Category: DNA General

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My Wife’s mtDNA

I was interested in finding out my wife’s mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA, so I tried to get results from her late mother’s test. The sample was apparently no longer good. I then tried to get results from my wife’s old test. This sample was also inadequate, so she took a new test.

My Wife’s Maternal Lineage

This is what I have for my wife’s maternal line:

It goes from Ellis to Daley to Rhynold to Sandwich. However, there is some ambiguity as the suggested father for Mary Sandwich is a Daly and the mother is a Snyder. Here is the 1891 Census for Crow Harbour, Guysborough, Nova Scotia:

This shows that Mary was born in Nova Scotia. It also has her father born in Ireland and mother born in Nova Scotia. The 1871 Census for the same place gives Mary’s origins as Irish, but that does not necessarily mean that she was born there:

I do see this record:

However, I assume that this George is the son of George Rhynold. The younger George was 22 in the 1891 Census. However, according to this genealogy at genealogy.com, the elder George did remarry:

The key here would be to find the records for St. Joseph’s Church, Port Felix.

Perhaps this is a hint:

This birth record indicates that the parents George Rainold, fisherman and Mary Sandwich were married in 1858 at White Haven:

Here is a different transcription of the same event:

However, I do not see the Landrich. The r in Landrich is clearly a w. That leaves the name as Landwich or Sandwich of which Sandwich is more probable. That seems to be the best I can do with the information I can find now.

The mtDNA

The results appear to be still coming in:

Let’s see if this is in SNP Tracker:

According to SNP Tracker, the connection is very old, going back to the Iron age and apparently ending up in the British Isles.

I wonder how this compares to my own mtDNA:

This did not work, perhaps it is too new, I had to choose my old designation of H5’36:

This is really old by comparison. This is quite a discrepancy from what FTDNA shows on their Time Tree:

This puts me clearly in the Roman Period.

Back to Marie:

Marie has one exact match and several two step matches. Perhaps a new SNP will form based on Marie’s one match.

When I choose the Discover Haplogroup Reports at FTDNA, I get this message:

I will write another Blog when these results are available.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was curioius as to what was going on with my wife’s mtDNA results. I had to change her password to check
  • Marie is in the U category. H is most prevalent in the British Isles from what I understand which is what I have. However, U appears to be located in the British Isles at a very early date if I am interpreting SNP Tracker correctly.
  • Marie has one exact match for her mtDNA. I wonder if that match will form a new group.
  • I am also interested in seeing the Discover Reports when they are available.

 

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My New Nicholson 4th Cousin ThruLine

ThruLines are at Ancestry. They look at DNA matches that also have potential common ancestors in the two lines. I have not been getting many new ThruLines lately, so I will look at my newest possible connection with Sarah:

Sarah shows as a 4th cousin once removed. Apparently, I have her great-grandmother Clara Nicholson in my tree already.

Here are Nellie, Clara and Clara’s father Walter in 1921 in Sheffield:

Nellie would be my mother’s third cousin. Here is Clara’s marriage record:

Here are Nellie’s baptism and birth information:

It appears that all is in order and that Ancestry has the right connection.

Sarah’s DNA

Sarah and I must match by more than the usual DNA for fourth cousins once removed. My late mom matches by even more DNA:

My Nicholson DNA Tree

I have quite a few Nicholsons on the tree already. I’m ready to add Sarah. Here is part of my existing tree:

It will be good to add some branching to this line. Here is what my ThruLines look like:

This does not match well with my current Nicholson DNA Tree:

I have Louie and not Nancy. I wrote a Blog about Nancy and Louie here. In that Blog, I wrote that it would be interesting to see if Louie and Nancy match each other by DNA. It turns out that Louie is a match to my sister Heidi. Here is the match between Saray and Nancy on my sister Heidi’s shared match list:

Sarah and Nancy match by a large amount of DNA (190 cM). That makes me think that Nancy should be on my Nicholson DNA tree.

Louie also has a good match to Sarah.

Here, I’ve added in Sarah to my Nicholson DNA Tree:

More Nicholson Lines to Add?

