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Anne's Family History

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Anne's Family History

Category Archives: wikitree

Wikitree – what is it and should I use it?

16 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by Anne Young in wikitree

≈ 3 Comments

Front page of Wikitree.com as at 16 September 2022

Recently a user on a Reddit genealogy forum asked, Wikitree-what is it and should I use it?

He received some interesting answers.

One user replied:

WikiTree is a free global tree, where one profile is created per ancestor that users collaborate on. The most popular global trees are FamilySearch, Geni, and WikiTree.

Advantages of working on a global tree are:
. you have other people to share the work with and learn from
. all the best sources and info and are combined into one place
. gives the opportunity to see conflated information you probably wouldn’t notice outside a global tree (for example, two profiles have the same date of birth and parents but aren’t the same person, meaning further research is needed)
. view relationships to other people in the global tree
. other people are more likely to see your research vs. just having it in your own tree

While smaller than the other global trees, WikiTree focuses the most on accuracy and tries to enforce a standard of having at least one source per profile , and only using reliable sources for pre-1700 profiles. It is probably the most “serious” genealogy site of the three. It is not a records repository site like Ancestry or FamilySearch though.

Another user wrote:

I am a big fan of the Wiki collaborative editing concept, but I found the WikiTree UI clunky to use and got discouraged after a few days.

Another pointed out that:

Wikitree is not a records repository. It's aim is to be the most accurate "one world tree" there is, where users are supposed to collaborate on profiles of people, and list sources to support the facts.

While it sometimes falls short of 100% accuracy and profiles without enough good sources, I generally find it a good place to collaborate. There are a lot of experienced genealogists contributing, and it's a bit harder for a newbie to cause too much erroneous damage than it would be on the FamilySearch shared tree. It's also good in that you can write (or edit or contribute too) a biography for your ancestors - describe the facts, anecdotes if any, and research notes if there are complicated interpretations of sources.

I find it a useful place to share my research - I think of it more of a site to "give to" rather than one to "take from" -- my family members and distant cousins can make use of what I've found, and review sources to make sure that I (and others) didn't get any of it wrong. I like to think of genealogy as a perpetual work in progress, and we should all share what we know. It saves a lot of hours not having to blindly replicate some complicated research that someone else has already done.

It also has neat things like seeing how you are connected to famous people. I also like how users can enter DNA info on their profiles (not DNA data itself, but that they took a test and where), and that info is propogated in a useful way through their relations in the tree. It has lots of useful and fun apps for various purposes.

If you're interested in it, one warning -- it's a bit of a learning curve to learn the ins and outs, but there are good help pages and videos. Also it is time-consuming to create good profiles, so it is for the patient and careful type. You have to search to see if a profile exists or not to determine of you should create a new profile or edit an existing one, because one person should only have one profile. And the features won't be useful unless you build out your tree enough to connect in to the rest of the world.

Other people on the Reddit forum complained that the collaborative process sometime allowed incorrect information to be added.

Another user noted that “Adding sources is a lot of work and if you’re not familiar with wiki formatting it is slow.”

A user added a few pointers:

You’ve gotten a lot of good explanations on what wikitree is so here’s a few tips on using it.

1. It’s a great way to share your research with others. A cousin is curious and all you have to do is send a link. No long email with info. It’s all there in a free, easy to understand way.
2. Is that it’s a great way to keep your research online. Since they encourage putting in all your sources, you know have access to it all online and can work on your tree anywhere. Sure you can do that on other sites, but I personally find wikitree to be an easier way to do it. And it’s free.
3. Rootstech. [I think the author means Rootsearch found on the right of the data entry screen] It puts your info in the search boxes. Click the site you want to search and voila. No more jumping back and forth having to put in the info on each site you use.
4. The community is actually active and you can get help and actual support.
5. Join a project. Sometimes we burn out on our own trees. Those brick walls just get us. Maybe there’s a project you can join. A challenge that you can find. Some project generate a list of profile with errors so you can quickly help others.

Things you may not like 
1. It’s meant as a genetic tree, so adoptive parents/children may find that off putting.
2. It’s a lot of work putting in all the data.
3. As with all shared trees you have to trust the other users.

A review of Wikitree published at https://www.dnaweekly.com/reviews/wikitree/ was unfavourable. The reviewer found the interface clunky and unintuitive. She wanted to explore uploading a GEDCOM file, a file which contains genealogical information about individuals such as names, events, and relationships; the records are linked together by metadata. However, she found it best to start building her tree. It is apparent from her efforts that she is not an experienced genealogist, for she entered her maternal grandmother with her married name, not her maiden name. She could not

 “locate any birth, death, or marriage certificates for any of my family members, even though I’d found them on other sites. If you’re after historical records specifically, you’d be better with Ancestry. It has a huge bank of records with an easy-to-use searching tool.”

Of course—and some people miss the point—this is because WikiTree is not a records repository.

The reviewer misunderstood Wikitree and was disappointed.

A response on the Reddit forum about sourcing points to a useful browser extension:

Entering sources is really easy using the WikiTree Sourcer browser extension (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:WikiTree_Sourcer). It came out in October. Easily cite Ancestry, FamilySearch, FindMyPast, ScotlandsPeople, Find A Grave, UK BMD, with more sites to be added in the future. It even automatically adds a free sharing link for Ancestry sources.

