Lurking in (almost) plain sight

Revisiting my John Davidson Brickwall.

The descendant list of my 2* great grandfather, John Davidson has grown rather unexpectedly lately and this growth prompted this renewed attention on John's mysterious parents.

Despite the best efforts of transcribers of records planting confusion, I believe I have finally found the origins of his mother, the mysterious Ann Collins. 

And as a result am highly likely to have found how a set of interlinked, DNA matches connect to myself and several cousins.

Any time I reviewed John's origins over the many years he has been in my tree, I could not usually even chip at this brickwall.
But thanks to the above, a bit of lateral thinking and some quick research to overcome the transcription errors and confusions thrown in the way, there in plain sight, sits the family of "Ann Collins", mother of my 2* great grandfather, John Davidson.

Moral of the story: follow the DNA, review past info in light of current knowledge and think outside the square - a bit further - with surnames! 

On this page:

• What did we know of his origins?
• What were the DNA matches telling me?
• What changed the situation?
• One of the more interesting potholes along the way

What did we know of John's origins?

Census and other data consistently places him as born about 1817 at Chirnside, Berwickshire.

His 1901 death certificate clearly states that his mother was an Ann Collins, deceased. Which surname always seemed un-Scottish to me.
A friend, distant relative and one of my longest genealogy correspondents responded to that comment by advising that Collin was common in the fishing village of Eyemouth.
(George F. Black's "The SURNAMES Of Scotland" does not list it at all.)

Father's name was blank on the death cert., but he is assumed to be a Davidson, and no Davidson/Collins marriage was obvious.

He and Agnes Fairbairn's marriage is recorded in the Chirnside OPR, Agnes being "of Edrom parish".

As John was a hind, they moved around a lot, children popping up in assorted parish registers, some such parishes including earlier children already baptized in other parishes, in their own registers when the next was baptized. Which latter habit seems to have upset the FamilySearch indexers somewhat as I cannot currently verify their indexes of the Edrom OPR which index shows an 1838 Adam in the family.

All I can find in Edrom is a mention of Adam and Agnes and a couple of other children, with their birth places but no dates, tagged on after an obvious catch up entry in the Edrom register for both Mary and Walter, which page contains a range of dates from 1827 to 1852 in no particular order.
I became rather excited about the possibility of an earlier Adam as a good hint to John's father's name but all in all, have concluded, for now at least, that the 1838 Adam is a indexer's phantom.

What were the DNA matches telling me?

My Davidson ancestry is a blank slate ending at this 1817 John. It's not a prolific line. I (thought I) was the only living descendant of John's son Adam Davidson.  So no 1st cousins, no 2nd cousins, living or dead and very few tested 3rd cousins down from those few of Adam's siblings who had children, and no known 4th cousins at all to positively assign matches to.

A new close-ish match on Ancestry back in March 2022 drew my attention back to a set of mystery matches I've had since 2017, all around the 2nd-3rd cousin-ish range, and only one with a tree and who had responded to contact, but we were both puzzled, as there was no obvious connection.
The only possibility, by coincidence of place, was a Cooper lass born in Dunedin in 1879.
In that time frame my great grandfather Adam Davidson was the only one of the whole extended Fairbairn family even in the frame, having arrived in Dunedin a couple of years previously.  
Shared matches had definitely indicated connections to my 3*great Walter Fairbairn & Agnes Robison line cousins along with a fair clutch of yet more distant cousins from back up the Fairbairn ancestry (Robison is another more or less closed book, one that I've not spent time on, and such cousins would be at closest in the 5th and more cousins range of shared DNA).
Along with closer connections to my few tested 3rd cousins, sharing my 2* great grandparents John Davidson & Agnes Fairbairn and the strongest connections being to myself.
Plus a small cluster of more distant matches that didn't appear to share any of the Fairbairn DNA.

The new 2022 match had a tree - with the same 1879 lass born in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand, and yes they were cousins, along with my strongest mystery match (103cMs) who had never answered messages from Ancestry but is now confirmed as another of their cousins.

