Robin's DNA- Scandinavian Surprise!

Our biggest hope for Robin's DNA test was that it would confirm that she has Native American ancestry.  The biggest surprise was there was not even a trace amount of Native American shown in her ethnic mix.  Other surprises were that the Irish ancestry was only 6% and Scandinavian was 9%.  Now she is ready to go out and buy a Volvo!

Apparently, Robin is not the only one who had the Scandinavian surprise.  The Ancestry.com blog includes a post: Got Scandinavian? Why your DNA results may have unexpected ethnicities  The Scandinavian link is actually from the British Isles as shown in this pie chart:

Pie Chart of Average British Admixture - SOURCE: Ancestry.com

I loved this quote and comment in the blog post:  “The people of this region are a real genetic cocktail,” says Oxford Professor Peter Donnelly.  "So, if you hail from the British Isles, don’t be shaken if your genetic ethnicity results are decidedly stirred," adds Nick Cifuentes.

AncestryDNA is rolling out a new feature called "New Ancestor Discoveries" which is in the Beta testing phase.  Here are the three ancestors that are in DNA Circles for Robin:

John Nicholas Whisenant and Nancy Thompson are husband and wife but how is Robin connected to them?

I searched our tree to find a Whisenant ancestor but could not find anyone with that name in our family tree.   My old Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software has a feature that will search in the notes field of thousands of ancestors.  The PAF search revealed that Robin's ancestor, Charles Thomas Pritchard was buried in the Whisenant Cemetery in Snowball, Searcy County, Arkansas.  That seems like a good place to focus the search for the new ancestors discovered by the DNA test.

We are now in the process of getting Robin's mom, Irma Fitzpatrick tested.  Robin expected a little more Irish due to the Fitzpatrick ancestry.  It will be interesting to see how much Irish shows up in Irma's ethnicity results.  We are also encouraging all of our siblings and cousins to get tested. We are excited to find more pieces in our Ancestor Puzzles!

How to trace your ancestors with Scottish heritage.

I recently had the pleasure of presenting two sessions at the Houston Family Genealogy Day sponsored by the LDS Church.  In this week's blog, I am presenting a few highlights of my Scottish presentation. My class handouts for the both the Irish and Scottish session are posted here.  In addition, there are handouts from several of the other presenters that are profiled here.

Millions of Americans claim Scottish ancestry.  Here are a few of the famous Scottish Americans.

Scots vs. Scots-Irish

James Webb in his book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America -2004 cites statistics that 27 million Americans can trace their lineage to Scotland. Centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland was one of the contributing factors that forced many to immigrate to North America.  England encouraged many Scots to become part of the Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland.  One challenge in Scottish genealogy is to determine if your immigrant ancestors came from Scotland or Ireland.  The following slide shows that the number of Americans who were actually born in Scotland has always been a relatively small number.

Authoritative estimates of Scottish immigration between the period from 1607 to 1850 are difficult to find.  One measure of Scottish immigration is to look at the number of people who were actually born in Scotland according to the U.S. census at various points in our history.

Using FamilySearch.org (FS) for Scottish genealogy

The first stop that I recommend for researching Scottish ancestors is the Family Search Wiki for information, links and a bibliography of reference books.  My next recommendation would be to review the Family History Library Catalog.  Start by searching Scotland, then focus on localities of interest.  A similar search strategy can be used with Family Search Books.  You can also use a locality & surname as search terms.  Also review the compiled family trees for your surnames of interest.

Learn Geography of Scotland 

Counties and parishes are the principal record jurisdictions of Scotland but learning the names of the towns and boundaries of the estates is also important.  Maps, atlases and gazetteers are useful tools for learning geography.  The Genealogical Atlas of Scotland is available for free download at Family Search Books. I also recommend that you search “Scotland Maps” at Family Search Wiki  which has dozens of links to online maps, atlases and gazetteers.  The National Library of Scotland has an impressive collection of maps online at Maps.nls.uk.  

GENUKI.org

One of the sites that I highly recommend viewing is GENUKI.org.uk.   GENUKI provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland. It is a non-commercial service, maintained by a charitable trust and a group of volunteers. One of the many resources on this website is an 1868 Gazetteer of Scotland.

ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk

By far the most valuable website for Scottish genealogy research is ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk.  This website has evolved from the 2011 merger of the General Register Office for Scotland and National Archives of Scotland.  The website has over 90 million records from 1500s to 1900s.   

ScotlandsPeople is a pay site but compares favorably to the cost of ordering microfilm for the same records which are available through Family Search.  Each page of search results costs one page credit to view ($.32). Viewing document image costs 5 credits (1GBP or $1.58). 

However if you already have a subscription to Ancestry.com or have convenient access to a Family Search center you may want to pay attention to this comparison of records available at the "Big Three" of Scottish genealogy.

