My English Genealogy & DNA

Working Smarter with Tip #10

Think stars.
Although you can't indicate the quality of the data supporting each person in your tree, you can think in terms of stars.

For me:

1 star is anyone in my tree who is there by virtue that they probably should be in it but needs further work to be consider a member of my tree in terms if quality. The upgrade to 2 stars is often done if I get an inferred DNA connection through this person (as we all know these suggestions are often wrong for smaller amounts of shared DNA), so I need to be doubly sure it is the right person indicated by the algorithm.

2 stars is for anyone who a great deal of supporting paper data which indicates they should be in my tree on a paper-basis only.

3 stars is anyone who has both DNA and paper support for their position in my tree, because it is usually certain beyond any reasonable doubt that are genuine genetic relatives.

Note, if your DNA data is on :

Working Smarter with Tip #9

Having trouble finding a family on the UK census? It can be that they are missing, but it is more likely they are "hiding" due to either an incorrect age or a surname that is mis-spelled or written phonetically, or the family name above has been transcribed to their family.

The first approach is usually to do a wildcard search for the surname, if you can find a reasonably unique combination of letters using asterix between. For example, if your family can be recorded as SANDERS, SANDARS or SAUNDERS, a search using SA*ND*RS may be one combination to try.

The second approach is to "strip down" the search parameters. The search system is usually very good at matching up family first name combinations, so using the "X" it is a good idea to:

- Remove those children born after the census that appear in the search parameters, and in most cases
- Remove all the surnames completely.
- Also remove place specific information and just search with county of origin as census origins are often different to that recorded on other data.
- Adjust the couples ages to +/- 10 years to allow for age errors. +/-5 years might be better is a very common surname in the area your are expecting to find them.
- If they are not mobile but in an area where you would otherwise expect to find them, fill out the "Lived in" box.

This works very well for the 1851 and subsequent census. If you are still struggling, once you get the results with a "Lived in" search, select any result and go into the actual census image and browse page by page to see if you can find them.

For 1841, which is often the census missing most often in people's trees (due to the way it was recorded and indexed), you need to remember ages are rounded down to the nearest whole 5 years for adults and children over 15 years of age. You cannot search "in a family way" like other census. Often it is easier searching for one of the children you know to be alive as children under 15 were recorded with their real ages. So you should really strip the search parameters right back to that single individual. Wildcards for surnames work here too.

Working Smarter with Tip #8

A shorter one today and an extension of the use of the suffix box tip.

If you explore the available icons you can find many relating to occupations, so this is another way you indicate key occupations of your ancestors if that is one area you like to record.

Coming the way of interested collaborating cousins shortly!

I have spent the last couple of months rewriting and incorporating various essays and stories on these families that used to be on my now defunct personal research website, as well as building on subsequent research findings posted here since the last version was issued some 2 years ago. It has now reached 68 pages.

Two = 2nd cousins and many other matches relating to the side have shared their data in the last year or so, so the DNA evidence for our genetically-proven and suspected lines always needs updating. The VENESS story is far more complete than previously, so the document title is now amended to reflect this.

While SANDERS is a separate document which I hope to revise ahead of Christmas, this document covers in-depth research and discussion on

BICKNELL VENESS

As mentioned for previous issues I no longer provide a blanket distribution as not every collaborator is interested on updates, but if you don't receive one within a week or so (or have changed your email address in the same time period) and would like a copy, I will respond to email requests only (so I can match & update recipients against my list of collaborators).

Working Smarter with Tip #7

In Tip #6 I highlighted the issue of preliminary notes incorporated in the person's name on your tree and the effects that can have on the Ancestry database, as well as the risks that results from your preliminary work being copied when your tree is public.

There is somewhere else, when you have your system up and running, which has much less influence on finding matches and can be helpful with larger trees (I have just under 80,000 people in mine, which is why I have had to find better ways of working).

