29th: When NOT to believe certificates?

Seem mostly to be dna-ing of late, trying to figure out how on earth the matched FAIRBAIRN families are likely to connect.
As a result of a lot more digging around in the OPRs, earlier parts of trees, and old mysteries. On the latter, I have bitten the bullet and decided that despite what two certificates say, the John FAIRBAIRN of Stillwater just has to be the son of David and Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN.
This John is the chap whose descendant Walter claimed to be a cousin to his wife Clarissa, a descendant of David and Charity FAIRBAIRN, His marriage cert stated his father was Johnathan, and his death cert. gave his parents as John and Agnes (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN, and he was most unhelpful in that I don't think any two records over his life gave consistent birth years and places, with his birth year ranging from c 1833 thru to 1841. I've documented my conclusions and reasoning on his newly created web page.
The FAIRBAIRN introductory page has had a bit of a revamp, reorder, and some more charts included (some descendants of the dna matched families).
Check the FAIRBAIRN DNA Project Diary for what changed as far as dna pages go.

"Newfound" dna match

The DAWE DNA project has had its first set of results in, and a match with another person tested with FamilyTree DNA.
Didn't take long for him to reply and tell us where he fitted. Another Newfoundland branch - so we're still looking for representatives of the Devon branches.
Follow the DAWE DNA project diary for what all changed, where/when.

Better late than never * 2

People are so much easier to find in the census with a bit more family knowledge.
I'd not been able to find Christopher TURNBULL in 1871 at all back in 2005. Armed with the newfound knowledge, thanks to contact (via GenesReunited) with a descendant of the James TURNBULL and Margaret JACKSON mentioned on the 19th , I found his sister Mary at last, under her married name (which I hadn't known) and living in Muggleswick. I had searched for likely Mary's of the right age and birthplace, but Mary had rather unhelpfully decided not to record anything at all about her birthplace for the 1871 census and inaccurate data thereafter. Lodging with them was one Chrisr TURNBULL, aged 15, also with no birth place information recorded. And ancestry had made the search even harder by indexing him as Chris FERNBALL.
This newfound cousin has a wonderful photo on GR of Mary with her two brothers Robert and Christopher that comes from a newspaper article on Mary's 90th birthday, saying their combined ages totalled 257.
The TURNBULL chart has been updated yet again.

There have been enough additions/updates to the database that a WorldConnect update to (database LornaHenderson is in train, should be in their indexes in a couple of days.

Had to laugh about the aptness of my comment yesterday about all it taking time. Received a phone call this afternoon from a HENDERSON line cousin who lives in the next town to me. She was answering my 2003 email, but as she was promising photos and a visit including her mother, I'll forgive her the tardiness.

]Time solves everything

Another of the English certs on order proved rather interesting. All it takes is time and happenstance for puzzles to be solved (I wish).
You can read about the series of recent coincidental happenings on the newly added page for James TURNBULL of Dykehead, but the start of that story is actually back in 2005 with this posting on GenForum re Robert, Christopher and Hannah, children of James TURNBULL of Nichol Forest, who now turns out to be the above James' son.
Beryl never did get back to me, so I hope someone can point her to the resolution of this as I would like to make contact, but that's rather hard without an address of any sort.

Still avoiding tax returns

Ordered the Canonbie MIs published by the Dumfries and Galloway FHS from the NZ Society library to check out any more TURNBULLs that might be obvious there.
Unfortunately the only TURNBULLs there were the ones I already knew about, Robert and family, so no new TURNBULL mysteries solved, BUT, I did of course check the index for other surnames of interest, and the one and only FAIRBURN aka FAIRBAIRN turned out to solve a mystery of the varying ages for one Margaret, d/o Walter FAIRBAIRN and Grace ARMSTRONG. Easily solved, there was, as suspected, an earlier Margaret who died.
A couple of English certs have turned up and confirmed my guesses as to which death registration might belong to Walter FAIRBAIRN (of Haltwhistle, son of the above Walter - talk about synchronicity!), and Robert SINTON of Castle Ward, NBL.

15th: Tax avoidance!

