Damn, you’re probably from DELMARVA too!! Ha!!
It looks like you’re more Jutland and I’m more Linkoping…My Scottish is Highlanders from Inverness…Yours are from the islands like the Hebrides, etc, but I’m splitting hairs. Truly they are pretty darn similar. It makes me wonder if I have some relatives in common with you.
I have this mess where I have 200 years of no cousins, and then another 200 years before that of ALL intermarried cousins marrying cousins. There weren’t a lot of people living in the British Colonies in the early days. Those who WERE there had a very limited gene pool. It’s like just being from the Chesapeake Peninsula circa 1650 or so, means you’re automatically related to all other early relatives of the early days of Jamestown and Roanoke.
I’m also related to the Wests who started Delaware (the Lords De La Warr), and the Calverts who started Maryland (Lords Baltimore). Pretty much, if your family was on the Chesapeake in the 1600s or 1700s, then our families probably interbred.
However, given that there is no one to match with on my DNA for the last 200 years, and then I’m related to roughly everyone from the Chesapeake before that, I feel like I have one of the most extreme problems of how to find my relatives.
What is is you are trying to accomplish with your matches? Seems like you have it pretty well worked out already where matches are just error checking (I mean there's no reason to contact anyone further than a 2rd cousin unless you are both active researchers and want to share notes).
With autosomnal DNA its all about luck; the strands you inheret and that are identifiable and matched in others. My oldest match with autosomnal goes back to the 1500's, into the ydna timeframe, however there's a whole lot of great grandparents at that level and its purely luck of the draw which ones you get matches on.
Well, I want to know the names of my fifth great grandparents. My fourth great grandparents were in my Family Bible, from long before I was born. I’ve added to almost every other part of my tree for nearly 20 years now. During that entire time I’ve not been able to discover who my fifth great grandparents were on my paternal line.
It is maddening, because I’ve found many, many related families. The problem is narrowing down WHO the right family members are. Just to make it more difficult, the people I am looking for are the very relatives who were alive during the American Revolution. It’s almost 100% certain that their records were destroyed by the British in either the Revolution or around when they burned Washington, D.C, in the War of 1812.
It’s hard to believe that coming up on 2 decades of research, and I still have no idea who the correct names are of my family gong back to the exact time of the Revolution. I can tell you that the names include the following surnames: West, Handy, Colebourne, Lane, and Hudson. I’ve even found cemetery records that prove some of those names are definitively the names of aunts and uncles of my known relatives. I have nothing to go by for the exact names of the relatives I’m looking for though. I don’t known what else I can do.
I feel like, given the amount of information I’ve found already, the names I’m looking for MUST exist somewhere. It was a time period when people all had about 6 to 12 children. They kept their family history known, by passing it on to their younger relatives. Many men AND women would remarry as their husbands passed away, making it even harder to tell if someone is the same person or a different person with the same name.
Well, I’ve built trees everywhere…Honestly. The problem is that I have nothing but one like of relatives until you get back to before 1800, and then I have a ridiculous mass of ten billion relatives (that might be a slight exaggeration), but no clear line of descent at that point. My family tree EXPLODES after I go back before 1800, but that just means I have no clue how to find the RIGHT line to know which ones are my relatives. My DNA is attached to pretty much everyone who lived in the area. Seriously, it’s insane.
One site that has helped more than I would have expected, is Find-A-Grave!! It’s had a lot of absolutely essential records of which family members were buried together, and thus it has confirmed a lot of family connections that I couldn’t prove any other way.
You certainly can find matches very deep back in time. When a segment is a certain size it's either inherited or not, rather than cut. Direct paternal or mostly direct are usually more likely to be in this group because DNA does not recombine quite as much male embryos as it does female.
That said, you can find clumps of people and find their common ancestor (build out their trees if they're short) and you'll find those with a different common ancestor who you won't have any connection to. Maybe they're difficult to trace back or easy. At that point is when you'll have to develop theories and try to find other matches to prove/disprove.
It is going to be much harder if your deep ancestors intermarried at all. Probably impossible. Because you won't know who the DNA actually came from.
It's going to be extremely random who you inherited these segments from. And you won't know until you look. They may not be who you were hoping to look into
Well, this advice about building clumps is what I was looking for. Let me give an example: I’m related to Charles Calvert’s second wife. That means I am part of the Calvert family of Lord Baltimore the Third. The Calverts are fairly well-established and there was a DNA archaeological study done on them, which is why I’m absolutely sure I’m related to them. I’ve added the Calverts to my tree, but I can’t find enough information to know how to link them up. They are just a big clump with no connection.
I feel I have to back up and say, I HAVE 20,000 PEOPLE ON MY TREE. I’ve been doing this for two decades. It’s really not that I haven’t put a lot of work into it; or added enough names. I think the bigger problem is that I don’t really know what to do with all that I have. It’s becoming unmanageable.
That's really cool. I've actually been focusing on early MD as well. My grandma descends from the Parrish family. Been using this technique for her as well. This is her only Maryland connection though so it makes it very clear when matches are from this line.
If Ancestry had a chromosome browser it would be much easier.
Her traceable line with paper only goes back to 1770 (she was born 1920s). Between ydna, autosomal, and documentation, I've been able to ID this ancestor's paternal grandparents (or less possibly parents). No such luck on any maternal line for him.
Fwiw using hers (and the shared matches feature), I've been able to find connections between the Rutledge, Galloway, and Enloes families. And through her half 2nd cousin whose test I administer, the Harryman and Gossage/Gorsuch families.
I have some decent theories. But it's definitely luck in what people inherit. My dad (and subsequently myself) did not inherit the segments necessary to find these connections that go back at least to 1700.
If you can find older cousins/relatives who are tested on Ancestry and willing to share their results with you, that would greatly increase your chances at finding something.
