The BATEMAN Family

This photograph may be of use to someone.

It comes from my Nana DAVIDSON's photo album and was labelled by my Aunt Isabel as "The Bateman family  no relations"
Taken at Wrigglesworth & Binns studio in either Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin, but most likely Dunedin.
Further over in the album is a photo of a young man on a bike labelled Ted Bateman, possibly the one on the left above, and even further over, two baby photos labelled Ted and Bert Bateman, another of a young girl labelled Ruby Bateman luxuriating against a fur rug!

A quick search of the NZ BDM Historical indexes indicates they could be three of the children of John Henry BATEMAN and Annie Logan REDPATH, which couple married in 1894.
PapersPast helpfully provides a marriage notice:
MARRIAGES.
Bateman Redpath. On 20th June, at the residence of the bride's mother, Mt. Stuart, by the Rev. Jas. Skinner, M.A., Waitahuna, John Henry Bateman, eldest son of Thomas Henry Bateman, late of Bampton, Oxfordshire, England, to Annie Logan, fourth daughter of the late Thomas Redpath, Mt. Stuart.
(from Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 4116, 7 July 1894, Page 2)
Which does make me rather puzzled as to location at the moment.
Redpath however is a good Borders name, so perhaps Adam DAVIDSON's network of friends includes Annie's family, although by the dates, the friendship seems likely to be a generation closer to present day.

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.

What changing a letter can uncover

Twice in the last month I've had reason to review past research that had come to a full stop.
One because of a contact on WikiTree who had connected up another branch of the FAIRBAIRNs, the other from a post on my guestbook that I've only just noticed.
Both led me to review the families concerned in my database to see what might now be available.

The first made me realise that although a marriage certificate was indexed as HIGGINS, and clearly to me even on a reread, stated the husband of Elizabeth FAIRBAIRN was a Thomas HIGGINS, it was actually WIGGINS.
No wonder I got nowhere trying to find what happened to them after their marriage!
Thank you Bill for uploading data on the WIGGINS - happy to have helped untangle the two related Elizabeths.

The second correction was from bad arithmetic on my part and a blurry certificate.
Carrie May FAIRBAIRN married in Toronto in 1914 to, I interpreted, a Charles D COWIS.
The COWIS instead of COWIE I have an excuse for as it was rather unclear. Marrying him off at 16 instead of 26 when the 26 was clear enough on the cert. however I do not have an excuse for at all.
Again, amazing how people are more easily found when you have a more correct age, and surname.

Time I updated RootsWeb WorldConnect database LornaHenderson methinks.

Clintons or Austins or Parkers for a change

DNA results just in for another descendant of William CLINTON and Jemima PARKER have given us a few more identifiable segments for our chromosome map.

Click to enlarge

This is presented slightly differently to the last two snap shots in that  the common ancestor(s) to blame for the dna still detectable in descendants today is identified as opposed to the initials of the matches.
As some of the matches descend from Emma Parker CLINTON's 1st and some from her 2nd marriage we can specifically identify the dna we've inherited from Emma.
Which will be very handy as more matches arrive at those spots.
I thought that nice long segment on chromosome 18 might bring in a few more matches to explore for some ancestral hints, but no, not yet, just two small matches.


For quick reference, the last two shapshots were

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

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.

THOMSON or NEILSON?

Take your pick?

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been republished to include, amongst all other updates, some of the family/ancestry of Gilbert THOMSON and Margaret NEILSON of Wishaw/Shotts/Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire (emigrated to Pennsylvania).
Somewhere back up either family's ancestry is a common ancestor to several descendants of William HENDERSON and Helen Sinton WIGHT.
But which side is it, the THOMSON or the NEILSON?

It could be yet another clue to the elusive Amelia MILLAR of Kippen's ancestry?
Or some other curious connection from the Scottish Borders ancestry of Helen Sinton WIGHT?

If you recognise any of these names, particularly if you are a descendant of a sibling of either Gilbert or Margaret and would be willing to see if you get a dna match with any of us who inherited this bit of shared dna, please do get in touch.  We mostly use FamilyFinder*, but as long as the dna file is on GEDMatch.com, comparisons are possible across testing companies.

The theory is that a descendant of a sibling of Gilbert's or Margaret's should show up as an excellent match with the descendants of Gilbert and Margaret who have a good match between second cousins.

If one side of the family also show up as a match to the HENDERSON/WIGHT descendants but the descendant from the other side's sibling doesn't, we've figured out whether it is THOMSON or NEILSON.

* using this link to order a test will give a small contribution to WikiTree.com

It gets better

An update to my tentative dna success story about Amelia MILLAR of Kippen, Stirlingshire.

My Ancestry dna match has uploaded to GEDMatch.com, where I was  able to compare results with several other kits.
Bingo has become BINGO in as far as we do now know that yes, from my ancestral side of the fence that bit of shared dna has a common ancestral line at James HENDERSON and Amelia MILLAR between the extended HENDERSON/MILLAR family kits I can compare, so the shared anecstry with my match is somewhere back up from that couple - and looks unlikely to be the HENDERSON side.

Looking good that the connection is to his David MILLAR and Elizabeth CHRYSTAL - but more work needed to confirm it fully.
As he has also transferred to FamilyTreeDNA, we should have more data to work with shortly.

Love to hear from anyone recognising this couple as their ancestors and has either already undertaken dna testing, or is willing to join in the fun, or has research to share.

This really is the closest I've come in 40+ years to finding out something concrete about Amelia MILLAR's ancestry.