Can anyone help me please to find the birth or baptism of Thomas Haigh? From information I have, I believe it would be in approximately 1744 and in the Pontefract area, but I have not found him in the Pontefract records. Information I have is that he married Ann Wright in Pontefract in 1781, and that he died in Pontefract in 1805. He was a publican, possibly the owner of the Cross Keys. I know of three sons, George, John and Thomas, and a daughter Betty, all baptised in Pontefract between 1783 and 1788. Happy New Genealogy Margaret Switzerland

While considering DNA, it has many other applications. See the following link that I picked up from a contribution to the Kent Rootsweb group. http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.fr/2014/12/parchments-hidden-stories- revealed.html#.VKc3TGeKCmM. All the illustrations provided come from the Borthwick.

"out of character" is perhaps the key.... when it is out of character, than it is more likely to be hidden and if it is illegal, even more so. I am chasing one such family in my dna search where uncle and niece married defacto and had two daughters - in the 20th century - none of it recorded but otherwise open. Uncle and niece were the same age and brought up in the same household. Niece was one of nine children of parents who never married as he was already married (with family). The woman's line is Smith so very difficult to track. In fact have come to dead end. The first wife lived much longer than her husband and defacto. Every village seems to have a couple of unmarried women who regularly turn up having children recorded. I liked the story of the woman telling the health worker that her family of several boys were all called William ''isnt that confusing?" "no, they all have different surnames" Marg -----Original Message----- From: Teresa Callan via Sent: Friday, January 2, 2015 10:48 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [YORKSGEN] Autosomnal DNA I have come very late to the discussion but I think it is worth mentioning my recent experience. I had been interested in Autosomnal DNA for some time because of the difficulty in tracking down Irish ancestry but I had never done anything about it. I suspected that the number of people tested would not be great enough to throw up many relatives. This I have found to be the case. However a second cousin and I were contacted by someone who was trying to sort out the parentage of an illegitimate child who had been placed for adoption by my great great grandmother. They had originally thought the father was her brother but YDNA tests showed this not to be the case. They had now picked on my great grandmother as the likely mother which seemed somewhat out of character. They funded Autosomnal tests for the children of the child and for my second cousin and I. The match between the siblings was ten times the match between my second cousin and myself. My match to them was similar to my match to my second cousin but her match was only about half as strong. That however was more than twice the next closer match. We are still attempting to establish whether she is the guilty party or it is her husband. We may need to pin down a male descendant of our great grandfather for a YDNA test. I still feel as if we are feeling our way in the dark with this but we are learning as we go. I would say it won't automatically solve all your problems and it is worth taking the tree as far as possible (and certainly to three times great grandparents if you can) before doing it. Too many people are using the test as a short cut and it does not work. I would also suggest that you have tested the earliest generation that you can in your tree because that will allow links to be matched further back. Teresa ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Using the DNA of parchment is to help scientists to reveal the key to tracing the development of agriculture in the British Isles over the last 700 years plus, according to new research at the University of York and Trinity College Dublin. Read more at:http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.fr/2014/12/parchments-hidden-stories-revealed.html <http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.fr/2014/12/parchments-hidden-stories-revealed.html> Sue --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com

It is a really interesting article. I seem to have seen a few movies lately where the lord of the manor had first night with the new brides in their area. How common was that? Did it help or hinder the gene pool? I suppose there are, and were, a lot of children born due to incest and other forms of assault which were never recorded. Future DNA testing will probably match all of us in quite interesting ways. I certainly knew a couple who adopted illegally (purchased) some years ago, they were poor people living a in a caravan..... so would not have been approved by authorities and another couple who were "given" two small children on a long train train journey.....possibly stolen? Lots of children have been stolen around the world. Families are social structures as well as biological, important to be inclusive of all the