Citizen-scientist genetic genealogy enthusiast

Forty years ago I started studying genetics and have enjoyed a career using computers to analyse scientific information. Two years ago I began reviewing DNA test results in support of family history research.

So far, sixteen people have entrusted me with access to their personal DNA information. That has given me the privilege of helping them, and also many other people, to build family trees and connect with new relatives. My genealogy website profile says, "Citizen-scientist genetic genealogy enthusiast. Willing to help others who want to dig deeper or try to solve family mysteries."

From the range of scenarios I have handled, here are some questions you can ask when looking at each person in your list of DNA matches:

• Do I already know this person and how they are related to me?
• Does the amount of DNA that we share confirm, or contradict, our relationship?
• If I don't know them, do I recognise someone else in their tree, such as a common ancestor?
• Is there a supporting paper trail, such as birth, marriage and death records?
• Does the website suggest a possible common ancestor based on its automated compilation of every searchable tree?
• Is there a tree elsewhere, and a supporting paper trail, to confirm that hint?
• If there is no hint about any common ancestor, possibly not even a tree linked to their DNA results, is there someone else who matches us both and that enables me to make a hypothesis?
• Are there other shared matches also pointing to the same conclusion?
• Does my research show there is a cluster of DNA matches who all have a common ancestor amongst themselves?
• Starting from that common ancestor in their family, does some extra research suggest a link back to me?
• Is my match, or cluster of shared matches, distant and possibly false?
• Are there any surnames or locations in common between my tree and theirs, possibly from many, many generations ago?
• For a strong DNA match, is there an unknown ancestor, a 'brick wall', in the tree?
• Can we rule out all the known ancestors, by process of elimination?
• Do we both have complete family trees but no-one in common?
• Has all the evidence been checked, with no guesses or assumptions, and no possibility of a mix-up?

• Could one of us have a tree that, although linked to the DNA, is not the biological family?
• The tree is for the family into which they were adopted, rather than their birth family?
• The DNA results are actually someone else's, not the person named?
• Someone, somewhere in the tree, has an 'NPE' - Not Parent Expected?

I'm willing to help others and willing to share my experience. However, when writing posts here that concern recent generations I will change names to respect privacy.

Selway of Somerset - part 3

In the previous post (Selway of Somerset - part 2) we noted that Mary Selway married Thomas Porch in Wisconsin, USA, although both had been born in Somerset, England.  Mary Elizabeth Maidment Selway was baptised on 16-Jan-1830 in the church of St Mary Magdalene, Chewton Mendip, daughter of James and Eliza (formerly Maidment).  Her husband Thomas Porch had been baptised 12 years earlier on 15-Feb-1818, less than 10 miles away in St Peter, North Wootton, son of John and Ann.

Did these two families know each other in Somerset before they emigrated and were linked through marriage in Wisconsin?

When Mary was baptised as a baby in 1830 she was given the name Mary after her father's mother.  Later when she married she took the name Porch and, whether or not she knew it at the time, this was her grandmother's maiden name.  Grandmother Miss Mary Porch became Mrs Selway and her granddaughter swapped names the other way, going from Miss Mary Selway to Mrs Porch.

Could Thomas Porch, baptised in North Wootton in 1818 be connected to his bride's grandmother Mary Porch, whose marriage placed her in the same parish in Somerset?

The St Peter North Wootton parish register entry for Mary's grandparents in 1781 lists:

• Bride: Mary Porch
• Groom: James Selway of Green Ore, Witham Friary
• Witnesses: Sarah Selway and Mary Read [Reed]

In the same parish 25 years later, the entry for the marriage of Thomas' parents in 1806 lists:

• Groom: John Porch
• Bride: Ann Clark
• Witnesses: Henry Clark Senior and Junior

With no mention of Porch relatives for either of these marriages there is little evidence to make a link other than the basic facts of same surname and same parish.

Selway of Somerset - part 2

In the previous post (Selway of Somerset - part 1) I pointed to a Find a Grave memorial which says about Mary Selway, daughter of James and Eliza (formerly Maidment): "James and daughter, Mary, went back to England to settle an estate when James became sick and died in Somersetshire. Mary stayed in England."  The source is quoted as "Beaverhead Co. History Book, Vol. II".

Elsewhere (Tribune-Examiner, September 03, 1980, Page 19), the same details and more are found.  I read in that Centennial Edition of the newspaper about the children of James and Eliza in Beaverhead County, Montana, "The four boys took up homesteads in the county. [...] The girls married local ranchers except for daughter Mary who remained in England after her father's death and married Tom Porch in Somersetshire. When her two sons, Henry and Tom Porch, were grown they came to Dillon to ranch".

A family memoir available on the internet (by Florence Carter Backus, 1952) says much the same, "James Sr. and daughter Mary (oldest child) returned to England to visit. James died there. Mary stayed there and raised a family."

All these sources, and some others, suggest that Mary Selway returned to England, remained in England, married in England and had children in England.

