A lot of what I do is look at Ancestry ThruLines and try to figure out if they make sense by genealogy. If they do, I put them into a DNA tree. I was using these DNA Trees before Anestry came up with the ThruLines, so I am very familiar with the concept.
An Ellis ThruLIne
Here is one I saw just recently with my sister Heidi:
Diane has a pretty good Ancestry Tree:
Diane has traced her maternal line back to Ellis and Roebuck.
In 2023, I see that I had this Ellis DNA Tree:
When I check my later mother’s ThruLines, I see Diane there also:
Then there is Russell who is not in my Ellis DNA Tree. I may look into him later.
I have started a floating tree for Diane. Here is Charlotte Ellis, her grandmother:
Charlotte’s father is listed as Henry. Here is the family in 1901:
Charlotte’s father’s occupation had something to do with the spring knife:
This looks to be Henry’s marriage record:
At this point, it would make sense to connect Henry to the James I have in my tree. This will merge Diane into my tree.
Next, I need to update my Ellis DNA Tree:
Rusell
I am surprised that I have not looked into Russell before. Russell’s Tree leads back to James Ellis:
However, his James was born in 1801 and married to Jane instead of Caroline. The James that Russell has as his ancestor was a scissors manufacturer born in Eccleshall and living in Hollis Croft in 1851:
The James in my DNA Tree does not show that he had a daughter named Elizabeth in 1851:
I can build a floating tree for Russell to try to figure out what is going on. Perhaps the connection goes further back.
Looking more closely into Russell’s Tree, I see that he has two Ellis lines:
I saw from shared matches between my Mom and Russell that the Lockwood name was coming up, so I looked further down the Russell’s Lockwood Line and found Charles Ellis. This must be the connection.
A Floating Tree for Russell
I will build a floating tree for Russell that most likely will be connected to my tree. Russell’s father makes it onto this 1939 Sheffield Register:
Here is the marriage record for Russell’s paternal grandparents:
Russell’s great-grandfather William Henry was a night watchman in 1911 at a silver hardware manufacturer:
Notice that the eldest son is Frederick.
Here is the family in 1891:
It seems our line of Ellises were pen and pocket blade grinders. I have Frederick’s mother in my Tree – Emma. I just need to add the Emma in my tree to the Frederick in my floating tree and that should connect the two trees.
According to my Ellis DNA Tree, the right candidate is the one born in 1831. It looks like I never added the right Thomas Lockwood to my tree.
This record closes the loop:
Here is the middle of Meadow Street, Sheffield on a modern map:
Emma Ellis lived there in 1851. For comparison, here is Morpeth Street:
Earlier in the Blog, I had Harry or Henry Ellis and his daughter Charlotte living there in 1901.
Adding Russell to the Ellis DNA Tree
Before I do that, I will look at the 1881 Census:
This shows that Emily was a year older than Fred.
All this makes me wish I knew who the father was for Charles Ellis. I checked the Sheffield Indexers Website and didn’t see any baptisms for a Charles ellis around 1795. I believe that he was from Thorne. Also they may have been non-comformists which complicatetes matters. This seems like a possibility from 14 June 1795:
The other option appears to be in Snaith;
So Charles could have been the son of a farmer from Snaith or the son of a cutler from Sheffield. In the Ellis DNA Tree above, it appears that Thorne refers to Charles’ wife. So I would go with the cutler parents from Sheffield.
I probably have not added a new ancestor in quite a while.
This would make sense for the parents:
Here is Rotherham:
I’ll take a guess at this baptism for Sarah:
Here, I have built out a family for Charles and Sarah Ellis:
The Banns for the marriage indicate that Charles was also from Rotherham:
Summary and Conclusions
- Both Ellis matches from Thrulines worked out as far as the genealogy
- I added both matches to my Ellis DNA Tree
- I was able to add two likely parents to my oldest known Ellis ancestor.
- I was also able to add two parents to the mother of my previoiusly oldest known Ellis ancestor. These were John and Sarah Wainwright of Rotherham