This is the Bermuda triangle of family names. I need to make this note for myself because it can easily become really confusing.
I was researching John B Hollingsworth and family (Hollingsworths Next Door) and it turns out that they bulk of their family moved from Butler PA to Grant county IN, not Madison county. John B Hollingsworth is in Madison county, down the way from Levi Thompson in 1860 but his family group is in Grant..not very far from where he lived in Van Buren, Madison, IN.
It's good to keep in mind here that there are other Hollingsworths roaming this part of Indiana at this time that came from the Carolinas. I imagine they are distantly related.
I decided to look for Thompsons in Grant in 1860 to see if maybe Levi's home group of Thompsons would magically be there. Of course part of my matching the Grant Hollingsworths with the Butler PA Hollingsworths and John B Hollingsworth was that I could follow the entire family from Butler in 1850 to Grant in 1860. It would be hard to know if any of the Grant Thompsons belong to Levi because I can't find him in 1850.
Still I tried, and found a few that were interesting. One of them was way to young to be a parent of any sort, but still of interest. Robert Thompson is in Grant in 1860, he is 40 years old, born in 1820 in Pennsylvania. He is in a household with a woman listed as Ann Kersy who was born around 1835 in Vir..which is I'm sure Virginia, which reminded me of all the Kerseys I looked up while research the Coates family from Butler PA. I've run into genetic matches for my father who have Kerseys and Coates in their families and I spent a bit of time looking at them.
Robert is single when he is listed in the draft records for the Civil War. I don't have much information on him but he may be worth looking up and maybe there is some connection with the Kerseys that is worth putting together. Since he's born in 1820 it's possible he would appear in an 1840 and 1850 census. I could also try to find Ann Kers(e)y from Virginia.
Sorting out the Puzzle Pieces in My Big Messy Family
Showing posts with label Pennsylvania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pennsylvania. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Thursday, December 27, 2012
And so this is Christmas..and what have you done
I think since I've moved my Y DNA results to FTDNA, I've been able to take advantage of a lot of good testing and research within the FTDNA groups and also take better advantage of what I got from Ancestry.com. Last year, I thought my Y was a pretty obvious dud. Now I have what I think is a clearer picture of where my Y DNA ancestor was from..or at least the journey they took.
I'm pretty resigned that we're looking at Anglo Saxon England or some later migration from Flanders or Denmark before 1500AD. I think the Anglo Saxon/Frisian thing circa 500AD is most likely at this point but I can't totally rule out Flemish weavers or Hanseatic League members.
It's not shocking because I've been building this case for a while, initially with a lot of hesitation, but more recently with actual excitement. I feel like I've been able to move from a feeling of dread in the beginning that we Thompsons were not exactly like the other Thompsons to acceptance of a sort. Now I've moved on to learning about where we may have come from outside of the general mythology of Thompson-ness. I have actually enjoyed learning about these groups of people we call "Germanic".
I think the last few days have been an enormous success in that I feel like I'm seeing a pattern emerge that incorporates the Knowltons and Elmers that I've spent so much time with. I can see in the cluster at "Z18 and subgroups" a broad migration round the bottom of the Balitc Sea and over to England...or maybe what would become England in the future. As I watch this pattern play out I'm seeing a definite area of England for us and it's southeast England and maybe more specifically East Anglia although a paper trail to Kent wouldn't be a surprise either.
When I look at autosomal DNA I'm seeing some ties to the area as well, in the many matches that have roots in Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk. By the same token though I can't ignore my father's genetic connections to Germany and Ireland which remain a bit of a mystery. I could definitely see Germany through the Finks (Thompsons) family but many Germans have X matches which means it would be carried on the Seelye side, not the Thompson side. There is also a French component that is evident in our paper trail, but not yet making itself apparent genetically.
Clearly the Y DNA move was good for boiling things down and our autosomal DNA tests require similar work. Like the move for the Y, I should transfer autosomal tests over to FTDNA. Gedmatch.com has proven that the FTDNA database holds some clues for us.