Take any person in your tree in quick edit mode and go to the suffix box. This where people may add, as examples, "Sr" or "Jr" or awards & honours such as OBE or KT, or "RN" if serving in the Royal Navy. Right mouse click and you will have the option of icons.

While I don't suggest you overdo it (!), I use the following few icons in the suffix box within my own tree.

The DNA icon - this tells me that person is on a direct DNA line between a tester and a member of my project, so is easy to spot when trying to find DNA connections in a big tree like mine.

The Dodo - this tells me that person heads an extinct line for DNA testing or matching. You may find that you research many generations down a line a realise there are no living individuals to provide a DNA test, so they are worth flagging (for me at least) so I don't spend time doing it again sometime in the future.

The brick wall - Simply this is where any line going back runs out of evidence I consider sufficient to add the next generation. This is an opportunity to be very forensic and strict, especially if you are looking for DNA connections. I would recommend you do this for all your direct ancestral lines and find the point where you can honestly say "that is far as the current evidence takes me" and stop there, perhaps even removing your "fantasy early ancestry" beyond that.

The warning triangle - this reminds me that I am less than happy about this person being who they could be, i.e. there something not quite right with the suggested records, connected sources or other issues to be addressed. If you have DNA tested, someone may not match when they should so you are suspecting an NPE is just one example. Another is that everyone else seems to have adopted the baptism or marriage of a person you do not believe is the right one. but seems to be the only option Ancestry provides at the present time. Perhaps yours simply hasn't been transcribed yet.

The suffix box is also the best place to put a simple question mark for doubt, or short letter codes that indicate some grouping that is important to your research, such as location or trade, or in the case of a wider family study a flag for a specific family group. You can create a little table in Excel to build your codes so you don't forget them!

More tomorrow.

Working Smarter with Tip #6

The next few tips may help those of you working with bigger surname groups in the same area. As an example, my interest in the family around means I have 67 people named John MONKS (!), so it can be hard to know who is who from Ancestry's pop up list of names in your tree. They only show 10 at a time, unless you open up a new window.

In the early stages of research I often add notes in brackets to the first name of the person as a unique identifier for quick identification, such as "Coalminer of Mangotsfield" as opposed to the nearby contemporaneous "Quarryman of " or perhaps the "Engineer of " or "Labourer of Bristol St George", etc. While it makes my life easier, there is something important to remember discussed in more detail below. Once you are sorted with that part of your research you should remove these notes.

I can see the times when people copied parts of my tree while such work was in progress (whether right or wrong!). Some still remain as work is still ongoing, but my notes still appear as facts in copier's trees. It was another reason I took my tree on Ancestry private. It doesn't make any sense for others to take my working hypotheses and not even take the trouble to remove them. It results in a great deal of misleading information being spread across ancestry's database.

The importance of this tip is that Ancestry's algorithms use all the information provided in the first and surname part of any person in your tree when trying to connect DNA matches and trees. This includes the notes. So if you have "Butcher" or a place name in your notes behind the person's first or last name, that will influence the algorithm looking for John Butcher MONKS, as just an example.

I discussed this once with an Ancestry employee and they said they strongly discourage it as it causes all kinds of problems for their database. So be warned if you are having trouble with ThruLines making sense. Remove them as soon as you can.

So, today's tip is to use the image you can attached to a person, which is usually empty for the pre-photography generations. Once done, you can assign a simple icon, such as the one shown, that I use for a long line hairdressers (some 200 years) I have in my family from & , as that provides a good alternative to having the occupation as part of the name. For MONKS, I have used a masonry symbol for all those in that trade. You can find a pick and shovel for coalminers and agricultural tools for an ag. lab.

You will find many following this trend. A common one is a "Little Angels" icon, which I don't use, but I do find it helpful when looking for potential DNA lines to know if a child died in infancy so they can be quickly excluded.

If you are researching a family name in multiple locations you might find a suitable symbol for the town or village one or the other group resides in.

