Category: Hartley Autosomal DNA

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Looking for Pilling Clusters at Ancestry

In this Blog, I would like to look for Pilling matches. I have a motive for this. Those who are descended just from Pilling will not be descended from Hartley. Theoretically, I could eliminate some of my matches from my Hartley ancestor search. As it is, when I look at many of my Hartley DNA matches, it seems like some of them could be Pilling relatives.

So as I think of the matches, it occurs to me that going forward in time from Mary Pilling, there would be matches that descend from Mary Pilling. However, going back from Mary Pilling, there should be no Hartley descendants that match us unless it is by coincidence. Hmmm…

Pilling Genealogy and ThruLines

I believe that my genealogy is right for Mary Pilling:

However, when I look at the ThruLines for my father’s 1st cousin Joyce, I see this:

This shows Horsfall coming from Robert. Robert died in 1835. May Pilling Hartley remarries Robert Wilkinson and has more children. I thought that the ThruLines were more messed up than they are. When I look at Joyce’s ThruLines for Mary Pilling, it looks correct:

That means that Ruth would be a great person of interest in looking at Pilling Clusters.

When I look at another of my father’s first cousins’ ThruLines, I see this:

Derek has an even larger match with Maury at 42 cM.

Maury’s Pilling Clusters

Maybe my chances of finding Pilling Clusters would be better with Maury than with Joyce.

I was thinking I should see an overall cluster, but I don’t see it.

The first group is the closest group of matches:

EB has a private tree, but according to shared matches, he is a nephew of Derek.

Cluster 2 includes two people from the Wilkinson Line:

Cluster 3

This seems to expand past the children of John Pillng born 1822 for the first three matches of this cluster. This tells me that there are two different groups, but Norman appears to be matched to both. This appears to be where the matches have gone from the known (Pilling and Wilkinson) to the unknown.

Cluster 4

Now that I have not figured out Cluster 3, I will move on to Cluster 4:

This represents the ultimate representation of Pilling clusters that I am aware of on my side’s matches. This would be one interpretation:

I was thinking that the first cluster were peole who descended from Mary Pilling. However, George is a new match.

When I look at George’s shared matches, he comes out close to the Wilkinson side. Perhaps I can fit him in. George has an unlinked tree:

George’s mother is from Massachusetts. Perhaps that is a clue.

I don’t know if I have a better Pilling DNA tree, but this one looks like it could use some updating – especially on the Wilkinson side:

I’ll add George to my tree as a floating tree.

I’ll go with the findagrave hint at Ancestry for Barbara – Geoge’s mother:

In 1950 George Nelson is a Taxi Driver living in New Bedford:

His sister Barbara A Nelson is listed in the same household on the next page:

The house is in the Sassaquin neighborhood of New Bedford:

Here is Barbara in one tree at Ancestry:

That same tree has father George Nelson dying before 1930. However, if that is the case, how can he be the father of Barbara Ann Nelson born 1931? This appears to indicate that George died in 1930:

Here is the family in 1940, but where is Barbara? She should have been about 8 or 9 at the time.

It appears that it is not easy for me to trace this match back to Wilkinson and Pilling.

More on William Wilkinson

Shared matches seem to indicate that the George match above could be a 2nd cousin to Richard and Paul:

That could mean that they both descend from William Wilkinson born in 1879. Here is Willia a death certificate for Wilkinson in 1936:

At the time, he was living at Lindsey Street, New Bedford:

Lindsey runs between North Street and Court Street. That confirms that this must be William in the 1930 Census:

According to Paul’s Tree at Ancestry, William had a second wife:

Back to the Clusters

George is somehow connected to the Wilkinson side, but I do not know how exactly. The next cluster is from from Ann Hartley. She was the daughter of Greenwood Hartley who was the son of Mary Pilling.

The Third Cluster

  1. Elliot
  2. Talia
  3. Jane
  4. Catherine

Jane and Catherine are in the order of 1st cousins to Maurey.

They descend from James Hartley. Cluster 2 descend from James’ sister Ann Hartley Burrows.

Elliot and Talia

Elliot’s family appears to be from Tasmania:

As Elliot’s tree only goes to about the year 1900, it would take quite a bit of work to trace it back to the Pilling family.

Cluster 4

The last person in the last cluster has this possible connection:

Victoria fits in with the theory that these should be Pilling clusters. However, the tree goes back quite far. The further a tree goes back, there are more possible ways that something could have gone wrong. Here is the earliest Howorth that Victoria has:

The information looks a little vague. I don’t mind trying a quick tree to see what I get. It looks like I already checked this out in 2019:

I have Edmund’s son Edmund born in Bacup. This is interesting as this is where the Emmet side of family lived. After a quick look at the ThruLines, I do not see an easy connection.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Looking at the Pilling Clusters gave me a different perspective on this family and their descendants
  • The largest result gave me four clusters. These were: Pilling/Wilkinson, Descendants of Ann Hartley Burrows, descendants of James Hartley her brother and a fourth presumably earlier group of Pillings.
  • My assumption was that I would get a list of Pilling descendants that I could eliminate from my list of earlier Hartley descendants. It did not seem to work out that way and/or I did not look at a list to subtract them from
  • I found an interesting match to the Wilkinson line, but could not figure out how he is connected.