In both the Y and autosomal cases my father and I can no longer be the only representatives of our family. We'll need others beyond the level of my grandparents to help us sort and order matches. Painfully, we'll need them for both the Y (because the Y is important for continuity) AND autosomal tests (because the Thompsons need help on all their lines) which costs money. For my dad it will become important to have a Seelye representative and a Thompson for autosomal testing. Eventually, if we can establish that the Y carries through to the Indiana Thompsons and we're not looking at a more recent NPE, we'll need to look at testing Y candidates from Butler PA..which is a shot in the dark with no guarantee of participation.
It's easy to forget, in the midst of all my talk about genetic testing, that we've made some good advances in paper work too. I think the John B Hollingsworth information is an important clue and gives a good time frame for a move from Butler PA to Madison IN. It's nice to have someone I CAN follow back to Pennsylvania with clear ties to Indiana. It may mean that I should focus more on the Thompsons in Grant Indiana where the Hollingsworth family settles down. All of that is totally paper trail driven.
I've also been able to make good progress on the Hibbard (Thompson/Finks) family totally with photographic evidence and paper trails and made progress on the Finks family itself using census records and oral histories from Finks related people in Virginia. We've had excellent success on the Thompson/Williamson front as well and added a wealth of leads for that family just by using the census to leap a missing generation. I know more about the Jeffers/Jeffries family (Thompson/Finks) than I did before and I may have some genetic evidence to support the wishy washy family trees coming out of Kentucky.
So you can't have just DNA testing alone, you have to be able to find records and connect with people if you're going to be able to make anything out of this mess. I'm lucky to live in a time where most of this work can be done online and I can take advantage of all the great work done by others to fill in gaps.
I think there are still many discoveries to be made and new cultures and histories to learn about and I'm still excited to see how things unfold and we haven't been totally backed into a corner yet. Big studies are coming out of England and Ireland that may shed new light on old data and as always, I meet new people all the time who give me great ideas and fresh creative perspectives.
I'm pretty resigned that we're looking at Anglo Saxon England or some later migration from Flanders or Denmark before 1500AD. I think the Anglo Saxon/Frisian thing circa 500AD is most likely at this point but I can't totally rule out Flemish weavers or Hanseatic League members.
It's not shocking because I've been building this case for a while, initially with a lot of hesitation, but more recently with actual excitement. I feel like I've been able to move from a feeling of dread in the beginning that we Thompsons were not exactly like the other Thompsons to acceptance of a sort. Now I've moved on to learning about where we may have come from outside of the general mythology of Thompson-ness. I have actually enjoyed learning about these groups of people we call "Germanic".
I think the last few days have been an enormous success in that I feel like I'm seeing a pattern emerge that incorporates the Knowltons and Elmers that I've spent so much time with. I can see in the cluster at "Z18 and subgroups" a broad migration round the bottom of the Balitc Sea and over to England...or maybe what would become England in the future. As I watch this pattern play out I'm seeing a definite area of England for us and it's southeast England and maybe more specifically East Anglia although a paper trail to Kent wouldn't be a surprise either.
When I look at autosomal DNA I'm seeing some ties to the area as well, in the many matches that have roots in Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk. By the same token though I can't ignore my father's genetic connections to Germany and Ireland which remain a bit of a mystery. I could definitely see Germany through the Finks (Thompsons) family but many Germans have X matches which means it would be carried on the Seelye side, not the Thompson side. There is also a French component that is evident in our paper trail, but not yet making itself apparent genetically.
Clearly the Y DNA move was good for boiling things down and our autosomal DNA tests require similar work. Like the move for the Y, I should transfer autosomal tests over to FTDNA. Gedmatch.com has proven that the FTDNA database holds some clues for us.
In both the Y and autosomal cases my father and I can no longer be the only representatives of our family. We'll need others beyond the level of my grandparents to help us sort and order matches. Painfully, we'll need them for both the Y (because the Y is important for continuity) AND autosomal tests (because the Thompsons need help on all their lines) which costs money. For my dad it will become important to have a Seelye representative and a Thompson for autosomal testing. Eventually, if we can establish that the Y carries through to the Indiana Thompsons and we're not looking at a more recent NPE, we'll need to look at testing Y candidates from Butler PA..which is a shot in the dark with no guarantee of participation.
It's easy to forget, in the midst of all my talk about genetic testing, that we've made some good advances in paper work too. I think the John B Hollingsworth information is an important clue and gives a good time frame for a move from Butler PA to Madison IN. It's nice to have someone I CAN follow back to Pennsylvania with clear ties to Indiana. It may mean that I should focus more on the Thompsons in Grant Indiana where the Hollingsworth family settles down. All of that is totally paper trail driven.
