The Betsys Best Forgotten

So, Betsy has been driving me up the pole.

She first appeared on a tree drawn by my cousin Janet in 1993. I was very grateful for this tree. And when I went to the archives at Taunton I was able to see the evidence for myself. There she was listed in 1825 as "Betsy, daughter of [my wife] Mary Padfield, by a former husband".

Benjamin Padfield (1808-1891) was so straight-forward, a farmer and champion cheese maker, raised his family well and all learned music. As a boy he was ambitious to play the flute and viol - it's flute and violin but flute and viol sounds much more of its time. He gave apples to his grandchildren if they asked and ran the Sunday school in the village. He was second or third generation Methodist. I was given his photograph in a field exchange somewhere in the Somerset borders: a stout-hearted chap. Also - we have his Journal, his life story.

So for him to have a missing sister is distinctly out of character. His journal makes not a mention of "Betsy", who died when Benjamin was just 18.

Benjamin grew up to marry and have seven children and a rather staggering 50 grandchildren. Of these I counted just now and only a third have living family, quite a small fraction.

Since taking the AncestryDNA test six years ago I have been gifted with many findings, but one thorn in my side has been the absence of any descendants of Betsy showing up as DNA matches.

When we last left Betsy she was a small girl. She was baptised at Leigh-on-Mendip in 1789 and after marrying at 21, she had at least a five year rest before the children started arriving. She didn't have long as she must die at age 38. Quite probably the young couple were living with in-laws - Betsy's much younger half-brothers also endured such a period of 9 years and 3 years respectively.

Betsy had three children who lived to adulthood that we can trace: Mary (1818), Ann (1819) and Joseph (1827), with whom she died in childbirth. At this, the end of Betsy's life, Benjamin was just 18. Is Betsy best forgotten?

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I can see the thing to do would be to compare Betsy's family with Benjamin, and the best way of doing that is to look at the 1840s. In this epoch Benjamin raised his 7 children, and Betsy by this point had seven GRANDchildren.

Betsy is getting a generation ahead, already, and her family fills the 1850s with still more grandchildren.

Let's compare numbers.

Benjamin's children had their family in the years 1867-1898, producing the 50 youngsters (of whom 17 have surviving descendants).

Betsy's grandchildren had their family in the same period (starting ten years earlier, in 1857), producing 105 youngsters. So Betsy is not only a generation ahead, and doubling her numbers, but is also not thwarted by the low birth-rate of Benjamin's family as we turn the corner into the 1900s.

All of this suggests I should have plenty of DNA matches to choose from, even if the connection is a bit remote at half-fifth cousin.

But there's a problem. Betsy is steaming even further into the future. With Betsy, her eldest daughter Mary and eldest granddaughter Mary Jane all dying by 1890, the phrase 'accelerated lives' comes into my head. Benjamin's half-niece has become a great-grandmother and died, yet Benjamin is still alive.

Betsy's great-great-grandchildren are the same age as Benjamin's grandchildren; she has slipped two full generations ahead. My mother would be the same generation but born nearly 70 years later. And on they race. Benjamin's grandchildren continue steadily until 1901. Three years later and the line of his forgotten sister Betsy is 3 generations further along.

Consequently my own generation are not cycling around the countryside and researching on their laptop. They are dead: long dead! Dorothy Blake (1904-1981) is unlikely to be taking a DNA test. Chances are we are looking 3 generations down from me to Dorothy's great-grandson (born 1986). Such a person is separated from their ancestress Betsy by a whopping eight other people.

Benjamin's line meanwhile are content to dawdle, and to wait for the youngest to catch up. The eldest of my documented third cousins on this line Verna, born 1960 in Canada, belongs to seventh and youngest child William Haine Padfield. Betsy of course achieved this milestone back in 1904.

Not to confuse matters but Benjamin's brother Peter approximately midway between himself and Betsy is by 1960 a generation ahead of Benjamin. Peter also by about 1950 has begun to overtake Benjamin by sheer number of descendants despite having had only 5 grandchildren surviving versus Benjamin's 50. The "Peter" effect is partly attributable to very fertile moves overseas (Australia and Canada) as well perhaps as to some early deaths which meant they were less well provided for, and had to make their own way in the world.

The "Betsy" effect is counter-intuitive. I would have thought that sheer weight of descendants would mean we were overwhelmed with DNA matches. Not a single person from the huge Plumley tribe of Betsy's granddaughter Mary Jane (1837-1890) are showing up. Mind you these are Londoners, not based say in Utah, where numbers of those testing are far higher. I hadn't appreciated how much the 'fast-moving dying generations' were costing us.

Betsy was survived by her mother 13 years and we can read about her mother as this is recorded in Benjamin's Journal. There was an aunt who attained 80 and is living surrounded by grandchildren in the 1841 census. I can actually trace DNA matches more comfortably to the aunt than I can for Betsy.

Coming up to 200 years since she died, leaving no apparent trace in our family's written record, and with her DNA fast disappearing from her descendants as they gallop through their alloted generations.

Do we really think it's time to say that Betsy's Best Forgotten?