How a 6cMs DNA match helped confirm where my Roberts family spent their early years in Queensland

My maternal grandfather Edward Arthur Roberts, known as Ted, emigrated from England with his parents and younger brother in 1910. They sailed on the SS Orsova departing London on 14 Sep 1910 and arrived in Brisbane on 31 Oct 1910, after first stopping in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Ted was 17 years of age and his brother Jimmy was 15. In his memoirs my grandfather recalls his early years in Queensland when he worked as a cane cutter and remembers they spent their first Christmas in ’a former gold mining town’ but doesn’t say exactly where it was. Given the vastly different weather conditions between North Queensland and Dorset, I have often wondered why they continued on to Queensland and lived there for about 2 years.

This post is about how DNA eventually helped me identify where they went (52Ancestors #13).

My mother always used to refer to her fathers memoirs as ‘Pop’s Book’. She often lamented that no one in the family had wanted these papers and that she had rescued them when we were clearing out the house at Haberfield after her mother died. A collection of typed pages, in an old yellow plastic shopping bag. Grammatical errors had been corrected in pencil by her mother Mona, a former stenographer. Unfortunately, Ted was very light on with providing details for future generations, with hardly a name or place quoted through the many pages! Perhaps he had forgotten them, as he wrote them in the 1960’s shortly before he died in 1966. There isn’t much about Ted’s early life, but more detail about his later years and in particular his time in the war and working later with veterans in his role as pensions officer.

My husband and I have been trying to sift through the clues from Ted memoirs on field trips to Queensland for many years.

The shipping records indicate that the family were from Dorset and had been ‘nominated’. Who had ‘nominated’ them? Where exactly did they go and why?

None of Ted’s children seem to have known much about the early years in Queensland. My mother used to vaguely say ‘perhaps it was Charters Towers’ but she was never certain. Ted’s parents were Edward and Abigail Roberts, although Abigails full name was Ann Abigail Maud and is often referred to as ‘Maud’. There was an Ann and Edward Roberts who were living in Prior Street, Charters Towers in 1910. However this Edward Roberts enlisted for military service in 1916 and his records show that he was born in Ravenswood and was aged 39 when he enlisted, so they were not our family.

My husband and I spent many years thinking about where they could have been cutting cane, visiting these areas pondering whether any nearby mining towns could have been where they spent that first Christmas Day.

It is not surprising that they might have gone to a mining town for work, Ted says of his father ‘He could do most of the things required from a man in the Australian bush. He rode well, had experience with stock, was a fair blacksmith and possessed a great knowledge of things that grow.’ For many years we were unsure where this photo was taken, but we now think it is Edward senior in his early years in Australia most likely in tropical North Queensland c1910-1912.

Of that first Christmas Day Ted recalls ‘I also remember another “house” in a former gold mining town in Queensland where we spent our first Christmas Day in Australia. It was a mere shed built of galvanised iron. This day was seasonable for Australia with a temperature soaring above the 100 mark. As my father said we must grin and bear it with the help of suitable refreshment. He found the refreshment. We had not yet reached that stage. (Probably a reference to Ted and his brother Jimmy – too young to have a beer, drinking age at that time being 21 in Queensland).

My husband and I researched old mining towns in Queensland, trying to narrow down the possibilities, had they closed by 1910? Did they mine gold? How could they have travelled there, was the railway operational at that time? For various reasons we excluded Bouldercombe, Chillagoe, Cracow, Einesleigh, Glastonbury, Gympie, Heberton, Mount Chalmers, Mount Morgan, Mount Mulligan, Mount Surprise and Tyraconnell. However 15 other potential places remained on our list, they included Biggenden, Canoona, Cawarrel, Charters Towers, Clermont, Croydon, Cumberland, Eidsvoid, Forsyth, Georgetown, Kilkivan, Kidston, Leyburn, Mount Wilson and Palmer River. Some were more likely than others, but it was like finding a needle in a haystack.

In Forsyth we came across many old buildings that seemed similar to what Ted had described, one can only imagine the heat inside on a very hot Christmas Day, particularly if you were still dressing in a white suit and tie! Some similar buildings were still standing in 2022.

Ted left a few other clues in his memoirs, but without any surnames mentioned they have been difficult to follow up:

Len, Harold, Bill (all Australians) and I spent our spare days in the bush and in our sailing boat as to thus ensure decent clean living. Harold of Irish and German blood was strangely enough keen on acquiring knowledge of English School life. Bill was a member of a large family. His parents were Yorkshire. One of his sisters who became a champion swimmer was born in England and they called her the New Chum. The other children were Australian born.

The boys and I became members of a Junior Australian Rules team, although we had the advantage of receiving tuition from a former famous Rules player. I was the one who made least progress.

From what Ted describes, the town must have been a reasonable size to have such facilities, which would exclude many of our remaining possibilities? There was a famous footballer Tom Richards who was involved in Charters Towers around that time, although he seems to be more a rugby player than Aussie Rules, could it be the same person? Will we ever know?

The 6cMs DNA match

People often say how useless small DNA segment matches are. Well, that may be so if you are trying to confirm a genetic connection, but often the pedigrees of the smallest matches can help you ascertain marvellous genealogical clues for your research.

Back in 2020 AncestryDNA decided to purge their smaller match data. Roberts Estes wrote an excellent article about why they were valuable at that time. I was one of those concerned about losing these matches and followed the advice to preserve them, thanks to some wonderful tech gurus who provided us with some amazing code to do so.

I preserved matches between 6-8cMs and at that time for my Mum’s account that equated to 21,849 matches – aka 21,849 potential clues! Since that time I have had reason to review many of these and recategorise them, the group having now significantly reduced to 19,736, so it wasn’t a useless exercise.

I recently noticed a 6cMs match appearing in the ‘common ancestors’ category at AncestryDNA – I know from my records this match was from pre 2019 and had never been reviewed. Ancestry was doing its magic and ploughing through its vast array of trees and had suggested how we might be connected. Many of these suggestions can be erroneous and require checking.

From the small pedigree information provided I could see that the tester was Australian but none of the names in the tree were familiar. At 6cMs it is predicted as a 5th-8th cousin relationship, so our connection would be quite a way back.

Ancestry had a suggested relationship path, but I did my own research to confirm their theory, validating each connection with vital record sources along the way.

After much research it seemed our genealogical connection was via her Buckler line, but my records suggested the family name was originally Bucklar. Joseph Bucklar, was a first cousin of Ted’s grandmother Ann Roberts nee Laundon. Joseph had emigrated to Australia in 1885, guess where to – Charters Towers! If correct, she was a 5th cousin DNA match to my Mum, our shared ancestors William Laundon and Hannah Smith of Leicestershire.

What excitement! Joseph was one of four children of Charles Riddington Bucklar and Mary Laundon. Mary was Ann’s paternal aunt. I knew the family of their son George Riddington Bucklar very well, as he had emigrated to Utah in the USA having a very large family – we have many DNA matches with their descendants. I didn’t know much about the other siblings including Joseph, his sister Elizabeth (who married William Church) or his brother Henry, all three had appeared to stay in England according to the census records.

Joseph Bucklar was born in 1845 in Burton Overy, Leicestershire, England. He married Hannah Cook in 1863. They had at least nine children, with one son dying in 1870 in England, aged 5. The first 3 children were born near London and the remaining 6 in Yorkshire.

Joseph and his son Ernest (17) emigrated to Australia arriving in Townsville on Duke of Buccleuch in 1885. Joseph was described as a miner. Harriet and the remaining 7 children arrived on the Roma in 1887.

Joseph appears to have settled in Charters Towers and probably worked on the Lady Maria mine. In the 1881 England census he was Deputy Overman in the Iron Mines. Given his occupation, the family were probably headed to Charters Towers from the outset. In 1898 the family are living on the corner of Black Jack and Maria Roads and in 1903 Joseph and son Charles recorded as miners with son Albert a cyanidar. Joseph remained there until his death in 1919.

My 6cMs DNA match was descended through Joseph’s youngest child Henry. Whilst researching the family I found a second DNA match descended through another of the sons, Albert. This time it’s a 20cMs match at My Heritage and a closer relationship to my Mum of 4th cousin once removed.

Back to the Roberts family

So Mum was right that Edward, Abigail and the two boys probably firstly went to Charters Towers when they arrived in Australia – I wish she was still here to share in the excitement! Whilst we have no direct evidence, I do now feel comfortable with this conclusion.

The Railway came to Charters Towers from Townsville in December 1882, replacing what was a two day trip by coach. It seems feasible that they would have been able to make their way from Brisbane to Charters Towers and be there in time for their first Christmas in 1910.

Edward would have been Joseph’s first cousin once removed. Perhaps the family suggested it would be a good place to find work when he arrived, his skills of working with stock and blacksmithing all useful in an outback town. Mining had all but ceased in Charters by around 1905, but it was still a good sized town and was declared a city in April 1909 and probably large enough to have the sporting facilities described by Ted.

This photo of Edward snr and Abigail was always said to have been taken in Queensland, c1910-1912. The colourisation from My Heritage helps to distinguish the background however it looks more like a park or garden rather than a typical backyard in Charters Towers at that time. Could it be in the bandstand at Lissner Park established in 1905? The photo below was taken in 1905 – there seem to be double posts in both images? Very hard to know…

I had hoped to be ale to identify one of Ted’s friends, Len, Harold, Bill or the new chum! The Yorkshire connection interested me as I felt it might have been a reference to the Bucklars. However none of these names featured in Joseph’s childrens names and the next generation seems to be too young to be friends of Ted and Jimmy when they were in their late teens.

There is only one possibility – William Henry Bucklar born 1901. He was a grandson of Joseph, so definitely part of a big family from Yorkshire, but didn’t have siblings from what I can ascertain. Was he too young to be ‘Bill’?

Ted’s experience cane cutting seems to be the only loose end that doesn’t quite fit. Did they do seasonal work and travel to Townsville or not that far away to undertake the work, or was it a way to earn money as they made their way south to Sydney by the end of 1912.

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I’m so glad I didn’t let AncestryDNA purge that 6cMs match! I suppose I might have found the connections eventually through other DNA matches but it was great to have the AncestryDNA helping to point me in the right direction and save lots of research time. Next step is to reach out to these matches and hopefully compare their chromosome data so we can try and also confirm our genetic connection!

AncestryDNA does not provide sufficient information to be able to confirm connections of DNA matches more distant than 3rd cousins. Data needs to be uploaded to a chromosome site, such as GEDmatch, FamilyTreeDNA or My Heritage, the DNA Geek has some great instructions for how to do it. Let’s hope in time I can confirm the genetic connections too, that would just be icing on the cake!

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Do you know more about the families mentioned in this post? If you are connected to any of them (particularly if you have DNA tested) I would love to hear from you. It’s the power of DNA that can help us breakthrough our brick walls!

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or by private message via Ancestry, Wikitree or Facebook.

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Featured Image: Forsyth, Queensland, 2022. Private collection of Veronica Williams.

What is our family name – Roberts, Baker or Dye?

This post is about identifying the father of my mothers paternal grandfather, my second great grandfather – what was his name? (52Ancestors#12).

I previously wrote about her grandfather Edward Roberts in 2018. The circumstances surrounding his birth have always been a mystery and whilst we knew his mother was married twice, we believed her second husband was his father, another Edward Roberts, even though the couple didn’t marry until about ten years after Edward juniors birth. For more information read my previous post here.

A miracle occurred during Covid as I once again revisited the question of Edwards birth. For over 15 years I have been searching for his birth record. I’ve purchased many certificates over the years for Edward Roberts’ and Edward Bakers in England and India. Low and behold a search of the GRO index in 2021 revealed an Edward Roberts Baker, born at Westerham Kent in 1869! Could this be my Edward? I couldn’t order it fast enough and the week I had to wait for it to arrive was agonising.

Good things come to those who wait as they say – I can’t help but be reminded of the old saying – was it ‘the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker’!

It was definitely him, the mother stated as Annie Baker formerly Laundon. We had always thought his birthdate was 6 August 1868, but it was only slightly out, being recorded as 7 August 1869. The address of London Road Westerham, consistent with where Edward senior was living in 1871 and where the whole family resided by 1881. Why wasn’t it on the index for all these years, I had definitely checked it many, many times? I can only surmise that the recent digitisation program found it was missing from the index and corrected the error.

There were a few questions however. Ann named the father as her first husband Thomas BAKER, was he really Edwards father? Ann also used the name of Roberts as Edwards middle name – was this to suggest that her second husband Edward senior was the biological father, perhaps they had been together before 1869? Ann was still married to Thomas at the time, so did she name him as Edwards father for convention or respectability?

Where were they all in early December 1868? Based on what we can glean from the records Ann and her husband Thomas Baker were living in Westerham Kent by 1865 when their son Eldred was born. It is unclear when Thomas and Ann split up, but they are clearly living apart by 1871. Certainly, from the records it seems both Thomas and Edward were in the right location around the time of Edwards birth to be his father but which one was it?