 

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Hartley Genealogy and Playing with Ancestry’s Custom Clusters

Quite a while back, I took a sample from my father’s cousin to get a better representative sample of Hartley DNA. I will look at Joyce’s custom clusters. In the past, I have built a Hartley/Bracewell Tree on the assumption that that could be the correct genealogy:

The tree looks promising in that it is large, but I have trouble proving the genealogy. The part that is proved is on the Burrows > Rasmussin Line:

This gets the common ancestors back to Hartley and Emmet. The common matches also filter out the large number of Snell relatives. Kristen has a good match to Joyce, so would be a good pick for custom clusters:

A Custom Cluster between Joyce and Kristen

There are 4 small clusters. The first cluster:

This has Kristen and Emily who have been identified, but also Jennifer who I have been unable to place. The next cluster:

Zachary and Rachael are related to Jennifer. They are niece and nephew. I do see from previous correspondence that Jennifer’s father was John Williams:

Jennifer’s father or grandfather could be the John B Williams born in 1906. Here is the family in 1906 in Fall River:

But perhaps that is the wrong family. This is John A. Here is John B. Williams in 1940:

This could be the same family if John Williams remarried. This is John Burroughs Williams in October, 1940:

Here is 291 Maple Street:

Earlier in the year, the family lived here:

I won’t clear up where Jennifer fits in, but it is clear it is part of the Williams’ family.

Here is the next Cluster:

Kristen is the match in common with the others.  Ruth fits in on the Pilling family:

Mary was a single mother, so that means I do not know who the father of John Pilling was. Perhaps that adds some uncertainty to the Cluster. [Actually, it would not, as I do not desend from the unknown father of John Pilling.]

Here is the last cluster:

I guess that Emily down and to the right is a Pilling Cluster. That means that Sheryl up and to the left could be a Hartley Cluster. Interestingly, Sheryl’s match shows this:

In this Blog, I questioned the connetion shown above. That leaves me with confusing DNA and confusing genealogy.

Maurey and Kristen

Another of my father’s cousins has tested his DNA at Ancestry. I can try the same shared clusters with Kristen as I did for Joyce. This resulted in three clusters. I’ll skip to the third:

Derek and Ruth are on the Pilling Line. Jane and Catherine are related on the more recent Hartley/Snell Lines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Questions on Jennifer’s ancestry lead me to previous enquiries which revealed that Jennifer is the daughter of John Williams. However, is this the John born in 1906? There is some confusion on the genealogy in that line.
  • I have questions on Hartley genealogy and DNA. How do the Pilling and
    Emmet Lines fit in as well as Hartleys.
  • There are other lines in there that should fit in but cannot be placed.
  • Overall, it is helpful to observe to observe the arrangement of families in the clusters. This may result in some fresh thinking on the problems in the genealogy.

 

 

 

 

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Ancestry Clusters

Ancestry Clusters is a new feature for those who have Pro Tools. According to Ancestry:

DNA matches sharing between 65 and 1300 cM of DNA are grouped into grids as shown below (if you have more than 100 clustered matches, you will not see this grid view). Each group or cluster represents DNA matches that are shared with each other, and represent a branch of your family tree. 

My Clusters

I have four Clusters:

The large one is my Hartley side Cluster. My great-grandparents had 13 children, so I have a lot of relatives in that one. The next three Clusters are on my mother’s side.

I have left out the names on the left side of the clusters. RB is my first cousin Rusty. I know that the purple cluster is my mother’s Rathfelder side. That is due to CW and DD who are Rathfelder cousins from England. That leaves the orange and dark grey clusters. These are Nicholson or Lentz.

These clusters did not pick up my Frazer ancestors. Additionally, it is difficult to tell which cluster is Nicholson and which is Lentz.

My Mother’s Clusters

My mother only has maternal clusters.

This is odd as my own clusters picked up her paternal Rathfelder side and my mom’s clusters did not pick that up.

BL is in the coral colored cluster. He has Nicholson only ancestry. My guess is that the orange cluster is Lentz (but includes Nicholson). I further suppose that the coral and purple clusters represent Nicholson but further break it down between Nicholson and Ellis:

However, as the matches are both Nicholson and Ellis through Nicholson, it is not possible to tell which matches are more Ellis versus more Nicholson. Furthermore, it appears that all the orange Lentz matches have Nicholson in their heritage also.

My Father’s Cousin Joyce

This is a more detailed view of my large orange cluster.