For sources from other sites, most of the WikiTree projects have pages dedicated to source citation templates you can copy and fill in, or source citation examples for specific sites.

I have been using this extension recently and I found it very effective for adding information to profiles. I recommend it. There is a YouTube video which explains how to use it, at WikiTree Sourcer Extension Intro and Overview.

I agree that the interface of WikiTree is clunky but it is effective. It takes a little while to get used to and some knowledge of genealogical conventions such as the use of maiden names for women is required. It is expected that sources are cited according to conventions but as the Help page says: “the important thing is citing the source, not how it’s done.” “Genealogy without sources is mythology!” (According to a 2011 post by Tamura Jones the source of this aphorism is possibly Mary L. Henke.)

Family Tree Magazine has an introduction to Wikitree at https://familytreemagazine.com/websites/wikitree-tutorial/ The presentation notes “This is a collaboration—it’s meant to be accurate. Mistakes will happen, but the group assumes the best intentions of others and pledges to be courteous as they hammer out their differences in research findings.”

In a post of 26 April 2019, the genealogist Kitty Cooper discusses why you should add your research to WikiTree. She starts her post “A heartbreaking moment for any family historian is when you discover that your late genealogist cousin’s wife has shredded all his papers. This actually happened in my family.”  Sadly, this has happened in my family too. However, with Wikitree I believe my research will be there as a resource for my descendants and my cousins to use now and indefinitely into the future, safe, I hope, from accidental or malicious damage.

To sum up: Wikitree is not a records repository but a global family tree with a profile for each person. Wikitree users collaborate in their research. Wikitree is a site to give to rather than take from. My family members and distant cousins can make use of what I’ve found and review sources to make sure that I didn’t get any of it wrong. I agree with the idea of “genealogy as a perpetual work in progress”, and that we should share what we know. Not having to replicate complicated research that someone else has already done can save a lot of time. The Wikitree interface is a little rough and ready, and it takes time to learn, but there are tools to help.

Related posts

  • Tree progress September 2022

Tree progress September 2022

15 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by Anne Young in tree completeness, wikitree

≈ 2 Comments

In May 2018 I wrote in this journal about progress I was making on my family tree. The previous ten generations of my children’s ancestors have a maximum total of 1,023 people. How many of these, I wondered, could I name.

I found that I knew the names of only 319 (31%). Today, four and a half years later, I can name 384 (38%). This is 65 more, an increase of 26 on what I knew a year ago. I have yet to discover the names and other information about the remaining 639.

Ten generations takes you to your 7th great grandparents. Where I know their date of birth, most of my children’s 7th great grandparents were born in the late 1600s and 1700s. I know the names of 99 of the 512 ancestors of this generation. I don’t know very much more than the names of 44.

In recent years I have transferred the outcome of much of my research to WikiTree, a collaborative project intended to produce a single worldwide family tree.

In a post of 26 April 2019, the genealogist Kitty Cooper discusses why you should add your research to WikiTree. My research will be there as a resource for my cousins to use now and indefinitely into the future, safe, I hope, from accidental or malicious damage.

There are discrepancies between my personal research tree and WikiTree. For one thing, I have names of ancestors on my personal tree about whom I know nothing more. These people cannot be added to WikiTree until I have more information about them. When I add a person to WikiTree I provide source citations: I state how I know the facts being added and about the relationship of the newly-added profile to other people on the tree. Adding my family tree to WikiTree is an excellent way to review and verify my family history research.

When looking at the 1,023 individuals of the previous ten generations of our ancestors, I now have 313 recorded on WikiTree, 31% of the possible maximum. This is 55 more than the 258 recorded on WikiTree a year ago. I need to find more details for the 70 ancestors where I know not much more than the name and add them to WikiTree. The challenge remains to try to learn about the 639 ancestors missing from our tree.

Chart generated from Wikitree of my daughter’s ancestors

Related posts

  • Progress on my tree from May 2018
  • Tree progress September 2021

Tree progress September 2021

19 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by Anne Young in DNA Painter, tree completeness, wikitree

≈ 7 Comments

In May 2018 I wrote about the progress I was making on my family tree. The previous ten generations of my forebears have a maximum total of 1,023 people. How many of these, I wondered, could I name.

I found that I knew the names of only 319 of these (31%) Today, three and a half years later, I can name 358 (35%), only 39 more.

Ten generations takes your to your 7th great grandparents. Most of my children’s 7th great grandparents were born in the 1700s (where I know their date of birth). I know the names of 86 of the 512 forebears of this generation. I don’t know very much more than the names of 62.

For the last year I have been transferring my research to WikiTree, a collaborative project intended to produce a ‘singular worldwide family tree’.  (The genealogist Kitty Cooper discusses the scheme in a post of 26 April 2019). By contributing my research to WikiTree it will be there as a resource for my cousins to use now and indefinitely into the future, safe, I hope, from accidental and malicious damage.

There are discrepancies between my personal research tree and WikiTree. For one thing, I have names of forebears on my personal tree about whom I know nothing more than their name. These people cannot be added to WikiTree until I have more information about them. When I add a person to Wikitree, I provide source citations: I state how I know the facts being added and how I know about the relationship of the newly-added profile to the existing people on the tree. Adding my family tree slowly to Wikitree is an excellent way to review my family history research.

