Apr 29, 2008: SINTON surprise

An interesting couple of days working on my favourite trees, the Border WIGHTs and SINTONs.
Both arose from GenesReunited contacts, and although it has turned out that neither are conclusively linked, information has been updated, thanks to Stephen, for prompting more research on the families of John WIGHT and Jessie HOBKIRK, resulting in another child for the family.
Also to Bill, ex of Jedburgh, now in Oz for our SINTON correspondence, during which it turned out that I'd met his Mum back in 1995!
Was able to set him straight about some of his earlier SINTON connections (family of James SINTON and Isabella FLEMING, whom I've now added to the SINTON Surname DNA Project patriarchs page), and may even find someone to join the DNA project to see if they do or don't relate to my Southdean lot.

And just when I was settling back from a fun update session, in comes an email from Perth, WA asking if I knew anything about a Jane SINTON of Southdean who had married James TELFER.
Yes, but not much, just an 1836 marriage where Jane was of Southdean and James of Jedburgh. I'd not found anything further in Scotland for the couple. No wonder really as they'd emigrated, arriving Adelaide in 1839. The Jedburgh OPR added that James was a farm servant of Edgerston, in Jedburgh Parish and Jane of Dikeraw, Parish of Chesters (where the SINTON descendant Janet MATHER nee SINTON was from about 1810 thru at least 1841) and Verity provided the birth/death dates and children. This latter showed a 2nd son Peter and 1st dtr Jane, which, together with a birth date/place for mother Jane of 1812, Southdean, means I'm happy to welcome them to the family of Peter SINTON and Jane WIGHT, and look forward to learning more.

Cousins?

Thought it was probably time I did an update to my Rootsweb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson. It seems to have grown somewhat since the last update a couple of months ago!
Same warning as earlier, the Quebec FAIRBAIRN families are likely to have quite a few people floating around without parents or full details as I'm only gradually working through the checking off what I do/don't have.

Have also updated the FAIRBAIRN page to include a tree for the "cousins" to the Quebec FAIRBAIRNs.

And wonder of wonders, a descendant of the mysterious William Record RICHARDSON has been in touch!

Apr 26, 2008: never ending story..

Read the never ending story about the tale of the FAIRBAIRN research to date on Archibald and William/David, culminating in the dna matches between the three lines not previously believed related.
The relevant FAIRBAIRN page and related charts likewise are also now updated to reflect my current thinking on the relationships between these families.

Apr 25, 2008: Matching FAIRBAIRNs

Full 67 marker results for all three participants have now been received for the FAIRBAIRN Surname DNA project.
Earl and Roy match 67/67, with Martin a genetic distance (GD) of 3 away. Check out the Discussion page for how I currently interpret this.

Had a chat to the newfound (Australian) 5th cousin down the Caithness TAYLOR line. Should be able to fill in those gaps very soon.

Devon letters ctd

Another letter added to the Devon letters pile, and assorted ROWE family members pages' updated as a result.
Behind the scenes I'm playing mix and match with several fragments, letters that begin and don't end, or end and don't begin, trying to figure out from the context where they all fit.

Apr 21, 2008: Source docs subsite

I think I've figured out a satisfactory way to put Marion's ROWE & DAWE letters onto the web and integrate the web pages as near as I can.
Check out the beginnings of my Original source documents pages.
This subsite only contains people referenced in the source documents included.
I intend this mainly for the letters and possibly wills.
The data on the associated people is restricted to BMD data, along with transcripts of the letters.
So, some people will appear here with basic data but not appear with a narrative on the larger Big Brother site.
Some source documents other than the intended letters will also appear if they are attached to one of the BMD events, so there may be some unexpected bonuses in here.
And I've a LOT of tidying up to do to get all the letters published.

Apr 19, 2008: Less ROWEs?

Having fun working through my photographs of Marion's treasure trove of ROWE and DAWE letters.
Interesting to see that the KING family get a mention in 1902 (Walter had just died and James was at Hatchell), and that the Williamstown Melbourne DAW contingent (David, son of Isaac, and brother to Honour and Thirza) appear to have been in regular contact with the Melbourne BROOKINGs, even though they weren't related, the connection being via the ROWEs.

But more importantly, I think I've just subtracted one from the family of William & Honour (DAWE) ROWE. I've never managed to find corroboration of the Fanny I'd ascribed to the family, born 25 Aug 1863, and also never managed to find corroboration of her brother Henry's birth. A scrap of paper amongst the letters may have solved this, as it gives Henry's birth as 25 Aug 1863. So either I've misread Fanny from my original source, or the original source was wrong. At the moment I'm tending to the idea that Fanny is a figment of my imagination.

The same scrap of paper has my Matthias' birth as 19th September 1852, instead of the 9th Oct I had. What do others have?

Apr 18, 2008: ROWE dna matches

Thankfully, the preliminary results from the two ROWE Surname DNA project participants (Max & Ernest) do show a match. No need to throw out years of research.

