Tracey is on my first page of matches at FTDNA. She also has a partial tree shown at FTDNA. She lists an ancestor as Finlay and an ancestor in County Sligo, Ireland. This is interesting as one of my brick wall lines married into the Finlay family and was from County Sligo. Perhaps there is a connection. My idea is to use Ancestry to see if I can build out Tracey’s tree to find a match or more of a match.
Tracey’s Genealogy at FTDNA
Tracey shows her father’s line at FTDNA:
Tracey gives some more information on her profile that should help build out her tree.
My Sligo Ancestors
My grandmother’s parents were both from Sligo. However, my guess is that I match Tracey on my grandmother’s mother’s side:
My Grandmother’s mother was Margaret Clarke. Both Margaret and her mother Jane Spratt died young.
Confirming the DNA Match is from County Sligo
Tracey matches me on Chromosome 11:
FTDNA shows that that she has matches in common with my sisters Lori, Heidi and Sharon, but not in common with my brother Jonathan.
Here is how I mapped out Chromosome 11:
I am J on the map. S and H are my sisters Sharon and Heidi. F is for my brother Jonathan. My match with Tracey is at about position 11 to 36M on the map. Jonathan shows Hartley DNA in that area which is why he doesn’t match Tracey there. I didn’t get around to mapping Lori yet. This confirms that the match with Tracey is on our Frazer grandparent line. As I mentioned above, this line leads back to County Sligo.
Building Out Tracey’s Tree
Tracey may have already done this, but if I come up with the same thing as she did, that would be a good thing. Here is my first shot at Tracey’s tree at Ancestry:
Ancestry shows green leaves on Tracey’s paternal side. This means that Ancestry thinks it may know about her paternal side, but doesn’t have any easy clues about her mother’s side. This makes sense as Tracey only showed her paternal side at FTDNA.
It looks like Joseph Parr was living with his parents and a large family in Toronto Gore in 1921:
This Census seems to indicate that Joseph was born much earlier than 1895. So that makes me wonder if this is the right Joseph E, son of Samuel and Sarah.
This death record is more consistent with what Tracey has:
And as a check, I see that Nashville is not far from Brampton where Tracey says Joseph was born. While I was snooping around Ancestry, I even found a photo of Joe and Clara Parr:
Hi Joe. Hi Clara. Are we related? Assuming the match is on Tracey’s paternal side, I’d say that Clara looks more familiar than Joe. That is, if looks count for anything.
Going After the Morrisons
Tracey says at FTDNA that the Morrisons are from Sligo. So it makes sense to look at this line first.
This looks like Clara in Toronto Gore in 1901:
Come to find out Toronto Gore and Gore no longer exist. There is still a Gore Road which I found to the West of Nashville, Ont. This is one of the remnants of the old Township of Gore. The 1901 Census is helpful as it gives birth dates. Here I am diverging from the script a bit. Tracey’s tree had Robert as the father of Clara and the census has William and Alice.
When I add in William, I get many Ancestry ‘Hints’. The Marriage record for William is very vertical:
This says that William was from born in Gore but lived in Toronto Township when they married. Alice was born in Euphrasia, where she also lived at the time of her marriage (the same place that they married).
Here are the witnesses and wedding date:
William was from the Church of England and Alice was a Methodist. Alice’s last name looks like Lougheed, but someone at Ancestry has it as Loughead.
In 1861, the Morrison family had been in Canada at least for 23 years. So they likely were in Upper Canada in 1838
The 1851 Census seems to put the family in Canada as early as 1836:
There is some nominal information on a Robert Morrison in the 1825 Census of Lower Canada. At this point, it is difficult to trace this family back to Ireland.
However, there appeared to be two different Robert Morrison’s around, so care is needed when reviewing the records. Tracey’s Robert was in Canada fairly early, so this may be the one.
The Lougheed/Loughead Line
Time to look at the bottom side of the Parr Tree:
I’ll start with Alice’s death. It is good to start with the end in genealogy.
It took me a little bit to figure out this record as it didn’t line up quite right. The first entry is a baby, so no occupation. The 2nd is a priest. The third is Alice Emeline (Lougheed) Morrison, the farmer’s wife.
Here is Alice in 1871 with a family of 12:
This is more clearly Loughead. I am doubting the birthplace of Ireland for all the children, but will keep an open mind.
Let’s roll back the clock 10 years to 1861:
Here there is a different spelling for the last name. I’m guessing that this was a more phonetic spelling as a ‘gh’ can have a ‘ch’ or ‘ck’ sound as in the Irish lough for lake. This couple was married in 1846. My guess is that E.M is Episcopal Methodist.
It looks like John re-married a relative by marriage in 1882 [Edit: This is actually a different (though related) John Lougheed as shown later in the Blog. The parents of the right John Lougheed are Huge and Alice.]