The only sure things in life being death and taxes, it was long past time to deal with the latter, so I've had to restrict my fun with genealogy for a while. Nearly there, as the accountant will be glad to hear.
Couldn't resist the occasional treat of a foray into assorted emails and updates though of course.
One lot wasn't even my family.
Quite some years ago I did some research for Peter on his Worcester GRAINGERS. One family that I uncovered in that I published with the rest purely because I liked the names (Quendrid, Oswin, Egbert, Canute, Ebissa), and hadn't researched whether or not they were Peter's relations, although it did look quite likely given they too were from Claines. It turned out that at least one descendant of Canute GRAINGER thought so (in Illinois), and kindly shared the information she had been provided with. And then today, up popped another contact, in England this time, with information about Peter's 4*greats uncle Theodore.
So I thought it was time to update his web pages. Theodore proved a bit of a puzzle, as I've concluded he married three times and went by several different names: Theodore GRAINGER, Theodore WHITEHOUSE, Theodore Whitehouse GRAINGER, and may or may not have married firstly Mary FARMER, secondly Elizabeth WHITEHOUSE and thirdly a Catherine.
No wonder he was a bit hard to find in the records.
Can anyone confirm my educated guesses?

Mostly dna - SINTON match, HENDERSON lineage confirmed

Mostly a DNA day or two as a heap of results came pouring in.
SINTON and HENDERSON data in the DNA Surnames Lineages section have been updated to reflect the latest findings, namely that yes, there is indeed a relationship between the Jedburgh SINTON family of William and Isabella (SCOTT) SINTON and the Southdean SINTONs
As William's page shows, we'd love to find a distant cousin of the current representative of this line to help determine whether the differences in the dna signatures crept into the lineage before or after William.

The HENDERSON result is just a confirmation that we're working with the correct dna signature for Archibald - not that it helps us thru the brick wall, as there aren't any matches anywhere in the dna tested community as yet.

Yet another coincidence

I always knew that coincidences abound in this genealogy lark.
The latest is with le place du jour, Dykehead.
One of my WIGHT cousins dropped by and read the entry for the 5th re Dykehead, and was moved to send me an email to say that he used to own Dkyehead, selling it in the early 1990s. He wasn't sure of the exact dates, but it seems likely that it was just before we met up with the then owners of the story on the 30th Nov!
A TURNBULL page has now been included, replacing the previous chart with a page of TURNBULL data, well at the moment, just the previous descendant chart, and a sparsely populated map showing where some of the TURNBULL BDM events occurred.

TURNBULLs (and excitement ) squared

What, December already? Doesn't time fly when you're having fun. Which I am.
Still working thru all the new Americans being added to the Devon TOZER branch (probably wont show up on the bottom end of the KING chart as mostly too recent).

And as if that isn't enough excitement for one week, but along comes a wonderful coincidence.
On the TMG Conference Cruise, I met up with Chaye from Sth Australia who was researching her mysterious OLIVER and TURNBULL couple who had the misfortune to die where death certs are not very informative.
I was very interested to note that one of the sets of parents she was investigating for her Elizabeth TURNBULL was a couple by the name of James and Agnes (ELLIOT) TURNBULL. They appear on the IGI as having children in the geographically challenging area of Dykehead, Kirkandrews, Canonbie, Dumfries.
Well, I suppose the submitter wanted to hedge their bets, and certainly the couple did too as they lived in Dykehead (which just happens to be the place of the comment "some more of those Americans dear" from the Nov 28th entry), in Kirkandrews Parish, Cumberland, but their children were baptised in Canonbie Parish, Dumfries, across the Border in Scotland.
Must be something about the air over there in this Turnbull family.
Anyway. I'd parked this as intriguing info to be investigated at some stage to see if there was any connection with my Robert TURNBULL, joiner of Dykehead, of about the same timeframes.
Today, that got raised up the priority list somewhat following receipt of an email from Robin in Canada asking about my Robert in Dykehead.
Yes, he was a descendant of said James and Agnes (ELLIOT) TURNBULL (but cannot solve Chaye's Elizabeth mystery, more's the pity).
We quickly decided that James and Robert could not be brothers. A 1764 baptism of a legitimate son to Walter and wife in Dykehead, just didn't fit with Walter, Robert's father, marrying as a bachelor in 1774.
However, James' likely mother was Betty also TURNBULL. Not that his baptism said so, but there were a string of Canonbie baptisms to Walter and Betty, several of which stated "in Dykehead", so it was an easy stretch to continue the string of children with the 3 "and wife in Dykehead".
That was James handily placed, but the connection to Robert still unsolved.
And then I examined a list of Canonbie baptisms Robin had downloaded from Scotland's People and noticed that I hadn't all the children of Walter and Betty (TURNBULL) TURNBULL after all. There were two sons I'd missed, a Robert and a Walter, which latter, got me quite interested in a hurry.
Sure enough, his baptism clearly showed he was the son of Walter TURNBULL and Betty TURNBULL in Dykehead, Parish of Kirkandrews. And what's more, a 1745 date dovetailed very nicely as a really good age to be marrying in 1774 and having children in Dykehead, to continue the family tradition.
No wonder I'd not been able to find a suitable baptism for him in England.
TURNBULL chart updated