Richardsons of Morebattle

As explained on my  RICHARDSONs of Morebattle page, we are exploring a (very small) subset of the overall RICHARDSON Surname DNA project to tease out connections between the lines listed, and any others that come along, using both Y-DNA and autosomal DNA.

Our knowledge of the y-DNA of one of the lines has just increased by an upgrade from 37 to 67 markers, and the RICHARDSON results page of the DNASurnames Lineages site, has been updated.

Only two tests are now at 67 markers however but at least the representative from the RICHARDSONs of Eckford, and that of William the Dancing Master, are only minimally further apart.
At 37 markers they were at a genetic distance of 5 (GD5), which included 4 faster moving markers, so only distantly related.
At 67 markers that became GD6 by the addition of one more slow moving marker.
So still only rather distantly related - FamilyTree DNA's Time Predictor gives only a 71% probability of a common ancestory within 16 generations.

Jury still out, from lack of sufficient information on whether or not the Dancing Master belongs to James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON as we can't compare apples with apples, they could be a minimum of GD1, or at most, GD7 apart (one tested with the now defunct ancestry yDNA test, the other with FamilyTree DNA).

Chromosome map update

Inspired by the GRAHAM dna story over the last two posts (and finally figuring out an easier way to produce the formatted data required), here's the current state of own chromosome maps.
I don't yet know whether any traces of this GRAHAM dna can be detected in my own genes (as opposed to my maternal aunts') as not all of those involved have uploaded to GEDMatch, yet, for the smaller segments to be checked.

The links to the respective surnames involved are to one of WikiTree's wonderful DNA features.
Just some of the more distant lines identified are added as labels on this post.

Paternal side map, ie my Dad's HENDERSON and DAVIDSON ancestry (Surnames involved):

Maternal side map, ie my Mum's ANDREWS and ROWE ancestry (Surnames involved):

Quite a few empty spots to go yet, not sure I'll live long enough to fill in all the gaps.

Can my rellies count?

Poor Jane Ellen/Eleanor/Ellise MAIN previously BURT nee RICHARDSON.
She seems to have had what looks like a chequered past, and when it came time to fill in the 1911 census had to think rather hard how to answer the questions:

• completed years of present marriage
• number of children born alive to present marriage.

Let's see, shall I put 3 or 4 years?
We'll try 3, but woops, I'm going to declare all four of the children living with me, so maybe I'd better put 4? But that's not really right, better cross that out and put 3 again.
As to the children, let's start with three, they're the ones that Thomas claims as his, so that should be alright? No, I'm going to say 4.

At least her life wasn't further complicated in this census with the presence of her son Henry RICHARDSON, who first appears as grandchild of Alexander & Isabella (ARMSTRONG) RICHARDSON in the 1891 census, aged 1.
He next appears in the 1901 census as Henry BURT aged 11, son of Jane E BURT, widow, along with his 2 year old sister Bella, and Jane's sister Bella (who enabled me to identify this family).
Jane Eleanor RICHARDSON was found marrying James BURT in 1894, but seems to have lost him by 1901.
I was lucky to find her in 1911.  Thankfully daughter Bella kept her original name, so appeared with Thomas and Jane E MAIN as Bella BURT, step daughter of Thomas.

With these ages, and the  3 or 4 years of marriage supposedly completed Jane's marriage to Thomas was easily enough found in 1908, but the birth of Jane Ellen Burt MAIN was unlikely to have been registered as MAIN. Sure enough, she had been indexed as BURT, but back in 1906.

And the questions sound so simple on the surface.

Still haven't found many of Jane's siblings in 1901 or 1911.
Jane's entry on WorldConnect will be expanded next upload.

How well do you know your cousin?

Better than one of mine does possibly?
I recently uploaded a branch of the RICHARDSONs to WikiTree, three generations down from John & Elizabeth (SHIEL) RICHARDSON, and let the small group of interested parties know it was there in case they wanted to use WikiTree's excellent privacy and trust controls to connect themselves up to their ancestors.
One of them emailed me with some updates, which were duly incorporated into my own database. 
I thanked her, commenting that her dates differed in a couple of instances. 
“No my cousin’s birthday is definitely 20th October.” 
The next day, another email arrived. “I’ve just checked with my mother and found I’ve been sending my cousin her birthday card a day late my entire adult life. She’s going to be rather surprised when I finally get it right for her 50th birthday.”
Gave us both a good chuckle for the day.

Theory blown

Ah well, win some lose some, or in this case, lose one, win some.
My  recently created RICHARDSON page outlined my theory that  the James who married Margaret MABON, and was widowed in 1812, went on to marry Christian OUTERSON and emigrate to Quebec.
A descendant of James & Margaret has popped out of the woodwork and shared his DNA results (many thanks).
These have been converted, where possible, to match our existing FamilyTree DNA results and now appear on the RICHARDSON page at DNA Surnames.
They make it look unlikely that we are talking about the same James here.

