Category: Hartley

I have been building DNA/Genealogy Trees for my ancestors that have ThruLines that i have verified. On my Hartley side, I have looked at:

• Hartley
• Hathaway
• Snell
• Parker
• Hatch
• Howorth
• Churchill
• Cowen

I do not think that I have looked at Luther.

My Luther Genealogy

My great-grandmother Annie Snell was the daughter of a Bradford and a Snell. Luther is on the Snell side. Benjamin Luther and Rebecca Trafton were my 5th great-grandparents. They lived in Dighton, Massachusetts.

Luther ThruLines

I’ll start with my own:

ThurLines think that I match up with Lynn via Lynn’s ancestor Polly Luther. Polly is in white which means that she is already in my Tree. However, it seems as Polly may have married a Simmons:

A few of my siblings have the same ThruLine with Lynn.

Joyce’s Luther ThruLines

Because my father’s cousin Joyce is a generation back, she should have more Luther ThruLines and she does:

Joyce even has a ThruLine going back a generation:

I checked on my father’s other 1st cousin Maury’s ThruLines, but he doesn’t show any on the Luther side.

Joyce and DVanderzell

I’ll start on the oldest ThruLine. DVanderzell’s Tree matches the ThruLine conclusions:

The tree above has Susannah and the ThruLine has Sukey which I take to be the same person.

I’ll start a quick tree to check DVanderzell’s Tree. Winston was born in Taunton, MA. From Winston’s birth record, his father was from Dighton, MA:

The family soon moved to Montclair, NJ:

Here is the previous generation in Dighton, MA:

So far, the tree is checking out:

I am now looking for Jonathan Hathaway:

The family was in Dighton in 1850:

Jonathan to Susannah Sukey Talbot

From Jonathan’s death record, we see his mother is Susan:

At this point, I may want to attack the question from both ends. By that, I mean from the Jonathan end as well as the Sarah Luther side. I do have that Sarah married in 1773. I could go out on a limb and guess that she may have been born around 1753.

One reference to Susannah had this:

Here is the record for Sukey Talbot:

So there are two Jonathan Hathaways.

Sukey Talbot to Sarah Luther

The female connections are more difficult due to the name changes. I have this record from Dighton:

That means that all I am missing is a birth record for Susannah or Sukey Talbot. Here is the missing link:

A First Luther DNA/Genealogy Tree

Here Joyce and DVanerzell show as 6th cousins which agrees with the Ancestry ThruLines.

Joyce and Pat (Sally Luther Line)

Pat has a good tree, but the line diverges at Polly Sartwell:

Pat has her mother as Martha Goodenough. In addition, in my own tree, I have that Sally Luther married James Spooner. I am tempted to pull the plug on Pat for now.

Joyce and RWU12 (Gardner Luther)

RW’s tree diverges before Gardner Luther II:

Here are the Dighton records:

I am trying to figure out how to interpret this. It appears that Gardner Luther in my tree married a Nancy Horton in 1803. He then dies in 1825. Then there is a second Gardner Luther in Dighton. He dies in 1809. I am guessing that he is the son of the other Gardner and that this Gardner was born in 1807 and died in 1809. Then there appears to be a question as to whether the first Gardner Luther married a Nancy Horton or a Nancy Kelton.

I am now cutting corners to save time:

This Gardner is interesting because his parents were Gardner and Nancy Luther. He dies in 1875 on November 6, so would be born around 1809. Also this:

All this leads to the possibility that the ThruLine could be right.

I’ll start a quick tree for RW:

RW’s mother’s birth record was amended, so is not yet available. I’ll have to assume that RW knew who his grandparents were. Here is RW’s 15 year old grandfather in 1900 in Swansea:

At this point, I am checking into Elizabeth from the above Census.

Here is a 1907 North Attleborough Marriage record for William giving his mother’s name as Elizabeth Willmarth:

Here is a good hint. In 1880, Elizabeth was listed as the granddaughter of a Luther:

I got this 1906 Swansea marriage from RW’s tree:

I’ll just take it on face value. My tree is following RW’s so far:

Here is Mary’s marriage record:

Turns out Clement was quite a bit older than Mary and this was her second marriage.

Here two Luthers married.

Here is the family in 1850 in Swansea:

This could be Mary’s first marriage:

Here is the family in 1855:

This proves that the marriage between Mary Luther and Josiah Tucker above was correct.

Gardner dies in 1886 in Swansea and gives the names of Gardner and Mary Luther for his parents who are both said to have been born in Swansea:

Now we have come full circle, however, I had Gardner Sr. marrying a Nancy, so the death record could be wrong?

