Full circle

 I do so love it when thngs come full circle.

In my genealogical world I don't think they can come more full circle than this.

My starting point for this journey into family history was a set of inherited photos that my father showed me. He had inherited them from his aunt, my Great Aunt Nellie. He showed it to me and wondered who they were.

Off I set on this journey, not having stopped yet. That was in the early 1970s.

Amongst the photos was one of two ladies sitting outside an ivy-clad stone house in a rather stiff pose having a cuppa.

The scrawl underneath I eventually deciphered as "Aunts Isobel Clarke and (Jane?) Middlemas. Edinburgh" These two ladies would therefore be two of my Great Aunt Nellie's mother Helen Sinton WIGHT's sisters.

Over the years I have tried to trace all lines down from great granny Helen's siblings but had not managed to find any living in present day for Jane, or Isobel. My last concerted effort was a while ago now, probably 10 years or more.

And up one popped in my Ancestry DNA ThruLine hints!

Need to upload to GEDMatch; One thing leads to another

Helen popped up in my Ancestry DNA matches, with sufficient of her tree attached for me to believe that the DNA match could be accounted for by our believed to be shared Peter SINTON and Jeanie WIGHT who married at Southdean, Roxburghshire in 1806.  See #1.

Thanks to that bit of activity on an update on the family of Peter and Jeanie's daughter Margaret (I hadn't followed Margaret's grandson John down beyond the 1881 census until now, so Helen was a very pleasant surprise) I took another look around some of the rest of Peter and Jeanie's family - who don't appear often in baptism records.
Which led me to review the family of Elspeth/Euphemia SINTON who married Robert SLATER/SLATTER/SCLAITER/SCLATTER, fisherman of Lessudden.
An 1855 birth cert. of a son Thomas had helpfully indicated that their eldest son James, born about 1845 was still alive in 1855 but I'd never found hide nor hair of him beyond the 1861 census.
Mind you it was quite some years ago since I'd looked. So many more online records these days!
Still couldn't find him obvious in any Scottish census records, nor those further afield easily available on Ancestry.
So I turned my attention to the children of his brother Robert.
Popping Elspeth Sinton SLATER into a census search to find her beyond the 1891 I already had wasn't any more successful this time - but did result in an entry in the National Probate Index in 1926 in London with the surprising information that she died, single, in Dublin.
What's more, the administration was granted to one James SLATER, retired engineer.
Surely that was going to be her uncle? Missing in action beyond 1861?
Who has now subsequently been found in the 1911 census in Dublin North at the same address as Elspeth's normal residence at the time of her death.
James was shown as a widower, marine engineer born Scotland, religion Free Church of Scotland.
In the household was an unmarried sister-in-law Mary MILLS, also born Scotland, Free Church.
Which was enough to find James' marriage to Jessie MILLS in Hawick in 1869 - usual residence for James was already Dublin, occupation engine fitter.
Next mission, find out if James and Jessie had any children.

#1: the dangers of Ancestry DNA and their refusal to supply a chromosome browser.
Thankfully Helen did upload to GEDMatch where the actual DNA match details could be compared.
The relationship between Margaret (married Robert AINSLIE) to Peter and Jeanie (WIGHT) SINTON has yet to be proven by DNA as at 4C1R we didn't get the luck of the draw for a provable segment of shared SINTON/WIGHT DNA.
The larger of our two segments turns out to be a longer ago bit of DNA and somewhere back up a different line of my ancestry - this one:
http://surnames.lornahen.com/tng/lh/dnagrp17p036.php
and an unknown line of Helen's. 
The smaller bit, at only 7cM, is too small, untriangulated with anything else as yet, so inconclusive as to ancestry.

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 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.

One thing always leads to another

This trail started with an enquiry from someone helping an adoptee find her family.
What could I tell them about her DNA match with x?

It led to my extending the family tree of the match back up one of the lines I don't share with him.
Which, surprisingly, led me from Andes, Delaware, New York, back to WHITSONs on the Scottish Borders.
Which, of course, led to my wondering if they were related to the Alexander WHITSON of the Muirhouselaw Tile Works who married Elizabeth Richardson WIGHT my 2* great aunt, ie sister of my great grandmother Helen Sinton WIGHT.
Which led me to have a quick look around the family to see if there were any unsolved mysteries while I was there.

Yes.
What happened to Elizabeth Jane Sinton WHITSON aka SOUTAR who married Industrial Chemist David McLaren PAUL?