possible relationships, and see the influence of all the varied possibilities.. I work with tracing dna in families and in that case it is important to know about adoptions, but many people just don't know they are adopted eg dont find out until they develop an inherited disease or need an organ transplant and then it comes up. And what about all the sperm donation children? I liked the story of the first "medical" sperm donation conducted in a US hospital in the 1880s. The woman was anaesthetised and never knew about it, just thought she was having a helpful procedure. her husband knew, he had the fertility problem. The medical students present were asked to nominate one of themselves to be the donor eg discussed their attributes, one was "dobbed" and donation made, lady pregnant and never knew. Heaven knows what else the medical profession might be responsible for. Marg -----Original Message----- From: Colin Withers via Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 9:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [YORKSGEN] Maternal Lines Concerning Roy's article on maternal lines: There is a precis of Roy's article here: http://family-tree.co.uk/2013/03/tracing-women-on-your-family-tree/ Roy recites the old proverb - "It is a wise child that knows its own father", and while we all know the truth in this, I wondered how much truth there would be in the converse 'It is a wise child that knows its own mother'? Roy goes on to say: "It is, after all, the women who bear children and apart from those (thankfully) extremely rare cases where there has been a hospital mix-up between two newborn babies, a mother always knows who her own natural child is, even if she’s telling fibs about the father! We may not know for certain who someone’s real father was, but if a woman gives birth to a child and this event is fully documented, then the mother’s identity cannot be in any doubt." The key words here are 'fully documented'. I do not know the precise typical numbers of non-paternity events in the period before civil registration, but I would hazard a guess that there were far more illegitimate births than non-paternity events. This being so, and given the shame that illegitimacy invoked in those days, I further wondered about the amount of 'arrangements' that were made. The girl from the lower classes of society in those days had no real option other than to bear the child, and the shame, or hide the pregnancy and abandon the baby on a doorstep, crude abortion, or infanticide, and attempt to cover it up. However, the middle and upper classes, where the scandal was more intensely felt, recourse was often had to 'arrangements'. A pregnant girl from society would often be sent to live with a relative in the country, and the resulting child might be given to a married sister or kinswoman to bring up as her own, or to a family that wanted children, but could not. These informal adoptions were rarely recorded, if ever. A theme in the television series Downton Abbey uses this very scenario, where one of the Earl's daughters has an illegitimate child, who was given to a family that tenants part of their estate to raise as their own. I have first-hand experience of these kind of 'arrangements' in my own family, but I cannot go into detail here, except to say that there was never going to be any attempt to 'document' the arrangement. So, what do you think, in a 10-generation male line of descent versus a female line of descent, what is the risk of a non-paternity event in the male descent versus informal adoption in the female descent? Colin ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I'm hoping my autosomal DNA will help with tracking down my Irish ancestors ..... They have proved elusive for the last 37 years! Three different families, unconnected, and never a sign of any of them. Ruth Sent from my iPad > On 2 Jan 2015, at 20:17, marg o'leary via <[email protected]> wrote: > > "out of character" is perhaps the key.... when it is out of character, than > it is more likely to be hidden and if it is illegal, even more so. > > I am chasing one such family in my dna search where uncle and niece married > defacto and had two daughters - in the 20th century - none of it recorded > but otherwise open. > > Uncle and niece were the same age and brought up in the same household. > Niece was one of nine children of parents who never married as he was > already married (with family). > > The woman's line is Smith so very difficult to track. In fact have come to > dead end. The first wife lived much longer than her husband and defacto. > > Every village seems to have a couple of unmarried women who regularly turn > up having children recorded. > > I liked the story of the woman telling the health worker that her family of > several boys were all called William > > ''isnt that confusing?" > > "no, they all have different surnames" > > Marg > > >

