Chasing rabbits

I finished a "DNA finds" session at our local Genie group the other week with this image:

and, as always, ignored my own advice.
I should be methodically finishing off analysing, and publishing, what we've learnt from newly in  known-family tests on each of my Andrews, Rowe, and Dawe * lines.
* including finally, after 10 years, confirming the yDNA signature for the line of Isaac DAWE of Lamerton, Devon.

Instead I was having a look at the posts in the FaceBook group Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques and couldn't resist trying out one on how to visualise your Ancestry match lists (this link to my DNASurnames blog where I post general DNA type posts as opposed to those more related to my own genealogy work).
I ended up with a filtered set of groups that actually do interact - or have a match of particular interest in them:

My Henderson/Millar brickwall will some year find an answer amongst the dark blue group on the left.
My Jane Gibson brickwall amongst those in the light blue cluster top right.
That on the bottom right reminded me I'd not finished chasing the rabbit that led to a small cluster of more extended Fairbairn family matches ....

Maternal side Chromosome Map update

I see that my Paternal side chromosome map was last published Dec 2016.
The intention was for the companion Maternal side map to follow shortly thereafter, but 2017 had other plans.

Click to enlarge

A quick reminder for myself of the maternal brickwall ancestors that I hope DNA will one day aid in cracking (see embedded WikiTree Widgets below for each of my maternal grandparent's pedigrees):

• Jane GIBSON: supposedly born Martock, Somerset in 1812, married Simon ANDREWS in Martock, 1840 and emigrates to New Zealand on the "Timandra", arriving 1842.
• William AUSTIN: husband of Emma Parker CLINTON - disappears after arrival in Australia;  Emma remarries as a spinster with no children!
• William CLINTON: married Jemima PARKER in London, 1810 - and had the above daughter Emma Parker CLINTON

Way too many unknown grandparent segments as yet - but I hope that visual phasing* of my 3 first cousins' DNA will reduce that.
*Visual phasing links:

• https://isogg.org/wiki/Visual_phasing
• http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2016/11/21/visual-phasing-an-example-part-1-of-5/
• https://genealogylady.net/2017/05/02/down-the-dna-rabbit-hole-visual-phasing-with-two-siblings/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neB4oFlwJHA
  a hint: to mark who owns each crossover instead of the technique shown I used the owner's letter in a simple right justified cell which positioned the owner right next to the line.

My maternal grandfather's pedigree (WikiTree) - if you are a descendant of any of these PLEASE upload your autosomal DNA file (eg FamilyFinder from FamilyTreeDNA, Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andme) to GEDMatch.com and contact me.
Every little clue helps.

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

 My maternal grandmother's pedigree (WikiTree)

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

The ANDREWS DNA matches ctd

The grid below is on the DNASurnames site linked in the prior post but is included here to highlight the vagaries of atDNA inheritance.

The people listed are all descendants, or believed to be, of John ANDREWS and Rebekah WINES who married in 1808 at Martock, Somerset, England. 

One has yet to be confirmed, but matches so many of the others that they have to fit somewhere.

It only includes those who have uploaded to GEDMatch.com as it uses their wonderful tools to produce the grid.

The predicted generations to a common ancestor range from 1.4 to 6.9, where the 6.9 prediction is between 3rd cousins once removed.

The actual relationships range from 1st cousins to 4th cousins.

This family group has done much better than another I've done this exercise for.  Fewer blank cells where there was no detectable shared DNA over 7cMs than another family, so well done for the Andrews/Wines DNA.

 

Click to enlarge

With FamilyFinder on sale at the lowest price I've ever seen, now would be a great time for others to test and see where they "fit" and provide more data for the chromosome map of Andrews/Wines DNA - which is the next item to be updated.

Who's Harry?

I believe I now know the answer to this one, and an exciting journey it was too - well to those of us who are Genie and DNA addicts anyway, and of course those interested in our ANDREWS of Martock (Somerset, England) ancestry - which is rather giving the game away at the beginning.

March 2016 - cue an excellent set of DNA matches, reasonably close, between a newly loaded kit on GEDMatch.com, and several descendants of Simon and Jane (GIBSON) ANDREWS.
So why?

Correspondence with the match determined that her family tree did have an ANDREWS, deceased by 1958, father possibly Harry born about 1865. No place information provided. Was this a clue?
As yet, no indication that the DNA was definitely from her ANDREWS line, but definitely an indication from our side, thanks to all the matches to descendants of Simon and Jane.