Here are two more matches on my sister Heidi’s ThruLines:

They are Angela, Andrew and Nancy. For some reason, it appears that I do not have Joseph born 1872 in my Nicholson Tree. I already have a tree for Nancy:

This tree has Joseph’s father as Henry Nicholson, not Walter Nicholson. However, the DNA shows that Nancy should be connected to Sarah. Let’s take a closer look. I assumed that the Ellen in the 1911 Census was Mary Ellen Nicholson born about 1904:

As Henry was the first born son, it would make sense that Joseph’s father would be Henry also. This is the 1881 Census:

However, the 1891 Census shows this:

Here there is a Joseph who is a Carter like the Joseph in 1911. The mother’s name is that same as the 1881 Census, but the father is now George Nicholson. This brings up varioius possibilities:

  1. There were two different familities
  2. Henry Nicholson died and Mary A married George Nicholson
  3. Henry Nicholson also went by the name of George Nicholson
  4. The Census taker got the information wrong.
  5. Joseph may have been living with George Nicholson and Mary A in 1891, but not be their son.

So, for now, I will leave out the Joseph Nicholson Branch out of my Nicholson DNA Tree, even though there are DNA matches.

Summary and Conclusions

  • My sister Heidi and I (and perhaps others) had a match with Sarah. Ancestry shows that Heidi and Sarah have the common ancestors of Nicholson and Clayton
  • I added Sarah to my Nicholson DNA Tree
  • Ancestry also shows that Heidi has matches to three other people who potentially descend from Nicholson and Clayton
  • I was unable to match these DNA matches up genealogically, so I left them off my Nicholson DNA Tree for now. It is possible that there is a Nicholson connection but further back in time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A New mtDNA Haplogroup Confirmed

auaI had an email today from FTDNA notifying me that I have a new maternal mtDNA Haplogroup. This was welcome news, and ahead of what I was expecting.

I was H5’36 and now have the unwieldy Haplgroup of H5’388’449’450+4092. I am interested in the Match Tree:

There are now Haplogroups on either side of me which explains all the apostrophes in my Haplogroup. I believe the apostrophe is meant to account for an earlier Haplogroup being found after a later branch has been found. So previously, there was a very large Haplogroup called H5. When my Haplogroup was found upstream of H5, they named it H5’36 so H5 through H36 would not have to be renamed. Now above me (though apparently parallel to me – not upstream) are H450 and H388. The confusing part is that I do not see H449 in this screen shot.

More on the Match Time Tree

These are the people in my group. Notice that there are six lines. Two of those lines have a group. They are F2467090 and F8638614. I am in the first group with my first cousin Russel and Elisabeth. When I hover over the groupings, I get this message:

I think the purpose of the note is that, due to hte fast mutating markers, there can be a lot of variability in the results. This would include, I assume, back mutations. I note that these matches may not be necessarily closer, but then again, they may be. Certainly my first cousin is a closer match. I am not sure of Elisabeth. I should try to contact her. She gives her maternal line as coming from Austria, but has no information other than that on her genealogy. Austria seems to be an outlier as the most popular ancestors countries are Ireland and England. It would make sense for me to at least reach out to Elisabeth. I just wrote, but my match with her goes back to 2018, so a lot could have changed since then.

Here is a view of the Time Tree, but I do not see another H449 anwhere:

This is a good graphic showing how far my new Haplogroup moved in time from what it was previously (before 4,000 BCE).

mtDNA and YFull

In my previous Blogs, I looked at a new group I was in at Yfull along with Steve. Steve is four up from the bottom on the Match Time Tree:

Steve and I are at the end of a very long tree at YFull:

YFull has fewer tests than FTDNA. At YFull, Steve and I are simply H5’36e rather than H5’388’449’450’+4092 that FTDNA has. However, I believe that these two haplogroups are intended to represent the same thing. That holds true with the TMRCA of 1850 ybp at YFull compared with the 100 CE of FTDNA:

I would like to point out that even though the TMRCA or time to most recent common ancestor is 1850 years, obviously it is much less for my cousin and me. Our common ancestor was our maternal grandmother who was born in the hear 1900.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I am glad that FTDNA decided to update thier mtDNA tree.
  • This brought my branch of the tree over 4,000 years closer in time to the present.
  • My particular Haplogroup is confusingly named and seems overly complicated
  • I think that the new haplotrype clusters are interesting. I am in one with my first cousin and another person who has maternal ancestry from Austria. I have contacted her to see if can find out anything more about her ancestry. Austria is a long way from Sheffield, England.
  • My new haplogroup has an differently named but equivalent haplogroup at YFull.

