John Lain of Diss

Sometimes in family history you are sent hurtling back hundreds of years in a moment.  In the posh, Eastern-Europeaned waitress environment of the Spa Hotel, Tunbridge Wells, trees had crept up on the native commonland, formerly scrub and heath.  I was suddenly confronted with the photograph of the architect of our family's fortunes whose sexy charm had persuaded the furious widow, Mrs Riches, to part with her senses - and her hallowed hall, in his favour.

Finally spotting his countenance, my first thought was 'African!'.  We see him here, presumably in his eighties, tediously dolled up for a photograph at Diss.  Diss is renowned for disappointment in our family.  Lain's great-great-great-niece turned up here in the 1990s, a Cockney, to see where her Dad was born.  But it was the wrong town.

Water summarises Diss and its region in the Waveney Valley.  You are never far away.  There are nature reserves at South Lopham, the family's home of the 1860s, and here the Waveney itself begins on its journey to Oulton Broad and the world at large.

John Lain too is the author of our journey as a family.  Born while the ink was drying in America, on its constitution, and in Vienna, on Don Giovanni (1787) he also made his mark.  His will shows his over-arching influence over now divided families - too distant even for me to claim.  His nephew has over a thousand descendants in Utah, while his nieces' complex tales are out of scope for my own enquiries.

At 28 he marries the widow Riches, 20 years his senior and provides a home for the, soon pregnant, Mary, his niece allowing her to remain after she marries the babyfather, Smith.  Mary remains his closest relative, and Lain provides for the Smiths.  It is fitting that his photograph should appear - of course unlabelled! - in the family trunk at Tunbridge.

The X chromosome and its family history surprises

I learn recently that the X chromosome contains no material from a man’s father and none from your father’s father if you are a woman.  This leads to the curiously imbalanced chart below, which you will spot contains a Fibonacci pattern.

Table 1.  This table shows the contribution ancestors make to the total (pair) of X sex-chromosomes for a female: I have italicised the female’s father’s contribution.

In my family, the female (my mother)’s F-M-F-M-F-M (father’s mother’s father’s mother’s father’s mother)and F-M-M-M-F-M, are by complete coincidence, the same person, Elizabeth Cock born 1770 in Gwithian Sands, Cornwall.  Elizabeth accounts for three-eighths of the material on one of my mother’s X chromosomes, and thus three-sixteenths of my X chromosome.  This is either 12 or 24 times what she ‘ought’ to contribute being only 1 out of my 128 5xgreat-grandparents.

My X-chromosome is made up of my mother’s two X-chromosomes combined.  My Y-chromosome has been passed down from father to son, down to myself, so my father did not pass on to me an X chromosome.

My sisters have a second X-chromosome, from their father, which is made up of their paternal grandmother’s two X-chromosomes combined.  A stonking quarter of this comes from one lady, Ann Charlton, born 1785 in Whittonstall, south Northumberland, our 4xgreat-grandmother.  She is their F-M-F-M-F-M.  As there are 64 people in this generation, Ann is oversubscribed by a factor of 16, or of 8 – if you treat this X-chromosome as being strictly on the paternal side.  Were Ann to have other son’s daughter’s son’s daughter’s son’s daughters (which she does, the Embletons), we could in theory identify genes on the chromosome for which she was responsible.
As the pair of sex chromosomes are only 2 out of 46, the fact that some grandparents did or didn’t contribute makes very little difference overall.

I, Miss Dinah Widdows

As told to...