When looking at the 1,023 individuals of the previous ten generations of our forebears, I have only 258 recorded on WikiTree, 25% of the possible maximum.

A useful challenge that categorises ancestral profiles was posed earlier this year by the Dutch genealogist Yvette Hoitink. She suggests there are six levels of profile beyond ‘Unidentified’ (where not even the name is known):

  1. Name only – perhaps the forebear is named in a child’s record but no other details are known
  2. Vital statistics – know the dates but little else
  3. Occupations, residence, children, spouses – know several key points of information; know when and where they were born, married, and died, but also where they lived between those key dates and what they did for a living; know who their children were, and if they married multiple times.
  4. Property ownership, military service, religion, criminal activity – filled in more biographical details about their lives; researched in court, notarial, cadastral, church and military records, where applicable; if they owned property, how they acquired it, how they disposed of it; whether they left a last will or if they had a prenuptial agreement; for men, whether they served in the army; what religion they were and which church they attended; if they were criminals, what they did and what their sentence was.
  5. Genealogical Proof Standard – Yvette categorises this as ancestors for whom she has finished reasonably exhaustive research and has proven who their parents are; finished researching them in a wide range of records, such as newspapers, town records, and tax records; documented them according to current genealogical standards, analyzed everything properly, resolved conflicts, written up her conclusion, and met the Genealogical Proof Standard.
  6. Biography – Yvette categorises this as ancestors for whom she has not only finished the research, but has produced a biography or family story with historical context from it.

I have started a preliminary review of our tree against these criteria. I have been reasonably conservative in assigning levels: for example, I have written more biographies or family stories with historical context in this online research journal than are shown in this chart.

Surname groups from left to right: Young, Cross, Sullivan, Dawson, Champion de Crespigny, Cudmore, Boltz, Manock.
Forebears where I only know the names (level 1 shown in blue) are not yet recorded on Wikitree, I need more information to record them there.
The chart was generated with DNAPainter.

The chart was generated using DNAPainter and the dimensions facility on the ancestral tree tool. DNA Painter Dimensions are custom categories giving the ability to create and share different views of your direct line. One of the dimensions you can apply to your tree is what stage you have reached for each forebear in the six levels of ancestral profiles of Yvette Hoitink’s level-up challenge. I learned about the addition of this new DNA Painter ‘dimensions’ feature in April. I have been meaning to apply it.

Applying the dimensions to each of the profiles was laborious. I sped it up slightly by applying level 1 (only know names) to all profiles on the tree. I then individually edited each of the other profiles with what I felt to be a fair assessment of the state of my research.

When I finished adding the categories I was able to generate a summary of genealogy facts. For example for the tenth generation (the outermost ring on the fan chart) I could produce the following summary:

7th-Great-Grandparents 86 of 512 identified

Surnames: Way, Bishop, Colling, Way, Bishop, Moggeridge, Morley, Read, Hemsley, Jenner, Whalley, Hague, Gilbert, Trevithick, Huthnance, Ralph, Champion de Crespigny, Fonnereau, Scott, Gough, Trent, Phipps, Phipps, Tierney, Dana, Trowbridge, Kinnaird, Johnstone, Bayly, Holmes, Grueber, Smyth, Snell, Chauncy, Brown, Cosnahan, La Mothe, Perez, Corrin, Quay, Mitchell, Hughes, Price, Plaisted, Sier, Wilks, Wilkinson, Green, Neilson, Taylor, Miller, Cudmore, Apjohn, Furnell, Massy, Gunn, Manson, Harper, Cavanagh, Lane, Orfeur, Kirkby, Palliser, Wogan, Coates, Odiarne, Haffenden, Mainwaring, Bunbury, Latham, Kelsall, Duff, Skelly, Harrison

Research Level

  • Level 1: Names only  62 12.11%
  • Level 3: Occupations, residence, children, spouses  11 2.15%
  • Level 4: Property ownership, military service, rel  10 1.95%
  • Level 2: Vital statistics  2 0.39%
  • Level 6: Biography  1 0.2%
  • Unassigned  426 83.2%

I look forward to more research and exploring and recording my family history beyond collecting the names.

Related posts

  • DNA Painter Dimensions: a new way to showcase your ancestral line by Jonny Perl 13 April 2021
  • Six Levels of Ancestral Profiles – Level-up Challenge! by Yvette Hoitink 22 January 2021
  • Progress on my tree (May 2018)
  • Tree progress March 2020
  • creating trees in DNA Painter
  • Updating my Ahnentafel index
  • Kissing cousins
  • Tree progress May 2021

Tree progress May 2021

13 Thursday May 2021

Posted by Anne Young in tree completeness, wikitree

≈ 1 Comment

In May 2018 I wrote about the progress I was making on my tree.  Out of the possible 1,023 individuals of the previous ten generations of my forebears, how many, I wondered, could I name?

I discovered that I knew the names of only 22% of the possible 1,023 on my side of the family. On my husband’s side I knew the names of only 13%. From our children’s perspective the combined figure was 31%.

Two years later, in March 2020, I had made only a little progress. I was then able to name 33.6% of the combined total, about 3% more. A year later, as of today I can name 352, 8 more, 34.4% of the possible 1,023 total.