Quoting marg o'leary via <[email protected]>: > It is a really interesting article. > > I seem to have seen a few movies lately where the lord of the manor had > first night with the new brides in their area. How common was that? Did it > help or hinder the gene pool? > It makes a good line for a movie but Wikipedia says: "There is no evidence, however, that the alleged rights ever actually existed in medieval Europe, much less that they were ever exercised, although there is evidence of the practice in certain other regions and time periods." But doubtless the rape of servants or similar by their feudal lords took place 'informally' and there wasn't any redress. > I suppose there are, and were, a lot of children born due to incest and > other forms of assault which were never recorded. > Yes, doubtless that is the case. But it is difficult enough to prove that in the modern day let alone hundreds of years ago. > Future DNA testing will probably match all of us in quite interesting ways. > It might, but I'm not sure that the information is always there to be retrieved. Remember that half of our DNA is 'lost' in each successive generation (barring mtDNA and Y-chromosome, which only tell us about one line. Regards Steve

I have come very late to the discussion but I think it is worth mentioning my recent experience. I had been interested in Autosomnal DNA for some time because of the difficulty in tracking down Irish ancestry but I had never done anything about it. I suspected that the number of people tested would not be great enough to throw up many relatives. This I have found to be the case. However a second cousin and I were contacted by someone who was trying to sort out the parentage of an illegitimate child who had been placed for adoption by my great great grandmother. They had originally thought the father was her brother but YDNA tests showed this not to be the case. They had now picked on my great grandmother as the likely mother which seemed somewhat out of character. They funded Autosomnal tests for the children of the child and for my second cousin and I. The match between the siblings was ten times the match between my second cousin and myself. My match to them was similar to my match to my second cousin but her match was only about half as strong. That however was more than twice the next closer match. We are still attempting to establish whether she is the guilty party or it is her husband. We may need to pin down a male descendant of our great grandfather for a YDNA test. I still feel as if we are feeling our way in the dark with this but we are learning as we go. I would say it won't automatically solve all your problems and it is worth taking the tree as far as possible (and certainly to three times great grandparents if you can) before doing it. Too many people are using the test as a short cut and it does not work. I would also suggest that you have tested the earliest generation that you can in your tree because that will allow links to be matched further back. Teresa

A distant male relative in America undertook the Ancestry AUTOSOMAL DNA test and was subsequently contacted by another male because apparently the results on Ancestry and Gedmatch show that there is no doubt they are 2nd or third cousins (quote). The man who has contacted him was born illegitimate and is attempting to trace his unknown father through this, so my contact is trying to work out who in the family could be the culprit. Does anyone know how accurate this type of test is likely to be, as the two people who are claimed to be 2nd or 3rd cousins would not appear to share a common direct line on either the male or female side. The great grandmother of my male relative was an Annie Jackson whose brothers married sisters with the surname Donovan. Annie Jackson's son (a Robinson) married his uncle's sister (a Donovan) - these were the grandparents of my male relative. Their daughter was the mother of my relative. So there is no direct maternal or paternal line to the Jackson's or Donovan's for my American male relative. In his view the only possible (not probable) male culprit to have fathered the illegitimate male who has contacted him would be a direct descendant of the Jackson line (from a Thomas Jackson who married an Ellie Donovan although this was 3 generations earlier). Sorry this is a bit complicated - I had to resort to pen and paper to work it out :o) Happy New Year to you all. Margaret O'Shea Oxford

Colin makes a good point! By "fully documented" I meant, of course, a birth certificate which would normally be accepted as being concrete proof of who the mother was even if there's no father shown, unless more than one person has collaborated in a blatant act of deception and the wrong woman has posed as the mother. Such cases must surely be rare? In the case of my own generational tree which appears on the website to which Colin referred, the earliest links are obviously pre-civil registration and derive from parish registers. However, I was extremely fortunate in that the mothers and children were all named and I was also able to find the marriages. Since none of my female ancestors were upper or even middle class, as far as I am aware, the sort of "Downton Abbey" type arrangements to which Colin refers are unlikely to have happened in their case! I was also fortunate in that in a 9-generation tree there didn't appear to be any case of illegitimacy, though