Does it MATTER?

A recent smartmatch on MyHeritage led me on a wonderful, overdue, voyage of exploration on what on earth did happen to the children of my 3x great grandmother Betsy MATTERS' brother Joseph (married Mary CUDLIP).
Betty's tree showed that their daughter Elizabeth married a John NORTHMORE and had emigrated to the States.
That led me to re-check data from many years ago that had her brother Richard possibly in Michigan but not proven at the time.
One thing led to another and I also realised I'd never investigated what happened to Joseph and Betsy's sister Honour either.
Sure enough, yet another immigrant, but with a bit of a mystery involved in the records.
When did she and her husband die?

Honor BORLEY nee METTERS or MATTERS:
Of the 18 tree matches ancestry throws up as a hint, 2 are actually her sister, 2 don't venture a death date, the rest consistently show her as dying in Ulster, New York in Jun 1880.
I found a source document for her death - the mortality schedule (edited here to bring the relevant entries up to the headings from the bottom of the page)

which purports to show deaths to the year ending 31st May 1880.
Both Francis and Honor show on the schedule, Francis as dying in March, Honor in June.
Both show as married (the heading options are single, married, widowed), which itself causes a few logistical problems as one had to have died prior to the other.
At this point I concluded that Honor had died in Jun 1879 and Francis in Mar 1880.
So far so good.

Then I looked in the 1880 census for their children.
There, in Kingston, Ulster, NY is son Thomas and family.
Date of the census is 17 Jun 1880.
In the household is his widowed father Francis, aged 83.

Anyone found a headstone? A family bible?
I'm happy enough that Honor probably died in Jun 1879 but what about Francis?

Curate with a hearing problem?

There seems to be a bit of a trend about oral traditions/hearing issues here at the moment.

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been republished to include the last few months worth of updates.
Many updates are the result of checking off research from the early days when so few sources were readily available - in particular some of the dates for the family of Anna Maria ANDREWS  and John Lidderdale PURDIE (having been prompted by a DNA match with a descendant), but also some of the BAINs.
The most recent set however were for the family of Richard MATTERS/METTERS and Elizabeth NORRISH thanks to a smartmatch from MyHeritage alerting me to a tree posted by a descendant.
From Devon to London to Argentina to Devon to New Zealand.
I've found a 5th cousin lives over the hill from me!
This exercise reminded me that I'd never satisfactorily resolved/tidied up the family of Ann daughter of Richard and Elizabeth, nor found the baptisms for the family.
The latter turned out to be because back when that research was first done, Non Conformist baptisms weren't as readily available. Now they are indexed on FamilySearch and Ancestry (at least), with the images available on TheGenealogist.co.uk
That solved I turned my attention back to Ann's marriage to John BORROWMAN.
Still no joy.
Has anyone found it?
The best I could come up with was John's marriage in 1848 to a Mary Ann MEADOWS.
Right father and father's occupation, date fits known info, ie Ann shown in the 1851 census where she was living at home with her parents, shown as Ann BORROWMAN, married, and Richard/Elizabeth's granddaughter Fanny Barford MATTERS aged 3 born Devonport in the household.
The first  child for Ann and John I know about is son John born 1853.
Fanny later shows up with John and Ann as daughter, Fanny BORROWMAN, but her marriage certificate to George BURDICK shows her father as _____ and herself as Fanny BORROWMAN nee MATTERS, spinster

So, can anyone claim a Mary Ann MEADOWS of full age, X her mark, father Richard MEADOWS, farmer, who married John BORROWMAN, carpenter Royal Navy residence at marriage HMS Wellesley?
Is this Ann MATTERS as recorded by a Curate unused to the local accent? But if so, why Mary Ann?

Oral family tradition?