Her birth had been a mystery, given her first appearance was as a daughter in a SOUTAR family but no matching birth.
That was solved once I realized that she wasn't actually born as Elizabeth Jane Sinton SOUTAR, but as WHITSON, but brought up by her mother's sister after her mother's death in childbirth.

Her death had also been a mystery - until tonight.
It was presumed to be between David's marriage to her, and his subsequent marriage to Ivy Elsie POVOAS in 1945.
It was not found in Scotland, nor easily recognised in the English Death Index (David was working in Worcester when they married in 1916) last time I checked.
Tonight I did another search of English deaths.

FindMyPast now includes records from the Manchester Crematorium, and there she was
"In December 1940 as the result of enemy action of 30 Wellington Road Whalley Range Elizabeth J. Soutar the dear wife of David M. PAUL. Service Manchester Crematorium this day (Friday) at 2.30pm (Manchester Guardian Fri 27 Dec 1940)"

With the knowledge that at that time her name was considered to be Elizabeth Soutar PAUL, there she also was in the death index as Elizabeth S PAUL, registered 1940 Qtr 4 Manchester, aged 56.

Which led to research on the Manchester Christmas Blitz of 1940, including:
A site dedicated to the Greater Manchester Blitz Victims, any of who being listed on the Commonwealth War Graves site, although civilians, including Elizabeth
http://www.greatermanchesterblitzvictims.co.uk/index.php?sold_id=s%3A12%3A%221126%2Cvictims%22%3B&letter=P&soldier=Paul&district_id=

An eyewitness account from a lad who lived through it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/82/a2078282.shtml

Unseen images of the Manchester Christmas Blitz from the Telegraph

A chronology of the attack, which understandably, gets less detailed as events progressed and probably rather hard to keep up with events.

This map shows the sites (interactive on the Manchester Evening News website) which doesn't actually include Elizabeth, so I added the arrow to show her address.

I do admit to wondering if that bomb had David's name on it, given his occupation in 1911 "technical chemist, explosives manufacturer"

Lessons:
Never give up.
Get sidetracked, you never know where it will lead :)
Don't dismiss apparently irrelevant sources! (I would never have thought of searching the Commonwealth War Graves for Elizabeth.)

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.

Sidetracking

An update to my WorldConnect db LornaHenderson has been in train for a wee while now.
Anytime I run a check over the gedcom for potential problems I find either silly typos, outright mistakes, or gaps in the data that can be easily filled. Sidetracks always ensue.
The most recent proved a very interesting exercise.
It highlighted that I'd never found, or more accurately thought I'd never found, the family of Robert & Janet (SCOTT) WIGHT in the 1851 census. Wrong!
I'd found them years ago, but had shelved the id as I hadn't known anything about sons William and James, and the George with them was the wrong age. Nothing had led me back to review this isolated family sitting in my database.
So off I set to find the fate of the "newfound" children.

Several trees showed William as emigrating to Ohio and living in Iowa, married to a Mary SIMINS.
As his nephew William had indeed emigrated to Ohio, and been visited there by my 2*great grandmother, this seemed plausible, especially as the 1860 Ohio census age fitted.
I couldn't find a marriage to confirm the id, nor the birth of first daughter Margaret, supposedly born Edinburgh Feb 1854.
Subesquent census data, and William's death notice however all placed him as 10 years older and doubts began to creep in, so I moved William and Mary and family to show up (next update) in the WorldConnect potential rellies only (db LornaPotential) pending more info, and moved on to siblings Isabella and James.
With no sightings in the 1861 census I wondered if they might  not have survived - which may never have been able to be proven if it was between 1851 and the beginning of civil registration in 1855.
Thankfully for me, not so thankfully for the poor family, there were Isabella and James, both dying of typhus in Coldstream with a few months of each other, aged 4 and 17 respectively.
On a hunch, I then also searched for William - bingo. He had been the first of the family to succumb to typhus, aged 21, in February 1855 - so whoever the chap is in Ohio/Iowa aint him.

Always interested to find trees that match mine rather exactly, and note that my rethinks/subsequent research on who links to whom that I've documented aren't reflected on what look like copied data. (The earlier WIGHTs rethink refers.)

Have you considered...

FamilyTree DNA have announced another good round of test discounts.
Details available on the DNASurnames project diary where the list of projects I have an interest in may also be found.
Direct male line descendants of my DAWE, WIGHT, & FAMILTON lines are particularly wanted.
Happy to explain how this is a painless, harmless process that will enhance our knowledge of the families concerned - contact details in footers of most pages.
We've had great successes with the RUNCIMAN and FAIRBAIRN projects.
Some links that may help explain dna testing for genealogy can be found on my Lorna Genie site.