of course the proviso about whether the father was the man named in every case would still apply. I certainly have in one of my lines a case in which a young child was named in a census as being the daughter of two of my gt gt grandparents. I was suspicious because of a very substantial age gap, so I got the birth certificate and my suspicions were confirmed because she turned out to be a granddaughter of the couple, the daughter of an unmarried daughter of 17. My thanks to Colin for bringing this to my attention, for I wasn't aware that my article was online. A Happy New Year to all. Roy Stockdill ________________________________ From: Colin Withers via <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, 31 December 2014, 10:06 Subject: [YORKSGEN] Maternal Lines Concerning Roy's article on maternal lines: There is a precis of Roy's article here: http://family-tree.co.uk/2013/03/tracing-women-on-your-family-tree/ Roy recites the old proverb -  "It is a wise child that knows its own father", and while we all know the truth in this, I wondered how much truth there would be in the converse 'It is a wise child that knows its own mother'? Roy goes on to say: "It is, after all, the women who bear children and apart from those (thankfully) extremely rare cases where there has been a hospital mix-up between two newborn babies, a mother always knows who her own natural child is, even if she’s telling fibs about the father! We may not know for certain who someone’s real father was, but if a woman gives birth to a child and this event is fully documented, then the mother’s identity cannot be in any doubt." The key words here are 'fully documented'. I do not know the precise typical numbers of non-paternity events in the period before civil registration, but I would hazard a guess that there were far more illegitimate births than non-paternity events. This being so, and given the shame that illegitimacy invoked in those days, I further wondered about the amount of 'arrangements' that were made. The girl from the lower classes of society in those days had no real option other than to bear the child, and the shame, or hide the pregnancy and abandon the baby on a doorstep, crude abortion, or infanticide, and attempt to cover it up. However, the middle and upper classes, where the scandal was more intensely felt, recourse was often had to 'arrangements'. A pregnant girl from society would often be sent to live with a relative in the country, and the resulting child might be given to a married sister or kinswoman to bring up as her own, or to a family that wanted children, but could not. These informal adoptions were rarely recorded, if ever. A theme in the television series Downton Abbey uses this very scenario, where one of the Earl's daughters has an illegitimate child, who was given to a family that tenants part of their estate to raise as their own. I have first-hand experience of these kind of 'arrangements' in my own family, but I cannot go into detail here, except to say that there was never going to be any attempt to 'document' the arrangement. So, what do you think, in a 10-generation male line of descent versus a female line of descent, what is the risk of a non-paternity event in the male descent versus informal adoption in the female descent? Colin ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Prompted by recent emails concerning maternal lines, I thought I would see what I could do with my own ancestry. My earliest ancestor in the female line is one Mary HOOKER, who married at Droxford in Hampshire, 22 Sep 1751, to John SHAYER or SHOYER. Initially I tried a Google search on the words "Hooker Droxford"........... Ooops, not a good idea! LOL Happy New Year! -- Nancy McLaughlin Woodend, NZ [email protected]

There are more than one type of DNA testing. I am not so sure that the Autosomal will tell you a whole lot of what you want to know regarding connections. There is a DNA test that will determine if you have a common paternal ancestor but it is thru the males only. So your distant male relative could participate and also a male from your paternal line to see if there is a connection. That would at least narrow it down if there is a match. Janet ________________________________ From: Margaret O'Shea via <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, January 1, 2015 7:06 AM Subject: [YORKSGEN] CONTINUING ON THE SUBJECT OF DNA A distant male relative in America undertook the Ancestry AUTOSOMAL DNA test and was subsequently contacted by another male because apparently the results on Ancestry and Gedmatch show that there is no doubt they are 2nd or third cousins (quote). The man who has contacted him was born illegitimate and is attempting to trace his unknown father through this, so my contact is trying to work out who in the family could be the culprit. Does anyone know how accurate this type of test is likely to be, as the two people who are claimed to be 2nd or 3rd cousins would not appear to share a common direct line on either the male or female side. The great grandmother of my male relative was an Annie Jackson whose brothers married sisters with the surname Donovan. Annie