Saturday 25 June 2016

Spot the flaw

"CEN: l850 Michigan, p.ll0 - DAW, William - KARO, l55R, Kalamazoo Co., Ross Township, l840 Mich..no Daw..3 Daws..no Wm. 2228/224l Wm. DAW 25 m Labouer b N.Y. Cornelia 22 f " " " John 3 m " Mich....l850 Ross Twp., census....he was the only one in the entire l850 cen., so he must be fa of Robert b after l850c. REF: Family Tree Maker: 1860 census: DAW, William - NJ P. 848 - Red Hook Twp., Dutchess Co., NJ"

Yes I'm back on a DAW(E) trail again.
Been a while, or at least it seems so.

This voyage started the other day with a new Ancestry DNA match, one with a shared ancestor hint no less.
Yes, we both have the same DAWE family in our respective trees, Isaac and Sarah (SMITH) DAWE of Lamerton (that's WikiTree, and this is my webpage link). I descend from son Isaac, my match from son Thomas.
Now if only we could see the DNA details to prove that this is where the match actually lies?
I'll have to wait for my match to upload to GEDMatch where comparisons can be made against several other kits who also descend from Isaac and Sarah.

While I wait, comparisons were made between our shared match lists and only one of interest popped up - sharing 24cMs with me but far less with my match, but previously on my alert list as there was a DAW showing in the tree. In California, recent-ish timeframe, but no ancestors shown.

Last time I explored tentative ancestors for this mysterious DAW I'd merely quickly tracked around published trees with some spot checks against census data. That led me to a Robert son of a William supposedly born in New York around the 1820s, where I lost interest.

This time round details were checked a bit more thoroughly.
Although I cannot yet document the link between a Robert DAW born Michigan, marrying and fathering a son in 1892 in California and dying before the 1900 census, and the Robert Henry in the 1870 and 1880 census records in Whitewater, Grand Traverse, Michigan, I do have a whiff of potential success.

The flaw of the title?
"...he was the only one in the entire l850 cen., so he must be fa of Robert b after l850c."
Actually two flaws. One was the assumption that Robert was born between 1850 and 1860, the other that noone could possibly have entered the State after the 1850 census and still be in contention as the candidate family.

Tweaking the search parameters for Roberts in Michigan born around the same time as his Californian wife (about 1865) brought up what looks like gold.
There, in 1870, is a family of an Isaac and Nellie (actually should be Nettie) DAW, both born England.
My genie radar is fairly finely attuned to mentions of Isaac DAW(E)s of England anywhere in the world. My tree abounds in the blighters. And very hard to distinguish they can be too sometimes.
Luckily this one had a handy death certificate, which only looks to have a couple of small errors - mother's name missing an I (FREND instead of FRIEND), and a couple of years out on a birth date.
BUT it did have the gem of saying that Isaac was born in Tavistock. Which my radar is doubly attuned to in association with DAW(E)s.
Sure enough there was an Isaac Friend DAW being baptized in Tavistock to a John and Mary, and a handy set of banns several years prior showing a John DAW, hatter, marrying a Mary FRIEND.

I was already quite excited by all of this, nothing like the whiff of success and dots being joined.
But who was John?
Luckily for me, unhappily for the family, there was a sad little set of records showing a baptism in 1832 of a Mary Sarah Jane, daughter of "the late John DAW, hatter, and Mary his wife".
Which made it rather easy to spot John's burial record a few months prior.
Same street address as on Mary Sarah Jane's baptism, and an age that placed him as born around 1799. But where? And which John?
Nothing suitable in Tavistock presented itself. So I tried the Whitchurch John, baptized in Oct 1798 - to ......
The next post may reveal all :)
I'm still convincing myself of the dots being joined here.


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