I have shown a connection from this Gardner to the elder Gardner and that the younger Gardner lived in Swansea most of his life.

Updating the Luther Tree

I gave the chart some color so it wouldn’t just be boring gray. RWU shows as a 5th cousin once removed to Joyce. This is also what the ThruLine suggested, so it checks out. The only thing I didn’t check into was who was the Charlotte Luther who married Gardner Luther?

Joyce and Lynn (Polly Luther Line)

Now we are back to Lynn:

The maternal side of Lynn’s tree agrees with the ThruLine – going back to our common ancestors:

All I need to do now is to build a parallel tree to Lynn’s to see if it checks out. This tree is starting out in Arkansas. I am having a little trouble finding Leatrice. I would think that she would be easy to find, but sometimes with a different name, the name is miss-spelled. Here is the 1930 Census:

I found this in the hints on the ThruLines. Leatrice is here transcribed as Leatrei. In addition, the last name is transcribed as Tolbert. The father was a school instructor and his family was from Mississippi.

Here is Marcus in 1900 in Mississippi:

Marcus’ father was a farmer (I don’t show but he was on the previous page). His father was from Massachusetts. Bingo.

The transcriber gives the father’s first name as Allen which I can now see. The mother is Telisia or something similar. I have seen that name before.

The Census records help me quickly build a parallel tree for Lynn:

Here is Allen with his family in 1850:

I don’t know much about Mississippi, but Marshall County where they lived is not too far from Memphis:

I am guessing Ephraim moved South before marrying as his wife was from Tennessee.

Talbot to Luther?

We are trying to figure out if Ephraim’s mother was Polly Luther. This record from Dighton is helpful:

Next, I just have to figure out if Marcy is the same as Polly. She is:

I assume that I got the name Polly from a genealogy book. It is confusing and I should put her name back to Mary. My understandiing is that Molly is a nickname for Mary which sometimes was changed to Polly.

Last Tree Update – for Now

Here is the new and improved Luther Tree:

Summary and Conclusions

• Out of the 4 Luther Lines I looked into, I was able to make connections on three
• The Luther Line has a rich heritage and history in the part of Massachusetts around Swansea and Dighton.
• This is my first Luther DNA/Genealogy Tree and verifies the Ancestry ThruLines
• Using DNA plus genealogy is a powerful tool in creating surname trees.

My Massachusetts genealogy has two sides. One side is my Pilgrim ancestors and the other side is my non-Pilgrim ancestors:

My great-grandmother Annie Louisa Snell was the source of my Massachusetts heritage. Her maternal side was the non-pilgrim ancestry and the bottom side or maternal side of the tree above was the Pilgrim ancestry lead off my Harvey Bradford.

DNA/Genealogy Trees

Looking through my files I see these Trees:

• Snell
• Parker
• Hatch
• Bradford
• Hathaway

What I don’t see for trees:

• Luther
• Churchill
• Cowing

I would like to update my old trees and add trees where necessary. The last time I started looking at this subject, I looked at Hathaway and realized I had a lot of people in that tree and more to add. This time, I would like to look at Luther, Churchill and Cowing.

Cowing

I know this name from my home town as Cowen. However, the more historical spelling is Cowing or Cowin. I don’t recall writing about any ThruLines for Cowing. Here are some from Joyce, my father’s first cousin:

Joyce and my family are under Experience Cowing. Joyce has no additional ThruLines under Israel Cowing, but she has three ThruLines through Jonathan and Patience Cowing. First, I’ll loo at Christine:

This has happened before. When I choose Kristine from the ThruLines and then check her common ancestors, I come out with a different line. I am curious to see if the Cowen connection is correct.

Here is Kristen’s paternal side from her own tree:

Here is the family in Middleborough, MA in 1930:

Philip was a chauffer for the Town. Philip was born in Westport, but his birth record shows that his father was born in Mattapoisett:

Here is Philip and his father Sanford and family in Westport, MA in 1900:

Sandford was a farmer.

Here is my tree for Kristine:

Mattapoisett became a Town in 1857, the year before Sanford was born. I just need to show that the Ruth above was Ruth Cowen.

Here is the 1865 Census for Mattapoisett:

Findagrave shows this for Ruth:

My tree now suggests that Kristine does go back to Seth Cowen:

My understanding is that Kristine should be a 5th cousin to Joyce. So that is a little closer than the 5th cousin once removed on the Hathaway side. The DNA match would be either from the Cowen side or the Hathaway side. There is no easy way of knowing.

A First Cowen DNA/Genealogy Tree

That line was relatively easy to trace as the family stayed fairly local.