Year	Ann Laundon b1835	Thomas Baker b1823	Edward Roberts b1841
1857	Married Thomas Baker	Married Ann Laundon
1861	Army Barracks, Hampshire	Army Barracks, Hampshire	Westerham, Kent – lodger
1865	Eldred Baker born Westerham, Kent	Westerham, Kent (children 1858-1865)
1869	Edward Roberts born London Road, Westerham, Kent	Named as father of Edward Roberts Baker
1871	Croydon, Surrey, Mrs Annie Roberts. With sons Thomas, Eldred and Edward aged 3.	Canterbury, Kent – Visitor to Barnes family. Listed as (Croydon) Army pensioner. With daughter Alma.	Westerham, Kent – lodger Lodge lane, near High Street
1878	Married Edward Roberts at Croydon. Widow, residing at Norwood.		Married Annie Baker at Croydon. Bachelor, residing at Norwood.
1881	London Road, Westerham, Kent	Died before 1880 (Marriage of Alma)	London Road, Westerham, Kent

The DNA story

I have been actively researching my mothers family since the early 2000’s and had been convinced from the records that Edward was a child of Edward Roberts senior and not Thomas Baker. Discovering the birth certificate finally in 2021 stating Thomas Baker was the father put a spanner in the works. I had researched both the lines of Thomas Baker and Edward Roberts senior. DNA has been a focus of my research since 2010, so what was it telling me?

We have many matches going back several generations confirming that Ann Laundon is our ancestor and clearly Edwards mother, but the paternal side is quite different.

Thomas Bakers family were also from Kent and nearby Dorset. Over many years I have scrutinised the extended family of his parents and compared them to the DNA test results of my mother, three of her siblings and a descendant of their fathers brother. We had no matches to anyone in this family. I revisited my research many times and concluded that the reason for this was that Thomas was probably not his father and that Edward Roberts senior seemed more likely.

Edwards Roberts’ family were from Gloucestershire. His father John Roberts was connected to a prodigious DAY line that according to a Family Search tree connects to Royalty! The maternal Tweed line was not as extensive but additional generations had been identified.

For several years it has concerned me that we had only identified one DNA match on this line, 15cMs at AncestryDNA. It was a sixth cousin relationship to my mother and her siblings, to their 5th great grandparents ancestors John BAYLIS and Mary CHURN.

In over a decade of DNA research no other matches have been found on either the Roberts or Tweed lines. At Rootstech 2022, the ‘find my relatives’ tool told me I had over 700 cousins at the event related to me on the Day line – with so many interested in genealogy surely many of them would have tested, why didn’t I have any matches? With no other matches to these ancestors at any DNA site (and we have tested at all of them) and without being about to view the segment data, I remained skeptical that the match was an indication of a true genetic connection.

Was my research wrong? Or, was it that the right people just hadn’t tested yet? Were there insufficient descendants?

Edwards Roberts Baker b1869 only had three half siblings, all on his mothers side;
Edwards Roberts Baker b1869 only had 2 sons;
Edward Arthur Roberts b1893 (my grandfather, known as Ted) had 7 children and from DNA testing we have about 95% of his DNA;
James George Roberts b1895 (my great uncle, known as Jimmy) had 3 children but only one had descendants;
Edward Roberts senior and Thomas Baker were both one of seven children, surely there should be other descendants we should match?

For the last several years I have pondered whether Edwards father was not Thomas Baker or Edward Roberts, but perhaps someone else entirely?

A breakthrough came earlier this year when I managed to test an additional three second cousins on this line. We now had four grandchildren of James Roberts tested (the brother of my grandfather). Whilst Ted and Jimmy had the same parents they can inherit different segments of DNA from each of them due to a process called recombination. I was hopeful that Jimmy had inherited different segments to his brother that might give us more clues to the identity of their paternal grandfather. Combining the tests of all descendants we now have approximately 60% of Edward Roberts Bakers DNA – hopefully this will give us more clues for our research.

DNA Research

Over many years I have concentrated on trying to identify the origins of Mums other problematic paternal great grandfather Arthur George Courtney. I have a separate research blog for him – you can view the Research Summary here. As part of that process I have been laboriously identifying clusters and triangulated groups of DNA matches as part of the puzzle in putting the pieces back together to identify him. It was that work that helped me in also finding out more about Edward.

I waited with anticipation for the DNA results of my four second cousins at AncestryDNA.

When the results first came through, I must admit I was a little disappointed as there weren’t too many new matches that I didn’t know already. I have been extensively interrogating my mothers results at AncestryDNA and the other DNA sites for many years now.

However one family stood out as requiring further attention, the family of Edmund and Philadelphia DYE from Kent in England. We previously had a number of DNA matches to this family, but I had not been able to connect them to to my tree.

My cousins also matched this family, but even more closely than us!

DNA Matches are shown in lime green.

My mother and her brother had reasonably good sized matches with Cousin A at 50cMs and 82cMs, all three belonging to the same generation, but they only shared smaller amounts with the other testers – about 27-30cMs. This group had intrigued me for some time and I had wondered if they might fit into George’s genealogy somehow. Matches to Cousin A to the four second cousins (who are a generation more distant) were varied, one shared 90cMs, two approx 50cMs and the last only 15cMs.

It was matches to Cousin C that really caught my attention. My mother only shared 27cMs, yet matches to my four second cousins were quite different, they were 110cMs, 102cMs, 65cMs and 50cMs. Being a generation more distant it was unusual for them to share so much more DNA than my mother, but that is the magic of recombination.

It was these matches that spurred me on to do more research and in particular, to focus on the Edmund Dye and Charlotte Horsnell couple. I investigated the family of Charlotte Horsnell, it was quite tricky but eventually I discovered that Charlottes grandparents were James HODSON and Mary FOX.

These Hodson Fox names were quite familiar to me as I had already investigated another AncestryDNA cluster and a triangulated group on Chromosome 6, whose genealogy both led back to this couple.

As the couple were from Leicestershire I had felt that perhaps they might be distant relations on Edward Roberts’ mothers side, as Ann LAUNDON was born in Leicestershire. Was this telling me something different?

I needed to revisit my previous assumptions.

Again, DNA Matches are shown in lime green.

Given we had DNA matches back to Edmund Dye’s parents, as well as to Charlotte Horsnell’s grandparents, it seemed likely that our connection was via one of the children of this couple.

Studying the family of Edmund and Charlotte Dye more closely I found they may have had 4 or 5 children, with only one having descendants.

Annie Dye was born in 1843 and married John Wilkins Usher in 1870 when she was 27 years of age. She died after a long illness aged 39 and does not appear to have had any children;
Henry Dye’s birth was registered on 31 Oct 1844 at Sundridge with a birth date of 22 Sep1844. There are no further records for him. I have concluded that Henry is actually the same person as Edmund Dye;
Edmund Dye appears in census records stated as being born about 1845 but unlike all the other children there is no birth registration record for him. There is a baptism on 5 Jan 1845 at Sundridge for Edmund. It seems likely that his birth was probably registered as Henry and he was later baptised as Edmund, being the eldest son. Edmund died aged 36 of consumption, unmarried, with no known issue;
George Dye was born in 1848 and died in 1860, aged 12, no issue;
Edith Charlotte Dye was born in 1864 and was known as ‘Lottie’. She married Edward Everden and had at least 2 children;
There is a significant gap between the birth of George and Lottie, but there do not appear to be any other children. Edmund senior died in 1888 and only four children are mentioned in his obituary. By the time of Charlottes death in 1899 her estate passed to her only surviving child Edith Charlotte Everden.

As I studied the family I suddenly realised that they lived in Westerham Kent, where Edward Roberts was born in 1869. Staring me in the face was Edmund Dye who seemed exactly the right age to be the father of Edward Roberts – 24 at that time and in the right location! Based on the known genealogy he seems likely to be the lone suspect to be Edward’s father (except perhaps for Henry?)!

Was this my new hypothesis?

Life in Westerham, Kent

There is no evidence that Edward Roberts senior ever lived with Ann and her children until some time after 1871 and maybe even as late as 1878 when they married (presumably after Thomas Baker died). Ann confuses the issue even more by calling herself Mrs Roberts in the 1871 census and giving the child his name. What had happened to cause Thomas and Ann to split? Perhaps Edward senior took pity on Ann and decided to look after her. In 1871 he was lodging in Westerham, at Lodge Lane, close to the High Street and worked in the seed trade. Later in life, he clearly took on the role of stepfather to Ann’s children and whilst they did not have any other children together they remained married until his death in 1902.

Westerham is a town and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located 3.4 miles east of Oxted and 6 miles west of Sevenoaks, adjacent to the Kent border with both Greater London and Surrey. The Dye family were prominent tradespeople and lived nearby at Warren Farm Sundridge. In 1861 Edmund b1791 (m Philadelphia Yowell) was listed as managing the farm of 52 acres employing 5 men and 1 boy. In the same year his son Edmund b 1817 (m Charlotte Horsnell) was noted as being a master wheelwright and smith, managing premises in the High Street at Westerham also employing five men, a boy, plus his son Edmund b1845 aged 16 was also working there as a wheelwright.

The ironmongers shop in the High Street is in very close proximity to London Road where Edward Roberts was born in 1869 and where he continued to live until about 1885. By the time Edward emigrated to Australia in 1910 he was described as having the ability to grow anything, a fine horseman and a fair blacksmith. Where did he learn these skills? Clearly his stepfather was responsible for passing on his horticultural skills, Edward had worked as a gardener when living in England and spent some time in the army where he may have learnt to ride. Living in Westerham for most of his early life, the Roberts’ must have been aquainted with the Dye family and I can’t help but wonder whether somehow young Edward may have acquired his blacksmith skills there?

The hypothesis and further testing

The DNA evidence suggests Edward Roberts is descended from a child of Edmund and Charlotte Dye, however the evidence is not overwhelming. Edmund Dye 1844-1880 seems the most likely candidate however as he didn’t have any other children, we have no descendants we can ask to undertake further testing.

Edward Roberts’ father would have been born some time before 1850, possibly earlier. Edmund Dye is the right age and in the right location. The DNA evidence is reasonable given the timeframe with two AncestryDNA clusters and currently six ‘confirmed’ triangulated groups on chromosomes 1, 4, 6 and 21. Four of these groups connect back to the Dye/Yowell couple and two to the Hodson/Fox couple. Hopefully over time more evidence will emerge.

I was lucky enough to be able to obtain photographs of the Dye’s to compare to my family. The top row are our potential Dye ancestors and the bottom row my family, three photos of Edward Roberts b1869 and the last two his sons, Edward (Ted my grandfather) and his younger brother James (Jimmy). In my opinion, there seems to be a strong family resemblance – in particular the resemblance between Lottie and Jimmy seems noteworthy.

So are we safe in concluding that this our line? It seems probable, but I would like more genetic evidence. I’d probably say it is now my current working hypothesis.

I’d appreciate your thoughts!

Y-DNA and a possible Danish connection?

Y-DNA testing could help to confirm that our male line is the same as this Dye family. I have approached many descendants of the Dye family but have not yet identified anyone suitable and willing to test. If you are a male descendant of Edmund Dye b1791 (m Philadelphia Yowell) carrying the Dye surname, please contact me if you are willing to test to help us to confirm/refute our hypothesis.

Two descendants of Edward Roberts Baker have already undertaken Y-DNA testing but to date there are no matches via STR testing and only one Big-Y match, with the Big-Y match carrying the surname of Taylor. This Taylor line extends to colonial times in the US but does eventually get back to Suffolk in England by the 1600’s. Big Y testing has identified our haplogroup to be R-BY23391.

What is so unusual about our Y-DNA signature that there are no matches even at the lower STR levels?

Autosomal results suggest that we may have connections to a Dye family in the US, that extends back to Denmark, with name variations of Dey and Duyts.

These are all only AncestryDNA matches with no segment data, not triangulated groups, so they could be just co-incidence. It is unusual for autosomal testing to go back this far.

However one wonders whether this may explain the lack of Y-DNA matches. How prevalent is DNA testing in Denmark?

Could we be connected via another Danish emigrant who came to England?

Mum’s latest ethnicity suggests 7% from that region, so are we on the right track?

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Do you know more about the families mentioned in this post? If you are connected to any of them (particularly if you have DNA tested, or are willing to test) I would love to hear from you. It’s the power of DNA that can help us breakthrough our brick walls!

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or by private message via Ancestry, Wikitree or Facebook.

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Featured Image: Westerham c1831, W.H. Ireland’s View of Kent.

Finally, I think I’m a MacNamara!

For many years I have been researching my Irish roots attempting to bridge the gap in paper records through the power of DNA analysis. I recently wrote about my Sweeney family who came from the townlands of Rathclooney and Moyriesk in County Clare. You can read about them here.

From DNA matching, I have long felt that the MacNamaras, McInerney’s and McMahons must have had close associations with our family. I’ve been told that every second person in Clare was named MacNamara so perhaps it’s not that surprising. However our trip to Ireland in 2017 was to reveal more close associations to the family.

We had known from Mary Sweeney’s baptism record in 1816 (my maternal second great grandmother) that her sponsor was Catherine MacNamara. Who was Catherine and how was she related? Sponsors were usually close family members.

It was in my discussions with Antoinette from the Clare Heritage Genealogy Centre in 2017, that she told me of a conversation she had more than 20 years ago with Joseph MacNamara who had acquired the landholding at Rathclooney. He had told her that after the death of Thomas Sweeney in 1960, the Rathclooney property had been transferred to Lizzie MacNamara and subsequently to himself. Who were these MacNamaras and how were they connected to the Sweeney’s?