Apr 2016 a kit from ancestry (another descendant of Simon and Jane) also uploaded to GEDMatch, and yet more matches

July 2016 sees yet another descendant of Simon and Jane tested, and yes, more matches.

Interest on where the match might fit has obviously grown. Time to explore the tree more.
What can we find out about Harry?

Harry proves remarkably record shy to date, even once we knew he lived in Michigan.Yes, there are census records which show him as born Canada - and his parents as born England (mostly, one says Canada) - so far so good. The records also show he was born abt 1861 or Jun 1862.
Then his death cert. threw a 1 Jan 1866 birth date into the works, with the very unhelpful information that his parents were unknown, as were their birth places, but that Harry himself was born "Goodrick, Ontario".

Were there any ANDREWS families with a son Harry born around 1861-1866, living in Goderich?
Possibly.

A William and Eliza/Elizabeth ANDREWS did indeed show up in the 1871 census of Ontario: born England, son Henry aged 12, so born about 1859 - but not with the family in the 1861 census!
What is it about Henry/Harry that causes so much age confusion?
Did any of the trees online have anything about Henry son of William and Eliza after the 1871 census?
No.
But the family did indeed look promising, particularly when one of the trees not only showed William and Eliza as both born in Somerset, but also that they married in Martock.

This just had to be the right family.
But can we prove that William is a relation of Simon's and that their Henry is indeed Harry?
It was looking increasingly likely, particularly given that Simon has a brother William of the right age that we didn't have any sight of beyond the 1841 census.
Census information for William and Eliza in Ontario showed they emigrated about 1844/5 so were easily missed when searching English records, and as yet no death cert. can be found to provide a link back to his parents, just a headstone with his dates.

The first step was easy enough, although it took time - why oh why does England not have electronic BDM certficates? Postage is so S L O W, particularly now that our postal service is down to every second day delivery.

William and Eliz's marriage cert. did indeed show his father was a John ANDREWS, weaver, and threw in a pair of witnesses that belonged to the family, William and Simon's brother Abraham and his wife Mary Ann (nee CHANT), to clinch the identification.

How was this missed when previous researchers had combed the Martock parish registers?
Easy really, they were married at the Ebenezer Chapel in Bower Hinton, not the established church.
It's still exists.

So far so good.
But can we prove the link from Henry born about 1859, or possibly 1861/2 ish, or even 1866, in Goderich, to Harry in Harbor Beach, Michigan by 1910?

If anyone can find Harry's marriage cert. to Barbara SWACKHAMER, or where he was in either the 1880 US census or the 1881 Canadian one, or anything/anywhere after the Canadian 1871 census and prior to the 1900 Michigan census, please do share!

In the meantime, ancestry trees came up trumps yet again.
One in particular had little notes that indicated family information, as opposed to straight research, might be available.
The tree however showed Henry, fate unknown.
But what's more important, the poster actually replied to a message.
Although Bill said he didn't think he could help with my quest, he did enclose his grandmother's notes on the family.
His grandmother was the granddaughter of William and Eliza via their son Walter, and had written up notes on the assorted children of William and Eliza, along with their children.
The notes started with the information that William was from a family of weavers, and that two of his older siblings had left England, one to New Zealand (that has to be Simon) and one to Australia (bit puzzled by that one, but this is currently assumed to actually be Eliza's sister and her husband who emigrated to Australia - which I only happen to know via one of those little coincidences of genie life in that the sister's husband's brother is the ancestor of a friend of mine - and we've only just figured this out thanks to this investigation!).
Reading on, the following jumped out at me:

"Harry had a family in Harbor Beach. He is dead"

I'm convinced. 

Are you?

Thank you newfound cousin Bill.

My ANDREWS page will be undergoing an update, and DNASurnames now also includes an ANDREWS DNA section to show some of the predicted atDNA relationships compared to the actual distance from John and Rebecca ANDREWS along with the utter variability of who actually shows up as matches.

Enjoy, this journey has been fun. Now to explore the rest of the Canadian and Michigan branches of the ANDREWS/WINES family.

How many to go?

