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

GRAHAMs of Cumberland (ENG) and Virginia (USA)

On the DNA lists, posts sometimes bemoan the lack of participants with UK ancestry, as, it has to be admitted, a lot of the test takers do indeed appear to have what is called deep US ancestry.

Which needs a lot of luck (translates to hard work) to determine where your match might be.

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

Contact with both matches and examination of the shared trees made that relationship seem a tad optimistic, but we fairly quickly homed in on a particular GRAHAM family of Overton, TN (1820s+) via Augusta/Botetourt, VA (1750ish).

The progenitors were likely to have arrived by at least 1720, possibly via Delaware, from either Ireland or Cumberland, England or Canonbie, Dumfries-shire, Scotland  [...take your pick from a variety of trees here..].

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

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

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

It would be great to explore further, so I would love to hear from any distant cousin in my tree who  shares my GRAHAM ancestral line to see what else we may learn.

Any descendants of Stephen GRAHAM and Jane BATY of Arthuret who might be interested? 
Say someone down from Andrew GRAHAM and Jane MOFFET,  Andrew's brother William, or sister Mary's son David?

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

I'm in heavy research catch up here to see which of the GRAHAM families in the areas involved are actually connected to each other, given trees online can be ever so slightly contradictory, so help would be apprectated.
It does look like dna might be able to help sort some of those tangles out.

-----

* a segment of DNA that has passed down unchanged through rather more generations than is usual

Inching backward

Knowledge of my mysterious Clinton/Parker ancestors has increased.
Analysis of FamilyFinder results just in for a 3rd cousin shows the following dna segments represent Clinton/Parker (or earlier ancestral lines) dna.

The FamilyFinder results don't show any others helpfully overlapping the above kits at the same points, so we aren't that much further ahead yet in finding previously unknown relations who can help figure out where William CLINTON came from, or any further hints about Jemima PARKER.

GEDMatch results yet to be explored.

Anyone else claiming descent from William and Jemima would be MOST welcome to add to our sum of knowledge.
Order a FamilyFinder kit*, and join the autosomal DNA project FFLornaHen!

* using this link to order gives WikiTree something towards their wonderful free collaborative tree.

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.

WorldConnect - BDM data

The next of my updates to my assorted online sites was to be to my WorldConnect database LornaPotential, ie those people I've researched as possibly related.
BUT using  my normal link, that on my web pages sidebar, in Firefox, I was taken to a general ancestry search form for the public member trees.
A bit of digging in the ancestry forums led to this thread which explains that there is a problem, that is browser dependent.
For me, FireFox doesn't work to access http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ but chrome does (I don't have Internet Explorer loaded, so haven't checked that).

I'm guessing that this is related to the browser issues that stopped many of us from accessing the source images - the images being covered by big orange bordered boxes with assorted messages that stopped you seeing the actual image.
Switching browsers sometimes worked, sometimes not, as did a forced refresh of the page (Firefox hold shift and hit F5). That has now been resolved, at least for me.

All that aside, LornaPotential has now been refreshed.
Many that were in this database have now been transferred into my main database LornaHenderson (to be updated next).
LornaHenderson database contains basic BDM data on all my researched relations AND their connections. Everyone in there, with about 50 exceptions, can be navigated to/from someone who is related to me and mine.
LornaPotential database contains those I've researched because of potential connections.
Increasingly this latter category includes the lines of dna matches that look most likely to be where the connection lies.
If you are a descendant of anyone in either database I'd love to hear from you, particularly if you have the missing links, or further information AND/OR would be willing to explore potential connections by using an appropriate genetic genealogy test, such as FamilyFinder.
Some of the people mentioned will have a personal page on my webpages with further information.

Focus!

One of the reasons touted for using genetic genealogy aka DNA testing is to focus attention on lines that match.
Well that's the theory anyway.
For Y-DNA, a mismatch when a match was expected just tends to make me want to explore further.
For FamilyFinder I keep straying off to try and figure out the unfigurable, but having a lot of fun in the process.

This post is prompted by a set of FamilyFinder results from Harry, a 4th cousin.
They clearly show the expected relationship to my 2nd cousin (his 4th) at a predicted "2nd to 4th cousin level", but I only show up as a predicted 5th to remote cousin.
Such is the randomness of atDNA.
Our shared papertrail traces back to the Scottish Borders from my paternal great grandmother Helen Sinton WIGHT.

But wait there's more.
My match is actually not from the known paternal side of our shared ancestry - other than some small segments shared between the three of us under the FamilyTree DNA radar, but can be spotted when comparing raw data on GedMatch.

Harry also shows up as a 5th to remote match to my maternal first cousin, her mother, and our aunt. All of whose ancestry, bar one line from Cumberland, is very firmly Devon/Somerset. None being known areas for his ancestry.
Closer examination shows that this is not coincidental as yes, each match each other, as do I, at the same part of chromosome 11 (along with some smaller segments).
I can feel myself being drawn off my current investigations (GRAY of Caithness - again) to explore further, even though I know in my heart of hearts that we'll probably not find the link.

As a result of this, a page dedicated to my Cumberland ancestry has been added to my webpages.

If you have taken a FamilyFinder test and match Lorna, Harry, Jillian, Grace or Ruth on Chromosome 11, please consider joining the FFLornaHen project on FamilyTree DNA so we can explore this further!

SCOTTs of Stapleton?

I'd like to say that a DNA FamilyFinder match has meant a breakthrough on a brick wall, but in this case, merely a re-examination of one.
A friend and fellow researcher's brother popped up as a DNA match to me!
The only really likely looking match on their pedigree was their ancestor Margaret SCOTT of Kirklinton. Born within 10 years and miles of my Eleanor SCOTT.
The records for neither have proven very forthcoming to date.
However the review did mean, as I've explained on Eleanor's page, that her birth date has been revised and my knowledge of the SCOTTs in the area has grown a bit more.
Should any other descendants of Eleanor or Margaret care to see if they also match to add further evidence for or against this suggested relationship, do please order a FamilyFinder test.