For your consideration/support

A message from Andrea that I'm happy to post here to spread the word.
Her own webpates are at http://breastcancernirvana.co.nz/author/andrea-fairbairn/
and provide inspiration to all.
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Hi everyone

Would you please share this with anyone who you think might be interested or could donate.

http://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/breastcancernirvana

I am assisting Kiribati set up a Cancer Society and organise effective cancer services either in Kiribati or in the region. Currently there are no treatment options for children with cancer - as well as breast and cervical cancer etc.

I'm heading up to Kiribati in the second week of December and am looking for funding to work there for a week. During that time, we'll create a strategic plan and write funding applications for the major aid donors such as NZ Aid Programme (where I used to work), Australian Aid, USAID, the World Bank, WHO, Japan Aid etc.

Thanks, Andrea

Richardsons of Morebattle

As explained on my  RICHARDSONs of Morebattle page, we are exploring a (very small) subset of the overall RICHARDSON Surname DNA project to tease out connections between the lines listed, and any others that come along, using both Y-DNA and autosomal DNA.

Our knowledge of the y-DNA of one of the lines has just increased by an upgrade from 37 to 67 markers, and the RICHARDSON results page of the DNASurnames Lineages site, has been updated.

Only two tests are now at 67 markers however but at least the representative from the RICHARDSONs of Eckford, and that of William the Dancing Master, are only minimally further apart.
At 37 markers they were at a genetic distance of 5 (GD5), which included 4 faster moving markers, so only distantly related.
At 67 markers that became GD6 by the addition of one more slow moving marker.
So still only rather distantly related - FamilyTree DNA's Time Predictor gives only a 71% probability of a common ancestory within 16 generations.

Jury still out, from lack of sufficient information on whether or not the Dancing Master belongs to James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON as we can't compare apples with apples, they could be a minimum of GD1, or at most, GD7 apart (one tested with the now defunct ancestry yDNA test, the other with FamilyTree DNA).

Under my nose

Solved one of my long standing mysteries today.
Joan who shares an interest in my FAIRBAIRN family of Walter and Grace (ARMSTRONG) FAIRBAIRN of Tinnishall, Canonbie, popped out of the woodwork again to share an 1891 letter from Grace to her nephew, John LITTLE.
She had mentioned it a year or so ago, and back then my efforts at solving the mystery of what happened to Walter and Grace's son William had continued as a brick wall.

The letter explicitly mentioned where Grace's family were on 6th March 1891, including William, whom I had not found beyond the 1851 census when he was at home with Walter and Grace as William FAIRBAIRN, 5, son, born Canonbie.
So he had survived.

How hard can it be to find a William FAIRBAIRN, florist in Hampshire in the 1891 census of 4 April when his mother had mentioned him on the 6th of March? But no, still no sightings 1861 to 1911, Scotland or England.

The answer was right under my nose all along of course.

As his birth had preceded Walter and Grace's marriage by a couple of years, I went looking for births of William's in Canonbie to mother Grace ARMSTRONG.
Two presented themselves in the right timeframes.
One was with Andrew DAVIDSON, but that family included children back to when Grace would have been only 12.
The other was a William born 1845 to William WHITE and Grace ARMSTRONG, no other children obvious.

Off to ScotlandsPeople to see what the baptism actually said.
Only to find that they showed that I'd already viewed the record!
Perhaps I'd gotten sidetracked back whenever, and simply forgotten I'd checked that, or possibly checked and discarded but not noted anything in my records?
Nope.
All was explained when the page was re-examined.
The page was headed 1855.
Three baptisms with Grace as the mother were all on the same page, the first WHITE, William born Jun 1845, baptized Mar 1845, to William WHITE and Grace, the next two, both FAIRBAIRN, Agnes and Margaret to Walter FAIRBAIRN and Grace.
I'd only ever looked at the FAIRBAIRN entries I was initially interested in and not looked up the page!

Yes, now easily viewed in 1871 (gardener at Capenoch, Dumfries), 1881 (gardener at Mortlake, Surrey with wife Helen), and 1891 there he was in Havant, Hants as a florist, all as William WHITE.

Still missing in action in 1861.

Spring's early

Heard, then saw, my first cuckoo this afternoon.
It did of course fly away before I got the photo.
Tomorrow is the first day of spring.

Maternal chromosome map

While I'm in dna snapshot mode, here's an updated picture of my maternal chromosome map.
Lots of gaps, but an increasing amount of information that will allow identification of likely areas to focus on for matches.

Click to enlarge

Henderson brick wall

One of my reasons for venturing into DNA testing for genealogy back in 2007 was to break through several brick walls.

Yes, there have been some successes, many intriguing finds, and a lot of new correspondents to share with.

No, I still have no more idea about where Archibald HENDERSON, or Amelia MILLAR for that matter, came from.

Here's the current state of play of mapped chromosome segments inherited/shared by the tested participants, along with those where their matches also match each other forming a triangulated group. The caveat however is that we do NOT know the segments are from the HENDERSON side of the ancestral couples shown, and for those marked as ... anc., the link can be back up either side of the couple, somewhere, somewhen.

In theory, one day a WOW moment will arrive when one of these matches holds the key in their trees and dna to break through that wall.

Click to enlarge

This picture, and any subsequent updates to it, may be found on both:

• the DNA Surnames HENDERSON pages

and

• the HENDERSON surname page on my personal family tree pages.

Any descendants of Archibald and Margaret interested in exploring this further would be most welcome to join my autosomal dna (atDNA) project FFLornaHen.
The inheritance of atDNA is such that even siblings can show up different segments, and thus more matches, to add into the mix to triangulate.

Government records are always accurate - yeah right!

Great granddad William HENDERSON has been getting some attention of late as more of the dna several of us inherited is identified.

It occurred to me however that I'd never actually looked at his official immigration records.
After all, I have the ship board diary he wrote and knew he arrived in Port Chalmers on the 8th July 1872, and travelling by steamer "Golden Age" to Dunedin the following day, going to the barracks.

With FamilySearch having digitized the assisted immigration records from our National Archives off I went to check the images.
Couldn't find him!
When the obvious fails, start looking at the less obvious.
The voyage has been identified, and thus indexed, as having arrived in Wellington.

Examination of the papers associated explained why.
Although the cover of the file shows the "William Davie" as "for Otago",

 the next page shows it as arriving Wellington.

Newspaper reports

do confirm that great granddad wasn't lost, and his diary does not show the ship landing anywhere at all other than Port Chalmers after it left Greenock.

William recorded most of the daily lat/long values during the voyage.
See the William Davie voyage for more details, click on the voyage link for the map, and the markers on the map for the dates and any notes.