From my side of this my great grandfather Adam was still the only candidate in the whole worldwide Fairbairn / Davidson tree that fitted the DNA match strengths and was the only candidate even in New Zealand, let alone in  Dunedin, where he had arrived a year or so prior to the birth of this lass.
Her mother's legal husband was ruled out of contention, being held at Her Majesty's dis-pleasure for a considerable time during and either side of the whole conception/birth process. 

With the set of unexpected half 2nd cousins and half 2C1R, in the mix there was a lot more data on shared matches, which most definitely helped this review.
But only on Ancestry.
Rather more of my assorted cousins tested at FTDNA, way before Ancestry offered their autosomal test, many no longer around to re-test.
Happenstance to the rescue.
A cousin of these matches, on their Cooper side, sent me extracts of a family book on the Coopers.
I was looking for a descendant of the legitimate branch of the family to test to help convince them of my hypothesis. Any Cooper descendants should not be a match to me or my cousins and their matches to the Cooper should be half the expected full cousin strength.

I used the data I wanted, went to file the scans and source the data, thinking it was time I checked who actually compiled the extensive family tree for my sourcing - and nearly fell out of my chair.
The author was one of my longer term, but very intermittent, correspondents about some common interests on the Scottish Borders! No known connection to the Davidson / Fairbairn lines, at least not close ones.
As I knew he was interested in DNA, why hadn't he shown up in matches?   
It didn't take me long to remember that a couple of years ago I'd tried to convince him that he should venture into autosomal testing as well, as he had only been exploring yDNA, running a surname project for his surname at FTDNA.
To say he was sceptical of my theory would be an understatement, but with the arrival of his results a few short 3 weeks later he was beginning to see it just possibly could have merit, with myself as his closest match on his FamilyFinder upgrade.

The time had come to sort out Ann Collins.

What else changed the situation?

Back to checking where the non-Fairbairn shared matches might fit with more data in the mix.

I'd previously identified from these latter matches that there was a mystery DNA connection to several Colvin family members whose trees intersected back at a James Colvin and Ann Kerr (or Carr) who married at Dunse in 1820, with the matches coming from at least two lines down from James and Ann.
But how did we connect to them?

Reviewing what point I'd reached last time round on John Davidson's matches, I asked the ever helpful ScottishIndexes FaceBook Group for their thoughts about the "phantom" 1838 Adam mentioned above.

And got to thinking further about John's mysterious mother, "Ann Collins".
A recheck of the death certificate did show it was clearly written as Collins and could not, by any stretch of imagination, be interpreted any other way, however much I now wanted it to be Colvin or Colvine.

Then I then went off to do some more research on the Colvin(e) families and get more of them documented on WikiTree to see what additional connections and DNA potential cousins might pop out as a result. (If interested in what WikiTree can do to help you, check out Roberta Estes' recent blog post on WikiTree)

This time round on the FamilySearch tree I was presented with a potential duplicate set of parents for  the James Colvin who married Ann Kerr.

James' 1799 baptism in Dunse shows him as the son of a James Colvin and Ann Porteus. 

The suggested duplicate family were that of a James Collan and Ann Portes, baptizing a daughter Ann in Dunse in 1792.

How old had I'd estimated John's mother might be? Born around 1795 give or take.

Collins? Colvin? Collan? Seems like a good possibility to me.

Was this wishful thinking on my part?

Working my way down several lines of descendants I found that it was not at all uncommon to find assorted family members recorded as any of these, indiscriminately over several different points in time. 

These suggested duplicates have now been merged into the one family on FamilySearch, and WikiTree updated with more of the family basics.

Of course, any problem solved raises more.

Can we figure out who John's father was?
The Colvin family do seem to have a habit of marrying assorted Davidsons, over in Roxburghshire rather than Berwickshire.

With a bit more digging I might find yet another clue or two hiding in plain sight.

One of the interesting potholes along the way:

Surname, parents, and residence of James & Ann when son James baptized 

I think I'll go with the a combination of the two from my own transcription of the original shown above from ScotlandsPeople.

The two OPR references on FindMyPast refer to both the original entry and to what looks like a index of an index from the parish register, so at any point in those two indexes the errors could have crept in.

I cannot validate that a place called Dunsdarels exists but assume it was someone's attempt at the original shown here of "Dunse and Ann" - the curly looking e of Dunse that looks out of character with the others on the page having been determined by the helpful & knowledgeable people on the ScottishIndexes Facebook page as bleed through from the back of the page,.