Later that same day, we had a chance discussion with neighbour John Daffy who said he ‘barely remembered Thomas Sweeney when he lived at Rathclooney’. However he was able to tell me that Lizzie and Joe MacNamara had lived there together, he didn’t think they were related as Joe wasn’t ‘entitled’ but recalled that Lizzie may have been a niece of the Sweeney’s. Lizzie had lots of brothers and was the housekeeper for Thomas Sweeney who had never married. John thought Lizzie might have come from Drunmore but had lived most of her life in the Barefield-Ruan area. The final interesting piece of information, was that Lizzie and Joe were buried together in the nearby Clooney cemetery.

The headstone at Clooney describes a number of family members, most of whom seem to be connected to Joe. The entries for Lizzie and Joe’s brother John looked like they had been added long after their actual deaths, probably at the time the inscription was made for Joe in 2002. Joe’s parents were named but not Lizzies.

My quest when I returned to Australia was to research these clues more thoroughly, hoping to find our connection!

Ancestry of Joe McNamara 1914-2002

From the wealth of information on the headstone, I was able to piece together Joe’s ancestry back to his great grand parents Cornelious MacNamara and Nancy Keeney. (Click on the link above to view the extended family tree at Wikitree.com).

Ancestry of Lizzie McNamara 1897-1992

Identifying Lizzies ancestry was more challenging but eventually it was discovered that Lizzie was actually Joe’s paternal first cousin, sharing grandparents Daniel MacNamara and Johannah ‘Ann’ McKeogh! However no Sweeney’s were identified – how could she be a niece of Thomas Sweeney 1881–1960? Was the connection on her maternal side via the McMahon or Quinn families? (Click on the link above to view the extended family tree at Wikitree.com).

Gathering DNA clues

My first big clue came back in 2019 when I discovered a large match of 47cMs with several siblings of the Worthington family. I soon discovered we also triangulated with their second cousin, which suggested our connection was coming from their shared ancestors William Clayton or his wife Bridget Helena McNamara. This McNamara line extended back to Jeremiah McNamara and his wife Margaret Haiskins, of Clooney, County Clare, it was definately looking promising, but I was unaware of any of these names in our family tree. Utilising the Visual Phasing technique with my mother and her 3 siblings DNA kits, it did suggest the match was on our Cassidy-Sweeney line, but where and how?

My maternal uncle and his first cousin also had a small 13cMs triangulated ‘X’ match with the female sibling. Tracing the X inheritance path on both sides suggested that it could have been inherited from John Sweeney or Johanna (Enright) Hanrahan on our side and Clayton, Haiskins or O’Sullivan on their side. Being such a small match it could well be a long way back, further than any of the known ancestors we have identified so far. This ‘X’ chromosome match was also part of a small triangulated group. Another cousin in the group has ancestors from County Clare with names in contention that included Walsh, McInerney, McMahon, Clarke plus of course potential unknown females! Where did this leave us?

The information was very tantalising! My mother always used to say we had McInerney relations back in Ireland, but no one in the family knew exactly how they were connected. We also had more DNA matches leading back to the McNamara, McMahon and McInerney families in County Clare. One particular group of matches all went back to a McMahon-McInerney couple. Could these be more clues?

Combining genealogical and genetic research

By pouring over the parish records and other genealogical research of my Sweeney family I looked for our possible connections to the MacNamara, McInerney and McMahon families.

Links to MacNamara’s

1816 – Catherine MacNamara sponsor of Mary Sweeney, daughter of John and Johanna Sweeeny.
1821 – Freeholders list of Clare, Canny’s and McMahons leasing from MacNamara’s at Moyriesk.
1821 – Martin and Bridget McNamara sponsors at baptism of Ellen Sweeney.
1824 – Michael McNamara, sponsor at baptism of Joan Sweeney, daughter of John Sweeney and Honor Murphy.
1825 – Tithe record, John Sweeney residing at Rathclooney sharing 61 acres with McNamara’s.
1830 – About this time, Michael McNamara married Mary Hanrahan.
1830 – Tom McNamara – sponsor at baptism of John Enright, child of Patrick Enright and Mary Sweeney.
1839 – Michael McNamara and Bridget Doloughty sponsor of John Sweeney, son of John Sweeney and Honor Murphy.
1846 – Bridget Sweeney sponsor of Thomas MacNamara, daughter of John and Norah Sweeney.
1846 – Thomas McNamara baptism, sponsors John Hays? and Bridget Sweeney.
1860 – Cornelious Sweeney and Bridget Hogan, sponsors at baptism of Michael MacNamara, father of Lizzie.
1860 – Patrick McNamara, witness at wedding of Daniel Sweeney.
1871 – Honor McMahon m Michael McNamara. Lizzie McNamara’s parents.
1874 – Bridget McNamara m William Clayton – Shared ancestors of McNamara/Clayton DNA Group, Chromosome 18.
1896 – Lizzie McNamara born, believed to be niece of Thomas Sweeney. Sponsors Margaret McNamara and Peter McMahon.

Links to McInerney’s

1811 – Hannah McInerney (spouse Michael McMahon). Ancestors of DNA match with triangulated X segment, also matches on chromosome 11.
1818 – Michael McInerney holding property at Rathclooney, ‘life’ on the lease John McInerney.
1849 – Eliza McInerney marries James Ryan at Tulla. Witness Tom McInerney probably a brother. Ancestors of an AncestryDNA match who appear in a potential Sweeney cluster.
1855 – Margaret McInerney acted as sponsor with Daniel Sweeney to a child also named Margaret McInerney.
1885 – Bridget McInerney marries John McMahon (date estimated). Ancestor of an AncestryDNA match who appears in the Worthington AncestryDNA cluster.
1901 – Denis McInerney residing at the home of Daniel Sweeney, described as a cousin. Son of John McInerney and Eliza O’Grady who had 10 children. From their baptismal records it appears John may have had at least two other siblings named Margaret and Mary.

Links to McMahons

1792 – Miss McMahon married John McNamara at Dronmore (where Lizzie reputedly lived), her father Terence McMahon.
1811 – Michael McMahon (spouse Hannah McInerney). Ancestors of DNA match with triangulated X segment, also matches on chromosome 11.
1817 – Patrick McMahon held a lease dated 15 Oct 1817, the ‘life’ on the lease was Daniel Sweeney.
1838 – John McMahon (spouse Mary Canny). Ancestor of an AncestryDNA match who appears in a cluster with the McNamara/Clayton siblings.
1838 – Michael McMahon (spouse Margaret Quinn). Lizzie McNamara’s grandparents.
1850 – John McMahon marries Honor Hanrahan (date estimated).
1871 – Honor McMahon m Michael McNamara. Lizzie McNamara’s parents.
1875 – Bridget McMahon sponsor at the baptism of James Sweeney.
1885 – John McMahon marries Bridget McInerney (date estimated). Ancestor of an AncestryDNA match who appears in the same McNamara/Clayton AncestryDNA cluster.

Other research yet to be completed suggests additional Sweeney links via the Mahon family and connections to Clonroad Beg near Ennis, County Clare.

Links to Hehir’s

1800 – Circa this date, a daughter of Roe Sweeney married an Hehir
1817 – Daniel Hehir held a lease dated 15 Oct 1817, the ‘life’ on the lease was Daniel Sweeney.

So where does this all leave us?

Piecing together the MacNamara family

Based on consolidating all the clues mentioned above, the following pedigree image seeks to outline my probable links to the MacNamara family. The current hypothesis (after following the land transfers and associated BDM sponsors etc) is that Daniel Sweeney’s wife was a MacNamara (52Ancestors #11). Daniel and she would be my maternal 4th great grandparents. The MacNamaras are associated with the townlands of both Rathclooney and Moyriesk and her father was probably born in the mid to late 1700’s. Whilst we are unclear of her name, it is believed she may have been an older child in the family, one of at least 8 siblings including:-

Catherine MacNamara bef 1795
Martin MacNamara bef 1800, married Bridget
Jeremiah MacNamara bef 1800, married Margaret Haiskins
Cornelious MacNamara bef 1800, married Nancy Keeley
Francis MacNamara bef 1800
James MacNamara bef 1800
Michael MacNamara bef 1803, married Mary Hanrahan

Limited tree – only includes 31 DNA tester lines (as at Nov 2021). See Wikitree descendants list for more information (up to 5 generations).

Connections with Lizzie MacNamara

This hypothesis suggests that my family is potentially linked to Lizzie McNamara on her maternal side.

Based on what I have been able to establish on her maternal side, it would appear Lizzie’s maternal grandfather Michael McMahons mother was a Sweeney. If correct, Lizzie was a second cousin once removed to Thomas Sweeney rather than his niece. It also suggests Lizzie would be my third cousin twice removed.

On the MacNamara side, if the hypothesis is correct the wife of Daniel Sweeney was Cornelious McNamara’s sister. It is unclear if Lizzie’s paternal line is connected to this same line or not. Whilst I have not yet identified any DNA segment matches down this line, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist!

DNA matching is providing clues on relatedness, however the close marrying of these families means that it is essential to undertake chromosome analysis to be able to determine how segments have been inherited by DNA testers. Extreme care needs to be taken when assigning these segments to ancestors, as they could have been inherited from multiple common ancestors. Many of our clustered matches who currently only have their results on AncestryDNA need to upload to a chromosome site to be able to contribute to further research.

The MacNamaras of Moyriesk

The MacNamara name is a common one in County Clare, however there is a well documented MacNamara family associated with Moyriesk. These MacNamaras were resident from the 17th century and can trace their lineage back to Maccon MacNamara Fionn – the Chief of Clann Kullen in 1379.

Could we also be part of this prodigious family? Only time (and a lot of work) will tell!

Very interesting that John MacNamara’s 2nd wife was a MacMahon from Clenagh!

Where to next?

It’s taken a lot of work just to be able to add Miss McNamara to my tree as my potential 4th great grandmother, but it’s all about one step at a time. Whilst the DNA evidence is not conclusive, it has certainly helped to be able to point us in the right direction and piece together these fragmented families.

I will be continuing my search through DNA matching to assist in confirming or refuting (hopefully not!) my hypotheses. I have created a Family Finder project at FamilyTreeDNA for ‘Rathclooney and Moyriesk, County Clare’ in the hope of attracting more DNA testers with documented ancestry to these townlands to connect more of the family. As always, I am keen to find suitable Y-DNA testers for both the MacNamara and Sweeney lines. Please contact me if you are male, descend from either of the Sweeney or MacNamara families mentioned in this post and are willing to take a Y-DNA test.

If you have tested your DNA and have ancestors from Moyriesk or Rathclooney in County Clare, please join our FTDNA Project.

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In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Elsie Ritchie for encouraging me to get a wriggle on with my Sweeney and MacNamara research and for helping to put some of the final pieces of the puzzle together.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or by private message via Ancestry, Wikitree or Facebook.

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Featured Image: Green Tunnel, Spancelhill Moyriesk, 2017.

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ADDENDUM:

Subsequent to this post it was discovered that the Michael McNamara mentioned on the grave of Daniel McNamara, stated to be brother of Thomas McNamara, is the Michael McNamara who died in the United States in 1916. Corrections have been made to appropriate family lines in Wikitree. This changed the original assumption that Lizzie McNamara may have been related on both her paternal and maternal sides. The connection on her maternal side to the Sweeney’s is still sound. More work needs to be done to establish if her paternal McNamara line connects to the family of Cornelious McNamara.

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Establishing the origins of my Sweeney family: John Sweeney of Rathclooney.

My emigrant ancestor to Australia on the Sweeney line was my maternal 2nd great grandmother Mary Sweeney, our Cassidy matriarch, who I’ve previously written about here. Mary and her brother Terence emigrated to Australia as Bounty Immigrants from County Clare aboard the Roxborough Castle in 1839, aged 20 and 23 respectively. Their parents were stated as John Sweeney, farmer and his wife Johanna. Mary states she was a native of County Clare and Terence a native of Clones, County Clare.

The two led me a merry chase for many years about exactly where in Clare they came from. To complicate matters even more Terence’s certification was undertaken in Cork, why was this so? A visit to the grave of Mary Cassidy (nee Sweeney) at Glen Innes in 1987 had revealed the inscription ‘A native of Ennis, County Clare.’ Again, not much help, Ennis being the capital city of Clare, with so many Sweeney’s to choose from!

My Uncle Laurie was a great family historian and had researched the family back in the 1950’s. I inherited his papers when he died in 2006. Laurie had purchased all the possible birth, deaths and marriage of the extended Cassidy family in Australia. The breakthrough came when I found on the birth certificate of Mary’s daughter Margaret in 1859 a reference to her birthplace as Moresk, Clare, Ireland. It took some time to identify this as probably referring to Moyriesk Townland, a townland of just over a square mile in size, most of it located in Doora civil parish and about 77 acres in Clooney civil parish. Could Terence’s native place actually be Clooney, not Clones?

