Posts

Posted on

More Hirschenhof Latvia Revision Lists: Lütke

In my previous Blog, I went over many of my Rathfelder ancestors who were listed in Hirchenhof, Latvia in documents called revision lists. It occurred to me that many of my other Latvian ancestors should be listed there. Here is the Latvian part of my family tree:

My choices are Schweccheimer, Gangnus, or Lutke as my grandfather’s grandparents other than Rathfelder. I have a book on Gangnus and there are two lines there, but I would like to try Lutke as I do not know much about that Line.

I see that I have very few DNA matches on the Lutke Line:

Lutke in the Revision Lists

Anna Jacobine was my 2nd great-grandmother born on Wirt 2 according to my records. It would be perhaps easier to track her down by her husband first.

Jacobine in 1858

Here is Jacobine with her husband in 1858:

As a bonus, I see my great grandmother Maria Elisabeth Gangnus:

Of course, she was just a baby in 1858.

Here I just wrote down the bare minimum as I was interested in Jacobine. My interpretation is that this family went from #10 to #8, but I am not sure.

Friederick in 1858

Here, I think I would do better in finding her father.

This is interesting as Friederick lived on Farm 2 and was family 3. From my last Blog, I had that my Rathfelder side was from Farm 3 and Family 4. I guess there was a next-door marriage.

This is the picture I see for 1858:

  • Jacobine Lutke moves from Farm 30 to marry Philip Gangnus some time before 1858 and has Maria Elisabeth.
  • Friedrick Lutke lives at Farm 2 in Hirschenhof which is presumably where Jacobine was born.
  • Other children of Friedrick need to be added to my family tree.

This is what I have now for Friedrich. He has more children than Jacobine:

Next, I will look at the Raduraksti Revision Lists. Here is the Link:

I mention this because it is not obvioius when looking for Hirschenhof. I found what I was looking for on page 318 of 620:

Interestingly, the surname shows as Lutchen rather than Lutke. This is either a variation or the name has changed in 8 years.

Next, I can start to add family members to these two Lutke families. This is a little complicated for Carl Heinrich Lutchen as Anna Charlotte Maertz appears to be a second wife. Here is a marriage record for Johann Heinrich:

Going back another Revision may clear this up. I also found this tree at Ancestry which clears things up:

It appears that the 1850 Revision mixed up Jacobine and Friedricke and that this tree is correct above.

Lutkes in 1834

This is on page 88 at the Raduraksti Web Site:

Right side of Page:

This is what I need to check as I have that Carl Heinrich Lutke was married to Maria Eva Buchenroth. Here Jacobine is back as the elder sister to Friederike. Here is my transcription showing three generations of my Lutke ancestors:

The 1816 Revision

Here is where my Buchenroth ancestor  comes in.

I assume that Maria Eva Buchenroth passed away between 1818 and 1834 and Carl Heinrich Lutke married Anna Charlotte Merz.

Lutke in 1811

I like the title page:

This was the ‘not women allowed’ Revision:

This is easy to write down:

This yields an extra generation of Lutke: my ancestor Friedrich born around 1756.

The 1782 Audit of Souls

Here the Lutken family is at Farm 13, or they are family 13.

If I read this right, Anna Elisabeth had Adam Johann when she was 47?

Here is a baptism for Carl Heinrich:

It looks like he was born on 25 January 1770. This is a bit confusing as I have that he was born in 1772 and that his mother was a Stolts. This mother appears to be a Dannewald. Or perhaps Dannewald was a sponsor or Godparent.

Here is an entry for 1773:

I wonder if this child died young. This Ancestry tree confirms that:

This 1771 record seems to contradict the 1773 record – though there could have been two children with the same name.

One goal from this exercise is to fill in the Lutke families on my Ancestry Tree:

 

Here are the three Trees at Ancestry give to me as hints for Ernst Friedrick Lutke:

From the 1782 Audit, I have 4 of the possible 6 children. We know that Johann Friedrick Wilhelm died young, so that accounts for 5 of the possibel 6 children from Ancestry trees. That leaves Magdalena Dorothea (without dates) as being unaccounted for. I would be satisfied to add the children as per the last Tree.

I now have this vertical fuller view of the Lutke family in Hirschenhof:

The families got larger in each generation. So this is three generations of the Lutke family with the fourth generation being Jacobine Lutke who married a Gangnus.

Here is a photo from Hirschenhof of one of the farm dwellings:

Summary and Conclusions

  • The Audit of Souls and Revision Lists give a peek into the family makeup of many of my Lutke ancestors
  • They also give an idea of where these famlilies lived and who they lived near.
  • These Census substitutes were quite advanced for their time giving a lot of information not normally found elsewhere.
  • I was able to add a lot of sibling information, fiilling out my Lutke familiy trees.
  • I was also able to confirm the following Lutke wives’ surnames of Furhmann, Buchenroth and Stoltz.
Posted on

Rathfelders and Latvian Revision LIsts

I just saw on Facebook that Ancestry has the Latvian Census and Resident Registers, 1854-1897. Let’s take a look. I did a search for Johann Rathfelder and came up with this entry:

This should be under the category of audit or revision lists and gives names of residents. The headings are in Russian, but the entries are in German. I’m not sure I had this before. Unfortunately, I am not sure how to read it. This appears to be a snapshot of some of my ancestors in 1850. We see Johann Rathfelder who was 31 in 1850. That makes sense as I have that he was born in 1819. This is what I have in my Ancestry Tree:

The audit list also has Heinrich Rathfelder who was my great-grandfather. The question is: where are the rest of the children? The answer would be that they were not born yet. Ancestry further has this information in part:

Here is the information to the right of what I had above:

Here we see Rosine Schwechheimer who was 27 in 1850. She was the wife of Johann and my 2nd great-grandmother. My interpretation is that Johann and Rosine had two daughters at the time: Wilhemine and Charlotte. I see that I had mentioned Wilhemine in a 2016 Blog. I found her birth record in 1844:

I think she was born in July?

How to Read Revision Lists

I have found many online sources on how to read these lists. Here is some information from Luse Genealogical Research:

It appears that I have the 9th Revision from Ancestry. Here is an 1858 example from the same site:

It is interesting that there were so many of these Revision Lists. Also I take note that it is important to follow the family and household numbers. As I zoom in, I see some fascinatiing information which can be applied to my ancestors:

As I suspected, the large roman numerals refer to the number of the farm. Here is the previous page to the Johann/Heinrich Rathfelder page:

My Rathfelder family was living on Farm #3 in 1850. I don’t know if the Farm numbers translate to this map or not:

I only see one family number for this family which is #4. Would it be safe to say that all these Rathfelders were siblings?