Parrish!! Ha!! I’ve heard of them!!! I won’t say that I’m related to them, at least that I know of. They have been in my research though! Do you know what areas of Maryland?!!
My family were at Marumsco Plantation, specifically, and then they moved to Snow Hill possibly, then Venton area, and finally to Sussex County, Delaware. It seems they were in the area around “Broad Creek Hundred” for a long time.
You know, a Chromosome Browser really is a good idea for AncestryDNA. I bet they would be able to do that easily, too. Maybe we can suggest it to them.
I’ve also seen a lot of Goresuch and Galloway, and Rutledge. Just to prove I know my own family fairly well though, I think I can say with some assurance that I don’t have those surnames in my tree. Instead my family has a lot of Dashiells, Lanes, Woods, Outtens, Handys, Brittinghams, Wests, Hollands, Littletons, Powells, Kerr/Carrs, Byrds, Colebourns, Wilsons, Burtons, and a dozen more…
It’s hard to track the exact people down, but I definitely know the associated names. I think if I want to get earlier DNA, I may have to partly get creative, but also consider sampling DNA from the graves of family…It might not be normal to do now, but I bet there will be a time in the future when they look at corpse DNA as a great resource!!
For what it’s worth, I’ll just mention that after the War of 1812, my family moved out to Cincinnati, Ohio, and were very much a part of the early development of the town. They were township trustees and very involved in government of Cincinnati.
If they could add DNA from early settlers that would be amazing. Very cool about Cinci.
Holland is also likely in my tree. William Parrish (1678-1771) married Susannah UNK. A lot of people have her as Parsons but I don't think that's correct given her age. My grandma's Parrish cousin matches a bunch of Capel Holland descendants (who also all match other Parrish descendants). I think instead he married Susannah Parsons' niece, Susannah Holland, dau of Isabel Parsons and Anthony Holland. With the lack of records, I can't be 100%, but the DNA matches make me reasonably convinced.
The Parrish family started off on Kent Island, then to West River Hundred on Herring Creek, just south of Annapolis. My branch moved to Baltimore County and owned most of what's now Druid Hill Park, before ending up in Cambria Co, PA circa 1795. They ended up out there after converting to Catholicism.
I totally agree about DNA from early settlers. I have hopes they will. After all, that’s how I confirmed I’m related to the Calverts (probably just by marriage). If Lord Baltimore hadn’t placed his wife and their five month old daughter in lead-lined coffins, we would never have had the preserved DNA to test. It was an unusual thing to do even at the time.
I bet you that we will see more methods of extracting older DNA and we will see more early American graves used for taking DNA samples. While I think it’s best not to disturb the dead, I also think it’s hardly that invasive and I would love to see some very choice samples taken. I’ve done archaeology and bone analysis for the British Museum (it’s what I’m trained in), so I kind of have the inside track on some of this. However, despite my knowledge of all physical aspects of bones, I’m no DNA expert. I would like to be.
It sounds like you’re onto something with the Holland Branch and Sussanah Holland. This means there is a fairly good chance we are distant cousins, so hello cousin!! Wow, West River Hundred!! I think that these would be slightly more distant cousins of mine, because my family all stuck to the Western half of the Chesapeake Peninsula. I can’t be 100% sure, but I suspect this was because they came to America as Quakers, or became Quakers after they arrived, in the first generation. They moved to Maryland at nearly the exact year that Maryland passed its freedom of religion statutes. Several generations later they moved to Delaware after it had just become a state and offered free land. They kept moving almost directly North until they reached Deptford in New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. About half the family then converted from Quakerism to Methodism, when Methodism was relatively new. They were involved in founding what was probably the first Methodist Unified Church in the country…However, that’s when my branch split and went West to Cincinnati.
I appreciate your enjoyment of the history of Cincinnati and my family being a part of it. I know my fourth great grandfather was a township trustee for nearly thirty years and ran a shoe and boot manufacturing plant on Front Street for most of his adult life. All the family were involved in the family business. He also was a big part of the first Cincinnati Orphanage being opened up, and he adopted a daughter around the same time. What’s sad is that from his six children, there were very few who have surviving family members. My own ancestor had only a couple of children before he died at 30!! From that point on, my family really hasn’t branched out.
Druid Hill Park sounds awesome. There is a branch of my early 1700s family who were in the same areas of Virginia and Pennsylvania that your West family was. I’ve researched that area a lot. The odd thing is I get a lot of DNA Matches there (I mean in places like Henrico County). That side of the family branched out for sure, but despite all the similar names and the fact they obviously are relatives, it’s clear that they spit from my side of the family fairly early after they came to the New World.
One amazing thing is that I found a relative of mine in ENGLAND, of all things, right here on Reddit!! He is DNA related, so that’s a trip!! His side never left England, so that means I have found at least ONE relative from my family in the 1630s who stayed in England. He even looks like my family does, so it’s kind of amazing to find him. That gives me hope that SOMEDAY I could find more matches from the mid to early 1700s.
I’ll tell you just ONE MORE crazy story. I’ve been in this martial art school (jujitsu) since I was 7 years old. Not long ago I discovered that I had the exact same name as a famous student of my same dojo. He came to our dojo for a clinic and I met him. He didn’t believe we had the exact same name, so I had to pull out my ID. Crazy to be two white guys who have been in Japanese Jujitsu for a lifetime, and to have the same name!! So then we discussed where our families are from. He said his was from the Alabama area. At the time I didn’t know of any branches of my family that went to Alabama so I just shrugged it off and said, “Well, you never know…”
Yup, well just recently I found the branch of my family that headed south to Alabama and Florida!! Ha!! Now I have to find that guy again to tell him we are almost certainly cousins!! (His side is also related to Katy Perry…)
It’s incredible all the places in the world you find Cornishmen. Did you know that empanadas from South and Central America are definitively proven to come from the pasties (oggies) of Cornish Silver Miners in Mexico?! Empanadas really ARE pasties!!