Moyriesk had been the home of the MacNamaras from the 17th Century. By 1837 it had been purchased by the family of Lord Fitzgerald and Vesey. Lord Fitzgerald was ‘in fee’ at the time of Griffith’s Valuation c1857, with tenants in Clooney by the names of Samson and Scanlan and in Doora, Hasset, Molony, Hartigan, Duffy and Symth. No Sweeneys to be seen. On researching Moyreisk I discovered a small county town in Victoria, Australia of the same name. This of course meant an impromptu excursion in 2016 hoping for new speculative research ideas! Funnily enough it turned out that ancestors on my paternal side were one of the earliest landowners in the district, but more on that later. Further research established that the town had been named after Moyriesk Station, a station of 43,200 acres established by John Fitzgerald Leslie Foster (Colonial Secretary of Victoria 1853-1854 and descendant of the Fitzgerald-Veseys), presumably named after the family estate in Ireland. This brought about renewed speculation whether other close family of our Sweeneys may have emigrated to Victoria and worked on the station.

When Irish Catholic parish records finally came online, it was Mary’s baptismal record that revealed the location of her fathers family as the townland of Rathclooney. How lucky we were, records for County Clare only commenced from 1st January 1816 and Mary was baptised on 21st May 1816. Her parents were named as John Sweeney and Joan Enright, with the priest indicating that the family resided in Rathclooney in the parish of Clooney. Catherine McNamara was her sponsor. There were no other baptisms for any other children for John and Joan (or Johanna), but they may have been born before 1816. According to the shipping records, Terence was said to be about 3 years older than Mary, so it is quite conceivable that there may have been more older children.

When we visited in 2017 we found the old church at Clooney was now a ruin. However the baptismal font from which John and Johanna would have had their children baptised had been preserved and is now located in the new Clooney church nearby.

There were no Sweeney’s recorded in the List of Freeholders >40 shillings of 1821, but John does appear in the Tithe records for Rathclooney in 1825. The landholding was quite significant totalling 61 acres, made up of 20 acres of 1^st quality land, 20 acres of 2^nd quality land and 21 acres of 3^rd quality land. John was shown as sharing this with John Moloney, Patrick McNamara, John Doloughty, Daniel Hehir, Connor McNamara, Francis McNamara and James McNamara. The tithes payable on the holding amounted to £2 15 shillings ¼ pence.

There were 125 Sweeney families in County Clare in the 19th century and in 1815 there were at least 15 Sweeney families in the Quin-Clooney parish alone. With so many families of the same surname it has been difficult to piece the rest of the family together. I had established that there was a Daniel Sweeney living in Rathclooney at the time of Griffiths Valuation in 1855 but remained unsure whether he was a relation. Other tenants residing with him at the time had similar names to those recorded in the 1825 Tithe – MacNamara, Hehir, Moloney. It seemed likely, but we lacked paper evidence to prove the connection.

My DNA surprise

On our visit to Clare in 2017 I had arranged to meet up with Antoinette from the Clare Heritage Genealogy Centre. When we arrived she initially expressed some disappointment that she may not have found out anything new for me about my Sweeney family. However she went on to say there was a Sweeney family that might be the same one but she couldn’t be sure. John Sweeney of Rathclooney, had married Honor Murphy of Newgrove, Tulla on the 30^th April, 1820. The witnesses at the marriage were Matthew Murphy, James Sweeney and Mary Hennessy. Could Johanna have died soon after Mary’s birth and John married again? John and Norahs eldest son Daniel was the tenant who had been listed in Griffiths Valuation at Rathclooney.

As soon as she mentioned the name Honora Murphy, I squealed with delight. The name was very familiar to me having researched the descendants of their son John Michael and his family in Victoria, Australia. My family had a number of DNA matches to theirs but we had not been able to tie them together through the paper records. Excitedly, we compared notes about the various descendants we each knew about. I also benefited from a conversation between Antoinette and Joe McNamara (the former occupant of the Sweeney land) about 20 years earlier who told her what had happened to various family members. We soon pieced together the known family of John Sweeney.

John and Johanna (Enright or Hanrahan)

John and Honor Murphy

By the time of Griffiths Valuation in 1855, John’s eldest son Daniel was holding the property at Rathclooney and leasing the property from Stafford O’Brien (Lot 15). The property consisted of a house, office (shed) and land. The land area was in 2 lots comprising 9 acres 32 perches which was valued at £4 12 shillings. His house, situated on this lot was valued at 8 shillings which brought the total valuation to £5. The 2nd lot amounted to 5 acres 3 roods. Daniel was shown sharing this with John McNamara, Daniel Hehir, Michael McNamara, Anne McNamara, Michael Moloney and Margaret McNamara. His share of this land was valued at 5 shillings.

Armed with my map from Griffiths we set out to find the old Sweeney land. Looking to clarify our exact location, I approached a neighbour John Daffy. John provided me the final steps to find the cottage and some wonderful information about the Sweeney’s and MacNamara’s that later lived there. John told me the land had been split up into smaller parcels since the Sweeney’s time and that ‘the Sweeney’s ran an old country shop from the homestead, selling cigarettes. A Sweeney from America came about 20 years ago, but there are no Sweeney’s here now.‘ We found the homestead quite easily. Whilst the homestead and shop would have been from a much later time than when my John Sweeney was living here, it was a wonderful feeling to be standing on the same land my ancestors had farmed nearly 200 years ago.

I was also very pleased to be referred by John Daffy to the Kilaghitis Cemetery near Spancihill, where he knew John’s son Daniel, his wife Bridget and several other family members were buried.

Kilaghitis Cemetery near Spancihill (Barefield) County Clare, Cemetery Visit, Veronica Williams 2017

Ancestors and family of John Sweeney

It was through the examination of the baptism and sponsor records of the children of John and Honor and the information from John Daffy about the MacNamaras, that I was able to continue to piece the various members of the family together. I concluded that my John Sweeney was probably the son of another Daniel Sweeney. Daniel Sweeney (senior) was listed in the 1821 Freeholders List for Rathclooney. Daniel and his wife (who is probably a MacNamara) appear to have had at least 3 children, it’s highly likely there were more.

John Sweeney bef 1795, married Johanna Hanrahan/Enright (my third great grandparents);
James Sweeney bef 1800
Mary Sweeney bef 1807, married Patrick Enright

Daniel’s father is believed to be Roe Swyney of Moyriesk. Roe would be my fifth great grandfather, he had at least three daughters and one son. The Irish tended to have large families so there still may be a number of children yet to be identified.

Daniel Sweeney bef 1770, married McNamara (my fourth great grandparents);
Margaret Sweeney bef 1772, married O’Donnell
Martha Sweeney bef 1773, married O’Connell
Female Sweeney bef 1780, married Hehir

Based on the wedding notice of his daughter Margaret, Roe was reasonably well off and likely a gentleman.

Ennis Chronicle, Monday, November 29, 1790:

Married last Thursday, Mr. John O’Donnell of Dunmore to Miss Margaret Swieny, daughter of Mr. Roe Swieny of Moriesk, an amiable and accomplished young lady, with a handsome fortune.

Burke’s Peerage also described his daughter (Martha) as the ‘possible heiress of Roe Swieny’ when she married Maurice O’Connell in 1791.

Moyriesk House, former home of the MacNamaras. Courtesy: Clare Library

Family anecdotes had always suggested a family connection to the famous ‘Liberator of Ireland’ Daniel O’Connell. After many years of research and with many thanks to my 6th cousin Liam (who has collaborated with me on this family since 2012) the connection was finally found. Roe’s daughter Martha married Maurice O’Connell in 1791. Maurice was a third cousin to Daniel O’Connell but an even closer relation to Daniels wife Mary O’Connell, she was his 1st cousin once removed. Whilst somewhat distant and only by marriage, I expect that the family connection would have been a very proud one for most Irishmen at that time!

Daniel O’Connell. Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Autosomal DNA Connections

Autosomal testing has already confirmed a number of branches of John’s family, including connections with descendants of both wives, Johanna Enright Hanrahan and Honor (Norah) Murphy. Matches beyond third cousin relationships who only have their results at AncestryDNA have been marked as ‘DNA Tentative’ as they cannot be confirmed through ‘segment triangulation’ as AncestryDNA does not provide segment data. We have not yet been able to get back to the next generation so are looking for descendants of Roe Sweeney c1745, Daniel Sweeney c1770 and other children of John Sweeney to be able to compare DNA. The following chart shows the descendant lines that have been confirmed to date. Click here to view a larger image.

DNA Confirmed – Descendants of John Sweeney (not a complete tree)

Autosomal analysis has confirmed DNA through the following children of John.

Terence 1813 – Descendants in USA
Mary 1816 – Descendants in New South Wales, Australia
Daniel 1826 – Descendants in USA
John 1839 – Descendants in Victoria, Australia

As to the remaining children, this is what we know of them. Can you add to this list, do you know of other potential siblings? Are you a descendant who has had their DNA tested?

Ellen 1821 – May have married an Arthur but this is uncertain.
Joan 1824
Anna 1828
Bridget 1831 – Married Michael Joseph Murphy. Possible descendants in New South Wales, Australia.
Michael 1833 – Married Ann Curry. Possible descendants in New South Wales, Australia.
Winifred 1836

Y-DNA – The male Sweeney line

Our best chance of being able to verify the patrilineal line of the Sweeneys is through Y-DNA. My fourth cousin Torin from the United States kindly tested for me back in 2016. Unfortunately to date, we have only had two matches. Both matches indicate their oldest patrilineal ancestors were from Ireland but neither carry the Sweeney surname.

Whilst we have confirmed autosomal DNA on this line up to the ancestral couple of John Sweeney and his wife Johanna Hanrahan, we would love to be able to have supporting evidence achieved through Y-DNA testing. If you are descended from Roe Sweeney c1745, Daniel Sweeney c1770 or John Sweeney c1795 can you help us compare Y-DNA? Please contact me if you are male, carry the Sweeney surname, can trace your descent to one of these three men and are willing to test.

More DNA evidence

The ongoing examination of the family groups associated with my Sweeney family has allowed me to connect more of our MacNamara family. This combined with ongoing genetic clues from my DNA research has led to more discoveries which will be the subject of a future post. Watch this space!

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Do you know more about the families mentioned in this post? If you are connected to any of them (particularly if you have DNA tested or are willing to take the Y-DNA test) I would love to hear from you! It’s the power of DNA that can help us breakthrough those brick walls in Ireland!

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or by private message via Ancestry, Wikitree or Facebook.

How is Thomas Paice of Kingsclere related to Silas Cole, the convict?

Imagine my amazement to find I am somehow related to Silas Cole – the Tasmanian convict!

Coles Bay, a picturesque locality in Tasmania was later named after him. Silas was known to collect and burn shells from the Aboriginal middens in the bay area to make lime. He often described the beauty of the bay to his friends when he took his lime to sell for the mortar to build the township of Swansea.

Silas was born in Chilbolton, Hampshire in England in 1820. He was tried at the assizes at Southampton on the 24th February 1842 and transported to Australia for ten years. You can read more about Silas on Wikitree.

I’m hoping someone out there can help me work out exactly how we are connected, my research to date is the subject of this blog post.

How did I get here?

The search for Arthur George/George William Courtney my maternal 2nd Great Grandfather has the focus of my research for many years. Unfortunately, I am still searching for his origins. ‘George’ is my mothers paternal great grandfather. Along the way however I have encountered some tantalising questions about other possible relatives, Silas is one of them.

In my search for George I adopted the following process to find potential matches that might have been clues:-

Tested the DNA of my mother, 3 of her siblings and a paternal 2nd cousin. All 4 siblings and the paternal cousin have their results on FTDNA, My Heritage and GEDmatch. Only my mother and her great nephew are at AncestryDNA;
Visually phased the DNA of the 4 siblings to establish the segments that belong to each of their 4 grandparents;
Identified and analysed the segments that belonged to Abigail Courtney, George’s daughter. Due to the lack of cousin matching, many segments can only be identified as paternal 1 or 2. To date, the split between the two paternal grandparents Abigail Courtney and Edward Roberts remains unclear for 10 of the 23 chromosomes;
Reviewed all known Abigail Courtney segments to determine whether they came from her father George Courtney or her mother Abigail Paice.

Unfortunately, research to date suggests Silas may actually be connected via my maternal 2nd great grandmother Abigail Paice, the wife of George Courtney. So it does not help me in my quest to find ‘George’ but it has been an interesting research exercise!

How triangulated groups and clustering techniques have helped me identify my new distant cousin, Silas!

Firstly, using ‘segment triangulation’ I discovered a triangulated group of DNA matches all matching my family on Chromosome 21, segment size being around 23cMs. Visually phasing suggests the segment has been inherited by us from Abigail Courtney. Matches in this group also had a common ancestral location of Hampshire, England.

Secondly, using the matches from the triangulated group who had also tested at AncestryDNA I was able to identify a larger cluster group using shared matches identified via DNAGedcom, suggesting that both groups probably share the same common ancestor. It was from the cluster group and ‘tree triangulation’ that the possible connections to Silas and Jane emerged.

Click here to see an expanded view of this chart

Silas Cole and his wife Elizabeth Martin were two convicts who lived in Tasmania, Australia. They married in Australia. Silas was from Hampshire England, whilst Jane Martin is said to have been from Ireland. Given this and in view of the number of Hampshire connections I suspected the match was probably coming from the Cole side. However, this is by no means certain.

