One thing always leads to another

This trail started with an enquiry from someone helping an adoptee find her family.
What could I tell them about her DNA match with x?

It led to my extending the family tree of the match back up one of the lines I don't share with him.
Which, surprisingly, led me from Andes, Delaware, New York, back to WHITSONs on the Scottish Borders.
Which, of course, led to my wondering if they were related to the Alexander WHITSON of the Muirhouselaw Tile Works who married Elizabeth Richardson WIGHT my 2* great aunt, ie sister of my great grandmother Helen Sinton WIGHT.
Which led me to have a quick look around the family to see if there were any unsolved mysteries while I was there.

Yes.
What happened to Elizabeth Jane Sinton WHITSON aka SOUTAR who married Industrial Chemist David McLaren PAUL?

Her birth had been a mystery, given her first appearance was as a daughter in a SOUTAR family but no matching birth.
That was solved once I realized that she wasn't actually born as Elizabeth Jane Sinton SOUTAR, but as WHITSON, but brought up by her mother's sister after her mother's death in childbirth.

Her death had also been a mystery - until tonight.
It was presumed to be between David's marriage to her, and his subsequent marriage to Ivy Elsie POVOAS in 1945.
It was not found in Scotland, nor easily recognised in the English Death Index (David was working in Worcester when they married in 1916) last time I checked.
Tonight I did another search of English deaths.

FindMyPast now includes records from the Manchester Crematorium, and there she was
"In December 1940 as the result of enemy action of 30 Wellington Road Whalley Range Elizabeth J. Soutar the dear wife of David M. PAUL. Service Manchester Crematorium this day (Friday) at 2.30pm (Manchester Guardian Fri 27 Dec 1940)"

With the knowledge that at that time her name was considered to be Elizabeth Soutar PAUL, there she also was in the death index as Elizabeth S PAUL, registered 1940 Qtr 4 Manchester, aged 56.

Which led to research on the Manchester Christmas Blitz of 1940, including:
A site dedicated to the Greater Manchester Blitz Victims, any of who being listed on the Commonwealth War Graves site, although civilians, including Elizabeth
http://www.greatermanchesterblitzvictims.co.uk/index.php?sold_id=s%3A12%3A%221126%2Cvictims%22%3B&letter=P&soldier=Paul&district_id=

An eyewitness account from a lad who lived through it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/82/a2078282.shtml

Unseen images of the Manchester Christmas Blitz from the Telegraph

A chronology of the attack, which understandably, gets less detailed as events progressed and probably rather hard to keep up with events.

This map shows the sites (interactive on the Manchester Evening News website) which doesn't actually include Elizabeth, so I added the arrow to show her address.

I do admit to wondering if that bomb had David's name on it, given his occupation in 1911 "technical chemist, explosives manufacturer"

Lessons:
Never give up.
Get sidetracked, you never know where it will lead :)
Don't dismiss apparently irrelevant sources! (I would never have thought of searching the Commonwealth War Graves for Elizabeth.)

Would Granny be spinning in her grave?

I've not yet lodged a correction to the index, although it is assumption that Aunt Veta's birth cert. does indeed show her mother as Honor rather than Horace!

The cliffhanger

So who was John DAWE in Whitchurch the son of? (The end of my Spot the Flaw post refers)

An Isaac and Sarah DAW, where the baptism entry holds no further clues, no occupation, no residence.

Who are  my 3greats grandparents
An Isaac and Sarah DAWE / DAW.

Did I have a John in the family?
No.

Did any of the online trees readily available to check have one?
No.

How many Isaac and Sarah DAW couples around this time (or ever?) are there in this area?
The only one I know of are my lot, Isaac a miller of Newton Mill and wife Sarah SMITH.
The only other marriage that comes up on FindMyPast when searched for Isaac (with variants) DAW or DAWE between 1770 and 1810 is a Jun 1783 Halwill marriage of an Isaac DAWE and Grace PAGE, where that Isaac seems to have died in Sep, leaving Grace with an unborn son (John born the next year).
Not all the baptisms have been checked for any others showing parents as Isaac and Sarah that aren't already allocated to the family.