I only show Joyce’s maternal side as that is the Hartley side where I am related to her. Here is the genealogy:

One theory is that the four clusters could represent Hartley, Emmet, Snell and Bradford. I do know that the blue cluster represents Snell. Here is CH from that Cluster:

Making an Educated Guess for Joyce’s’ First Three Maternal Clusters

Here is how Joyce is related to some of the Bradford descendants:

Joyce has a higher match to Pat as she is a Hartley also. Here is Pat  in Joyce’s second cluster:

Therefor, my assumption is that the second cluster favors Bradford. I would not like to guess about the other two clusters. However, I do know that I have a lot of matches to Hathaway descendants.

My Sister Heidi’s Clusters

Where I have four clusters, my sister Heidi has 6. The first two are paternal and the last 4 are maternal. The paternal clusters are on the 2nd cousin level. I can only assume that these are Hartley and Snell clusters, but I cannot tell which is which.

Heidi’s Maternal Clusters

Here is what I think:

  • Purple is clearly Rathfelder
  • Teal is Nicholson or perhaps Ellis
  • Red and blue are either Lentz or Nicholson

My Brother Jon’s Clusters

Jon’s Clusters are halfway between mine and my sister Heidi’s. The first match in the second cluster has Frazer ancestry as she is Aimee, a first cousin once removed. But because the other matches are from the Hartley side, this must be a Hartley paternal cluster. The purple cluster is Rathfelder. Blue is Nicholson and pink is Lentz/Nicholson.

Sister Lori’s Clusters

All Clusters are listed from largest to smallest. Lori’s largest and smallest cluster are both paternal and the other three are maternal. Aimee is is the first match in the fifth cluster. My assumption is that this Cluster is the first Frazer Cluster.

Loris’s Frazer Cluster

Here are the details from the Cluster:

Although John does not have a searchable tree, I have figured out who is on the Frazer tree.

Lori is John’s second cousin once removed. Aimee is John’s second cousin twice removed.  I need to add Aimee to my chart as she is an important match:

Matthew

That leaves Matthew in the Frazer Cluster. Shared matches shows that he is related on the Hubert Frazer Line:

John’s father was born in 1919, so my guess is that he is Matthew’s granduncle.

I’ll add Matthew to my Ancestry Tree as a floating tree. Here is what Matthew has:

Matthew has followed his paternal grandmother’s line. I assume that the connection is not on that line. I found this information at Ancestry:

From an obituary index, I see that Matthew’s mother was a Frazer. that means I am getting close to figuring out where Matthew fits in.

Next, I look in my tree and find a perso with the same name as Matthew’s mother. I’ll take that to be the same person. Here is tree I already have for Matthew’s mother:

I merged the two people that I have which should also add Matthew to my tree. Next, I need to add Matthew to my Frazer DNA Tree.

This now describes Lori’s smallest cluster. It turns out I already had MatthewI on my Frazer DNA tree. It also turns out that John and Matthew are first cousins once removed.

My Sister Sharon’s Clusters

Sharon has three simple clusters:

  1. Hartley
  2. Lentz/Nicholson
  3. Rathfelder

My Daughter’s Clusters

These would make more sense if they were sorted by Paternal and Maternal instead of by size. When I look at the names, I see that Clusters 1 and three are paternal and 2 and 4 are maternal. Cluster 1 is Hartley and Cluster 3 is Lentz/Nicholson.

My daughter’s mother was a Jarek, so that would account for Clusters 2 and 4. Here is Heather’s mother’s tree:

Here are my daughter’s maternal clusters:

The second cluster has a match to a man named Matusik. His common ancestor with my daughter is Jarek/Ras. I would say that the first cluster represents Jarek/Wozniak and the second could represent a generation old: Jarek/Ras.

My Son’s Clusters

I suspect they should be similar.

The difference is that JJ also has some Rathfelder mixed in with his Lentz/Nicholson in Cluster #3. That explains the gap in matches in Cluster #3 as the Rathfelders and Lentz families are not related. Also JJ has a Snell not related to Hartley in Cluster #1. JJ’s match with Matusik is in Cluster #3 indicating an older connection to the Jarek line.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Ancestry has a new Cluster feature which is at a basic level of 65 cM for now. At this level there should be no surprises. These will be the lines with the best level of DNA matches
  • My sister Lori had the only Frazer Cluster, so she should be the best person to check for Frazer matches.
  • It is interesting how the clusters represent some lines well and others not at all well. I assume that this has to do with the number of desendants there is in a given line and how many of those descendants took DNA tests at Ancestry.

 

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Did ThruLines Find My Hartley Ancestors?

To answer my own question, I believe the answer is no.

A Trimmed Down Hartley Tree

From going through many records, my best guest as to who my ancestors were is on my web page:

With all the Hartleys around it was difficult to establish which was which in the records. The compound matters, my ancestor Robert was a weaver. This makes him somewhat mobile. If he was a farmer, he would have been likely tied to a family farm.