Shelley Crawford’s ConnectedDNA cluster analysis provided more information. In the AncestryDNA cluster below, TB is a match who appeared in both the triangulated group on Chromosome 21 as well as matching in the AncestryDNA ‘Cole’ cluster. TB does not have any known Cole ancestors, but connects to our family on the Paice line. A key match connecting the Paice and Cole groups in the AncestryDNA cluster is JG who sadly has not responded to messages and has a very limited tree on Ancestry.

Another match in the triangulated group on Chromosome 21 is shown as * on the 23andMe cluster diagram below. This person is an outlier on this cluster of 45 matches mainly in the same area of Chromosome 6. Based on visual phasing these are probably also Courtney-Paice segments. Matches in this group warrant further investigation as they may provide additional clues.

Ancestral origins of Silas Cole and his wife

This is what we know about the ancestors of Silas. So far, we don’t have much information regarding his paternal Cole line. I have also researched his wife Jane Martin, but have been unable to ascertain her origins in Ireland, although some researchers suggest she may have been from Cork (click the embeddable family tree link below for more information on Wikitree).

Ancestors of Silas Cole updated live from WikiTree

Two matches in the AncestryDNA cluster (uncle/niece) trace their line back to Martha HADEN who married William CARTER at Chilbolton in 1815, however no father was listed on Martha’s baptism. Samuel COLE born 1770 marries her mother Jane LADEN or HAYDEN five years after Martha was born. The couple goes on to have at least 6 more children together. So perhaps Samuel was also the father of Martha? If so, then our connection may well be on Silas’ paternal Cole line.

Paice connections within the Triangulated Group

After several years of researching the members of the triangulated group on Chromosome 21, the research points to our shared ancestors being Jonathon PAICE b1746 and his wife Elizabeth SKEAT, my maternal 5th great grandparents. Others in the group also share Jonathons parents Thomas PAICE (52Ancestors #9) born c1716 and his wife Elizabeth, my maternal 6th great grandparents. This suggests the segment on chromosome 21 was inherited by my family from Jonathon PAICE b1746. Another match in the AncestryDNA C21 cluster also shares Thomas and Elizabeth. On Chromosome 15 there is yet another match sharing Jonathon and his wife, further supporting this conclusion. If the analysis is correct, my relationship to most of the matches in the triangulated group is 7th cousin.

So how does this Paice family connect to the Cole family? Could Thomas’ wife Elizabeth whose maiden name is unknown be a clue? Thomas Paice was born before 1708 and there is a big gap in the documented genealogy for Silas with his oldest documented ancestor on his mothers side b1741. However if Samuel Cole 1770 comes from the same Cole family as Silas then perhaps we need to be further exploring Silas’ paternal line.

Chilbolton and Barton Stacey parishes

Research of the Chilbolton and adjacent Barton Stacey parishes revealed both the Paice and Courtney names were common. Some of the early records include:-

1787 – Elizabeth PAICE (daughter of James and Sarah Paice) married James BALL in Barton Stacey
1799 – Mary PAICE (daughter of James and Sarah Paice) married William BATT at Barton Stacey

Whilst the Ball surname is a common occurrence in my DNA matches, it is Mary PAICE who is of most interest here. Her son James BATT, a farm labourer of Barton Stacey, was tried on 11 July 1837 for stealing a sheep belonging to William COURTNEY and transported for life to Van Diemen’s Land in 1838, leaving his wife and seven children in Barton Stacey.

The Courtneys of Barton Stacey have been of interest to me for many years as they are possibly connected to my HINXMAN and PAICE families. Could this be a reference to the William COURTNEY, gentleman, of Barton Stacey whose son was named Jacob Hinxman COURTNEY? I have always wondered if this family was connected somehow to my missing Arthur George/George William Courtney. Was there was some familial connection to Thomas HINXMAN b1711, the 2nd great grandfather of Abigail PAICE and father in law of Jonathon PAICE. Hinxman is such an unusual name. By 1881 Jacobs daughter Elizabeth Courtney BOUND has servants by the name of JOYCE; and Kate PAICE (Abigail’s half niece) is living nearby and working as a servant in a JOYCE household! Elizabeth’s son is named Arthur Courtney BOUND, but born in 1879 so too young to be my missing Arthur (George?) Courtney! All too many co-incidences I fear!

Interestingly, we have a cluster of AncestryDNA matches from Tasmania, one of whom includes the great granddaughter of Sarah BATT, James BATT’s granddaughter, with a match of 23cMs. James had two sons also transported to Tasmania in 1846, William and Charles. James’ transportation was shortly after the Swing Riots of 1830 in which many in Barton Stacey and surrounding parishes were involved. This match is also on GEDmatch and triangulates with ‘SB’ on chromosome 15. SB is shown the triangulated group chart referred to earlier – this suggests we possibly have a connection via James BATT’s maternal grandfather James PAICE who is thought to have been born before 1745.

Another smaller DNA match of interest is to a descendant of Joseph PAICE (who later married Mary Ann O’NEIL), Joseph is another convict transported to Australia. He came on the Neptune in 1837, after being convicted at the Worcester Assizes, arriving in Van Diemen’s Land in 1838, the same time as James BATT. To date, I have been unable to establish his origins. One of Josephs sons is named Silas PAICE! No corroborating DNA evidence has yet been found for this AncestryDNA match, but it does sounds very promising.

Thomas Paice of Kingsclere

Thomas PAICE and his wife Elizabeth, my 6th great grandparents, had at least 7 children all baptised at Kingsclere, Hampshire, between 1739 and 1756. He was the son of Guilhelm (William) and Elizabeth PAICE. The parishes of Barton Stacey and Chilbolton are only about 4 and a half hours walk away from Kingsclere, so it is quite conceivable that his descendants may have moved south over the next 50 years or so. One of their sons was James PAICE who was born in abt 1742/3 at Kingsclere. He is the right age to perhaps be same person as the father of the Paice girls Elizabeth and Mary (grandfather of James Batt) referred to earlier. If so, it could connect our Thomas PAICE to the Paice family living in Barton Stacey, but the exact nature of the connection to the Cole family still remains unclear. Perhaps the answer lies in uncovering the maiden names of the many females mentioned in this story.

Map of Hampshire district c1830 – Thomas Moule

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This post is clearly only part 1 of (hopefully) a 2 part post! Do you know more about the families mentioned in this post? If you are connected to any of them (particularly if you have DNA tested) I would love to hear from you to help solve this mystery.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or by private message at Wikitree or Facebook.

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John COAT: The South Australian Immigrant

John Coat (52Ancestors #8) was an early immigrant to South Australia, arriving in Adelaide in 1848 aboard the Princess Royale. He was born in 1826 at Huntspill, Somerset, England to parents Marmaduke Coat and Amy Hewlett. Two years after his arrival in the colony of South Australia he married Elizabeth Richards in Adelaide. Elizabeth was also from Somerset England. John and Elizabeth had 12 children together with many descendants. They are my 2nd great grandparents.

Image courtesy Glen Coats, taken from a memorial card

Early Life and Ancestry

John was christened in the English parish of Huntspill, Somerset on 22 August 1826 as John Cote, parents Marmaduke and Amy, of Coat Corner, Huntspill. The village of Huntspill is situated near the mouth of the river Parret, on the high road from Bristol to Exeter, Coat Corner being a small hamlet in the parish.

John was 13 at the time of the 1841 census, living at Cote Corner with his parents and siblings Marmaduke 20, Emma 15 and Caroline 10. His uncle John and aunt Elizabeth were living on the adjoining property. Both Marmaduke snr and his brother John snr are described as labourers. Coat Corner is very close to the village of Coat where we visited in 2011.

There has always been confusion about the spelling of the Coat name. Many variations exist in the records including Cote, Coate, Coats and Coates. These variations have perpetuated down the line and it has been common for descendants to adopt all sorts of variations. According to my mother John had a fight with his father and when he emigrated to Australia, as an act of defiance dropped the ‘s’. This story is inconsistent with some census records including the 1841 census which clearly records the name at that time as Coat. However, the old map shown above suggests early inhabitants may have gone by the name of ‘Cote’, consistent with Johns baptism.

It was always said that Johns father was related to the Scottish Coats family who founded Coats Cotton; as well as to a baronet, believed to be a French Huguenot who escaped to Ireland before settling in England. Cote could be a French derivative of the Coat surname.

James Coats was from Paisley in Scotland and set himself up in business in the early 1800s, founding J. & P. Coats Ltd in the 1830’s. I haven’t yet been able to connect our Coat line to this family and so far DNA results about the origins of the male Coat line have been inconclusive, but more on that later!

My mother always said that Sylvia Coat confirmed the connection when she contacted someone from the American branch of the Coats Cotton family when they visited Australia. Sylvia was the wife of my fathers uncle Charles Coat. Unfortunately, no records exist of what she discovered!

The French baronet story is likely to be a reference to the ‘de Cogan’ family who occupied Huntspill Manor until 1382. If so, the Coggan family are not relations on John’s side but are possibly connected via his wife Elizabeth’s maternal grandmother Elizabeth Coggan. The Coggan and Coat families were close. There are a number of instances further down the line where they come together in marriage, so anything is possible!

On Johns mothers side, relationship is claimed with Judge Jeffreys, known as the ‘hanging judge’ for his readiness to condemn prisoners to death. This is a doubtful honour given Judge George Jeffreys 1645-89 is remembered in history for his injustice and brutality. John does have ancestors with the Jeffreys and Jeffries names, but these are on his paternal grandmothers side, via Hester Leaker. George Jeffreys was in Somerset during the time of the Assizes but was born in Wales. Both the Jeffrey and Jeffries lines are well entrenched in Somerset and whilst we have traced them back into the 1600’s, not quite far enough to be certain of a connection or not. Somerset is very close to Wales so it is possible. Of course the anecdote could be correct and it may be on his mothers line somewhere!

Here’s Johns immediate family tree which includes relevant DNA inheritance paths – click on the link below to view the full tree @ Wikitree.

Emigration to Australia

Around the time John emigrated, South Australia was promoted as a place where ‘good health is in every countenance‘. The colony was booming following the discovery of precious metals however the prospects for farming were considered mixed due to the prevalence of both barren and fertile lands. Many however were attracted by the opportunities offered by a colony free from convicts and with good prospects of purchasing land. John may well have read this book that was published in 1848 outlining the potential of the respective colonies before making his final decision.

John travelled from Plymouth in England to Port Adelaide, aged 22, arriving on 14 June 1848 onboard the Princess Royale. At that time, the population of Adelaide was about 38,000. His future wife Elizabeth was already living in the colony having arrived in 1847. It is unclear whether they knew each other back in Somerset, but considering the close marrying between the two families it is likely they were acquainted. John and Elizabeth married at Holy Trinity Church in Adelaide on 14 Jan 1850, John signed his name as ‘Coates’. Witnesses to the marriage were E and Mary Gould.

John and Elizabeth had 12 children together, 4 dying in infancy. The first two children were William born in 1850 and Albert in 1851. Both their births were registered at Little Para, near Tanunda. Next came twins Marmaduke and John in 1854, their births were registered at Chain of Ponds. The first son named Thomas was registered at Tulunga in 1855 but died in infancy. The second Thomas was born in 1857 at Mount Pleasant with the remaining children being born in the Coromandel Valley at Upper Sturt. Emma in 1859 who died in infancy, then another Emma in 1860, twins Charles and Caroline in 1863 and finally another set of twins Elizabeth and Frederick in 1864. Caroline and Frederick also died as infants.

It is understood the Coat family had originally owned land in Rundle Street but eventually sold it to buy their farming land at Iron Bank, in the Adelaide Hills. It was there that they flourished as orchardists.

It was during his time at Mount Pleasant that John is recognised as the first ‘poundkeeper‘ in the district. Poundkeepers were authorised to impound unregistered, stray or unattended animals roaming across district boundaries. We visited the historic area at Mount Pleasant in 2009 where Johns contributions are recognised, together with replicas of the original Pound structures.

DNA – Autosomal Testing

A number of descendants have undertaken autosomal DNA tests that have confirmed the accuracy of our pedigree back to John and his wife Elizabeth through four of their children – siblings Thomas, Emma, Charles and Elizabeth.

So far there is only one small triangulated DNA match that confirms his ancestry back to Marmaduke and Amy. More matches are needed to increase the confidence level that both Johns parents are correct. If you are a descendant and have had your autosomal DNA tested, please contact me so we can include your results in this analysis.

DNA – Y-DNA Testing

Y-DNA is passed down from fathers to sons and testing provides information on the origins of the patrilineal line. Extensive Y-DNA testing (including the Big-Y) has been undertaken for the Coat line thanks to two male cousins, results indicating Johns haplogroup is R-Y82698. So far, results from the Australian Branch have been consistent, confirming the male Coat line back to our immigrant ancestor John COAT. Beyond John however remains unconfirmed. Our closest matches are to two families from the United States, who descend from Henry Bennett c1629 of Ipswich, Massachusetts and John Locke c1695 of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania respectively. What is our connection to these families? Are we Bennett or Lockes or should their name be Coat? We have established a project at FamilyTreeDNA to help answer this question – Bristol Channel DNA Study.