As you can probably deduce, I'm a DNA junkie.
Apart from using my autosomal DNA matches (and a lot of genealogical research) to map my chromosomes so that I know (eventually - I hope!) which bits on which chromosomes were inherited from which ancestors*, another of my aims to is document the haplogroups for each of my ancestors out to my 2*great grandparents (at least) -  yDNA and/or mtDNA.

Knowing this data is of help in working with autosomal DNA matches to rule in or out of contention certain lines, and you never do know what else you may learn.

So I thought it was time to take stock.
The above is a screen shot of my ancestry tree pedigree with the symbols I've attached for the appropriate haplogroups where known.

How am I doing?
Grandparents: one to go, George Ernest ANDREWS.
There's a test in progress for a descendant of Simon ANDREWS, due next month.

Great Grandparents: two to go, other than George Gibson ANDREWS who will be sorted next month.
Helen Sinton WIGHT (WorldConnect / WikiTree / Geni / FamilySearch) and
Ellen TURNBULL (WorldConnect / WikiTree / Geni / FamilySearch.

Can you help?
Concentrating on Helen Sinton WIGHT first.
Helen Sinton WIGHT has no living descendants who inherited her mitochondrial DNA.
Working back to her mother, Helen WIGHT nee SINTON (my webpages / WorldConnect / WikiTree) there may be some options, but although (or because) this WIGHT family is the one that started my whole genealogy journey back in the 1970s, it is the least documented, and very poorly sourced given how new I was to this back then! 

Can YOU help by contributing any knowledge you have on descendants of Helen?
The three main collaborative world trees that anyone can access for free, that I follow and work with are: WikiTree, Geni and FamilySearch.
Let's see if we can turn up any living descendants down any of the lines in general, hopefully at least one in particular that carries Helen's mitochondrial DNA AND one who may be convinced to indulge my curiousity.

Both WikiTree and Geni have DNA related tools that can be quickly checked for DNA candidates of interest - and easily rechecked as the tree grows:
WikiTree -  descendants of Helen who have inherited her mtDNA a short list - but I am working on an update as we speak. None on the current list are still with us, and the first two branches I've worked on don't appear to have any likely surviving candidates for mtDNA.
Geni - living descendants of Helen who have inherited her mtDNA (none as at Jul 2016)
FamilySearch - descendants of Helen WIGHT nee SINTON

Regardless of this specific quest for mitochondrial DNA candidates, there may well be some cousins still around who would be most welcome to contribute autosomal DNA and see what that adds to our overall DNA knowledge of connections.
Pop along to my atDNA project FFLornaHen on FamilyTreeDNA and order a FamilyFinder test, or test at Ancestry and then transfer that file to both GEDMatch.comhttp://GEDMatch.com and to FamilyTreeDNA so we can all fish in both ponds for matches and use the tools only available on the latter two sites to make the most of our investment(s).
I'd love to hear from any of you - contact form on most of my webpages.

* the main aim of all that work with my atDNA is to concentrate on the matches at the spots where I don't yet know which ancestor is to blame - can you hear the sounds of the crumbling brickwalls?
A wonderful side effect is of course confirming the family tree, testing theories, and as recently highlighted, finding new siblings for some of the ancestors.
Some of the distant cousins you get to "meet" may even be able to shed more light on our shared ancestors with photos, family knowledge etc.

Would Granny be spinning in her grave?

I've not yet lodged a correction to the index, although it is assumption that Aunt Veta's birth cert. does indeed show her mother as Honor rather than Horace!

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?

Taranaki 1860

Tonight's monthly meeting of our local Genealogy Society is "Here is the news", with members encouraged to bring items that have caught their attention from our historical newspapers, online at PapersPast.
This prompted me to not only find the references to my 2*great grandfather being imprisoned for refusing to let his wife be evacuated from Taranaki to Nelson, but also to see what other background may be available about this particular incident at the time of what are now known as the Land Wars.

Four newspapers reported the incident:

• The Taranaki Herald (8 Sep 1860)
• The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle (11 Sep 1860)
• Colonist (14 Sep 1860)
• Otago Witness (6 Oct 1860)

Initially I thought that the dates might indicate how fast the news spread around the country, but as both the Nelson Examiner/Chronicle and the Colonist were both Nelson based, those dates were more likely governed by publication dates.

