MANSONs of Caithness anyone?

Have had another great find from DNA testing this week.
Although I do suspect that at least part of it was under my nose, un-analysed from a while ago.

One of my larger matches on 23andme shared genomes, ie we can now see the details of where we match.
Turned out to be at a spot I already knew about two other, smaller, matches and had got as far as determining that we shared some unknown ancestor back up my father's side somewhere.
Needle in haystack.
But the haystack has just got quite a lot smaller.
It is looking far more likely to be my Caithness ancestral lines.

Although none of these matches were on GEDMatch where we could compare across all three companies, one had helpfully tested on both 23andme and on FamilyTreeDNA.
Where I could see that he matched not only myself, but also the late David FINLAYSON, and David's 1C1R who shares his James COGHILL and Isabella WATERS (married 1873 Dunnet, Caithness) as their most recent common ancestors.

But did I also match David there? Not according to FamilyTreeDNA.

Back to the wonderful GEDMatch to see if there was a match below the matching thresholds FTDNA apply. Yes, just below the FTDNA threshold, two segments, totalling 17cM in all, one right where I wanted it to be.

I don't, to my knowledge, have any known COGHILL or WATERS direct ancestry, but we all do have MANSON families - who doesn't if your ancestors come from Caithness? Not that I can see any immediate connection, but somewhere, somewhen, there is a common ancestor who gave us that shared bit of dna on chromosome 13.

My known MANSON ancestry is more from Watten, tiny bit further south than Olrig/Dunnet etc.

Love to hear from anyone with any of the above MANSONs in their ancestry, particularly if you've ventured into DNA testing for genealogy so we can share research and genetics, and hopefully begin to pinpoint which family lines are involved.

Pity that it didn't show up as David's paternal side as we had always considered that our FINLAYSONs just might be related, just back from the beginning of parish records in Bower.
Looks to be a bit far for atDNA to prove, even with the inter-related Caithness families ensuring dna survival beyond the normal expected inheritance probabilities down the generations.

My RootsWeb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson will be updated shortly to include the relevant bits of the above pedigrees, or more accurately, the one or two missing linkages to connect up people already there, as many of David's "cousins" married my "cousins",  in Caithness, Australia, and New Zealand.

Must be 4 or 5 years since ...

Somehow my McADIE branch always seems to get attention every 4 or 5 years.
Time's up.
I've been having fun checking out loose ends, merging duplicates in my database and seeing what else might now be around to identify who belongs to whom.
Only some 140 without an identified family to go (if I don't add more strays whilst digging)!

Along the way I have managed to finally connect up the James, married to Isabella BRUCE, living in Victoria (AUS) as definitely being the son of George & Elizabeth (ROSIE) McADIE.
As he was living "near"  Robert, who would be his brother,  it seemed likely, but now the proof has been found.
As were the necessary dots  to join up the Western Australian branch who had moved there from Victoria.

Need to figure out who William in Ararat  in 1874 is now - is he another brother? Or is their brother William the Customs Officer in London?
Or does he belong to Donald & Janet (MURRAY) McADIE, at least one of whose sons was also in Victoria (AUS)?

This time round I'm trying harder to find others who may be interested enough to help find direct male line McADIEs interested enough in the jigsaw to represent their line in the McADIE (and variants, which are legion) Surname DNA project to prove that all those lines from Watten are indeed closely related, even if we wont necessarily learn exactly how. Some of the other Caithness lines have descendant charts on my McADIE page (still under development).
Any direct male line McADIEs out there interested in seeing if they're a match to the representatives so far?
Failing a direct line male, how about a descendant willing to try a Family Finder test to see if we get a match to those of us who have tested?
Love to hear from you - see any of the above pages for contact info.

Third time lucky

I should have gone back to basics with Ellen Maud SKEWES. Instead, I compounded a problem.
No wonder I couldn't find her in 1901.
The Henry James H SIMMONS marrying in the 1894 qtr must have married the other bride.
Alan set me straight, pointing out he'd been told she married a Walter Hammond NALL.
Sure enough, he was the other groom that qtr.
Still took me a while to find them in 1901. Failed completely using findmypast census searches, but eventually found them on ancestry indexed as RALL (correction lodged) at Bere Alston.
Walter was a Congregational Minister from Sheffield, and they appear to have one dtr Edna Doris, who may or may not have been known as Doris (tentative id in 1911 census).

Check out the McADIE DNA Project Diary for some activity re assorted Watten pedigrees.