I've also been able to make good progress on the Hibbard (Thompson/Finks) family totally with photographic evidence and paper trails and made progress on the Finks family itself using census records and oral histories from Finks related people in Virginia. We've had excellent success on the Thompson/Williamson front as well and added a wealth of leads for that family just by using the census to leap a missing generation. I know more about the Jeffers/Jeffries family (Thompson/Finks) than I did before and I may have some genetic evidence to support the wishy washy family trees coming out of Kentucky.
So you can't have just DNA testing alone, you have to be able to find records and connect with people if you're going to be able to make anything out of this mess. I'm lucky to live in a time where most of this work can be done online and I can take advantage of all the great work done by others to fill in gaps.
I think there are still many discoveries to be made and new cultures and histories to learn about and I'm still excited to see how things unfold and we haven't been totally backed into a corner yet. Big studies are coming out of England and Ireland that may shed new light on old data and as always, I meet new people all the time who give me great ideas and fresh creative perspectives.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Needle in the Needle Stack, Pioneer Style
Butler county Pennsylvania has presented a conundrum. I can't find any references to Levi Thompson. There actually seem to be very few Levis at all. I did find a Levi Campbell who would be much younger than Levi Thompson, living with a Thompson family, but that's about as close as I've gotten.
The other side of the coin is that Butler county is thick with Thompsons. Thompsons are early settlers in the county and by the 1870s there are so many it's hard to keep track. The unfortunate issue I have is that Levi was born around 1834-9. So the first census he would appear in would be the 1840. Assuming that he knew he was from Butler PA because he had some waking memory of living there, he's probably listed with his family then. The issue is that the 1840 census doesn't list everyone in a household. Just the heads of households and number of people in the household between certain ages.
So I will probably end up making a survey of the Thompsons there in 1840 who have children between the age of 1 and 10. The thing is that there are so many and there are enough origin stories to make your head swim.
Several sources say all the Thompsons of Butler are related to a single John Thompson born around 1755 near Juniata who is the son of John Thompson a Scot.
Others say there are two different Thompson families in Butler that are unrelated one straight out of Ireland with three brothers, James, Anthony and Moses and another from Lancaster county with it's own three brothers, John, James and Matthew. Still further in the same history of Butler it relates that one of the first Thompsons in the area was from Cumberland and of Scotch Irish heritage named William Thompson. All of this is taking place around 1796, but a quick glance at the 1803 tax list for Butler will tell you there are more Thompsons than these.
Connoquenessing Township:
Middlesex Twp., Butler Co., Pa.
These are not the lists from all the townships, but you can see that you have several John Thompsons to try to keep track of and little more identifying information. Some could be sons of those first settlers, or totally unrelated.
That is the thing I keep running into. Most of the histories of a place assume they are written for the current residents not for someone in a different state a hundred plus years in the future. They assume you can tell John Thompson from Lancaster from John Thompson from Slippery Rock or Dr. John Thompson who owns the furnace and mills. You would know which one you belonged to because it's 1895 and you're looking back fondly on the awesomeness of your family over that last hundred years.
These guys didn't have DNA testing and excellent paper trails. They were hunting wolves and fighting natives on the frontier and for their grandchildren, myth and legend was just as reasonable as a tax list.
So I'm working at gut feelings. I think Levi was likely there in 1840 but probably gone by 1850 because in 1855 he's married and having his first child. Where he is in 1850 is hard to say. He could be in the next county over still in Pennsylvania, he could be in Kentucky or Ohio he could already be in Indiana..he could be farther west.
What the histories do give me is an idea of what was happening at the time and how people felt about themselves. These were largely Irish, Scots Irish and German frontier people and they owned that. They fought and died, spied and killed, farmed and paid taxes. They also intermarried, a lot and had a lot of children. One of the Thompsons had 11 kids. Imagine if every one did that. No wonder the place is awful with Thompsons.
There in lies the hope of the genetic testing my family has done. So far, even through genetic testing it's hard to tease out the Thompsons (everyone is related to a Thompson), but I may be able to pull out members of these other families that married in and through them and the histories I can find, be able to match my Thompsons with their "John Thompson from X".