:
Seems the spelling is back to Lougheed.
The best I can tell, this is Thornbury:
The family was a bit smaller in 1851 [Note, this is back to the right John as seen by his first son named after his father Hugh.]
It looks like this couple made their way to Canada sometime before 1846 when Mary was born.
Lougheed, AncestryDNA and the Sligo Connection
For some reason, I associate Lougheed with Sligo. At Ancestry, I can look for my DNA matches that also have Lougheed ancestors. My top DNA match at AncestryDNA with a Lougheed ancestor appears to be named Lawrence. Lawrence has this ancestor:
This man has quite a unique middle name. He also was born in Sligo and ended up in Bolton, Peel, Ontario. When I look up Bolton, I find it is near Nashville, Ontario:
Remember Nashville is where Joseph and Clara Parr were buried. Clara was a Morrison but her mom was a Lougheed. It seems like these connections are almost but not quite made.
Another Lougheed: Hugh
The same tree above had another Lougheed ancestor named Hugh.
This Hugh seems to be a better fit. I have ancestors in the Boyle area on my Frazer side. Note that Hugh died in Euphrasia where Alice Lougheed lived. Also Hugh had a son John born in 1827. Could this be the same John I found born 1827 in Ireland? I would say they have to be the same person.
My Mistake
It turns out that there were two John Lougheeds. One died in Thornbury and one died in Euphrasia. The death record I had above was apparently for the wrong John. Here is the correct one as reflected in an Ancestry Family Tree:
Here is a corrected Morrison tree:
The Ballymote/Boyle Area of Sligo
The creator of the great Lougheed Tree on Ancestry notes that Hugh was from the Ballymote/Boyle area of Sligo. Is that a help? For me, yes and no.
My Clarke family brick wall lived near Coolaney which is nearer to Ballymote. My McMaster ancestors were from the Kilmactranny area. My Frazer ancestors were in the area to the South of Kilmactranny originally in North Roscommon County – not far from Boyle.
Another of My AncestryDNA Matches with Lougheed Ancestry
Summing up:
- I found a pretty close DNA match with Tracey at FTDNA
- Tracey has a tree with a Morrison from Sligo. I built the tree out to find a Lougheed also from Sligo.
- I went to my AncestryDNA matches and searched for matches that had Lougheed ancestors. My match with Lawrence is a predicted 4th cousin by DNA. This person has two Lougheed ancestors. One is Hugh Lougheed who is also an ancestor of Tracey.
This gets to notes I read recently from a genetic genealogy conference. The speaker mentioned the importance of triangulating on genealogy as well as DNA. I think what was meant by this is that if three people all match by DNA and all three have the same ancestor, there may be something there.
The Third DNA/Lougheed Ancestor Match
The third DNA Lougheed ancestor match is with Jonathan. Jonathan shows on my AncestryDNA as a possible 4th cousin by DNA. His tree looks like this:
This tree goes back a ways. This Hugh Lougheed, born 1750 is likely the same Hugh Lougheed I see in many trees as being born 1754. If I have it right, Jane Margery Lougheed b. 1793 would be the younger sister of Hugh Lougheed born 1789.
That means between Tracey, Lawrence and Jonathan there appears to be a genealogical triangulation on Hugh Lougheed, born 1754.
A Shared AncestryDNA Match between Me and Lawrence
When I look at shared matches at AncestryDNA that Lawrence and I both have, the first person I find with a tree is Donna. She has a short tree, but her father’s name is Loughead. This leads me to try to build her tree back to see if there is an easy connection with the other Sligo Lougheeds.
I’ll start on the paternal side. Donna had Loughead as the spelling of the last name. But I looked at Israel’s marriage record and he clearly signed his name Lougheed. The marriage for William Henry Lougheed is helpful as it gives dates and parents:
All Roads Lead to Euphrasia
Here is the 1861 Census for Euphrasia, Ontario with the William Lougheed family:
The fact that William has a son named Hugh makes me think I’m on the right track. That and Euphrasia.
Lougheeds from the Top Down
What Next?
As far as I know I match all these Lougheed descendants.
- Lawrence – predicted relationship 4th cousin at AncestryDNA
- Tracey – relationship range 2nd to 4th cousins at FTDNA
- Donna – predicted relationship 4th cousin at AncestryDNA
- Jonathan – predicted relationship 4th cousin at AncestryDNA
And they likely match each other. I could make an argument that I could be descended from Hugh Lougheed b. 1754. He had other children. Perhaps one of his daughters married one of my ancestors. I do have missing wives for some of my ancestors. I also have whole missing lines on my Clarke side.
Perhaps some new information will come to light. Perhaps these testers will upload their results to gedmatch.com where the DNA can be compared to other matches.