Jackson's son (a Robinson) married his uncle's sister (a Donovan) - these were the grandparents of my male relative. Their daughter was the mother of my relative. So there is no direct maternal or paternal line to the Jackson's or Donovan's for my American male relative. In his view the only possible (not probable) male culprit to have fathered the illegitimate male who has contacted him would be a direct descendant of the Jackson line (from a Thomas Jackson who married an Ellie Donovan although this was 3 generations earlier). Sorry this is a bit complicated - I had to resort to pen and paper to work it out :o) Happy New Year to you all. Margaret O'Shea Oxford ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Not a DNA expert, but based on my own experience with Ancestry DNA, I think that it is pretty likely they are cousins, but the distance might be further than the test suggests. -steve > On Jan 1, 2015, at 4:06 AM, Margaret O'Shea via <[email protected]> wrote: > > A distant male relative in America undertook the Ancestry AUTOSOMAL DNA test > and was subsequently contacted by another male because apparently the > results on Ancestry and Gedmatch show that there is no doubt they are 2nd or > third cousins (quote). The man who has contacted him was born illegitimate > and is attempting to trace his unknown father through this, so my contact is > trying to work out who in the family could be the culprit. Does anyone know > how accurate this type of test is likely to be, as the two people who are > claimed to be 2nd or 3rd cousins would not appear to share a common direct > line on either the male or female side. > > The great grandmother of my male relative was an Annie Jackson whose > brothers married sisters with the surname Donovan. Annie Jackson's son (a > Robinson) married his uncle's sister (a Donovan) - these were the > grandparents of my male relative. Their daughter was the mother of my > relative. So there is no direct maternal or paternal line to the Jackson's > or Donovan's for my American male relative. In his view the only possible > (not probable) male culprit to have fathered the illegitimate male who has > contacted him would be a direct descendant of the Jackson line (from a > Thomas Jackson who married an Ellie Donovan although this was 3 generations > earlier). > > Sorry this is a bit complicated - I had to resort to pen and paper to work > it out :o) > > Happy New Year to you all. > > Margaret O'Shea > Oxford > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Older women do have babies naturally. when I was happily having my younger child in a far north Queensland hospital many long years ago, there was a lady there having a baby, they had brought her in early so she was very cheerful and chatty with the rest of us, while waiting for the event as she was the matriarch of family running a big cattle station in the gulf country and it was the wet season.. So just in case they got flooded in, she came to hospital early. She was a 51 year old grey haired grandma, her youngest child was 12 years old. her married daughters and grandchildren visited her and yes she had her baby ok and this big family gathered around and celebrated and I thought even if she didnt live to a ripe old age, the baby boy would have a mountain of family to help. But they breed them tough up there so perhaps she is still mustering cattle in her 90s.. I had to laugh as there were a couple of 14 year old unmarried girls also there having babies and and one whispered to the other "isn't it DISGUSSSTING, that old woman having a baby!" Marg -----Original Message----- From: Irene Marlborough via Sent: Thursday, January 1, 2015 1:06 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] Maternal Lines I agree with Colin. I don't think that you can always be sure of the mother. A major problem in my family tree concerns a child apparently born in 1858 to a 62 year old father and his 2nd wife aged about 45. The child was born (according to a baptism record) 4 months after they got married. So this is just about possible BUT this child's birth was not registered when all post 1837 births of children from the 1st marriage were registered. AND in the household at the time was a 17 year old daughter who subsequently failed to marry at the usual time. So who was the child's mother? Another case involves my Thornton Dale EVERS family. My ancestor Benjamin shows up on the 1841 census aged 11 months. His supposed mother's age is given as 49. In 1851, Benjamin's age is 11 and his supposed mother is 63. On the face of it, this seems obviously a case where Benjamin must be the illegitimate child of one of the unmarried daughters of the family. However, more than one illegitimate child of these daughters had already been acknowledged so why cover up Benjamin's situation? Definitely a case for DNA, if ever I could find the right people to test and then be able to afford all the testing required to resolve the situation. Regards, Irene ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

That's great to know, Marg. So far I've assumed that Eleanor EVERS did give birth to Benjamin when she was aged somewhere between 49 and 53. There's certainly no evidence to the contrary... Best wishes, Irene