Several families mentioned in the history of Butler also move on to Indiana and may, in the end, be the key to a migration route from Butler PA to Alexandria IN.
The other side of the coin is that Butler county is thick with Thompsons. Thompsons are early settlers in the county and by the 1870s there are so many it's hard to keep track. The unfortunate issue I have is that Levi was born around 1834-9. So the first census he would appear in would be the 1840. Assuming that he knew he was from Butler PA because he had some waking memory of living there, he's probably listed with his family then. The issue is that the 1840 census doesn't list everyone in a household. Just the heads of households and number of people in the household between certain ages.
So I will probably end up making a survey of the Thompsons there in 1840 who have children between the age of 1 and 10. The thing is that there are so many and there are enough origin stories to make your head swim.
Several sources say all the Thompsons of Butler are related to a single John Thompson born around 1755 near Juniata who is the son of John Thompson a Scot.
Others say there are two different Thompson families in Butler that are unrelated one straight out of Ireland with three brothers, James, Anthony and Moses and another from Lancaster county with it's own three brothers, John, James and Matthew. Still further in the same history of Butler it relates that one of the first Thompsons in the area was from Cumberland and of Scotch Irish heritage named William Thompson. All of this is taking place around 1796, but a quick glance at the 1803 tax list for Butler will tell you there are more Thompsons than these.
Connoquenessing Township:
THOMPSON, Andrew ---
THOMPSON, James 400 (single man)
THOMPSON, John 400 (B.G.)
THOMPSON, John 400 (Muddy Cr.)
THOMPSON, Matthew 50 (single man) THOMPSON, William 400
Middlesex Twp., Butler Co., Pa.
THOMPSON, Anthony 400 THOMPSON, Hugh --- THOMPSON, John 400 THOMPSON, John 400 (blacksmith) THOMPSON, John 400 (Con. Creek) THOMPSON, John 400 (weaver) THOMPSON, Martin 400 THOMPSON, Moses 400 (single man) THOMPSON, William 100 THOMPSON, William 400 (single man)
These are not the lists from all the townships, but you can see that you have several John Thompsons to try to keep track of and little more identifying information. Some could be sons of those first settlers, or totally unrelated.
That is the thing I keep running into. Most of the histories of a place assume they are written for the current residents not for someone in a different state a hundred plus years in the future. They assume you can tell John Thompson from Lancaster from John Thompson from Slippery Rock or Dr. John Thompson who owns the furnace and mills. You would know which one you belonged to because it's 1895 and you're looking back fondly on the awesomeness of your family over that last hundred years.
These guys didn't have DNA testing and excellent paper trails. They were hunting wolves and fighting natives on the frontier and for their grandchildren, myth and legend was just as reasonable as a tax list.
So I'm working at gut feelings. I think Levi was likely there in 1840 but probably gone by 1850 because in 1855 he's married and having his first child. Where he is in 1850 is hard to say. He could be in the next county over still in Pennsylvania, he could be in Kentucky or Ohio he could already be in Indiana..he could be farther west.
What the histories do give me is an idea of what was happening at the time and how people felt about themselves. These were largely Irish, Scots Irish and German frontier people and they owned that. They fought and died, spied and killed, farmed and paid taxes. They also intermarried, a lot and had a lot of children. One of the Thompsons had 11 kids. Imagine if every one did that. No wonder the place is awful with Thompsons.
There in lies the hope of the genetic testing my family has done. So far, even through genetic testing it's hard to tease out the Thompsons (everyone is related to a Thompson), but I may be able to pull out members of these other families that married in and through them and the histories I can find, be able to match my Thompsons with their "John Thompson from X".
Several families mentioned in the history of Butler also move on to Indiana and may, in the end, be the key to a migration route from Butler PA to Alexandria IN.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Butler County Pennsylvania
I did a search of the Indiana State Digital Archives and found a civil war record for Levi Thompson. His civil war records have been the most effective way to track him (as in the 1890 veteran's roll in Ohio). Unlike his other documents from the National Archives or his online indexes, this one listed some more interesting personal information. Including the thing that made me change the secondary title on this blog.