Moral:

Always find and check an original 

Paternal side DNA mapping progress (lack thereof) snapshot

Decided to stop work on the DNA matches temporarily and produce a snapshot of DNA segments (10cMs and above) identifiable as being Paternal (see embedded WikiTree Widget below for Dad's pedigree) and able to be allocated to a grandparent, or not as the case may be (see the Chromosome Map Key).

Way too many grey spaces as yet!

Update: I forgot to add the "why".
By identifying as finely as possible where each bit of my dna comes from, it gets much easier to slot new matches into place.
Those of them matching at a spot that therefore looks to be a hint to a brickwall ancestor is then a prime target for further investigation as to how our trees may connect, and/or for any commonality between the trees of the matches at that spot for further leads on the connections.

The prime paternal brickwall ancestors:
Archibald HENDERSON blacksmith at the Bridge of Allan married 1804 to Margaret McEWAN from the Drip Moss, Kincardine by Doune
Amelia MILLAR, born Kippen, Stirlingshire about 1815, mother supposedly Miss CHRYSTAL
John DAVIDSON born Chirnside, Berwickshire about 1817 mother Ann COLLINS .

Some day I'd also like to find out more about:
Jane WIGHT's WIGHT side, Jane being the wife of Peter SINTON
Ann ROBINSON, mother of Walter FAIRBAIRN

Click on the image to enlarge, and check below for an interactive pedigree overview linked to WikiTree

 Looks like I need to recruit more cousins back up from my paternal grandmother Agnes Manson DAVIDSON - ie my Caithness BAIN and MANSON etc lines, or more FAIRBAIRN/DAVIDSONs, where the latter are in rather short supply.
Good sale on at FamilyTreeDNA until the end of the month - give yourself, and me, a Christmas present-  FamilyFinder down to $59US - any takers?

Paternal Grandfather Archibald HENDERSON:

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Paternal Grandmother Agnes Manson DAVIDSON:

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

How far have I got?

New year, review time.
Thought it was time to produce some chromosome map snapshots and remind myself why I'm having all this fun (and frustration).
The following illustrates the match coverage on my 23 pairs of chromosomes that has been identified as to which side of my ancestry the match "fits" - maternal or paternal.

The predominance of the pink over the blue makes it rather obvious that I do not have any close living paternal relatives available to test. My two maternal aunts still alive (both in their 90s) have however done their bit to humour their niece, and seem to attract the lion's share of the matches.

Why am I doing this?
To break down, or at least chip, several brickwalls.
Have I succeeded?
Not a lot as yet, but then I never really make time to stop and analyse the gaps in the above and then focus on the matches that have to be related to the ancestors that are causing this descendant so many problems tracking where they came from.

Who are they?
Archibald HENDERSON, a blacksmith at the Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire.
Where did he come from?
Y-DNA testing has as yet not produced any matches, atDNA has thrown up some intriguing matches that may well lead somewhere eventually.
Amelia MILLAR, mother supposedly a Miss CHRYSTAL. From Kippen in Stirlingshire.
We do have a fascinating match with a family that includes both MILLARs and CHRYSTALs but we need to confirm that this is the line that the matching DNA comes from.
Any descendants of David MILLAR and Elizabeth CHRYSTAL out there willing to try their luck to see if we can prove that.
Jane GIBSON, born Somerset, mother supposedly a Jane GIBSON. Where did she come from?
Although we have a reasonable amount of identified DNA segments from Simon ANDREWS an Jane GIBSON, we don't currently know which bits come from the ANDREWS side and which from the GIBSON side. Any descendants of Simon's siblings out there and willing to test to see what we can learn?
John DAVIDSON, born Chirnside, Berwickshire to an Ann COLLINS. Whereas we have quite a bit of FAIRBAIRN DNA identified from John's wife, specific DAVIDSON segments are hard to identify. Any descendants of any of John's children tested? The New Zealand contingent is fully represented - me, unless others ended up here, as I'm the last living descendant of Adam. His brother James and sister Helen had no known children.
Not forgetting the potential Irish connections of:
William AUSTIN who mysteriously disappeared in Australia presumably before his wife/widow married her ship's captain saying she was single with no former children (so much for my great grandmother who was nearly 2 by then!). My only hope here is to be able to identify more of the DNA inherited from the CLINTON/PARKER side of the family, so I would love to hear from any descendants of William CLINTON and Jemima PARKER who may be intrigued enough to help out here.
William CLINTON above. Someone must know where he came from.

