Reviewing a Potential Parker Common Ancestor at Ancestry

Not too long ago, I found a potential Parker common ancestor at Ancestry. In order to find this match, I search for Parker in the surname list, then filter by common ancestor and finally sort by newest match:

Audrey does not have a large match with me, but the relatioship is quite distant. As I look at the common matches between Audrey and me, I see three matches with possible common ancestors:

James shows as Audrey’s uncle.

I couldn’t find my Parker DNA Tree on my laptop, but I found this from a previous Blog in 2024:

Another confusing thing is that Audrey’s Ancestry tree does not gree with this one. James’ tree follows Audrey’s tree but takes the Parker line further back.

Caitlyn is a cousin or half Aunt of Audrey and her tree follows James’ and Audrey’s. Finally, another match in common with Audrey and me is David:

David’s tree only goes back to Robert on that side. As these 4 people match each other quite closely, it stands to reason that they all do or do not descend from Isaac Parker.

Looking at James’ Genealogy

As James is a generation earlier than Audrey, I will look at his tree. I will start a floating tree for James and then connect him if it works out.  James shows his father David was born in Marion, MA. This is interesting as that is where I live now.

James has this as where David was in 1940:

I am assuming that George, Robert, John and Winnifred were David’s siblings. I think that this is the family in 1930 in South Wareham:

I think that this is the William Herbert Parker I have in my tree:

However, I don’t have enough information in my tree yet to link the two:

Here is some more information on William from findagrave.com:

Here we are back to William Henry Parker Junior, though it certainly seems to be the person in the 1930 Census. I think I need to get his middle name back to Henry.

Here is my improved version of William Henry Parker Junior:

Note that I do not have David. However, I think I have enough information to meld my two trees.

Here is an intersting twist:

According to this obituary, William Parker’s wife was born Grace Parker. I assume that means that William was married twice because I also see this marriage in Brockton in 1905:

Here I have connected the trees:

I think that Wiliam Henry Jr. should have about 10 children, so I am missing some.

Here is an interesting fact. I found this marriage record at findagrave.com:

This states that William Henry was marrying for the first time, yet I have a marriage record for him im Brockton in 1905. No wonder I am having trouble with the genealogy.

Fixing the Parker DNA Tree

This part of the tree seems off:

This is from my 2024 Blog:

Let’s see where my ThruLines are now:

My ThruLines show a William Henry Parker where James and his relatives are. Then I have William H. Parker who I suppose to be the same as William Henry Parker.

A New Problem

Notice the image from my 2024 Blog. This had James as 2nd cousin to Barbara and TD. Now the ThruLines as having a separated William Henry Parker and William H Parker. These leaves a few possibilities:

1. The TD Branch connects to Isaiah Parker and the James Branch does not
2. The James Branch connects to Isaiah Parker and the TD Branch doese not
3. Neither branch connects to Isaiah Parker
4. Both branches connect to Isaiah Parker – I feel that this is least likely as the two branches do not seem to match each other by DNA.

It occurs to me that there is even another solution. That is that Grace May Parker may descend from Isaiah Parker or another related Parker line.

If #1 is true, then I have messed up that connection by showing that James goes back to Isaiah Parker in my Ancestry Tree.

More Genealogy Needed

Let’s look at William Henry Parker born 1886. His parents were William H. and Elizabeth V Bumpus. The 1883 Wareham wedding record for William H Parker and Elizabeth Parker shows that William H was born in Fairhaven and gives these sets of Parents:

That means that my 2023 Blog was correct in not connecting the James Branch to the Parker Line. So, how do I fix this?

Here is the point where my tree is now wrong:

I need to take out this Wililam H Parker and put in the right one. I can try by deleting his parental relationship:

While I’m at it, I’ll add in his correct parents so there will not be later confusion.

One confusing thing happens in 1889. William Henry’s son is named William Herbert Parker:

This is an important detail and a crucial link between TD’s tree and mine.

So Where Does James Fit in?

This is where I use my shared matches between James and me. Here are two hints:

JH and EG are our shared matches and they suggest common ancestors down different colonial Massachusetts lines of Bradford, Hathaway, Snell and Luther.

Above, the boxes show where the DNA suggests and the arrows show where a wrong interpretation of the genealogy suggests.

Summary and Conclusions

• In my enthusiasm to add the James Line to my Parker DNA Tree, I made a mistake on the James Line genealogy
• It turns out that their genealogy was correct. I tend to give more credit to others’ genealogy, but for some reason this time I didn’t. One lesson.
• Also I didn’t look into my previous Blog. This perhaps would have told me that I was going down the wrong path in the James Line genealogy.
• Finally, shared matches were helpful in showing that the TD line going back to Isaiah Parker did not match the James Lines. Geneaolgy and DNA do work together.