Wednesday 25 June 2014

Inching backward

Knowledge of my mysterious Clinton/Parker ancestors has increased.
Analysis of FamilyFinder results just in for a 3rd cousin shows the following dna segments represent Clinton/Parker (or earlier ancestral lines) dna.
The FamilyFinder results don't show any others helpfully overlapping the above kits at the same points, so we aren't that much further ahead yet in finding previously unknown relations who can help figure out where William CLINTON came from, or any further hints about Jemima PARKER.

GEDMatch results yet to be explored.

Anyone else claiming descent from William and Jemima would be MOST welcome to add to our sum of knowledge.
Order a FamilyFinder kit*, and join the autosomal DNA project FFLornaHen!

* using this link to order gives WikiTree something towards their wonderful free collaborative tree.

Monday 16 June 2014

Related or not?

The more observant of you may have noticed that my main webpages have been updated (Big Brother).
The list of recent changes is rather bunched up on yesterday, mainly because that was when I checked off the people updated since the last publication - and of course found and fixed all (most of?) the typos etc.

Jemima PARKER appears because I've been fossicking around seeing whether or not any of the  FamilyFinder matches of descendants can shed any light on her and William CLINTON's ancestry - and seeing if there are any lines of enquiry left to pursue.
This time round I decided to see if anything could be found via the marriage witnesses, given I'd a question mark on the spelling of one of them.
The witnesses to their 1810 marriage at St Alphage were given as a James [H/K]UZELL  and Ann CAMPBELL, and after a few false starts on what the name was most likely to be, I found what looks a likely pair marrying at St Alphage in 1813, James HAZELL and Ann CAMPBELL.

Anyone know anything about the family?
Dragged off the street to be witnesses? Friends? Relations? Waiting around in the church for another event?

I'm still digging, but it looks like James might have been a leather cutter, and may still have been alive in 1842 but I've not yet positively identified him or any of the family (daughters Sarah Ann, 1814, Charlotte, 1815, James Henry 1820, all baptized St Giles, Cripplegate) in the 1841 census.
There's a possibility in Essex which piqued my interest given Jemima's background, another in Berkshire and another in Somerset, which latter I think can be discounted. Jury still out on the others.



Sunday 15 June 2014

Likely rellies

My WorldConnect Database LornaPotential has been updated.
As mentioned earlier, it now includes some of the families being investigated because they've come up in  more than one of my FamilyFinder DNA matches.

Of particular curiousity at the moment is the family of Andrew SMEAL/SMAIL and Ann OLIVER (married 1751, Bowden, Roxburghshire) as they have come up several times amongst my matches.
Unfortunately all matches tested  on Ancestry, not FamilyTreeDNA, and only one of the matches has uploaded to GEDMatch where further dna comparisons can be made to explore further, rather than believing Ancestry's "trust us we know what we're doing" policy.

Another is the family of John HOOD and Janet LINDORES who may lead to some DAVIDSON discoveries?

If you are a descendant of any of the families found in LornaPotential, and at all interested in exploring genetic genealogy, by all means join in the fun and try a FamilyFinder test to see what we would learn about our (possible) connections.
There's a great discount going at the moment - until midnight on the 17th June, EST.

Friday 13 June 2014

Hoping something is true...

... isn't the same as it being true.
A couple of years ago I found some HAMILTON twigs in Australia.
The several trees on ancestry all claimed George HAMILTON and Isabella ORMISTON as their ancestors.
At the time I was on a quest to find a direct male line descendant of this couple (or for that matter any of the preceding generations) who might be willing to be a guinea pig and do his thing for family history by participating in the FAMILTON DNA Project.
Still looking - hint, hint! Remember that the line of the Ancrum weavers that we hope to match are of an unusual haplogroup for the Borders (G), which might add some interest to the search.

Information from an 1899 family tree had shown that several of the sons had indeed gone to Australia, nothing further known.

Superficially the information checked out but with nothing concrete to prove the linkage, and with, I do admit, a slight niggle as one of the death index entries had a wrong mother's forename.

Something led me back to the family this week.
Time moves on, more records are more readily available.

The main link to descendants was William Sydney HAMILTON, son of George HAMILTON and Catherine HENDERSON.
However he is now known to not be the one marrying DRYER and producing descendants, as his headstone shows he died aged 8 months and is buried with three of his siblings (Peter Henderson, Jessie, and Catherine HAMILTON) who all died as infants, and his mother Catherine Henderson HAMILTON of Argyll (not Ireland).

Further info was found this time round on the son who survived infancy, George.
So, several twigs lost and only one gained - IF the George marrying Catherine is indeed our George.
We do know that the George marrying Catherine was 28 in 1848, which fits, but that's circumstantial evidence as his death has not yet been found.
Some trees show George as the 1883 death indexed as parents George and Isabella. However the matching death notice shows that George as 21, native of Glasgow, where there's a matching birth indexed in Govan to George HAMILTON and Isabella BOW.

Son George married a Charlotte Jane McMASTER and produced at least one son, Gordon Cumming HAMILTON.
An note on a FamilySearch tree adds that he was the first to drive a car over the Blue Mountains from Sydney - haven't yet found any record of that.
Can anyone elaborate?
Can anyone fully confirm that this George married to Catherine HENDERSON is the son of George and Isabella (ORMISTON) HAMILTON?

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson that contains the basic BDM data for all the dead rellies and connections has been updated to reflect this change of tack, and bring in all the updates from the last few months.