Had a bit of a chuckle at the birthplace recorded for the ancestor of a newfound DNA rellie when I went looking to see what other family trees were out there
Birth:July 25 1811 - Scotland
Birth: July 25 1811 - Forgetbrainhead, Dunfriesshire, Scotland

The actual entry shows

Born 22 Jul 1810 - Forgebraehead (which is how my match shows it in his tree as well)

Love to hear from any descendants of Christopher GRAHAM and Jannet GRIEVE of Forgebraehead who may have ventured into DNA testing for genealogy - this is the most likely looking line of my match's ancestry to find a connection on.
Although this only leads to the morass of GRAHAMs and related names in the Dumfries/Cumberland areas without any obvious actual family to connect us up at the moment, it would be good to narrow down the match to this line if at all possible.

Who is Adam?

Does anyone have any evidence as to who the parents of Adam HENDERSON are?

Adam was:

• born abt 1815 Southdean, Roxburghshire, 
• married Janet EASTON in Oxnam 2 days prior to the 1841 census, 
• lived Swinside, Oxnam (1841), 
• popped up in West Middle, Cavers in 1851, 
• Hallrule Lodge, Bedrule (1861) and 
• Newton, Bedrule (1871) 
• before emigrating in 1873 with Janet and son George, 
• settling in Alma, Jackson Co., Wisconsin where several family already were.

Why am I asking?
I'm investigating an excellent DNA match between a descendant of Adam (via son Peter), myself, and two of my cousins (2nd and 3C1R) where we all descend from Peter SINTON & Jane WIGHT.
The most likely line of the match's pedigree that accounts for this is that of Peter Oliver HENDERSON who turns out to be the son of Adam and Janet (EASTON) HENDERSON

The indications currently are that Adam is highly likely to belong to Peter SINTON's family somewhere.
But where?

There's an 1808 marriage of an Oliver HENDERSON (Hawick) to an Isabel SINTON (Cavers) in the Cavers Parish register, which looks promising.
Although there's no further info known, the couple fits the timeframe, place, and naming pattern to be Adam's parents.
If Adam and Janet's son Peter Oliver was named for both Adam and Janet's fathers we do have a bit of a problem as the above Peter SINTON's sister Isabel, who is of an age, is accounted for and I don't know about any other Peters.

So, I'm on the look out for others claiming descent from any of the above who may already have joined in the fun of dna testing for genealogy, or be prepared to, so we can compare results and
confirm that the dna match is indeed pointing to Adam.
Missing bits of the papertrails would also be most welcome - a Wisconsin death record/obit for Adam naming his parents? The fate of Oliver HENDERSON and Isabel SINTON?

Check out Adam on FamilySearch  FamilyTree for some of the descendants identified / linked to date.

Potential matches/matches are welcome to join my FFLornaHen autosomal DNA project on FamilyTreeDNA, or if you are on GEDMatch.com please get in touch with your id number there so we can check out any potential connections.

Update time

My RootsWeb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been refreshed.
Can't recall exactly what all has changed but there have been some general tidy-ups and checking of early research, and an unexpected new branch on the SINTON family.

You may have read this post about Catherine SINTON, not two people whose fates and "tree" were unknown, but one person now placed in her tree.
Turns out that Catherine had yet another illegitimate child, Ethel Janet.
Ethel's marriage certificate was an interesting blend of fact and fiction, but the family stories passed on to the descendant who found me had fitted with Catherine's life in Alford Forest, so yet another mystery placed in her SINTON tree - same tree, same Catherine.

Can you spot any resemblance between Phyl's great grandmother Kate (1850-1939)

and my 2* great grandmother Helen WIGHT nee SINTON (abt 1820 - 1883)

and Helen's sister Jane TELFER nee SINTON (abt 1812 - 1902)?

(Helen and Jane are 1st cousins once removed to Kate.)


Noone seems to know what happened to Ethel's brother Ernest John SINTON - last sighting Auckland in 1928 - anyone got a stray Ernest needing a home?