Here is my interpretation of the 1850 Revision List for Farm #3:

Some parts were difficult to understand. I did notice numbers 2-5 for Peter, Ludwig, Johann and Gustav. I don’t know if that means that these were four brothers with the possible addition of Georg Rathfelder. Here is what I have at Ancestry:

It does not seem likely that Johann Georg Rathfelder and Anna Charlotte Mertz would only have had one child.

Hirschenhof in 1858

While searching around in Ancestry, I came upon the 1858 Revision Lists for Farm #3:

 

Ludwig and Johann are still part of Family 4. This still suggests to me that Johann could be siblings with Ludwig and the others. Here is the previous page:

Raduraksti Website

I would like to back in time from 1850 as suggested by many ‘how to’ web sites:

It appears that 1834 woule be the next logical step. However, I could not find anything that looked like Rathfelder in those records. Either that, or I was in the wrong section of the site.

Find the Estate

One tip I read said these records are listed by estate name.

That appears to be Helsreischof. Who knew?

Eureka!

Here we are in 1834. This is page 89 of 620 at the Raduraksti Site. The writing is quite scrolly. This Revision refers back to one that was 18 years earlier (1816).

Rathfelders in 1816

I can go back further. This is page 44 of 620:

It seems that the Rathfelders are now family #3. Notice there are fewer Rathfelders in 1816. However, the picture seems to clear up:

I have what I believe to be my ancestors highlighted in green. If I am reading the 1816 Revision List correctly, it appears to say that George Rathfelder had Johann who then had three sons. Comparing that to the 1834 Revision List implies taht after Ludwig, Johann had Johann (my 2nd great-grandfather) and then Gustav.

Here is what I have on my Ancestry Tree:

Where the Revision list has George, I have Hans Jerg. Where the Revision List has Johann born about 1779, I have Johann Georg born 1778. This appears to be the birth record for Gustav:

My guess is that Gustav was born on 23 December 1821 and baptized on the 26th of December.

Thanks to the Revision Lists, I have added six siblings to my 2nd great-grandfather’s family:

Rathfelders in Hirschenhof 1811

This Revision did not include women. The transcription is in the next section.

 

The 1782 Audit of Souls

This Audit is more difficult to read. However, I suspect that I should find many of my ancestors in this audit. Here are some:

They are either family 65 or at Farm 65.

Here is my transcription:

 

 

Green is meant to indicate one of my ancestors. I am impressed with how good these revision lists are. The Census for the US up to 1850 was not as good as these. A few notes:

  • I added birth year to make it easier to track people between Lists
  • For 1782, I added a Gagnus family as they were ancestors of mine also.

400 Years of Rathfelders

Years ago, a German Rathfelder researcher sent me an article about Rathfelders. Here is Blasius:

Something seems off. If Blasius was 46 in 1782, then he would have been born in 1736. That means he would have been 11 when his first son was born. I’m guessing that he was born closer to 1726. The above article gives his third wife as Maria Ursula Sannwald. I was having trouble reading her surname in the 1782 Audit of Souls.

Confusingly, Hans Herg is also Johann Georg (my ancestor):

Hans Jerg (or Johann Georg) Rathfelder had two Johann Georgs and one Gerog Adam. I guess he liked the name Georg. My ancestor Johann Georg was the first, born in 1778 and listed as Johann (as underlined above) in the Revision Lists.

Adding DNA to the Mix

Here are two matches to my mother:

These are large DNA matches for 4th cousins. There may be other points of connection. However, the thing that is interesting to note is that these two lines are from two brothers bother named Johann Georg Rathfelder. However, my ancestor went by Johann and the ancestor of the two sisters above went by Georg.

Finishing the Picture – Adding 1858

I did not include three Bittenbinders who moved to Farm #3:

This shows the connection between Revisions:

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful for Ancestry to get me started on the 1850 and 1858 Revision Lists for Hirschenhof
  • From there, a web page unlocked the Russian headings for the 1858 Revision Lists.
  • Next, I used the Radaraksti Web Site to get the earlier revision lists. I needed to know the Estate name which was different than the Colony name. I found this a bit confusing.
  • These revision lists give a good picture of who was living near each other – or on the same farm in each period.
  • These revisions also gave me names for the six siblings of my second great-grandfather Johann Rathfelder born in 1819
  • It may be interesting to trace some of my other Hirschenhof surnames in these Revision Lists.

 

Posted on

More ThruLines through Abraham McMaster born about 1764

In my previous Blog, I had some success in documenting some descendants of Abraham McMaster born about 1764 in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo, Ireland. Here is my descent from Abraham:

The relationships are a bit confusing as James McMaster married Fanny McMaster. Also, in one of my trees, I have another Abraham between Abraham and James McMaster. However, I have that they were both married to Margery, so they may be the same people.

My Sister Lori and Daniel

My sister Lori has some good McMaster matches:

Daniel matches Lori on the Robert McMaster Line. Unfortunately, it looks like Daniel’s tree is private and he is not taking messages. Here is how Ancestry shows the connection between Lori and Daniel:

I’ll assume that Ancestry got Daniel’s grandfather right and go from there. First, I’ll create a floating tree for Daniel. That is a tree that is not connected to my Hartley Tree, but one that I hope will connect.

This appears to be Joseph and family in 1940 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts:

It looks like Gertrude had previously been divorced:

Gertrude’s mother matches what Ancestry has so far:

Next, I would like to look for Annie Stafford’s mother:

Here is Annie or Mary Ann’s birth record:

Here is the family in 1880:

Catherine’s death record gives her father as Robert McMasters and her mother as unknown.

My McMaster Web Page has a Catherine born in 1851:

That is interesting, but no proof for the ThruLines.

The couple was married in Boyle Registration District:

That was followed by a trip to the US in 1872:

Catherine should have been about 20 at this time. Interestingly enough, I have their marriage record in my records:

The marriage was at the Kilmactranny Parish Church. I feel that this information puts Daniel’s McMaster ancestors back at Kilmactranny Parish in Sligo.