These are just a few of the highlights from my presentation on Scottish genealogy.  Don't forget to review all of my slides here.   I would be happy to consult with you on your Scottish genealogy.  If your genealogy society is looking for a speaker on the topic or if you need more information, please contact me in the box in the right hand column of this blog.

Father's Day Weekend Recap- Ireland, Scotland, Texas and Tahoe

It has been a very busy weekend for me with many celebrations and genealogical connections.

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of presenting two sessions at the Houston Family Genealogy Day sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My class handouts for the both the Irish and Scottish session are posted here.  In addition, there are handouts from several of the other presenters that are profiled here.

For those that attended my presentation on Irish genealogy,  I offer the following previous blog posts that I have written on Irish genealogy:

Ancestor Puzzles: My Dilemma with the Lord of the Manor ...

Feb 16, 2015

My paternal grandmother's ancestor, James McCrory, left County Monaghan, Ireland, settled in Lancashire, England married an innkeeper's daughter, Sarah Lee and took her to Pennsylvania. I have had the good fortune to ...

Irish Genealogy- NOT ALL THE RECORDS BURNED!

Jul 30, 2011

My wife and I traveled to Ireland in April 2008 and spent time in Dublin and Belfast with five days spent at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. I was able to document many of my family stories in the records at PRONI ...

City Directories Contain Pieces of Your Ancestor Puzzle

Nov 24, 2014

However now that we know that Bridget Ann Moss was born in Ireland and that she had a son, William Patrick Moss born 1879 in California, it appears fairly certain that this is not my family. Annie Lanstein Moss and her ...

Ancestor Puzzles: Fishing with a Bigger Net- More ...

Feb 02, 2015

Born in County Fermanagh, Ireland in 1828, he immigrated to America in 1853 according to the 1900 census. He settled in Schuyler County, Missouri. On 31 March 1859, he married Mary Nevin in Schuyler County. In 1860 he ...

I acquired a wealth of material for future blog posts over the course of the weekend not the least of which was my Father's Day visit to the new Bryan Museum in Galveston.  The Bryan Museum is a MUST SEE historical and artisitic attraction.  My family was on the first tour of the day yesterday, which was led by the Bryan Museum curator. The tour also included a drop-in by Mr. J.P. Bryan who highlighted some of his favorite pieces in the collection.  The Changing Gallery features a special exhibition honoring the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry to mark the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of Juneteenth.  This exhibit will run through Labor Day but visit the museum soon and visit often.

I want to thank both of my daughters for being such good sports about my family history addiction.  They both encouraged me with tips on new developments in the family history world:

To help bring thousands of records to light, the Freedmen’s Bureau Project was created as a set of partnerships between FamilySearch International and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Afro­-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), and the California African American Museum.  Read more about it at http://www.discoverfreedmen.org/

I have also been having a lot of fun with a product called the Simply Fun Conversation Ring.

Each ring contains 98 question cards with a variety of conversation starters. It can be used two ways, ask questions to each other or predict how the other will answer the question.

Compact, sturdy cards on a ring go anywhere. Great to keep in your purse, car, on coffee or dinner table, etc.  Questions cover a variety of topics that are great for children and adults.

Great for: car trips, sports activities, waiting in line, hospital or nursing home visits, classrooms, gift toppers, around the kitchen table, at a restaurant, family reunions & gatherings, small group activities.

One of the questions was about the most beautiful place that we had every visited and Lake Tahoe was on the top of my list.  Coincidentally, my sister was also waxing poetic about Tahoe on Facebook.  My siblings and I have very fond memories of a place called Valhalla also known as the Heller estate at Lake Tahoe.

Nick Cimino and Uncle Jack Kelly on the pier at Valhalla about 1970.

Nick Cimino in front of the boat house at Valhalla, Lake Tahoe, June 1965.

My Dilemma with the Lord of the Manor: UK and Ireland Genealogy

Most of my world travel is virtual reality experienced through a screen.  Downton Abbey took me across the pond last night.  The show portrays a fictional estate in Yorkshire from an actual estate in Hampshire.  My Banford and Nevin maternal ancestors emigrated from the confines of the Colebrook estate in County Fermanagh in Ulster.  My paternal grandmother’s ancestor, James McCrory, left County Monaghan, Ireland, settled in Lancashire, England married an innkeeper’s daughter, Sarah Lee and took her to Pennsylvania.  I have had the good fortune to retrace some of the steps of these ancestors with a visit to Ireland back in 2008.