Twenty years is too long

I spend rather too long on trying to join dots on long dead, distant relatives at the expense of maintaining contact with the living.
I was forcibly reminded of this the other day when I finally figured out a long time puzzle in the family tree and went to share it with a descendant of John BAIN and Sinclair MANSON whom I knew would be interested *.
Too late. She had died in the too long an interval since we'd been in contact, which I was rather shocked to note was 20 years ago.
That did lead me into an, ongoing, update on the more modern branches of my BAIN relatives in New Zealand.
Two others lost in the interim (so far), but I did also re-connect with the last surviving representative of her generation - great to catch up, and to get another representative down from Donald BAIN and Maggie TAYLOR into the DNA tested category for posterity and future research into our Caithness inter-connections.
If interested in exploring your genetic connections, do consider a FamilyFinder test from FamilyTreeDNA, and if a descendant of Donald and Maggie, the autosomal DNA project FFLornaHen would love to hear from you.

* For anyone else who may be interested in the ancestry of John WARES, whose death index/certificate I'd not found all those years ago - the phrase in probate records "who died on or about (insert date here)", covers a multitude of sins, but I'd never found one two years out before.
In years past I'd given up looking through the fiche index for the matching death.
Now, we can simply click on a website.
There he was, right day and month, two years later than the probate stated he had died (yes it was a probate well after the event).
Turns out that his parents were John WARES and Janet BAIN in Staxigoe, Wick, Caithness.
FamilySearch tree has been updated to connect him to his parents, my WorldConnect Database LornaHenderson will be updated shortly.
No known connection, yet, between his mother Janet BAIN and his wife Jamesina BAIN's families.

The BATEMAN Family

This photograph may be of use to someone.

It comes from my Nana DAVIDSON's photo album and was labelled by my Aunt Isabel as "The Bateman family  no relations"
Taken at Wrigglesworth & Binns studio in either Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin, but most likely Dunedin.
Further over in the album is a photo of a young man on a bike labelled Ted Bateman, possibly the one on the left above, and even further over, two baby photos labelled Ted and Bert Bateman, another of a young girl labelled Ruby Bateman luxuriating against a fur rug!

A quick search of the NZ BDM Historical indexes indicates they could be three of the children of John Henry BATEMAN and Annie Logan REDPATH, which couple married in 1894.
PapersPast helpfully provides a marriage notice:
MARRIAGES.
Bateman Redpath. On 20th June, at the residence of the bride's mother, Mt. Stuart, by the Rev. Jas. Skinner, M.A., Waitahuna, John Henry Bateman, eldest son of Thomas Henry Bateman, late of Bampton, Oxfordshire, England, to Annie Logan, fourth daughter of the late Thomas Redpath, Mt. Stuart.
(from Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 4116, 7 July 1894, Page 2)
Which does make me rather puzzled as to location at the moment.
Redpath however is a good Borders name, so perhaps Adam DAVIDSON's network of friends includes Annie's family, although by the dates, the friendship seems likely to be a generation closer to present day.

Nephew Dodds

On my Round TUIT is a task to work through Nana's photo album scanning the photos, and publishing them, some for identification purposes.
The album itself has seen better days,

but does hold a treasure trove of photos, mostly from the DAVIDSON/BAIN side of the family, some even identified, albeit well after the event, by my late Aunt Isabel HENDERSON. These notes were invaluable to me when I began, all those years ago, to try and work out who on earth was who, and where they all came from.
Whereas the BAIN and HENDERSON side of the family has some chance of finding others in NZ with the same photos and some family knowledge, I am the sole remaining DAVIDSON descendant from the two brothers (Adam and James) who emigrated in the late 1870s, all of their siblings remaining in Scotland, with only Agnes (below) moving away - to Gateshead.
The next generations spread further afield with representatives in Canada and Australia as well.

The photo selected today was labelled as a nephew of Grandfather Davidsons named DODDS.

