DAW(E) update

Time moves fast in the atDNA world!

No sooner had I prepared an update to the chromsome map showing the atDNA segments identified as being inherited from either Isaac DAWE or Sarah SMITH of Tavistock/Newton Mill/Lumburn, but yet another tested descendant popped up.
Those results haven't been included.

The two updated pages of relevance are:
DNASurnames now has an atDNA section in the DAWE DNA results - which includes a table of relationships as predicted by the shared DNA compared against the known generations to Isaac and Sarah. The table is also interesting in it shows where no detectable match (over 7cMs/700 SNPs) between descendants was found, such is the randomness of atDNA inheritance.
 
My DAWE family page has the updated Chromosome map included.
The page still includes the 2014 version for comparison -we ARE making progress - wonder how many are the SMITH side?.
Already at least some of the purple segments that were only potentially from the DAWE side of   William Rowe/Honor Dawe's ancestry are now identified as DAWE.

The DNASurnames table and segment traceability diagrams can only include those who have uploaded their DNA file to GEDMatch, so neither include the descendant of John DAWE (hatter in Tavistock) and wife Mary FRIEND who popped up on Ancestry as a solid match to myself (Lorna) and also has a smaller match to a descendant of Isaac and Sarah's son Thomas.
Anyone only on ancestry cannot be compared at an appropriate level of detail against the other "cousins" as Ancestry simply does not provide the tools available at either GEDMatch or FamilyTreeDNA.
It would be great to be able to see how likely it is that her John is the John baptized Whitchurch to an Isaac and Sarah.
Working on it, but real life takes priority - sometimes.

Perhaps another descendant of John and Mary might be interested enough to participate?
FamilyFinder test from FamilyTreeDNA or the Ancestry DNA test, but in either case, please upload your file to GEDMatch.
Bear in mind that we still have not definitively proven that Robert DAW in California, born Michigan and father of Mark Walton DAW (b. 1892 Oakland) is one and the same as Robert Henry DAW, son of Isaac Friend DAW who emigrated to Michigan (see prior blog post).
So ideally, descendants of any/all of those mentioned very very welcome to see what we learn about the family relationships from their DNA.

Spot the flaw

"CEN: l850 Michigan, p.ll0 - DAW, William - KARO, l55R, Kalamazoo Co., Ross Township, l840 Mich..no Daw..3 Daws..no Wm. 2228/224l Wm. DAW 25 m Labouer b N.Y. Cornelia 22 f " " " John 3 m " Mich....l850 Ross Twp., census....he was the only one in the entire l850 cen., so he must be fa of Robert b after l850c. REF: Family Tree Maker: 1860 census: DAW, William - NJ P. 848 - Red Hook Twp., Dutchess Co., NJ"

Yes I'm back on a DAW(E) trail again.
Been a while, or at least it seems so.

This voyage started the other day with a new Ancestry DNA match, one with a shared ancestor hint no less.
Yes, we both have the same DAWE family in our respective trees, Isaac and Sarah (SMITH) DAWE of Lamerton (that's WikiTree, and this is my webpage link). I descend from son Isaac, my match from son Thomas.
Now if only we could see the DNA details to prove that this is where the match actually lies?
I'll have to wait for my match to upload to GEDMatch where comparisons can be made against several other kits who also descend from Isaac and Sarah.

While I wait, comparisons were made between our shared match lists and only one of interest popped up - sharing 24cMs with me but far less with my match, but previously on my alert list as there was a DAW showing in the tree. In California, recent-ish timeframe, but no ancestors shown.

Last time I explored tentative ancestors for this mysterious DAW I'd merely quickly tracked around published trees with some spot checks against census data. That led me to a Robert son of a William supposedly born in New York around the 1820s, where I lost interest.

This time round details were checked a bit more thoroughly.
Although I cannot yet document the link between a Robert DAW born Michigan, marrying and fathering a son in 1892 in California and dying before the 1900 census, and the Robert Henry in the 1870 and 1880 census records in Whitewater, Grand Traverse, Michigan, I do have a whiff of potential success.