 

 

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Another Look at My mtDNA

I have written two Blogs recently on my mtDNA. Currently my official Haplogroup at FTDNA is H5’36, but that will be changing. At YFull, my Haplogroup is H5’36e:

If I interpret YFull correctly, the SNP that defines H5’36e is G4092A. However, this screen shows that H5’36e has an additional SNP:

From this, I take it that C456T defines H5’36.

A Cool Screen at YFull

I like this one:

This is called MTree matches on the MReport. The interesting thing is that it appears to trace my line and my mother’s line back all the way to genetic Eve. Here is a closer view:

I don’t know what the different colors mean. There are green, red and grey SNPs.

Here is what SNP Tracker shows:

Here is some more information from SNP Tracker:

This shows the ancient 9,760 years before present for the most recent common ancestor for H5’36. According to YFull, this was reduced to 1850 years before present for H5’36e. It is also amazing how few mutations it takes to get from 155,000 years ago to 9,760 years ago. It looks like there were about 62 mutations. That appears to be about one mutation about every 2,000 years. That would make mtDNA not very useful for genealogical purposes. Also that would make the TMRCA date of 1850 years ago make sense.

What’s Next?

I expect that there will be branching under the present H5’36 which I thought would be H5’248, but now I see it is not:

Apparently H5’36 was replaced with H5’248 which now has been replaced by H5’388’449’450. I guess there is a lot going on in this part of the mtDNA world. I’m watching you FTDNA. The good news is that this shows progress in my part of the mtDNA tree. This seems like an awkward designation. Let’s see what is upstream of H5’388’449’450.

This goes right back to plain H.

This shows 4 named and 11 unnamed lineages from H5’388’449’450 if I am reading it correctly. I know that I am not H5, so that means that I must be H388’449, H450 or H5’388’449’450+4092. From a previous Blog, I see this from the FTDN site:

My take from this screen is that 4092 is an unnamed SNP as just a position is given. [However, see below.]

T310TC!! and G4092A

When I search for G4092A at mitomap.org, I see this:

Apparently, this is at location 4092 which is one of the lineages mentioned at FTDNA: H5’388’449’450+4092. That could mean that I am in the branch with the long name.

Here is something I note from FTDNA:

I assume that !! indicates a double back mutation. I could see where this could be problematic – especially as it occurs at the end of the line. What I would be interested in knowing is whether these two SNPs go together or if they might represent two separate branches on the mtDNA tree.

H5’388’449’450+4092

I am going to go out on a limb and assume that this is my new Haplogroup:

This shows the Imperial Age (100 CE) which seems consitent with YFull. Also, it looks like Ireland has the most chance of where the ancestors came from on the face of it.

I know that my female ancestor line goes back to England. Could that be my English flag? I do not know what F8638614 is – perhaps an initial grouping?

I see no British flag under H388’449:

However, I do see additional branching.

Here is H450:

Again, no UK. This tends to confirm that I belong in H5’388’449’450+4092.

Summary and Conclusions

  • My intention in writing this third Blog on mtDNA was to tie up any loose ends I may have missed before FTDNA comes out with the new H branch of mtDNA
  • While doing this I came upon an update of FTDNA’s MitoTree which gave me the new name of my current branch and gave a hint as to what my new Branch name would be
  • Further snooping around shows that I would likely be in the long-named H5’388’449’450+4092
  • Along the way, I learned quite a bit about mtDNA. I had heard recently about back mutations in mtDNA, but looking at my own makes it more real. 
  • I appreciate FTDNA updating their mtDNA tree and am looking forward to further updates.
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More on Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)