Further tips in helping you sort your family members will follow.

Working Smarter with Tip #5

When building an ancestor's profile you may use the "Member Connect" tab to link your person (if part of an open tree) to others researching the same person. As mentioned previously, not everyone is on the right track so you select only those who appear to be the same person and not a confused mix of different people.

You may have noticed that sometimes there are many researchers and these are generally ranked by the amount of information and assigned records from Ancestry's databases.

For those researched people who are very important to you and you want to be either a reliable source or contacted regarding them you can add enough records and information to ensure you are ranked near the top (at least in the first 5 listed).

If you are researching around , for example, you are in luck as there are often 4-6 references for a baptism and perhaps up to 4 references for a marriage, so you can easily "fill your boots" by including all of them. Although It is annoying that Ancestry cannot merged these disparate sources into one, it works in your favour for this particular tip.

Looking for the church a marriage may have taken place in from the GRO index? Another useful link-

Marriage Locator Marriage Locator Cracking the code of the GRO Marriage Index This service enables you to interpret the Marriage Index created by the General Register Office for England and Wales. By using it you can determine where your ancestors were married – not just which Registration District, but which chur...

Project Update

I am grateful to cousin John who has been kind enough to test on . His matches appeared today and will be analysed in detail shortly.

John is the first test that confirms that the line of Frederick George GRACE, his grandfather, through his father Reginald, is legitimate and therefore is the final piece that confirms all the lines from William GRACE and Charlotte five sons. We have recently demonstrated through DNA testing that John's half-brother is not a GRACE.

The table of matches for John against those kits I manage on MyHeritage is shown, with DNA preferentially being passed down the lines of my granduncles John, Harold & Eric, rather than through my grandfather. There is also a match inferred to cousin Susan (the only known tester from Frederick's brother, Ernest Sanders GRACE), as I do not have access to her full match list to know how much overall is shared.

With the exception of cousins Josh & Liz, all these matches relate to shared ancestors GRACE=SANDERS. While Liz (the only known tested descendant of William's sister Mary Ann Rebecca) does not provide a match, Josh provides additional confirmation of his line, being the only confirmed tested descendant of William's sister, Harriet.

John is the end of his line, so his contribution is highly appreciated. Remaining confirmation of that branch will be through his uncles Walter (1911) and Wilfred (1917). Outreach for testers has so far failed along these last two lines.

It is hoped John's data will be fully integrated (along with one further pending test) sometime in the New Year when a new report will be issued to participating family.

Working Smarter with Tip #4

I know that with the cost of living and the generally high price of Ancestry subscriptions many of you take shorter periods of subscription now and again when you are ready to do a "burst" of research; perhaps just over 3 months each year.

When you do not subscribe at least the data and tree you have built is kept and you can return to it when ready. If you have DNA tested, you should still be able to access your account and check your matches (although I do know a few people who find access closed after a time - but you can always email membertrust@ the domain you subscribe to to get that sorted). As you are the owner of your DNA data (not Ancestry) you must still be able to access and manage it.

As a non-subscriber you do not have access to their messaging system. which means if logging in but unsubscribed you might be able to see messages but perhaps not read them entirely and certainly you will not be able to respond. You know from my previous blog posts this is a grievously underused utility due to lack of responses from members, but you may want to keep an eye open for replies to your earlier messages.

As a follow on to an earlier post where I encourage Ancestry users to complete their profiles as much as possible, this should include your page if you are happy to be contacted by Messenger. I find it easier uploading Messenger as a separate app to your phone or computer. People may be able to contact you even if you are not currently subscribing through that route and you can indicate as much in your profile description.

Overall, I find outreach via social media no better than the response rate on Ancestry, i.e. considerably less than 0.5%. The main reason appears to be that although Facebook accounts are active people do not check their messages and particularly those that go to spam. They are indicated as sent but unread. Messages can be hard to find in your page if from someone who is not a "friend".