For the last six months I have been transferring my research to WikiTree, a collaborative project intended to produce a ‘singular worldwide family tree’.  (The genealogist Kitty Cooper discusses the scheme in a post of 26 April 2019). By contributing my research to WikiTree it will be there as a resource for my cousins to use now and indefinitely into the future, safe, I hope, from accidental and malicious damage.

In places there are discrepancies between my personal research tree and WikiTree. I still have 15 of my children’s 5th great grandparents to transfer from my tree to WikiTree. Transferring means revisiting my research and making sure I have citations to justify the relationships and the asserted facts. I also have names of forebears on my personal tree about whom I know nothing more than their name. These people cannot be added to WikiTree until I have more information about them.

Using the “Ancestor Explorer” app developed by Chase Ashley (https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/ashley1950/ancestorexplorer/), I can see a sortable list of all the ancestors of my children for up to 20 generations back and I can monitor the progress of identifying their 1,048,576 18th great grandparents and of the pedigree collapse that reduces the number of unique forebears.

As of today, on WikiTree my children have 3211 unique ancestors named and 8914 duplicate ancestors (additional lines of descent from a unique ancestor) within 20 generations. Less than three months ago, on 28 February, my children had 2459 unique ancestors and 7705 duplicate ancestors (additional lines of descent from a unique ancestor) within 20 generations; in particular, as part of my exploration of our Irish ancestry, over the last few months I have added a large number of our Irish forebears.

When looking at the 1,023 individuals of the previous ten generations of our forebears, I have only 245 recorded on WikiTree, 24% of the possible forebears.

The application DNA Painter has useful charts to present tree completeness. I exported GEDCOM files from WikiTree and my personal research tree to compare the results:

Progress on my personal research tree as at 13 May 2021 from the perspective of our children – 352 forebears of a possible 1,023 in ten generations.
Surname groups from left to right: Young, Cross, Sullivan, Dawson, Champion de Crespigny, Cudmore, Boltz, Manock
Progress on WikiTree as at 13 May 2021 from the perspective of our children – 245 forebears of a possible 1,023 in ten generations.
GenerationAncestors identified WikitreeAncestors identified Personal research treeDifferenceTree completeness WikitreeTree completeness Personal research tree
Parents2 of 22 of 2–100%100%
Grandparents4 of 44 of 4–100%100%
Great-Grandparents8 of 88 of 8–100%100%
2nd-Great-Grandparents16 of 1616 of 16–100%100%
3rd-Great-Grandparents32 of 3232 of 32–100%100%
4th-Great-Grandparents45 of 6457 of 64-1270%89%
5th-Great-Grandparents55 of 12872 of 128-1743%56%
6th-Great-Grandparents43 of 25677 of 256-3417%30%
7th-Great-Grandparents39 of 51283 of 512-447.62%16%
8th-Great-Grandparents41 of 102473 of 1024-324.00%7.13%
9th-Great-Grandparents54 of 204857 of 2048-32.64%2.78%
10th-Great-Grandparents69 of 409642 of 4096271.68%1.03%
11th-Great-Grandparents96 of 819230 of 8192661.17%0.37%
12th-Great-Grandparents122 of 1638420 of 163841020.74%0.12%
13th-Great-Grandparents187 of 3276818 of 327681690.57%0.05%
14th-Great-Grandparents276 of 6553615 of 655362610.42%0.02%
15th-Great-Grandparents34 of 13107215 of 131072190.03%0.01%
16th-Great-Grandparents12 of 26214412 of 262144–0.00%0.00%

A useful challenge that categorises ancestral profiles was posed earlier this year by the Dutch genealogist Yvette Hoitink. She suggests there are six levels of profile beyond ‘Unidentified’ (where not even the name is known):

  1. Name only – perhaps the forebear is named in a child’s record but no other details are known
  2. Vital statistics – know the dates but little else
  3. Occupations, residence, children, spouses – know several key points of information; know when and where they were born, married, and died, but also where they lived between those key dates and what they did for a living; know who their children were, and if they married multiple times.
  4. Property ownership, military service, religion, criminal activity – filled in more biographical details about their lives; researched in court, notarial, cadastral, church and military records, where applicable; if they owned property, how they acquired it, how they disposed of it; whether they left a last will or if they had a prenuptial agreement; for men, whether they served in the army; what religion they were and which church they attended; if they were criminals, what they did and what their sentence was.
  5. Genealogical Proof Standard – Yvette categorises this as ancestors for whom she has finished reasonably exhaustive research and has proven who their parents are; finished researching them in a wide range of records, such as newspapers, town records, and tax records; documented them according to current genealogical standards, analyzed everything properly, resolved conflicts, written up her conclusion, and met the Genealogical Proof Standard.
  6. Biography – Yvette categorises this as ancestors for whom she has not only finished the research, but has produced a biography or family story with historical context from it.

I think these stages are indeed useful in measuring progress. I have a long way to go in compiling the profiles of our forebears beyond merely recording their names and dates.

Related posts

  • Progress on my tree
  • Tree progress March 2020
  • creating trees in DNA Painter
  • Updating my Ahnentafel index
  • Kissing cousins

Kissing cousins

28 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by Anne Young in Duff, Kinnaird, tree completeness, wikitree

≈ 3 Comments

We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on; the numbers double with each generation. In ten generations we have 1024 great great … grandparents.