The Y-DNA signature of our line is unusual compared to most of the other Coat families from Somerset, having marker DYS393 = 12. This marker has a very low mutation rate and is believed to suggest roots in the Anglo-Scottish Border region. Many of those with the DYS393=12 marker also have blood type B (consistent with my father). Some suggest this marker may have first appeared in Britain at the time of the Roman invasion, hence its prevalence along the Scottish border. Given its uniqueness, consideration is being given to the creation of a new Y-DNA haplogroup for those with the DYS393=12 marker.

A study by Tyrone Bowes in 2014 predicted the paternal ancestral homeland of our genetic Bennett, Coat and Locke group was probably centred upon the town of Burnham on Sea, just 8 kms from Huntspill. It is in close proximity to the villages of Coat and Curry Rivel where many others carrying the Coat surname lived.

In about 1606/7 there was a tsunami like flood event at Burnham-On-Sea causing the sea bank to break with 30 villages being utterly inundated, their cattle destroyed and many people died. Could our family have moved further inland at this time?

Most of those participating in the Coats Y-DNA study trace their ancestry back to Henry Coate 1595-1662 of Hambridge, Curry Rivel, Somerset. Our Y-DNA kits don’t match descendants of Henry, but there is another Australian Coate line closely associated with the Coggan family who does! George Coggan Coate emigrated to Victoria some time between 1859-1862. He is my 2nd cousin 4 times removed, a cousin on Elizabeth Richards’ side (John’s wife) via her maternal grandmother Elizabeth Coggan. Y-DNA matches at 111 markers between an Australian descendant of George with many US participants in the Coats Y-DNA project recently enabled them to get ‘across the pond‘ and confirm their genetic connection to their Somerset ancestor. George also has ancestors that marry into the Locke family, going back to a John Locke living at Combe Florey Somerset in 1623, probably born before 1600. Given the closeness of all these families – could this be our connection somehow?

But what about the Coats cotton people? The suggestion that our line may have originated in Britain from the time of the Roman invasion gives greater credence to a connection with Scotland, perhaps different branches moved north and south over time?

In the 1840’s the company J. & P. Coats was prospering, selling high quality sewing cotton around the world. According to their website they began sending members of their families to America to act as selling agents, whilst not specifically stated it is presumed the photograph below is of their family. Why are there no descendants from this line in our Y-DNA study? Could these people be related to me somehow? If you can identify any of them I would love to hear from you! If you are a male descendant of this Scottish Coats family carrying the Coats surname (or variant) and are willing to undertake a Y-DNA test, please contact me to help rule this theory in or out!

DNA – mtDNA Testing

We don’t yet know the mtDNA haplogroup for John, he would have inherited his mtDNA from his mother Amy Hewlett but as a male he does not pass it on to his children. So, we are looking for a descendant from one of Amy’s daughters who is descended via all female lines (Amy’s daughter’s, daughters, daughter etc) to help identify his mtDNA to aid further research. If you think you meet this criteria and are willing to undertake a DNA test, please contact me! Known descendants of Amy can be found on Wikitree, but please be aware this is not a complete list.

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As always, please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or via private message at Wikitree or Facebook if you can help with this research, or are interested in more information.

Reuniting the Britton family, our ‘unnamed’ Patriarch

It’s been a long journey since I first started researching my Britton ancestors in about 2006. I met my fellow Britton researcher Ruth online in 2009 striking up a friendship across the world where we have collaborated for over a decade. We have always felt that all the Brittons born in Fermanagh Ireland in mid-late 1700’s were related but lacked a paper trail to be able to confirm it. I did my first DNA test in 2010, followed by Ruth in 2014. It has been through autosomal DNA testing that we have finally been able to make some breakthroughs!

I first wrote about my 2nd great grandmother Catherine Britton in 2017 when we were able to confirm relationships between my ancestor Thomas Cassidy who came to Australia as a convict in 1830 and his brother James Cassidy who emigrated to the US sometime before 1840 or possibly as early as 1828. We had several DNA matches with other cousins suggesting relationships to possible siblings in Fermanagh, Ireland but lacked DNA confirmation (refer previous blog post).

The only documented information we had about Catherine’s father (who I am calling our ‘Unnamed’ Britton Patriarch – 52Ancestors #7) is a reference from a book about the ecclesiastical life of Father Philip Cassidy. When speaking about Catherine (the grandmother of Father Cassidy) it says ”.. her father was an Anglican clergyman who was a military chaplain for the garrison at Fermanagh in the North of Ireland.’’ (Source: Life of Father Philip Cassidy, PP Archdeacon, Benedictine Monks, Arcadia, NSW, Fr Peter Charles Klein SYD). Searches for more specific information have proved fruitless, although we do know that Ruth’s family were prominent members of the Church of Ireland at Boho and later lived in Tullyholvin townland. The Cassidy’s were also from Boho parish, but were Roman Catholics who lived in nearby Gortgall before being evicted from their land in 1826. Catherine and Stephen’s marriage was known as a ‘mixed marriage‘ and no doubt led to difficulties with relationships between the two families.

Tullyholvin Lower is also the home of the historic Linnet Inn. When my husband and I visited Inn the back in 2011 we were thinking my Cassidy’s may have gathered there but had no idea that Ruth’s Britton ancestors were former owners of the Inn. James Britton, the third son of James Britton and Mary Laird (Catherine’s nephew), was the first Britton owner at Tullyholvin Lower and established the public house, then known as ‘The Britton Inn’. The Inn was very different in the early days, more like a small bar. Now that we know these Brittons were also my relations, we were very disappointed that our return visit this year was cancelled as a result of the Covid-19 travel restrictions. If only the walls had ears and could tell us more!

DSCN4391 — Linnet Inn, Boho Fermanagh 2011

‘The Ribbon Informer’ was written in 1874 by Peter Magennis (1817-1910). It is an account of events that are said to have taken place in Fermanagh, starting in 1826 relating to ‘ribbonism’, in particular the informer Dominic Noone. It is believed to be mostly facts with some fictitious characters. The Ribbonmen were an agrarian secret society, their objective to prevent landlords from changing or evicting their tenants. There has been some suggestion that Stephen Cassidy (Catherines husband) may have been the leader of the local group of Ribbonmen (see previous blog post). Given Ribbonmen opposed ‘Orangeism‘ (the ideology of the Protestant Orange Order) there would have been tensions between the Britton and Cassidy families.

In the Magennis ‘Ribbon Informer’ story, the local innkeeper named John Egan, is described as a ‘seneschal of the local court‘, ‘of this village‘, ‘not a papist‘ and an ‘Orangeman who respected decency‘. Could this inn have been ‘The Britton Inn’ and a reference to one of our Britton cousins? They were certainly occupying land at Tullyholvin by 1825. It is perhaps unlikely that it could be a reference to the James Britton who established the public house, as this was some time later. Did they run another inn in the area before the one at Tullyholvin Lower?

When did Catherine and her family arrive in Ireland? Perhaps they came from Scotland in the 1600’s as part of the Plantation of Ulster? We know members of the Britton family were recorded as sidemen in the Church of Ireland at Boho in the 1700’s. Tithe records also suggest there were other Brittons living in nearby townlands including Aghaherrish, Lesky, Farnaconnell and Tober.

In 1879 Magennis wrote another story called ‘The Treasurer’ which was about the Cassidy’s. It was serialised and published in the Lisbarrow Gazette. The events in both of these Magennis stories occurred within his lifetime so he may have been personally acquainted with both the Britton and Cassidy families.

Known Family

This was my Britton Tree in 2017 constructed from paper records. We knew Catherine had a brother named Thomas identified from newspaper accounts in 1828. Thomas Britton had at least two children, a boy and a girl and lived in a ‘snug little farm‘ at Mullaghdun, in the next house but one from James and Catherine McCourt. Little else is known about them.

By the time of Griffiths Valuation in 1864 the land in Tullyholvin Upper which included a forge, was owned by William Britton (eldest son of James Britton and Mary Laird), the forge occupied by Bernard Magee. A reference from Magennis’ ‘The Treasurer’ suggests that circa 1826 there were two forges in the town. The busiest one run by an ‘orangeman‘, described as a ‘wag‘ and a ‘newsmonger’, ‘whose nephew had papist sympathies‘. Could this be another reference to a connection between the Britton and Cassidy families? In 1826 the forge was more likely to have been operated by Williams’ father, grandfather, or perhaps even an uncle?

Other Britton families occupied land in nearby Lesky townland between Tullyholvin and where the Cassidy’s had previously resided in Gortgall. Mullaghdun however is in the Civil Parish of Cleenish, just south of Gortgall.

Potential siblings

Paper records identified a number of other ‘likely’ siblings of Catherine living in Boho Fermanagh (or nearby) in the late 18th century. Their ages are only estimates based on their marriage dates, so they could be much older. Based on this information, it is possible there were at least seven children.

Thomas	Bet 1780-1800	Believed to be married with a son and a daughter in 1829.
John	Bef 1785 m Mary Hamilton	At least 7-10 children, descendants in Australia and Ireland.
William	Bef 1786	At least one known son Noble Britton.
Catherine	Bef 1788 m Stephen Cassidy	At least 4 sons, descendants in the US and Australia.
James	Bef 1788 m Mary Laird	At least 11 children, with descendants in UK and Canada.
George	Abt 1794 m Catherine Laird	At least 8 children, descendants in the US.
Margery	Bef 1800 m William Elliot	At least one son Robert Britton Elliot with some descendants in Australia.

Autosomal Testing

Thanks to DNA we now believe we have confirmed the connections between some of these siblings and it is highly likely that over time more will follow.

We have now identified many Britton DNA test takers who have well documented pedigrees back to several of these children. Unfortunately, a number who have only tested at AncestryDNA cannot be included in this study, as we are unable to compare chromosomes, which is necessary to confirm ancestry back this many generations. However, we do now have 29 kits where we can undertake chromosome analysis, this includes data at GEDmatch (the preferred comparison platform), FamilyTreeDNA and My Heritage. Descendants of test takers, who may have also taken DNA tests, have not been included in this analysis.

As part of the analysis process it was necessary to compare the DNA results of all testers looking for matches on a common chromosome, in the same segment area, for at least 3 descendants from different family lines. Where this occurs, it suggests the group all share a common ancestor. This process is referred to as ‘triangulation‘.

The table below shows details of the identified triangulated groups, comparing matches by sibling group. The ‘cousinship‘ of the siblings descendants are considered ‘DNA confirmed’ if they meet the triangulation test. Where there are only two people matching on the same chromosome and same segment area, it is considered that these may be an ’emerging groups’ (EG’s). In these cases, another match is required to confirm the shared segment came from the same ancestor. The relationships for those in an EG can only be classed as ‘DNA tentative’ as the segment match has not been confirmed by triangulation. The DNA cousins whose matches appear in the table below are also shown in the ‘DNA Connected’ pedigree later in this post.

The table above shows the likely four siblings we have identified so far, Catherine, James, John and George. The analysis also suggests a genetic link to Jane Britten, she married Henry Brooks in Fermanagh and emigrated to the US in about 1819. Based on her age she could either be the oldest child of our ‘Unnamed‘ Patriarch Britton or his sister.

The DNA of our Patriarch Britton

By mapping each of these chromosome groups we are slowly building the genetic profile of our ‘Unnamed’ Patriarch Britton ancestor. The following chart shows the segments we believe descendants have inherited from ‘Unnamed’ Patriarch Britton (or his wife). The legend indicates the family lines whose matches have been used in the mapping process.

Click on the following link to view an expanded image of this chromosome map at ”DNA Painter”.

These segments are scattered across the world in Australia, Ireland, England, Israel and the USA as you can see in the pedigree below. We also believe there are descendants in Scotland but there’s no confirmed genetic evidence of that – yet!

For the purpose of this chromosome map, other ‘potential‘ segments have also been shown to help with the ongoing analysis process. ‘Triangulated’ and ‘Emerging’ groups are as described previously. We have also included ‘Shared Ancestor’ segments – these segments potentially include Britton DNA. ‘Shared Ancestor’ segments are those where the split between an ancestral couple has not yet been determined, so the segment may belong to the Britton ancestors’ spouse. For more detail about the Triangulated and Emerging Groups and Shared Ancestor segments associated with this research, please click here.

Our ‘DNA Connected’ Britton Family Tree – as at June 2020.

The following chart outlines our Britton ‘DNA’ family tree developed from the DNA evidence discussed above. It is not a complete tree, there are many more descendants. Only DNA testers that have a confirmed ‘Britton’ DNA segment have been included.

To see the full sized image, please click here.

Ruth and I have been collaborators across the globe since 2009. We are ‘double’ cousins being related on both my paternal and maternal sides, yet we share no DNA. Thanks to all our DNA cousins we have been able to prove our genetic links on both our common lines. It was wonderful to finally meet in Enniskillen in 2017, the home of our shared Britton ancestors. With your help, we hope to enjoy many more exciting discoveries in the future!

Ruth and Veronica, Northern Ireland – July 2017

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NOTES: Ancestors referred to in this post can be viewed on Wikitree, please click on the relevant link to access their profile. Sources for the paper trail and DNA confirmations (where they exist) are referenced there. Source material associated with the Cassidy family can be accessed here.

For the purposes of this study, only the closest DNA tested descendant in any direct line is included. Children are excluded as the DNA they inherit is less than the parent and does not add value to the analysis.