My theory was, that if I took away James Hartley and Betty Baldwin, ThruLines might suggest the correct Hartley ancestor.

My ThruLines Gone Wrong?

Unfortunately, when I used this approach, ThruLines suggested a Wilkinson ancestor.

This would be a good set of ThruLines, but for the fact that it shows my ancestor Robert Hartley to be the son of Moses Wilkinson. I can at least try to give an explanation as to why this happened.

The Pilling/Wilkinson Connection

I do know that Robert Hartley married Mary Pilling who was a single mother. Robert dies young and the widow Mary marries Robert Wilkinson who is a widower. This is perhaps the connection that ThruLines is making, but it is unclear how the widow of Robert Hartley marrying a Wilkinson would connect a dead Robert Hartley to the Wilkinson family. Here is the marriage record for Robert Hartley and Mary Pilling:

The witnesses were John Schofield and John Aldersley. Interestingly, this is likely John Aldersley in the 1841 Census in Holling Hallrow, Trawden:

John was a neighbor to my ancestor Greeonwood hartley at the time. The previous page of the Census shows that Mary Pilling had remarried Robert Wilkinson by this time:

I assume that the young Aldersley was the one who was listed at both of Robert Hartleys weddings. This is probably John’s birth record in 1803:

He was born in Wanless. Here is Wanless on an 1818 map:

 

Here is the marriage record for Mary Pilling and Robert Wilkinson from 1839:

Notice that between 1830 and 1839, a lot more information was included on the marriage record.

Robert Hartley’s First Marriage

When Robert Hartley married Mary Pilling, he was listed as a widower. So, who did he marry first?

I can’t prove it, but there was a Robert Hartley, weaver who married a Barbary or Barbara Heaton. Notice that John Aldersley was a witness to the marriage. There was a Barbara Heaton born in Wycoller in 1802:

Tragically, there was a Barbary Hartley [note the spelling, same as the wedding record] who died in 1829.

Note that in 1829, Barbary and presumably Robert Hartley lived at Wellhead. Barbary is listed as dying at age 27 which also fits very well with the other facts.

Where is Wellhead?

Assuming I have thre right couple, it would be interesting to know where they were living in 1829. A Google search results in this map and arrow:

However, I do not see the words Well head. The location would make sense as it is not far from Hollin Hall where Robert died, not far from Wanless where John Aldersley lived and not far from Wycoller where Barbara was born. A closer view reveals that there is a Wellhead Road which suggests that there was a Wellhead in the area near Winewall:

Who Were Moses Wilkinson and Jane Shaw?

I have them in my tree as the parents of Robert Wilkinson who was Mary Pilling’s second husband. I am confused as to why Ancestry would somehow combine Robert Hartley and Robert Wilkinson just because they both married Mary Pilling. Here is what I have for Robert Wilkinson:

Could the confusion be due to the fact that I have no first wife for Robert Wilkinson? This should be easy to find (I think). This record suggests that the first was was Sarah Cowgill:

Here is a possible marriage:

However, if this is right, Robert would have been only 19 years old at his marriage. I searched for children of Robert Wilkinson and Sarah and found one entry:

Possibly this John died and another child was named John? Or this could be the same John. I would be willing to add Sarah Cowgill as the first wife of Robert to see if this improves my ThruLines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I took out my best guess for the parents of Robert Hartley to see if ThruLines could come up with a good candidate
  • Instead ThruLines gave the parents of Mary Pilling’s second huband Robert Wilkinson to my ancestor Robert Hartley
  • I added a first wife to Robert Wilkinson to see if this fixes ThruLines
  • The next step is to add in at least a Hartley father (likely a James) to Robert Hartley to correct ThruLines.

 

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Recent Common Ancestor Matches at Ancestry Part 2

I had good luck with my Part 1 Blog, so I will continue.

Joyce

Joyce is my father’s 1st cousin, so a good candidate for common ancestor matches. I will use two filters for maternal (Hartley side) and common ancestors. Then I will sort by most recent:

None of Joyce’s matches in this category are very new. However, I will take a look.

Thomas

I recently did an update on my Bearse ancestry. As all of Thomas’ ancestors are in white, that means that Thomas has been added to my Ancestry Tree.

Catherine

Catherine is the daughter of Lauri who also tested at Ancestry. I am surprised that I do not see these two on the DNA Tree for my great-grandparents:

Robert is the youngest, so he should be on the right. In addition, my great-grandparents had no son named John. I see that John is the son of Robert, so I will fix this.

I believe that the pinkish color means that Simone tested at 23andMe. Robert was born 20 years after my grandfather. Here is a photo of Robert:

Lori and Martin

Lori’s common ancestor shows as a paternal match to Joyce though the DNA says maternal, so I will ignore that one. Here is the suggested connection for Martin:

This is an old connection and will be difficult to substantiate. However, it is interesting as my immigrant ancestor, Greenwood PIlling apparently got his name from Mary Pilling’s father who was Greenwood PIlling.

