#52Ancestors

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.

Forsyth 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.

Gold Mining Lease #1780, dated 1898

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 able 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? It’s 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? We may never know.

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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, Genie1-Louise Coakley 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#6 – Part 2).

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?

YearAnn Laundon b1835Thomas Baker b1823Edward Roberts b1841
1857Married Thomas BakerMarried Ann Laundon
1861Army Barracks, HampshireArmy Barracks, HampshireWesterham, Kent – lodger
1865Eldred Baker born Westerham, KentWesterham, Kent (children 1858-1865)
1869Edward Roberts born London Road,
Westerham, Kent		Named as father of Edward Roberts Baker
1871Croydon, 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
1878Married Edward Roberts at Croydon.
Widow, residing at Norwood.		Married Annie Baker at Croydon.
Bachelor, residing at Norwood.
1881London Road, Westerham, KentDied 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) on the patrilineal line (ie carrying or following the expected 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 (R-BY160942 in the block tree).

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.

Postscript: View my presentation to the Society of Australian Genealogists on You Tube.

Meet Catherine ‘Kitty’ Britton, thanks to the X chromosome.

It is very true that DNA is just one tool in the genealogists basket, but it is wonderful when it can come together and help to validate theories established by traditional research.  Confirming the identity of Catherine Britton as my maternal 3rd great grandmother has been one of my goals for about 10 years. Her name has now been confirmed thanks to DNA testing and my first ancestor to be confirmed using the X chromosome (52Ancestors#1). 

britton_large
 

I started seriously researching my family history in about 2006.   One of the first exciting discoveries I had was finding out that Thomas Cassidy (my maternal 2nd great grandfather) was a convict transported to Australia on Hercules II in 1830, along with his two brothers Phillip and Edward for throwing their landlords horse off a cliff!  Their father Stephen was also imprisoned. Edward escaped from the colony in 1833 but both Thomas and Phillip had families and died in Australia – but more about the Cassidy’s in another post! This is about their mother, now known to be Catherine, or Kitty Britton.

 
Traditional Genealogy

Both the death certificates of sons Thomas and Phillip who died in Australia list their mothers name as ‘Unknown Britton’. After exhaustive searching I was unable to find any records in Australia that indicated her first name.  There are no parents names on the convict indents but they do indicate their native place as being Fermanagh, Ireland. Thomas’ death certificate suggested he was from Bow, Fermanagh, which we subsequently identified as being the small hamlet and Civil Parish of Boho, near Enniskillen.

 
Screenshot 2017-03-27 12.45.45
 

It was my 3rd cousin Marnie who first alerted me to a possible marriage record on the IGI.  The record had been submitted by a member of the LDS church in the US by a woman by the name of Mary Fear (now deceased). This record indicated a marriage between Stephen CASSIDY and Catherine BRITTEN in Ennis, Killeen, Ireland in 1809.  Could this be them?  At the time we had thought this may have been a reference to Ennis in County Clare. Clare and Fermanagh are not next door to each other, so could it be a different couple?  The record suggested Catherine was born in abt 1788.  At the time I had no way to contact Mary to find out more information.  Thomas and Phillip were born before 1809.  

It seemed a long shot, these US Cassidy’s descended from a James Cassidy and Margaret McElroy presumably who emigrated from Ireland before 1828.  At the time of this discovery, my aunt Mary ROBERTS (now deceased) was very keen to have these connections confirmed, she was thrilled with the fact they had named one of their descendants Jefferson Davis Horan, having long been a supporter of the Southern cause.  A pity she couldn’t be here to celebrate.

 

It was Marnie again who turned up the only document we have that tells us a bit about the family’s history in Ireland.  It is actually a book written about the ecclesiastical life of Father Phillip Cassidy (Catherines grandson) who was the 1st Australian born ordained priest.  The first chapter talks about the Cassidy’s roots in Ireland, this is what he says about their mother, who we now know is Catherine:  

”She renounced the church at the beginning of the 19th century which her forefathers had followed for over 200 years, and returned to the church of her earlier ancestors, to the Holy Catholic faith and married an outstanding young catholic captain Stephen Cassidy.  Her father was an Anglican clergyman who was a military chaplain for the garrison at Fermanagh in the North of Ireland.’’(Source:  Fr Peter Charles Klein SYD, Life of Father Philip Cassidy, PP Archdeacon, Benedictine Monks, Arcadia, NSW, Fr Peter Charles Klein SYD).