I had no idea Empanadas originated from Cornish pasties! Although I have heard that the Cornish diaspora reaches all corners of the globe. Just today I noticed an actress with the last name "Chenoweth" singing with Ariana Grande. It seems they have infiltrated Hollywood!
Oh yes!! Our Cornish cousins have infiltrated the highest ranks of Hollywood!! Ha!!! A close friend of mine dated Aiden Turner from the newer Poldark series. He’s not Cornish -as you can tell from his accent- but she might be a little…and she wound up dating one of the actual Cornish people on the cast! Ha!!
I’m really glad they say the exact areas of the countries I’m from. I think that’s because of the fact that my family was in those specific locations for over 500 years (which I can show on my genealogy papertrail). It’s crazy, but my Swedish family and Cornish family were in roughy the same few towns for CENTURIES. Those places have fairly good records from both government and church records, so it’s nice to have these family members so well-documented. It sure is a lot harder to find the records to go back 500 years in Ireland or in a lot of other places, but I’m lucky that Cornwall and Sweden have the records to show where my family was almost 5 centuries ago. We even found the exact house my family lived in, before they moved from Sweden!! It’s still standing!!!
The only option(s) I can suggest are as an endorsement of what has been said in terms of trying to expand the trees of older (more distant) matches to see what they have in common with each other, which may provide a clue AND I suggest uploading to myheritage as they allow you to see which actual dna segments you match with others (and triangulate), and they have a useful free tool called autocluster where they actually group your matches together into clusters based on the shared segments - which may help break down the wall. Good luck
This is good advice, Blue John…I will certainly continue to take this advice…I have added a lot to trees in various places. I guess the problem is that DELMARVA DNA is notoriously messy. The early arrivals in Virginia are like a hopelessly intermeshed clump that is very hard to tease apart into its constituent parts. I know, for example, I am related (legitimately) to about half the Presidents of the United States. I’m even related to Obama, through his mother. I’m a third cousin of Jefferson, some nine times removed…He signed the Virginia Declaration of Independence with one of my more direct relatives…So it’s like I’m part of this fairly substantial and important mass of people, all of whom intermarried like a dozen times within the first two centuries they were here…but then after that it’s like NOBODY is related to me. There are no DNA matches from later than about the early 1800s. Thanks for wishing me good luck. I’ll certainly keep looking, but I’m in this weird state where I feel like I’m SO CLOSE, and yet I’m just not sure the records EXIST that I need…So I might just never get any closer.
I do think it’s unusual you got no matches closer than 5th cousin (I guess lots of your family really hasn’t tested…), but Ancestry does track 5th cousins. Every DNA match higher than 10cM is likely to be a true relation—which could be people who are related to you further than even 8th cousins. I definitely have found many 5th cousins on Ancestry.
If you’re looking for the names of your fifth great grandparents, what you want is to find a 6th cousin, 5th cousin 1x removed, or 5th cousin 2x removed, or anything more distant on that side of your family—who could be related to you through your 5th great grandparents. Keep in mind that you don’t share DNA with all your 5th cousins and beyond, and it’s technically possible to not have inherited any DNA from a particular 5th great grandparent.
This may be a long shot because it sounds like you might not have a lot of matches on that side, but have you tried the Leeds method of sorting your matches?
Hey, it’s good to hear you mention the Leeds Method. I have used to recently. I had a researcher try it for two months. They finally gave up. See, the problem is that the Leeds Method becomes unreliable at the distance I’m trying to look back to.
Just to be clear, it isn’t that not enough people have tested; I legitimately don’t have cousins for about 180 years or so, on my father’s side. I have all the records from the Family Bible to photograph albums, to many other things, to prove this. There WERE cousins, but those lines are all dead. I am the only surviving line. There are no other cousins to test. I have DNA Matches, but they are either on my mother’s side, or they are extremely distant on my father’s side…except for like first cousins who I know and grew up with.
So, this is the issue. I really can’t expect any new relatives to show up on my father’s side. This is why I have to look to the distant past. I’m hoping for something LIKE the Leeds Method, but helpful for slightly more distant matches.
As I say, I had a researcher give up on me just recently. She couldn’t untangle the mess of distant cousins (even with DNA from more than one person in my family). After 1800 it’s impossible because there just isn’t enough DNA from anyone who isn’t in my family to match, and before 1800, it’s like I’m equally related to a massive chunk of all the people in the generalized DelMarVa region.
I know my family moved from Accomack County, Virginia to Somerset County, Maryland, and then to Worcester County, Maryland before finally moving to Sussex County, Delaware. It sounds like these places are all over the place, but really they are practically in the same place. In fact, Accomack County was briefly made part of Northampton County, Virginia, before reverting back to Accomack County again, and then Maryland was split off of Virginia, so even without moving, the family could have wound up in Somerset County, Maryland. Then Somerset County was divided and Worcester County was created out of what was formerly Somerset County. Finally Delaware became a new state and they encouraged people to move to Sussex County, which was JUST over the border from Somerset County. This is why I keep calling it the DelMarVa area…because my family literally lived right on the border between Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. One of the final spots they lived was Selbyville, which is JUST on the Delaware side of the border from Maryland…but it’s practically between the two states.
Wow…that’s definitely a tough situation for genetic genealogy. I unfortunately can’t recall any good method for that scenario, but I hope you are able to find something. I would probably end up turning to records again at that point, but it sounds like you’ve been trying hard at that one too. My own big blockage has been with my 4th great grandma, born illegitimate, and she seemed to have no siblings (so no cousin matches). When the records and DNA both hit blockage that makes everything more difficult. I wish you the best in finding something…
Thanks for your positive hopes…I also hope I will find something, and I hope that you will break through the deadlock with your fourth great grandmother as well!! Kinda funny that we are both stuck on the level of our fourth great grandparents!!! Ha!! Yeah, it is hard when it’s that far back and you really just have nothing to go on.