My ancestor, James LEE aka LEIGH was listed in various records as a victualler and a publican.  An 1825 listing of Inns and Taverns in  Newton-in-Makerfield included Miriam LEIGH [maiden name CHAMPION] as proprietor of the Millstone Inn. This would indicate that she was a widow by 1825 and therefore is consistent with a death date of 1819 for her husband. The Millstone Inn still exists in Newton today: Address: 71 Mill Lane, Newton le Willows, Postcode: WA12 8BG, Telephone: 01925 290 899

Our ancestors who emigrated from the United Kingdom and Ireland had an uneasy relationship with the lord of the manor.   Now we marvel and dare I say idolize the grandeur of our former masters.  I presented an overview of my British Isles research techniques to the Bear CreekGenealogical Society on Thursday.  I took a “show of hands” survey and was pleased to see how many of the audience had, English, Irish, and Scottish forebearers.  I was also somewhat amazed that the vast majority of the audience was following Downton Abbey.  Why is this show so popular with Americans ranging from the 1% to the Occupy Movement?  What are the implications for genealogy in America?

To answer the first question, I recommend a most intriguing article posted by the History News Network at George Mason University.  The article observes that the show features characters that appeal to our deepest American beliefs: “Downton allows people from across the socio-economic and political spectrum to see their values legitimized through the storytelling process.”  And of course that castle and those costumes are a great escape from the routine of our urban and suburban lives.

As a genealogist, I love the fact that Downton Abbey profiles the lives of the gentry, the tenant farmers and the servants.  We can at least imagine what it was like for our ancestors to live in this tiered society that was manifested throughout the British Empire.  Perhaps we can imagine why our ancestors supported a revolution in the American colonies.  But the thing I love most about the lords of the manors are that they kept good records.

I lured my wife to accompany me to Ireland with the promise of touring the Irish countryside.  She was not surprised to learn that there was a family farm, church or cemetery at the end of every road.   I also promised that we would see tourist attractions like the Book of Kells and the Giants Causeway.  Being the ever patient wife of a genealogist, she shared some of my excitement when the archivists from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) brought us the leases and survey maps in the form of the original hand drafted documents on sheepskin.  We never made it to the Giants Causeway because of the five days spent at PRONI.  We did make it to the bar at the top of the Dublin observation tower at the Guiness Brewery and we came home with some great pictures and souvenirs!

We introduced ourselves to the locals at Scott's Bar in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh.  They took us to meet a woman who was the keeper of the Colebrooke Cemetery records.

Bertie Morrow and Nick Cimino at Colebrooke Church Cemetery, April 2008.
Bertie was a retired postman and volunteered to provide us a tour of numerous family history sites.  His full name was Albert Nevin Morrow.  We are both descendants of the Nevin family, tenant farmers on the Colebrooke Estate in the Rafintan Townland in County Fermanagh.

Children experiencing "living history" at the Ulster American Folk Park, Northern Ireland.  We enjoyed visiting this hands-on demonstration of the lives of our ancestors.

The archivists at PRONI brought us this survey map of the lease described below:

PRONI Reference Number: D998/26/295 : dated 29 Sep. 1812; Lease from Henry Brooke, Colebrooke, Co. Fermanagh, to Richard Neven and Thomas Neven, Rafintan, Co. Fermanagh, of 25a. 2r. 5p. of Rafintan, Co. Fermanagh, for the lives of Thomas Neven, lessee, aged about nineteen, Mathew Lucy son of Thomas Lucy of Dogary [Doogary] aged about nine years and Thomas Neven eldest son of Richard Neven one of the lessees aged about four years: (1) Rent £37 5s. 10d.; (2) Thirty-seven days work of man and horse and thirty-seven fat hens or two shillings in lieu of each days work and fourpence in lieu of each hen; (3) Corn, etc, to be ground at mill of Henry Brooke, payment for not doing so £5; and, (4) Reserves right to make a road.

This 1841 sketch shows how the land was divided between Thomas and Richard Nevin.  PRONI Reference Number: D998/26/606 : dated 15 Apr. 1841; Lease from Sir Arthur B. Brooke, Colebrooke, Co. Fermanagh, to Thomas Nevin, Rafintan, Co. Fermanagh, of 20 acres 25 perches of Rafintan, Co. Fermanagh, reserving 17 acres 19 perches of turf bog adjoining, for the lives of Henry Francis Brooke and Mathew James Burnside: (1) Reserves right to make a road; (2) Rent £15; (3) Seven days work of man and horse and fifteen hens or fifteen pence in lieu of each days work and sixpence in lieu of each hen; and, (4) Corn, etc, to be ground at mill of Sir Arthur B. Brooke, payment for not doing so £2. Courts, Leet. Courts, Baron.

Fishing with a Bigger Net- More Newspaper Search Techniques

Genealogy and fishing have a lot in common.  They both require lots of patience.  They both have lots of tools that facilitate the “big catch”.  

