:

Census transcriptions Census returns can be a gold mine of information for both the beginning and the experienced researcher, but many people don't have easy access to films. Finding your family in a transcription here makes requesting a film or a lookup much more worthwhile, so won't you share? We need people who have access to their state's Soundex indexes and are willing to transcribe the Slaven(s), Slavin, Slevin, etc. entries! It's S415 and you'll see about 20 Sullivans for each Slaven.

Biographies and reminiscences Share the bios from county history books, reminiscences from ancestors, old family letters, your own memories, the family history that was written for a reunion decades ago...

Obituaries Transcriptions of obituaries and death notices.

Photographs Share family photos, or photos of grave sites. Photos continue to be the most popular items on the site.

Links Do you have or know of a family-related site? Does a GenWeb county site offer information on a branch of the family? Share it here!

Other help! Other information that doesn't fit the categories above is also welcome.

All corrections, suggestions, criticisms, etc. are welcome too! Be sure to put Slaven, Slavin, and something meaningful in the subject line-- I get tons of spam so an email with no subject or "Hi!" will probably be deleted unread!

Larry Slavens
7018 Airline Ave.
Des Moines, IA 50322

iarooster@earthlink.net