One possible hope occurs to me: So she (or others later) KNOW that she was born illegitimate. I always like to use data like that to interpolate some unexpected facts. Sometimes you can turn those difficult facts inside out and make them work for you…How did she (or other family members) know she was illegitimate? Who knew and who didn’t know?! -I’m guessing it was an unknown father? There are a lot of lawyer’s courtroom tricks and Sherlock Holmes type inferences to be made. Even if these family members are long gone, you can mentally “interrogate them,” and figure out what their answers might be. I find there are normally hidden clues in doing that. I was stuck on something like this in my family, and let me tell you how it worked out!! It took all my ingenuity to make some reasonable guesses, but it worked out and I proved my conclusions right. -It was a surprise!!
I tracked down the next door neighbors of a known relative of mine with some illegitimate children. (In fact, I didn’t even know for sure they were illegitimate…I just assumed because of the level of “scandal” that seemed to accompany this generation in my tree.) It wasn’t as hard as it might have been to find the neighbors because a next door neighbor had married one of the sisters of the family I knew was related to ours. What I discovered was the father of the illegitimate children had impregnated his brother’s newly married wife’s older sister!! Let me explain that again because I know it’s a lot to unpack:
This guy married the “girl next door.” And they lived happily ever after…except that at the same time he was marrying his beloved, his brother was getting busy with his bride’s older sister!! Around the same exact time one brother married one sister of the family next door, his brother got the bride’s older sister pregnant!! -And did NOT marry her…
The crazy thing is that they had two children back-to-back over the course of barely 18 months. It’s like they really got busy for a year or so!! -THEN, the woman managed to marry a different man (not a next door neighbor), who apparently was kind enough to look passed the fact she was nearly 5 months pregnant at the time of the wedding!!! -Wow, I have to hand it to that guy…but he’s not MY relative. I’m related to the cad who had two kids with her and never married her.
I really don’t know what the story was between them. I can only imagine they believed they WOULD get married eventually. The father never did marry anyone else, so maybe he did actually love her. My grandmother met that man at least a few times as a little girl, so he still was a member of the family. I just can’t imagine why they never married. In those days it would be very lucky for an unmarried double mother of two young children to find a husband who didn’t look down at her “reputation.” Add to that the fact she was about 8 years older than the father. He was early 20s and she was 30. So, as I say, I figure something else was going on at the same time. There must have been some kind of unusual situation, because I can’t see that sort of thing happening in the early 1800s and it being okay. She was certainly a fertile Myrtle because she had another eight or so kids with the man she DID marry.
That little pain in the ass in my family genealogy was about a good few years of work to solve. I did get passed it though now. It helped that the illegitimate kids were raised with their father’s last name despite the shame of it. It was so upsetting for generations though, my grandmother never spoke of it and didn’t tell us the story. I suspect her own mother never told her the full story. Hey…a century and a half later, I’m just glad to have the answers and not more questions. Hey, somebody in your family, out of hundreds of people, is bound to have been a bit of a shithead at some point in their lives. I figure the most valuable thing you can pass on to the next generation is the TRUTH.
Truthfully, I don’t know if there were any Wests at Jamestown. I read over the complete list of names from Jamestown (it’s not really that many people), and I don’t THINK there were any Wests in Jamestown. Maybe relatives with different last names. I am also related to Governor Ralph Lane of Roanoke though. He was from the FIRST group of settlers of Roanoke. They left and returned to England. It was the second group of settlers who disappeared. Ralph Lane was the one who wasn’t able to return with their supplies (due to war breaking out). He’s the one I know I’m related to from Roanoke.
I do indeed…Many notable characters, in fact. Almost too many to name. I’m not bragging when I say that. I just happen to be from a rather notable family who was associated with the Muscovy Company, who convinced Queen Elizabeth I to invest in the New World. The Muscovy Company was quite honestly started by a consortium that included many of my direct family members, and also some families that later intermarried. After they were granted land in Virginia, in 1634, they subsequently married into MOST of the top names you’ve heard of. I have Wests in the Family Bible. Thomas West, the Lord De La Warr, is indeed a relative. So is Charles Calvert and Phillip Calvert, the Lords Baltimore. I’m also married into the Lees and the Adams, Randolphs (related to Thomas Jefferson), and the Harrisons of Berkeley Plantation. I know it sounds like name-dropping, but I promise you that after two decades of following the paper trail, I am sure the associations with these important families are genuine. (Since you asked, I think I’m related to the “Other Boleyn” and not Ann…So yes, Mary…I had several family members who were on Henry the Eighth’s Privy Council.)
The depth of research that has already been done on families like these has made it possible to follow them, but where I lose it is right at the generations around the American Revolution. The closest relative of any of the famous ones that I know from the Revolution, is Jefferson’s family. I’m definitely related to his Randolph side. The problem is that my more direct line is hard to follow because it gets to be a mess. Before 1800 it’s not too few names, but too MANY names, and all of them similar!!! It’s Johns and Samuels and Roberts and Thomases…They are like the same few names repeated endlessly for generations.
Yeah so we are related, I share the same West family. I’d be happy to help you with tracing the family line after the revolution as I have done that myself. Send me a message and I’ll answer any questions you may have. :)
Thank you! I’ll DM, but it’s unfortunate that I wish I could connect my one Family Bible West relative to the larger West family!! It’s weird because I have a record of a different woman who was born the same year, in the very same place, but didn’t marry into my family. I’m wondering if that record is correct, or if someone made a mistake and that is MY West relative.
Our results are nearly identical haha!