Research had indicated that he was therefore likely to be a son of William DODDS and Agnes Robertson DAVIDSON who married at Chirnside (Berwickshire) in 1869 where the known sons are James (born Chirnside, 1870), John (b. Chirnside, 1871) or William (b. abt 1877 Gateshead).
The only other obviously identified photo of this branch is of a family group

labelled as "Mr & Mrs DODDS & family Grandfather Davidsons relations", with the reverse showing the photographer as Woodcock & Robinson.
This same photographic studio was responsible for other unlabelled photographs in the album  (same backdrop) that seem likely to be the prior generation of either the FAIRBAIRN or DAVIDSON forebears of my Great Grandad Adam DAVIDSON, and it is assumed, his sister in the photograph above, Agnes Robertson DODDS nee DAVIDSON.
BUT, those two children look further apart in age than James and John would be, and if the younger is actually a girl and Rosina, where's her other older brother? (All survived to adulthood.)
Wonder why there's no photo of daughter Rosina Hunter DODDS (b. 1874, Chirnside)?

Anyone recognise these photos?

Here's a WikiTree descendant chart from John DAVIDSON, father of Adam and Agnes.
Anyone interested in contributing to WikiTree to update the family knowledge would be most welcome, registration is free.

What changing a letter can uncover

Twice in the last month I've had reason to review past research that had come to a full stop.
One because of a contact on WikiTree who had connected up another branch of the FAIRBAIRNs, the other from a post on my guestbook that I've only just noticed.
Both led me to review the families concerned in my database to see what might now be available.

The first made me realise that although a marriage certificate was indexed as HIGGINS, and clearly to me even on a reread, stated the husband of Elizabeth FAIRBAIRN was a Thomas HIGGINS, it was actually WIGGINS.
No wonder I got nowhere trying to find what happened to them after their marriage!
Thank you Bill for uploading data on the WIGGINS - happy to have helped untangle the two related Elizabeths.

The second correction was from bad arithmetic on my part and a blurry certificate.
Carrie May FAIRBAIRN married in Toronto in 1914 to, I interpreted, a Charles D COWIS.
The COWIS instead of COWIE I have an excuse for as it was rather unclear. Marrying him off at 16 instead of 26 when the 26 was clear enough on the cert. however I do not have an excuse for at all.
Again, amazing how people are more easily found when you have a more correct age, and surname.

Time I updated RootsWeb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson methinks.

Clintons or Austins or Parkers for a change

DNA results just in for another descendant of William CLINTON and Jemima PARKER have given us a few more identifiable segments for our chromosome map.

Click to enlarge

This is presented slightly differently to the last two snap shots in that  the common ancestor(s) to blame for the dna still detectable in descendants today is identified as opposed to the initials of the matches.
As some of the matches descend from Emma Parker CLINTON's 1st and some from her 2nd marriage we can specifically identify the dna we've inherited from Emma.
Which will be very handy as more matches arrive at those spots.
I thought that nice long segment on chromosome 18 might bring in a few more matches to explore for some ancestral hints, but no, not yet, just two small matches.


For quick reference, the last two shapshots were

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

MANSONs of Caithness anyone?

Have had another great find from DNA testing this week.
Although I do suspect that at least part of it was under my nose, un-analysed from a while ago.

One of my larger matches on 23andme shared genomes, ie we can now see the details of where we match.
Turned out to be at a spot I already knew about two other, smaller, matches and had got as far as determining that we shared some unknown ancestor back up my father's side somewhere.
Needle in haystack.
But the haystack has just got quite a lot smaller.
It is looking far more likely to be my Caithness ancestral lines.

Although none of these matches were on GEDMatch where we could compare across all three companies, one had helpfully tested on both 23andme and on FamilyTreeDNA.
Where I could see that he matched not only myself, but also the late David FINLAYSON, and David's 1C1R who shares his James COGHILL and Isabella WATERS (married 1873 Dunnet, Caithness) as their most recent common ancestors.

But did I also match David there? Not according to FamilyTreeDNA.