The "win" in the equation however is that we now have three matching Border RICHARDSON trees!
Exactly where they connect however remains to be seen.

Three trees down, how many others to go?

Richardsons of Morebattle

Still investigating the Richardsons of Morebattle.
The descendant chart for James & Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON has a few more twigs on it - anyone out there researching the family?

My Beautiful Chromosomes ...

... with apologies to the author of My Beautiful Genome.
Ralph's Family Finder results have arrived as an early xmas present for us both, and show that a small genetic segment of our shared ancestry back at Robert RICHARDSON and Margaret RUNCIMAN has indeed made it down through the generations unscathed to Ralph, me, and to my HENDERSON 2nd cousin who shares his WIGHT/RICHARDSON/RUNCIMAN ancestry with me.
Regardless of whether we can assign this to the RICHARDSON or the RUNCIMAN ancestry, it is a good confirmation that the Scottish naming pattern sometimes works, as that was how I found Robert & Margaret (RUNCIMAN) RICHARDSON all those years ago.
Here's an update to the earlier picture of my chromosome - restricted just to my paternal side's matches this time:

3rd daughter identified

John has cracked the puzzle as to who the third surviving daughter was for James, tailor of Hamilton Bermuda and wife May MOFFAT.
He is working his way through James' 1879 will, which names the daughters, providing Naomi LEE as the missing one, presumably married to executor "son-in-law: George Andrews LEE.
Back to the Rootsweb Bermuda website and the family of Robert LEE & Mary McPHEE for more info.
Naomi's surname isn't mentioned, but it does show George Andrews LEE's first wife as Clarinda Darling FRITH, daughter of Hezekiah FRITH and Mary MATSON.
So Clarinda's brother Hezekiah FRITH married Naomi's elder sister Catherine Hadden Moffat RICHARDSON - keeping things in the family.
A quick search of Genealogy Bank newspapers adds a few snippets as to Naomi's life in New York, whence she had emigrated by 1875ish.  A custody battle for her McDONALD grandchildren, orphaned by the death of their mother (Ada Julia Alicia McDONALD nee LEE) in 1894 makes several column inches in several papers.
My Richardson page has been updated as the charts should now include one or two other twigs, both from the above, and from assorted digging around trying to find living descendants from the families listed, and that of James & Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON in particular.

Morebattle ctd

My RICHARDSON page has been updated to include a couple more descendant charts, and a slightly updated timeline (including one or two date ranges for some families to show when their children were being baptized at Morebattle).
As I continue digging around on Borders RICHARDSONs I come across families I've looked at before, some had already been included in my LornaPotential database for many years.
So, if they had a Morebattle connection, or a connection to those that do, they've now been included on the RICHARDSON page. Might help someone!

What about Jasper?

The Morebattle RICHARDSONs continue to spread their tentacles.
Something drew me to a RICHARDSON/CAIRNS headstone at Denholm and I decided to investigate a little further.
Sure enough, John RICHARDSON led me back to Morebattle, albeit via Selkirk (his birthplace) and Ancrum (father Jasper's), Jasper's parents being John RICHARDSON and Janet INGLES or INGRAM, depending on which records you believe, or whether or not John remarried to a Janet of the same age and birthplace but a different surname.
John being shown as born Morebattle or Eckford, again depending on which records you believe, the son of Jasper RICHARDSON & Mary HOPE.
The family of Thomas and Cecilia (YOUNG) RICHARDSON will be added to my RICHARDSON page. They do appear to have more connections to Southdean than to Morebattle, but inter-relate to several other families, so my research may as well show up somewhere!

And Henry too?

The growing RICHARDSON page has been updated to include the family of Henry and Ann (PRESTON) RICHARDSON, where Henry appears to track back to James RICHARDSON & Isabel PRINGLE of Over Roxburgh.
Henry and Ann were also eschewing the established curch for the Morebattle Gateshaw sessions around the same time as James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON, and had emigrated to Quebec by 1832, as had James and Christian (OUTERSON) RICHARDSON, which James may, or may not, be one and the same.

Usual plea - any direct male RICHARDSON of Henry and Ann out there interested enough in their family history who would be willing to join the RICHARDSON DNA project to see if there's a match to John and Ralph?

Also added to the page is a timeline of relevant events to the above RICHARDSON families against the lifespans of some of the main characters. Suggestions of significant events to be added welcome.