The flaw of the title?
"...he was the only one in the entire l850 cen., so he must be fa of Robert b after l850c."
Actually two flaws. One was the assumption that Robert was born between 1850 and 1860, the other that noone could possibly have entered the State after the 1850 census and still be in contention as the candidate family.

Tweaking the search parameters for Roberts in Michigan born around the same time as his Californian wife (about 1865) brought up what looks like gold.
There, in 1870, is a family of an Isaac and Nellie (actually should be Nettie) DAW, both born England.
My genie radar is fairly finely attuned to mentions of Isaac DAW(E)s of England anywhere in the world. My tree abounds in the blighters. And very hard to distinguish they can be too sometimes.
Luckily this one had a handy death certificate, which only looks to have a couple of small errors - mother's name missing an I (FREND instead of FRIEND), and a couple of years out on a birth date.
BUT it did have the gem of saying that Isaac was born in Tavistock. Which my radar is doubly attuned to in association with DAW(E)s.
Sure enough there was an Isaac Friend DAW being baptized in Tavistock to a John and Mary, and a handy set of banns several years prior showing a John DAW, hatter, marrying a Mary FRIEND.

I was already quite excited by all of this, nothing like the whiff of success and dots being joined.
But who was John?
Luckily for me, unhappily for the family, there was a sad little set of records showing a baptism in 1832 of a Mary Sarah Jane, daughter of "the late John DAW, hatter, and Mary his wife".
Which made it rather easy to spot John's burial record a few months prior.
Same street address as on Mary Sarah Jane's baptism, and an age that placed him as born around 1799. But where? And which John?
Nothing suitable in Tavistock presented itself. So I tried the Whitchurch John, baptized in Oct 1798 - to ......
The next post may reveal all :)
I'm still convincing myself of the dots being joined here.

Familton/Hamilton

As I'm addicted to genetic genealogy, in case readers hadn't guessed by now, a while ago I succumbed to an ancestry.com sale and added one of their dna kits to my sum of knowledge.
Although I now see firsthand how woeful their tools are for actually confirming their suggested matches, I do have to report a success.

Using the search by location for Roxburghshire, Scotland over my suggested matches brought up several trees of interest.
One of particular interest showed an end of line HAMILTON as Archibald HAMILTON and Isabella HEN(D)RY whom I know to be of the Abbey Hotel, Melrose (father George appears on my webpages complete with photo).

Our DNA match was predicted as confidence "very low", and I strongly suspect that FamilyTree DNA wouldn't even show it as a match, but nonetheless, having confirmed sufficient of the papertrail shown, I believe we are 7th cousins!
This is somewhat beyond the normal range of autosomal dna testing for a great deal of confidence, so maybe there's a closer papertrail in there somewhere, but for now I'm happy to have found a Californian branch of my FAMILTONs.

However, the next step is to try and verify which segment of my dna can be tracked back to our shared ancestors, William FAMILTON and Elizabeth WILSON (which descendant chart now has at least some of the newfound (to me) line appearing on it).
This couple are the parents of the Bessy FAMILTON who married John RUNCIMAN and we have several descendants with detectable matches back to at least the next generation down.
With a lot of luck and co-operation with the ancestry match we should be able to use the wonderful third party tools at GEDMatch.com to see if the shared segment is detectable in some of those.

Any other FAMILTON/HAMILTON descendants out there wanting to try their luck at a detectable match via this tree, do join my FamilyFinder project FFLornaHen and order a FamilyFinder test. I'll happily help you through the maze of results.

How many husbands?

