And another DNA success?

This one is much more tentative, but nonetheless very interesting for me.
One of my genealogy mysteries, aka brickwall, is the parentage of Amelia MILLAR, my 2*great grandmother.
Her granddaughter provided the information that her mother was "a Miss Chrystal", Amelia's death cert, the information that her father was a James MILLAR and that she was born in Kippen, Stirlingshire.
Sum total of "known" information as to her origins.
DNA matches to date have indicated that there might be some Irish connections in there somewhere, but nothing has given me a "BINGO" moment.
This however has just come close.
As a DNA addict, I've tested at all three main genetic genealogy companies: FamilyTreeDNA, 23andme, and Ancestry.
The latter drives me potty as it simply does not provide the information necessary to confirm where you match, just provides  an indication of the strength of your match, and a link to the test takers' trees.
The match can be anywhere, or nowhere, on such trees and without a chromosome browser to show you what segment of dna you share, and who else shares that segment of inherited DNA with you, it's guesswork.
Which is where the wonderful independent site, run by a dedicated group of volunteers, http://GEDMatch.com, comes in.
If only all my Ancestry matches would upload their data there, I'd be happy.
Enough of a rant.

So why am I excited by an ancestry match that I know nothing much about yet?
The attached tree had a MILLAR of Kippen in it, and around the right timeframes.
It gets better.
Their ancestor was a Jane ROBERTSON bap. 1811 St Ninians, married (1835 Fintry) a George HUTTON born Lochwinnoch (Renfrewshire), and emigrated to Quebec between about 1847 and 1851.
Jane's parents are shown as Duncan ROBERTSON & Margaret MILLAR who married 1798, Kippen.
Which rang bells.
My research into the family differs from that on a couple of ancestry trees, and is more exciting!

The last time I dug around to see what might now be available for MILLARs and CHRYSTALs around Kippen I found a death cert. for a Margaret MILLAR who just happened to be married to a Duncan ROBERTSON, and had the fortune (for us) to die in 1855, the year civil registration started in Scotland, where the certs for that year have a wealth of information on them.
Yes, a daughter Jane was shown as aged 44 on the certificate (as was a son James Chrystal ROBERTSON).
I've not yet found any other candidates than the emigrant Jane for Duncan and Margaret's daughter Jane, and the naming pattern of Jane and George's children "fits".

Who were Margaret MILLAR's parents?
A David MILLAR and an Elizabeth CHRYSTAL.
Research back then had shown David and Elizabeth also had a son James of an age to have had a daughter around 1817. Pity Amelia's death cert. provides no hints as to her father's occupation. This one was a mason, dying a pauper in 1863, no indication that he had been married. Back when I found him last year, I couldn't find him in the censuses. Still looking for earlier than 1861 now.

Anyway, the family of Duncan and Margaret (MILLAR) ROBERTSON, and some of the CHRYSTALs of Kippen have now been included in my WorldConnect database LornaFishing.
I'd LOVE to hear from any descendants who have undertaken DNA testing and work with them to explore an potential hints to see if this is indeed the line where my ancestry dna match belongs.

Check the witnesses

Something drew me back to a branch of my DAWE family that emigrated to Quebec.
I'd not found anything conclusive about them after the 1881 census of Montreal.
This time round the Drouin collection showed an Emma Elizabeth DAWE marrying an Alexander COWAN in Montreal in 1890. unlike several marriage entries her parents weren't listed, and as I didn't have an Elizabeth in her name, the identification was tentative.
Witnesses: J A & Katie SMART.
That sounded familiar.
Back in 1881 a lodger in the household was one Julius SMART.
Took a few short searches of the Drouin collection to turn up a marriage of Emma's sister, Catherine Thomasine Mary DAWE, shown as daughter of Nathaniel DAWE & Catherine nee WATTS, witnesses Nathaniel DAWE, and Isaac Nathaniel DAWE (Catherine's father and brother).
So at least father, sister, and one brother Nathaniel had all survived beyond 1881.
Subsequently Catherine and Julius SMART & family, have been found up to 1911, parents Nathaniel and Catherine, with son Isaac were found in 1891, indexed on ancestry as DANE, then parents in 1901, but not a sign yet to be found of Alexander and Emma Elizabeth COWAN after their 1890 marriage - anyone know what happened to them?

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.

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. 

22nd: Too much exercise

I've had too much exercise jumping to conclusions, with my only excuse being unfamiliarity with Quebec, Canada and all the Scottish and English town names that get re-used.
Earlier this year I mentioned finding a FAIRBAIRN/TAYLOR marriage where the bride's father was of Thurso.
I jumped to the conclusion this was Thurso, Caithness, but no, a descendant has just put me straight.
The Thurso mentioned was in Quebec, near Gatineau.

Time for another update - or two

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been updated to include recent activity.

Mainly this has been on Quebec FAIRBAIRNs and the HUDSONs, thanks mainly to Adeline who contacted me questioning the reported HUDSON/FAIRBAIRN links which most sources show as two sets of siblings marrying siblings.
I think we both ended up satisfied that the family records looked correct, and that her HUDSONs were a different set, despite family stories from descendants of the FAIRBAIRN/HUDSON lot.
As a result of the activity, several Quebec FAIRBAIRN marriages were also checked off, and assorted related census data checked, including a couple of quite modern ones which show a FAIRBAIRN/TAYLOR marriage where the TAYLOR side of the equation has a link to Thurso which rather piqued my interest, given my TAYLOR connections from Caithness (not yet investigated, but if anyone knows anything more about a William TAYLOR from Thurso who may have emigrated to Quebec and can elucidate, do get in touch).

Another rash of activity was prompted by Alan of Christchurch contacting me about Daniel Hodge SKEWES, brother of his ancestor.
This made me realise that I'd never finished processing the Bere Ferrers headstone photos I'd taken back in 2006, so several of the METTERS family this Daniel married into have also been updated (ongoing). He also answered my un-investigated question on how come Daniel's son Samuel was a Samuel Dawe SKEWES, although as yet, neither of us know anything about the DAWE connection beyond Alan advising me that Samuel's mother was an Anne DAWE who died aged 32.
One of the connected family that I'm not having much joy in finding is John COURTIS son of John and Mary (TOLL) COURTIS, (who both died young their headstone in Bere Ferrers shows them both dying on 28th February, one in 1863 the other in 1866). Eldest known son is John Humphrey or Humphries COURTIS, who disappears after the 1861 census, but may be the John H COURTIS in Lewisham, London with a wife Nellie, "living on means" and born Tavistock.
Certainly some of his siblings are enumerated as born Tavistock once they've moved away from Devon (sister Mary Ann CHEAL nee COURTIS)

And after many years of using ancestry.com but avoiding trusting my data to them beyond the above RootsWeb World Connect databases, I've given in, despite their terms and conditions of what they can do with your data.
(I got the pip with their OneWorldTree which merged in ridiculous data and made it look like mine, at least now it looks like any merging will be only at my request!).
So, I've uploaded a very basic tree of my direct ancestors and their siblings, and as I research assorted relations, am adding to it with the attached census and BMD data, or whatever I find on ancestry.
As a result the tree is very much a subset of my total data (as are all my online trees, some more than others), but newly added information will be attached to source images.
It may not always be clear how the research connects to the ancestors as I may not have got round to linking them up with the connecting people however!

OneGreatFamily continues to be updated with more completely and more regularly and contains slightly more people than the WorldConnect db, with all their BMD data but no attached sources as I still love their merging of families into one huge tree, although some of the outer edges can be a bit suspect most of the merges I've checked off do look quite kosher, and have provided several good leads.