Back to the wonderful GEDMatch to see if there was a match below the matching thresholds FTDNA apply. Yes, just below the FTDNA threshold, two segments, totalling 17cM in all, one right where I wanted it to be.

I don't, to my knowledge, have any known COGHILL or WATERS direct ancestry, but we all do have MANSON families - who doesn't if your ancestors come from Caithness? Not that I can see any immediate connection, but somewhere, somewhen, there is a common ancestor who gave us that shared bit of dna on chromosome 13.

My known MANSON ancestry is more from Watten, tiny bit further south than Olrig/Dunnet etc.

Love to hear from anyone with any of the above MANSONs in their ancestry, particularly if you've ventured into DNA testing for genealogy so we can share research and genetics, and hopefully begin to pinpoint which family lines are involved.

Pity that it didn't show up as David's paternal side as we had always considered that our FINLAYSONs just might be related, just back from the beginning of parish records in Bower.
Looks to be a bit far for atDNA to prove, even with the inter-related Caithness families ensuring dna survival beyond the normal expected inheritance probabilities down the generations.

My RootsWeb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson will be updated shortly to include the relevant bits of the above pedigrees, or more accurately, the one or two missing linkages to connect up people already there, as many of David's "cousins" married my "cousins",  in Caithness, Australia, and New Zealand.

THOMSON or NEILSON?

Take your pick?

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been republished to include, amongst all other updates, some of the family/ancestry of Gilbert THOMSON and Margaret NEILSON of Wishaw/Shotts/Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire (emigrated to Pennsylvania).
Somewhere back up either family's ancestry is a common ancestor to several descendants of William HENDERSON and Helen Sinton WIGHT.
But which side is it, the THOMSON or the NEILSON?

It could be yet another clue to the elusive Amelia MILLAR of Kippen's ancestry?
Or some other curious connection from the Scottish Borders ancestry of Helen Sinton WIGHT?

If you recognise any of these names, particularly if you are a descendant of a sibling of either Gilbert or Margaret and would be willing to see if you get a dna match with any of us who inherited this bit of shared dna, please do get in touch.  We mostly use FamilyFinder*, but as long as the dna file is on GEDMatch.com, comparisons are possible across testing companies.

The theory is that a descendant of a sibling of Gilbert's or Margaret's should show up as an excellent match with the descendants of Gilbert and Margaret who have a good match between second cousins.

If one side of the family also show up as a match to the HENDERSON/WIGHT descendants but the descendant from the other side's sibling doesn't, we've figured out whether it is THOMSON or NEILSON.

* using this link to order a test will give a small contribution to WikiTree.com

It gets better

An update to my tentative dna success story about Amelia MILLAR of Kippen, Stirlingshire.

My Ancestry dna match has uploaded to GEDMatch.com, where I was  able to compare results with several other kits.
Bingo has become BINGO in as far as we do now know that yes, from my ancestral side of the fence that bit of shared dna has a common ancestral line at James HENDERSON and Amelia MILLAR between the extended HENDERSON/MILLAR family kits I can compare, so the shared anecstry with my match is somewhere back up from that couple - and looks unlikely to be the HENDERSON side.

Looking good that the connection is to his David MILLAR and Elizabeth CHRYSTAL - but more work needed to confirm it fully.
As he has also transferred to FamilyTreeDNA, we should have more data to work with shortly.

Love to hear from anyone recognising this couple as their ancestors and has either already undertaken dna testing, or is willing to join in the fun, or has research to share.

This really is the closest I've come in 40+ years to finding out something concrete about Amelia MILLAR's ancestry.

Needle in haystack found

For many years a family story that Margaret HENDERSON and Robert SMITH's family also included a daughter who died as an infant on the voyage to NZ, sat in the too hard basket.
Find a SMITH somewhere between Lanarkshire and Otago around the 1880s?
When my original notes showed differing information as to which ship they came out on?