 

Brittons of Boho, Fermanagh

Armed with this information I tried to find records in Ireland of Britton’s who were clergymen.  It was then I first made contact with Ruth, an avid Britton researcher in the UK who has become one of my ongoing correspondents, as we agonise over these Brittons.  Her Britton family were indeed clergymen in the Church of Ireland and were from Tullyholvin, a townland also in the Civil Parish of Boho.  Ruth’s oldest known Britton ancestor is James Britton/Britain, who married Mary Laird, born abt 1788.  Could he be a brother of Catherine?  We only know Catherine had a brother named Thomas.  In 1828 Thomas Britton was living at nearby Mullaghdun Townland about 3 and a half miles from the Cassidy family, he was married had only one son and at least one daughter. It would not be surprising if the family was much larger. 

 

Some time after this I met Don online who was a descendant of the US James CASSIDY (believed to be the son of Catherine Britton and Stephen Cassidy). Don told me of a relation who he understood had a family bible which he was hoping to inspect.  It turned out this was Mary Fear the person who had originally submitted the IGi record.  Shortly afterward in 2010 I stumbled upon the email address for Mary Fear on the internet, so I quickly wrote to her about the family bible.   Mary kindly copied the bible pages for me even though she was very unfamiliar with scanning, it showed the births, deaths and marriages of the family.  Mary told me the bible pages had been given to her by her aunt, Hortense Horan, prior to her death.  

From my observation it looked as if someone had later tried to make sense of the some of the information and added to it after it had been originally recorded, particularly for the later entries.  However what was clear was that the parents of James, were recorded as Stephen Cassidy and Catherine/Kitty Britton, and indicated that James married Margaret (Granny) McElroy in Enniskillen, Ireland.

Screenshot 2017-03-27 10.09.10
 
Screenshot 2017-03-27 10.10.16
 
 

It seems likely that the IGI record for Catherine Brittens birth was estimated based on this record.  If James was born in 1810, then a marriage in 1809 and a birth date for Catherine of 1788 suggests she would have been at least 21. So it is plausible that the marriage could have been much earlier, and consequently her birth date also much earlier too.  Her husband Stephen was not transported due to his age in 1830, so perhaps both could have been much older, or not.  

 
DNA testing

About this time I became interested in DNA testing and tried to encourage all my Cassidy/Britton contacts to have theirs tested too, hoping to solve this mystery or at least confirm a connection.  It was early days and I didn’t have much joy there.  

We made our first visit to Enniskillen in 2011, examining the headstones in both the Roman Catholic and the Church of Ireland cemeteries at Boho looking for clues, we found some headstones for other Britton’s, could they be connected to our family?

 
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Roman Catholic Church, Boho
 
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Church of Ireland, Boho
 
 

Fast forward to 2014, Ruth agreed to do a DNA test for me.  We had by now several of my family members tested and we hoped we would get a match.  Alas no, not to any of my direct family anyway but she did have a very large match on chromosome 17 with my second cousin John.  The segment range 62.2 – 75.3, segment length 32.9cMs.  Whilst it may include an old population segment (Identical by population – IBP), which could explain the size, I believe well over half of the match to be an ‘identical by descent’ (IBD) segment.  

John and Ruth would be 4th cousins once removed if Catherine and James Britton were siblings, so a match this large might be considered unusual. There are however multiple people who triangulate in this same segment area, and whilst we cannot definitively confirm a connection the segment is shaping up to possibly being a Britton segment, or at least one from Fermanagh. At least two others have links with the name Britten or Fermanagh, the known ancestors in this triangulated group are shown below.  

If anyone has more information on how these families might connect please let me know.  I live in hope I might get more responses from others who also triangulate on this segment.

 
 

Using visual phasing techniques for my mother and her two siblings, then John and his uncle, we have established that my mother and her brothers all inherited the same DNA from the same maternal ancestor on these segments on chromosome 17.  Their first cousin Michael (Johns uncle) also appears to have inherited the same segment as the Roberts siblings.  So John may have inherited this segment from the opposite maternal grandparent (to that of the Roberts siblings and Michael).

Unfortunately, we have no other confirmed matches on chromosome 17 to give us more clues about which grandparent gave them the segment, so the question remains – is Johns segment the Britton line, or is it a segment belonging to his mothers paternal side? 

Details of the triangulated groups can be found here.   

The X chromosome

In studying Ruth’s matches one day I discovered that she and I had an X match. Funnily enough Ruth and I are possibly related on two lines, she is also a 4th cousin once removed to me on my paternal side, shared ancestors Thomas Ellard and Elizabeth Risley.  However when I checked our possible X DNA ancestors, neither Ellard/Risley or unknown Britton could have contributed to her X-dna, so this match was probably just ‘identical by chance’ (IBC).  So once again, we have nothing to confirm!

 
Screenshot 2017-03-29 13.28.02
 

Imagine my surprise, when recently Don’s name popped up in my AncestryDNA matches!  How exciting, he matched me and my mother.  After he uploaded his results to GEDmatch I was very quick to examine how he matched all our known Cassidy/Britton connections.  He had quite good size matches with my mother and one of her brothers Barry and their 1st cousin Michael, however none of them triangulated.  Don and Mum (and her brothers) would be 3rd cousins twice removed so we needed triangulation to confirm the relationships.