Helen and Joyce

The next family is fun because it involves a genealogy friend, Helen, who lives down the street from me:

If I can show that Helen matches  Joyce by DNA, it gives creedence to our genealogical research. I trust Helen’s research, so feel no need to evaluate it. Here is her tree:

Helen’s line goes to Seth Cowing Hiller, then to Patience Cowing and then to our most recents common ancestors, Seth Cowing and Penelope Crapo.

I’ll add Frances and Helen to the Tree:

A few interesting things about this tree:

• These three lines represent three Cowing children born within about 4 years
• These families mostly stayed in the same part of Massachusetts for about 300 years and if you look at the Mayflower ancestors, that would have our families here for 400 years, so we have deep roots in this part of SE Massachusetts.

Jon and Shaun

My sister Heidi and I have no Cowing ThruLines from Seth Cowing, but my brother Jon has one:

Shaun has a modest tree, but has more on his maternal side. I don’t have a tree for Shaun, so I will create one. Shaun does show that his maternal great-grandfather was from New Bedford:

This obituary ties Stacey Smith to Francis Swift:

Francis was born in Utah and wed in Wyoming:

Here is the 1930 Census for Salt Lake City:

Here is my tree so far:

I forgot to mention, that when I look at the specific match for Jon and Shaun, a Hathaway connection shows up. It is likely that Jon and Shaun are connected on both lines:

This comes up now because there is a Hathaway in Shaun’s Line.

The marriage record for Francis and Amanda has a lot of information:

This has Francis born in Sandwich rather than New Bedford. It also has their parents’ names.  Here is a tree update:

Where Hattaway is likely a transcription error for Hathaway.

Here is the book transcription of the marriage of Nathan Swift and Pamelia Cowing:

And here is her birth record:

So it is pretty clear where this is going as Israel is the son of Seth Cowing.

Here I have the connection between my brother Jon and Shaun:

I did not check out the Hathaway connection, but that one is likely also. That means, that it is unclear as to whether the actual DNA that Jon and Shaun share are from the Hathaway side or Cowing side.

Lori and Gretchen

I see that my sister Lori has a potential Cowing connection with Gretchen:

The good news is that I already have Matthew Hiller in my tree, so I just need to get Gretchen back to Matthew instead of to the colonial Seth Cowing. I am having trouble finding Seth from the information that Gretchen has:

Gretchen has that Seth died in New York City. I found this draft card:

The only problem is that the tree I got this from has Seth’s wife as Grace Appel:

Gretchen’s tree suggests a Webster as the wife.

Looking at Helen’s ThruLines

I thought of another way to substantiate Gretchen. I have access to Helen’s ThruLines:

Clearly, Gretchen has a large match to Helen and is related. Here is Helen’s tree:

The other three that show as children of Matthew Hiller could not be from Beuretta Webster Hammon if Helen’s tree is right as Beuretta dies in 1880.

Here is the family in 1900:

Charles is apparently out of the house, but George, David and Jennie from Helen’s ThruLines are there. This seems to be a good enough of a connection for me.

I’ll add Gretchen to the tree:

Gretchen and my brother Jon are 5th cousins once removed.

My sister Lori also matches Gretchen. Also my sister Sharon matches Shaun.

Cousin Maury’s ThruLines

My father’s cousin Maury has also tested at Ancestry. He has these ThruLines to Cowing:

Maury and my family are under Experience Cowing. The Hiller family is under Patience Cowing. Here are Maury’s ThruLines on the Hiller side:

Maury and P.S.

Since I last wrote, I see another ThruLine for Maury. It is on a different Cowing Line that I would like to investigate:

Mary is the oldest child of Seth Cowing on the ThruLines. Mary is on my tree. She must have married Philipp Briggs:

We are trying to go from the Wing back to the Nye family:

Here is Addie’s birth record from 1864 in Sandwich:

Addie’s father, George B. was a butcher.

Here is the family in 1870:

Next, I just need to find George’s mother. George’s death record gives his mother’s name and birthplace:

Here the Cowing Tree is filling out:

Co

This is not as far as I could go, but it is as far as I would like to go for now.

Summary and Conclusions

• I was able, with not too much difficulty, to pretty good Cowing DNA/Genealogy Tree thanks to my father’s cousins Joyce and Maury and my brother Jon
• In some cases the common ancestors also came up as Hathaway. That is probably partly because my ancestor Experience Cowing married Joseph Hathaway. However, the matches would have had to have had Hathaways in their ancestry also
• In other cases where Hathawy did not show up in the ThruLine matches, I assume that Hathaway ancestry was not there in the DNA match – at least during the time period that we are looking at.
• I am ready to move on to more DNA/Genealogy Trees

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.