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.

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.

When is a son not a son?

No, not an existential question, just a comment on the sometimes idiosyncratic indexing of census "families" on ancestry.

The 1881 census for Maryhill, Lanarkshire includes the military Barracks there.
In residence were William PAXTON, wife Mary PAXTON (formerly RUNCIMAN, nee DOUGAN/DUGGAN), John, Frances and Norman, her children from her previous marriage to George RUNCIMAN, and Mary, her daughter with William.

How do (John,) Frances and Norman appear on ancestry?

As children of William and  Bridget REYNOLDS:
William Reynolds 36 Head Soldier b(orn) East Indies
Bridget Reynolds 33 Wife b. Ireland
John Runciman 15 Soldier b. Ireland
Francis Runciman 8 Daughter Scholar b. Gibraltar
Norman Runciman 4 Son b. Malta

FindMyPast shows each of the family members individually (ie not listed as a family, but reported as head, wife, son..., my regrouping):
PAXTON, William Head Married M(ale) 34 1847 Soldier (born) England
PAXTON, Mary Wife Married F 31 1850 Lemerick
RUNCIMAN, John M 15 1866 Soldier Ireland
RUNCIMAN, Francis Daughter F 8 1873 Scholar Malta
RUNCIMAN, Norman Son M 4 1877 Malta
PAXTON, Mary Daughter F 2 1879 Hongkong

I confess to not having checked the original record, but do have sufficient evidence from other records for my conclusions.
A number of family trees on ancestry have come to a dead end on their ancestors as a result of not checking further, and assuming William & Bridget REYNOLDS are their ancestors.

For those interested, this family is included in the RUNCIMAN One Name Study.

My Beautiful Chromosomes ...

... with apologies to the author of My Beautiful Genome.
Ralph's Family Finder results have arrived as an early xmas present for us both, and show that a small genetic segment of our shared ancestry back at Robert RICHARDSON and Margaret RUNCIMAN has indeed made it down through the generations unscathed to Ralph, me, and to my HENDERSON 2nd cousin who shares his WIGHT/RICHARDSON/RUNCIMAN ancestry with me.
Regardless of whether we can assign this to the RICHARDSON or the RUNCIMAN ancestry, it is a good confirmation that the Scottish naming pattern sometimes works, as that was how I found Robert & Margaret (RUNCIMAN) RICHARDSON all those years ago.
Here's an update to the earlier picture of my chromosome - restricted just to my paternal side's matches this time:

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.

More DAWEs & a RUNCIMAN rethink

The rather inter-twined DAWEs of South West Devon have had another update, as has the Patriarch page for the DAWE Surname DNA project where DNA oriented pedigrees lurk awaiting a direct male line DAWE interested enough in his family tree to donate a little bit of himself to history.

With that "little" project almost out of the way for now, there should be some time for attention to shift back to the RUNCIMANs where there has been an exciting bit of research by Phyllis and Alan who visited the Scottish Archives and finally found how the Richard who brought up William of Crail's orphaned children was related - he was their grandfather.
Back to the drawing board on how to connect up those dna matched trees !
Current favourite, and at the moment the only candidate available from readily available records, is the Richard married to Jennet GOURLAY, but evidence is rather sparse - or we'd have found it long ago.

World view

Recently begun investigations on how better to display some of my genealogy data, eg an analysis by census years for my RUNCIMAN one name study by population concentrations, reminded me that several years ago I'd purchased Map My Family Tree.
With the disk eventually found it looked like it might be rather an out of date program given it mentioned that it the version of TMG that it could read directly was 6 (8.04 is the current version), and certainly had never been loaded under my current system, Win7 (64bit).
It loaded just fine. So nothing ventured, nothing gained it was pointed to my current database and set running.
The place file structure in TMG must still be as they were several years ago as it worked.
Was there an update available?
Check for updates kept telling me to connect to the internet, which I already was.
All was not lost however as the program' website FAQs acknowledged that there was a problem and provided the update file as a download.
Here's the end result from my entire database - certainly shows my areas of interest.

Great for finding errors in your place locations, but not altogether what I'm looking for as yet, however interesting in its own right.
GenMap next to be investigated, as some interesting example sites show exactly what I'm looking for - pity it seems to only be for the UK. Although it does appear to be a program launched back in 2002,  at least the webpage mentions Win7.

Ever hopeful

Thought I'd found a connection between the  FAMILTONs I was researching today and my DAWE/GALE twigs: Northumberland and Devon. Still wondering how come they met!
Closer inspection however showed that there were two Martha GALEs of an age born Devon around 1830, one the niece of the John GALE who married Betsy DAWE, the other the daughter of a Maria GALE. The latter's daughter is the one who married Thomas Potts FAMILTON of Preston.

Wondering where I've been?
Check out the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN project diaries and/or the recent change indexes for their respective One Name Studies, along with the FAMILTON DNA project diary. One day we'll find a willing candidate or two to test the theories on how some of the trees inter-relate.