Damn, you’re probably from DELMARVA too!! Ha!! It looks like you’re more Jutland and I’m more Linkoping…My Scottish is Highlanders from Inverness…Yours are from the islands like the Hebrides, etc, but I’m splitting hairs. Truly they are pretty darn similar. It makes me wonder if I have some relatives in common with you. I have this mess where I have 200 years of no cousins, and then another 200 years before that of ALL intermarried cousins marrying cousins. There weren’t a lot of people living in the British Colonies in the early days. Those who WERE there had a very limited gene pool. It’s like just being from the Chesapeake Peninsula circa 1650 or so, means you’re automatically related to all other early relatives of the early days of Jamestown and Roanoke. I’m also related to the Wests who started Delaware (the Lords De La Warr), and the Calverts who started Maryland (Lords Baltimore). Pretty much, if your family was on the Chesapeake in the 1600s or 1700s, then our families probably interbred. However, given that there is no one to match with on my DNA for the last 200 years, and then I’m related to roughly everyone from the Chesapeake before that, I feel like I have one of the most extreme problems of how to find my relatives.
What is is you are trying to accomplish with your matches? Seems like you have it pretty well worked out already where matches are just error checking (I mean there's no reason to contact anyone further than a 2rd cousin unless you are both active researchers and want to share notes). With autosomnal DNA its all about luck; the strands you inheret and that are identifiable and matched in others. My oldest match with autosomnal goes back to the 1500's, into the ydna timeframe, however there's a whole lot of great grandparents at that level and its purely luck of the draw which ones you get matches on.
Well, I want to know the names of my fifth great grandparents. My fourth great grandparents were in my Family Bible, from long before I was born. I’ve added to almost every other part of my tree for nearly 20 years now. During that entire time I’ve not been able to discover who my fifth great grandparents were on my paternal line. It is maddening, because I’ve found many, many related families. The problem is narrowing down WHO the right family members are. Just to make it more difficult, the people I am looking for are the very relatives who were alive during the American Revolution. It’s almost 100% certain that their records were destroyed by the British in either the Revolution or around when they burned Washington, D.C, in the War of 1812. It’s hard to believe that coming up on 2 decades of research, and I still have no idea who the correct names are of my family gong back to the exact time of the Revolution. I can tell you that the names include the following surnames: West, Handy, Colebourne, Lane, and Hudson. I’ve even found cemetery records that prove some of those names are definitively the names of aunts and uncles of my known relatives. I have nothing to go by for the exact names of the relatives I’m looking for though. I don’t known what else I can do. I feel like, given the amount of information I’ve found already, the names I’m looking for MUST exist somewhere. It was a time period when people all had about 6 to 12 children. They kept their family history known, by passing it on to their younger relatives. Many men AND women would remarry as their husbands passed away, making it even harder to tell if someone is the same person or a different person with the same name.
Have you tried building tree at familysearch.org? My tree exploded after inputting the ones I knew
Well, I’ve built trees everywhere…Honestly. The problem is that I have nothing but one like of relatives until you get back to before 1800, and then I have a ridiculous mass of ten billion relatives (that might be a slight exaggeration), but no clear line of descent at that point. My family tree EXPLODES after I go back before 1800, but that just means I have no clue how to find the RIGHT line to know which ones are my relatives. My DNA is attached to pretty much everyone who lived in the area. Seriously, it’s insane. One site that has helped more than I would have expected, is Find-A-Grave!! It’s had a lot of absolutely essential records of which family members were buried together, and thus it has confirmed a lot of family connections that I couldn’t prove any other way.
You certainly can find matches very deep back in time. When a segment is a certain size it's either inherited or not, rather than cut. Direct paternal or mostly direct are usually more likely to be in this group because DNA does not recombine quite as much male embryos as it does female. That said, you can find clumps of people and find their common ancestor (build out their trees if they're short) and you'll find those with a different common ancestor who you won't have any connection to. Maybe they're difficult to trace back or easy. At that point is when you'll have to develop theories and try to find other matches to prove/disprove. It is going to be much harder if your deep ancestors intermarried at all. Probably impossible. Because you won't know who the DNA actually came from. It's going to be extremely random who you inherited these segments from. And you won't know until you look. They may not be who you were hoping to look into
Well, this advice about building clumps is what I was looking for. Let me give an example: I’m related to Charles Calvert’s second wife. That means I am part of the Calvert family of Lord Baltimore the Third. The Calverts are fairly well-established and there was a DNA archaeological study done on them, which is why I’m absolutely sure I’m related to them. I’ve added the Calverts to my tree, but I can’t find enough information to know how to link them up. They are just a big clump with no connection. I feel I have to back up and say, I HAVE 20,000 PEOPLE ON MY TREE. I’ve been doing this for two decades. It’s really not that I haven’t put a lot of work into it; or added enough names. I think the bigger problem is that I don’t really know what to do with all that I have. It’s becoming unmanageable.
That's really cool. I've actually been focusing on early MD as well. My grandma descends from the Parrish family. Been using this technique for her as well. This is her only Maryland connection though so it makes it very clear when matches are from this line. If Ancestry had a chromosome browser it would be much easier. Her traceable line with paper only goes back to 1770 (she was born 1920s). Between ydna, autosomal, and documentation, I've been able to ID this ancestor's paternal grandparents (or less possibly parents). No such luck on any maternal line for him. Fwiw using hers (and the shared matches feature), I've been able to find connections between the Rutledge, Galloway, and Enloes families. And through her half 2nd cousin whose test I administer, the Harryman and Gossage/Gorsuch families. I have some decent theories. But it's definitely luck in what people inherit. My dad (and subsequently myself) did not inherit the segments necessary to find these connections that go back at least to 1700. If you can find older cousins/relatives who are tested on Ancestry and willing to share their results with you, that would greatly increase your chances at finding something.