Updating the McMaster DNA/Genealogy Chart

Here is the connection:

This is an interesting part of the family. Ron in green is related to me also, but more closely on my Clarke side. The chart also brings up the question as to why I don’t have Edward on my web page under Robert. It is clear that Edward was not born in 1851. There was a period in the Kilmactranny records where there were no entries. This was roughly between 1830 and 1841. My guess is that Edward was born at the later end of that period.

I notice this record at Ancestry:

This 1924 record has Edward almost 78 years old which puts his birth back to about 1846. I am guessing that he was born 1841 or before. The 1851 birth date was from Edward’s Naturalization Papers.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to make a connection between my sister Lori and Daniel. They are 5th cousins once removed
  • I would be interested in finding other McMaster relatives who have had their DNA tested where the results are shown in a chromosome browser
  • Daniel’s match has enhanced the information of the Robert McMaster family of Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo.

 

 

Posted on

My Cousin Paul’s Theories of Relativity

MyHeritage does Theories of Relativity. They are like Ancestry’s ThruLines. MyHeritage compares ancestral trees and matches them with DNA matches. This can be very helpful. I have looked at Paul’s Theories in the past, but they need updating.

Here are Paul’s Theories:

These Theories will be from the Frazer and McMaster families as that is where Paul and I match. Here is an update of my chart:

This is my attempt to be more comprehensive in my look at Paul’s Theories. For example, I don’t have Melanie on Paul’s DNA Painter profile, but I don’t need her there as her mother is already there. I have one of the John’s on my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Chart, but I forgot to put him on Paul’s DNA Painter profile. The blanks are ones that I appear to not have looked at yet.

John on the Robert Line and DNA Painter

Here is John on the Robert Line:

Paul and John should be 4th cousins and MyHeritage’s Theory of Relativity agrees. Here is where Paul and John match:

The Chromosome 8 match looks large, but it is only 6 cM which is below the standard amount that DNA Painter will add.

On Chromosome 14, John adds some new mappimg area. On Chromosome 18, John shows that matches with Emily, Raymond, and Faye are actually on the McMaster side and not on the Frazer side. Further, it explains on which McMaster line this DNA comes from:

My second great-grandmother Margaret McMaster had two McMaster parents. This DNA was from the James McMaster side.

Painting John to My Sister Heidi

Heidi and John match on the first two chromosomes:

Heidi’s match on Chromosome 1 was too small to paint. Here is Chromosome 2;

The blue matches are on my Hartley side. Here, John’s DNA identifies the match with Susan as being on the McMaster and not the Frazer side. I didn’t have other DNA painted from Abraham McMaster and his wife, so I added that for Heidi.

Painting John to my Sister Sharon’s DNA Painter Profile

Sharon and John:

Sharon’s Chromosome match with John is large enough to paint.

Again John paints a new area for Sharon on Chromosome 1 and identifies other Frazer/McMaster matches on Chromosome 2.

Paul and Brian

MyHeritage shows:

I will create a floating tree for Brian. Here is an obituary for Ethel:

In 1900, James McMaster was a farm laborer in Hinsdale, Massachusetts:

Here is Hinsdale:

Here is the tree I have so far:

This tree is following the Theory.

Here is some more information on James McMaster (which my tree shows as McMasters):

According to the 1880 Census, Charles McMaster must have been born in Ireland:

Unfortunately, Charles had apparently died as Rachel shows as a widow. I notice that Brian has this interesting note on his family tree at Ancestry:

I would tend to agree with Brian. The William I descend from had children who were etiher in Ontario or stayed in Ireland.

I see that this is likely the same family in 1870 in Berlin, New York:

Ancestry has the surname as McMartus, though I can also see where this could be McMasters. The transcriber has Mary Blowers which makes sense as Brian has Rachel as Rachel Blowers.

I also see that Berlin is not far from Massachusetts and Vermont:

Here is where Brian matches my cousin Paul:

Here I have put Brian under Abraham McMaster, on Paul’s DNA Painter profile though there were some doubts as expressed above:

That tells me that Paul matches his Frazer relatives on the McMaster side on Chromosome 2 where those matches over lap with Brian.

Paul and Berenice

Paul and Berenice show as 4th cousins at MyHeritage. I’m going to shortcut and not evaluate Berenice. Besides, she shows as a 1st cousin to the John I already have on this line.

Paul and Brad

I don’t recall this match:

Unfortunately, Brad’s tree is missing some information:

It appears that Brad would have his mother a Long rather than a McMaster. Brad does show his paternal grandmother as a McMaster:

It looks like I can fill in some blanks. John had Andrew who married Evelyn:

That should be enough to go on for now. This stone is from the West Bothwell Cemetery in Ontario:

However, something still does not add up. MyHeritage has that Brad is in his 70’s. That means that he was born in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. If Evelyn was mother this would make more sense as she would be in her 20’s at that time. The person who manages Brad’s DNA is clearly the daughter of Evelyn McMaster. I will assume that Bev is Brad’s sister.

It looks like Evelyn would have been about 32 when Bev was born. Here is Evelyn in 1931:

Below is Evelyn potential great-grandfather William at age 98. I think that it will be difficult to place this family with certainty.

Here is where Brad matches Paul by DNA:

The 1891 Census appears to show an extended McMaster family group:

William J is living with siblings and parents: William and Sarah McMaster. An elder Eliza McMaster is also living with them. She is perhaps the grandmother bron about 1810.

William’s parents names are given on his death certificate:

This says that William’s parents were Abraham McMaster and Bessie Johnston. I have this already on my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Tree:

I had added in the past to the Abraham McMaster/Bessie Johnston Line but did not save it. I’ll add Brad now.

We think that Eliza made it to Ontario and perhaps her husband. Also I see that brothers William and Mark McMaster both married Crundwells.

Next, I add Brad to Paul’s DNA Painter Profile:

These are new sections painted to Paul’s chromosomes and the first from the Abraham McMaster/Bessie Johnston Line. This raised Paul’s overall painted DNA from 12 to 13%. That doesn’t seem like much, but I am only looking at Paul’s paternal side, so he is painted 26% on his paternal side.

While I’m at it, I’ll add Christina’s match to Paul on his profile:

I also mention Christina in my previous Blog.

Paul and Justin

Here is a progress update. Hopefully it is accurate:

Se that there are twice as many identified McMaster Theories compared to Frazer Theories. Justin shows in the Frazer camp:

I am initially skeptical of this connection. Here is the full Theory:

Many on the connections have low probabilities of being correct. I’ll move on to the next Theory.