Facebook and Messenger are not smart in alerting you to unread messages in your spam filter. I check on a monthly basis (when I remember!) and find messages sitting there. I do this because I am open to be contacted via this route.

As the image shows, if you have the Messenger app, check the third icon down for "Message requests" and the right-hand "spam" tab" to find those messages. You never know that it may be outreach from a genetic cousin!

Working Smarter with Tip #3

Most of us will find illegitimate children in our direct ancestry. Those of us who have DNA tested may be able to work out who the biological father is if your knowledge of DNA matching and your personal segment database has reached a sufficient size. Obviously, it easier the closer the generation concerned is to you.

It is rare to find that the incumbent in a church on baptism (assuming they allow the child to be baptised in the first place) provides details of the father, but this another good reason to read the original image of all baptisms. A few times, the mother's claim is recorded.

Another clue, although cannot always be assumed, is that the father of the child is remembered in the child's name. This is great lead you might be able to support through a DNA match. However, I find marriage records the most useful. Another reason to read the marriage record original in full.

Many illegitimate children will reach the age where they ask their mothers who their father is and names/occupation may be mentioned even if the mother is no longer in contact with the father or has married/remarried. More often than not you will find a name and even an occupation on the marriage record rather than both boxes being struck out, which may happen if the child does not genuinely know. It is can be different to what you might expect.

There are a few things to consider -
1. The name and occupation may be an invention. Women can hide behind "widowhood" as a reason for providing their father's name being different, even though there is no evidence she had married prior to this event.
2. It may represent the details of their adopted father, which you probably already know about.
3. It may provide the first name and occupation of the biological father.

It is rare in cases of illegitimacy that you see the full name of the biological father with a different surname on a marriage record. The main reason for this is the general way an incumbent asks about the father's details during the marriage ceremony. In reply to the question a first name is required. The incumbent then usually just assumes, for unmarried people, that the person's surname getting married is the same as their father's and completes it accordingly. Historically, the incumbent tends to be literate, whereas the couple getting married frequently are not and convention is often followed to the letter.

You can spot the different if you know the name and occupation of the man who may have raised them. A lot of people ignore differences thinking they are errors and may even disregard the marriage record entirely as not their ancestor's, but think careful whether some clues are there.

As an example "Paul Smith" was raised by "Peter Smith" a coalminer when his mother "Jane Doe" married him. On his first census record and baptism he was living with his grandparents as "Paul Doe". He knew who his real father was. When he married, he answered the question about his father and replied "Robert, butcher".

The record will show his father as "Robert Smith, butcher." Two of these three pieces of information may be correct if you understand how the name was recorded.

Tip #4 tomorrow.

Many of my followers also have Irish heritage. In addition to local Facebook groups who cover family history and DNA questions, you might want to consider the GSI for advice.

Free Research Advice every Wednesday - see below.

Working Smarter with Ancestry Tip #2

How many of you have used the GRO index as provided by ? In England & Wales, Births Marriage & Deaths ( ) are available from the quarter beginning Sep 1837.

How many of you have taken a reference as fact and attributed it to your ancestor without checking whether it is the correct one? Of course, for births the mother's maiden name is not provided until the quarter beginning Sep 1911 on Ancestry or . However it is on the website.

Registration Districts (RD) are a minefield in themselves, so you can never be sure even with the county. East Derbyshire villages often come under ( ) and the area west of is particularly complex with many "cross county line" RDs. Someone born in may be registered in ( ) or ( ).

Also, the age at death is not provided before the quarter beginning Mar 1866 in the index. However it is on the GRO website.

So many people assume a name is their ancestor because it is in the right RD, but often the age is not right, so cannot be theirs. This is a major factor why many trees have an ancestors death year incorrect. I see so many assumed years of deaths for ancestors which really belong to infants because researchers have not checked.

Having the wrong reference is surprising common and so easy to avoid by checking for yourself. It is free to register with the GRO and then you can search the index for the information you need to ensure it is the right person.