In my previous Blog, I started to look at what FTDNA was doing with their new MitoTree and how that was changing my haplogroup. I had to trick out the query as my old Haplogroup of H5’36 is going away. I had to query H5 which was a popular haplogroup under H5’36. When I did that, I found our that the new Haplogroup above H5 will be called H5’248. Even though, my last Blog had Mitotree in the title, I never looked at the actual tree:

Here I shrunk down the H5’248 Time Tree to get it all in. Here is a larger view of the top of the tree:

There should be more branching under H5’248 once the FTDNA analysis is done (I hope). The above images are meant to show that the branching under H5’248 is small except for H5 which is large. I suppose that means that at some time in my maternal history before 4,000 BCE there were two sisters. One sister had a lot of descendants (including the H5 Haplogroup) and the other (my maternal ancestor) not so much. I suppose that problems in my maternal line could have been due to famine, plagues or wars.

If I go upstream one step, I see this:

I see someone from Hungary and someone with an unknown ancestry under H5’248^. From my last Blog, I learned this:

The ancient connections screen shows this:

Talk about a distant relative.

More from YFull

At some point, I uploaded my mtDNA results to YFull. YFull gives analysis of DNA that is independent of FTDNA.

Thanks to someone else who uploaded to YFull, I am in a new Haplogroup there called H5’36e. I am not sure how to read this screen. It gives a TMRCA of 1850. I assume that means 1850 years ago. If I understand this correctly, our common ancestor was in the year 150 approximately. Very interesting. At least this is much more recent than 4750 BCE. This screen confirms what I had thought:

I will next look at the first tab which is Known SNPs:

Again, not a lot of explanation here, but my assumption is that I share with one other tester two SNP:

  • T310TC!!
  • G4092A

Here is another rerport from YFull:

Again, I am flying in the dark a bit here. On the bottom line, this shows C456T after H5’36. Is that what gets me to H5’36e? But this seems to show that there is a match below H5’35e which are the two SNPs I mentioned above. Would these two SNPs form a new mtDNA Haplogroup under H5’35e? Another interpretation is that the two SNPs at the end of the last line are unmatched SNPs waiting to be matched with someone else. According to YFull:

On the “MTree matches” tab, all mutations are divided into groups. In particular, they include those that match other samples and those currently unique.

This does not help my understanding. Two screens ago, it appeared that the last two SNPs were part of H5’36e, so I will have to go with that.

YFull’s MTree

I touched on this in my previous Blog. Interestingly, I see this YFull view from a 2023 Blog tht I wrote:

At that time, the common ancestor was over 13,000 years ago. I also note that in 2023, I had the only id with a YF designation. I am not sure what thee other lettered prefixes mean. Compare that with my new Haplogroup:

I am at the bottom of a very long list. A green subclade or haplogroup with red around it means that it is new. This view seems to indicate that G4092A is the defining SNP for H5’36e, so I remain confused. Also the SNP is very old at over 12,000 years, but my common ancestor with this match is 1850 years before present or about 150 AD. So the new YF match has made a big difference in the TMRCA date.

I see a link at the bottom of the MTree:

This suggests that Ian is involved with the MTree and that they got some of their data for the tree from 23andMe. When I look at that 23andMe link, I see 7 samples listed as H5’36. I also see this:

I have since contacted my new match at YFull and he was not aware that YFull dealt with anything other than YDNA. So I am not sure how his information got on mtDNA got to YFull. Perhaps through 23andMe or another source.

My Match Steve

The person I wrote to who is in YFull is named Steve, from Canada.  He mentioned that he had no known ancestors from Sheffield where my mother’s mother’s mother’s family came from. However, if our common maternal ancestor is 1,000 or more years old, then it would not be likely that the common location would be Sheffield, England.