Pamela and Paul on the McMaster Side

For some reason, two generations show as ‘Deleted profile’. First, I will try to recreate Pamela’s tree but putting Pamela in my tree as a floating tree. It appears that Elsie’s father should be Archibald:

Here is Steiglitz, near Melbourne:

I borrowed from an Ancestry tree to see that Archibald is actually Archibald McPherson III.

In my own tree, I have this information:

This is from an email I received in 2009.

So my tree for Pamela should have a McMaster by now, but has a Tait:

Here we have possibilities:

  1. Archibald had two different wives
  2. One tree is right and one is wrong.
  3. There was more than one Archibald born around 1860

Here is a gravestone from Meredith, AUS:

Meredith appears to be in the right part of the World:

I am not sure where the confusion is, but I am going with the Archibald from the gravestone above. My tree has an Archibald born 1860 and another Ancestry tree has this Archibald McPherson born 1867. I am not sure if this is the discrepancy:

So between the DNA match, my old email and other Ancestry Trees, I will add this Line in to my tree. This appears to be the other McPherson, buried in Gisorne:

I’ll add Pamela to my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Chart:

Here is Pamela on Paul’s DNA Painter profile:

This is confusing as this shows overlapping DNA from the McMaster and Frazer side on Chromosome 12. This suggests that Suzzanne could be related on the McMaster side.

Finally, Paul and Josephine

Josephine is Paul’s last Theory at this time:

 

Based on other Archibald McMaster/Elizabeth Meehan descendants, this connection seems likely. Paul and Josephine match on Chromosome 14 in this area:

This is the John that I mention earlier in the Blog who descends from Robert McMaster.

Based on the share matches between Paul and Josephine, the connection seems pretty certain. Here is Lalbert where Elizabeth McMaster Meehan was buried:

Here is a birth record for Margaret Mary Meehan borrowed from an Ancestry Tree:

This record is helpful:

Again, I will borrow this record from another Ancestry Tree:

That seems to close the circle. I will now add Josephine to my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Tree:

All that is left to do is to add the DNA match to Paul’s DNA Painter Profile:

Here is a summary:

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful to look at Paul’s Theories at MyHeritage as Paul is one generation closer to common ancestors than me or my siblings.
  • The McMaster tree is quite large. This is just the tree I go back on on my James McMaster side. I have another tree for Fanny McMaster who married James McMaster.
  • The McMaster families that I tracked were in the US, Canada and Australia.
  • There was some confusion on some of the Frazer Theories. The connection for Justin was unclear. I already know the connection for Joanna, but MyHeritage did not show the right connection. This is understandable as the connection is a bit convoluted. I already had the connection to Suzzanne, but when mapped on Paul’s DNA Painter Profile, it appears that Suzzanne’s connection could be on the McMaster side.
  • I agreed with Brian that his McMaster connection was through Archiabald McMaster, but based on naming conventions, I could also see the possibility that he could be connected on the William McMaster side.

 

Posted on

Updating My McMaster DNA Matches

I recently noticed a new McMaster match at MyHeritage. This match came up the strongest for my second cousin Paul as he is a generation closer to the common ancestors. Here is how the match shows:

I cannot see how Geoffrey and Paul match specifically on each chromosome as that information appears to be blocked. Geoffrey’s tree was also private but he shared it with me. Here is a DNA/Generalogy Chart I already have for part of the McMaster family:

I circled my family and the Meehan Line where Geoffrey is. I’ll add in Geoffrey:

Paul and Geoffrey are 4th cousins. My family and I are 4th cousins once removed to Geoffrey.

McMaster ThruLines

Here is what I have for Abraham McMaster ThruLines:

This points out an error on my Chart:

The two Abrahams I have pointed to above should be the same person. As the third Abraham was born 1809, that line should be moved to the right. The Chris at the bottom of that line corresponds with the Chris on my ThruLines:

Checking Tamara’s McMaster Connection

I would like to build out a tree for Tamara. This is one of those human vs. computer challenge, to see if I can verify what the Ancestry Computers came up with. Tamara’s tree is small, but seems to be workable. I’ve never done a floating tree before and the consensus seems to be that is the way to do these. I just watched a video on how to do this. I have to connect a person to my tree and then disconnect that person.

I’ll add Tamara as a daughter to my grandmother and then disconnect her. I did this, and then I removed her fake parents (who were my grandparents). Now she is floating. I put Tamara in under her maiden name, so I want to add a married name, so she will be easier to find if I need to.

Now Tamara has the first ‘floating tree’ in my AJoelHartley Tree. I had to rename my tree AJoelHartley previously because I had so many non-floating trees. So far, Tamara’s tree matches up with the ThruLines Tree. However, that is as far as Tamara went on her paternal side.

My best guess is that this is Warren Stirling in the 1931 Ontario Census:

This shows that the family lived in Enniskillen, Ontario at the time. Also, Stirling’s father was born in Ontario and named Herbert Tims. According to this record, Herbert’s parents were both born in Ireland.

This obiturary ties the father and son together also – especially as Tamara has her father buried in Wyoming, Ontario. If I have the right place, Enniskillen is close to the US:

Here is a portion of the marriage record for Herbert George Tims:

This gives his mother’s name as Mary Ann McMaster. Mary Ann’s death record gives helpful information:

I expect Eliza Johnson is meant to be Eliza Johnston. The reference to Roscommon is interesting. Most McMasters were from Sligo. However, I believe that the Johnston family was from Roscommon. Both families lived near the border between Roscommon and Sligo. I feel that this is enough evidence for me to add Tamara to my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Tree:

The relationship appears to check out. Tamara is my 4th cousin once removed. This information needs to be reconciled with my McMaster Website:

One possible explanation is that Abraham remarried Eliza Johnston and had more children. On another of my McMaster Web Pages, I mention 3 Abraham McMasters as referred to in a lease for William McMaster from 1812. Or, on a current reading, there could only be two Abrahams mentioned in the Lease. That means that it could be that the Abraham McMaster who married Margery was different from the Abraham McMaster who married Eliza or Elizabeth Johnston. One interesting possibility is that the William McMaster who is the subject of the lease is my ancestor born around 1790 who married Margaret Frazer.

This is the tree I proposed in a previoius Blog:

Adding Mary Ann McMaster to My Tree

This was fairly easy. I just chose Abraham McMaster in my tree and added a daughter. I picked choose from tree and chose Mary Ann McMaster:

Now I see why the floating tree method is preferable. By the way, ThruLines is showing these relationships to be half relationships. My assumption is that they are full relationships. The confusion is perhaps about who the wife of elder Abraham McMaster was.