However, although parish records show that Thomas Porch was baptised in North Wootton, Somerset, England, civil records in the USA show a marriage between Mary Selway and Thomas Porch in Wisconsin, in 1849, a few years after the Selway family emigrated.  Then in the same place four children were born to Mary and Thomas Porch.

All things considered, the return trip to England seems not to have been James Selway and an unmarried daughter Mary Selway.  It was James Selway, his married daughter Mary Porch plus Mary's husband Thomas and their children.  The long journey included three generations of a family across an age range of under 5 years old up to about 75 years old.

Selway of Somerset - part 1

Puzzle pieces and solutions come in all shapes and sizes.  James Selway, my great-great-great-great-uncle, was baptised, married and buried in the same church - St Mary Magdalene, Chewton Mendip, Somerset, England.  All of his brothers and sisters were baptised in the same church across a period of more than 20 years.

Their father before them, also James Selway, was baptised (1755) and buried (1816) in the same village, although he had married Mary Porch (1781) in her parish church of St Peter North Wootton nearly 10 miles away.  These were my great-great-great-great-grandparents.

James Selway, son of James and Mary, was married in 1829 to Eliza Maidment and they were recorded in the 1841 census with seven children living at Double House, East End (note: map drawn in 1884).  An eighth child was born the following year.  Then the whole of this family disappeared from Chewton Mendip until 26 years later when James was buried there in 1868, noted as age 78.  I will not list the unsuccessful approaches which I tried to find them in the intervening years ...

Then I came across the Find A Grave memorial entry for Eliza.  The record matches her first name, maiden name and married surname, as well as mentioning Chewton Mendip.  It told me that she died only two years after her husband James but more than 4,500 miles away!

Wonderfully, that database includes a biography for Eliza which says, "James and daughter, Mary, went back to England to settle an estate when James became sick and died in Somersetshire."  In fact many people have recorded information about this pioneer family, which included another child who was born in the USA.  The sources are rather varied, such as:

• an article in a newspaper Centennial Edition, Dillon Tribune-Examiner, Sept 03, 1980, Page 19,
• a 119 page scholarly work with the title "Ranching in Beaverhead County, 1863-1960" from Liza Nicholas, Graduate School, the University of Montana,
• a memoir called "Origin of the Selways" written by Eliza's granddaughter Florence who was born in 1884 and
• an audio memoir by Florence on YouTube!

So it seems that James and Eliza emigrated to the USA in 1846 and about 18 years later Eliza stayed there when her husband returned to their starting point, never to see each other again.  James was indeed buried in the place where he was born and baptised, after a round trip of nearly 10,000 miles.

The Penny Husbands

In the previous post we distinguished between two men called Edward Turton and their respective spouses (The Turton Wives).  From FreeBMD we can know that since civil registration began in England and Wales there have been over 70 marriage registrations with the name Edward Turton.

By contrast FreeBMD shows only seven marriage registrations for the name Jabez Penny.  Sounds like an easier starting point.  However, there are three birth registrations for Jabez Penny within a two year period of time (with just one earlier birth and another entry a generation later).  Selecting the relevant details for the person of interest was achieved by piecing together information about the life of each of five people with the same name.

Jabez John Penny, son of Robert and Ann, was born in Kent in 1841.  He became a school master like his father before him.  Jabez married Mary Hanson Jones, daughter of a school master and a teacher herself, in 1866 in Portsea, Hampshire.  His widow died in 1917, age 77.  It is possible that his death was the one registered in the same district 18 years earlier as John Penny.

In Bristol, James Penny married Celia Legg in 1850, they had a son Jabez Penny in 1851 who died aged 1 in 1852.  Then they gave the same name to another son who was born in 1853 and baptised on Christmas Day.  Their second Jabez married firstly in 1875 to Margaret Wood who unfortunately died within a year.  Then he married Caroline Baker in 1881, had various roles related to making and selling paper, died in Barnstaple, Devon in 1919, age 66, and is buried in the town cemetery with his wife Caroline's name on the grave monument.

Between those two births, a Jabez Penny was born in 1852 in Wiltshire to Henry (Harry) Penny and Harriett (Harriet) formerly Burton, who had married in 1838.  This Jabez, a labourer, was married first in 1874 to Dinah Ann Kiddle, age 18, but sadly she died before their 10th wedding anniversary.  He went on to marry Rebecca White, age 26, in 1886, who lived until 1913, a marriage of 27 years, during which time he progressed to being a road foreman working for the district council.  Then in 1914, in his early 60s, Jabez married the much younger Kate Elizabeth/Elizabeth Kate Elcock who was age 25 and their marriage continued for 24 years until his death age 85 in 1938.

In Essex, Thomas David Penny, a millwright who had been born in Brighton, Sussex, and his wife Agnes had their Jabez Penny in 1888.  He married Mabel Simpson in 1920 and died in 1962 age 74.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any corrections or further insights.  However, beware if you are checking against compiled information available on the internet because several sources have muddled up these Penny people.