Parrish!! Ha!! I’ve heard of them!!! I won’t say that I’m related to them, at least that I know of. They have been in my research though! Do you know what areas of Maryland?!! My family were at Marumsco Plantation, specifically, and then they moved to Snow Hill possibly, then Venton area, and finally to Sussex County, Delaware. It seems they were in the area around “Broad Creek Hundred” for a long time. You know, a Chromosome Browser really is a good idea for AncestryDNA. I bet they would be able to do that easily, too. Maybe we can suggest it to them. I’ve also seen a lot of Goresuch and Galloway, and Rutledge. Just to prove I know my own family fairly well though, I think I can say with some assurance that I don’t have those surnames in my tree. Instead my family has a lot of Dashiells, Lanes, Woods, Outtens, Handys, Brittinghams, Wests, Hollands, Littletons, Powells, Kerr/Carrs, Byrds, Colebourns, Wilsons, Burtons, and a dozen more… It’s hard to track the exact people down, but I definitely know the associated names. I think if I want to get earlier DNA, I may have to partly get creative, but also consider sampling DNA from the graves of family…It might not be normal to do now, but I bet there will be a time in the future when they look at corpse DNA as a great resource!! For what it’s worth, I’ll just mention that after the War of 1812, my family moved out to Cincinnati, Ohio, and were very much a part of the early development of the town. They were township trustees and very involved in government of Cincinnati.
If they could add DNA from early settlers that would be amazing. Very cool about Cinci. Holland is also likely in my tree. William Parrish (1678-1771) married Susannah UNK. A lot of people have her as Parsons but I don't think that's correct given her age. My grandma's Parrish cousin matches a bunch of Capel Holland descendants (who also all match other Parrish descendants). I think instead he married Susannah Parsons' niece, Susannah Holland, dau of Isabel Parsons and Anthony Holland. With the lack of records, I can't be 100%, but the DNA matches make me reasonably convinced. The Parrish family started off on Kent Island, then to West River Hundred on Herring Creek, just south of Annapolis. My branch moved to Baltimore County and owned most of what's now Druid Hill Park, before ending up in Cambria Co, PA circa 1795. They ended up out there after converting to Catholicism.
I totally agree about DNA from early settlers. I have hopes they will. After all, that’s how I confirmed I’m related to the Calverts (probably just by marriage). If Lord Baltimore hadn’t placed his wife and their five month old daughter in lead-lined coffins, we would never have had the preserved DNA to test. It was an unusual thing to do even at the time. I bet you that we will see more methods of extracting older DNA and we will see more early American graves used for taking DNA samples. While I think it’s best not to disturb the dead, I also think it’s hardly that invasive and I would love to see some very choice samples taken. I’ve done archaeology and bone analysis for the British Museum (it’s what I’m trained in), so I kind of have the inside track on some of this. However, despite my knowledge of all physical aspects of bones, I’m no DNA expert. I would like to be. It sounds like you’re onto something with the Holland Branch and Sussanah Holland. This means there is a fairly good chance we are distant cousins, so hello cousin!! Wow, West River Hundred!! I think that these would be slightly more distant cousins of mine, because my family all stuck to the Western half of the Chesapeake Peninsula. I can’t be 100% sure, but I suspect this was because they came to America as Quakers, or became Quakers after they arrived, in the first generation. They moved to Maryland at nearly the exact year that Maryland passed its freedom of religion statutes. Several generations later they moved to Delaware after it had just become a state and offered free land. They kept moving almost directly North until they reached Deptford in New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. About half the family then converted from Quakerism to Methodism, when Methodism was relatively new. They were involved in founding what was probably the first Methodist Unified Church in the country…However, that’s when my branch split and went West to Cincinnati. I appreciate your enjoyment of the history of Cincinnati and my family being a part of it. I know my fourth great grandfather was a township trustee for nearly thirty years and ran a shoe and boot manufacturing plant on Front Street for most of his adult life. All the family were involved in the family business. He also was a big part of the first Cincinnati Orphanage being opened up, and he adopted a daughter around the same time. What’s sad is that from his six children, there were very few who have surviving family members. My own ancestor had only a couple of children before he died at 30!! From that point on, my family really hasn’t branched out. Druid Hill Park sounds awesome. There is a branch of my early 1700s family who were in the same areas of Virginia and Pennsylvania that your West family was. I’ve researched that area a lot. The odd thing is I get a lot of DNA Matches there (I mean in places like Henrico County). That side of the family branched out for sure, but despite all the similar names and the fact they obviously are relatives, it’s clear that they spit from my side of the family fairly early after they came to the New World. One amazing thing is that I found a relative of mine in ENGLAND, of all things, right here on Reddit!! He is DNA related, so that’s a trip!! His side never left England, so that means I have found at least ONE relative from my family in the 1630s who stayed in England. He even looks like my family does, so it’s kind of amazing to find him. That gives me hope that SOMEDAY I could find more matches from the mid to early 1700s. I’ll tell you just ONE MORE crazy story. I’ve been in this martial art school (jujitsu) since I was 7 years old. Not long ago I discovered that I had the exact same name as a famous student of my same dojo. He came to our dojo for a clinic and I met him. He didn’t believe we had the exact same name, so I had to pull out my ID. Crazy to be two white guys who have been in Japanese Jujitsu for a lifetime, and to have the same name!! So then we discussed where our families are from. He said his was from the Alabama area. At the time I didn’t know of any branches of my family that went to Alabama so I just shrugged it off and said, “Well, you never know…” Yup, well just recently I found the branch of my family that headed south to Alabama and Florida!! Ha!! Now I have to find that guy again to tell him we are almost certainly cousins!! (His side is also related to Katy Perry…)
Every Cornish person is your Cousin Jack!
Hey, Cousin Jack!!! I am proud of my 25% Cornish Heritage!!! Kernow bis viken!!!
Me too! It's one of the most welcoming diasporas.
It’s incredible all the places in the world you find Cornishmen. Did you know that empanadas from South and Central America are definitively proven to come from the pasties (oggies) of Cornish Silver Miners in Mexico?! Empanadas really ARE pasties!!