A Floating Tree for Eliot

My assumption is that Elliot belongs in the tree. In fact, it looks like the family married back into the Johnston Line. This is the only information that Elliot has on his paternal grandfather:

The ThruLines could be right, but I do not have enough information to go on.

My Sister Lori’s ThruLines

My sister Lori has more than the average amount of McMaster ThruLines compared to her siblings.

Lori has 7 potential matches under Abraham, son of Abraham McMaster. When I open up Lori’s Mark McMaster matches, I see Chris who is already on my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Tree:

A Floating Tree for Jean

Jean and Lori have Chris as a shared match as well as two McMasters, So that is a good sign. Jean has a small tree including her father who was born in Ontario:

Otto’s death record is helpful:

This gives both his parents’ names. The 1921 Census has Otto’s grandfather born in Ireland which is a good sign:

Here is George and his father Mark (transcribed as Mary by Anncestry) in 1891:

Here is Mark in 1861 with his family living in a log home which was the usual residence for the area and timea:

This is helpful as it gives the children of Abraham and Eliza McMaster. On my McMaster DNA/Genealogy tree, I already have Mary Ann and Mark:

I’ll add Otto under Mark:

My Sister Lori and HH

Adding HH would add antoher child of Abraham. The ThruLines has William H McMaster born in 1831. However, the 1861 Census above has William at 23 in 1861 which would mean William was born closer to 1838 or 1839.

First, I have to create a floating tree for HH:

It looks like HH’s mother Annie needed a birth cerificate and got a delayed one in 1970. Here is the family in 1921:

The family is listed as Methodist and father Thomas works on a farm.

Here are a few McMaster families living next to each other in 1891:

My guess is that the Eliza is Eliza Johnston McMaster. Next, I just need to associate this William with the William in the 1861 Census. Here is Bothwell, where William lived in 1891:

I see that in 1871, William was also in Zone, Bothwell:

He appears to be still single, but head of household with his (assumed) parents, Abram and Eliza. Next door, is assumed brother George and more family. I feel like this is enough evindence to add HH to my McMaster/DNA tree and to my Ancestry Tree. When I added William McMaster to my tree, I had a duplicate Elizabeth Johnston, so I had to merge the two into one at Ancestry.

What I notice is that all these matches are at Ancestry, so I don’t have the specific area where on my family’s chromosomes where this line matches.

Lori and Christina

I looked on MyHeritage for Lori and saw this match:

Christina must be the sister of Jean from Ancestry. I’ll add Christina to Lori’s DNAPainter Profile:

The red indicates DNA from Abraham McMaster at the top of my chart or his wife. This just further confirms that these matches go back to Abraham McMaster in the 1700’s (or his wife):

This also confirms the relationship of the three brothers: Robert, James and Abraham McMaster.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at a match Geoffrey on the Meehan Line of McMasters and added him to my McMaster DNA/Genealogy Chart
  • I looked at some McMaster ThruLines at Ancestry
  • These ThruLines that I looked at descended from Abraham McMaster born 1809. He is probably the one who is mentioned in an 1812 Lease by William McMaster
  • Abraham moved to Ontario as did my other William Branch of McMasters
  • I employed the floating tree method for those who I added to my Ancestry Tree while verifying the ThruLines.
  • I found a match at MyHeritage on the Abraham line. I was able to add this match to my sister Lori’s DNA Painter Profile. This further solidified the connections between the elder Abraham McMaster family (born perhaps in 1764.

 

 

 

Posted on

A New Clarke DNA Match at Ancestry

I have very few DNA matches at Ancestry on the Clarke side. For that reason, I was glad to see that I have a match with Melissa. Ancestry also shows that Melissa and I have the likely common ancestor of Thomas Clarke:

One interesting thing that I see is that Melissa’s great-grandmother died 57 years after my great-grandmother. Melissa has a very nice tree at Ancestry:

This shows her paternal line going back to Thomas Clarke and Jane Henderson. Whereas, I am descended from Thomas’ first wife who was Jane Spratt.

Clarke DNA

According to Ancestry, Melissa and I are likely half 3rd cousins. That can be a good thing as that means that I am related to Melissa on her Clarke side only and not the Henderson side or Spratt side (assuming Thomas’s two wives were not related). My match of 22 cM fits in well with the expected relationship:

Shared DNA Matches with Melissa

I notice that two of the matches I have with Melissa have Lougheed in their ancestry. That name has come up a lot in my matches in the past. Here I started to look at shared DNA matches and put them into a spreadsheet:

At first I tried to look at whether the shared matches were shared with my siblings that tested at Ancestry (Heidi, Jon, Lori and Sharon). Then I looked at shared matches with DE who was the largest shared DNA match between myself and Melissa. I only looked at my own shared matches . with DE. This would take a long time to go through all the permutations, but I did come up with a lot of Lougheed or Loughead ancestors. This suggests to me that Thomas Clarke has a Loughead ancestor. This is actually helpful as that makes me think that my Spratt ancestor Jane who married Thomas Clarke may not have Loughead ancestors.

Mapping Clarke DNA

It has been difficult to map the Clarke DNA. That is because until now, my Clarke DNA matches have aslo been McMaster matches in earlier generations. This is what I have for myself at DNAPainter:

It would be helpful to map my match with Melissa also, but her match is at AncestryDNA and AncestryDNA does not show where the matches are o the Chromosome. If Melissa were to upload her results to Gedmatch, FTDNA or MyHeritage, I would be able to see where we match on the specific chromosomes.

More on the Genealogy

I feel no need to check on Melissa’s genealogy as we have a DNA match and the connection from her grandfather to our shared 2nd great grandfather seems clear. I have Melissa’s great-grandmother Susan as the eldest of the second wife of Thomas Clarke:

That means that my great-grandmother, Margaret Clarke would have been about 3 yeaers older than Susan Clarke. The 1911 Census turns out to be important for Susan Clarke:

This shows Melissa’s grandfather, Hubert bell with Hubert’s parents. Here are Susan and Henry’s memorial stone:

Here is where the Carrownanty Cemetery is outside of Ballymote:

Susan and the Clarke family was from near Collaney and my great-grandfather was from near Derry on the map be Lough Arrow. It is interesting that my great-grandparents apparently met in Boston. Here is Tonaponra where the Bell family was in 1911:

I find it interesting that Henry Bell has Tiraree on his memorial stone as that was not too far from Ballindoon where my Frazers were from:

I am guessing that these two places are about 4 miles apart.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I found what I believe to be my first DNA  match from the Clarke/Henderson Line
  • As Thomas Clarke married first Jane Spratt who died young and then Jane Henderson, any shared matches between Melissa and myself must be from the Clarke side only
  • Looking at the shared matches at Ancestry, makes it look like Thomas Clarke could have Lougheed or Loughead ancestry from County Sligo.
  • If Melissa uploads her AncestryDNA results to Gedmatch, MyHeritage or FTDNA, I will be able to see on which Chromosomes she matches with my siblings and myself and perhaps other DNA matches.
  • I have learned some more about another line of Clarkes which is always interesting.