Here is what I have on my Pilling Web Page:

If I have it right, Greenwood died tragically at the age of 23. I do show a son John.

I’ll add Martin to my Ancestry Tree as a floating tree.  Martin’s tree goes back to his Crabtree grandmother:

Martin’s father and grandparents were in Great Harwood in 1939:

However, I have ancestors from both Bacup nd Colne.

In 1901, the family is in Blackburn, but father James Crabtree was born in Bury (or possibly Burnely?). Other Census reports appear to confirm that it was Bury.

Here is a marriage record:

The marriage takes place in Haslingden:

They are perhaps older than average when marrying.

James’ father is listed as James, but this is crossed out and John is written in.

Here is James in 1891 at 330 Manchester Road which correlates exactly with his marriage record. This is where my research deviates with Anestry. James’ mother appears to be Esther, not Margaret. However, John is born in Colne which is interesting. I have also considered the Crabtree name as a possible ancestor in the past.

The family is in Salford in 1871:

The family is in North Bury in 1861:

Here are two records from one of my favorite web sites:

The best choice is the 1859 marriage. Note that it takes place in Bury and that John’s father is Joseph, the name of John’s first child.  This puts the couples’ birth at about 1834. This appears to be John’s baptismal record at a Wesleyan Church:

Here is the family in 1841 on Parilament Street in Colne:

The 1851 Census shows that all three were born in Colne:

Here is a marriage record:

This is likely the birth record for Joseph:

Here is Shawhead:

This is also interesting as some of my other DNA inspired genealogical research has lead me to this area.

Here are some likely parents:

Here is the likely family:

Unfortunately, I do not know where Heaton is. This may be Richard Crabtree:

Summary and Conclusions

  • One of the relatively recent Common Matches for Joyce lead me to cleaning up my Hartley/Snell DNA Tree
  • Another match purported to lead to my Pilling Line, but seemed to follow a Crabtree line to the area where my ancestors lived in Colne Parish, Lancashire
  • The Crabtree name has come up before and the area to the North of Colne (Foulridge) has come up. This could be coincidence, or I could be on to something. It is difficult to tell right now.

 

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Joyce and Bearse ThruLines Part 2

In part one of my Blog, I did some genealogy on the early Bearse family of Barnstable, Massachusetts and went through Joyce’s first Bearse ThruLine.

My father’s first cousin Joyce and I descend from Olive Bearse. I did the ThruLine of Thomas in my previous Blog, now I’ll look at Beverly.

Is There a Bearse Connection Between Joyce and Beverly?

Beverly’s Ancestry Tree is confusing compared to her ThruLine:

Beverly’s Tree has her father as George Toner which does not make sense. However, the two trees agree on Beverly’s paternal grandmother who is Martha L Brown. Here is the 1880 Census for the Village of Hyannis:

I just need to get more information on Adaline. Her death record has more information:

Most people render Amasa as Amaziah. However, there are numerous renderings of his name:

I see a marriage record for the couple:

The vital records for the are seem to be thorough.

Amasa is listed at the bottom of the death records page for Barnstable for 1867:

However, no date is given.

His parents are Isaiah and Rachel:

So far, I have two more generations of Bearses than Beverly had for her tree:

This, apparently, is Isaiah, who died a widower. His age is given, but some other information is missing:

This puts his birth at about 1774 as he died at age 70 in 1844. However, Ancestry interprets his death to be in 1843.

Findagrave.com has his burial in the Universalist Cemetery:

Isaiah to Enoch

I need to evaluate the suggestion that agrees with the ThruLines suggestion. I have the advantage of checking from either side. I found a wife for Enoch:

They married in Barnstable.

I did find an interesting Will from Hannah Bearse spinster dated 1772. She mentions her two sisters Dinah and Mary Bearse. Also:

This suggests to me that Hannah is a sister of John Bearse. That would mean that those listed are most likely children of John Bearse. I also see that the names match up with Jocye’s ThruLines:

Joyce (and I) descend from Olive. My previous Blog looked at the Gershom Bearse connection. This Blog is looking at the Enoch connection. Martha and Rebecca mentioned in the will represent 8 additional ThruLines for Joyce. All this is interesting but it does not prove the relationship between Enoch and Isaiah.

I did find this reference:

This was from a 2020 edition of Mayflower Descendants. This Timothy has a son Enoch who dies in New Bedford at age 70 in 1873. I see a Lucy baptized? in 1794:

This appears to be Enoch’s death record:

This appears to be the Will for Enoch:

I read a lot concerning the papers of Enoch Bearse and it appears that he owed more than he had at the time of his death. Here is the dow. section:

Widow Elizabeth is mentioned. At this point, I’m ready to take the Geneanet reference:

Here I have added in the Enoch Line to my tree:

This probably makes the best sense, but I don’t know enough about the Bearse family to know that. I wish that I had more records between Enoch and Isaiah.

