Sheryl is an important DNA match at Ancestry. That is because she is a shared match with my father’s cousin Joyce.
Joyce and Kristen
Sheryl is a shared match with Joyce and Kristen and we know what their relationship is:
Joyce and Kristen are 2nd cousins twice removed. Their common ancestors are Greenwood Hartley and Ann Emmet. Greenwood was from Trawden, Lancashire and Ann was from Bacup, Lancashire. That means that Sheryl, as a shared match, probably has ancestry that connects her to Lancashire. I previously mentioned Sheryl in this Blog from 2019.
Sheryl and Joyce
This possible connection goes back three more generations and is worth studying. I know that on my side, Greenwood Hartley’s father was Robert Hartley, but before that I am unsure.
Sheryl’s Genealogy
I started a tree for Sheryl previously. Here is the part I would like to look more closely at:
John Bracewell born 1834 emmigrated from Engalnd to the US. It is often difficult to trace a person who was born in one country and moved to another one.
Here is a bio for John:
I question the part about him being from Yorkshire. I think that Lancashire could be more likely. My ancestors who lived in Colne were very close to the Yorkshire border. Also he could not have removed to Illinois in 1836 if he came to the US in 1850. Here is a record of L.M. Bracewell’s death stating that his father was born in Colne:
John Bracewell (1834-1910)
We know that John ended up in Iowa:
Here is John and family in 1885 in Iowa:
From what I can tell, John’s wife Susan was born in Tennesee. Here is John in 1900:
Here he is listed as a capitalist. He shows that he has been naturalized and that he emmigrated in the year 1850.
This transcription appears to be important:
It is likely that the informant for this record would have known about John’s parents. It is likely that the informant was John’s wife Susan.
Here is the marriage record for John’s parents:
Here is Barnoldswick:
Interestingly, the write-up says that Barnoldswick was in the historic West Riding of Yorkshire.
Here is an interesting record from 1850 in Illinois:
Here we have John’s mother Mary with three sons under the head of Hartley Bracewell and apparently his wife Margaret and son. The last piece of the puzzle would be the 1841 Census for England.
The last column is interesting as it shows that all but the father John Bracewell were born outside of Lancashire. this is the Census for Hey Mile, Foulridge, Colne.
I assume that Hey and Hey Mile are similar locations.
All the pieces fit together – even the shipping record:
John Bracewell and Mary Starkie
These two were alive during the 1841 Census. However, I assume that John died before Mary moved to the US with her children. My tree has John born in 1778. However, the 1841 Census says that John was 45 at the time. That would put his birth closer to 1796. Due to the way the Census was taken, he could have been as old as 49 in 1841 or been born as early as 1792.
It looks like John Bracewell was a popular name:
My best guess would be that John’s father was Henry Bracewell. Looking back at the 1841 Census, the eldest male child was Henry – perhaps named for John’s father. The only John, father of John was in Manchester which is out of range for where I am looking.
Here is Sheryl’s Tree:
Sheryl stops at John Bracewell and Mary Starkie. I think the couple is right. I don’t think that John was born 8 March 1778 as Sheryl has.
I’ll update my tree:
Henry Bracewell
Here is my guess for a marriage for Henry and Jane:
Henry and Jane had quite a few children – which may help account for the DNA match:
I’m curious about the Hartley Bracewell, as there was also a Hartley Bracewell at the wedding of Henry Bracewell and Jane. This name also suggests to me that I am on the right track and have the right family as there is a Hartley Bracewell in the 1850 Census for Illinois (see above).
Ancestry Common Ancestors Wrong
At this point, I believe that I have proven the Ancestry Common Ancestors to be wrong:
So am I disappointed? Not really. I would rather know the actual tree of the person that I match. That means that the tree I had from my 2019 Blog mentioned above cannot be right:
Next Steps
I can still look into Henry Bracewell. This appears to be Henry and his wife Jane in the 1841 Census:
This couple was living to quite an old age for the day. They appear to have some of their grandchildren which later went to the US. Here is Salterforth – SE of Barnoldswick:
We can get some important information from the Census. First, Henry and Janae were not born in Yorkshire. I take that to mean they were born in Lancashire. My best guess for the father of Henry Bracewell is William Bracewell.
The son of Jonathan would have been 90 or 91 in 1841, so not a good match. Henry Brasewell is born in the wrong area. Also the place name Hey has already come up in this Blog.
William Bracewell and Mary
I’ll take a shot at this couple and then I should be done with the Blog. This marriage appears to be too early:
This marriage would have been about 25 years before Henry was born, so it is possible. Another possibility is that the marriage could have taken place in Yorkshire. The records above are just from Lancashire.
Here are some children of William Bracewell in Lancahsire after 1738:
There is a lot going on here. First, I don’t know where Law or Law Township is. Blacko is to the West of Foulridge. It is difficult to tell how many families we are dealing with. The Inghamit baptisms could be from a separate family. Also the Betty family is different. She is in there, because I was looking for all children of William. The earlier baptisms tended to omit the mother’s name.
A Possible Pilling Connection?
My second great-grandparents were Greenwood Hartley and Ann Emmet. Ann Emmet was from Bacup. I have not seen in Sheryl’s genealogy anyone in the Bacup area. That leaves the Trawden area. The two main lines from the Colne area are Hartley and Pilling.
My understanding is that Sarah Pilling above was likely a single mother. That means that we would not know the true father of Greenwood Pilling. That is one possibility for a connection between Joyce and Sheryl. Shackleton is also a possible connection. I am not sure of the Baldwin connection above. Also I don’t have a last name for the mother of Nancy Shackleton.
Summary and Conclusions
- I have proved that the connection to Hartley at Ancestry is based on a genealogy that is not correct
- I was able to create a much better geenalogy for Sheryl going back to the 1700’s
- I have not shown where the connection is. However, the connection seems to be from the Colne area. That means that the connection is somewhere on the ancestors of Hartley or Pilling
- More work is needed to look into these proposed connections and genealogies at Ancestry and elsewhere.
- Once we have enough good trees, we should be able to triangulate either a genealogy or place where our common ancestors lived.