I recenly saw an interesting post from Tiger Walsh. Tiger is an expert in the YDNA line that my Hartleys are on and posted two interesting images at the R1b-L21 Facebook site. Here is the first:
This image is meant to show that BigY testing is no longer just for pre-surname branches of mankind and that it is useful for genealogy. Here is the second image:
It took me a while to find the larger list of surnames. I was disappointed to see that the Hartley name was not on the list. The reason is stated in the middle of the image above. The Hartleys need three subclades and we only have two. Here is my BigY block tree at FTDNA:
This view is taken from my perspective. James is my brother, so the R-FT225247 brach has as many SNPs as we are likely to find right now. Steve and Michael are R-A11132. They only show an average of 2 Private Variants below the line of the common ancestor of the four testers. This could be partially because Michael took the older BigY 500 test which did not cover as many SNP as the new test. That seems to be the case, as when I look in my old emails, I have that Steve has 5 Private Variants. That must mean that Michael has zero and that they averaged the 5 Variants down to 2 between Steve and Michael.
John the New BigY Tester
After seeing the Surname Hall of Fame, I decided to get over my aversion of asking people things and ask John if he would take a BigY test. John is a good candidate for at least three reasons:
- John has already taken the 67 STR test (where he matches me at a GD of 4), so he can upgrade to the BigY test for less money.
- John is from England, unlike the other four testers who are from the US
- because there are two testers under R-FT225247 and two under A11132, John should break one of these ties and create at least one new Hartley descendant subclades (using the Hall of Fame terminology above).
Lots of Hartleys in the World
I’m looking forward to John’s results. His ordering the BigY test is big news among the A11132 Hartleys. According to forebears.io there are over 87,000 Hartleys worldwide:
I don’t know how many Hartleys are represented by A11132. I see that the Hartley YDNA Project webiste shows 9 branches of Hartleys, so it is possible that there are 10,000 A11132 Hartleys. My bias is that A11132 is one of the larger Hartley groups, so 10,000 A111132 Hartleys could be on the low side. On the Hartley Family Tree Genealogy Facebook Page, Administrator Wiliam Hartley says that the two main Hartley groups are A11132 and A21269.
Breaking the Tie
There are four possiblel outcomes that I would expect from John’s BigY testing:
First, I should say something about the position of #4. It is controlled by the genealogy of Michael at this time. He has the oldest known genealogy. His ancestor Edward Hartley was born in 1666. He came to the US around 1700 or before. That means that Edward cannot be the common ancestor between me and Michael. That is because my Hartley ancestor was in England up until about 1869. The earliest common ancestor that I should have with Michael (assuming Edward left no children in England) would be with Edward’s father Roger John Hartley:
He was born in 1628. Therefore, I would put the number four in the block tree at 1628 at the latest.
The Four Choices on the Block Tree
- If John tests and ends up in this area, it means that his connection to the other BigY tested Hartleys is really old. By really old, I would say some time around the 1400’s
- If John tests in this area that means that he is more closely related to my Hartley line than to Steve and Michael.
- If John tests in this area, then he is more closely related to Steve and/or Michael than to me.
- If John’s BigY test puts him here, it could mean that there are three equal lines that descend from a common or near common Hartley ancestor
We will know more when John’s results come in.
Hartley BigY Geneaology and Triangulation
My own genealogy is the simplest as it doesn’t go back very far. I’ll start with my great-grandfather:
James Hartley, Greenwood Hartley and Mary Pilling all came to the US from Lancashire, England. I am certain of Robert Hartley born about 1803. However, I am not so sure about James Hartley. Someone added another ancestor of John Hartley and Anne Bracewell. I seem to get a lot of DNA matches with people who have Bracewell ancestors, but that may be coincidence.
The triangulating part comes in with the YDNA testing and with locations. The location of my Hartley ancestor was Trawden, Lancashire.
Trawden would be about where I have the red arrow in the 1577 map above. Trawden was part of the Parish of Colne.