Those aside here has been some DAW activity following Sheila's posting on my Guestbook with the current investigation being whether or not the Maud Millicent DAWE that Fredy DAW married was a relation?  Jury still out.

LornaHen.com

Thought it was time to update a few of my webpages. The main family tree website, "big brother", has been fully reloaded. A lot of the entries in the Recent Changes index are merely tidy-ups to do with links to/from the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN One Name Study and DNA projects, with some exceptions. Many updates will only be visible in updated descendant charts, eg RUNCIMAN, DAVIDSON and RICHARDSON for the more recent finds. The heads of the Michigan RUNCIMAN families now have pages of their own, along with their father William. A feedback form has been added - see footer of each page - one day I really must put a captcha challenge on it to stop the spam! The menu items have been slightly rearranged and rationalised. Also updated is the main gateway page. "Lorna's life". It now includes links to assorted other pages explaining the differences between them, plus the latest entries for three of the main genealogy blogs I use to update progress. Lorna's links has had a few tweaks as well, consolidating the backup research logs into yearly files (and catching them up to this more regularly updated blog), adding a few more links to sites I currently use. Even my original family tree site, "little sis" has been reloaded, prompted by the main change to the RUNCIMAN tree. Yet to come, an update to WorldConnect database LornaHenderson (where all the basic BDM data for all the dead rellies and inter-connected people is available) - that's been delayed while I do a check of the "orphans" I was about to upload as I do more research to try and attach them to their family.

William of Crail

As referred to in an earlier post, my data on the William RUNCIMAN of Crail line (part of Lineage 1b) has been checked off and uploaded to WeRelate, where it has been merged with Allan's previously loaded tree sourced from, amongst others, Jen & Diane's 2000 publication, Scotland and Beyond.
As WeRelate is a public Genealogy Wiki, should you have any additions to the data posted there, simply log in and update it, the original submitter(s) will be notified of your changes.
The matching/merging process of my submitted gedcom with existing data was readily achieved, albeit that places and dates aren't treated separately, so often a duplicated date was added in order to get a place and/or source data attached.  Easily sorted.

What's in a name?

Climbing The Spiral Staircase: Learning Genealogy may be of interest.
I particularly liked the Maidenform - Medenfort - Madenford example, having recently tried (successfully) to verify a birth of a Jane(t) PRITCHARD.
'tis often a pity we have to pick one name as the primary name for display.
I think I prefer her baptismal name of PREACHER.
So far I've found her baptized as PREACHER (1827), and a census entry (1861) showing a daughter with the name Agnes Preacher RUNCIMAN, but her marriage (1847) and death (1904) certs, either side  both show her as PRITCHARD, which is, I assume, what the name morphed to over time.

HOPPERs , SINCLAIRs & RUNCIMANs

Contact from a couple of distant rellies has resulted in a few updates.
The family of Nathanial DAWE now has a few more twigs pinned down, particular the family of some of the HOPPER branch.
So the DAWE descendant chart has been updated.

Also an interesting set of conversations with Peter SINCLAIR starting from his post in my Guestbook has resulted in Donald SINCLAIR being "found" after 1871  - married Annie DALGLEISH in Edinburgh (1885), then moved to London, appearing there in 1891 but not to be found after that.
By 1901 Annie and children are living with a James MACKIE (as wife and step-children) without a marriage to be found (as yet).
By 1911 Annie is a widow and the children are shown as MACKIE, but that obviously didn't last as subsequent records has them as SINCLAIR again.
The wonderful Army Pension records furnished a heap of interesting details.
So the GRAY chart has also been updated.
Something cosmetic must have changed for Donald GRAY as part of this activity, so his recent changes entry for 6 Jan can be ignored.

Currently working through checking off some RUNCIMAN data prior to publication on WeRelate, so William of Crail's chart on my RUNCIMAN page has also been updated, (but there's a much fuller tree available on WeRelate, which my data, and sources, will be added to/combined with).

Familton Matriarch

Check the FAMILTON DNA project blog for latest dna results - mtDNA this time.
And as Elizabeth is the mother of Margaret RUNCHAMAN, that's some of the RUNCIMAN mtDNA identified as well.

Nearly the end of 2011 here in NZ, all the best for 2012.

Ego-less genealogy?

In my dim and distant past as a computer programmer I remember being much taken with a book Ego-less Programming, or some such title.
WeRelate looks like the genealogical equivalent.

It's another collaborative tree aiming at no duplications, people linked and working on ONE version of a person/family in a wiki, same concept as Wikipedia but purpose built for genealogy, and much more easily pre-loaded with data (by gedcom).