Wasn't actually that hard at all.
There weren't many SMITHs registered in Carnwath in the right timeframes, and really only one likely gap in the family, and only about 5 or 6 females registered at that time, 3 or 4 of them had middle names as well so they seemed unlikely, and several were on the verge of too close to other known children, which left the two most likely, a Jean and a Mary.
Yes, it took me two certs to get the right one, Mary.

Could I confirm the "died on voyage" story?
Well yes, that too fell into place. I picked the first of the two ship options provided, "Marlborough" or "Nelson", and searched PapersPast for the name in conjunction with "arrival" and "measles" in the approximate timeframe.

Although I've not found any passenger lists, yet, for the voyage of the "Marlborough" that arrived at Port Chalmers, it did have documented cases of measles on board (part of the information supplied by a fellow researcher re the ship).
The steerage passengers were embarked to "the island" (must find out more about that) and the cabin passengers allowed to stay on board the ship which now boasted a yellow quarantine flag.

The newspaper (Otago Witness Issue 1469, 10 January 1880, Page 14) reported "six deaths, all children, the eldest, being 10 years four from measles, one from suppurating sore throat, and one from acute bronchitis— the last death occurring on the 7th, when rounding Cape Saunders, the body being still on board the vessel."

What came up trumps however is this wonderful site: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~patricia/Marlborough.htm
which documented the deaths, and included a three year old Mary SMITH, of measles.
Q.E.D.

A bonus of the above page about the "Marlborough" is the sad story of its fate.
The story of the  "Mary Celeste" sprang to mind - although the latter's crew weren't on board as skeletons. (If you think you know about the Marie Celeste, read the pages at the link!)

Henderson Chromosome Map

Results have arrived in from another branch of the family of James HENDERSON & Amelia MILLAR.
Further corroboration of one segment, and one newly identified one.
So time to update the chromosome map.
Check out http://familytree.lornahen.com/spHENDERSON.htm for the current state of play.

Another intriguing dna match

Two American first cousins (HEATLIE) appear in my Ancestry dna matches.
As yet we have no real indication as to which line of their ancestry is to blame for this, nor exactly which chromosome this match is on, only that Ancestry defines it as "High" to one, and Moderate" to the other. (When will Ancestry DNA learn to provide customers with the detail we've paid for?)

As part of their paternal side tree is already known to me, without any apparent dna matches, I'm assuming, until more info is available eg from an upload of their ancestry data file to GEDMatch.com or a transfer to FamilyTreeDNA that the match belongs up the ancestry of Margaret Robson HOGG (who married David Brunton HEATLIE).

Love to hear from any dna tested descendants of any of the people shown in this pedigree in order to refine where the match might be.
NB some of this pedigree differs from that on ancestry trees, certificates available on request.
Surnames: HOGG, FORD, ROBSON, MAUCHLIN, DEANS, BLAKE, LILLIE, DALGLEISH
Birth places: Roberton (Selkirkshire); Hobkirk, Yetholm (Roxburghshire); Lauder, Legerwood, Westruther (Berwickshire),

And another DNA success?

This one is much more tentative, but nonetheless very interesting for me.
One of my genealogy mysteries, aka brickwall, is the parentage of Amelia MILLAR, my 2*great grandmother.
Her granddaughter provided the information that her mother was "a Miss Chrystal", Amelia's death cert, the information that her father was a James MILLAR and that she was born in Kippen, Stirlingshire.
Sum total of "known" information as to her origins.
DNA matches to date have indicated that there might be some Irish connections in there somewhere, but nothing has given me a "BINGO" moment.
This however has just come close.
As a DNA addict, I've tested at all three main genetic genealogy companies: FamilyTreeDNA, 23andme, and Ancestry.
The latter drives me potty as it simply does not provide the information necessary to confirm where you match, just provides  an indication of the strength of your match, and a link to the test takers' trees.
The match can be anywhere, or nowhere, on such trees and without a chromosome browser to show you what segment of dna you share, and who else shares that segment of inherited DNA with you, it's guesswork.
Which is where the wonderful independent site, run by a dedicated group of volunteers, http://GEDMatch.com, comes in.
If only all my Ancestry matches would upload their data there, I'd be happy.
Enough of a rant.