In twenty generations we would have 1,048,576 18th great grandparents. While this is possible in theory, it is more likely that we have far fewer, simply because our forebears married someone related to them. This is called ‘pedigree collapse’: we have fewer forebears, with multiple lines of descent from the same person.

Recently I have started to record more of my genealogy on Wikitree. I like the idea of collaborating with cousins on a single family tree. Wikitree strives for historical accuracy by requesting that facts are supported with citations. Collaboration means I can see my connections to forebears further back in time. Wikitree is free and contributors sign an honor code of shared of ethics and principles.

There are some interesting applications to help one analyse one’s family tree on Wikitree and one of these is “Ancestor Explorer” developed by Chase Ashley https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/ashley1950/ancestorexplorer/. The app allows you to see a sortable list of all ancestors of a particular person (Descendant) for up to 20 generations back. That list shows the number of lines to the same ancestor if there are multiple lines of descent; an indication of pedigree collapse.

Amongst my forebears the first cousin marriage I have come across is Charles Gordon (1670 – 1702) who married his first cousin Elizabeth Lyon (aft 1662 – 1739). They were first cousins, the grandchildren of Elizabeth Maule (abt 1620 – 1659) and John Lyon (1596 – 1646). Elizabeth Maule and John Lyon are my tenth great grandparents.

The tool tells me that I have 3030 unique ancestors and 20,016 duplicate ancestors (additional lines of descent from a unique ancestor) within 20 generations. That is a lot of cousin marriages leading to a lot of duplicates.

It appears, for example, that I am descended in 1035 different ways from Marjorie Carrick (abt 1252 – 1292). By one line of descent she is my 19th great grandmother and by another line of descent she is my 30th great grandmother. As far as I can see, all the 1035 lines of descent are either through Helen (Kinnaird) Dana (abt 1746 – 1795), one of my fifth great grandmothers or through Sophia Henrietta (Duff) Mainwaring (abt. 1790 – 1824), one of my fourth great grandmothers on a totally different branch. Both women have long Scottish lines of descent that have been well documented on Wikitree.

Portrait of Sophia Mainwaring nee Duff, my fourth great grandmother. The portrait is at Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire. Sophia’s pedigree includes a lot of marriages between cousins.

I have recently added to Sophia’s pedigree, for I discovered her father William Duff (1754 – 1795) was the illegitimate son of James Duff, the second Earl of Fife (1729 – 1809). A link to the nobility of course adds enormously to the family tree as the pedigrees are well documented. William is recorded in the Duff House Mausoleum in Banff, Aberdeenshire. The mausoleum was built in 1793 by his father, James Duff, second Earl of Fife, but included tombs of people not related to James Duff who was attempting to prove descent from an ancient lineage.

My tree on Wikitree is by no means complete. I have recorded only 20 of my 32 possible great grandparents, 28 of my possible 64 great grandparents, and 30 of my possible 128 5th great grandparents. When looking at my personal family tree I have 26 of my 32 possible great grandparents, 36 of my possible 64 great grandparents, and 49 of my possible 128 5th great grandparents; there are 6+8+19 = 33 more ancestors to add to Wikitree.

My pedigree at Wikitree as at 28 February 2021. Tree generated with DNAPainter from a gedcom downloaded from Wikitree. The fan chart shows 9 generations: on Wikitree I know only 26 of the 512 possible 7th great grandparents. Coloured blocks indicate ancestors whose details are known; light grey indicates unknown forebears.
My pedigree at on my own research tree as at 28 February 2021. Tree generated with DNAPainter from a gedcom downloaded from ancestry.com. The fan chart shows 9 generations: on my own research tree I know only 69 of the 512 possible 7th great grandparents – I need to transfer my research to Wikitree.

My personal research tree has only 15 people at the 14th great grandparent level and there are only 13 people who appear more than once. My Wikitree pedigree has 341 14th great grandparents and 177 people who appear more than once.

I intend to work on increasing my tree completeness at Wikitree and collaborating with cousins on distant genealogy.

R is for Runnymede

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2019, Royal family, Surrey, wikitree

≈ 6 Comments

Kings and Queens Farjeon ThornycroftI learnt most of the little English history I know from a comical book in verse, first published in 1932, called ”Kings and Queens” by the playwright and critic Herbert Farjeon (1887 – 1945) and his sister Eleanor (1881 – 1965), a children’s writer. (Early editions have wonderful illustrations by Rosalind Thornycroft.) My father had ”Kings and Queens” when he was a child.

When Greg and I go to England in May we will visit Runnymede, where bad King John was made to sign the Magna Carta.

This is the ”Kings and Queens” account of it:

John, John, bad King John
Shamed the throne that he sat on.

…
So the Barons brought a Deed
Down to rushy Runnymede,
Magna Carta was it hight,*
Charter of the People’s Right,
Framed and fashioned to correct
Kings who act with disrespect –
And with stern and solemn air,
Pointing to the parchment there,
‘Sign! Sign! Sign!’ they said,
‘Sign, King John, or resign instead!’

King John (r. 1199 – 1216) was my 24th great grandfather (many millions of people have him as an ancestor, of course).