I wrote last week about Newspapers.com.  I showed examples of how to make clippings and attach them to an ancestor profile on Ancestry.com.  I was using the surnames “Banford” and “Mayne” to search in the Cincinnati newspapers at Newspapers.com.  When you are fishing you can use a pole, a spear or a net.  When you research newspapers online using keywords it can be like using a spear or a net when you are fishing.

For example, the spear approach is to use the full name in quotation marks such as “George Banford”.  The net approach would be to use just the surname “Banford” to find all instances of matches for persons named Banford.  If you want to use a bigger net then you might start using the surnames of the relatives, friends, associates and neighbors.  

For example, George Banford was married to Mary Nevin.  Two of Mary’s sisters, Jane Nevin and Magdalene Nevin were both married to Stephen J. Ashworth in Schuyler County, Missouri.  So Ashworth is a name that I also want to search to learn more about George and Mary Banford.  The State Historical Society of Missouri has made many Missouri newspapers from the post Civil War period available at their website.  I began by searching the Schuyler County paper, the Lancaster Excelsior at the Historical Society Website.  I found this very intriguing article about George and Mary Banford (nee Nevin) that also mentions George’s mother-in-law, Nancy Navin (spelled Nevin in other records) and his brother and sister-in-law, Stephen J. Ashworth and Magdalene Ashworth (nee Nevin).

Lancaster Excelsior
4 September 1875
Image Courtesy of State Historical Society of Missouri
http://shs.umsystem.edu/newspaper/mdnp/

This article adds an interesting footnote to the narrative of the life of George Banford.  Born in County Fermanagh, Ireland in 1828, he immigrated to America in 1853 according to the 1900 census.  He settled in Schuyler County, Missouri. On 31 March 1859, he married Mary Nevin in Schuyler County.  In 1860 he was enumerated in the U.S. Federal Census with his new wife and they were residing next door to his in-laws,  Thomas and Ann (Nancy) Nevin.  Some time after the outbreak of the Civil War, he left Schuyler County and relocated near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Why George and Mary Banford left Missouri is subject to speculation.  The following was compiled from Caywood's 1888 History of Adair, Putnam, Sullivan & Schuyler Counties:

"The Civil War caused many hardships for Schuyler Countians. Although Missouri was a free state, enlistments in Schuyler County were almost evenly divided between Union and Confederate forces. Neighbor no longer trusted neighbor, and families were divided in loyalties. Bushwhackings and skirmishes occurred throughout the area. Some families left, unable to live under such stress."

Apparently George and Mary Banford left Schuyler County without disposing of all of their real estate as indicated by the clipping from the Lancaster Excelsior.

Another intriguing article was found by searching for Ashworth in the Adair County, Missouri newspaper.  The Historical Society of Missouri website redirected me to the Chronicling of America website.

The Weekly Graphic
Kirksville, Adair County, Missouri
6 July 1888
Who is this elusive Mr. Banford?
Image courtesy of Library of Congress
http:/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

The John Ashworth mentioned above is probably John Davis Ashworth 1861-1918, son of Stephen J. Ashworth and his first wife, Jane Anne Nevin.  In 1890 at the time of his marriage, John Ashworth was residing at Novinger, Adair County, Missouri.  But who is Mr. Banford?  It is probably one of the sons of George Banford.  Tom Banford was about the same age but it also could have been George or one of his other sons, Joseph or William.

I found several more articles about the Ashworth cousins by "casting a wider net."  I was also happy to "spear" the above article about a most interesting real estate transaction.  Happy trails until next time!

Irish Genealogy- NOT ALL THE RECORDS BURNED!

Are you looking for a speaker for your club or genealogy society?  I can offer my Irish genealogy lecture.

In 2003, I became keenly interested in Irish Genealogy. During this period of research, I discovered that more and more can be done online, quite a bit can be done using LDS Library resources and some work is best done in Ireland.

This was my first research trip outside North America. My Irish ancestors presented an intriguing challenge. My wife and I traveled to Ireland in April 2008 and spent time in Dublin and Belfast with five days spent at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. I was able to document many of my family stories in the records at PRONI and came back with many wonderful Irish genealogical souvenirs which will be on display.

The presentation will provide an overview of Sources for Irish Genealogy including:
-census and substitutes
-vital records
-church records
-cemeteries
-Irish Estate records
-maps & land records
-parish histories
-online sources
-paid research
-research in Ireland

In addition to PRONI we spent time at the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh which is vital to an understanding of the historical context of our Northern Irish immigrant ancestors. Other fascinating cultural sites we visited were the Ulysses S. Grant ancestral home, the walled city of Derry and Belfast Castle where one of my Irish relatives was the gatekeeper.

Please consider inviting me to your club or society for a presentation.