 

 

Posted on

Updating My Hartley Bradford DNA Connections at Ancestry

I had previously looked at Josiah Bradford in a Blog in 2019. At that time, my father’s cousin Joyce’s ThruLines for Josiah Bradford looked like this:

Now, in addition to the two matches on the Jesse Bradford Line, Joyce shows two additional matches:

I like to draw trees for the people that I believe are true DNA matches and match by genealogy, but my Bradford tree is quite out of date:

I had previously looked at this connection with Joyce in 2019:

My Bradford DNA/Genealogy Chart is starting to shape up.

My Match with Rollie

If I could confirm Rollie’s genealogy, that would firm up the Stephen Bradford connection. Rollie has a nice tree which I have no reason to doubt:

Rollie has Stephen, son of Stephen moving to Illinois at some point:

This 1870 Census seems to confirm that:

1850:

1860:

That means that Stephen went from Engraver in New Hampshire to a farmer in Illinois around the age of 50. I feel like the rest of the line should fall into place – I’m a bit lazy today.

Here is the connection I come up with:

Note that brothers Stepen and Alexander were born 1815 and 1838. They are first and last born in the family.

Back to Josiah

From the review of my 2019 Blog, I think that I thought that the Jesse Line would be OK. Here is the William to Jesse Bradford Line added:

New Matches on the William to Josiah Line

I had this image earlier in the Blog for my father’s cousin Joyce’s ThruLines:

This is interesting as I also match Joe. Unfortunately, Joe’s tree does not support this ThruLine:

The other match in pink shows a Bradford connection:

I’ll start with this Howard connection and build out a tree. Here is Glenn Deforest’s birth’s record from Waltham, MA:

It looks like Glenn’s father was a machinist. I get his parents names also from Social Security. Here is Everett’s aka Everard’s marriage record:

Looks like I need the second page:

 

 

The good news is that Evererett’s father had an unusual name. The bad news is that people messed up the name in the records. Here are two Maltiah’s in the 1860 Plymouth Census:

Unfortunately, the child I saw on the Census as Josiah, got transcribed as Jonah. I take him to be named for Josiah Bradford.

Here is the marriage record:

This is the tree so far:

According to North America, Family HIstories:

I note here that the name Josiah is correct. Josiah Bradford apparently married a Polly Robbins in 1803:

FindaGrave appears to confirm that Josiah’s father was William Bradford:

I take Polley to be the same as Mary Bradford, but I may be wrong. I see the trees at Ancestry have her as the same person. Molly is a derivative of Mary and Polly is a derivative of Molly.

This matches up with my own tree:

William’s wife was Ruth Dunham.

The ancestors with large families such as William Bradford’s above born in 1749 were more likely to pass down DNA to subsequent generations.

My Brother Jon and the Matilda Bradford Line

My brother Jon has these three matches:

None of these trees lead to Bradfords. I can make my own tree for Joe to try to see if his tree is wrong or if Ancestry is wrong.

Here is Joe and mother Doris in 1940:

Interestingly, Doris’ mother was the head of the household and not the husband. Here is Doris’ birth record:

Doris’ dad was an embalmer born in Plymouth. Based on this record, I accepted the Ancestry hints for Doris’ parents.

Arthur was born in Plymouth, though his parents were living in New Bedford at the time:

I think I see the problem. Joe’s tree does go back to our common ancestor who was Josiah Bradford:

However, Ancestry seems to be missing Weston Vaughan and Ella May Stephens in the tree. Based on the above birth record, I will accept Ancestry’s clue for Arthur’s parents and follow on Weston Vaughan:

Weston’s marriage record has his mother as Matilda. She is the one I’d like to follow:

Unfortunately, Arthur’s birth record does not give his mother’s maiden name either. Here is the family in 1870 in Plymouth:

We see Matilda’s maiden name on her marriage record:

I have set out to prove either Ancestry’s tree wrong or Joe’s tree wrong. It looks like Joe’s tree is right and Ancestry’s tree is partially wrong. The key is that Matilda married young and had her son Weston at a young age. Her marriage record says she was 18 when she married. The 1870 Census suggests she could have been 17 when Weston Jr. was born. That is what Ancestry did not have for some reason.

Here is Matilda’s death record:

Matilda’s father was a clergyman based on the 1850 Census in Plymouth:

Matilda is mentioned in FindAGrave:

This should bring me back to my own tree and close the loop:

Here is some more information from Ancestry:

The Ruth here would be Ruth Dunham from my tree.

I’ll add Joe into my Bradford DNA/Genealogy Tree:

Joseph is 5th cousin twice removed to Joyce and 6th cousin once removed to my family.

Bradford ThruLine to Barbara

Oddly, when I check my brother’s ThruLines now, they no longer have Joe. Perhaps the ThruLines were recalculated:

However, it doesn’t matter as I have what I believe to be right on my Bradford DNA/Genealogy Chart.

It shouldbe easy to check Barbara’s tree as I just need to get up to Matilda Bradford. Barbara has a small tree:

The other interesting thing is that this tree apparently goes through the Ransom side and not the Vaughan side. I found Etta’s birth record, so accepted the hint for her parents:

The hint for George Ransom’s mother is Rev Mary S Faunce. Here is the marriage record for George and Ida:

Here is George’s birth record:

I am skeptical that Mary was a Reverend. Here she is in Pembroke in 1880 keeping house:

I guess I was wrong. Here is her obituary:

This gets us back to Matilda Bradford born 1813. So I see the Ancestry ThruLine was correct this time.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to show genealogical connections and probale DNA connections between my family and many other Bradford families going back to Josiah Bradford born 1724 and his wife Hannah Rider.
  • There was one generation missing on the ThruLines for Joe Vaughan, but I was able to find that and add it in.
  • These ThruLines change often. The one for Joe was changing as I was writing this Blog.
  • My Bradford DNA/Genealogy Tree was quite out of date and I was able to add two generations to it going back from Harvey Bradford on my family’s side.
  • The DNA matches appear to confirm the previous genealogy work that I have done.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Playing with Gedmatch Tier 1 2024 Finding Common Ancestors

I have one of my many colds this winter, so I’ll take some time and sign up for Tier 1 of Gedmatch.