Robert & Jane (WIGHT) SINTON

An email from Morley asking if I could quantify the rumoured connection between the families of Elizabeth MABON, whose son John married Jane ELLIOT, and the SINTONs, Jane ELLIOT's sister Betsy having married William son of Robert & Jane (WIGHT) SINTON.
This SINTON family had children baptized in Ancrum, ROX before emigrating to Beauharnois County, Quebec around 1831.
It had been rather a long time since I last looked at this SINTON family, well before easier access to census data online.
Haven't answered his question, but have updated my knowledge of the family, and realised that they weren't included on my SINTONs page - now remedied,with more updates on the chart included yet to come.
Should any SINTON descendants read this, please pop along to the SINTON Surname DNA project to join it and see if there's any connection to my SINTONs!

More twigs

Republished the WIGHT descendant chart to incorporate a few more of the twigs Harry has been feeding me in the last few days.
Also revamped the charts on the RUNCIMAN page as they were not yet in the new more interactive format.
This latter activity was prompted by some RUNCIMAN research where I stumbled across a family in Liverpool who tracked back to the line of William of Crail, and may, or may not, explain the mysterious Richard buried in Buenos Aires.

RootsWeb

It has been a while since I updated the version of my pages on RootsWeb Freepages!
They still had the older version of the WIGHT family tree tracking back to Jennet SWORD instead of Margaret HOUD.
All remedied. Even had a bit of a theme change, and for a brief space of time is slightly ahead of my main site, Big Brother.

More STEPHENSONs

Murphy's Law no doubt states that the minute you do an update more information springs to life, or you find something wrong.
And if Murphy didn't say it, I will.
"Big Brother" has been reloaded with a few more WIGHT/STEPHENSON twigs, including a few more placeholders for the Australian branch that we'd love to hear from now that we know they exist!

One thing leads to another

Continuing the recent activity from the WIGHT/THOMSON review led Harry to recheck for more of his WIGHT/STEPHENSONs, and of course I got sidetracked onto them as well.
Both of us were surprised to find another child, or possibly 2, in the family of William STEVENSON and Agnes RAMAGE, having found "mother", Mrs STEVENSON, living with a previously unknown son Thomas, and his brother William, in Selkirk in 1901 (bit lucky that, she died in 1901).
Thomas pre-dated her marriage to hubby William and shows up on FamilySearch Scotland Births and Baptisms as Thomas RAMAGE and was brought up by a William & Eliza BEATTIE as both adopted son, and nephew (my unchecked assumption is that Eliza might be Agnes' sister).
William however  was born Melrose, in Dec 1872 to William and Agnes (RAMAGE) STEVENSON, as William Robert STEVENSON.
But having found him in 1891 and 1901 he then disappears.
A tree on ancestry provided a hint that a chap of the right age, but no parents provided, had a daughter Margaret Hamilton STEVENSON who married in Australia (Ian Murray THOMSON - no obvious connection to the THOMSONs of recent activity, being of Fife origins) in 1932, and provided death dates, but no places, for William and his wife Agnes Hamilton nee GRIEVE.

Still haven't found their emigration records, but William and Agnes (GRIEVE) STEVENSON were in Geelong by at least 1924.

So, that little mystery is well on the way to being solved, which leaves the fate of William Snr's sister Sarah.....

My main web pages have been updated to include the above in the WIGHT tree (and possibly the RUNCIMAN and FAMILTON ones, depending on how many generations down we've got to by now).

One of the changes is a overdue replacement of my paternal ancestors and siblings chart. I noticed the other day that it still showed my older thoughts on how the Bowden WIGHT tree looked (refered to here).
The other change is to the home page for Big Brother - it now includes a summary of the last 5 posts from this blog - thanks to an update to the program I use to generate the webpages from my TMG database, SecondSite.

Hopton, Millfield et al

Contact from Helen set me off on a THOMSON update. She had noted William THOMSON of Hopton in my database and wondered what connection he was to me.
A first quick look showed that he was included because he, and his second cousin, had both married into my RUNCIMAN family. But the mention of Hopton reminded me of the bunch of THOMSONs buried at Maxton, very close to my WIGHTs (who had THOMSON connections), so I did a bit more digging. I'd not touched these latter THOMSONs for 20 years - what an amazing amount of information is now so much more readily available.
Additional info on the assorted THOMSON headstone families was found, and the above William THOMSON also connected in. Contact with Harry about this activity unearthed his 20 yr old photos of the headstones concerned:

Places associated with these farming THOMSONs inlcude Reperlaw (Raplaw, Replaw), Millfield, Hopton (Hobton) and Over Roxburgh.
The other headstone with this lot was that of an Adam, farmer at Rutherford, but born Fogo, whose father appears to have farmed at Bogend, not as yet known to be connected - anyone researching this lot?
During this, I did convince myself that the James THOMSON married to Janet FAIRBAIRN of Yarlside was a grandson of Thomas & Helen (SCOTT) THOMSON of Millfield. (See Fairbairn Surname DNA Project for further info, and the Borders Family History Society Journal of Oct 2010 for an article on a Thomson reunion)
As a result of all of this activity, my WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been updated to include some of these families, as one day, we may be able to connect them up to my Bowden/Maxton THOMSONs. The update also includes a few more LIDDLE twigs found recently.
While fossicking around on Millfield and Hopton I happened across some interesting House of Commons papers, Volume 14 which included the 1837 Report of the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence on Fictitious Votes (Scotland). This is online at google books and has several lists of tenants, joint or single, together with some land transaction sasines. Andrew THOMSON and brother Walter were both listed as tenants at Millfield in 1832.

20th: Ahhh Jim lad

Harry drew my attention to another article in the Scotsman, this time one claiming that Jim HAWKINS of "Kidnapped" fame was based on a real life chap married to a Margaret WIGHT of Jedburgh.
Yes, there was a Margaret HAWKINS nee WIGHT living in Bristo Place in Edinburgh, and yes she was born in Jedburgh (dtr of William WIGHT, millwright, and Janet RUSSELL, William being the son of Robert WIGHT and Janet BRACK, who married 1777 in Melrose), no immediately obvious connection to our WIGHTs.
Hubby Jim HAWKINS must have made quite a lasting impression on the people quoted, as by my calcs, and searches, Kidnapped was published 1886, and Jim doesn't appear with Margaret in any census, Edinburgh or otherwise, starting from 1841 when she is at home in Jedburgh with her sisters, and two daughters (born Kelso and Ancrum), and showing up in Edinburgh from 1851 (but not at Bristo Place yet).

Revamp

SecondSite, the program I use to generate my web pages from my Genealogy database (TMG), has come out with some interesting new features.
It was a good time to review bits of my main website.
As always, when testing, I find things that are missing, have incorrect links etc etc, so a few of those have been tidied up, some snippets added to timelines and so on.

However, the main change will be added gradually as I review all the charts.

What is now possible, is to produce a dynamic descendant chart that can be expanded/collapsed to help you get the feel for where the person of interest on the chart "fits".
I've defaulted them to "open collapsed", so that the initial view you will see is that of your person of interest, and their relationship to the subject of the chart they appear on, but you can then either open/close individual branches, or nip up to the top of the chart and expand or collapse the whole chart.
I started with the FAIRBAIRN chart for my Archibald, but several others have already been converted.
One thing that was always missing from the existing descendant charts was the spouse at the lowest level of the chart. These now show.
In addition there's an alternate view of a pedigree chart with much the same expand/collapse dynamic view, but instead of being presented in the more normal flying geese formation, this one shows the parents immediately beneath each ancestor on the chart, AND has the ability to show where a person has more than one set of "parents", eg adoptive parents, foster parents, or simply alternates from research where conclusions have not yet been reached.
As yet there's only one of these charts available, and that's my own pedigree on the charts page of my main web site, but it is highly likely that this will be used in the One Name Study pages, where alternates exist on where someone "fits".

Quite apart from the above changes, there may well be some extra snippets on the GRAHAM chart from the branch in Sth Australia (see posting in my Guestbook, 12 Jan), and one or two more snippets on the WIGHT branch in Sunderland, the family of Hector Cowans GRAY and Elizabeth WIGHT on the WIGHT chart, but whether or not anything appears there depends on how many generations down the tree the changes are, as the charts may cut off a generation or two too early.

At last

Now that 2011 is well under way, I'm finally catching up on bits of 2010.
My LornaHenderson database on WorldConnect has had a long overdue update.
Not completely sure what all has changed since the last update (last August), but I do know that I've finally finished checking off the DAW updates Val sent, plus some work on the related families who connect.
This time round (last attempt was 2002) I managed to confirm David's son Thomas' death - ancestry had him indexed as DAN, not DAW, and I've still not managed to find the registration on FindMyPast.
Also managed to reduce the number of "orphans" in the db down to 45. "Orphan" merely means I know the people concerned are related, but not really how.
Never did solve how Elizabeth GRAY was a granddaughter of Hector GRAY and Elizabeth WIGHT, but did manage to extend my knowledge of the latter's family somewhat - adding in some DAVISON, BISSETT, FOSTER/FORSTER & ATKINSON surnames into the family, confirming some earlier suspicions of who married whom, mostly all in Sunderland, Durham.