PapersPast tells us that the "Colonist was founded in 1857 by a group of Nelson residents as a means to oppose the dominance of the large landowners of the district. At the time its only opposition was the Nelson Examiner, which the Colonist was largely established to challenge and to provide an alternative voice". Issues appear to have been Tuesdays (11 Sep) and Fridays (14 Sep).

"The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle was the first newspaper published in the South Island. It was established by Charles Elliott (1811-1876) in 1842, within a few weeks of the New Zealand Company settlers arriving in Nelson" and had publication dates around this time of Tues 11th, Wed 12th, Sat 15th, Wed 19th Sep.

PapersPast adds that the "Taranaki Herald was the first newspaper published in Taranaki, with New Plymouth being the last of the early European settlements to get its own newspaper. The paper survived a number of controversies in its early years ... "

Conditions in New Plymouth were becoming crowded as the families were encouraged to move into the town where they could be better protected, and given the date of the following advertisement still being carried in the local paper 6 months later, had been for some time:

The Taranaki Herald of 8th Sep 1860:

WHEREAS it is essentially necessary in the present crowded state of the town that every precaution should be taken to prevent accidents from fire, Notice is hereby given that the penalties imposed under the Municipal Police Ordinance against persons allowing their chimneys to catch fire will be rigidly enforced. And all persons are hereby warned not to light fires out of doors in the town. G. CUTFIELD, Superintendent. New Plymouth, 9th March, 1860.

Also in the same issue was this rather ill-tempered sounding Proclamation by Lieut Colonel R Carey, Deputy Adjutant-General, from New Plymouth Head Quarters:

Can't have the public service being inconvenienced by the local populace now can we!
A bit more background was found in the Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1860 Session I, E-03c (AtoJs, also - selectively - online), which puts a more serious light on affairs - soldiers can be put to better use than protecting women and children.

FURTHER PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE NATIVE INSURRECTION. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE GOVERNOR AND GENERALS GOLD AND PRATT. (IN CONTINUATION OF PAPERS PRESENTED ON THE 4TH SEPTEMBER 1860.)

Item 34 attached is a letter from Major General Pratt CB to the Governor Gore-Brown CB, in which he summarises events since his arrival the month before:

 continuing:

Where did this leave Simon and Jane?
The evacuations to Nelson show up in the Shipping Intelligence columns of the Taranaki Herald where Issue 423, 8 September 1860, Page 2 lists on the White Swan (s.s.) sailing for Nelson under Capt. Wilson on the 6th Sept:

Passengers— Mr and Mrs R. Lethbridge and family, Mr and Mrs S. Howell and family, Mr and Mrs Henry and family, Mr and Mrs Symes and family, Mr and Mrs Pote and family, Mr and Mrs R. Pope and family, Mr and Mrs R. Baker and family, Mrs Fathers and family, Mrs D. Bishop and family, Mrs J. Ward and family, Mrs G. Jordan and family, Mrs T. Hempton and family, Mrs C. Sampson and family, Mrs S. Andrews and family, Mrs Gibbons and family, Mrs Rossiter and family, Mrs G. Giddy and family, Mrs H. H. Wood, Mrs Consins and family, Mrs T. Bayly and family, Mrs J. Colesby and family, Mrs J. Knight and family. Mrs W. Sole and family, Mrs Honnor and family, Mrs Copestake and family, Mrs P. P[ris?]ke and family, Mrs Brooks and family, Mrs H. Turner and family, Mrs Sands, Mrs Brooking and family, Mrs Wollaston, Messrs Gollop, Scott, and Hurlstone.

Further down the page was the first of the reports found mentioning Simon and his partners in crime (it was even stated as treason in a later report, journalistic license I hope):

 After Jane had already left, reports appear in the paper showing that additional support for Simon's actions had been given by the boatmen:

Further reports before and after show some of the impact on those concerned and the support offered from other areas.
The Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIX, Issue 73, 8 September 1860 reports clothing being sent from Wellington to New Plymouth with a subsequent agreement that all women's and children's clothing to be forwarded to Nelson and men's to be retained in New Plymouth, which is reported to curretly hold about 1,200 women and children, 630 of whom are receiving rations, most being scheduled to leave. About 250 had permission to remain.
By Feb 1861 complaints were being voiced about the refugees' treatment by the Government agent, and becoming concerned about facing a Nelson winter (February is currently our hottest month, evidence for climate change, or just worry about the wheels of government ever moving slowly?)

Photo with legs

And it's up and running!