Contact from Veronica has led me to review where my research had left the family of Robert Herd FAIRBAIRN Jnr.
Back in 2008 or thereabouts his family was a bit of a puzzle as to whether or not there were one or two Roberts.
I convinced myself that there was indeed only one, but wife #1 had obviously not died, as she had popped up as large as life as an 87 yr old telephone operator in the 1930 census of Redington, Nebraska.
This time round, with much more information readily available and indexed, and with a very helpful BUSHEE researcher who had posted a biography of Lucy on his ancestry tree, there will be a lot more certainty to Robert's page next update. (As well as naturalization and land details for his grandfather David, married to Jane HERD).
Lucy seems to have led a colourful life.
Five "husbands" are mentioned. So far I've only found one marriage indexed, that to Walter GAGE (as Lucy FAIRBAIRN), but have found her in census data with Robert FAIRBAIRN, Walter GAGE, and "husband" #5 Harry GORDON. The quotes are because although the article states that Walter had died, then she married #4 HUNTOON, then #5, Harry, in 1893. Walter appears to have been happily living in California since 1888, dying there in 1910.  Guess if you can divorce one husband back in the 1860s, another isn't a problem.

Isn't it wonderful...

... that when someone shows you how to re-interpret a mystery that all the records you couldn't find are now easily found!

Midi popped out of the woodwork to let me know the fruits of the research that she, and a very helpful Devon Online Parish Clerk (OPC), had put together in the search for her 3*great grandmother, one Thomasin aka Tammay aka Thomazin aka Tamson etc etc etc YEOMAN.
During that research she happened upon the 1861 census entry showing one of Tammay's married daughters, Jane WALTERS, in the family of Nathaniel DAWE and wife Tammay, in Plymouth, showing as a daughter of Nathaniel's.
Not that I'd searched particularly concertedly, but on the information shown I'd never managed to find Jane DAW(E)'s marriage to WALTERS, nor her birth, nor the marriage for Nathaniel and Tammay.
Knowing what I now know, out they popped:

• "daughter" Jane's 1848 marriage as Jane COTTON to William WALTERS (at least the husband had been correct all along thankfully)
• Jane's 1817 baptism in Plymouth Charles, father Sampson COTTON a miller at Lipson Mill

both images now being available on FindMyPast. 

Midi supplied both of Thomasin's marriages (which images I've not yet managed to find on FindMyPast):

• firstly to Sampson COTTON in May 1816 at Charles the Martyr, Plymouth
• secondly to Nathaniel DAWE in May 1824, Stoke Damerel.

Adding that Sampson had died in 1822 and was buried at/from the Ebeneezer Methodist Chapel in Plymouth, aged 34. And that son Samuel COTTON was a witness to the marriage of Nathaniel DAWE junior's marriage in 1855.
In my defence, I did have a note that possibly the marriage to Nathaniel might be around 1825 rather than 1816 given that's when the next children arrived, but I'd obviously not searched hard enough back when I had access to the Plymouth/Stoke Damerel parish records.

Jane WALTER's family will continue to be included in my WorldConnect database LornaHenderson, so that the research that has been shared  by/with me over the years down that line still shows, but they are now COTTON, not DAWE, descendents.
In the process a few other COTTONs in the database have had their dates checked and approximations now match reality, the family of James COTTON (b. Sth Africa) and Hannah Emma Jones BROOKING. Also added three more children into the family from the 1911 census, which included a 1 month old mite Emmie Violet, crossed out, who turned out to have been born and died the year before.

The database has been reloaded to reflect all of the above, along with the recent activity on the family of Alexander HENDERSON of the P.O. Buildings, Biggar - although several of the newly identified twigs are amongst the living and thus not shown in this extracted database. Would love to hear from the children of Alexander's son Alexander in California.

A burning issue

Further to Robert BISHOP in the last post (Resurrecting Robert) - we can now guess how come he was in jail in 1900.
Found a newspaper report (27 Oct 1899 San Diego Union) of an arson of his heavily insured and heavily mortgaged property, in which he, "Robert Bishop an old man", and his son "H L Bishop", lived keeping "a saloon in the front part".
Both were accused of the arson and arrested.
Haven't found a report of any trial, but Robert is known to be in jail in 1900 and Harold was living with his sister and her husband at the same census.

Resurrecting Robert

Just found that I've prematurely killed off Robert BISHOP, husband of Elizabeth ANDREWS.
Given he was in the Alameda County jail in 1900 and not found (when I last looked) in the 1910 census, I jumped to the conclusion that he had died between 1900 and 1910.