So why am I excited by an ancestry match that I know nothing much about yet?
The attached tree had a MILLAR of Kippen in it, and around the right timeframes.
It gets better.
Their ancestor was a Jane ROBERTSON bap. 1811 St Ninians, married (1835 Fintry) a George HUTTON born Lochwinnoch (Renfrewshire), and emigrated to Quebec between about 1847 and 1851.
Jane's parents are shown as Duncan ROBERTSON & Margaret MILLAR who married 1798, Kippen.
Which rang bells.
My research into the family differs from that on a couple of ancestry trees, and is more exciting!

The last time I dug around to see what might now be available for MILLARs and CHRYSTALs around Kippen I found a death cert. for a Margaret MILLAR who just happened to be married to a Duncan ROBERTSON, and had the fortune (for us) to die in 1855, the year civil registration started in Scotland, where the certs for that year have a wealth of information on them.
Yes, a daughter Jane was shown as aged 44 on the certificate (as was a son James Chrystal ROBERTSON).
I've not yet found any other candidates than the emigrant Jane for Duncan and Margaret's daughter Jane, and the naming pattern of Jane and George's children "fits".

Who were Margaret MILLAR's parents?
A David MILLAR and an Elizabeth CHRYSTAL.
Research back then had shown David and Elizabeth also had a son James of an age to have had a daughter around 1817. Pity Amelia's death cert. provides no hints as to her father's occupation. This one was a mason, dying a pauper in 1863, no indication that he had been married. Back when I found him last year, I couldn't find him in the censuses. Still looking for earlier than 1861 now.

Anyway, the family of Duncan and Margaret (MILLAR) ROBERTSON, and some of the CHRYSTALs of Kippen have now been included in my WorldConnect database LornaFishing.
I'd LOVE to hear from any descendants who have undertaken DNA testing and work with them to explore an potential hints to see if this is indeed the line where my ancestry dna match belongs.

Gone fishing.

I've added a new database to my WorldConnect account - LornaFishing.
It joins:

• LornaHenderson - the known relations (mostly those) no longer with us, and their connections and inter-connections
• LornaPotential - those researched for potential connections
• and some RUNCIMAN data there.

LornaFishing consists only of families I have researched because of DNA matches in the hope of finding yet another descendant of the family who has tested and whose absence or presence of a match will help pinpoint that the researched line is indeed where the match belongs.

Of particular interest:

• Elizabeth CHRYSTAL of Kippen's family - because of a dna match to a descendant of Duncan ROBERTSON and Margaret MILLAR
• John MITCHELL & Elizabeth WILSON of Edinburgh - because of the triangulated dna match to a segment I've inherited from Archibald and Alison (CROSSER) FAIRBAIRN - see prior post
• Some descendants of Matilda Edmonstone TURNER nee McKENZIE - to see if this pinpoints the match to the LEOV extended family - having seemingly ruled out the earlier LEOV/SULLIVAN family  
• The GRAHAMs of Botetourt (VA) - see even earlier posts
• the family of John LOCKHART and Elizabeth JOHNSON marr. 1828 St Ninians, STI

I've still to transfer into LornaFishing some of the families previously researched and published in  LornaPotential as I've decided to separate out general research from DNA match targetted research.

Identically named trees exist on both Ancestry.com and on MyHeritage, for exactly the same purpose, and I make no pretence that the three trees contain the same set of people, but the purpose is identical in all instances.
Fishing.
So if you spot an ancestor in any of the above trees and  have tested your autosomal DNA, do let me know, I'd love to swap notes and compare DNA to see if a match holds up on the lines suspected.