Saturday 12 July 2014

REA of light

Looking at the Cumberland GRAHAMs sparked a search to see what might be available for Abigail REA, wife of Stephen GRAHAM.
Father David of Crosby upon Eden has been added to my web pages - but with a caveat on the accuracy of the family noted as belonging to him.

Thursday 10 July 2014

Chromosome map update

Inspired by the GRAHAM dna story over the last two posts (and finally figuring out an easier way to produce the formatted data required), here's the current state of own chromosome maps.
I don't yet know whether any traces of this GRAHAM dna can be detected in my own genes (as opposed to my maternal aunts') as not all of those involved have uploaded to GEDMatch, yet, for the smaller segments to be checked.

The links to the respective surnames involved are to one of WikiTree's wonderful DNA features.
Just some of the more distant lines identified are added as labels on this post.

Paternal side map, ie my Dad's HENDERSON and DAVIDSON ancestry (Surnames involved):

Maternal side map, ie my Mum's ANDREWS and ROWE ancestry (Surnames involved):
Quite a few empty spots to go yet, not sure I'll live long enough to fill in all the gaps.

Wednesday 9 July 2014

GRAHAMs galore

The GRAHAM families of colonial Delaware/Virginia/North Carolina continue to provide interesting research opportunities as we explore the connection to my Cumberland (ENG) GRAHAMs  indicated by our autosomal dna matches (refer earlier post here).

Contact with each match is gradually eliciting responses with further information - at least for those without impossible-to-get-past spam filters on their email.
Thankfully the latter are rare but if someone posts an email address on a dna site expecting contact from matches, it would be nice if you could actually contact them.

The most interesting discovery/lead is the addition of the family of Archibald & Margaret (SHED?) GRAHAM of Augusta Co., Virginia > Patterson Springs, Cleveland Co., North Carolina into the growing, well triangulated group.

As a result of all of this activity, I've promoted the GRAHAMs from the Surname chart section of my website to the Surname pages section.

Check out the GRAHAM page which attempts to pull this information together.
Included here, as well as there, is the current state of knowledge of dna identifiable as belonging to whomsoever is the shared ancestor of:
  • Andrew GRAHAM of Fauld, Longtown, Cumberland, England
  • James & Elizabeth (?ARSKIN/?ADAIR or ??, later OGLE) GRAHAM of New Castle, Delaware, America
  • Archibald & Margaret (?SHED) GRAHAM of Augusta Co., Virginia, America > Patterson Springs, Cleveland Co., North Carolina, America
In the interests of accuracy I do have to acknowledge that Andrew is just one of the GRAHAM lines in this ancestry, the actual link could well be back up an as yet undocumented history of any of the GRAHAMs who married into this GRAHAM tree, of which there are several. He is just the earliest I know of, the rest being to young to be the ancestor of James and/or Archibald.

My WorldConnect Database LornaPotential has been updated to include some of the above Archibald and James GRAHAM families as research proceeds (Archibald, James).

If anyone from these families has tested their autosomal dna from any of ancestry, 23andme and FamilyTreeDNA and we've not been in touch recently about any matches, please do make yourselves known - preferably with a GEDMatch id if you have one - and we may be able to add a few more segments to the above.

Thursday 3 July 2014

GRAHAMs of Cumberland (ENG) and Virginia (USA)

On the DNA lists, posts sometimes bemoan the lack of participants with UK ancestry, as, it has to be admitted, a lot of the test takers do indeed appear to have what is called deep US ancestry.
Which needs a lot of luck (translates to hard work) to determine where your match might be.

Recent re-examination of my maternal aunts' FamilyFinder results has led to an interesting set of matches, both having what looked like a piece of "sticky" DNA* on chromosome 5 with a heap of matches.  With two matches to one aunt predicted as 2nd to 4th cousins it seemed worth pursuing at least a little further.


Contact with both matches and examination of the shared trees made that relationship seem a tad optimistic, but we fairly quickly homed in on a particular GRAHAM family of Overton, TN (1820s+) via Augusta/Botetourt, VA (1750ish).
The progenitors were likely to have arrived by at least 1720, possibly via Delaware, from either Ireland or Cumberland, England or Canonbie, Dumfries-shire, Scotland  [...take your pick from a variety of trees here..].

My earliest Cumberland GRAHAM ancestor is an Andrew of Fauld, born abt 1660 - one of the earlier lines I've managed to trace.

Expanding my match searches beyond the 2nd to 4th cousins to find those shows as both In Common With (ICW) and on the chr 5 match list, I found another set on the same chr 5 spot predicted as 4th and 5th to remote, a niece/aunt combo descending from the same family.

We have not yet found the exact connection between the families either side of the pond so as to link them up in a family tree, and may never do so, but the message for those FamilyFinder test takers with UK ancestry, don't ignore those deep US ancestry trees, finds can be made, and an interest in early American emigration developed!

It would be great to explore further, so I would love to hear from any distant cousin in my tree who  shares my GRAHAM ancestral line to see what else we may learn.
Any descendants of Stephen GRAHAM and Jane BATY of Arthuret who might be interested? 
Say someone down from Andrew GRAHAM and Jane MOFFET,  Andrew's brother William, or sister Mary's son David?

On the US side, I'd love to hear from researchers of the following GRAHAM families:
William and Priscilla (ROBINSON) GRAHAM probably of Buffalo Creek, Roanake
and their children (or other lines) born Augusta Co., Virginia > Jefferson Co., Tennessee
Priscilla GRAHAM and Walter GREER
George & Elizabeth (TURNLEY) GRAHAM
and any other lines from the same families or any other GRAHAM families from these areas who may turn up as FamilyFinder matches.

I'm in heavy research catch up here to see which of the GRAHAM families in the areas involved are actually connected to each other, given trees online can be ever so slightly contradictory, so help would be apprectated.
It does look like dna might be able to help sort some of those tangles out.
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* a segment of DNA that has passed down unchanged through rather more generations than is usual