Magna Carta

The Magna Carta (originally known as the Charter of Liberties) of 1215, written in iron gall ink on parchment in medieval Latin, using standard abbreviations of the period, authenticated with the Great Seal of King John. The original wax seal was lost over the centuries. This document is held at the British Library and is identified as “British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106”

The Magna Carta, which King John signed in 1215, means ‘Great Charter’. It established the principle in the English system of justice that everybody, including the king, was subject to the law. The Magna Carta had 63 clauses, most of them dealing with specific grievances associated with taxation. For example, the Charter demanded the removal of fish weirs from the Thames, the Medway and throughout England; the dismissal of several royal servants; and the standardisation of various weights and measures. However, there were clauses that established more fundamental values, and these have lasted for 800 years. For example the 39th clause gave all ‘free men’ the right to justice and a fair trial. The third clause is the most famous:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

A council of 25 barons, known as the Surety Barons, was appointed under clause 61 to monitor King John’s conduct. Somewhat surprisingly none of the barons were bishops or otherwise high in the hierarchy of the Church. The process of appointment is not known, but the names were apparently drawn almost exclusively from among John’s more active opponents.

Wikitree, an online collaborative worldwide family tree, has a project devoted to the Magna Carta. At this online tree I searched for my connection the Surety Barons using Wikitree’s relationship finder (this link and the links below are connected to my Wikitree profile. You can find out your connection to the barons by substituting your own Wikitree profile I.D.). Seventeen of the original 25 have known descendants past the fourth generation. I am related to all 17:

  • William d’Aubigny: my 23rd great grandfather through my Chauncy forebears
  • Hugh & Roger le Bigod: my 26th and 27th great grandfathers through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • Henry de Bohun: my 26th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • Gilbert & Richard de Clare: my 27th and 28th great grandfathers through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • John Fitz Robert: my 25th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • Robert FitzWalter: my 25th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • William de Huntingfield: my 27th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • John de Lacy: my 24th great grandfather through my Chauncy forebears
  • William de Lanvallei: my 24th great grandfather through my Mainwaring > Pye > Crewe>Vaux forebears
  • William Malet: my 25th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • William de Mowbray: my 24th great grandfather through my Mainwaring > Pye > Crewe>Vaux forebears
  • Saer de Quincy: my 26th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • Robert de Ros: my 27th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • Geoffrey de Say: my 24th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears
  • Robert de Vere : my 25th great grandfather through my Dana > Kinnaird > Gordon forebears

I am apparently descended from all of the barons who had descendants, but through three different lines: my Dana, Mainwaring and Chauncy lines. Many of the barons were related. I haven’t confirmed all the links myself yet. In using the pedigrees on Wikitree I depend on the work of other people, of course, and this is possibly not completely reliable.

The Wikitree project uses the work of Royal Ancestry: a Study of Colonial & Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson (2013), Volumes 1-5, and in Magna Carta Ancestry: a Study of Colonial & Medieval Families, also by Douglas Richardson (2011). These works focus on American colonists with Magna Carta ancestry and well-documented ancestral lines. Both my Dana and Chauncy lines are American colonial lines and are well documented, though in fact the Dana connections to the barons are not American colonial but Scottish.

I have potentially 67,108,864 24th great grandparents. The actual number will be a lot smaller because of pedigree collapse: the number of distinct ancestors reduces quickly when cousins, including distant cousins, have children together.

The number of descendants from those 24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th great grandparents is staggering. Some lines do die out, for example, 8 of the 25 surety barons are believed not to have descendants, but many millions of people are descended from those few people who signed a vow to enforce Magna Carta in 1215.

Sometimes I wonder why–or whether–genealogy matters. Establishing family connections is a sort of historical jigsaw puzzle, and I enjoy puzzles, but my interest in the Magna Carta really derives from its significance as a cornerstone of English – and so, Australian – law, not because of my remote connection to King John and the Surety Barons.

Runnymede geograph-4431706-by-David-Dixon

The Magna Carta Memorial includes a pillar of English granite on which is inscribed “To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of Freedom Under Law”. The memorial was created by the American Bar Association (ABA) and was unveiled on 18 July 1957 at a ceremony attended by American and English lawyers. The memorial stands in the meadow known historically as Long Mede: it is likely that the actual site of the sealing of Magna Carta lay further east, towards Egham and Staines.

Footnote

* ‘Hight’ means ‘called’, or ‘named’.

Sources

  • http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/MagnaCarta/index.html
  • https://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-an-introduction
  • https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Surety_Barons

Discovering a DNA cousin through Wikitree and confirming with GedMatch

15 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by Anne Young in DNA, Edwards, GedMatch, Gilbart, St Erth, wikitree

≈ 7 Comments

In the year since we received our autosomal DNA results I have explored various tools to help me keep track of the results: to help me find new cousins with whom we share DNA and to show how our document-based trees connect.

One of the tools I have used is wikitree.com. Wikitree is a single tree grown using traditional genealogical sources and DNA. It currently has more than 14.6 million profiles added by more than 430,000 genealogists. Wikitree has some useful DNA tools to help make sense of your DNA results.

screenshot of the front page of wikitree.com

I have added information about our direct forebears to Wikitree. I added each forebear manually, and this meant revisiting the facts and checking that I had reliable sources for dates, places and relationships. I did not merely upload a GEDCOM file. I wanted to review relationships and I did not want to create duplicates. Wikitree has a single profile for each person. It is important to remember that none of us own our ancestors and we need to work with others on the information we attach to each profile. In fact we benefit from working with other descendants.