We have recently initiated a project ‘Brittons of Ireland’ at FamilyTreeDNA that we hope in time will identify more potential cousins. We encourage anyone with Britton/Britten/Brittain ancestors from Ireland who have had their autosomal DNA tested to join. If you tested at another company it is free to transfer your results to FTDNA, so please join us!

We also have established a Facebook group Brittons of Fermanagh, if you have information you would like to share.

Please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or via private message at Wikitree or Facebook if you can help us with this research, or are interested in further information.

Edward Roberts – born in England or India? Fact or fancy?

Week 5 of the #52Ancestors challenge for 2018, had the prompt ‘In the Census’. It wasn’t hard to pick the ancestor I wanted to write about for ancestor #6. Edward Roberts, my mothers paternal grandfather, he died 3 years before I was born. This was the first photo I remember seeing of him, I always thought he seemed such a distinguished gentleman. Apparently dressed for one of his ‘Lodge’ meetings.

We don’t really know when or where Edward was born as we have never found a birth record. It was said he was born on 6th August 1868 and this is the date that was inscribed on his headstone when I arranged for it to be erected at Rookwood Cemetery in 2009. However, it may be incorrect.

His eldest son Edward Arthur Roberts said in his memoirs ‘My father was of Welsh and French (English crossed out) descent’. It was always presumed it was the Roberts line that went back to Wales and that the French related to his mother Ann ‘de Laundon’ even though my research suggests both sides go back in England for quite a number of generations.

The first record for Edward appears in the 1871 England Census, he is living in 22 Queens Road, Croydon, Surrey with what was assumed to be his mother Ann Roberts and two older children Arthur and Eldred Baker and a ‘nurse child’ Marian Webber aged 10 months. Edward was aged 3 at this time, his place of birth listed as Westerham, Kent.

1871 England Census

It was later discovered that Arthur and Eldred were sons of Ann from a previous marriage, so they would be half brothers to our Edward. Ann’s first husband Thomas Baker was a corporal in the Rifle Brigade 2nd Battalion (1857) and a member of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps, 4th battalion (1861), the son of a James Baker. In 1871 Ann’s husband Thomas was still alive but they were living apart, their eldest daughter Alma residing with her father. Ann has taken up the name of Roberts, presumably to be the same as her new partner Edward Roberts, describing herself as ‘wife’, with no ‘head’ of the household listed in the census record.

Edward Roberts senior was not with Ann and the children on census night 1871, he was recorded at Westerham Kent about 20 kms away. The census states he was born in Northleach, Gloucestershire. He is described as a clerk in the seed trade, unmarried and boarding with Jane Whickman and her brother George Poplett. Was he just away working selling seeds. or were they living apart for respectability given Ann’s husband was still alive?

1871 England Census

On 22nd April 1878, Ann Baker, widow, married Edward Roberts, bachelor, at All Saints Church in Upper Norwood, Surrey. It is presumed that Thomas had died by this time, although no death record has been found. Their fathers names were stated as John Roberts, gardener and William Laundon, bailiff.

Marriage of Ann (Laundon) Baker to Edward Roberts 1878

Witnesses to the marriage were Amy Letts and William Thornton. Amy can be found in the 1881 census, listed as a pew opener, so she may have been a church employee not a relative. William is possibly a relative of Ann’s, however he remains unidentified as there are 3 William Thorntons of an appropriate age living in Croydon Surrey at the time of the 1871 census.

In 1881 young Edward is still living at home when the census was undertaken and his place of birth again recorded as Westerham, Kent. However, by 1891 he is aged 25 and lodging with Charles Nippard and his family at 34 Stafford Road in Bournemouth Kent. This time it says he was born in India! One presumes he gave the information himself – could this be true? My mother and her sister Mary always said that their grandfather was a showman, a teller of tales, everybody was charmed by him. Could this have been one of his more fanciful stories?

1891 England Census

I discovered two possible births in India around the right time period, one from Meerut, Bengal and the other from Dinapore, Bengal but both turned out to be dead ends.

There are quite a few family stories told about Edwards connection to India.

It was always proudly ‘stated as fact’ that Edward was a boy soldier in India. In his memoirs son Ted refers to him as ‘a boy sergeant of the British Army on the north west frontier of India and Burma.’
The story also goes that when he was born they thought he was stillborn and they tossed Edward into a corner to concentrate on saving his mother. He soon gave out an almighty squeak – he was alive after all!! Where was this? Could it have been India? It doesn’t sound like what would happen today in a British hospital but in 1868 could it have happened that way? Perhaps it was a midwife helping with the birth at home?
The Roberts grandchildren often recalled what was known as ‘Grandpa’s box’. It was said to have come from India. In reality it really was a trunk, large enough for the children to hide in, often getting into trouble from their mother for locking each other in. My mother late in her life thought it might have been made of rattan. This is at odds with her sister Margaret who recalled it as being more like a trunk. Stories always suggested it looked like it had been made in India rather than England.
In a radio interview during World War II his son Ted stated his father ‘served on the north west frontier of India and often joked about the ‘poultice-wellah’ of the R.A.M.C.’ It is understood this is a reference to sick bay attendants of the Royal Army Medical Corps. According to the British army records Edward entered military service in 1886, his attestation date being 10 November 1886, however he was discharged on 5th April 1887 on medical grounds, after receiving a fracture of his left radious (wrist), incurred whilst on a period of leave. The medical discharge papers indicate that intemperance was not a factor! Could this be a reference to his experience with the ‘poultice-wellah’? His regiment the 2nd Battalion, stationed in India, was part of the Black Mountain Expedition of 1888, one of many battles fought along the North-West Frontier, but by that time Edward had been discharged. Was the Indian box part of the preparations to go to India with his battalion, or was it from his childhood days as a boy soldier? Will we ever know?

https://www.britishbattles.com/north-west-frontier-of-india/black-mountain-expedition-1888/ — 1st Suffolks at Black Mountain

Edwards seniors father was said to have been a supporter of Joseph Arch a pioneer of the labour movement and had often spoken from the platform at his meetings. Arch was instrumental in forming the National Agricultural Labourers Union in 1872. Most of his activities were in county of Warwickshire when Edward senior and his family were living in the neighbouring county of Gloucestershire in the market town of Northleach, about 50 kilometres away. Seems to be quite feasible. I can find no evidence that Edward senior was in India or that he ever worked as anything other than a seedsman or gardener. He can be found in Northleach as a child in the 1841 and 1851 censuses. By 1861 he is lodging in Westerham Kent and is still there in 1871. I suppose it is entirely possible that activities in India could have occurred in the intervening years between the 1861 and 1871 censuses, or more likely the 1871 to 1881 censuses – if the ‘boy soldier’ story is to be believed.

Or, was his father someone else entirely? Did Thomas and Ann go to India? After all, Thomas was a military man. Could Ann have had an affair, resulting in the break up with Thomas? Did Edward Roberts senior give her and her baby respectability? It is unclear whether they ever co-habitated prior to their marriage in 1878. It is also difficult to understand why daughter Alma went to live with her father Thomas, she would have only been aged 10 when young Edward was born, yet her younger brothers Arthur aged 7 and Eldred aged 3 remained with Ann and later Edward. Alma being 13 was of an appropriate age to be useful in keeping house and looking after her father.

Y-DNA testing

Edwards grandson (descended from his eldest son Ted) first took a Y-DNA test in 2012. Y-DNA is inherited via the paternal line (fathers, fathers, father), only handed down from fathers to sons. His haplogroup is R-M269, the dominant lineage in all of Western Europe today. It is found in low frequencies in Turkey and the northern Fertile Crescent, while its highest frequencies are in Western Europe. So, what does this tell us? Its frequency in Wales is about 92%, which is quite promising if Edward Roberts snr is in fact his father. I have only been able to trace the Roberts male line back to John Roberts. John can be found living in Gloucestershire England from about 1778, when he and his wife Dorothy baptised their first known son Isaac at Northleach. John was probably born before 1760, perhaps he came from Wales, as it was always said the Roberts line was Welsh in origin.

Edward inherited his Y-DNA from his father – this is the paternal line as we know it from traditional research, extending back to his second great grandfather John Roberts.

As far as we know Edward jnr only had two sons, both of whom emigrated to Australia with their parents in 1910. Edwards great grandson (a descendant of his younger son Jimmy) has also taken a Y-DNA test. Both YDNA tests were perfectly matched confirming that Edward was the father of both boys, as we had expected.

Unfortunately we have had NO matches greater than 12 markers since being first tested in 2012, even though Edwards grandson has subsequently upgraded to 111 markers. We now have 58 matches at 12 markers, only one with the surname Roberts, his terminal SNP being R-L151. Disappointingly this match has only tested to 12 markers and he is not interested in upgrading further. His oldest ancestor is Thomas Roberts born about 1812 in Corwen Wales, but I have been unable to connect the two lines. Even at 12 markers he is a genetic distance of 1 so potentially the match may not even stand up as a valid match with further testing.

Edwards grandson also upgraded his kit to the Big Y test in June 2018 and we now know his terminal SNP is R-BY23390. Unfortunately to date he has NO matches at all on his Big Y test.

Autosomal DNA testing

Autosomal DNA results have confirmed that Ann Roberts nee Laundon was definitely Edwards mother, but to date we have no matches to confirm his fathers side of the tree.

Three of Edwards grandchildren, the ROBERTS siblings, have now been tested enabling the technique of Visual Phasing to be employed. This method is being utilised to identify all the chromosomal segments that they inherited from Edward and provides the best hope for tracing his origins in the future. This analysis will be a priority in the coming months.

mtDNA testing

Whilst Edward would have inherited mtDNA from his mother Ann Laundon, males do not pass it on to their children. Looking backwards in time on Edwards maternal line (his mothers, mothers, mother) will not help to solve the mystery of Edwards birth nor confirm his father.

This is his mothers maternal line as we know it from traditional research, extending back to his second great grandmother Elizabeth York. The line has been tentatively confirmed by autosomal DNA as far back as his great grandmother Sarah Cave, daughter of Richard Cave of Clay Coton, Northamptonshire and his wife Elizabeth York .

Even so, Ann Laundon did have at least one female child with Thomas Baker, Alma Baker aka Gray, Corder who would have passed Ann’s mtDNA on to all her descendants. To further my research of Ann’s maternal line I would be keen to talk more with any living descendants of Alma, but also Mary LEE and Sarah CAVE who would carry the same mtDNA and are willing to help by taking an mtDNA test.

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As always, if you can help me expand my research please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog, via private message at Wikitree or email genemonkey25 AT gmail.com.

The Cassidy Matriarch – Mary Sweeney

The prompt for 52 Ancestors challenge for Week 3 2018 is ‘Longevity’. I struggled to think which ancestor I could choose, after trawling through my tree of over 6000 people I could not find anyone who lived to be 100 or even 90. I have chosen to tell the story of my 2nd great grandmother Mary Sweeney, also known as Mary Cassidy, who lived just short of 80 years, a woman who had a tough life from start to finish, a strong woman who outlived all but three of her 12 children (52Ancestors #5).

Mary Sweeney, photo restored by M. Dann 2015

Arrival in Australia

On 22 January 1839 Mary emigrated to Australia aboard the Roxburgh Castle with brother Terence as a bounty immigrant. Mary was brought out by a Mr Marshall, her occupation listed as a housemaid or children’s maid, age 20. Her character certified as very good, by persons in County Clare. Bodily health, strength and probable usefulness also stated as good. Roman Catholic and able to read. C O’Gorman, curate of County Clare, has certified her baptism indicating the year as 1817. Mary and Terence arrived in Sydney on 26th May 1839.

It took some time to determine the exact place of origin for Mary and Terence, but some clues were left throughout her life. Both arrival records state their parents names as John and Johanna Sweeney from County Clare.

Whilst Mary’s record states she is a native of Clare, Terence’s record indicates he is from Clones, County Clare. This is not a valid place name for Clare and was suspected to perhaps be Clooney, a townland and civil parish in Clare. Family stories suggest Mary used to proudly proclaim she was a native of Ennis, County Clare.

It was the birth certificate of her daughter Margaret in 1859 that provided more information. In this record Mary states her place of birth as Moresk, Co Clare, Ireland and that she was married in 1840 at Prospect. It is believed that this is Moyriesk, a townland in County Clare. Moyreisk townland is just over a square mile in size, and nearly all of it is located in Doora civil parish, with 77 acres in Clooney civil parish which aligns with the stated native place of Terence. Mary gave this information herself so is more likely to be accurate.

Irish Records

With some help from the Clare Heritage Organisation and the newly released Roman Catholic registers it appears that Mary was born in about 1816 and baptised on 21st May 1816 at Clooney, Clare, Ireland. The daughter of John Sweeney of Rathclooney and Joan Enright. Her sponsor at the time of baptism was noted as Catherine McNamara.

Mary’s mother may have died shortly after her birth, as her father remarried on 30 April 1820. A woman by the name of Honor MURPHY, the marriage registered at Tulla, Clare, Ireland. Mary would have only been about four years of age at this time. Parish baptism registers only started in Clooney in about 1816 and there are no other baptisms registered to John and Johanna (Joan), but there may well have been other siblings born before 1816. This would explain why no baptism record can be found for her brother Terence. Being approximately 3 years older, it is presumed he was a full brother.

