Family trait Local man’s DNA project traces Pike family histories BY ALISHA MORRISSEY The Telegram

David Pike is working on a DNA geneology project to trace the various branches of the Pike family. — Photo by Keith Gosse/The Telegram

The first time David Pike realized he wanted to know about his family’s history was when he was assigned to draw a family tree in the fifth grade.
Since then, the Memorial University mathematician and amateur historian has been digging into his roots, naming his every relative seven generations back.
“‘Where do we come from?’ is the question that it helps to answer. It’s not just the genealogy of it, or the history of it. It’s not just names, dates and places, but what did they do? Can we say anything about their lives? And it’s also a better understanding of history,” Pike says of his passion and fascination.
But he’s also started to pick away at other Pike families and has started a DNA collection and testing program to distinguish which Pikes are which.
The Pike DNA Project, which turns five years old this year, has analyzed the DNA of 117 project members, proving there are at least 40 Pike families worldwide.  
“In the Newfoundland context, the nagging question of mine — as well as other researchers — is whether all these families of Pikes, all over the island and Labrador, are all one big family? Or are we dealing with multiple Pike immigrants to the colonies who had their own families flourish?” he asks.

Few records from the time
There are very few reliable records in this province’s archives and churches around the time that the Pikes would have come here, Pike says.
There were Pikes on Carbonear Island who signed a petition telling Queen Anne that the French were attacking in 1708.
There was also a mariner named Thomas Pike, who was confirmed to have lived here in 1681 and another man was discovered in records in the Placentia area in 1661.
“My personal suspicion on that fellow is responsible for a lot of people on the Burin Peninsula …. But that’s just a date when somebody was present,” Pike says, explaining that there were hundreds of boats going back and forth to the area from England for the migratory fishery for nearly 100 years before anyone actually settled the area.
See FACINATION, page A2
The lack of records here is why Pike spent his holidays this year in Poole, England, going through records and archives, trying to connect the stories of the Pikes who left England to the Pikes who appeared in Newfoundland and Labrador.
He describes it as burning two ends of a candle that spans an ocean and 300 years.
Pike is also a member of the Pike Family Association, which is a historical society formed in 1903. One of the most interesting ancestors of the Pike families was a great general in the War of 1812 — General Zebulon Pike.
Pike and other members of the Pike Family Association had requested permission to exhume the body of the general from where it’s believed to be buried in Sacket’s Harbour, N.Y., for DNA testing and comparison with other Pike clans.
That request was recently denied.  
“So, essentially, Zebulon is going to rest where he’s at,” says Pike, who admits to being both disappointed and understanding about the refusal.
“It would disturb at least one grave and then hoping that there’s sufficient remains to get viable DNA and then testing to confirm …,” he trails off. “We know where he fits in the family tree. Not my family tree, mind you, but another Pike family tree.”
The general was killed in battle near what is now Toronto in 1813 and was returned to upstate New York to be buried. His remains were moved at least twice, however. Meaning that his remains may not even be in New York state.
The association is mostly an American group and anyone with the surname Pike or any interested relation of a Pike family can join.
“But it’s not just the Pikes. The Pike Project is just one of a lot that are out there,” he says, explaining that a fascination with genealogy isn’t a Pike trait per se.
Anyone interested in the Pike DNA Project is encouraged to visit www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/ or to contact David Pike.

amorrissey@thetelegram.com