Would love to get the DAWE Surname DNA project kick started by finding some eligible (male, still DAW(E) surname) modern day DAWE descendants to participate.

Rabbiting on

Lovely story from the newfound GRAHAM cousins.
Gary's great uncle Willy told him a story about his dad Walter. At Christmas the Netherby GRAHAMs would send by train two rabbits for each family. One Christmas the men were all lined up on the platform, Walter was last in line. They all received their rabbits except Walter who was told he had had more than his fair share over the year from poaching.
Also intriguing that it may well be complete happenstance that this connection has been made in that there are two versions of how come the modern Grimston acquired his name. One was that there was a long ago relation who was a stagecoach driver in the 1700s, the more recent, from the same great uncle Willy above, is that when he was born a name wasn't forthcoming, and Jane saw Grimston on a headstone in the Arthuret churchyard, liked it and used it.
I don't know if it was the headstone of Grimston GRAHAM, or that of Stephen GRIMSTON (but would like to know if either are still visible), so all in all, it may well be complete chance that the unusual name has actually put relations in contact with each other!

Apr 14, 2008: Stephen found

Updated GRAHAM chart to reflect all the newfound cousins. I'm even more convinced that this David is the son of Mary as I've now eliminated another David of about the same age from my enquiries.
Tonight's find was David's son Stephen. Family anecdote had him as going to work one day and disappearing, with rumours of long running feud with his boss, and talk of going to America. Couldn't find him there. The answer was much simpler, he'd merely moved across the Border and settled in Minto as signalman at Hassendean, dying in Hawick in 1924.
Still need lots of dates and places on the more recent descendants of David and Jane, but I've caught up with what Gary had, and checked off what I can.

GRAHAMs and TAYLORs

Finally beginning to catch breath. How come when you go away on a holiday, no matter how briefly, you have to work twice as hard beforehand and 3 times as hard afterwards to make up for the absence?

Mostly been working on checking off the family of David GRAHAM and Jane GRAHAM, David looking highly likely to be the one shown in the 1851 census as grandson of Stephen GRAHAM in English St, Longtown.

Have also been contacted by a grandson of one of my Caithness TAYLOR twigs, Agnes Taylor LYONS. Updates to follow.

Apr 9, 2008: RUNCIMAN dna update

Several DNA results have come in over the weekend, the most exciting isn't one of mine, but the RUNCIMAN Surname DNA project has now shown a 36/37 marker match between a family in the States and one in New Zealand, which looks to have solved what happened to a branch of the family of James RUNCIMAN and Agnes HERRIOT.

Apr 8, 2008: Grimston GRAHAM; ROWE/DAWE letters

All things come to those who wait. A descendant of the Grimston GRAHAM I had noted from the BBC War Stories site has popped out of the woodwork. We've a few minor date discrepancies to sort out, but with a name like Grimston in the family I had high hopes that I'd finally found a living GRAHAM descendant for my Stephen of Longtown. At the moment the evidence is circumstantial, but it looks a highly likely match. Gary can get back from Grimston to a David and Jane, both GRAHAM. This David is shown as born Longtown 1841. The only David within 5 years of that age born Longtown that shows up on census data is the David son of Mary, and therefore the grdson of my Stephen. Gary's father seems to think that the more modern Grimston was named for a distant relation who used to be a stagecoach driver in the 1700s.

It will take a while, read a very long while, but over the next few months I hope to have sorted thru and published on the web, the treasure trove of letters and photos to/from the DAWE and ROWE families in England and Taranaki. I've been up to Auckland to visit Marion specifically to take photos of her treasured box of letters, and was absolutely amazed. I hadn't been prepared for the number of the letters, and the number of old photos was also a wonderful surprise.
Great to finally meet her after all these years too.
At a very quick glance, most of my photos have come out fine, but one or two aren't brilliantly focused and will take some deciphering. But at least there is now another copy of them all.

Apr 3, 2008: More happenstance - WIGHT/HALL

While looking for something else I happened to notice an 1858 death cert. for a Margaret WIGHT, mother's maiden name HALL and thought that might be interesting. Sure enough her parents were given as James WIGHT, joiner, dec'd and Isabella HALL, which matches the profile for her to be a sister to my Jane WIGHT who married Peter SINTON, although she could belong to one of the other James WIGHT/Isabella HALL couples. For now, I'll claim her as one of mine, because of the "joiner" occupation for James, and her birthplace of Jedburgh.

FAIRBAIRN/RICHARDSON happenstance

Interesting what you find when looking for other things. I was checking out the Ednam blacksmith FAIRBAIRNs, and in 1871 I found one Isabella RICHARDSON, 17 of Morebattle, as a servant in the household of Edward and Isabella (HOGARTH) FAIRBAIRN. Isabella is the dtr of James RICHARDSON and Mary HOGG, and went on to have two illegitimate sons, Robert and Alexander, and died at the rather young age of 23.