Steve’s Genealogy
I’ll look at Steve next in order of most recent to most distant Hartley ancestor. I’ll start with Steve’s great-grandfather who was born in Todmorden, England> Todmorden appears in the lower right hand part of othe old map above.
If Steve and I have the genealogy right, then Thomas Hartley was also born in Todmorden:
Steve and I have that Thomas’ wife was Betty Barker. This couple lived in this place at the time of the birth of their son Barker in 1805:
It looks something like Rodmillend in Stang. I’m not sure where this is. This is probably Thomas in 1841:
However, Birtall is about 16 miles from where he was supposed to have died in the Todmorden area:
Steve has this burial record from Christ Church in Todmorden:
Steve has John and Ann as the parents of Thomas. That information is from this record:
That record is from 17 Mar 1766 from St. Chad in Rochdale. We further see that John was a weaver and that they were of Weurdle. If I have the right place, it seems possible:
This does not seem very far from the area of Todmorden. I”m not sure if I’m ready to accept these parents for Thomas. I don’t see any of Thomas’ children having the names of John or Ann and it would have been normal practice to name your children after your parents.
In summary, here is where my ancestors lived around 1800 and where Steve’s ancestor’s lived around 1766 as far as we can tell:
John’s Genealogy
John is in the process of having his YDNA tested with the BigY 700 test. Based on that, we may be able to find out more about our Hartley shared genealogy.
This is the tree I have built for John. John tells me he is confident of the tree up to William Hartley who was born in 1745. Ancestry want me to pick William’s parents.
William Hartley Born 1745
I have William Hartley as being from Tadcaster in North Yorkshire:
Here is the hint that Ancestry wants me to take for the father of William Hartley:
Gisburn fits in with my assumption that our earliest Hartley ancestors were from the Colne area:
However, I cannot accept the hint based on a location that I like. One of the best documented trees at Ancestry shows Thomas Hartley marrying Grace Lee in 1741:
Here is Healaugh near Tadcaster:
That same tree has that Thomas Hartley was born in Healaugh (but without reference) and has this Thomas Hartley will from October 1766:
I’m not seeing right now that Thomas was necessarily born in Gisburn. I wonder who arrived at that conclusion and why?
Michael’s Genealogy
Of the four Hartley families I am looking at, Michael has the oldest genealogy. Michael’s ancestor Edward or Samuel Edward Hartley emigrated at an early date to Pennsylvania. One account from the Geni website has this:
Edward and his brother Henry emigrated to Pennsylvania sometime between 1693 when Edward married in Yorkshire, or perhaps after the birth of a first child in England, and 1700 when he purchased land in Solebury. John M. Freund wrote that Edward was “said to have come to Solebury from Maryland” but neither of us have any documentation for this. Edward was apparently not a Friend at the time, although two of his sons later joined, and his mother was a Vipont, a family that became well-known in British Quaker circles. One source claims, without any primary source justification, that Edward was a Friends’ minister.
Roger Hartley from Trawden or Marsden?
The connection from Roger Hartley to Edward Hartley is based on history more than records. Although Edward Hartley did not appear to be active in the Quaker movement in Pennsylvania, he does appear to be one of the early Quakers in this record:
Geoge Fox who began the Quaker faith had a vision on Pendle Hill in 1652, so this was only 11 years after Fox’s vision. This record is from the Monthly Meeting of Marsden:
Here Roger at the time of his death was said to be of the Forest of Trawden. That is interesting as the Quaker Meeting was at Marsden. If Roger was from Marsden, I think that would have been recorded at the time of his death. From what I understand, Marsden is not included within Trawden. Trawden may just refer to the area of Trawden or it may include Winewall and Wycoller, but I don’t believe that it includes Marsden.
I found three trees for Roger Hartley at Ancestry. They all show a birth date of 1628. I am not sure why that Roger was chosen as there are many other Roger Hartleys in the area at the time:
I also don’t know where Chamber is.