Here is a map with my matches at FTDNA:

I see I have a red flag near me which means and exact match. When I click on that flag:

 

Hey, it’s Steve, so I guess he did test his mtDNA at FTDNA. That is good news, because that means that hopefully we will also be in a new Haplogroup at FTDNA when they roll out the H line of mtDNA. Apparently, that is such a large line that they will do that after they finish the rest of the branches. I am hoping that in a month or so, we will see more results at FTDNA.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It is interesting to compare what is happening at FTDNA in the area of mtDNA compared to what YFull is doing
  • A match I had at YFull gave us a new Haplogroup there and a much more recent common ancestor.
  • It turns out that Steve who is my new YFull match also tested at FTDNA and his stated ancestor is closest to me geographically. Leeds and Sheffield are relatively close to each other on the map.
  • Based on the matches on the map, it would appear that my maternal line back in the British Isles going back to about the year 150 AD or earlier. There may be some testing bias in this if only people from that area tested. However, it still seems possible that this is true.
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A New FTDNA Mitotree

I was notified recently via the Facebook Page, Mitochondrial DNA for Genealogy that something big was happening. The big thing is that FTDNA has a new Beta Mitotree for Mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA. MtDNA is the DNA that women receive from their mother’s mother’s mother’s line and so on. This is passed down to daughters but also to one generation of sons.

My mtDNA: H5’36

I took the mtDNA Full Sequence test in 2014 so over 10 years ago. I am currently H5’36, but apparently all tht could change with the new Mitotree. Roberta Estes was involved with the new tree and wrote a good Blog on the Mitotree here. When I put my current Haplogroup into the FTDNA search, I get this message:

My guess is that either H5’36 is being shuffled around and/or being renamed in update or that the search is having trouble with the ‘ charachter. Instead, I will type in plain old H5:

Now I should point out that I am not H5, but H5’36. H5’36 predates H5 but was added in later as it was discovered after H5. The H5 story continues:

This screen shot is interesting as it shows H5’248 as the precursor to H5. I assume that H5’248 may be my new Haplogroup – or an equivalent to what I have now. It is interesting that these two Haplogroups have the same date of 4750 BCE – really old. The following timeline does not add much information, but just displays it in a different way:

Am I Now H5’248?

This is my assumption, but it is unclear why the change from H5’36 to H5’248 was necessary unless there is now a new naming protocol. All this seems to be laying the groundwork for new branches under H5’248. The next logical step is to do a search fo H5’248.

Again H5 is the popular descendant of H5’248 which I am not part of.

Here is another new Haplogroup called H5’248^. I guess there was a lot going on around 4800 BCE with my mom’s side mitochondrial DNA. Of interest above, is that H5’248 is the parent to H5, H248 and one yet unnamed lineage. As I am not H5, that means that I am likely H5’248, H248 or an unnamed lineage.

Here is another view:

I like this view because it shows over 1,000 H5 testers which I am not part of below me.

However, I would think that there would be more branching under H5’248. From a Blog I wrote 2 years ago, I had this possible tree:

This tree was based on information at YFull.

YFull’s MTree

Apparently, the chart I drew 2 years ago is now outdated. I am now H5’36e according to YFull’s MTree:

I am at the very bottom of the MTree for H:

Note that this is a new subclade:

I am wondering how much YFull’s MTree was responsible for FTDNA’s Mitotree. Here is my interpretation of what YFull’s MTree is showing now:

The over 1,000 testers under H5 obviously have many branches that I did not show. H5’36-b and H5’36b have some branching, but the other H5’36 branches have no further branching under them. I am a bit surprised how far behind FTDNA got in it’s Mitotree. I suppose that is why it may take a while for them to get up to speed.

FInally, I note from FTDNA:

Updates are rolling out over the next few weeks, with Haplogroup H coming after the other haplogroups since it is so large.

My Wife’s mtDNA

I tried to test my wife’s later mother’s mtDNA, but the test failed, so I am now trying to test my wife’s which is also an old sample. It turns out that this is an old sample also. I see from FTDNA:

Standard Average Processing Times
  • Family Finder™: 2 to 4 weeks.
  • mtFull Sequence: 6 to 8 weeks.
  • Y-DNA (excluding Big Y): 3 to 6 weeks.
  • Big Y-700: 6 to 10 weeks.

That means that I should be expecting her results in 2-4 weeks. It is also a good time for her to be testing with all these new changes.

Naming mtDNA

I found an article at the FTDNA Help Center called Understanding mtDNA Haplogroups.