You can also wildcard search for early records that tend to have variant mother's surname spellings to find additional children missed by census.

A few things to remember -
1. There are mistakes and the GRO is reluctant (even when you use the report facility provided) to make corrections to their database.
2. Not every child has been registered. Many of my ancestor's children are missing in the Victorian period.
3. As per convention, illegitimate children do not have a mother's name given in the index, just a blank. It can make them easier to find.
4. In recent times you may find a birth record appears twice, often with a different number or a letter "s". The second one is often the new adoption birth record as opposed to the original.
5. Deaths in earlier times are often approximate as the person recording the death may have made an estimate of the person's age as rounded to the nearest 5.

Here's the link to register -
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Tip #3 tomorrow.

Outreach -

I would be interested to hear from anyone descended from the family of Port & in England (later also ) whose family archive may include pictures of family members.

The five sisters are probably best remembered:

Spinster Sarah Jane "Jinny" STEVENS (1845-1929) who ran the Post Office in Bloomfield Road with her spinster sister F***y Elizabeth (1863-1949), Martha Louise or "Louie" (1857-1925) who married John , Mary Maud (1855-1925) who married his brother Frederick CROFTS, and Selina Annie (1849-1922) who married Michael .

It's Sunday, and like many in the Northern Hemisphere with rubbish weather you may be spending a couple of quiet hours in the morning working with your family tree.

Over the next few days I will be posting some tips on how to work smarter with your family tree if you are on . A few are optional, but one or two will actually make your life easier and also allow their algorithms to work better, certainly if you have DNA tested and use .

Working Smarter with Ancestry Tip #1

The first tip of the day is a basic one.

There are many scanned records on Ancestry, but it is surprising how many researchers attach a record without opening it first and reading it, whether this be a baptism, marriage, death or burial.

There is a human tendency to jump on the first apparent matching record which often send people in the wrong direction (and inevitably gets copied by others). Remember not every record is transcribed and on Ancestry.

A simple check can ensure the name of the father and his occupation, on a marriage certificate, is a match for the person you are researching. Often there is additional information not transcribed such as where the spouse comes from or whose spouse they were on burial. Baptisms are helpful as often the father's occupation and the street in area they live in are given.

If you are working within remote villages your hunch may be right, but if you are working within the major industrial cities there will be others of the same name. I find this a particular problem when researching my families in Birmingham and Bristol where coverage is good but local names are common,

If you are using Ancestry's "add person" function to add them to your tree, you should use due diligence to ensure all the records attached by the person you are copying from relate to the same person. Spend a few moments opening the key images to ensure the researcher you are copying from has not taken a wrong turn.

Tip #2 tomorrow.

I include this historical extract as a curiosity, relating to Old Parr from near in . It is interesting as it refers to a line of descent to a Robert in , , who is recorded as being buried there in 1757. I have not connected my PARRs in Kinver to this story.

DNA has so far confirmed my 6x greats in Kinver (as well as nearby and in ) as John PARR (1722) & Sarah WHITAKER, with John the s/o William PARR & Mary of Kinver.

The picture is of Old Parr c1635 by an unknown artist in the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG385).

...and so I say a fond farewell to a branch of my tree that turns out not to be genetically connected to me at all. In DNA you gain some and you lose some.

Following a lot of recent detective work I have lost a 2C1R and five third cousins and their families, thanks to their DNA tests. Their progenitor turns out to be a Ernest Morton (1885-1947) of London. While that branch of my tree has been severely curtailed, the CAKEBREADs have acquired a whole bunch of new family!

I am currently collaborating with a 5C whose DNA matches have helped connections to Elizabeth Harriett MONKS (1835-1917) the daughter of Robert MONKS of .

It is clear from the DNA matches that all descendants of her illegitimate children on are struggling to work back both with the difficult paper trail and understanding their DNA matches to put 2 and 2 together. Here's a little push in the right direction.

