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

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