As I was getting dismayed, I suddenly remembered I hadn’t looked at the matches on the X chromosome.  Hallelujah!  We have a triangulated segment, between Don and two cousins, Michael and Mums brother (another John), different descent lines, triangulated between locations 99.7-115.4, about 14cMs.  

 
Screenshot 2017-03-27 18.52.46
 

The two other cousins who match Don follow a similar X inheritance path, just on their maternal side, both being male.  The following image is my X chromosome inheritance path, but the X inheritance paths for both cousins follow the same ancestral lines back from Rebecca, and descend from different children.  

Screenshot 2017-03-29 13.31.31
 

At last, we have confirmation that the US and Australian families are connected and finally our “Unknown’ Britton has a first name, Catherine or perhaps ‘Kitty’ Britton!!  But, we still haven’t managed to connect her to other Brittons in Fermanagh by DNA, that is still works in progress.

 
Onward and upward

When we visited Boho in 2011, my husband and I went to ‘The Linnet Inn’ and had a Guiness to toast my Cassidy ancestors, thinking they would have gathered in this very same place.   It was many years later that I found out the original owners of this wonderful establishment were none other than Ruth’s Tullyholvin Brittons!  Could there be a Britton ancestral connection to this place for us as well?  I hope to be having another visit here when several of Catherine’s descendants will be meeting in Enniskillen for the 2017 Cassidy Clan Gathering!

 
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The Linnet Inn, Boho 2011
 
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Having a quiet drink at the Linnet Inn, 2011
 

By now Ruth and I have amassed a possible family for our Catherine and her James.  We can’t confirm it yet, we need your help.  Anyone descended from the Britton/Britten/Britain families of Fermanagh, please consider DNA testing.   It is our strong belief that most of the Brittons in the area were related.

For a list of Catherine’s known descendants please click here.

Here is a list of the other possible family members, please contact me if you have any further information about them, their ancestors and/or descendants:-

• Catherine Britton bef 1788 m Stephen Cassidy, at least 4 sons

• Thomas Britton bef 1780? – married with son and daughter

• James Britton bef 1788 m Mary Laird, at least 11 children.  Descendants in UK and Canada.

• John Britton bef 1785 m Mary Hamilton, at least 7-10 children (one DNA match so far, but not triangulated).  Some descendants in Australia.

• William Britton bef 1786, at least one son Noble Britton

• Margery Britton bef 1800 m William Elliot, at least one son Robert Britton Elliot.  Some descendants in Australia.

 

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Ruth in Boho Fermanagh, 2004
 
The X Ancestors of Catherine

One final point of interest is in relation to Catherine parents.  In examining other potential matches on the X chromosome, it may suggest that either Catherines paternal grandmother or more likely her mothers family, may have had German ancestry. Baden Wuttenberg being a common location.  The Brittons may well have come from Scotland or England during the Plantation of Ulster, but could her mothers family be German Palatines?  Time will tell…….perhaps we will discover more when we visit Enniskillen again later this year!

 
 
Postscript….

After writing this article I had another discovery.  I’ve been staring at an ‘anonymous’ predicted 3rd cousin match at 23andMe listing the surname Cassidy, for several months.  I was recently finally transitioned to the ‘new’ 23andMe experience, which allowed us to contact anonymous matches, which we couldn’t do on the ‘old’ experience.  I quickly made contact and found this person was indeed another descendant of Catherine Britton, from her son Phillip!   Remarkably she matches my mother and I on the same segments on Chromosome 1 as we match Don.  I long to be able to get her onto GEDmatch to make sure she matches Don, then we would have another confirmed triangulated segment!

Finally in closing, it is with great sadness I have to report that Michael Stevens, my mothers first cousin referred to in this post, passed away in the last week after a long illness.  Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time. However, his DNA sample lives on and we hope in time it will provide many more clues for his descendants and extended cousins on their journeys to discover more about their ancestral origins.

 
 
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Michael Stevens  1937 – 2017, circa mid 1960’s
 
As always, if you can help me expand my research please do not hesitate to contact me via this blog or via private message at Wikitree.

An historic event – 52 Ancestors, DNA confirmed!

The journey so far

A momentous milestone was achieved last month, and no, it wasn’t that I have written about ANY of my ancestors for the 52 ancestors challenge, the main reason for starting this blog site 2 years ago!  At the time, I was very enthusiastic and excited by the thought of the project but I must have known I couldn’t keep up the weekly challenge given the tagline ‘starting small!’  It’s probably fitting that my inaugural post is about my genetic research, when you think of how totally obsessed I have become with solving various mysteries associated with my ancestral roots in the past few years.