As far as we know, Elizabeth had four illegitimate children, all of whom survived, married and have living descendants. I have some speculation into some of the father's but will not go into this here.

The eldest is Robert Geston (or Gitson) MONKS (1860-91) who married Emily . Any descendants will be my double cousins through both families, and include the family of .

The 2nd is George Henry Hill MONKS (1863-1924) who married Teresa .

The third is Charles MONKS (1869-1917 (France & Flanders)) who married Annie Elizabeth BROWN. So far, this is the only one of the four that does not appear to have provided a DNA match.

The youngest is Sarah Ann MONKS (1878-1911) who is sometimes known as , although this may not necessarily indicate her biological father but possibly adoption as her mother married Robert LACEY some 6 years after she was born. Sarah Ann married Joseph Thomas . Descendants include (Canada) and (Leicester).

This is the geographical area west of (including , & ) where the family first appeared in name in the late C17th, including the variant (L)BORN(E) or (E). The latter name seems to be my original family based on my 6xGGF.

Apart from stories collected as part of my One-Name Study (1998-2012) I am unable to really understand the earlier use of that name in one group which then morphed into SHILVOCK for all by the 1750's.

The best indication was that the SHELVOCK families of in disappeared around the same time the SHILVOCKs starting appearing in this old small inlier of Staffordshire & Shropshire within the county of Worcestershire prior to the 1844 Act of Parliament, i.e. a movement of agricultural labour in the mid 1600's - perhaps displaced due to the English Civil War (1642-51) where there was conflict around the strategic town of Shrewsbury.

The main findings and essays relating to my One-Name Study (which used to be online) have just been added as a comprehensive appendix to my DNA study document, which will be available as part of future issues. One half of the BODENs in Birmingham have SHILVOCK ancestry.

I am hoping that DNA will one day shed some light on this family group.

Christmas advertising comes too early for most things, but now is a good time to get cheaper DNA kits, whatever entry level you are looking for (atDNA or Y-DNA).

Maybe I'm easily pleased, but I can't help but get excited by the prospect of discoveries in a new DNA match list!

I am very grateful to a collaborative Australian cousin who provided access to their DNA match list on . Although they are a 6C1R to me, they do not match due to genetic distance, however they do match some of the wider DNA project which can suggest they may have little bits unique to them. In many ways, if you don't necessarily match to others in a big way (but are otherwise proven part of the group) your DNA can tell different stories.

A surname search of their match list provided 4 or 5 new POPPLEWELL lines that are shown to be part of the group. They are now added to the project.

Time to step back for anyone who remembers my worldwide POPPLEWELL One-Namer? It was completed at time before DNA testing really took off.

One of the surname hotspots is around in ( & counties) in the USA. Investigations at the time suggested these were all descendants of Isaac or Zack (Isaac) POPPLEWELL who was a noted naval commander in the against the British. Family stories and US records did not really provide clues to where the original POPPLEWELL settler came from although from Zack downwards it looked robust as a family of single origin.

It is interesting to note that 4 of the matches to my 6C1R are all descendants of Daniel Boone POPPLEWELL (1868-1957), one of Isaac's many descendants in Kentucky. Does this mean Isaac's family came from Yorkshire? Hard to tell.

There is one other match (which might be coincidence as it is a single match) and that is one claiming descent from C16th Humfrey POPPLEWELL of the group. It has always been speculated that this surname group may have been C15th settlers from Yorkshire. Could all POPPLEWELLs be part of a single genetic group?

To know if there's any consistency in the DNA data (and we're talking single segment matches of about 9cM) all these matches will need to put their data on so we can take a closer look.

Another technique available is for any surnamed POPPLEWELL men to take a detailed Y-DNA test to see if they are the same male family or not. Currently, I am not aware of anyone of the surname having taken a BigY test with . If you are interested in your heritage, why not do it?

Intriguing.