Anyone researching the Hume family from Skelton, near York or associated families, would be nice to start the new year with something new John Hume Nottingham

Subsequently found burial of George Maddison 06 Apr 1761 (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JD3H-28C) and burial of Deborah MATTISON, widow of George MATTISON, 23 Jun 1781 (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JD33-TP1). The daughter Deborah (below) was buried shortly after birth in 1742. Bill -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Webster via Sent: Tuesday, 30 December 2014 3:54 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [YORKSGEN] MADDISON or MADISON Seeking any knowledge of families with this name in the 1700s. In 1763, "ANN MADISON", aged 22, married Robert Webster at HULL Holy Trinity. Her father's name is not given in the parish record. I have found the baptism record of a DEBORAH Maddison, 30 Oct 1742 at Hull HT, father GEORGE Maddison, possibly Ann's sister, especially because Ann names her first child Deborah. Maybe her mother was also named Deborah. Apart from this clue I have nothing to go on. Ann proceeded to have 9 more children after Deborah. Bill Webster

Chris as you are looking for the maternal line you only give details of the women - so some questions: do you have any details about Sarah's father who appears to John CLARKSON ; Elizabeth CLARKSON nee GIBSON'S marriage to John CLARKSON ON 20 Oct 1810 at Knaresborough? (Arkendale was in Knaresborough parish) That John and Elizabeth baptised 9 children including Sarah? that Elizabeth was baptised 20 April 1777 at Knaresborough daughter of James GIBSON and Mary INGLESON who married 11 April 1773 at Bilton Ainsty, near Harrogate. If not then it is probably worthwhile checking the family tree on Ancestry and contacting the owner, Jenny Hobson, who appears to have done a lot of apparently sound research on this line. If you are not a member you can take out a free trial. I also found the following records on Ancestry: there is a baptism record at Bilton Ainsty for Mary on 2 September 1753 father Henry POTTER mother Sarah INGLESON - from which it would appear that though the parents were not married the father had accepted the child. there is a baptism record at Farnham, Harrogate for Sarah INGLESON daughter of Matthew INGLESON, 8 Jul 1738. It does not give a year of birth and would mean that she was 15 at the time of Mary's birth. there is a marriage record for Matthew at Farnham to Ann ROWBOTOM on 30 Mar 1719. There is a baptism record for Mathew at Farnham 10 May 1690 son of Mathew but did not see one for Ann ROWBOTOM. Elizabeth CLARKSON is on the 1851 census at Boroughbridge as born 1777 at Arkendale. wENDY -----Original Message----- From: CHRISTINE WILLOTT Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 11:18 AM To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] brick walls and maternal lines Thank you The person I am stuck with is Elizabeth CLARKSON who disappears from the Arkendale registers. If I am to trace my maternal line back further, I need to find her baptism. I could try the Knaresborough registers when I go to the Yorksgen holiday but if I do find an Elizabeth Clarkson of about the right era, how will I know she is mine???? Every other girl it seems was called Elizabeth and the name Clarkson is not uncommon. If it were otherwise perhaps I am related to Jeremy???? Chris ----Original message---- >From : [email protected] Date : 31/12/2014 - 09:17 (GMTST) To : [email protected], [email protected] Subject : Re: [YORKSGEN] brick walls and maternal lines Re Sarah: A quick check of censuses shows that Thomas and Sarah were living with their son in Durham in 1881 - there is a death registered at Auckland, Durham July quarter 1882. The date of birth on the certificate is 1804. The age she gives on censuses gives a year of 1803. The Arkendale records are at North Yorkshire Archives - keep an eye open for when one of the group members is visiting and offers look-ups. Wendy -----Original Message----- From: CHRISTINE WILLOTT via Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 12:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] brick walls and maternal lines Happy new year everyone. Hoping that at least some of your brick walls will come tumbling down. Roy has posted an interesting comment recently (elsewhere) about maternal lines so I thought I would post something here on mine in the hopes that someone will have some ideas. Me - Christine Mary (nee) BOYES / Mother - Olive Mabel CHATTERTON b. 1914 Ferryhill co. Durham d. 1992 St George's Hospital Tooting / Grandmother - Alice FOSTER b.1876 Pudsey Yks d. 1943 Ferryhill Co Durham / Gt grandmother - Hannah WOODWARD b 1843 Thornton Bridge Helperby Yks d.1920 Bishop Monkton Yks / 2x gt grandmother - Sarah CLARKSON b about 1810 Arkendale Yks d ? / 3x gt grandmother - Elizabeth CLARKSON stuck Sarah Clarkson's birth is in the Arkendale PRs but no relevant entries before this. For the post 1837 births, I have the certificates. Elizabeth Clarkson is the lady from whom I