Prior to her emigration to Australia conditions in Ireland were tough, with widespread hunger throughout the country in 1838. Her father John and his new wife Honor went on to have at least another 8 children by 1839, half siblings to Mary and Terence. No doubt a difficult time for all the family and not surprising that Terence and Mary who were by then aged 23 and 20 decided to take advantage of the colonial bounty system and emigrate to Australia.

Spouse and Family

Soon after arriving in the colony of New South Wales in 1839 Mary must have taken up with Thomas CASSIDY, a convict from Fermanagh Ireland who had been transported for life, but by that time had obtained his ticket of leave after serving as an overseer and constable. The couple had their first child together in April 1841, John was given a private baptism at St Patricks Church Parramatta, he is listed as illegitimate and the record states his name as John CASSIDY or John SWEENEY probably to reflect that the couple were not married at this time. We know that when Thomas was transported in 1830 that he had a wife and two children still living in Ireland so it is presumed he was still not free to marry.

Was the marriage date in the birth record of Margaret in 1859 just stated to account for having their first child in 1841, or was there really a marriage? My uncle, Laurie Roberts, tried unsuccessfully to find a marriage as long ago as 1955.

Mary and Thomas went on to have twelve children together. The family bible gives more information about their children. It is not known who completed this page and some of the information may have been recorded by different people. One child is not listed, the female twin of Patrick Thomas who died at birth in 1843.

The family lived at Prospect, near Parramatta and the couple worked as farmers. In a book written by Fr Peter Klein (about their grandson Phillip Cassidy) Mary is described as a ‘strongly built woman with fairer and wavy hair’.

Mary and Thomas had three children who died as infants, the female twin of Patrick Thomas in 1843, Austin at 7 days old in 1850 and Edward at 4 days old in 1851. Her husband Thomas later died in 1862, aged about 62, after a long and painful illness. He is buried in St Patricks Cathedral. Mary was left a widow with 8 children to care for, although her eldest John was by this time about 21 and probably a great help to his mother.

It must have been heartbreaking when her son Phillip William died just 2 years later in 1864 at the young age of nine years. His older sister Anna Maria following soon after in 1866, aged only 19. Both are buried in St Patricks with their father.

Mary Cassidy – Farmer and Grazier

In 1871 Mary applied for and was granted a freehold lease of 140 acres of land in Glenn Innes, County of Gough, Parish of Beardy Plains.

The Glenn Innes area is rich in Celtic History, the original settlers were Scots, but many people of Irish descent followed. Like many other Celtic families she made the trek north, close to 600 kilometres – quite an effort in those days. The rent was set at 13s 2d per annum. The property was known as Shannonvale.

Having lost her husband in 1862 it was no doubt a tough move at age 54 to take up farming on her own. However, six of Marys seven surviving children also made the move later marrying there or in nearby towns. Patrick Thomas was the only exception, he married in Liverpool but did later move to Glen Innes to be near his family. Mary and her family worked hard and had success, continuing to acquire more property. It appears she never married and remained independent throughout her life.

Glen Innes Examiner and General Advertiser (NSW : 1874 – 1908), Wednesday 28 April 1875, page 2

Free Selection. — The following selections were made at the local Land Office, on Thursday — Donald M’Master, 100 acres, county of Gough, parish of “Waterloo, adjoining former conditional purchase of 100 acres. Mary Cassidy (widow), 160 acres, county of Gough, parish of Beardy Plains, adjoining former conditional purchase of 100 acres.

Mary had to endure tough times as well. It was not that long after the move north that she lost her son Patrick in 1879 aged 34. Some time later in 1887 daughter Mary Clancy aged 39, eldest son John in 1888 aged 47 and youngest daughter Margaret Collopy in 1893 aged only 33. All have elaborate headstones in Glenn Innes Cemetery, with the exception of Margaret who is buried in Rookwood Cemetery. All headstones are annotated that they have been erected by their ‘affectionate mother’ suggesting Mary may have been reasonably affluent by that time, probably due to her successful farming endeavours.

On 11 Mar 1896 Mary died aged about 80 years from anasarca (an accumulation of fluid in the body due to heart failure) and gastritis. She is buried in the Cassidy family plot at Glen Innes with her children. Her death certificate lists her occupation as ‘Farmer’, a comment that wasn’t lost on the various feminists in our family who were very proud of the fact that she had her own occupation and was so independent.

Mary was survived by only three of her children, Eliza BICKLEY who died in 1919, Terence who died in 1930 and lastly my great grandmother Rebecca MURPHY who died in 1931.

In 1987, 90 years after her death, I visited Mary’s grave at Glenn Innes with my son and Aunt and Uncle, Margaret and Lionel GILBERT. The hair was quite wild in those days!

NSW probate papers indicate that at the time of her death in 1896 Mary’s estate was valued at 951 pounds, consisting of 940 pounds of real estate and 10 head of cattle, described as a ‘farmer and grazier’. The real estate by this time consisted of 510 acres of freehold land valued at 780 pounds as well as lands and a cottage situated in Hunter Street, Glenn Innes valued at 160 pounds. Much more significant holdings than when she first made the move in 1871.

In 2016 my husband and I visited the area known as Shannon Vale, the conditions today probably quite different than they were in Mary’s time, but no doubt it has always been rich and beautiful grazing land. We discovered what appeared to be the Shannon Vale property but it is a much larger station today (over 3000 acres).

DNA Analysis

It wouldn’t be fitting if I didn’t mention what we have found through DNA analysis in this post. As I have mentioned in previous posts we now have a number of Mary’s descendants DNA tested.

Autosomal DNA Testing

It was wonderful back in 2016 to connect with my fourth cousin Torin who lives in the United States. He is a descendant of Mary’s brother Terence, his great great grandson. It was though our DNA matches that we were able to confirm we were all descended from a common ancestor using a technique called triangulation. There are two segment areas on chromosome 12 where Torin currently shares DNA with multiple descendants of Mary. This suggests these segments have been inherited from the same shared ancestor, in this case from one of their parents John Sweeney or Johanna Enright. At this point we don’t know which, or it could be a combination of both. It has also been confirmed that all testers all match each other in these same segment areas, which is the key test to prove a triangulated segment.

mtDNA Testing

Mary is on my direct maternal line, so from the full sequence mitochondrial DNA test I took at Family Tree DNA we know that Marys mtdna is most likely Haplogroup J. People bearing haplogroup J settled in Europe from the Near East during the late Paleolithic and Meliolithic periods. Our sub clade J1c5 is aged between 8,300 and 13,000 years.

So far all I only have nine full sequence matches. All of them are at a genetic distance of 3, which is not considered close enough to be of genealogical significance, our connection could be up to 1000 years ago! They all lead to Ireland though, so that is promising. Hopefully 2018 will bring closer matches to help further expand the line.

Descendants of Mary who inherited her mtdna should also belong to the J1c5 haplogroup. You can see other known descendants (who are on Wikitree) in the DNA Descendants View at Wikitree by clicking here.

Y DNA testing

Mary being female doesn’t carry the Y chromosome but our match with Torin was doubly pleasing as he carries the Sweeney Y DNA, being in the direct paternal line. We hope that in the future we will be able to make more discoveries regarding Mary and Terences father John Sweeney, but that will be the subject of a later post.

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As always, if you can help me further expand my research please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog, or by private message via Wikitree.

Which Noll is it?

The 52 Ancestors challenge for Week 2 2018 is ‘Favourite Photo’. Those of you who know me would not be surprised about which photo I chose for this weeks challenge. If you have been following my research you will known that one of my main brick walls is finding the father of my paternal grandmother Thelma Griffin, my great grandfather (52Ancestors #4). Thelma always knew she was illegitimate, her birth certificate lists her father as ‘not known’. All we know is that he must have been in Adelaide, South Australia around August 1903.

This of course isn’t the favourite photo, but solving the mystery of who he might be has been one of my primary DNA goals. I had my first DNA test in 2010, but it took nearly 7 years for me to be able to piece together enough match information to be able to come close to solving this mystery.

I’ve tested everywhere. I’ve tested my mother everywhere. I’m very lucky to have been able to do that. After 7 years I’ve been able to find enough matches on my fathers paternal side to be able to be isolate matches that are probably on his mothers side. I had a breakthrough at AncestryDNA in early 2017 where I found several 4th cousins who all matched each other and didn’t match any of my other paternal matches, so it was a high chance they were matches on my ‘unknown’ line.

As is the way, very few of these matches responded to me on AncestryDNA, but analysing one of the trees and seeing some South Australian ancestry enabled me to search for more possible matches. I searched my more ‘distant’ matches for similar names, at all my testing sites and this led me to identifying some possible common ancestors. I found several matches that all had one of two sets of possible 4th great grandparents in their trees. From there I worked forward in time trying to identify likely ‘males’ who may have been in ‘the right place, at the right time’. Then I worked back in time from my matches, making sure that all the matches still tracked back to these ancestors and that the DNA shared with them also seemed appropriate for the ‘probable’ relationships.

This research suggested that my mystery great grandfather may have been Prussian, descended from early emigrants to South Australia. This could explain my high European West ethnicity, showing about 29% at AncestryDNA, when I can only account for about 3% from my known ancestry. Although this ancestor should only account for approx 12.5%!

Ethnicity information at 23andMe is much more interesting, they suggest my predicted German ethnicity is quite close, between 1840 -1900 – so if my theory is right it’s spot on!

I need to give a big thank you to the South Australian Family History Groups who wrote such wonderful histories of the Noll, Wedding and Wohling families back in the 1970’s and all the wonderful pedigrees and photos that they included. It was through these books that I was able to piece together many of the connections between my DNA matches and my possible shared Prussian ancestors.

After extensive research I became fairly certain that I was descended from one of the sons of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm NOLL and Maria Elizabeth WOHLING. The ‘Noll Family History 1850 -1976’ actually provided me with photos of these three sons. This became my favourite photo for 2017. I carried it around everywhere with me, often producing it for informal discussions over dinner, taking straw polls and comparing facial features! What do you think?

The candidates

My great grandmother Edith (Edie) Griffin is stated as living in Croydon Adelaide in April 1904 when my grandmother Thelma was born. Edie was 17, working as an occupation machinist. Interestingly, the youngest sister of the Noll brothers, Louisa Wilhelmina Noll, was exactly the same age as Edie also worked as a machinist. Edith grew up in Brompton and the Nolls lived close by, so perhaps Edith and Louisa were friends. They probably went to school together and may even have worked in the same place. Croydon and Brompton are very close in proximity and may well be references to the same place.

Heinrich Charles Otto NOLL – In 1903, Henry was married to Anne Frances Balfour (nee Richards). He was living in Brompton in 1902 at the time his son Alfred was born and had moved to Ridleyton by 1905. He became a minister in 1911 and died in 1938 aged 58.

Friedrich Wilhelm NOLL – The eldest of the three brothers who in 1903 was married to Anna Mabel Emery. He had three children by this time, but two had died as infants and his wife Annie was said to have never recovered, suffering poor health for the rest of her life. His fourth child was born in November 1903 so wife Annie would have been six months pregnant at the time Thelma was conceived. He lived in West Street Brompton after he married in 1897, but by the time his daughter was born in 1903 he was living in Bowden and by 1909 in Hindmarsh. He died in 1933, aged 57.

Otto Eduard NOLL – The youngest of the Noll brothers and in 1903 he was 21 and single. Perhaps the most likely candidate, still living at home in Brompton. He married Laura Elizabeth NICHOLS in 1908 and died 20 years later in 1928, at the early age of 45 – far too young. Could he be my great grandfather?

DNA results so far…

To test my theory I managed to find a grandson of Otto (Cousin A) and his DNA test confirmed that we were quite closely related. If Otto is my great grandfather then our relationship would be half 1st cousins once removed. If Fred or Henry were my great grandfather then my relationship to Cousin A would be 2nd cousins once removed. As luck would have it, after looking at the expected cMs for these relationships our match is somewhere between the two. Our shared DNA was between 164-210 cMs depending which testing site you looked at! We also have a large X match at 74cMs, which does suggests a relationship via Cousin A’s great grandmother Maria Wohling.

Subsequently we both matched another descendant of Maria’s parents (Cousin B) which provided a triangulated match on the X chromosome suggesting the relationship to the Wohling line was confirmed. All three cousins match each other on identical segments.

As far as chromosomes 1-22 go, Cousin A and I share on multiple segments many of which are not yet triangulated, but this is largely due to the fact that the 40+ matches we have at AncestryDNA have not uploaded their results to www.gedmatch.com, so they cannot be compared at the chromosome level. The sheer number of matches that all fit this hypothesis are strong evidence (I believe) that I am on the right track.

Of the matches at AncestryDNA only six have uploaded their results to GEDmatch. Triangulated matches have confirmed relationships to distant ancestors on both the Noll and Wohling sides, but more are needed.

More DNA tests required…

Are you descended from any of the ancestors listed below? Have you DNA tested? If so, I would love to be able to compare our results at GEDmatch. I am particularly interested in anyone descended from the three NOLL brothers and would be willing to fund autosomal DNA tests, on the understanding that results would be uploaded to GEDmatch, or another testing site that provides chromosome analysis.

To access the tree at Wikitree, please click here.

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As always, if you can help please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or via private message at Wikitree.

2021 Postscript: You can now hear me talk about this DNA journey on You Tube.

Featured Image: Brompton Hotel