I, Miss Dinah Widdows do note the pitiful number of descendants which I have left. You can find many in family from my husband’s daughter Grace. Her poor mother died at 27 but she still has more in family than I.   I have lately been spending a month or more getting acquainted with them, and golly me, it took me by surprise to meet them all. I did not think they expected to see me, a lady born in 1712, one hundred years before Waterloo.  I also took a moment to look at my sister Sarah's family but I didn’t keep up with them. No sooner I contacted them then had another infant been born. They do say as one of her descendants is born every single week that passes. I don’t know. I can’t imagine looking at the girl why nature works so.  Now you will probably all be thinking that I am own sister to Martha Widdows, and you may know all about how she died, done in by her rotten husband.  Ha!  Well you would be wrong and mighty awkward it is navigating around the tree, I must say. Why I could barely find a record my even having been alive. Which I surely was, an I brought up that ungrateful Sarah and the silly brothers the Lord cursed me with. You would have to be a magician to know that I married George Dyke but even guesswork won’t tell you my father’s name. Oh no that is one secret which is very well kept. And if you find out where I was born well I wish you’d tell me. But no, I must grudgingly admit I am not of any genealogical consequence whatsoever.  I had 2 or 3 very good grandchildren, I let them disappear from the records without trace. I tried asking the earth but I’m not getting any answers, even my other sister who never fussed about getting married, even she managed to produce grandchildren who stayed in the records. Oh well tut tut. You see there are matriarchs or fat old queen bees as I call ’em! Even among Sarah’s offspring.  But what’s this I see.  A GenesReunited message saying my grandson George got off his hindquarters and sired a massive breed?  And now here’s FindMyPast trying to tell me granddaughter Martha went off and kept an inn in Emeld Empsty.  And Google shouting that the US Ambassador’s wife was a Miss Dyke, one of George’s lot.  That’s something little Miss Sarah can’t boast about.  Well now I can sleep in peace.

~~
Dinah and Sarah named in the will of Edward Murrow, Almesforde, Somerset 1732.  Lots of information about Sarah, but nothing on Dinah.

Come on Eileen

I don't know what it is about the name Eileen.  I worry that they'll be proper Irish and not interested in their English family.... except there's never been anyone called Eileen on my Irish side of the family.  In fact, nobody of any other name has been consistently half as helpful:

• Eileen D took my phone call and helped me find the rest of the Chappell family.
• Eileen D2 told me the eldest Chappell boy gambled away the family farm in Yeovilton.
• Eileen F proved for me that Francis Scott Boyce the coachman from Somerset, was indeed first cousin of 2 of my great-great-great-grandparents.
• Eileen M told me that grandpa Tabor died transplanting swedes on Christmas Day 1909.
• Eileen N wrote to me recently with information about her late father, who grew up in the orphanage in Blackburn.

And now I'm hoping Eileen G will be able to tell me all about my relative Sarah who died age 36 in Edinburgh.  She is the great-granddaughter.  So, come on Eileen, tell us all about it!

Postscript:
Of course - with a name like Eileen, our correspondent was always going to reply.  And what a great reply we've had.  Thank you!  Now the big question on my lips, is which Eileen shall we hear from next - there's still at least 20 letters of the alphabet left to go.  Come on, Eileen Z!

Clues from the cousins #2

It's very nice to get one's own detailed family tree back with a few amendments.  In the case of 87 year-old distant cousin Ted W, the additions were limited to a couple of pen strokes.

Next to Robert Boocock I'd optimistically put a ? in case there were any other siblings.  Ted just put a red line through that.  Nice and clear.

I nearly missed it but under his uncle William Young, he'd put something.  It was definitely his writing and not his young nephew's.  It was the three letters ADA in capitals.  Well that was something, didn't know about her.  Also the digits 23.6.  I guessed this was Ada's birthdate - the 23rd of June.  Not much to go on - but a whole new unexpected family group to add to the tree.

Sure enough I checked the birth records and censuses and found William - with a completely different age and a very different wife from the one I expected.  I put Ada on the backburner, happy to have at least found a record of her birth on the banks of the Tyne (Northumberland).

Then I thought - I can't just abandon this information.  Surely a record of Ada's later life can be found?  I teased out information concerning all the Ada Youngs who married on the Tyne and one fitted the best.  The next challenge came for her daughter, listed as Dollie J (name slightly changed).  I might have used Findmypast's excellent marriage finder, but in this case I employed an alternative tack.  Looking for all the children with the right mother's maiden name born near the Tyne, I found only candidate that fitted and this led me to the missing marriage.  Now I have Ada's two children to write to, living not far at all from where there grandfather William Young was in the 1911 census.

Sadly Ada has now long been deceased, but she was remembered I'm guessing affectionately by her elderly cousin Ted, and it's time now to see if her children would like to know something of her family background after such a long gap.

Postscript: No Tynesider will be surprised to hear that Dollie knows Ted W, and is in touch as I am with Ted's nephew Dave.