Cause for celebration –  I now have 52 confirmed DNA ancestors!  It has however been a long hard slog and don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy.  You might think 52 confirmed ancestors is a lot, but if we go out 7 generations (that’s to 6th cousins) we all have a total of 254 direct ancestors who may have contributed to our DNA.  So after 6 years since my Family Finder autosomal test with FTDNA I am about 20% of the way there, but don’t forget much of what I have achieved so far is what they call ‘low hanging fruit!’  Of those 52, 28 of those are clearly confirmed and the remaining 24 we have confirmed connections back to 12 sets of ancestral couples.

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Courtesy: http://www.all-about-forensic-science.com/dna-pictures.html

To start doing DNA research, getting your head around the 4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy is the most important first step, no one can explain that better than Roberta Estes.  Reading her stories about how DNA has helped her in understanding her family history as part of the 52 ancestors challenge is always inspiring.

I just thought I’d share some quick comments about my progress to date on each of the 4 Kinds of DNA:

Y-DNA

Passed down from father to sons.  Being female I don’t have any Y-DNA passed to me from my father.  A common problem in our family, particularly on my maternal side, is that the male line had a tendency to die out.   So I have had to rely on the generosity of other extended male family members to help me.  So far, I have test kits for my COAT, ROBERTS, CASSIDY and SWEENEY lines.  I am still searching for possible candidates for my BRADLEY, GRIFFIN and MURPHY lines.  In particular the COAT line has given me loads of interesting follow up research, but I’ll tell you more about that in a subsequent post! These tests helped me confirm 7 of my 52 ancestors, so 13%.

Mitochondrial DNA – better known as mtDNA.

Only females can take this test, but unlike Y-DNA which only gets passed down to sons, women pass this on to all their children.  I had the full sequence mtDNA test back in early 2011 and six years later only have six matches and all of them at a genetic distance of 3, which many say is too far out to worry about!  My maternal haplogroup is J1c5, it is said to have originated between 8-13,000 years ago, European, but often found in West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia or North Asia.  My maternal line traces back to County Clare in Ireland.  

By contrast, my fathers maternal haplogroup (which I was able to obtain by testing a distant cousin), is H1a1e, also European and originating 15-20,000 years ago, also found at significant frequency in the Near East and in some Middle Eastern populations.  It is the most common haplogroup for most Europeans being about 14% of the population. Consequently, it is not so surprising that we have 192 full sequence matches, with 37 of them a genetic distance of 1.  

Unfortunately, no DNA confirmations have yet come from these two tests.

Autosomal DNA

I like to think of this as the ‘cousins’ test.  It’s the part I love best, trying to untangle lines and identify where your DNA segment matches are coming from, a great big puzzle! Unlike Y-DNA and mtDNA it can’t just be attributed to one person up the line, but any of them! This means finding other cousins to compare your results to.  You can either recruit more testers or just build on your results as you find matches.  Every new confirmed match is a clue to finding more matches.  The remaining 45 confirmed ancestors (including the 12 couples) I have found from this type of analysis.  After about 5 years of research I was only up to about 17, mainly confirmations of my known tree through targeted testing.  In 2015, I reached a turning point, a Mac version of Genome Mate Pro was released and I haven’t looked back.  The program helps you be systematic in your approach to your research and results show for themselves. If you haven’t used it yet, I’d encourage you to give it a go, it’s a free download and they have a great support network.

X chromosome

Not to be confused with mtDNA,  the X chromosome has special inheritance patterns and in theory can help you find your common ancestor.  I’ve had a lot of fun colouring in my charts which you can find on The Genetic Genealogist, by Blaine Bettinger which I do for all my known cousins so I know when ‘X’ might be relevant.  I haven’t had any success, YET, in having this help me confirm any ancestors but it has helped me narrow down the possibilities for some of my autosomal matches.

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See my full tree at Wikitree ! embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

Why did I start this and where to from here?

I started out on my DNA journey to test a theory about my very elusive 2nd great grandfather, the father of Abigail COURTNEY, Arthur George COURTENAY or is it really George William COURTNEY?  I am no closer to finding him than I was when I started but I have now finally established that there are no known male descendants who may have carried his Courtney Y-DNA.  So, its only autosomal testing that can help me – one segment at a time!

The other major goal is to identify the father of my paternal grandmother, Thelma Irene GRIFFIN.  The mystery man who must have been in Adelaide, South Australia around 1903. I am in search of cousins from her known GRIFFIN line to help me isolate that DNA from the segments I have inherited from her father.  I thought I had a contender, right place, right time, but as will happen with DNA, subsequent testers have proven that those segments came from my fathers paternal side.  Back to the drawing board….  If you are a Griffin cousin please let me know if you are interested in helping with this research.