With all this RICHARDSON activity, especially the repeating use of Andrew as a family name, and the extension from Morebattle to Roxburgh, the family of Andrew and Mary (WATSON) RICHARDSON also came back into view. They've been lurking in my database LornaPotential for many years as this tree inter-connects many times over with assorted lines in mine. So a brief descendant list for them as been added as well - the connection to the above being Roxburgh rather than Morebattle however, with Crailing thrown in.

Cracked it!

Patience, perseverance, and not believing what we've been told - or at least interpreting it less literally, given that the Sth side of the St Lawrence river would have been/is rather close to St Lawrence County in New York State.
Adam Brown RICHARDSON's census data all indicated he was born in New York around 1835.
The recent flurry of activity trying to connect him to the Bermuda RICHARDSON family that turned out to be that of James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON was inconclusive, but there is a growing body of circumstantial evidence of a connection - my theory being that James remarried, to Christian OUTERSON.
Who has finally been found to be Adam's mother.
A very big thank you to those behind the indexes on the Huntingdon County and the Seigniories of Chateauguay and Beauharnois website.
I was actually looking for anything that provided evidence for the age of James, Christian's husband, that may add even more fuel to my theory of this being his second marriage, and had turned my attention to Quebec, given that their son Robert's bio stated that he had emigrated at age 6 to Quebec, and taken part in the Patriot War of Canada at aged 16-17.
Still pinning my hopes on a heads of household census of 1841 for Chateauguay, but as there's also a James shown as being buried in 1840, I'm not holding my breath.
 

WorldConnect updated

A fresh copy of the WorldConnect database LornaHenderson, the online tree of BDM data on the rellies no longer with us, and their connections,  has been uploaded.
Last updated in April, so a few months of updates.
Although not proven to be a connection, some of the Morebattle RICHARDSON research from the last few days has also been included in the hope of flushing some descendants out of the woodwork.

While onto updates, database LornaPotential has also had a rather overdue review.
Several people have been shifted into the above Lorna Henderson database as they are now either know to be relations, or connect to people who are, others have been dropped off. There's more that can be reviewed given the timespan since last review (last updated March 2010!), and the fact that 50 of them are "orphans", ie not connected to anyone else in the database, but pegged as of potential interest, mostly as possible sightings of one or other of the rellies.

I'm almost convinced

But have I convinced anyone else?
Some additional circumstantial evidence for the theory of the the two James families, that of James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON, and that of James & Christian (OUTERSON) RICHARDSON being one and the same James:
-  George (mother MABON) also emigrated to the States and is to be found in Omro, Winnebago, Wisconsin in 1860 three census pages before his presumed step-brother Robert who has his mother Christian (OUTERSON) living with him.
- George 's wife is Margaret MELDRUM
- David, George's assumed step brother names his daughter Ella Meldrum RICHARDSON
- a snippet view of "New Brunswick Lineages" on google books brought to my attention by John shows James as 1770 (Edinburgh) -1850 (Lower Canada) - which age makes it highly likely that he remarried (Christian was born around 1796)
So, just maybe John's Adam, born 1835 New York, belongs to James and Christian? This is only 3 years after their last known Scottish son was born.
All pure speculation of course, but even though there isn't, yet, a proven dna signature for James' line(s), we do still have a Bermuda, and a New York connection.

Love to hear from any direct male line RICHARDSON descendants of the above families who might like to explore this further.

Speculation rife

Couldn't quite give up on the RICHARDSONs.
Went back to my 2008 notes from the Morebattle Gateshaw session records to see if there might be a re-marriage of the widowed James, whose wife Margaret MABON had died in childbirth in 1812.
Although 8 years seems a little too long to wait to get a mother to his bairns, the family of James and Christian (OUTERSON) RICHARDSON came back into view. There's nothing on the 1820 Eckford marriage entry that indicates James was a widower, just that he was from Morebattle.
I'd never managed to find traces of them in Scottish censuses.
Spurred on by reminding myself that they had a son named Archibald Moffat RICHARDSON (Morebattle, 1832), I widened the net to the States.
An Archibald Moffat name is just too much of a coincidence given the Bermuda James' wife Mary MOFFATT, and her father Archibald MOFFATT.

Son Robert pops up in Winnebago Co., Wisconsin by 1850, stating he was born in Canada! Later censuses correct that back to Scotland, with 1900 adding an emigration date of 1841, and the 1860 having (mother assumed) Christy RICHARDSON, aged 64, born Scotland with the family.
His two subsequent remarriage indexes, between them, show his parents as James RICHARDSON and Christiana "OTTASUS" !
The mistranscriptions of OUTERSON abound, but that one takes the cake.

With the hint of Canada being somehow significant the net got wider.
Up popped son Andrew, with (assumed mother) Christian in the Quebec household in 1881.
Andrew thought he had emigrated in 1837.
One family tree has decided that Christian was born in Yorkshire (census records both indicated Scotland) - but as the Bermuda James married and had one child in Leeds, this may have been a bit of lingering family misinformation?

