This is an extensive series of Hartley ThruLines, but I feel like I am getting further back on my Hartley ancestral line than I have in years of genealogical research that did not use DNA.
In this Blog, I would like to look at this ThruLine:
This is a ThruLine between Joyce, my father’s first cousin and hudson. The ThruLine for Hudson goes by way of John, born 1771, son of John Hartley.
First, I look to see if I have created a tree for Hudson and it appears that I have not. Hudson has a good tree:
However, it has a blank right where I need it. I assume that Hudson lives in Australia:
Here is Humphrey and family in Burnley in 1911:
Interestingly, Humphrey’s wife was from Philadelphia.
Looking for Humphrey Layfield’s Mother
It doesn’t take much to figure out that Humphrey’s mother’s first name was Hannah. This is the Census for Burnley and this family was all born in Burnley according to thie Census.
This record is helpful:
That leads me to this tree:
I need to verify that Elizabeth’s father was Thomas Hartley. An Ancestry member kindly posted this image:
The name Hitchon is a new one to me, but it is not the line that I am interested in. We do see Thomas Hartley as Eliizabeth’s father. This appears to be Briercliffe where Elizabeth was born:
Could this be the same Hannah Hartley?
It appears that Thomas Hartley could have died soon after the birth of Elizabeth Hartley. Based on hints, this is my best guess for the marriage of Thomas Hartley:
Who was the Father of Thomas Hartley?
We are looking for a John. Thomas’ first son was named John, possibly after Thomas’ father. It appears that this is a bit difficult. Here are clues from Ancestry:
There was a marriage for this couple in Burnley:
However, I cannot tell if this would lead me back to John Hartley and Anne Bracewell. I do see this hint from the ThruLines:
However, I am not convinced of this connection at this point.
Other Hartley/Bracewell ThruLines: Joel and Nora
I do not believe that I have looked at this connection:
Lets take a look. Nora’s mom was from Texas. Nora’s grandfather was born in Pennsylvania, but his parents were from England. Here is the 1920 Census from Fort Worth, Texas:
I am looking for Samuel’s mother. In 1870, the family was in Philadelphia:
Here is my evolving tree for Nora:
Nora’s tree is pretty good and goes to the Robert and Peggy that I have documented already:
However, there is a conflict with a tree I already have for Karen:
Was Ann Elizabeth Longbotham Originally a Tomkinson?
This is probably Richard Longbottom in 1841 in Salford:
There was an Elizabeth Tomkinson who traveled to Philadelphi:
She appears to be with her father and mother. Here is the family 1841 in Pendleton, Salford, Manchester:
From this, I turned the page on the arriving immigrants from England:
Assuming I have the right woman, she must have married in Philadelphia. I feel like I am again using the criteria of ‘is this line possible?’ rather than can I prove this line.
According to the 1851 Census, Elizabeth and her family were born in Salford:
Was Ann Tomkinson a Hartley?
There appears to be more documentation here. This record is a bit messy:
William Tomkinson dies in 1915 and his mother should be Ann Hartley, however, it is transcribed as ‘Fathly’.
Here is an entry from ,
Genealogical memoirs of various families of Tomkinson (1620-1904) by Newton Powers Tomkinson, published 1904 in Philadelphia
Here is the transcription of the wedding mentioned above:
More on Nora’s Hartley Ancestry
Let’s check the Tomkinson Genealogy on the Hartleys. Here is a marriage between John Hartley and Elizabeth Crossley:
Next, a lot would be riding on the birth date of John Hartley. The most logical choice appears to be this John:
Generally speaking, babies were baptized fairly soon after birth unless there were extenuating circumstances. In this scenario, John Hartley from Waterside moves to the Manchester area where he marries in 1802.
I get these other hints from Ancestry:
This appears to be Elizabeth Crossley Hartley livign in Salford in 1851 with her unmarried daughter and grandson. This Elizabeth was born in Rochdale:
This baptismal date is the same as the birth date for Elizabeth given in the Tomkinson Genealogy above.
Ancestry also gives this hint for the 1841 Census in Manchester:
It appears that these two trees cannot both be right going back to Robert Hartley and John Hartley. Here is the proposed one for this Blog:
Here is the Tree for my previous Blog:
Note here I have John born 1796 based on the 1841 Census, but based on an Ancestry Tree, I decided that he could have been born in 1779.
It appears that there are pro’s and con’s for each of these trees:
- The dates matched better with Nora’s tree, but not the location. It was unclear why John Hartley would move from Colne to Manchester or it was unclear that he did so
- The locations matched better on Karen’s tree, but the dates seemed off.
Further, as I look at Joyce’s ThruLines, I no longer see my friend Elaine on her list:
These ThruLines are definitely in a state of flux. My solution for now is to give a tint to Elaine’s and Karen’s lines:
I don’t know what to do with Nora’s line for now as that would show a different wife for John Hartley. I do note that Nora matches my siblings Jon, Lori and Sharon. I haven’t tested one brother at Ancestry and one sister did not match Nora. The interesting thing is that these two ThruLines appear that conflict with each other. One is from my family and one is from my father’s 1st cousin.
Here is Nora’s Line shaded in green:
Here is the whole tree:
This completes for now the series on John Hartley/Anne Bracewell ThruLines.
Summary and Conclusions
- It can be confusing trying to sort out Hartley Genealogy in the area of Colne, Lancashire. DNA matches should help to direct this genealogy in certain directions
- In 2019, I started looking at DNA matches from two people who appeaered to be descendants of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell. Because of this connection I added John Hartley and Anne Bracewell to my Ancestry Tree
- Ancestry then looked for and found other DNA matches with possible connections to Anne Bracewell and John Hartley using ThruLines
- When I checked the ThruLines, most lines seemed to connect to John Hartley and Anne Bracewell.
- However, near the end of the series, most questions arose on at least a few of the Lines. One problem was that there were two possible ways one of the Lines could have gone and didn’t seem that both could be true.
- Next, ThruLines for my father’s first cousin Joyce goes back a further generation. I would like to look at those connections.