Keeping it in the family *2

A last ditch attempt to see if I could any WIGHT descendants willing to join the WIGHT Surname DNA project before the good discounts run out at the end of the month (year) saw me seeing if I could update the family of this George WIGHT, whom, back then in 2005, I could not find beyond 1891.
Still can't find him in 1901, but have found his wife and children, all in Southampton, and think I can spot likely death registrations, in Southampton, for George and Helen/Ellen Ann WIGHT in 1904 and 1905 respectively.

The keeping it in the family references of the title apply to:
1) his grandson Harold Leslie WIGHT because he seems to have married both a Doris N and an Eileen Mary HAYNES, relationship unknown, but both from Southampton, and of an age to be siblings (born 1908 and 1911 respectively).
2) George's son Robert and Robert's son George - were found as crew on the same ship to New York in 1920, Robert as 45, Ship's cook, George as 20, Asst Cook;

So, George's coffee house in 1891 must have sparked off a family business or two.
Son Robert has a restaurant in Southampton in 1901, dtr Jennie has married a Manager of a cocoa shop by 1901.
By 1911 Robert is no longer running a restaurant as he is shown as a ship's cook (mercantile).
Think I also spotted the said Harold as an entree cook on another voyage to New York.

With the WIGHT DNA project now having at least two Borders lines represented, it would be good to get my Border WIGHTs into the project, along with the other WIGHT tree that is heavily inter-twined, that of John & Ann (MIDDLEMAS) WIGHT - or any others for that matter.
Some outline trees are available on the Patriarchs page of the project.

Apart from the above, I'm still plugging away at resolving the "orphans" before I do the next update to my WorldConnect db LornaHenderson, that and working thru some DAW updates Val sent a while ago, together with trying to piece together the likely trees from the latest Fairbairn DNA project results (should be some more interesting ones of those coming up about February as three more trees should be represented by then, and one more branch of the RUNCIMANs).

2nd: WIGHTs

The fledgling WIGHT DNA project may soon be able to report two Scottish Borders/Lothians lineages, as we now have a new member, one from a family tracking back to Longformacus. Wish I could find a willing participant for my own lot.
Has to be a direct male line WIGHT for these sorts of tests - non invasive, no blood, can be completely anonymous if you wish.
Check out the project diary, and get in touch if you think you are eligible and/or can help - preferably before the discounts finish at the end of December!

25th: How many POVOAS wives? An explosive mix

Cousin Harry shared a certificate with me as he thought I'd be interested in the FAIRBAIRN on it (as well as one of our mutual WIGHTs).
After processing it I checked the third birth on the page and realised that is was for another of our WIGHT relations, the birth of Elizabeth Jane WHITSON, dtr of Elizabeth WIGHT.
I already knew that her mother had died in childbirth with Elizabeth, and that she was brought up by her aunt, Margaret SOUTAR nee WIGHT, and went by the surname SOUTAR as a result.
However, I'd never figured out what happened to her after her marriage to David McLaren PAUL, so thought it time to have another look around.
I still cannot, as yet, find Elizabeth's death, but have now found David's, which was a bit of a surprise.
The informant for his death (in Glasgow) being his "sister-in-law" Helen E L BROWN of Edinburgh. This was the same Helen who was witness to David's marriage to Elizaabeth WHITSON or SOUTAR, her sister by adoption. Which all seemed fit and proper, and understandable enough.
Then I further investigated the scribble for David's wives and realised that the second, which I'd skipped over on first reading, was an Ivy Elsie POVOAS or SOUTAR.
Way too much of a coincidence that Ivy Elsie was a POVOAS, as Helen E L BROWN nee SOUTARs brother Charles William SOUTAR had married a Helen POVOAS, or so his death notice in the Scotsman had told me.
I'd never found hide nor hair of the existence of a Helen POVOAS, anywhere, although there was at least one family of them in Hackney, but no Helen.
Spurred on by this, and the more general availability of records on the internet these days, I have now found Charles' marriage to Ivy Elsie POVOAS (Manchester, 1927).
So Helen BROWN nee SOUTAR was sister-in-law twice over.
Interested to note that David McLaren PAUL's occupation of technical chemist (as per his 1916 marriage cert.) was translated somewhat more fully in the now available 1911 census.
It gives him as a technical chemist, but adds he was a worker for "explosives manufact."