The above are the problem ancestors that stop me completing the rows of ancestors at 3* and 4* great grandparents, the "lines of 32 and 64".
But until then I will continue having fun contacting and working with matches, forming triangulated groups that share an ancestor somewhere/when and seeing where that leads.

With kits either in process or en route to the lab several other theories may well be dis/proven, so there's always something fun to do.

Love to hear from you if any of the above look familiar, especially if you hold the key to the puzzle.

The atDNA tests involved here are either that offered by Ancestry DNA - provided you then upload your resulting raw data file to at least GEDMatch.com (free, donations accepted) and also preferably FamilyTreeDNA ($39US to transfer the file from Ancestry) - or simply directly with FamilyTreeDNA using their FamilyFinder test.
(I've currently gone off using 23andme, their website has been "in transition" for weeks and isn't that useable at the moment, with no current signs of improvement)

If a descendant of any of the above and you do end up on FamilyTreeDNA, do apply to join my autosomal DNA project there, FFLornaHen.

Look forward to making 2016 the year the breakthroughs happen - with YOUR help.

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.

Under my nose

Solved one of my long standing mysteries today.
Joan who shares an interest in my FAIRBAIRN family of Walter and Grace (ARMSTRONG) FAIRBAIRN of Tinnishall, Canonbie, popped out of the woodwork again to share an 1891 letter from Grace to her nephew, John LITTLE.
She had mentioned it a year or so ago, and back then my efforts at solving the mystery of what happened to Walter and Grace's son William had continued as a brick wall.

The letter explicitly mentioned where Grace's family were on 6th March 1891, including William, whom I had not found beyond the 1851 census when he was at home with Walter and Grace as William FAIRBAIRN, 5, son, born Canonbie.
So he had survived.

How hard can it be to find a William FAIRBAIRN, florist in Hampshire in the 1891 census of 4 April when his mother had mentioned him on the 6th of March? But no, still no sightings 1861 to 1911, Scotland or England.

The answer was right under my nose all along of course.

As his birth had preceded Walter and Grace's marriage by a couple of years, I went looking for births of William's in Canonbie to mother Grace ARMSTRONG.
Two presented themselves in the right timeframes.
One was with Andrew DAVIDSON, but that family included children back to when Grace would have been only 12.
The other was a William born 1845 to William WHITE and Grace ARMSTRONG, no other children obvious.

Off to ScotlandsPeople to see what the baptism actually said.
Only to find that they showed that I'd already viewed the record!
Perhaps I'd gotten sidetracked back whenever, and simply forgotten I'd checked that, or possibly checked and discarded but not noted anything in my records?
Nope.
All was explained when the page was re-examined.
The page was headed 1855.
Three baptisms with Grace as the mother were all on the same page, the first WHITE, William born Jun 1845, baptized Mar 1845, to William WHITE and Grace, the next two, both FAIRBAIRN, Agnes and Margaret to Walter FAIRBAIRN and Grace.
I'd only ever looked at the FAIRBAIRN entries I was initially interested in and not looked up the page!

Yes, now easily viewed in 1871 (gardener at Capenoch, Dumfries), 1881 (gardener at Mortlake, Surrey with wife Helen), and 1891 there he was in Havant, Hants as a florist, all as William WHITE.

Still missing in action in 1861.

Likely rellies

My WorldConnect Database LornaPotential has been updated.
As mentioned earlier, it now includes some of the families being investigated because they've come up in  more than one of my FamilyFinder DNA matches.

Of particular curiousity at the moment is the family of Andrew SMEAL/SMAIL and Ann OLIVER (married 1751, Bowden, Roxburghshire) as they have come up several times amongst my matches.
Unfortunately all matches tested  on Ancestry, not FamilyTreeDNA, and only one of the matches has uploaded to GEDMatch where further dna comparisons can be made to explore further, rather than believing Ancestry's "trust us we know what we're doing" policy.

