A Dorset, Newfoundland and New Zealand Connection by DNA: Part 2

In my previous Blog I created a proposed tree based on AncestryDNA matches, Gedmatch matches and family trees. First, I created a more solid Crann tree by patching together existing trees. This would be the backbone of the study as there were pretty clear relationships. It looked like this:

One family had Newfoundland roots (Matson). Heather had New Zealand roots. They both matched by DNA and both had an ancestor in Netherbury, Dorset, England. Based on that tree, I added two other trees based on matching DNA:

One was another Crann tree. The other had no know Crann ancestors but a likely Crann DNA match. I felt comfortable doing that for a few reasons. The first reason was the AncestryDNA matches of the people in the proposed tree:

The 2nd and 3rd columns above showed how each person matched my wife’s great Aunt Esther and Heather. Further, Matson was related to Terence. This created a sort of circle. This is my interpretation of how Ancestry does their circles. The fact that there was this circular matching is in my opinion like what many do with Triangulation of DNA matches. This tends to insure that there is a common ancestor. This could also insure that the match of a match is not going far afield.

The other reason why Heather is an important match is that she is from New Zealand. I assume that her Crann ancestors went directly there. That means that I wouldn’t have to take into consideration Newfoundland intermarriages when considering DNA matches with Heather. In other words, I could assume that Heather was related on one line only. Or at least it would be more likely.

TheĀ  Elsie Connection

In the last Blog, I looked at the Terrence – Matson connection. They matched each other by DNA. They also matched Esther and Heather at AncestryDNA. In the same way, I would like to look at the Elsie connection. I mentioned in my last Blog that Elsie had 4 people in her tree. That was not totally right. She has 3 people and one is listed twice. I’ll ignore her grandmother as it is the same person she has down as her mother. Perhaps it was at that point that she gave up on her Ancestry Tree.

As before, I create a new tree for Elsie at Ancestry. I called it the Chafe/Hann Tree because at this time, we know of no Cranns in her ancestry. The problem with that is that we will need to build out both sides of Elsie’s ancestry. As I worked back her ancestry I looked at the Ancestry leaf hints. One hint surprised me as it was the first time I’d come across an Upshall in my genetic research. The fact that an Upshall popped up unannounced while I was chasing a probably Crann DNA lead seemed significant to me.

I already knew that there was at least one Hann family living in Harbour Buffet where some of my wife’s ancestor came from. From the Newfoundland’s Grand Banks web site, I find this family in the 1921 census for Little Harbour East:

This gives a month and year for each person’s birth and tells us where they were born. Little Harbour East is not far from Harbour Buffet. Actually, it is even closer than I had now that I have some good information from Devon Griffin:

Unlike the other wrong Little Harbour East I had, the right one is across the bay from Harbour Buffet. Here is the marriage record:

It looks like Jessie was quite young. I wonder who Malinda was. Esther’s middle name is Alinda. A little over a month after this, it looks like the two witnesses wed:

Now it looks like the groom for the previous wedding was a witness. Hmm…

George Upshall

From an Ancestry tree, I did get that Jesse (or Jessie) Upshall’s father was George Upshall. Of course, I don’t see that Ancestry Tree at the moment. I had trouble finding George at Ancestry also, but I appear to have found him at FamilySearch. There, he is shown as marrying in 1896. This only works if this was a second marriage as his proposed daughter Jessie was born about 1890.

This shows that the marriage took place in Little Harbour East and that George was a widower. Both the groom and bride were living in Little Harbour East at the time of the wedding.

Another tree gives George as the father of Melinda Upshall. That leaves me with this tree:

Based on this, I’d like to make a guess as to a new proposed Crann/Upshall Tree:

A New Guess for a Crann/Upshall Tree

This tree supposes that a daughter of John Crann b. 1791 married an Upshall. That Upshall then had at least two sons. One was Henry b. 1841 and one was George b. 1857 shown in purple above. Henry and George could have carried down that Crann DNA to Esther and Elsie. I took out the arrow going from John Crann b. 1791 to the Elizabeth that married Christopher Dicks in red above. However, it now occurs to me that it would be possible that that arrow could still be there as there could be a Crann daughter in both slots – on the Upshall and Dicks side.

Let’s look at my AncestryDNA relationship chart again:

Ancestry thinks by the DNA that Elsie and Esther should be 3rd cousins. My chart has them as 3rd cousins, once removed. Ancestry has Elsie and Heather as 4th cousins. I show them as 5th cousins by the chart. The problem with what I did was that I didn’t follow the Chafe and Hann lines up to eliminate other possible Crann connections. However, I think that my chart gives a plausible solution to the DNA matches. It is satisfying to be able to propose some possible relationships based on logical assumptions after so many years of dealing with genealogical records that just don’t seem to exist in many cases.

Summary and Conclusions

  • This method works well with larger DNA matches
  • I started with a large match where there appeared to be a known common ancestor.
  • Based on that match and known ancestor, I developed trees based on other common DNA matches and common ancestries.
  • This method was helped by a non-Newfoundland match. This resulted in narrowing down the search to one surname.
  • Problems could result if I didn’t get the right surname to begin with
  • Other problems could result by not eliminating other possible genealogical connections
  • I drew a proposed tree to make sure the proposed relationships make sense time-wise. The tree also makes sure the proposed genealogical relationships match the ones proposed by the DNA relationships

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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