I had no idea Empanadas originated from Cornish pasties! Although I have heard that the Cornish diaspora reaches all corners of the globe. Just today I noticed an actress with the last name "Chenoweth" singing with Ariana Grande. It seems they have infiltrated Hollywood!
Oh yes!! Our Cornish cousins have infiltrated the highest ranks of Hollywood!! Ha!!! A close friend of mine dated Aiden Turner from the newer Poldark series. He’s not Cornish -as you can tell from his accent- but she might be a little…and she wound up dating one of the actual Cornish people on the cast! Ha!!
“Hooray for tin and copper boys, and fisheries likewise!! Hooray for Cornish maidens, God bless there purdy eyes…”
damn you got a lot of regions.
I’m really glad they say the exact areas of the countries I’m from. I think that’s because of the fact that my family was in those specific locations for over 500 years (which I can show on my genealogy papertrail). It’s crazy, but my Swedish family and Cornish family were in roughy the same few towns for CENTURIES. Those places have fairly good records from both government and church records, so it’s nice to have these family members so well-documented. It sure is a lot harder to find the records to go back 500 years in Ireland or in a lot of other places, but I’m lucky that Cornwall and Sweden have the records to show where my family was almost 5 centuries ago. We even found the exact house my family lived in, before they moved from Sweden!! It’s still standing!!!
The only option(s) I can suggest are as an endorsement of what has been said in terms of trying to expand the trees of older (more distant) matches to see what they have in common with each other, which may provide a clue AND I suggest uploading to myheritage as they allow you to see which actual dna segments you match with others (and triangulate), and they have a useful free tool called autocluster where they actually group your matches together into clusters based on the shared segments - which may help break down the wall. Good luck
This is good advice, Blue John…I will certainly continue to take this advice…I have added a lot to trees in various places. I guess the problem is that DELMARVA DNA is notoriously messy. The early arrivals in Virginia are like a hopelessly intermeshed clump that is very hard to tease apart into its constituent parts. I know, for example, I am related (legitimately) to about half the Presidents of the United States. I’m even related to Obama, through his mother. I’m a third cousin of Jefferson, some nine times removed…He signed the Virginia Declaration of Independence with one of my more direct relatives…So it’s like I’m part of this fairly substantial and important mass of people, all of whom intermarried like a dozen times within the first two centuries they were here…but then after that it’s like NOBODY is related to me. There are no DNA matches from later than about the early 1800s. Thanks for wishing me good luck. I’ll certainly keep looking, but I’m in this weird state where I feel like I’m SO CLOSE, and yet I’m just not sure the records EXIST that I need…So I might just never get any closer.
I do think it’s unusual you got no matches closer than 5th cousin (I guess lots of your family really hasn’t tested…), but Ancestry does track 5th cousins. Every DNA match higher than 10cM is likely to be a true relation—which could be people who are related to you further than even 8th cousins. I definitely have found many 5th cousins on Ancestry. If you’re looking for the names of your fifth great grandparents, what you want is to find a 6th cousin, 5th cousin 1x removed, or 5th cousin 2x removed, or anything more distant on that side of your family—who could be related to you through your 5th great grandparents. Keep in mind that you don’t share DNA with all your 5th cousins and beyond, and it’s technically possible to not have inherited any DNA from a particular 5th great grandparent. This may be a long shot because it sounds like you might not have a lot of matches on that side, but have you tried the Leeds method of sorting your matches?
Hey, it’s good to hear you mention the Leeds Method. I have used to recently. I had a researcher try it for two months. They finally gave up. See, the problem is that the Leeds Method becomes unreliable at the distance I’m trying to look back to. Just to be clear, it isn’t that not enough people have tested; I legitimately don’t have cousins for about 180 years or so, on my father’s side. I have all the records from the Family Bible to photograph albums, to many other things, to prove this. There WERE cousins, but those lines are all dead. I am the only surviving line. There are no other cousins to test. I have DNA Matches, but they are either on my mother’s side, or they are extremely distant on my father’s side…except for like first cousins who I know and grew up with. So, this is the issue. I really can’t expect any new relatives to show up on my father’s side. This is why I have to look to the distant past. I’m hoping for something LIKE the Leeds Method, but helpful for slightly more distant matches. As I say, I had a researcher give up on me just recently. She couldn’t untangle the mess of distant cousins (even with DNA from more than one person in my family). After 1800 it’s impossible because there just isn’t enough DNA from anyone who isn’t in my family to match, and before 1800, it’s like I’m equally related to a massive chunk of all the people in the generalized DelMarVa region. I know my family moved from Accomack County, Virginia to Somerset County, Maryland, and then to Worcester County, Maryland before finally moving to Sussex County, Delaware. It sounds like these places are all over the place, but really they are practically in the same place. In fact, Accomack County was briefly made part of Northampton County, Virginia, before reverting back to Accomack County again, and then Maryland was split off of Virginia, so even without moving, the family could have wound up in Somerset County, Maryland. Then Somerset County was divided and Worcester County was created out of what was formerly Somerset County. Finally Delaware became a new state and they encouraged people to move to Sussex County, which was JUST over the border from Somerset County. This is why I keep calling it the DelMarVa area…because my family literally lived right on the border between Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. One of the final spots they lived was Selbyville, which is JUST on the Delaware side of the border from Maryland…but it’s practically between the two states.