Another is the family of John HOOD and Janet LINDORES who may lead to some DAVIDSON discoveries?

If you are a descendant of any of the families found in LornaPotential, and at all interested in exploring genetic genealogy, by all means join in the fun and try a FamilyFinder test to see what we would learn about our (possible) connections.
There's a great discount going at the moment - until midnight on the 17th June, EST.

Chromosome map update

The above is an update on my earlier Chromosome picture, but using a more comprehensive tool, thanks to Kitty Cooper's ChromosomeMapper.
The reason for this update is the small orange segment of dna on chromosome 15, a newly detected, triangulated match* between myself, two maternal aunts and Richard, my 6th cousin once removed.
I and the aunts descend from Elizabeth ALGAR and Richard PEEK, Richard descends from Elizabeth's brother Samuel ALGAR of Yealmpton, Devon.
Their parents, Samuel ALGAR & Sarah LOWRY married in 1720, at Yealmpton.

There aren't quite as many unmapped areas as all the grey indicates on the above, I've simply left off the match segments from the very close relations where there is insufficient information on matches to enable segments to be tied to specific earlier ancestors.

To identify more of the grey bits, and thus help break through some of the brick walls, I would particularly love to hear from descendants of the following of my ancestral lines who may be interested in exploring their genetic heritage, and thus help pinpoint where some of the many  matches "fit":
- William CLINTON & Jemima PARKER
- Robert TURNBULL & Eleanor SCOTT
- Andrew GRAHAM & Jane GRAHAM
- William BATY & Sarah BATY
- John DAVIDSON & Agnes FAIRBAIRN
Check out my FamilyFinder project FFLornaHen, and the FAQs about FamilyTree DNA's  FamilyFinder test, and if willing to help, please contact me (details on footer of most of my webpages)

* for an explanation on mapping and triangulation, see this article in Roberta Estes' DNAeXplained blog

STEVENSONs of Hokitika

Not sure how I ended up in the ADDISON/STEVENSON part of my database, but having done so, it looked time for an update.
Several births, deaths, and marriages have now been confirmed, spouses correctly named, one or two descendants names, and the wonderful cemetery database resource of the Westland District Council has been found.
My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has already started an update process so this version wont contain any data from the newly found Hokitika headstone photos on the above site, but does contain many updates to the family.
They descend from Margaret FAIRBAIRN and Joseph BROOMFIELD via their daughter Agnes whose photo in an inherited album opened up a whole new line of research, so many years ago.  She looked far too well dressed to be one of my relatives, but no, she was indeed, as labelled in the album, my great grandfather Adam DAVIDSON's cousin. 

LornaHen.com

Thought it was time to update a few of my webpages. The main family tree website, "big brother", has been fully reloaded. A lot of the entries in the Recent Changes index are merely tidy-ups to do with links to/from the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN One Name Study and DNA projects, with some exceptions. Many updates will only be visible in updated descendant charts, eg RUNCIMAN, DAVIDSON and RICHARDSON for the more recent finds. The heads of the Michigan RUNCIMAN families now have pages of their own, along with their father William. A feedback form has been added - see footer of each page - one day I really must put a captcha challenge on it to stop the spam! The menu items have been slightly rearranged and rationalised. Also updated is the main gateway page. "Lorna's life". It now includes links to assorted other pages explaining the differences between them, plus the latest entries for three of the main genealogy blogs I use to update progress. Lorna's links has had a few tweaks as well, consolidating the backup research logs into yearly files (and catching them up to this more regularly updated blog), adding a few more links to sites I currently use. Even my original family tree site, "little sis" has been reloaded, prompted by the main change to the RUNCIMAN tree. Yet to come, an update to WorldConnect database LornaHenderson (where all the basic BDM data for all the dead rellies and inter-connected people is available) - that's been delayed while I do a check of the "orphans" I was about to upload as I do more research to try and attach them to their family.

Agnes not Isabella & a twofer

While checking off yet more data before publishing yet another update, I strayed back onto my shortest family tree, the DAVIDSONs (that of my great grandfather Adam) and decided to check whether or not I would have more luck pinning a few more twigs down.