Eyes hazel; hair dark; height 5'10"; complexion dark; nativity Butler Co Pa. Not just a state or several states, but a COUNTY! So his wife was right. He's from Pennsylvania. Having spent more than a year trying to find such a minor piece of information...well it makes the smallest victory exciting.
Finally some concrete reason why he's not with the other Thompson families in the area and a big bolster of support for those Pennsylvania genetic relatives.
I was also sent the information on other Thompsons in the area as well. At least two other Thompsons served in the vicinity. Both were 19 at the time, both born in Indiana, both named John and I've been able to find both in the 1850 census. None with Levi though. Without some further proof, it appears that he is unrelated to the other Thompsons serving with him, although the physical descriptions of the other Thompsons are very similar to him.
For reasons I can't really defend logically, finding a place for Levi has been very important to me. I have a place. He does too.
Finally some concrete reason why he's not with the other Thompson families in the area and a big bolster of support for those Pennsylvania genetic relatives.
I was also sent the information on other Thompsons in the area as well. At least two other Thompsons served in the vicinity. Both were 19 at the time, both born in Indiana, both named John and I've been able to find both in the 1850 census. None with Levi though. Without some further proof, it appears that he is unrelated to the other Thompsons serving with him, although the physical descriptions of the other Thompsons are very similar to him.
For reasons I can't really defend logically, finding a place for Levi has been very important to me. I have a place. He does too.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Hollingsworths
As I've contacted genetic relatives and asked permission to view their trees, I've made it a habit to try to check them against each other to see if they have any matches. I have a lot of matches in the Pennsylvania area, and sorting them out can be pretty hard, not least because they are so interrelated. I began with just one genetic relative who happened to be from Pennsylvania and also happened to have Thompsons. She actually has two distinct Thompson families. One family beginning with Robert Thompson born 1786 in Lancaster Co PA and the other beginning with James Thompson born 1668 Wicklow Ireland (but moved to New Jersey).
Previously I had gathered a list of surnames surrounding the Lancaster PA Thompsons to see if they appeared fairly often among my genetic matches. Many of them did. When I find a pattern in my matches in simple surname searches at 23 and me, I like to search through the trees I have shared to see if there is anything there.
What I've found is that the New Jersey Thompsons marry into the Hollingsworth family right there in the early 1700s with James and his wife Ann Hollingsworth. I also found that a second Genetic match had Hollingsworths in her tree right there at the same point. The second match was related to Randal Malin who marries Mary Hollingsworth (sister of Ann).
What really blew me out of the water was that a third genetic match was related to the Hollingsworths at Mary Hollingsworth born 1816 in Illinois.
The other odd irony is that the Hollingsworths seem to be active right in the same area of Pennsylvania and Delaware that the New Sweden colony was. Some were even married in the old Swedes church.
Of course there are no Hollingsworths in my tree that I know of (but that's what I know). I seem to be related to people who are related to Hollingsworths, but I do not genetically match with two Hollingsworths I've seen at Gedmatch.dom.
They may not be my family but clearly they are to be watched.
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/d/a/r/Earl-L-Darrah/GENE3-0005.html
Previously I had gathered a list of surnames surrounding the Lancaster PA Thompsons to see if they appeared fairly often among my genetic matches. Many of them did. When I find a pattern in my matches in simple surname searches at 23 and me, I like to search through the trees I have shared to see if there is anything there.
What I've found is that the New Jersey Thompsons marry into the Hollingsworth family right there in the early 1700s with James and his wife Ann Hollingsworth. I also found that a second Genetic match had Hollingsworths in her tree right there at the same point. The second match was related to Randal Malin who marries Mary Hollingsworth (sister of Ann).
What really blew me out of the water was that a third genetic match was related to the Hollingsworths at Mary Hollingsworth born 1816 in Illinois.
The other odd irony is that the Hollingsworths seem to be active right in the same area of Pennsylvania and Delaware that the New Sweden colony was. Some were even married in the old Swedes church.
Of course there are no Hollingsworths in my tree that I know of (but that's what I know). I seem to be related to people who are related to Hollingsworths, but I do not genetically match with two Hollingsworths I've seen at Gedmatch.dom.
They may not be my family but clearly they are to be watched.
http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/d/a/r/Earl-L-Darrah/GENE3-0005.html
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