MRCA Search Tool

I don’t remember using this tool before. Before I used it, I had to make sure my Kit# was associated with my family tree. My famiy tree was uploaded in 2014, so it is quite old. I suppose that I should update my tree at Ancestry. I’ll look at what I got, and then update my gedcom at Gedmatch.

This is the first part of my list:

What I first noted was that the path to the primary kit (mine) was very long. I am seeing 6-13 genertaions. After watching a video on this utility, I see that the last column is important. It gives a score of how accurate it thinks the matching is out of 10. So the first on my list, Hannah Bartlett has a match of 2 out of 10 which is not good. John Spooner, further down, gets a 7 out of 10.

Our Path to John Spooner

Here is the path column:

I have not checked this Wilhelm Line, but it does not look unreasonable. I would like to see what the DNA match looks like, but I do not see a link to find this on this utility. I ran a one-to-one match between myself and my match with Spooner ancestry:

The match shows on Chromosome 11. To make sure this was a paternal match, I ran my paternal phased kit against this match and got the same results. Here is my Chromosome 5 mapped by DNA Painter:

I have an arrow where the possible Spooner DNA would be. I say possible because at 9 generations away, a lot could have happened. I think that SImone tested at 23andMe.  I am tempted to add this match just for fun. All the green matches are my second cousins. A few are first cousins once removed. Here is what I have for John Spooner on my tree:

Here I added in Spence on DNA Painter under SImone:

James Hartley was born in 1862, so the gap between him and John Spooner is over 200 years.

Updating My Tree at Gedmatch

First, I need to download my tree from Ancestry:

Before I got here, I had to choose Export Tree. When I chose download your Gedcom file, I ended up with two files as the Export already created one. First, I deleted my old Gedcom at Gedmatch. I’m not sure if this was the right way to do it.

When I uploaded the Gedcom, I got some errors based on not putting down the sex of the person:

There were other errors, but I just let the software do what it did.

Running a New MRCA Report from Gedmatch

This time I will use a minimum match score of 3 as recommended in a video I saw. This report is taking a while to run – perhaps because the gedcom I have now is larger. The report gave me 84 potential MRCA’s:

Here is a name on my list that catches my eye:

William Bradford gets a score of 8 which is very good.

However, I see an issue as there are two William Bradfords born 11 Mar 1654. I show to be 9th cousin once removed to this match. However, it appears that these two William Bradfords are the same which would move our connection closer by one generation. However, there is a disconnect. The death date of my William Bradford is very clear as he died in a carting accident in 1687. That means that he could not have had a daughter named Bethia born in 1692. Perhaps the Gedmatch scoring system is not the best.

Hiller MRCA?

Fifth on my list of 83 ancestors is a Hiller:

I recognize the match name (not shown here) from Ancestry. Here is the path:

I am a mere 7th cousin to this Hadaway on paper – and a DNA match. Here is where I match Hadaway:

My family seems to be related to other Hillers at Ancestry, so I think that this is a good match for me. I’ll add this person to DNA Painter:

My belief is that Hadaway (shown in purple) shares Hiller DNA on my Chromosome 2 with myself and my father’s first cousin Maury. This is likely shared with some of my other siblings.

Elizabeth Warren

The second match on my list is Elizabeth Warren:

This match is different as only the wife is mentioned in the match.

I assume that it came out this way as she descended from one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. To keep this consistent, I’ll enter this in DNA Painter under the husband who was Josiah Finney:

This is a fairly large match at Gedmatch:

Here as in other of my Hartley areas, this has connected my 1860’s common ancestor 2nd cousins, shown in green above, with my 1660’s cousin (seen in a bronze color).

So far, I have added to my colonial side on Chromosomes 2, 5 and 10:

The genealogy is fairly easy for these colonial matches. These matches are also helpful as it tell where my Hartley DNA from Lancashire, England is not.

Edward Richmond – Out 11 or 12 Generations

All this DNA has to come from somewhere. This is my first MRCA match:

I do show an Abigail Richmond in my tree. I also show that Edward Richmond married Abilgail Davis. I’m am liking Gedmatch’s MRCA utility as it is so easy to use. Next, I’ll map this match with Audrey:

However, this match with Audrey is showing a problem as there is an overlap with one of my Frazer relatives, Brenda. Further, when I have mapped my Chromosome 22, it has come out as being all Frazer, so this Hartley match cannot be right here. Let’s try to figure out what went wrong here.

When I look at Audrey’s tree, she has matches from County Sligo. My guess is that her match is on my Clarke side that I have not found many ancestors for. Or it could be on the Frazer side where I have some missing wives. Some of these names and places in Audrey’s tree have come up before, but I have not been able to place them within the genealogy:

 

In addition, some of my McMaster ancestors were from Dromore, County Sligo. That could be the best explanation for the connection. I have deleted Audrey from my Chromosome 22 as a Colonial American match, but she likely matches my McMaster ancestry. Interestingly, my fourth potential MRCA is with Dave. He matches on Chromosome 22 also. He must be related to Audrey.

An Almy Connection?

Matches 6 and 7 on my list have this connection:

 

I don’t have the inclination to check out the genealogy here. The DNA match is here:

I already have Debra in that spot. I had our conection on the Hatch side. From a Blog I wrote, I see that there was also a Palmer connection in Rhode Island. This connection is certainly on the Rhode Island side. Actually Debra is match #7, so is the same person. Match #6 must be her son.

I’ll just change the ancestors to Almy at DNA Painter. At 1601, that would likely be my oldest painted DNA and perhaps the most suspect for that reason!

Resolved White 1615

This match goes back to the Pilgrims.

First, I’ll check the DNA:

This is Chromosome 19 which is Frazer territory for me:

My Frazer ancestry is Irish, so clearly not Pilgrim material. It is possible that I have this Pilgrim connection, but not based on the shared DNA.