Another tree claims David for the James/Christian family but I haven't yet verified that one, other than yes, he's the right age, and of more than passing interest, is to be found in Oneida county, New York in one census - where Thomas of Bermuda settled. Well, the same county anyway, Thomas was at Trenton, David at Deerfield - which appear to be about 12 miles apart.

Just maybe, one day we'll find that John's Adam, born 1835 in New York, does belong to James of Morebattle after all, but the father not the son?  He's only 3 years after Archibald Moffat RICHARDSON was born in Morebattle to Christian.

The difference an s makes

Back to the drawing board.
Having gone from the Bermuda Triangle to the Pirates of the Caribbean*, John has reviewed the information that led us to examine the family of James & Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON of Morebattle, descendants in Bermuda, Canada and the States - at least.

His relationship has been relegated to one by marriage as it was the granddaughter of James RICHARDSON, tailor in Bermuda, that was the connection, not her husband William Meade RICHARDSON, sometime photographer of Bermuda, later of Wisconsin (Mrs W M RICHARDSON, not Mr W M RICHARDSON).

However, Ralph's and my interest remain because of the Morebattle Gateshaw session connection.

The newly uploaded Richardson page on my family tree pages has been updated to reflect this change.

* The Pirates reference being that James' daughter Catherine Haddon Moffatt RICHARDSON married Hezekiah FRITH, grandson of the pirate.

RICHARDSONs

Spurred on by the recent RICHARDSON finding, the RICHARDSONs have been promoted to having a page of their own on my main webpages
It includes the chart of William RICHARDSON of Pringlestead's descendants that was already present, but William is now joined by charts of the families of James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON and William, the dancing master, or at least some of them.
Not all of the descendants found in the records have been entered.
Reviewing my notes from the Morebattle Gateshaw Session records I can spot several other RICHARDSON families that I noted in passing.  These will now get a closer scrutiny!

Bermuda!

Some time ago we found a dna match between Ralph and John RICHARDSON.
John's family knowledge started in New York with the birth of an Adam in 1835, but without any knowledge of his parents.
John has been back in touch, having found a snippet that indicates Adam father was a James, tailor, who emigrated to Bermuda with a brother (also a tailor, unnamed, but probably Thomas as his Oneida death is reported in a Bermuda paper and states the relationship to James ).

So, the prior suggestion that his family might be Adam and Margaret (BROWN) RICHARDSON has taken a new turn of events.

James' 1879 obit. brings in a brother John of North Georgetown, and a sister Mrs Samuel MOFFAT of Beechridge, (Beauharnais, Quebec), which most definitely leads to the family of James RICHARDSON & Margaret MABON of Morebattle.
When reading the Gateshaw Session records I had noted this family as being of potential interest, so it just goes to show that all little snippets squirrelled away usually come in handy sooner or later!

John is now on a hunt to definitively link his Adam to James, but there is indeed circumstantial evidence in that he did know that Adam's three sons had a photography studio in Bermuda before returning to their birthplace of Wisconsin.
And I've found that Thomas, a tailor, died 1880 in Oneida, NY, had a son William Thomas, or Thomas William, born Bermuda around 1850, who was a photographer.

Investigations proceed. 

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.

Adam RICHARDSON, Chester music instrument dealer

Recently found what happened to Adam son of John & Ann (BLAIR) RICHARDSON, and ordered his will, thinking he would mention a heap of his nieces and nephews, given he was apparently childless.
Hope the blighter gave the solicitor a good family tree as he hedged his bets and left his estate  "in trust for the person or persons who at my death under the Statues for the distribution of the personal effects of intestates would be entitled to my personal estate on my death intestate such persons if more than one to take in the proportion prescribed by the same statues". A heir hunter's dream.

Which led, of course, to yet another check to see if this time round, the fate of more of them might be found.

One mystery was Adam's brother Robert, married Margaret Dodds CLEUCH in Edinburgh in 1870, son John born about 1872, no hide nor hair after 1881 in Scotland - but where did they go?

Much more success this time round, one Margaret Dodds RICHARDSON popped up on ancestry in the, wait for it, New Zealand Electoral Rolls - and sure enough, she was at the same address as a Robert RICHARDSON, clerk.
So yet another branch of the RICHARDSONs in New Zealand.
Looks like Margaret died in 1905 and Robert in 1917.

There's also a John Blair RICHARDSON in Canterbury, who seems to have married a Violet WALKER in 1895, and died in NZ in 1940.
BLAIR is Robert's mother's name, so it looks like son John has also been found. John's burial record on the Christchurch City Council Cemeteries database shows him as aged 68, born Edinburgh, and having been in NZ 57 years. QED.