In addition to adding your forebears to Wikitree, you can add details of the DNA tests you have taken. Wikitree adds the information that you have taken the test to all blood relatives within eight degrees of separation — up to sixth great-grandparents and out to third cousins. You don’t upload the contents of the DNA results, just the fact that you have taken the DNA test and information that will help potential matches find you in each testing company’s database.

Recently I was contacted by Simon Bass, a distant cousin, who has also been adding his forebears to Wikitree. (Note Simon reviewed this post as a draft and following publication and is happy for me to blog about this case study.)  Simon has found that he seems to have a DNA connection to my husband’s family. Both my husband Greg and Greg’s brother Dennis have had their DNA tested and added their information to Wikitree. Simon is descended from Elizabeth Gilbart née Huthnance (abt 1774-1847) and her husband John Gilbart (abt 1761-1837). When adding their daughter Catherine’s details to the tree, linking Catherine to Elizabeth and John who were already on the tree, Simon noticed that Wikitree had a section on DNA connections on the right hand side of the screen.

Wikitree profile of John Gilbert (abt 1761-1837) retrieved from https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gilbart-8 on 15 July 2017. (click to enlarge)

 

 

Simon wrote to me and, despite testing with different companies, we were able to compare our kits on GedMatch.com . Our biological cousinship was confirmed.

GedMatch.com provides DNA analysis tools for genealogists including tools for comparing your own DNA test results with those of other people in the GedMatch public database. To use these tools you must first upload your DNA test results to GedMatch. GedMatch accepts results from Ancestry.com, Family Tree DNA, MyHeritage, 23 and Me, and WeGene.

GedMatch one to one comparison of DNA shared by Simon Bass and Dennis Young. Simon and Dennis share DNA on two chromosomes. Based on the size of the match it is estimated that there are six generations to their most recent common ancestor. Their relationship based on our document-based family tree is 5th cousins which is six generations to the most common recent ancestor, the prediction based on shared DNA is in line with our genealogy.

Since this first exchange of information Simon has shared photos with me of his trip back to St Erth in Cornwall, where the Gilbart and Huthnance families came from. We have also exchanged notes on the emigration of various members of the Gilbart family to Australia.

Wikitree made it easy for us to see that our document-based trees connected and showed that we had taken DNA tests. Having uploaded our test results to GedMatch.com, we could compare test results and see if there was a likely biological connection.

If there had been no shared DNA it would not have disproved that there was a relationship. It just meant that the same segments of DNA had not been inherited by Simon and his cousins Greg and Dennis.

Simon, Greg and Dennis are 5th cousins since they share 4th great grandparents. There is a nearly 70% chance that any two fifth cousins will not share a detectable level of DNA. ( https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics ) In fact Greg’s brother Dennis shares DNA with Simon but Greg does not.

Related posts
  • Edwards family immigration on the Lysander arriving in the Port Phillip District in 1849
  • DNA testing results one year on

DNA analysis: taking the tree back two generations

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by Anne Young in Atkin, Dawson, DNA, Gibbons, Lincolnshire, Mormon pioneer, wikitree

≈ 2 Comments

Dna-SNP
DNA: SNP model from Wikimedia Commons

Progress on our family tree using DNA evidence has been slow. Cousin matches are either with people where we have no idea how they fit into our tree, or with cousins whose place in the tree we already know. The second kind of matches are useful, however, because they help to predict where on our  tree those otherwise unlinked matches might belong.

When we received our first DNA results in July 2016 one of the first matches I contacted was A B. She was predicted to be Greg’s 4th cousin with AncestryDNA stating Greg and AB shared 21.6 centimorgans across 2 DNA segments. She had a private tree, so I was unable to view what links there might be between our tree and hers. Her member profile gave no hint as to where in the world she was.
Later in the month AB replied and shared her private tree with me. Neither of us could see where the link was. We both uploaded our DNA kits to GedMatch.com, which confirmed the link, giving slightly more information than AncestryDNA had provided:

Comparing Kit A828918 (*G C Y) and Axxx (*AB)
Minimum threshold size to be included in total = 500 SNPsMismatch-bunching Limit = 250 SNPsMinimum segment cM to be included in total = 7.0 cM

Chr  Start Location End Location Centimorgans (cM) SNPs 
8 22,956,646 32,079,918 12.6 1,731
12 64,128,525 77,383,427 13.3 2,210

Largest segment = 13.3 cMTotal of segments > 7 cM = 25.9 cM2 matching segmentsEstimated number of generations to MRCA = 4.6
441334 SNPs used for this comparison.

At the time no other kits uploaded to GedMatch matched AB and Greg. AncestryDNA also showed no shared matches.

AncestryDNA offers a view of surnames and places of birth that two trees have in common. We noticed early on that there were a large number of places in Lincolnshire from AB’s tree and some close to those on our family tree.

.
The orange markers are birthplaces on AB’s tree. The blue from our tree, and the green are birthplaces appearing on both trees.

