I checked recently for unviewed DNA matches at Ancestry with a common ancestor and came up with Derek. He matches me at 15 cM:
Derek has a tree with 49 people, but shows no Ellis ancestry:
However, Derek’s tree shows that his parents were from Sheffield which is where my Ellis ancestors lived. Here is the connection that Ancestry shows:
Derek shows as a 4th cousin once removed to me.
My Shared Matches with Derek
If we have an Ellis shared ancestor, then we should have shared DNA matches with others who descend from the Ellis family. When I check that, there are about 4 people that I know descend from the Ellis family:
Checking Derek’s Genealogy
Derek’s tree does not show a link to the Ellis family. However, I would be interested in checking out Ancestry’s ThruLines:
Derek is the only one showing descending from James Ellis on my ThruLines.
I’ll check out Derek’s genealogy by creating my own tree for him:
This gets me out to about the level that Derek had. Here is William H Pullen in the 1871 Census for Sheffield:
They are living in Nether Hallam and William’s father is listed as a saw grinder. Unfortunately, Ancestry has the surname transcribed as “Gullen’. William’s mother is listed as Emma. She is born about 1839 in Sheffield.
It would be nice to have a marriage record for father William Pullen. Here is a record but it is to a Tattershall:
One Ancestry tree I have shows Emma’s mother as a Tattershall:
That is confusing. Here is another tree:
This tree has the wedding date for Emma and William. I might assume that Emma was previously married. However, this Emma appears to have been a spinster:
Here is where I believe that St Philips Church was based on a current map:
The 1881 Census
The 1881 Census appears to be the key for Emma being an Ellis:
Here we have William Pullings which I take to be the same as Pullen. He is married to Emma. Living with them is father-in-law James Ellis and brother-in-law Harry Ellis. That should connect Emma to her father James Ellis and Emma to her brother Harry Ellis. That means that this is likely Emma in the 1851 Census:
Here is the 1861 Census showing Emma still single:
The census was taken on 7 April 1861. So, if Emma Ellis is the same as Emma Tattershall, then she could have married later in the year at the end of July.
Conflicting Evidence?
It appears that there is some conflicting evidence. One possibility is that there were two William Pullens. Although, it does not seem that Pullen is a common name, that is possible:
Here are two different people by the name of William Pullen. One is in Sheffield and one is in Ecclesfield. Ecclesfield is 4 miles to the North of Sheffield:
However, for this to work out, I suppose that the two Williams would have had to have married two Emmas. Also possible, but less likely. [Note: Based on conclusions below, the correct William was from Sheffield son of William based on the marriage record between William and Emma Tattershall.]
Are Emma Ellis and Emma Tattershall the Same Person?
Here is a record for the wedding of James Ellis and Caroline Tattershall. Here is an entry from a Sheffield area Newspaper published on 21 May 1842:
This gives a wedding record for James and Caroline. Also we see that James’ wife was a Tattershall. It appears that Emma could have taken on her mother’s maiden name. Here is a timeline for Caroline Tattershall:
If I have things right, this is showing that Emma was born about three years before James Ellis and Caroline Tattershall were married. This brings up the possibility that James Ellis may not have been the father of Emma. That brings up the question of why there would be a DNA match then.
Here is an interesting record:
This baptismal record gives Emma’s full name as Emma Ellis Tattershall. Could this suggest that James Ellis was the father of Emma? I think that this is about all that the records will reveal to me at this time. The rest must be based on speculation. I would guess that connection that Ancestry has would be correct, but it would be nice to see connections through some of the other siblings of Emma. The fact that Emma’s middle name was Ellis in addition to the DNA match suggest that James Ellis was likely her father.
Here is my best guess for the connection between Derek and myself:
Summary and Conclusions
- Derek and I match by DNA. Ancestry traces that DNA match to possible common ancestors of Charles Ellis and Ann Roebuck
- Derek and I have shared DNA matches with other Ellis descendants
- Derek’s genealogy was confusing as his ancestor married an Emma Tattershall not Emma Ellis
- The record shows that Emma was baptized Emma Ellis Tattershall about three years before her mother Caroline Tattershall and James Ellis married
- My guess is that James and Caroline had Emma before they were married and married later and had more children. This guess is based on DNA matches and Emma’s middle name of Ellis.
- I created a tree showing how the two lines got to be about a generation apart over the years.