This applies to my branch. So what H5’248 means is that it is the common parent of H5 and H248. That also suggests that there are a lot of new branches since H36 (or that a lot of room is being left for new branches?).

I was curious about the caret as I do not remember seeing that before.

This is perhaps more than many want or need to know. However, one of the things I like about FTDNA is that they do not tend to hold back on giving information to people who are curious. There is more on the FTDNA Help page that is interesting and instructive.

I assume that the Interim Haplogroup section is important at this time when FTDNA is looking to totally revamp their mtDNA Tree.

Summary and Conclusions

  • A lot has happened in the world of mtDNA in the last two years – including in my little branch of the Tree
  • I am now playing catch up in mtDNA
  • The bottom line is that it seems like the H part of the tree which is quite large will be updated last
  • I picked a good time to have my mother-in-law’s DNA tested. Although that has failed, my wife’s sample is now being tested. I hope to see the results in a month or less.
  • I had to trick the new Beta MitoTree to figure out where FTDNA seems to be heading with my branch of H5’36. The branch apparently will be renamed and hopefully I will be on a new branch under that.
  • Knowing the naming conventions helps to figure out what is going on with the new FTDNA Beta Mitotree.
  • It is helpful to have YFull as a check to what is going on in the mtDNA world.

 

 

 

 

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Following My Father’s Cousin’s Recent Shared Matches: Part 3

Going down Joyces’s list from newest to oldest:

I looked at TJ in my previous Blog. I know who cotton must be.

Joyce and Sarah

At first, I thought that this connection could not be right:

This is what I have on Sarah Pilling now in my Ancestry Tree:

I have that she had two children as a single mother. Then I thought: what if she happened to marry someone with the last name of Greenwood. This would seem ironic perhaps as she already had a son with the first name of Greenwood. When I searched for a Sarah PIlling marrying a Greenwood in the Colne Parish, I got one result:

What if Sarah has two children out of wedlock and then marries? Next, I searched for children of John Greenwood in Colne:

The records show a couple of John and Sarah Greenwood from Aldersend having two children baptized. My thought was that if Sarah was born in 1745, then she would not likely have children after 1785 and that is when Paul is born. I further assume that a 20 year break in children indicates a separate family of John and Sarah Greenwood and that Paul was Sarah’s last child.

If the ThruLines are accurate, that would mean that Greenwood Hartley would have a second cousin named Hartley Greenwood!

Another reason I think that the ThruLine could be correct is that I have my ancestor Greenwood Pilling dying at Aldersend in 1804. Note that this Sarah’s two Greenwood sons were born at Aldersend.

This is part of a map from 1818. I believe that OlddrestEnd is the same as Aldersend. A newer map shows Alder Hurst in this area:

To me, the name of Sarah Pilling, the location of Aldersend and the DNA match is more than coincidental.

The Pilling Genealogy

To do this correctly, I need to add the recent Sarah match to my tree as a floating tree to see if it correctly heads back to Aldersend. I will assume that Sarah knew who her grandparents were.

It appears that Sarah’s grandfather was from Wath upon Deane:

Here is the Greenwood family in 1921. Interestingly, many worked for F Hartley & Co.

Here is Shipley in Bradford:

The 1881 Census shows a problem:

John Greenwood’s father, also a John is working for an out of business beer house if I am reading it correctly.

Unfortunately, this line of genealogy is not matching up with the Ancestry ThruLines. So, the genealogy is dissapointing, but the theory that Sarah Pilling married a Greenwood still interests me.

Joyce and Izzy

This relationship seems questionable. However, what if Jane Shaw married a Hartley before a Wilkinson?

Jane marries Moses Wilkinson in 1785, so that cannot be right.

Unfortunately, I cannot make sense from the ThruLine. I took off the parents of Robert Hartley in my Ancestry Tree hoping that Ancestry would find likely parents for Robert, but having Jane Shaw as a mother does not make sense to me.

