Two of my father’s cousins have tested at AncestryDNA. One I had tested (Joyce), and another was tested by his daugther who is Maury. I will look at Joyce’s new Hartley DNA match.
Match with a Descendant of a Potential Hartley Ancestor
What this means is that Joyce has a match with Sarah who has a Hartley ancestor which has not been previously identified as a Hartley ancestor. Let’s look at Joyce’s ThruLines Match:
Sarah shows as Joyce’s 6th cousin which is pretty distant. It is interesting that Sarah shows all Hartley relatives going way back. Here is what Sarah shows for her tree at Ancestry:
Ancestry connected other trees to get the connection from 1778 to 1707. Ancestry suggests that I evaluate Sarah’s tree, so I will do that.
Sarah’s Genealogy
I’ll do my own version of Sarah’s tree. This tree will be private at Ancestry. Sarah has her father from Ilkley:
Ilkley is not too far from Trawden where my ancestors lived. So that is a good sign. Right now, I’ll follow the Hartley line. Ancestry gives me hints for Peter’s parent. I’ll assume that they are consistent with what Sarah had and that Sarah knew about her grandparents. Here is the next in line of the Hartley side:
Unfortunately, we are getting away from the Colne area, but let’s keep going.
Arthur Milligan Hartley
Here is the marriage record for the couple:
This shows that Arthur’s father was an Auctioneer named Thomas Arthur Hartley, but that he was deceased at the time of the marriage in 1929. That is consistant with Sarah’s tree.
Thomas Arthur Hartley
I see some good news in the 1911 Census:
This document indicates that Thomas was born in Carleton, Yorkshire. If I have it right, Carleton is part of Skipton:
Apparently Thomas’ son Arthur was born in Nottinghamshire and the family moved back to West Yorkshire. In 1881, Thomas was living in Colne with a retired Saddler:
I assume that Luke was his older brother. We find Thomas’ parents in this document:
Joseph Hartley
So far, Sarah’s tree checks out:
It would be nice to find Joseph and Thomas in a Census together. Sarah shows that Joseph was born in Colne and that he married Hannah Lund of Carleton. I see what happened:
Joseph died young, and thomas was raised by his mother who was an Innkeeper. We see Luke here also as Thomas’ brother as I guessed. Joseph must have died between about 1866 and 1870 based on the age of his daughter Hannah.
Here is Joseph in 1861 with a large family:
All the pieces fit together. Joseph was born in Colne.
The 1851 Census is even more interesting.
Joseph was an Innkeeper and also a farmer of 50 acres. He was born specifically in Laneshawbridge.
This area is close to Trawden where my ancestors lived. His wife was from Lothersdale:
These places were all close to each other. A house servant named Elizabeth Wilkinson worked for Joseph and she was from Trawden. I make note of this as my ancestor Mary Pilling who married Robert Pilling married secondly Robert Wilkinson. They had a daughter named Elizabeth Wilkinson, but she was born in 1850 and was living in Bacup in 1861. There was also a William Hartley who was a farm laborer. Perhaps he was related to Joseph. He was from Shawhead.
A Marriage Record for Joseph Hartley?
From the 1851 Census, it appears that Joseph’s eldest child, Elizabeth was born about 1843 in Carlton. That could put a marriage at about 1841 or 1842. Again, Sarah’s tree is correct:
Joseph’s father was an Innkeeper named Robert Hartley. That would mean that Joseph was single during the 1841 Census. From this information, I can find Joseph’s baptismal record:
Now I can find Joseph in the 1841 Census:
The ‘do’ on the left refers to Laneshawbridge. Robert may have been older at this time:
The census takers were instructed to give the exact ages of children but to round the ages of those older than 15 down to a lower multiple of 5. For example, a 59-year-old person would be listed as 55. Not all census enumerators followed these instructions.
As Joseph was born in 1816, he was about 25 at the time of the Census. Here is Margaret’s baptismal record:
Here are some more baptism:
Robert Hartley and Susan Crabtree
It appears that this couple had eight children altogether. Also notice that Robert’s occupation went from farmer in 1802 to Innkeeper in 1803. I would be looking for a marriage record for this couple around 1801 or before. Here is a good guess:
Unfortunately, parents names were not given in these marriage records. At this point, the genealogy gets much more difficult.
