Category: Snell

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Reviewing a Potential Parker Common Ancestor at Ancestry

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

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

James shows as Audrey’s uncle.

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

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

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

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

Looking at James’ Genealogy

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

James has this as where David was in 1940:

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

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

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

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

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

Here is my improved version of William Henry Parker Junior:

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

Here is an intersting twist:

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

Here I have connected the trees:

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

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

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

Fixing the Parker DNA Tree

This part of the tree seems off:

This is from my 2024 Blog:

Let’s see where my ThruLines are now:

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

A New Problem

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

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

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

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

More Genealogy Needed

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

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

Here is the point where my tree is now wrong:

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

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

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

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

So Where Does James Fit in?

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

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

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

Summary and Conclusions

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

 

 

 

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My Father’s Cousin Joyce and Snell Clusters

I was hoping that the DNA results from my father’s cousin Joyce would result in new revelations on Hartley genealogy. So far, the results have been confusing. Joyce has a second cousin on the Snell side, so let’s look at those clusters.

Here is Joyce’s 2nd cousin on the Snell side:

I should note that Isaiah was married to a Bradford, so they should also factor in. I chose chd as the person of interest to cluster on and the range of clusters between 20 and 150 cM. This resulted in three clusters.

Here is the first cluster:

I already have a large Snell DNA Tree. Here is part of it:

The person I chose to cluster on is Chuck in the DNA tree above.

Cluster one is quite tight. We can see many of the people from that cluster in my tree. Trey is not on my DNA tree as he has no tree of his own identified. Shared matches shows that Jessica is his first cousin or half niece. I remember Florence from childhood and another child Janice not shown in the chart above. Florence and Janice attended the same church as me. Here is a photo of Florence from Ancestry:

Now that I am looking at Jessica, I see that I have the tree wrong. Here is the right relationship:

Jessica is Janice’s granddaughter. Here is the fix:

2nd Snell Cluster

We see the original Snell/Denault cluster from Trey to bessey.

Here is Y.R.:

YR is not on my tree. I will try to add her by evaluating the tree as Ancestry suggests. Here is part of a document that tells about Helen’s mother who died young:

Here is the couple in 1930 just before Helen is born:

Mildred did not marry until she was 31.

Here is the Washington Death Index:

Here is Mildred in 1900 on Perry Hill Road in Acushnet:

The person listed before this as the head of family was Jerome B. Tripp.

Jerome’s wife Marcia must be the Marcia Snell we are looking for. This seems to be checking out easily.

Here is Nancy’s birth record:

My tree agrees with Ancestry that YR is a third cousin once removed to Joyce.

In Cluster 2, there is also a small group of two in the bottom right. Andrew has an interesting Snell connection 7 generations out:

I don’t see Susannah on my Snell web page. That means that if this is the connection, it would be quite ancient.

The Third Snell Cluster

These are the clusters I see within the cluster. I’ve already looked at the YR cluster. I looked at the Trey cluster, but now it is larger. I’ll look at Wendy in the second box. She has this tree:

I’ll add Wendy to my Ancestry tree to see if she connects anywhere. I found a tree that has John Snell of Westport, MA as the father of Xenophon:

Unfortunately, Roy’s father Guy passed away when Roy was young. I will just take the Ancestry suggestion of Guy for Roy’s father. Here is Guy in 1880:

Here is Xenophon’s marriage record showing his father as John Snell:

Here is what I have so far:

Snell Locations in the Wendy Line

I have:

  • Roy born North Dakota
  • Guy born Fond Du Lac County Wisconsin
  • Xenophon born in New York

It would be helpful to figure out more about where Xenophon was born. The tree I borrowed from above, has Xenophon born in Homer, Courtland County.

I am tempted to go with Randy’s Tree suggested at Ancestry:

He has John living in Forest, Wisconsin in 1860:

That is the same town that Xenophon is living in at that time:

Here is Forest:

John and the Squire Snell family are on the previous page of the 1860 Census:

Notice that Squire is also listed on the above genealogy. I have already connected Xenophon to my tree:

I just need to link all the other children to Phoebe Head. I fixed this by merging Phebee Snell with Phebe Head:

Adding Xenophon’s Line to my Snell DNA Tree

Here is my existing tree:

Phebe at the red arrow must be the sister of the John Snell who moved to New York and then to Wisconsin.  This shows the likely relationship between Joyce and Wendy:

It appears that there are two Heads in Wendy’s Line, so there may be more DNA represented on the Head line than the Snell Line. Here is what Joyce has on her ThruLines in this area:

I did not add OT here before as he is already on the Snell line in a closer relationship. See above under Jerome Peckham Tripp. However, perhaps I should add him as there is a new match: Carol under Mary Polly Snell. It looks like I have already checked out the OT line as the ancestors are in white on the ThruLines.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I did not see any obvious connections to the Bradford family. However, I did not look at all the clusters. I can address Bradford in a subsequent Blog perhaps
  • The smaller earlier clusters are the easiest to figure out. The later later Snell clusters were more difficult.
  • I enjoy using my Snell DNA tree to keep everyone straight
  • I was able to update and correct my Snell DNA tree
  • It could still use some work. For example, I did not add Carol above.