Joyce and Tara

I have my tree built out to tara’s likely grandmother: Charlotte Robbins, so this should be easy. Due to a large Snell DNA chart, it would make sense to have one for just the descendants of Otis Snell:

These Snell relatives seem closer, perhaps because many of them stayed in the same area as where I grew up.

Joyce and Cheryl

I’ll look at these two and then wrap up this Blog.

I have a huge Hathaway DNA Tree, but so far I do not have any Philip son of Isaac Hathaway:

I’ll start a floating tree for Cheryl and then try to connect it to my tree if it works out. Cheryl’s tree goes this far:

ThruLines is leading to Daisy Crampton. In 1940, the family lived in Boston:

Beatrice was from Massachusetts. Martin was a car salesman.

Beatrice was buried in Marion, MA, where I live:

 

Here is Beatrice in 1910:

Father Albert was an ice man, but I am interested in mother Desire.

The marriage record for Desire Crampton raises some question as to Desire’s parents:

The father’s name is not given and the mother’s name is given as Betsey Nye.

Further, here is the 1880 Census:

Here, George and Julia Crampton are living with Philip Hathaway, but I do not see Desire living with them. However, Julia’s mother was Desire:

Further I do not see a Desire born in Mattapoisett in 1878:

Summary and Conclusions

  • It has been interesting going through some of Joyce’s ThruLines
  • I added one person to my Snell Tree
  • Two other avenues were interesting but somewhat of a dead end.

 

 

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Following My Father’s Cousin’s Recent Shared Matches

In my previous Blog, I looked at two of Joyce’s recent shared matches. I will continue on.

Angela and Joyce

Angela comes with a bonus:

It appears that Angela and Jaqueline should be fourth cousins to each other if this tree is correct. As this is the main line that I am interested in, I feel obgligated to look into the connection. This Hartley Line has been difficult to deal with.

Angela also has a Hartley on her maternal side which makes me skeptical. Here is Jaqueline’s Tree:

Here tree has a lot of John Hartleys, but I do not see James Hartley in her tree. I will take these two back to see if I can get them both to James Hartley born 1813. In the unlikely chance that happens, I will then look further back.

A Floating Tree for Angela

Angela’s grandparents lived in Barrowford in 1939 according to Angela’s tree:

Here is the family in 1921:

We are interested in Ann who was born in HIgham:

Here is the non-conformist wedding record at the Weslyan Chapel. Ann’s father was a farmer in 1871:

The marriage record shows Henry to be a widower:

As the marriage is in 1867, all three daughters listed in the 1871 Census must be from Christiana. So far, my research agrees with Angela and Jocye’s Thrulline.

Here is the family in 1861 in Higham:

Henry’s first wife is Jane. Henry is a shoemaker and father James is a shoemaker and farmer.

The 1851 Census has James born at Sagar Hill:

My guess is that Sagar HIll is part of HIgham.

Here is the Census for 1841 for Sagar HIll, Padiham:

I am not making a lot of sense of it.  I will Robert the same as Henry Robert in the 1851 Census? Is Dinah the wife of James or a daughter of John?  Is Robert the son of an unmarried daughter of John? Due to the vagueness of the Census, I would be willing to stop this line of pursuit for now.

I think that one problem is my tree:

 

Ancestry is trying to find mathes that fit my tree. However, I do not know if Robert Hartley’s parents were James Hartley and Betty Baldwin or not. I picked them because they seemed to fit. If I were to de-link James Hartley and Betty Baldwin from Robert Hartley, I may get other suggestions. I tried that and I will wait to see if I get other suggested ancestors.

I see that Angela went away when I took away the link between known Hartley ancestor Robert Hartley and what I thought may have been his parents:

Joyce and TJ

The Cowen or Cowing Line should be easier to trace. I see that TJ’s tree goes back to a Zenas Cowen:

I will assume that TJ had his maternal grandmother right. TJ also has this record:

Social Security is helpful here:

This gives a specific birth date and place. However, the father’s name is given as Joseph Tyson rather than Walter Butts.

In 1940, Patricia is living with her family on Collette Street, New Bedford. Patricia’s mother is shown as married but also the head of household. I think that the suggestion is that the Walter who was the lodger was the father of Patricia. Walter is still there in 1950, so I will go with that.