Can John "fit" with the existing children?
Yes.
At first glance I thought maybe not given he was baptized 1798 and their first child Isaac Smith DAWE, was baptized in 1797.
But looking at the actual baptismal dates:
Isaac Smith DAWE 31 Mar 1797
John DAW 26  Oct 1798
Sarah DAWE 15 Dec 1800 
It looks like yes he can fit.

Is this John the John who married Mary FRIEND?
Can't prove that as there are likely to be other candidates, but when the details of the ancestry DNA match can be explored on GEDMatch and compared with more than just my data we may have more of an idea about that from the DNA aspect.

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.

Hidden in plain view

I do so love serendipity in genealogy.

Researching to answer a question on a list I monitor, about what may or may not have been possible when downloading family tree data out of FamilySearch* I decided to try using my own tree as the guineapig.
For some reason I chose James TURNBULL, my 2* great grandfather.
No idea why, I've not recently been working on the family at all.
If I had been, what I found might not have been a surprise, as I would have diligently noticed that the gaps in his information may well have been able to be filled long before now :).

A busy beaver (thank you Ellen) had attached an immigration passenger list to James' son James, whom I had assumed to have died in Cumberland prior to their emigration to New Zealand by around 1862/4 ish (according to conflicting death certs for the family).
Not that I'd ever found a satisfactory death entry for him in England.

James, Jane and all four children had departed from Liverpool in April 1862, arriving Melbourne in September.

Son James' 1863 death cert. shows they were living at Geelong, where James was working as a carpenter.

Some 20+ years ago I had painstakingly searched the assisted immigrants into New Zealand for James and Jane and concluded that they were not assisted here by the NZ government.

My excuse for leaving things there was that 20+ years ago records were by no means as easily accessible as now.
It's a poor excuse however as I could easily have subsequently checked the Victoria (Australia) to New Zealand - 1852-1923 migration fiche, which would have shown me  Mr James, Mrs James, Robert, Stephen and Ellen all on the "S.S. Tararua" departing Melbourne on the 10 Aug 1866.

Which date is 4 years later than implied by James' 1891 NZ death cert, and 2 years later than that implied by daughter Ellen's.
Where they disembarked however remains to be discovered.

Take your pick! My assumption is Wellington. The next snippet of previously gleaned information was that James was in Tikorangi when son Robert fell from a horse breaking his arm in 1873.
Which I suspect was meant to be Huirangi instead.


This information was definitely worth updating my website for.
James' entry on my webpages is now a little more complete and should shortly be even more so, as I've found that Archway has digitized the Taranaki Land District Primary Deeds Indexes 1856-1998. So instead of heading for Wellington, I'm working my way through assorted books online in the comfort of my own home, checking to see which relative bought, mortgaged or sold which parcel of land, swapping out every so often to the New Plymouth City Council Maps to figure out where each Lot was.

All because of a casual, completely unrelated, enquiry. 


*
The query was whether or not a gedcom from FamilySearch FamilyTree was
a) possible,
b) included the Memories and Photos attached.
The short answer being no.
The long answer: https://familysearch.org/ask/salesforce/viewArticle?urlname=GEDCOM-Frequently-Asked-Questions-FAQs&lang=en

But you can use those programs that integrate with the tree, eg RootsMagic and Legacy, to download (or upload) the basic data, just not the Memories and Photos.

Not genealogy but...

Only 9 days left for this project to meet its crowd funding target.

Just picture me zooming along the beach !

Segment Traceability

Just found a new toy at GEDMatch, not sure how long it has been there, but it is labelled as "new".

What on earth is THAT?
THAT is a pictorial representation of which of the atDNA tested descendants of Archibald HENDERSON and Margaret McEWAN who have uploaded their raw data file(s) from their test to GEDMatch, have matches to each other.
(Archibald and Margaret married in1804 at Stirling, Archibald being one of my brickwalls.)

The associated data and generational estimates between the matches are shown on the DNASurnames HENDERSON FamilyFinder page.
Other than being a pretty picture, the generation estimate table very quickly shows the randomness of atDNA inheritance and how many of the descendants shown did not inherit any significantly sized segments from Archibald & Margaret that also matched another tested descendant.

Now if the others tested would only upload to GEDmatch as well, we'd have a more complete picture - as well an ability to place several more of our matches who tested at other companies, or come in below the FamilyTreeDNA thresholds.