Here is a candidate for the baptism of Susan Crabtree. I had noted that she is listed as age 60 in 1841. That means that she should be born in 1781 or within 5 years before that time. That narrows down Susan to this baptism:
Here is the area of Salter Syke:
It is to the NW of Laneshaw Bridge.
Here I accepted the suggested parents for Susan Crabtree. This appears to be Susan in 1851:
Two of her daughters are living with her and it appears that her son Robert is in a nearby dwelling.
Here is my guess for Robert Hartley’s baptism:
The date of the birth looks about right and here is a place called Robert Laith on a modern map which I take to be the same as Roblaith on the 1776 baptism above:
Here are some other Robert Hartley candidates:
At this point, my research departs from the ThruLines suggested by Ancestry:
Where I have the arrow, I would have another Robert Hartley. However, this does not dampen my enthusiasm for the match as I am not very sure of right side of the tree above for James Hartley born 1763 and above.
James Vs Robert Hartley
Here is the support that Ancestry uses to include James in the tree:
That’s a lot of trees. However, I was not impressed with the first tree cited. That tree has the younger Robert born about 1779 serving in the military, living in Great Marsden and dying in Preston. I don’t think that any of that information is correct. The next tree does not have a spouse for the younger Robert born 1779. The third tree on the list does not show the elder James Hartley having a son Robert. The fourth tree is no better than the others. I suspect that there are not many good examples in the 52 trees cited. However, I am not inclined to review all of the trees.
Robert Hartley and Nanny
Perhaps I could find a marriage record for Robert Hartley and Nanny. Here is more information on the Robert and Nanny Hartley family:
Of interest we see that the family moved from Robert Laith to Laneshaw Bridge some time before 1784 when Susanna was born. Laneshaw Bridge was on the main road, so would be a good place for a business. As ‘Pillis’ was baptized in 1773, let’s look for a wedding around 1772. I see two good choices:
I am favoring the second choice with Ann Emmott (last above). My thinking is that this man was an educated man. He signed as well as his wife where the 1769 Robert and Ann did not. While I am on thin ice, I will look for that parents of this Robert Hartley. If he married in 1773, he would have been born around 1752 assuming he married at age 21. Here are some candidates:
Unfortunately, there are more Roberts here than I am willing to research. Part of the problem is that I am unfamiliar with many of these locations. If I knew where all these places were, I would likely lean toward the one closest to Robert Laith. Having said that, my assumption is that Robert and Nanny’s son Robert born in 1776 was the eldest son. That means that he may have named his first-born son after his father Robert. I’ll assume that to be the case and say that the family was the last one above from Cock Leach.
However, if this is Cock Leach, then we are on the wrong side of Town:
That means that I am stuck for now on this line of genealogy.
Back to the DNA
My father’s cousin Joyce has a match with Sarah. However, it is not known whether the match is on the Hartley side or on a collateral line. For example, Sarah has a Susan Crabtree in her ancestry. The match could be on the Crabtree side.
One sure-fire way to figure out how we are related on the Hartley side would be if Sarah had one of her male Hartley relatives test for YDNA. The YDNA tests just the male to male line all the way back to early man and would show how we are related on the Hartley line.
Here is a tree of those on my Hartley Line who have taken the BigY YDNA test at FTDNA:
I believe that all those unde R-A11134 are or should be Hartleys. A11132 is a Mawdsley surname. This connection may be just before the time of surnames. R-A16717 is from a Quaker Hartley Branch that moved in colonial days to Pennsylvania. I and my brother are at R-FT225247
Summary and Conclusions
- I have shown that the Hartley genealogical connection between Sarah and my cousin Joyce is wrong – at least as shown at Ancestry
- However, Sarah and my father’s cousin Joyce may match on another Hartley line or a collateral line where our lineages appear to converge in the Colne area of Lancashire
- A sure way to tell how we are matched on the Hartley side is for Sarah to have one of her male Hartley relatives test for YDNA at FTDNA.