This is probably Walter in 1900:

Here is the birth record for James D Butts:

His mother, Polly Cowin was born in Dartmouth.

I see I already have Polly in my tree, so I will have to merge the two people:

However, I have this Polly as being the daughter of Zenas Cowen rather than Israel Cowen or Cowing. That means that this is another dead end.

Shared Matches with TJ and Joyce

One interesting thing is that Joyce and TJ have these two shared matches:

Perhaps the connection is on another line.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Usually I blog on success stories, but finding a proposed match is not as proposed is a success in a way.
  • In the first exercise, I decided to try a different tact by taking away the supposed parents of known Robert Hartley to see if Ancestry proposed someone else.
  • In the second exercise it appears that there is a connection, but the connection does not look to go back to Israel Cownen or Cowing.

 

Posted on

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.

 

Posted on

Kerivan Matches at Ancestry

I’ll take a look at my wife’s late Aunt Lorraine’s tree first:

Based on the high DNA match, this connection seems likely. Here is my Kerivan DNA tree which needs some work:

This should start with John Kerivan, not Alice Rooney. Also, I need to add Suzy’s siblings Lorraine and Richard. I already have William Kerivan in my Ancestry tree, so this  line should be an easy add. Here are more of Aunt Lorraine’s Kerivan relatives:

Here there are 9 matches and I have four in my Kerivan DNA tree.

William A Kerivan

I ususally do not start from the past and work to the present, but I’ll make an exception here.

Here is the famlly in Needham, Massachusetts in 1880:

The parents are said to be born in Ireland.

Willie was born in 1876 in Needham.

On this record, his father John was said to be born in Newton, MA and his mother in Ireland. Some records have John born in Marblehead. Here is a Census for Salem in 1850 which would support that John was born in that part of Massachusetts:

Note here that son William was a shoe maker. Patrick was born in Ireland, but the apparent chidren were born in Massachusetts. By 1855, the family moves to Needham:

This is surely the same family. I have that Catherine died in 1845, so Mary must be a second wife. Now Ellen is added to the family in 1855. Patrick is shown as born in Ireland.

 

Social Security has William’s wife as Beatrice Curtis:

George F Kerivan

George is mentioned in his father’s obituary:

The obituary for George appears to link him to the John who tested at Ancestry.

This Kerivan Tree is much better, but a proper tree should go back at least to Patrick Kerivan.

ThruLInes for Patrick Kerivan

Here is what Lorraine has. William and Richard P must be in my Ancestry Tree already. We were already introduced to Richard and William the shoemaker in the 1850’s censuses for Salem and Needham.

Joseph and Lorraine

Here a few of the names appear to be misspelled.

I’ll add Joseph to my Ancestry tree as a floating tree and then attach him if the genealogy checks out.  However, already I see that Joseph and Lorraine have a shared match named Robert:

Ancestry thinks that Robert descends from John Kerivan.

Joseph has his father being born in 1949 in Clinton, Iowa. That would mean thta he should be in the 1950 Census.

Next, I have to figure out if Bernadine was in fact a Kerivan.

Here is where some of the strange spelling gets introduced.

William Joseph Kerivan is said to be born in Maine according to the 1920 Census but his father was from Massachusetts:

This William Joseph also married later in life:

I now have this floating tree for Joseph:

However, my non-floating tree has a William and Bridget already:

That means that I need to merge Wm with William and Bridget Kerivan with Bridget Norton.

This is the first step in bringing the Kerivan DNA Tree back a generation.

Manassas and Lorraine

I think that masassas is Francis but I am not sure:

Francis’ mother lived on Maxwell Street in Boston, MA in 1930:

In not too long, my floating tree is at the point that it can be connected:

Now the Kerivan DNA tree is taking shape. DNA and genealogy are bringing back this Irish family.

Summary and Conclusions

  • In this Blog, I updated my Kerivan DNA Tree using my wife’s Aunt Lorraine’s ThruLines
  • The DNA matches give credence to the genealogy and vica versa
  • The many children of Patrik Kerivan makes it easier to trace the DNA matches