Benjamin Bartlett with a Score of 6

I’ll be sure to check the DNA match:

The match is out on the right side of the paternal copy of my Chromosome 7:

I have a lot of Frazer DNA on that Chromosome, but room for some Hartley on the right side.

I don’t show Ichabod Bartlett in my tree, but my tree may be incomplete. A book I have shows that Benjamin Bartlett had three wives and 6 children. The first three children were born from Sarah Brewster (including Rebecca Bartlett). The first wife apparently had no children. The last three children including Ichabod may have been from a third wife named Sisilla.

I’ll add Blair and Bartlett in pink to my DNA Painter profile:

It is not a large match and I could not put two ancestors down as I am only sure of the Bartlett ancestry.

One More? Joseph Sylvester

Joseph gets a rating of 5, but that is just on the genealogy match. I have checked the DNA to confirm that the match is on my Hartley side.

Joseph is on the Pilgrim side, born in Plymouth Colony. I do see an Amos on my genealogy tree, so that is good. I’ll add this match into DNA Painter.

Here i have added a small clump of DNA to my profile which I have said is either from Joseph Sylvester or Mary Barstow.

Summary and Conclusions

  • This is an easy tool to use
  • I needed to check my DNA matches to make sure that they were in the right area and right side – in this case paternal side.
  • I have a lot of colonial genealogy. Many others likely do too, so the bias is to match on those genealogies.
  • I did not go through the whole list, but I would guess that at least half of the matches would not pan out due to genealogy, DNA matches in the wrong area or other problems.
  • It is easier to disprove that a DNA match could not go with the shared genealogy than to prove that it does.

 

 

 

Posted on

A New MacMaster DNA Match at Gedmatch with Clarke and Spratt Ancestry

I have a new MacMaster DNA match at Gedmatch. However, this match is also at Ancestry DNA and MyHeritage. Here is what Ancestry shows:

We are third cousins, but we are also related on the McMaster side:

As shown above, Ron and I are fourth cousins once removed on the McMaster side. This makes sorting out the DNA difficult. However, I am more interested in the Clarke connection as I have a lot of missing information on my Clarek and Spratt ancestry.

MacMaster DNA

I am really interested in the Clarke DNA. However, it would seem that anyone that I have a known Clarke DNA match with could also have McMaster DNA.  Here is where I match this MacMaster according to Gedmatch:

I had previously used DNA Painter to show where this match was Here is the paternal side of my Chromosome 4:

The green and yellow matches are on my Hartley side. However, the blue DNA should represent either Thomas Clarke or Jane Spratt:

]]

However, there is a more distant amount of McMaster in there because Ron’s great-grandmother Celia Clarke married Edward McMaster:

This shows that Ron is my 4th cousinn once removed and Stephen is my 5th cousin on the McMaster side. Still, the chances are that matches with MacMaster represent Clarke or Spratt more than McMaster.

More Clues from Ancestry

I feel like Ancestry has the most matches, so it is a good place to look for clues. As the McMaster who is the subject of this Blog is my largest match, I’ll start with him at Ancestry. It would make sense to try to sort out those matches between Spratt and Clarke as those are the two most recent ancestors that this McMaster and I have in common.

Clarke or Spratt?

I should have shared matches with my good MacMaster match that are either Clark or Spratt. By using a spreadsheet, I can separate those matches by color. This is a variation of the Leeds Method:

I’m trying to come up with a spreadsheet that will work well. I’ll use a blue color for Clarke and a different one for Spratt.

I’ll start with Lori and Nina:

Nina appears to be a Spratt and is a shared match with my MacMaster match:

My Leeds Chart is a little compicated as it includes 5 siblings. My assumptions are:

  • shared matches between my siblings and me and Nina will be on the Spratt side
  • Spratt is not related to Clarke
  • Clarke is related to McMaster so those shared matches could have McMaster also
  • Ideally, there should be a group of Clarke DNA matches that match me and each other and a group of Spratt DNA matches that match me and my siblings and each other.

My Shared Matches with Nina

Here are a summary of my findings:

I decided to go with just my matches for now as it was too messy having all the siblings there. There were similarities in the trees when the trees were givien. Note that I have not yet identified any Clarke matches.

I decided to add the strength of the match in cm:

Looking for the Clarke Side

I don’t see any matches that are obviously Clarke. That means that I need to find matches that are not in common with the ‘in common’ matches to Nina and the above Spratt matches.

I’ll start with Cheryl. She is a shared match with MacMaster and matches me. Here shared matches do not seem to coincide with Nina’s, so I will make an assumption that she matches me on the Clarke side. Unfortunately, she does not have a tree at Ancestry.

Here is what I am guessing is the Clarke side:

The problem is that none of the DNA matches that have trees have Clarkes in them. The common name in the trees that match the blue side appears to be Lougheed or Loughead.

Here is the tree I have for my great-grandmother:

My knowledge of this branch of the family does not go back very far. Here my assumption based on family trees is that the Spratt side is represented by my orange matches and Clarke by the blue. But where would Lougheed fit in? Assuming that Whitesides is right, that would leave the mother of John Clarke or the mother of Catherine Whitesides.

A Blue Side DNA Match at 23andMe

I made a note at Ancestry that my blue side match, L.S., also tested at 23andMe. I hope the match is still there. That match had this person in his tree:

Unfortunately, I cannot get into 23andMe. The Company instituted extra security on their website and it is creating a problem for me to get to that site.

More Lougheads

Here is Ballybrennan::

This location is interesting to me as Ballybrennan is South of Collaney which is the area that my Clarkes were from and West of Kilmactranny where my Frazers were from.  However, Frazers should not be related as the connection between Frazer and Clarke was in Boston, Massachusetts.

Cheryl has many what I call blue matches.

Here I have also added some shared matches from D.E. The last match is interesting as there is a connection with Hugh Lougheed from 1750. He appears to be the same Hugh said to be born 1752. Here is what jreaton’s tree shows:

From the trees and the DNA matches, it is likely that this Hugh Lougheed could be an ancestor of mine, but I cannot tell where the connection is. It is possible that this Hugh had another daughter who married and stayed in Ireland.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Based on my most recent common ancestors with MacMaster, I should have matches on the Clarke side and the Spratt side
  • I found DNA matches with a group of people who have Spratt ancestry
  • I found another group of DNA matches who do not match the Spratt matches but have Lougheed in their genealogy.
  • I found a Lougheed side match that was also at 23andMe
  • It would be interesting to find out which chromosomes are Lougheed and which are Spratt.
Posted on

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.