inherit my mt DNA so I would like to try to trace her back a bit further. It is some time since I looked at this line, but it would be interesting to see Elizabeth's origins. Many thanks Chris ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Thank you The person I am stuck with is Elizabeth CLARKSON who disappears from the Arkendale registers. If I am to trace my maternal line back further, I need to find her baptism. I could try the Knaresborough registers when I go to the Yorksgen holiday but if I do find an Elizabeth Clarkson of about the right era, how will I know she is mine???? Every other girl it seems was called Elizabeth and the name Clarkson is not uncommon. If it were otherwise perhaps I am related to Jeremy???? Chris ----Original message---- >From : [email protected] Date : 31/12/2014 - 09:17 (GMTST) To : [email protected], [email protected] Subject : Re: [YORKSGEN] brick walls and maternal lines Re Sarah: A quick check of censuses shows that Thomas and Sarah were living with their son in Durham in 1881 - there is a death registered at Auckland, Durham July quarter 1882. The date of birth on the certificate is 1804. The age she gives on censuses gives a year of 1803. The Arkendale records are at North Yorkshire Archives - keep an eye open for when one of the group members is visiting and offers look-ups. Wendy -----Original Message----- From: CHRISTINE WILLOTT via Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 12:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] brick walls and maternal lines Happy new year everyone. Hoping that at least some of your brick walls will come tumbling down. Roy has posted an interesting comment recently (elsewhere) about maternal lines so I thought I would post something here on mine in the hopes that someone will have some ideas. Me - Christine Mary (nee) BOYES / Mother - Olive Mabel CHATTERTON b. 1914 Ferryhill co. Durham d. 1992 St George's Hospital Tooting / Grandmother - Alice FOSTER b.1876 Pudsey Yks d. 1943 Ferryhill Co Durham / Gt grandmother - Hannah WOODWARD b 1843 Thornton Bridge Helperby Yks d.1920 Bishop Monkton Yks / 2x gt grandmother - Sarah CLARKSON b about 1810 Arkendale Yks d ? / 3x gt grandmother - Elizabeth CLARKSON stuck Sarah Clarkson's birth is in the Arkendale PRs but no relevant entries before this. For the post 1837 births, I have the certificates. Elizabeth Clarkson is the lady from whom I inherit my mt DNA so I would like to try to trace her back a bit further. It is some time since I looked at this line, but it would be interesting to see Elizabeth's origins. Many thanks Chris ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Concerning Roy's article on maternal lines: There is a precis of Roy's article here: http://family-tree.co.uk/2013/03/tracing-women-on-your-family-tree/ Roy recites the old proverb - "It is a wise child that knows its own father", and while we all know the truth in this, I wondered how much truth there would be in the converse 'It is a wise child that knows its own mother'? Roy goes on to say: "It is, after all, the women who bear children and apart from those (thankfully) extremely rare cases where there has been a hospital mix-up between two newborn babies, a mother always knows who her own natural child is, even if she’s telling fibs about the father! We may not know for certain who someone’s real father was, but if a woman gives birth to a child and this event is fully documented, then the mother’s identity cannot be in any doubt." The key words here are 'fully documented'. I do not know the precise typical numbers of non-paternity events in the period before civil registration, but I would hazard a guess that there were far more illegitimate births than non-paternity events. This being so, and given the shame that illegitimacy invoked in those days, I further wondered about the amount of 'arrangements' that were made. The girl from the lower classes of society in those days had no real option other than to bear the child, and the shame, or hide the pregnancy and abandon the baby on a doorstep, crude abortion, or infanticide, and attempt to cover it up. However, the middle and upper classes, where the scandal was more intensely felt, recourse was often had to 'arrangements'. A pregnant girl from society would often be sent to live with a relative in the country, and the resulting child might be given to a married sister or kinswoman to bring up as her own, or to a family that wanted children, but could not. These informal adoptions were rarely recorded, if ever. A theme in the television series Downton Abbey uses this very scenario, where one of the Earl's daughters has an illegitimate child, who was given to a family that tenants part of their estate to raise as their own. I have first-hand experience of these kind of 'arrangements' in my own family, but I cannot go into detail here, except to say that there was never going to be any attempt to 'document' the arrangement. So, what do you think, in a 10-generation male line of descent versus a female line of descent, what is the risk of a non-paternity event in the male descent versus informal adoption in the female descent? Colin