Happenstance involving discussion about Queenie, aka Caroline PERRETT, the 8 year old kidnapped from Lepperton by Maoris in 1874 led me to revisit some of my Taranaki data.
Two of Queenie's siblings married into my extended ANDREWS tree: a sister Sarah became the second wife of Thomas LANGMAN, the first being Sarah, the above Elizabeth's sister; a brother married the daughter of the above Thomas and Sarah (ANDREWS) LANGMAN. A third married a BISHOP, which led to my yet again trying to figure out which, if any, of the Taranaki BISHOP families Robert belonged too - I failed, yet again.

However a general search on ancestry uncovered a Robert BISHOP of the right age in the 1920 Oakland, Alameda Co., California census. With a new, younger, wife Emilia, and a son (Ashton BISHOP) and a married daughter (Eva BROWN) born in New Zealand, previously unknown to me. Also with a convenient John E SAUNDERS in the household as brother-in-law of Robert.

The "BISHOP" son and daughter turned out to be step children of Robert's, being born to George LEECH and Amelia Hamblyn Cudlipp Scone SANDERS in New Zealand, probably in New Plymouth.
Also noted in passing was an Elizabeth Hamblyn Cudlipp Scone SAUNDUS marriage in New Zealand in the same timeframe to a Thomas Green LEECH. Sure enough Elizabeth and Amelia were siblings, emigrating from Devon to Nelson around 1860.

Thomas and Elizabeth LEECHs children seem to be well linked to the WOOD family, and there's also a connection in this lot to Alfred Bayley KIVELL.
All in all, a well tangled set of Taranaki families.

Sorting out the Roberts; Another HENDERSON

While looking for something else, I happened upon the Californian death index entry in 1986 for Robert Howard FAIRBAIRN. Which surprised me somewhat as I had him dying in 1950, albeit with a bit of a question mark as he was mentioned in a family diary in 1955.
With a bit more digging, and finally getting round to examining the rest of the Minnesota death certs that turned up, which I had coincidentally ordered recently, I came to the conclusion that there were 3 Robert FAIRBAIRNs in this family, only two of whom were actually in my db.
Father Robert Safley F. was the one who had died in 1950, instead of the 1935 I'd entered for him.
Son (from his 2nd marriage to Alice) Robert Safley F. was the 1935 death - rather tragic really, a 10 yr old who had an accident, which proved fatal, at his father's well drilling operation.
Older son Robert Howard F. (from his 2st marriage to Barbara FAIRCHILD, a cousin), has therefore to be the 1986 one.
I hadn't entered the younger Robert at all as a census entry implied he belonged to Alice rather than Robert, but his death cert states his father as Robert.
So, if the census entry was wrong about Robert, they may also be wrong about his sister Lorraine too. She appears to have married a Wendell William McNEILL in Cottonwood Co, Minnesota, and died in Dakota Co, Minnesota.
Perhaps someone can confirm I've the right Lorraine? Mother Alice FAIRBAIRN, formerly BENSON nee COUSINS?

And to cap off the day, found an entry in my guestbook that added to the HENDERSON tribe. A previously unknown to me dtr to William HENDERSON and Marian Glen AITKEN.

Also brought a few more of the newfound ROWE branch up to 1901, the GLANVILLE connection (Frank Josephus Richard GLANVILLE married Sarah Ann PARSONS).

The three affected descendant charts have all been updated: Rowe, Fairbairn, Henderson.

Mattie in Moorcroft or Modesto?

I've admitted defeat - I cannot find what happened to Mattie FAIRCHILD, dtr of John and Lucinda (BOYCE) FAIRCHILD.
Known info: mentioned as the surviving daughter of Lucinda when she died in 1908, as Mrs J E SULLIVAN of Moorcroft, Wyoming. Mentioned by Grandma VIELE (so pre 1956), as last heard of in Modesto, California, as a nurse.
May have been called Winifred.
RootsWeb WorldConnect db updated, wont be available for searches for up to 36 hours, so use the facility to jump straight to database LornaHenderson