DNA: 1845 surprise. Found: one lion

I just got notification that Elizabeth O'Neal's April blog party is on DNA and Genetic Genealogy. Today is the last day of April, so I'm getting my skates on, and serving up an appetiser for the party.

Here we go:
My family tree hasn't changed that much in recent years, but in February it put in a polite but firm request to change permanently and irrevocably.

The big old "gap" in the family tree where Unknown Male had a child with my Millicent Bagshaw, in 1845, just got answered.

I was working through my clusters from Ancestry DNA, and as you know, finding groups of people who didn't fit anywhere, but who did belong *somewhere*, together.

It feels like I'm in the movie Madagascar, with me trying to find the Lion at the centre of a party. At the moment I'm just seeing and hearing a group of chipmunks boogying on the outside. They only match 20 centimorgans (cM).

We're not getting any closer to the Lion. Ok, so these folks were kind enough to do the DNA test and might not like the "chipmunk" analogy. They had pretty basic family trees and one guy had no tree at all. But his name was "Len Millwood" and that name, Millwood, appeared in the tree of the other person in his cluster.

Up the Millwood tree we go, then we find dozens of shared Hammersley connections, descending from Ellen Turnock (1798) who married Mr Hammersley. Not all belong to the same cluster and very few have online trees. In one case "Ralph J Lorenz" (living in USA), I muscle up and examine every single gentleman of this name before landing on one from Staten Island. Bingo his grandfather's marriage record mentions the name Hammersley.

I discover the Turnocks are the epi-centre of the clusters but all these dozens of 20cM matches ain't helping me determine which one is Unknown Male. Many of them don't feature in clusters being right in Ancestry's cM cut-off.

Turns out, it was Joseph Turnock (b. c. 1823), sometime stonemason, maybe thief, and most definitely a labourer. Twice married: then disappears. He's our Unknown Male. The Lion at the centre of the party.

We suspect the deed was done in the street market in Buxton, Derbyshire, April 1845 about 15 miles equidistant from both parties.

Joseph's ancestry hails from north Staffordshire, England, around the Moorlands, which has been great to evoke. I'm even hopeful we can make an educated conjecture on an another illegitimacy three generations prior: the Unknown Male responsible for Miss Innocent Goostrey (1754), Leek.

Once again I'm very grateful for all those (new) cousins who took the Ancestry DNA test, were sporting enough to engage with me, and who Absolutely bear no resemblance to any of these characters in the major blockbuster cited above.

Midlands ancestry and GEDmatch (UK)

I've been trying to make sense of SNPs and centiMorgans, segments, chromosomes and phasing. Reading about eastern Polynesian endogamy has been helpful with some real life examples of how genetic material may be inherited.

What Are The Odds from DNApainter is proving fairly straightforward, though is limited (it says) when each result shares an average of <40cM with the tester: 90cM is better. And I'm not sure what its views are on endogamy, complex relationships within the extended family, or generally "sticky" DNA (without there necessarily being endogamy).

I've tested with Ancestry DNA, which has been highly informative, reassuring and maddenly suggestive. I'm in the process of exploring the benefits of uploading this data to other sites, this month it's GEDmatch.

Yesterday I focused on a family group in Leeds. Ancestry very helpfully confirmed that our shared origins were in the Midlands (which I interpret as Staffordshire and the conurbation where Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire all met). I say confirmed, as I'd already guessed this from the useful data at GEDmatch.

I'd have been unwise to look at this match, despite the "Midlands" tag, without knowing two things, that Peter (from Leeds) matched Mrs C (from Liverpool), that as well as matching each other they matched us. And secondly, and most critically, that all three parties actually share some precise segment of the same chromosome.

For both of these requirements, I needed GEDmatch. In fact it was at that site where the shared segment in question, and its three holders, was identified. The amounts shared are small (and so not resulting in a cluster of matches at Ancestry). It is nonetheless a cluster though, one that could easily have been missed.

I'm glad I persevered. Mrs C had popped up in another triangulation exercise on the site a week prior, so I'd already done the digging and knew her connection to us. We both descended from Jonathan Gee (origin: Hyde, Cheshire) and Sarah Brasier (origin: Kinver and Enville, Staffordshire).

GEDmatch's new triangulation, therefore, hinted quite strongly that the Leeds family also descended from this couple, or from one or more of their parents/grandparents. Further back seemed unlikely as we'd be talking ninth cousins, which, with very little endogamy present, seems unlikely for matches of 11cM plus.

The Leeds family's tree was largely spoken for and not looking very Midlands. The Yorkshire part did not fit with a gradual drift up from our Chesterfield branch. I couldn't see any geographical overlaps over the period in question.

I was intrigued by the final grandparent: Mr Davies from Wales. Closer inspection of the excellent tree showed that this chap's birth record was very much missing in action. But his Dad, of the same name, was a Wire-Drawer.

My antennae says Midlands, for that occupation. Exactly what we need. I'm still short of biographical detail, but going back through his tree, I saw some names I recognised. This wire-drawer was from Kinver, and descends from the only surviving brother of Sarah Brasier (born 1751).

You can bet I'm keen to establish full biographical detail on this branch, as it strongly appears we can paint in those 11 or so centiMorgans as being from Kinver.

I have more reading to do. More records to find. But all this is just a warm-up flex and stretch before I take on Ireland. Am I ready? After 11 May maybe, as our local café's famous Irish breakfast will be back on the cards.

Thanks GEDmatch, by the way. I'm genuinely tickled to have 7x great-uncle waiting in the wings to be a bona fide relative, particularly one right at the heart of the Industrial Revolution in the Midlands (for better or for worse).

Where did you go, baby Evans?

This wee laddy was born on 8 September, 1851, in central Merthyr Tydfil. His father was a pattern maker in the ironworks. I was really very lucky to find this certificate. My thanks to the staff at the Register Office for locating it.

 When he was three months old he and his family unit all took to sea from Liverpool to New Orleans. Quite a route. They were Mormons: the first in the family to go out to the New World.

Although... his mother's sister's husband's father was there - Mr Giles died in December 1851 at Council Bluffs on the banks of the River Missouri, on his way West, to Utah, at least 80% of the way there, but still 900+ miles to go.

Why did the Evans family go, given the risks - of starvation, drowning, hypothermia, infectious diseases, violent incidents, death in childbirth? Well they wanted a better life, in their version of the promised land. And they did not know that Mr Giles had died. Folks back home did not learn this for a year!

The good news is the Evans family started early. With Spring just beginning as they arrived in New Orleans there was a good chance they would make it upriver to Council Bluffs by June and the long walk to the Salt Lake valley in handcarts would be, should be, concluded before the onset of Autumn, and the chance of blizzards. One blizzard could wipe out a small party.

The problem is.... Well the problem is, the Evans family didn't make it to Utah. Something happened on the way.

Saints by Sea: the Kennebec passengers

Saints by Sea: what happened next to the Kennebec passengers

A voyage on a steamboat, the Saluda in 1852 going up-river

Aftermath: telling the steamboat story. What I cannot find are precise references to Native Americans in the area, nor of diseases such as cholera and yellow fever attacking folk. I cannot trace the parents making it to Salt Lake City. It is possible that William Evans, now just six months old and likely weaned, when the steamboat exploded, might have been adopted in Missouri, Iowa or just possibly by Native Americans....