Just as I picked a correct death cert. from the options available on ScotlandsPeople, in came an email.

This is a line I've not looked at for at least 3 years, probably more, and many years ago the entire tree consisted of some 30 people until the Australian contingent popped out of the woodwork.
The email was from one of the Australian contingent, a descendant of the sister of the chap whose death I had just found!

Only managed to add about 3 descendants and 2 wives into the tree on two of the lines remaining in Scotland but several more fates have been found, including that of Isabella, daughter of John DAVIDSON and Isabella FORD.  The family story was that Margaret Greig DAVIDSON had emigrated to meet up with her sister, and the sister had been very tentatively identified as Isabella. Now however, with the increasing availability of records, the sister is more likely to be Agnes given there's one of the right age and birthplace emigrating to Queensland towards the end of 1891, especially as Isabella's death was found in Chirnside in 1909 - immediately preceding her aunt Mary JEFFREY nee DAVIDSON's on the same page - so two for the price of one!

5th: More Walters

And yet more FAIRBAIRNs.
The activity on a Walter led me to trip over one of my own Walters, and reminded me that they lived in London for a time.
With the increased availability of London records on Ancestry, it was time to go digging to see if I could now find a few more baptisms, marriages etc.
Which I did, very successfully.
The families of Walter FAIRBAIRN & Elizabeth CHAPPELL and his brother Archibald (married Isabella DAVIDSON) have now had some missing data filled in.
I'm no closer to solving the 1881 census mystery of supposed "son" James to Archibald however.
(1881 Maplin St, Mile End Old Town, James is given as 21, joiner, so to Archibald, who is himself only 33).
So, if anyone has a James joiner they'd like to place in 1881, or a 2 yr old.....

As usual, WorldConnect database LornaHenderson will be updated in due course.

Gateshead to Manitoba, DODDS reviewed

Although I've not renewed my sub to MyHeritage (well it was free for five years from the old GenCircles and now will cost), the tree is still sitting there, searchable.
A side effect of this is that people may still send me emails about matches, but I wont be able to reply (unless they include an email address).
One such arrived today, a Katie asking about her 3*great grandparents William DODDS and Agnes Robertson DAVIDSON of Gateshead.
Up to now I'd not advanced all the family as far as 1901, but spurred on by the knowledge that at least one branch must have produced several more generations, I had another look today.
Still don't know where Katie fits, but do appear to have found that dtr Rosina Hunter DODDS married an ELLIOTT, a descendant of whom has a tree on ancestry; and that the John (who had married a Sarah someone by 1901) and family had all hopped off to Manitoba by 1903.
I've also resurrected father William, he can't be the one of the right age in the death index in 1902 as he's a widower in the 1911 census with son James.
So, Katie, I hope you find this eventually, and contact me from my website as I'd love to know where you do fit into the family.

At least John was a DAVIDSON

Another set of DNA results just in, the representative for my DAVIDSON line of John DAVIDSON of Chirnside, whom I've suspected of being illegitimate given that his 1900 death cert merely gives a mother's name (Ann COLLINS), and no father at all.
At least it does look like he was a DAVIDSON as there a couple of low level matches. Nothing to get excited about unless the matches' upgrade to 67 markers shows a great match, or a paper trail can be worked out to link an 1841 Earsdon, Northumberland DAVISON with presumed Scottish forbears, to my brick wall, John, born abt 1817 Chirnside, Berwickshire.
The DAVIDSON DNA project chap pointed out that our non-Davidson surname matches had a lot of Chisholm's, adding that this would suggest a ancient connection before the advent of surnames. The Chisholm's according to legend saved the life of one of the Scottish kings in the 14th century and were granted land in Inverness-shire. This area in Scotland was also the home of the Davidson Clan or Clan Dhai or MacDaibheid.

John has been my brickwall for many years, and some years ago I decided to see if the story that Nana told her little boy (my Dad Les), that the people living on Conroy's Gully on the back road into Alexandra, with the huge old walnut tree, were our DAVIDSON cousins.
The first part of the story was indeed true, yes a family by the name of DAVIDSON used to live there. Memory has played false with me however, in that I remember that my research led me back to an Aberdeen family, but no, it looks like they were of Muthill, Perthshire instead, with absolutely no obvious connection to John, so Nana was telling porkies.