Bearse DNA Tree

This new tree adds Beverly’s Line:

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at the Thruline between Beverly and Joyce going back to John Bearse and Lumbert
  • The connection between Enoch and Isaiah lacked clear documentation, but seems likely
  • Unfortunately, Enoch died without leaving an estate larger than his debts, so children were not mentioned in his legal papers
  • Circumstantial evidence links Enoch and Isaiah and I saw no evidence that would contradict their relationship.
  • There are still some Bearse ThruLines to explore

 

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Burbank ThruLines

My Burbank ancestors go back too far to be covered by my own ThruLines. However, my father’s cousin Joyce shows some ThruLines for Burbank:

This appears to be new territory to look at.

Here is part of my great-granmother’s maternal line:

It shows that Timothy Burbank was married to Mercy Kempton.

Some Burbank Genealogy

Apparently Timothy Burbank was born in Boston in 1703. However, he married in Plymouth.

I have that Timothy’s father was born in Haverhill and that his grandfather was from Rowley.

Joyce and Donna

Donna’s tree goes back to Mary Burbank which is hopeful:

Donna’s tree shows Mary dying in Canada:

Mayflower Births and Deaths has this entry:

This leads to Register 59 from 1905:

This shows a strong link at the top of the tree. I note that families left not because they were unsympathetic to the Revolution, but because they could get free land. I also read that residents of this area became unsympathetic to the Revolution after being raided by Americans.

Now I will start at the more recent part of the tree. Here is the birth record for Donna’s father:

Cape Negro Island is not too far from Yarmouth which I cut off on the map. Shirley’s father Wilford was a fisherman which makes sense given the location that they lived.

The 1901 Census says the family was Baptist, Scottish and the father was a blacksmith. His wife is 37 and he has a daughter who is 27, so that suggests that this was a second marriage.

I think the red on the map is Jordan River. Here is the widowed Albert Morton in 1881:

I found this at Ancestry which apparently refers to FamilySearch:

Albert Edward was born in Liverpool:

His parents were James Roland and Katy S.? (transcribed as F.). James was a mason. This James would be the son of the Lucy mentioned in the New England Historic and Genealogical Register (NEHGR) above.

At this point, I connect my floating tree of Donna into my main tree:

A First Burbank DNA/Genealogy Tree

In my mind, the fact that Donna’s Burbank moved to Nova Scotia before the Revolution makes this DNA connection more likely.

Joyce and Douglas

Douglas could help fill out my Burbank DNA/Genealogy Tree. The 1910 Census has Douglas’ grandfather a physician in Gloucester in 1910:

The fact that the grandfather was from Canada is hopeful. Douglas’ grandfather’s marriage record is helpful:

It gives his birth place and parents’ names. Here is Milton, near Liverpool, NS:

Here is the family in 1891:

Richard was a Congragationalist who was listed as farmer and huntman. So far the tree is going well:

Findagrave.com has this information:

This research on Thomas Knowles was found at Ancestry:

This document was also helpful:

Based on this, I accepted the parent hints at Ancestry:

From there, I added Elizabeth Crowell and linked Elizabeth Burbank to the Timothy Burbank I already had in my tree.

Here, the Burbank DNA/Genealogy Tree gets a little more width:

It turns out that Douglas has small DNA matches to two of my siblings.

Joyce and F.M.

The paternal side of FM’s tree is from Nova Scotia. I have had success so far with Joyce’s Burbank ThruLines. As usual, I start a floating tree for F.M. F.M. has a small tree at Ancestry:

Here is the family in 1921:

John was Scottish and the Town Clerk. However it is Mattie I am interested in.

Here is Mattie’s family in 1901 in Brooklyn, NS:

ThruLines wants me to go with Mattie’s mother Gertrude at this point and then Gertrude’s father. Gertrudes grave stone has her maiden name:

Gertrude’s father was a Baptist blacksmith:

Based on this, I’ll accept the Ancestry hint of Theodosius as Gertrude’s father.

Hannah Burbank

At this point, I look at the family from near the top of the ThruLines:

Hannah marries in Plymouth in 1758. That means that the above Theodosius must have been named for his grandfather. The easiest reference I can find to fill in the blank is this:

Adoriam Judson caught my eye. I assume that Theodosius was a fan of the missionary:

Next, I just need to connect John Ford to his parents in my tree and connect the floating tree.