Found that someone had entered my great grandfather George Gibson ("Gibb") ANDREWS onto Geni, and there was a photo attached.
As I don't have one of him, I was rather interested in this, but somehow it didn't look right.
A bit young for my guestimate of the date of the clothes?
So investigations began.
The trail quickly leads back to a large number of MyHeritage trees, all with the same photo - but checking the actual photo, it is labelled William G ANDREWS, and their source was generally "copied from a smartmatch".
Several have now removed the photo agreeing that they'd simply copied it from a smartmatch without checking, but the assumed owner, the one with an actual William G ANDREWS in his tree who had died the same year as Gibb, but in Christchurch, has not yet responded to confirm that his is the original photo.
Jury still out, but I know where my vote lies.

Maternal side DNA

A string of Family Finder results have finally made it through the system, one long shot didn't expand our knowledge of the RUNCIMAN dna that may have been shared with the remote RUNCIMAN/RICHARDSON match we found a while ago, but two of the other tests resulted in matches to explore further, refining which bits survived the inheritance process down from the ANDREWS in particular.
The pic above is of the Family Tree DNA chromosome browser tool and shows my matches with three of my maternal relations with the key showing which surnames may be involved in the resulting matches, the newly received data being from a third cousin once removed whose closest shared ancestors with me are Simon ANDREWS and Jane GIBSON.

Another set of results shows some data shared with my BAIN fourth cousin but that part of my tree is not well represented with FamilyFinder results as yet.

ANDREWS of Martock

The publication of Jane GIBSON yesterday led me to dig out my 20 year old research (mine and others) in/on Martock (Somerset), the haunts of the ANDREWS.
Some of the results may be seen in the new page for The ANDREWS (which bears an uncanny resemblance to the recently introduced one for the DAWEs).
Some year we may find out whether or not the John & Susannah (CULLIFORD) ANDREWS family are related to the suggested tree for my John & Rebekah (WINES) ANDREWS - but I suspect we'll have to resort to Y-DNA testing to do so - direct male line ANDREWS welcome to enrol in the ANDREWS Surname DNA project - but please let know you've done so, as this isn't one of my projects.

Original Docs

In keeping with NY resolutions - my Original Documents subsite has also been updated.
Most people found there are also published elsewhere, but the distinction is that copies of the original documents that merited their inclusion on the site are also available - click on the little camera icons after the events concerned.  Not all the pictures have been appropriately sized for web viewing, there's only so many hours in a day/week/year.
Near the top of most narratives will also be a link back to my main pages for more info, but none of the original files attached.

What prompted this update wasn't actually a New Year's resolution, but the realisation that my two greats grandmother Jane ANDREWS nee GIBSON hadn't been tidied up for publication, and I couldn't resist including the newspaper clippings about her enforced evacuation from New Plymouth to Nelson during the Maori Wars.
What I hadn't realised until now, with the much easier searching of newspapers using Papers Past, that it was Simon who hadn't wanted her to go to Nelson. Back when such finds had to be done the hard way by reading the actual newspapers, or relying on the wonderful journals of Fred Butler in the New Pymouth archives, I'd only found the first of the articles now included.

Devon again

Sally's posting in my Guestbook (28th May) has led to another tangled web of inter-relationships between the Devon families starting with a John BICKLE. His line leads back via MOSES and CREBER to  Elizabeth, daughter of James BARTER.
What the posting didn't state is that Sally's grandfather John A BICKLE married Amy Caroline BOWDEN, which name also seemed a bit familiar.
They were 5th cousins twice removed, as well as 6th cousins once removed, with Amy working back via ANDREWS and WILLCOCKS, to Ann BARTER, daughter of James BARTER (assuming of course the early BARTER research is solid).
My descent from James is from Elizabeth and Ann's brother James of Lower Dittisham.

Resurrecting Robert

Just found that I've prematurely killed off Robert BISHOP, husband of Elizabeth ANDREWS.
Given he was in the Alameda County jail in 1900 and not found (when I last looked) in the 1910 census, I jumped to the conclusion that he had died between 1900 and 1910.