Because of the Lincolnshire birthplaces we looked at both Dawson and Plowright lines as possible connections but came to no conclusions.

In September AB looked again at her tree, focusing on her great grandfather John William Gibbons. AB had noticed that she and her father shared DNA with an AncestryDNA match, To2, and that Greg also shared DNA with To2, although not the same segments (hence not showing as a shared match).  AB found that her shared ancestors with her father and To2 were John Gibbons and Frances. Frances was possibly the daughter of Robert Atkin and Frances Smith.

Greg had no forebears with the surname Gibbons in his tree but looking at his DNA matches there were some matches who had Gibbons in their tree, in particular several had Rebecca Gibbons (1843-1897).

Rebecca was born in Moulton, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Thomas Gibbons. In 1866 she first married William  Noble Waite (1845-1879). They had five children and emigrated to the United States in the 1870s. William Waite died in Utah. Rebecca’s second marriage was to Lemuel Sturtevant Leavitt (1827 – 1916) in 1882 in Utah, USA. I had noticed that several of Greg’s DNA matches had Leavitt as one of the surnames.

Lemuel Leavitt was a Mormon pioneer who travelled overland to Utah at the age of 21 in 1849.

I used Wikitree to document some of my research on the branch and connect the branch to the wider single tree. Lemuel Leavitt was on the tree but I needed to create a profile for his wife Rebecca. Several ancestry trees included Rebecca but she was not well researched and facts were sometimes factually wrong, for example on one tree she was shown as being married to Lemuel Leavitt in 1850.

I found a possible Gibbons link to our tree, an 1826 marriage record in Horbling in Lincolnshire for Thomas Dawson. The spouse was Ann Gibbons, who lived there.

Greg’s 4th great grandfather was Thomas Dawson (1775 Gunby, Lincolnshire – 1861 Bennington, Lincolnshire). He was married to an Ann.  I wondered if this was Ann Gibbons of Horbling.

AB identified Rebecca Gibbons Waite Leavitt in her tree, confirming a link to the trees for the descendants of Lemuel Leavitt and Rebecca Leavitt formerly Waite nee Gibbons with whom we shared DNA. These descendants had apparently not yet researched Rebecca’s parents or origins.

In early November the  General Register  Office of the United Kingdom launched a new index of birth registrations. This revised index included mother’s maiden names. From this, AB discovered the record of Betsy Dawson’s birth in 1838. Bestsey was the youngest child of Thomas Dawson and Ann. The birth index showed the mother’s maiden name Gibbons. Bestsey appeared n the 1841 census with her parents Thomas and Ann and sibling Isaac (1831-1872). Isaac was Greg’s great great grandfather. There were two other siblings, Eliza and William. This gave us confidence that we had correctly identified the 1826 marriage of Thomas Dawson to Ann Gibbons as being the marriage of Isaac Dawson’s parents.

Thomas Dawson married Ann Gibbons at Horbling which is 5 miles from Aslackby, where AB’s Gibbons forebears lived.

We started to speculate. AB gave a surname to the wife of John Gibbons. She wrote:

I have added a surname to Frances (Atkin/s), wife of John Gibbons at the top of my tree. This is what is in many other people’s tree, and its true that the marriage dates seem to fit. HOWEVER – the reason why I am not sure is that the records for the parish of Aslackby for this time period have not yet been fully digitised, but are at the archives. I need to look at them anyway for my mum’s tree.
So having added the surname ATKINS it has thrown up some hints from other trees and in a couple there is a daughter ANN born 1801 Spalding, sister of my George and of Thomas – the ancestor of the LDS’s. I do feel that this would be about the right generational distance between our families.
I am not convinced about the accuracy of the online trees but it is worthy of further investigation.

The next day on the lincstothepast website AB found a baptism for Ann on 16 December 1801, daughter of John and Frances Gibbonds, at St Mary and St Nicholas Church, in Spalding, 15 miles from Horbling .

This was the only ( I think) church in Spalding at this time, as st Pauls was built by my Quinton ancestors ( as labourers)  in mid / late 19thC. St Mary and St Nicholas was the church where John Gibbons and Frances Atkin were married.

The date seems to fit the age Ann Dawson when she died. In identifying a forebear I would not normally rely on such a slim connection but the DNA seems to be another piece of evidence, in particular the additional DNA matches to several descendants of Rebecca Gibbons.

In conclusion, DNA is really just additional evidence, to be reviewed with documents and indexes. Given the DNA evidence I am reasonably confident we have identified the maiden name of Greg’s great grandmother Ann Dawson (1801-1842) and we now know who her parents were: John Gibbons (1780-1840) and Frances Atkins (1772-1856). This means that Greg and AB are 5th cousins, within the range predicted by AncestryDNA and GedMatch.

Mapalist Gibbons Lincolnshire

Places associated with research into Ann Dawson nee Gibbons (1801-1842) Map created using MapAList

https://mapalist.com/map/619269

simplified tree, click to enlarge
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    • Dana family index
    • Dawson family index
    • de Crespigny family index
    • de Crespigny family index 2 – my English forebears
    • de Crespigny family index 3 – the baronets and their descendants
    • Edwards, Ralph and Gilbart family index
    • Hughes family index
    • Mainwaring family index
      • Back to 1066 via the Mainwaring family
    • Sullivan family index
    • Young family index

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