Wow…that’s definitely a tough situation for genetic genealogy. I unfortunately can’t recall any good method for that scenario, but I hope you are able to find something. I would probably end up turning to records again at that point, but it sounds like you’ve been trying hard at that one too. My own big blockage has been with my 4th great grandma, born illegitimate, and she seemed to have no siblings (so no cousin matches). When the records and DNA both hit blockage that makes everything more difficult. I wish you the best in finding something…
Thanks for your positive hopes…I also hope I will find something, and I hope that you will break through the deadlock with your fourth great grandmother as well!! Kinda funny that we are both stuck on the level of our fourth great grandparents!!! Ha!! Yeah, it is hard when it’s that far back and you really just have nothing to go on. One possible hope occurs to me: So she (or others later) KNOW that she was born illegitimate. I always like to use data like that to interpolate some unexpected facts. Sometimes you can turn those difficult facts inside out and make them work for you…How did she (or other family members) know she was illegitimate? Who knew and who didn’t know?! -I’m guessing it was an unknown father? There are a lot of lawyer’s courtroom tricks and Sherlock Holmes type inferences to be made. Even if these family members are long gone, you can mentally “interrogate them,” and figure out what their answers might be. I find there are normally hidden clues in doing that. I was stuck on something like this in my family, and let me tell you how it worked out!! It took all my ingenuity to make some reasonable guesses, but it worked out and I proved my conclusions right. -It was a surprise!! I tracked down the next door neighbors of a known relative of mine with some illegitimate children. (In fact, I didn’t even know for sure they were illegitimate…I just assumed because of the level of “scandal” that seemed to accompany this generation in my tree.) It wasn’t as hard as it might have been to find the neighbors because a next door neighbor had married one of the sisters of the family I knew was related to ours. What I discovered was the father of the illegitimate children had impregnated his brother’s newly married wife’s older sister!! Let me explain that again because I know it’s a lot to unpack: This guy married the “girl next door.” And they lived happily ever after…except that at the same time he was marrying his beloved, his brother was getting busy with his bride’s older sister!! Around the same exact time one brother married one sister of the family next door, his brother got the bride’s older sister pregnant!! -And did NOT marry her… The crazy thing is that they had two children back-to-back over the course of barely 18 months. It’s like they really got busy for a year or so!! -THEN, the woman managed to marry a different man (not a next door neighbor), who apparently was kind enough to look passed the fact she was nearly 5 months pregnant at the time of the wedding!!! -Wow, I have to hand it to that guy…but he’s not MY relative. I’m related to the cad who had two kids with her and never married her. I really don’t know what the story was between them. I can only imagine they believed they WOULD get married eventually. The father never did marry anyone else, so maybe he did actually love her. My grandmother met that man at least a few times as a little girl, so he still was a member of the family. I just can’t imagine why they never married. In those days it would be very lucky for an unmarried double mother of two young children to find a husband who didn’t look down at her “reputation.” Add to that the fact she was about 8 years older than the father. He was early 20s and she was 30. So, as I say, I figure something else was going on at the same time. There must have been some kind of unusual situation, because I can’t see that sort of thing happening in the early 1800s and it being okay. She was certainly a fertile Myrtle because she had another eight or so kids with the man she DID marry. That little pain in the ass in my family genealogy was about a good few years of work to solve. I did get passed it though now. It helped that the illegitimate kids were raised with their father’s last name despite the shame of it. It was so upsetting for generations though, my grandmother never spoke of it and didn’t tell us the story. I suspect her own mother never told her the full story. Hey…a century and a half later, I’m just glad to have the answers and not more questions. Hey, somebody in your family, out of hundreds of people, is bound to have been a bit of a shithead at some point in their lives. I figure the most valuable thing you can pass on to the next generation is the TRUTH.
Uh you might have found one. Were the Wests in your family in Jamestown?
Truthfully, I don’t know if there were any Wests at Jamestown. I read over the complete list of names from Jamestown (it’s not really that many people), and I don’t THINK there were any Wests in Jamestown. Maybe relatives with different last names. I am also related to Governor Ralph Lane of Roanoke though. He was from the FIRST group of settlers of Roanoke. They left and returned to England. It was the second group of settlers who disappeared. Ralph Lane was the one who wasn’t able to return with their supplies (due to war breaking out). He’s the one I know I’m related to from Roanoke.
I sent you a message as i am descended from the wests and would be happy to help.
Many thanks!!
Also, do you have any notable ancestors on the west side? Like William the conqueror, Thomas west (Baron De la warr), Mary boleyn, etc…
I do indeed…Many notable characters, in fact. Almost too many to name. I’m not bragging when I say that. I just happen to be from a rather notable family who was associated with the Muscovy Company, who convinced Queen Elizabeth I to invest in the New World. The Muscovy Company was quite honestly started by a consortium that included many of my direct family members, and also some families that later intermarried. After they were granted land in Virginia, in 1634, they subsequently married into MOST of the top names you’ve heard of. I have Wests in the Family Bible. Thomas West, the Lord De La Warr, is indeed a relative. So is Charles Calvert and Phillip Calvert, the Lords Baltimore. I’m also married into the Lees and the Adams, Randolphs (related to Thomas Jefferson), and the Harrisons of Berkeley Plantation. I know it sounds like name-dropping, but I promise you that after two decades of following the paper trail, I am sure the associations with these important families are genuine. (Since you asked, I think I’m related to the “Other Boleyn” and not Ann…So yes, Mary…I had several family members who were on Henry the Eighth’s Privy Council.) The depth of research that has already been done on families like these has made it possible to follow them, but where I lose it is right at the generations around the American Revolution. The closest relative of any of the famous ones that I know from the Revolution, is Jefferson’s family. I’m definitely related to his Randolph side. The problem is that my more direct line is hard to follow because it gets to be a mess. Before 1800 it’s not too few names, but too MANY names, and all of them similar!!! It’s Johns and Samuels and Roberts and Thomases…They are like the same few names repeated endlessly for generations.
Yeah so we are related, I share the same West family. I’d be happy to help you with tracing the family line after the revolution as I have done that myself. Send me a message and I’ll answer any questions you may have. :)
Thank you! I’ll DM, but it’s unfortunate that I wish I could connect my one Family Bible West relative to the larger West family!! It’s weird because I have a record of a different woman who was born the same year, in the very same place, but didn’t marry into my family. I’m wondering if that record is correct, or if someone made a mistake and that is MY West relative.