Summary of the Genealogy and Geography
Obviously, in order to have a common ancestor of the Hartley Line, the genealogies have to come together in one person and in one place. We have:
- From Michael’s Line – Roger Hartley 1628-1715 – Marsden or Trawden
- from John’s Line William Hartley born 1745 – Healaugh near Tadcaster, Yorkshire
- from Steve’s Line – Thomas Hartley born 1774 – Todmorden
- from my line – Robert Hartley born 1806 – Hollin Hall, Trawden
This shows that Michael has by far the best Hartley genealogy as he goes back to over 100 years before and of the other Hartley genealogies.
Next I gave Roger Hartley a score of 4 as his is the oldest genealogy and Robert a score of one. I added these two together as they are pretty much from the same area. I gave William Hartley a 3 and Thomas Hartley a 2:
Obviously Trawden/Marsden gets the highest score. John’s genealogy (of the BigY testers) is the outlier at this point.
Back to the YDNA
Here is another way to show the Block Tree:
I wasn’t consistent in my chart above. For it to be consistent, I should have had Robert Hartley 1803 in the first box. However, it is accurate as Robert Hartley may not have had this SNP. It may have formed after his time. Earlier in the Blog, I mentioned 4 different possible outcomes for John’s BigY testing. Option 4 would be the easiest to represent. In that scenario, John’s ancestor would be another equal branch coming down from A11132. I would be a little surprised if that happened. That would mean that there could be four 500 year old branches of Hartleys with no common ancestors more recent than 500 years ago.
The question is, what is the date of the line between all the testers and A11132 based on the BigY testing? I’m thinking of a rough number of about 500 years ago:
It seems like I come up with a different number each time I do this. The outlier is Michael’s test. I believe that Michael has no Private Variants. I feel like his BigY 500 test may not have covered some of the SNPs or variants that the other BigY 700 tests covered. Assuming 500 years is correct, it would be unusual for Michael to have no Private Variants in that time. For BigY500 testers, 144 years has been used for the formation of a Private Variant or SNP. That means that Michael should have had 3 or 4 Private Variants during that time.
I just looked at the BigY 700 testers. Jim and I had 7 SNPs. I believe Steve had 5 Private Variants. That averages to 6 Private Variants or SNPs. A number of 83 years per BigY 700 SNP has been used. 83 X 6 = 498 or about 500 years. The YDNA is suggesting that the three lines shown in my simplified view have not had a common ancestor in less or more than 500 years or since the year 1500. While that seems like a long time ago, the interesting thing is, if that number holds up, is how many Hartley Lines have remained intact for that period of time and longer. Interesting.
Summary and Conclusions
- I took a skeptical look at the genealogy of three current branches of A11132 Hartley BigY testers. I am not an expert on these lines, but I did the best I could with the time that I had.
- The oldest genealogy is for Michael who I believe took the BigY 500 test. His ancestors were early Quakers who emmigrated to Pennsylvania around the year 1700 or before.
- The date for the common ancestor of the three Hartley families by genealogy cannot any more recent than 1628. The place of that Hartley ancestor was likely in Trawden. Many genealogies have Roger Hartley from Marsden. I found one record showing that he was in the “Forest of Trawden” at the time of his death. These two places are close but different.
- The date for the common ancestor by YDNA could go back to 1500
- John is a new BigY tester who is awaiting his BigY 700 results. These results will further clarify relationships between the three existing Harltey BigY branches. In addition, they will put John’s genealogy into context of those three Hartley branches
- John’s genealogy could use further clarification. One suggestion is that his genealogy goes back to Gisburn which would be closer to Trawden, Lancashire where my genealogy and Michael’s genealogy starts. However, another suggestion is that one generation back from where John has researched could be in the same area which is Healaugh to the North of Tadcaster, Yorkshire.
- I estimated that there could be about 10,000 A11132 Hartleys in the World today.
- I will be eagerly awaiting John’s BigY 700 results.