Looking at the family again today reminded me that the research turned up another connection to the Bounty in that both this DAVIDSON family, and my Great Aunt's husband, Doug FLETCHER, were descendants of the THOMSON family, early settlers in Port Chalmers, Otago, NZ. This THOMSON family leading back to the HEYWOOD family of H.M.S. Bounty fame.

Marriage found; dna*2 day

Ross's hunch, back in 2003, from the 1841/2 Grenville census, that David, son of David and Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN was married earlier than to Charity, looks accurate. At that time the census merely showed how many people of what sex, age and marital status were in the household, and it implied that David and a young wife were in the house, although David and Charity didn't marry until 1845, and her age didn't match that of the other married female in the house besides Jane, David's mother.
While looking for something else, as so often happens, I stumbled upon a marriage in 1841 of a David FAIRBAIRN and Prudential ARNOLD in the Presbyterian Church records in the Drouin colleciton showing they were married at "Grenville, Ottawa" by William MAIR, Minister of Grenville & Chatham, witnesses were John BLAIR and John TOPLAND.
In the same set of records were David and Charity's marriage, and the baptism of their son David.

The FAIRBAIRN DNA project is looking set to examine more closely the "cousin" relationships that have so taxed my brain and genealogical inventiveness. William has joined as a rep. of the line of John A FAIRBAIRN Snr of Stillwater, whose son John A of Hoquiam is the one these relationships were all reported to: Angus s/o the above David and Charity (WALKER) F.; Albert who emigrated from Sunderland to Hoquiam, an unlikely choice about 100 years after John Snr's parents had left Scotland; and Walter to Clarissa.
How I currently see these relationships can probably best be viewed starting at the dna oriented descendant chart for David and Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN, and from the charts listed on William's dna page, not that his results are in yet, as the kit has only just been ordered, patience (not one of my strong points)!

It is obviously a dna day today. We now have a DAVIDSON representative who has been enrolled in the DAVIDSON project (not one of mine), that just might help us break thru the brick wall of finding more about John DAVIDSON. Although I strongly suspect he was the illegitimate son of the mother Ann COLLINS shown on his death cert, his father was more as like a DAVIDSON given the naming conventions of the time.

Aug 11th, 2007

11th: Wight and Sinton charts updated and extended a generation downwards. This was prompted by contact from a person interested in Jane Wight SINTON, who married John MURRAY of Northumblerland, and from a posting in my guestbook by a 3rd cousin down the line of Peter Sinton WIGHT and Jessie Ellen DAVIDSON. Hope some updates to the tree result.
I've also been contacted by an Australian interested in the family of Jacob SPURR. Detals provided were scanty (no place data), but it looks very like Jacob, son of the Joseph who married Elizabeth HANNAFORD, with assorted LILLICRAP connections that may well prove to be inter-connections.
Not that I've finished fiddling with the web pages and tidying things up, but it's quite a relief to get back to the backlog of emails instead of staring at webpages and testing links to see what I forgot to change.

July 4th 2007

4th: Hope you like the new format web pages. It's been great fun reorganising what went were into much more (to me anyway) logical groupings of links and information. They come courtesy of an about to be released new version of Second Site which works with my TMG database.
The Paradise hosted Homepages site likewise has had a makeover.

As to what's actually new: I've included a DAVIDSON chart, and found out a bit more about the Otago RICHARDSON family, enough to make me link James Russell R. in as the son of James and Elizabeth, albeit that there is some confusion over his mother's maiden name: McCULLOCH or PEACOCK.
In the hunt for living relations I am trying to find descendants of the following children/grandchildren of an Ann RICHARDSON, widow of Dunedin who died in Roxburgh in 1931:
Elizabeth Jane CLARK, Joseph R, Isabel SUTHERLAND, George Lancelot R, James R, Eleanor CLARK, Eva WEDDELL, John R, and grandchildren Ronald John R, son of her son John and Pansy PERKINS, dtr of E J CLARK. This being in the hope that they can confirm whether or not this Ann RICHARDSON is nee YUILL or some other unconnected RICHARDSON.