So far I've only experimented with one small family whose research was completed (as much as any genealogy ever is) over the last few days, the Pawtucket FAIRBAIRNs from Glasgow who have sat in my database for several years without a home or further work until I stumbled upon a missing link that enabled me to link up Robert Bruce FAIRBAIRN, the banker of Roxbury, Massachusetts to Robert and Jean FAIRBAIRN, and identify Jean's maiden name as URQUHART despite the inventive spelling of the Americans over the years.  Throw in a couple of Thaddeus FAIRBAIRNs, and a Florence Nightingale FAIRBAIRN ++ and there's a little family unit to test out WeRelate with.
(if there's any direct male line FAIRBAIRN still around willing to join the FAIRBAIRN  Surname DNA project, there's still discounts going to the end of this month)

Love the validation of the submitted gedcom.
Took me a couple of goes to pass the first hurdle of date and place warnings.
Also love the ability to link to existing sources and places where appropriate.
Yet to try out the merging of submitted data with existing data, and can only see one of my RUNCIMAN clan there already to test that out on, but have to get my submitted gedcom past the next level of scrutiny first.

Once was not enough?

While checking some RUNCIMAN data I'd uploaded to WikiTree I decided to see if could identify the previously unknown to me wife of David Inglis RUNCIMAN, son of Robert Inglis RUNCIMAN.
Bingo, there in 1926 in the England and Wales marriage indexes was a likely looking marriage of a David I RUNCIMAN to an Effie CUMMING.
So I popped that info into my Ancestry tree.
Then up popped one of Ancestry's wonderful hints.
The marriage index entry in 1916 (Dublin South) of a David I RUNCIMAN to - wait for it - an Effie CUMMING!
Another hint popped up with a copy of his death notice, and yes, the David Inglis RUNCIMAN married to an Effie was indeed the son of Robert Inglis RUNCIMAN (died 1941, Herne Bay, Kent).
According to the death notice they had a daughter Margery, who turns out to have been born between these two marriage dates.
Anyone any hints on why the two marriage indexes? One Ireland, the other England, that far apart?

Course over, play time

As part of a course I gave last week on using online family trees (notes in process of being shifted to here), I had a play with WikiTree.
It's a collaborative tree, so you can really only do one automatic gedcom upload, preferably only for a small manageable section of your tree that you're prepared to monitor and merge in duplicates when you find rellies also working there that you can collaborate with.
Thereafter maintenance should be manual. Read their help files.
This is an experiment with their embeddable widgets, which update when the base data they come from is updated.

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

And for my main HENDERSON brick wall where the gaps would be great to be filled in...

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Right Eleanor after all

I was obviously being too cautious back when I posted on William GRAHAM's page that the only marriage to an Eleanor that I could find was in Carlisle, and it didn't "feel" right for a Kirklinton couple.
David has very kindly posted the marriage bonds in my Guestbook, so William's page, and the GRAHAM tree have been updated to show Eleanor as a MURRAY.
Ignore the entries for RUNCIMAN in the recent changes index - I've been revamping the One Name Study pages to more easily generate them, so an awful lot of RUNCIMAN data has been edited, but mainly only to set assorted flags in my database to show which data goes where.

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.

Expanding circle

The THOMSON/RUNCIMAN connections posted on the 14th, have led Harry and I into rechecking our assorted past trawls through the Maxton records, and others.
The most fascinating find was in Harry's old notebooks, where he noted that the Cautioner for the marriage of Thomas THOMSON and Mary LOCKIE (Maxton 1762) wasn't yet another THOMSON, but a Robert PATERSON.
Which Robert seemed rather likely to be the Robert found marrying one Elisabeth RUNCHEMAN in 1768, also in Maxton, with the wonderful note "The Bride's Father declard all her relations and himself were well pleased with the Marriage and became caut. for his Daughter".
Harry and I concur that this is highly likely to be Elisabeth, sister to our shared x greats grandmother Margaret RUNCHAMAN, who herself married in Maxton, in 1771 (to Robert RICHARDSON, smith at Whitelaw).

5th: Up to Nov at last

Catch up mode continues.
OneGreatFamily now includes all my updates on people in my database edited up to Nov 2010 !! (This is a subscription site - I particularly like the way I can quickly find other people researching the same families)

The process I follow for this is to select everyone in my database marked as checked for publication and edited during the month I'm about to upload - my own relations, and the FAIRBAIRN and RUNCIMAN families I research for the one name studies and dna projects.
To put them in context and enable them to hopefully be linked correctly to any existing families already on OneGreatFamily, I then add their spice, and 1 generation of ancestors.
Then I recheck that I really do want to publish all of those people, deleting from the list those where I'm not adding to the sum of genealogical knowledge at all.

It's an interesting way to re-discover bits of research left hanging as I got sidetracked onto following some lead or other instead of finishing off my research, eg connecting a sister to the same parents as the brother she was with in a census, or realising that I'd not finished checking off BDM and census data for whichever family.

So yes, up to November is now there, but the initial set of people from December is shrinking by my May updates to finish off some unfinished research.