Here is the big picture:

I am pretty confident with this DNA/Genealogy Tree. However, having said that, I realize that many from Colonial Massachusetts moved to this area. So other connections are possible. At this distant relationship, it would be extremely tedious to check out all possibilities.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It appears that all of Joyce’s Timothy Burbank ThruLines check out.
  • At first it appeared that these were the only possible connections. However, with the emmigration patterns from Massachusetts, there could be other connections. Still this is a good list. This is because my ancestor Lucy Burbank’s three siblings moved to this area in Nova Scotia
  • I had not known about this immigration pattern before, so it is interesting. I’m sure this move was meant to increase personal wealth – or so it seems.
  • It would interesting to check the actual DNA matches and where they occur. However, that is not possible with Ancestry. Ancestry is good with making genealogical connections but does not have Chromosome Browser.
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Downloading Hartley DNA Segment Match Data from FTDNA

I had heard that it is possible to download segment match data from FTDNA now, so I thought that I might try it. I had downloaded this data previously into a spreadsheet that looked like this:

Actually, this is my brother’s match sheet. First I chose Chromosome Browser under my autosomal matches section. Then I choose download all segments:

There should be a lot of segment data there. However, when I check my downlike file, the file is not as large as expected:

There are about 10,000 lines and my old file has 86,000 lines. However, a lot of these may be from Gedmatch and a few other sources. I also have this file:

I need to merge the two files somehow. This file is helpful because it has the match date. This is the format I want:

If I can remember how to use MS Access, that would be helpful. FTNDA no longer downloads the kit number. Also, Access likes Excel Files, so I needed to convert the csv file to an excel file:

I stuck the first two tables into a database I already have. Next I need to perform a query on the two tables. Here is my query:

Next, I need to add fields. I tried to get them in the order of my master spreadsheet. I ran the query and got this:

I have two columns for Match Date. I will have to fix that. Also, the Match Dates are off. I was trying to get the match dates only past a certain date in January 2022. That means that I imported the wrong match list file from FTDNA. I re-checked and made a new file and then imported the right one:

The dates look better now. I notice that there is no email which is OK as I can always look that up at FTDNA. The Matching Bucket field could be useful. One more correction is that I do not see the end location:

This is a bit of trial and error. Next, I need to incorporate this information into my master segment list. Here I line up everything with my master spreadsheet:

Turned out I had the wrong master spreadsheet, so I had to do this again with the real master spreadsheet. The end result looks like this:

This is a random shot from my list. The arrows point to two matches that FTDNA think are maternal. Where I have another maternal match in this section as Rathfelder, the match could be on the Rathfelder side.

What is the Use of Segments?

Segments can be helpful in finding the side that your match is on, or in the ancestral line where your match should appear. For example, I have an unknown match from Ancestry named Lee. Lee has a Hartley Line that is from the same area that my Hartleys are from:

Lee’s match is shon in a shade of blue on my DNA Painter Profile:

This is on Chromosome 13:

Our match is between position 88 and 110 million. Here is my match list for Chromosome 13:

 

Any of the paternal matches in blue could be along the same line as Lee. I don’t have lee on the list, so I need to add him from Gedmatch.

Lee and Gedmatch

Gedmatch has a utility that will show me common matches between Lee and myself:

This is near the bottom of my list and the projected match is out to 5 generations. That means that they are potentially fourth cousins or further out. The first three columns of numbers are how these people match me. The fourth through sixth colums are how the matches match Lee. The last column is interesting to me as it includes genealogical information. In one tree, I saw the Clarke name. I also have Clarke ancestors, but they were from Ireland and this family was from England. Another tree had a Clarke from 1835 in England. So, the connection from genealogy is not clear. Lee also has Clark in his tree, so coincidence? I think that Clark is a common name. I would rule out Clark based on the fact that two of my father’s cousins are on the shared match list. Those cousins are on my paternal grandfather’s side and my Clarke ancestors are on my paternal grandmother’s side. However, I cannot rule out a second Clark line on my paternal grandfather’s side.

Unfortunately, I did not see any easy connections to Colne through this exercise.

Richard: A Match on My Frazer Side

I match Richard here:

The smaller match on Chromosome 17 is Richard’s brother. Here is the likely connection at MyHeritage:

Here, I just added Richard to my spreadsheet:

These are some matches that could overlap with Richard.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to download about two and a half years worth of FTDNA autosomal matches
  • These matches I added to my spreadsheet with the help of MS Access
  • I was able to add some key matches from other sources to my master match spreadsheet
  • I could do this for my siblings, but it would make more sense to download the matches from my father’s first cousins and my mother’s matches. In other words, the matches from those who are a generation older than me.
  • The exercise did not result in any new revelations, but may be helpful in the future.

 

 

 

 

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My Father’s Cousin Joyce’s Shared Matches

I have been recently looking at my enhanced shared matches at Ancestry. It occurs to me that it would make sense to look at Joyce’s enhanced matches. Joyce matches me on her maternal side, so I chose that:

 

Gary has a private tree.

According to Ancestry, Warren is Gary’s father:

Here is Warren on my tree:

For some reason, I have him in yellow. The problem now is whether Gary is Ahsa’s father or not. I think that Asha tested at 23andMe. I’ll just add Gary in the box with Asha’s dad.