Happenstance involving discussion about Queenie, aka Caroline PERRETT, the 8 year old kidnapped from Lepperton by Maoris in 1874 led me to revisit some of my Taranaki data.
Two of Queenie's siblings married into my extended ANDREWS tree: a sister Sarah became the second wife of Thomas LANGMAN, the first being Sarah, the above Elizabeth's sister; a brother married the daughter of the above Thomas and Sarah (ANDREWS) LANGMAN. A third married a BISHOP, which led to my yet again trying to figure out which, if any, of the Taranaki BISHOP families Robert belonged too - I failed, yet again.

However a general search on ancestry uncovered a Robert BISHOP of the right age in the 1920 Oakland, Alameda Co., California census. With a new, younger, wife Emilia, and a son (Ashton BISHOP) and a married daughter (Eva BROWN) born in New Zealand, previously unknown to me. Also with a convenient John E SAUNDERS in the household as brother-in-law of Robert.

The "BISHOP" son and daughter turned out to be step children of Robert's, being born to George LEECH and Amelia Hamblyn Cudlipp Scone SANDERS in New Zealand, probably in New Plymouth.
Also noted in passing was an Elizabeth Hamblyn Cudlipp Scone SAUNDUS marriage in New Zealand in the same timeframe to a Thomas Green LEECH. Sure enough Elizabeth and Amelia were siblings, emigrating from Devon to Nelson around 1860.

Thomas and Elizabeth LEECHs children seem to be well linked to the WOOD family, and there's also a connection in this lot to Alfred Bayley KIVELL.
All in all, a well tangled set of Taranaki families.

27th: ANDREWS/JULIAN

Cousin Maureen has provided me with an update to the ANDREWS/JULIAN part of the tree. Faced with a heap of JULIAN offspring at Aunt Ruth's 90th birthday party, it was rather apparent that there was a bit of a catch up required on that part of Mum's family.
Few will show up online anywhere as they are all in more recent generations than are published in any of my trees.

31st: Originals revamp

My Originals sub site has been republished to use the newer descendant chart features now available from the program I use to generate these pages from my database (Second Site and TMG respectively).

The actual content has not changed, other than Simon ANDREWS' photo now including a credit to Janice (who provided the photo), this having been missed when I cropped the image for the web, and a few sources citations being tidied to better reflect my current citing practices (I never will finish the umpteen years of clean up needed on my older data).

For the new charts (see lhs menu under Dramatis Personae), have fun trying out the expand/collapse feature to help get a better overall picture of where people fit in relation to others, eg collapse all then click on the + next to the spouse to get just the 1st generation.

Those actually included on the site are highlighted, so a quick scroll down the page will show you those on the tree that you can find more about.

10th: Harrow vs Harlow

It really does pay to check the originals.

Two of the marriages for the ANDREWS line I'm working through at the moment were indexed as being registered in Harlow, Essex, which seemed a tad off the expected area of Harrow, Middlesex.
Eileen assured me the marriages did indeed happen in Harrow, so I checked findmypast to see what they said about them.
fmp did indeed have them both indexed, correctly from the image, as being registered in Harrow, not Harlow.

28th: The rich Andrews relations

A surprise contact a couple of days ago from Eileen has resulted in several updates to the extended ANDREWS tree (which will appear in my World Connect db LornaHenderson in due course).

She is a descendant of Luke, son of John & Tabitha (HUNT) ANDREWS.
I'd never progressed to bringing her particular line right down to present day as I'd hit a stumbling block at Luke's son Hubert, although I had found son Cuthbert heading for Brazil in the 1920s, and prior family information had said he died in Madiera.

With her information, and a bit more digging, the family has now been better documented, including some of the now more readily available information.
Luke apparently made his money as a cheesemaker in London, and returned to his home town to live at Carlton House - which is now a listed building.

The probate index shows his 1916 estate was worth over L2,800, hence the "rich relations" comment.

Start of summer

It's the official start of summer here, and for once the weather knows it. We've been having wonderfully hot, sunny, windless days - no doubt we'll pay the price later with water shortages but for now, enjoyment is all.

So what am I doing sitting inside? Checking (it's too hot out there).
Fool that I am I decided to run an extra check against the data I upload to Rootsweb WorldConnect (ie BDM data on all my relations and their connected people of interest).
Checking for strays, ie those who had become disconnected to their families.
Some are easily fixed by marking their partner for output, others are meaning ongoing research, eg how was Charles Frederick William ANDREWS a grandson to Ambrose Willcock ANDREWS?
This time round I've cracked it by finally finding the family in the 1861 census where they had been hiding in Bristol, under initials instead of forenames, and along the way also identified the "visitor" Charles aged 2 with John and Maria ANDREWS in Tavistock in 1851. He was actually nephew to John.