Suzanne

Joyce’s top maternal match is Suzanne:

Suzanne has an unlinked tree:

The connection must be through Suzanne’s maternal grandfather, Alan Hartley. I have Alan in my tree:

Adding Suzanne, adds another Hartley Line to my tree:

Diana

Diana is next on the list:

Diana has a tree that looks like Suzanne. From other information, I see that Suzanne and Diane are sisters. I’m sure that the shared matches would show that also.

Will

Will is difficult to figure out by shared matches. However, by process of elimiation, I can place him:

On second thought, Will should be the Bill I used to play ball with as a kid. The DNA match should be Bill’s son Will.

This shows Joyce and Will as 1st cousins once removed.

Liffers

Liffers should be easy to place as there are many Liffers matches. The trick is that the tree is set to the spouse:

If I choose ‘Spouse’, I get this tree:

The maternal side of this male Liffers is clear a match. Unfortunately, I don’t have the work I did on my other computer as I am on my laptop, so I will add Suzanne back in:

Shared matches show Suzanne and Liffers as siblings.

M.F.

I am going down Joyce’s match list and looking at the matches without a listed common ancestor:

I know where M.F. fits in, but I want to put her on my chart. It looks like I can do that from M.F.’s tree:

Ma

Her maternal grandmother was my grandfather’s sister.

Marsha, Nicole, and Samantha

These are more fairly close relatives. They will be easily added to my James Hartley DNA/Genealogy Tree:

This is turning into an impressively large tree.

N.M, Aimee, and Riley

More easy adds:

Unfortunately, I did not add nm as she is my sister Heidi’s daughter. I would have had to split my box out to 6 people, making a large chart much larger.

m.a.

I’m finding m.a. difficult to place precisely.

Here is my guess:

Ancestry thinks that Gary is m.a.’s half uncle which is still an uncle. Also Ancestry thinks that ME (who I just added) is m.a.’s grandaunt.

Camie on the Snell Side

Camie matches Joyce by 129 cM. From shared matches, Charles is Camie’s father:

 

Further, C.W. is Camie’s son:

Here I have added Camie and C.W.:

It appears that there are two C.W.’s, but I have added only one. Here we have four generations of a tested family. Those that match this family should not have Hartley ancestry if they are far enough back as they descend from the Snell side only.

Kristen: A Link to Lancashire?

Kristen’s Hartley link to Joyce goes back another generation compared to her many Hartley matches:

Greenwood was born in Trawden, Lancashire. Due to the industrial revolution putting hand loom weavers out of business, he moved to Bacup, Lancashire where he married Ann Emmet.

Joyce and Kristen’s Shared Matches

I have wondered to Jennifer is:

There are some close shared matches matches to Jennifer on the list, but those matches do not have much other information about themselves.

Joyce and Sheryl

Sheryl is one of Joyce and Kristen’s shared matches:

Sheryl shows a potential set of common ancestors:

Bracewell is a name that comes up often in Lancashire matches. I also have that John Hartley, common ancestor married Ann Bracewell who would be another common ancestor if this representation is correct.

I also like Sheryl’s family tree:

The reason that I like it is that all the people in the last full column are from the United States except for John Bracewell. That means that there is less of a chance that other confusing Lanchashire people married into this family.

Unfortunately, I have tried to extend Sheryl’s tree and come up with this likely scenario:

That means that either I did the genealogy wrong, or I am related to Sheryl on her Bracewell side and not the Hartley side.

Joyce and Kristen’s Shared Match Paul

I have looked at Paul’s genealogy before and gotten him back to John Hartley and Ann Bracewell:

I had to go back quite a way from Paul’s posted tree which just went back to his two parents. This tree is from Paul’s maternal side. Here is a tree that I have:

By this, Joyce is Paul’s 5th cousin once removed. I do notice some discrepancy between the Sheryl’s line in the tree above and the tree I had created earlier. However, I do note this connection:

Sheryl and Paul have a 20 cM DNA match with each other. That seems to add more evidence that my tree above may be correct.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful looking at my father’s cousin’s shared matchese at Ancestry
  • Using that, I could place some of the closer cousins into my Hartley DNA/Genealogy chart even though the matches had no usable family trees
  • I looked at some shared matches with Kristen. Kristen is a helpful match as her connection goes back a generation on the Hartley line compared to most of my Hartley relatives.
  • There is some confusion as to whether my ancestors are John Hartley born 1730 and Ann Bracewell. However, shared matches Paul and Sheryl have genealogies that suggest that these could be the right ancestors. In addition, Paul and Sheryl show a match with each other.
  • It would be helpful to do more analysis in this area to try to confirm or disprove the genealogy and whether the DNA evidence supports what the genealogy shows or suggests.

 

 

 

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Luther DNA/Genealogy Tree and ThruLines

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.