This activity does mean that I get to re-visit parts of the database that haven't had much attention for quite some time, but also means the WorldConnect db update will be delayed until I've sorted more than the first one on the list of some 115 people!

Heard from Tim in France. Between us we've now solved each other's mysterious Alexander Ewing RUNCIMAN.
I didn't know where the family had disappeared to for the 1871 census, he didn't know who the 17 yr old chap documented as arriving in Sth Africa was.
Haven't yet rechecked to see if I can now find the rest of the family in 1871, but Alexander is now known to have already left Scotland, and obviously not straight for Argentina where he ended up.

Enthusiasm vs accuracy

Contact from an enthusiastic, I presume, "newbie" to this wonderful hobby reminded me of the wisdom enshrined in the GPS.
No not one of those marvellous devices telling you where you are and how to get to where you should be instead, but the Genealogical Proof Standard.
To quote the Board of Certification of Genealogists (American)

"Proof is a fundamental concept in genealogy. In order to merit confidence, each conclusion about an ancestor must have sufficient credibility to be accepted as "proved." Acceptable conclusions, therefore, meet the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS).
The GPS consists of five elements:

* a reasonably exhaustive search;
* complete and accurate source citations;
* analysis and correlation of the collected information;
* resolution of any conflicting evidence; and
* a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.

Perhaps it is too much to ask of an enthusiastic newcomer happily copying data from trees found on the web and claiming relationships to people found there on the flimsiest of "evidence", but even the newest of newcomers should be able to distinguish between the possible and the impossible and do some basic checking, even if it is of other trees.

This little lecture being prompted from someone claiming to be my 7th cousin via the DAWs, stating that the relationship was from her Sampsons back to Philip, and down to my Isaac.
As I've never found any proof of a relationship between the Sampson DAWs of Buckland Monachorum, and my Isaac of Lumburn Mill/Tavistock, I asked what her evidence was for the connection.
None was forthcoming, but as one of the links quoted was for a John DAW b 1742 being married to Sarah MOORE, I smelt a rat in the "conclusions" being drawn.
John and Sarah (MOORE) DAW, are only possible parents for my Isaac (as outlined with doubts, on Isaac's page), and happen to have married in 1744.
A tad precocious for a 1742 birth.
A bit of digging on the other names mentioned led me reasonably quickly to my conclusion that her family was that of Joseph and Jenny (DAWE) DAWE who had family at Meavy before moving to the big smoke of London/Surrey.
That Joseph is highly UNlikely to be the Joseph son of Joseph and grandson of Sampson of Buckland Monachorum as his dates don't match, and most census data gives his birthplace as Cornwall, not that I've definitively identified where in Cornwall as yet (I presume somewhere close to the boundary with Devon as the 1861 census says Berehatton(?), Devon, the rest say Beer, Cornwall).
Regardless of the mis-links, it was an interesting exercise, as all of these families have many connections to mine, and one day, who knows, someone might pop out of the woodwork with all the missing links, with accurate source citations, and dates that gel.

It was also quite interesting seeing what others had for the same "families".
Just looking at two of the culprit trees with John (married to Sarah MOORE) shown as the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (CROSSMAN) DAW of Buckland Monachorum.
Several have John b 1742 marrying Sarah MOORE and Elizabeth REED, but with no dates for Sarah, although most do seem to have Isaac as their son and born 1769/70, so technically possible, if you ignore his siblings born 1745 +.

Another has John b. 1730, marrying Sarah MOORE in 1744, and Elizabeth REED in 1799, and dying in 1814.
Not absolutely impossible, but unlikely to be marrying at 14.

But if you look at the same tree from Sarah's viewpoint, she is shown as marrying two John DAWEs, one 1730-1813, the other 1724-1778, both "marriages" producing an Isaac of about the right dates.
For the record, I believe the 1742 John, son of Joseph and Elizabeth (CROSSMAN) married twice, firstly to my Elizabeth KING, and secondly to Elizabeth REED, with a son from this last marriage marrying Mary ANDREWS, another of my Devon relations.

All in all, quite an entertaining diversion from the real life stuff keeping me from this hobby rather too much at the moment.