Treasure Chest Thursday - 1842 Receipt for Land Purchase

Last year I acquired a few things from my grandmother, including this original receipt for land purchased in 1842.

My 4th great grandfather, Joseph Fernance, purchased 30 acres of land in the Hunter region.  The receipt describes it as Lot 21.  He paid the balance owing on 15 September, 1842.

On the back of the receipt my great grandmother has written '30 acres in Hunter - other side of river joining J D Fernance (&) O J Thompson'.

Original held by author

Reverse side

I also have a photocopy of a receipt for land he purchased in St Albans on 28 July, 1852.

The Jigsaw of Genealogy

Reading the latest issue of Inside History Magazine tonight (Jan - Feb 2016), I was surprised to come across my 6th great grandfather, William Douglas in the article 'The Jigsaw of Genealogy'.  The article used my First Fleet convict William Douglas to demonstrate how to find other pieces of your colonial ancestors life using the Biographical Database of Australia.  Now, to add to my growing to - do list, I need to utilise my subscription to Biographical Database of Australia & see what it has for all my colonial ancestors :)

Accentuate the Positive 2015 Geneameme

Once again Geniaus has invited family historians to reflect on their past year’s achievement through her Accentuate the Positive Geneameme.  Here’s my reflection on what I have achieved genealogy-wise in 2015.

An elusive ancestor I found was . . . where my 3^rd great grandfather, John William Rae, was born.  His marriage certificate, death certificate & his son’s (my direct ancestor’s) birth certificate simply stated his birthplace as Ireland.  I took ordering birth certificates for all of his children but, just as I’d hoped, it listed his birthplace on his first child’s birth certificate – Belfast, Ireland.  Now if only I could find his immigration record!

A precious family photo I found was the same as A geneasurprise I received.  I visited my paternal grandmother this year to see what she could tell me about where her Rae ancestors were from.  While she firmly believed that they were from Ireland, she wasn’t able to help me any further.  She gave me many of her photos during this visit but the real surprise came a few months later.  My father had been to visit her & gave me a photo from her.  This was a photo of her on her wedding day.  Standing on one side of her was her paternal grandmother, Emma Guyatt, & on the other side was her new husband’s paternal grandmother, Catherine Curran.  As part of UTAS’s Introduction to Family History course, I researched Catherine & her teaching career last year which makes me treasure this photo all the more.

An ancestor's grave I found was also another geneasurprise I received.  I don’t really use Facebook for genealogy, but someone I know told me to have a look at the Family History Group of Bathurst’s Facebook page as there were some Curran graves on there that had been restored.  I was hugely surprised to find that they were the graves of my 3^rd great grandparents!

A newly found family member shared a photo of a ring that was passed down to him & which apparently belonged to my 4^th great grandfather, Carl Heinrich Vonthien.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was pretty much everything I watched / attended but the AFFHO Congress in Canberra really stood out.  I still need to catch up on the speaker’s papers!

While I don’t think I’ve achieved much in my own personal genealogy research over the past year, I do feel like I have contributed to the genealogy community by volunteering to help transcribe records online.  This year I took part in FamilySearch’s Worldwide Indexing Event again.  I also helped to index / transcribe the WW1 Nominal Roll for the Australian War Memorial.  The Prosecution Project is something else that I’m involved in, entering data from historical court records.  While I have helped transcribe records for Ancestry & FreeBMD before, they were quite onerous.  The Prosecution Project & the WW1 Nominal Roll were straightforward, making it easier to transcribe greater amounts of information.  Hopefully I’ve been able to ‘pay it forward’ in a small way during 2015. J

Just Added to My Genealogy Wish List - Silesia Map Guides

I came across this new & promising resource while I was catching up on my blog reading - Volume 53 of the Map Guide to German Parish Registers: Kingdom of Prussia, Province of Silesia, RB Liegnitz. I have several Lutheran ancestors from this area &, not really knowing how to proceed with my research, I could definitely use a helpful resource.

According to the publishers, this book:

• Identifies the parish where an ancestor worshipped based on where they lived
• Gives the FHL microfilm number for the family’s parish records
• Identifies nearly every city, town, and place that included residents
• Visually identifies church parishes for Lutherans & Catholics in each district
• Identifies adjoining parishes in case an ancestor attended an alternate parish
• Aids in area searches, particularly across district or regional borders
• Provides visual identification of search areas in which to look for a family
• Helps in determining proximity of one area to another
• Aids in determining reasonable distances of travel from one area to another
• Identifies population centres in each parish
• Identifies archives, repositories, and other resources
• Aids in identification of the location of minority religions

Definitely on my wish list!

The Wonders of Social Media

Leaving work today, the crossing lady told me to visit the Family History Group of Bathurst's Facebook page so that I could see photos of my newly restored Curran's graves posted there. How amazing is it that we live in a world / time that's made it possible for such a chain of events to happen!

Graves sinking into each other. Photo from Family History Group of Bathurst's Facebook page.

According to the page, the graves had been sinking into each other.  A new plinth was built to stabilise the graves and place the headstones upon.  This work was done by volunteers.  These are the graves of my 3rd great grandparents & their son.  I can't begin to express how grateful I am to the person who told me about it (because I probably wouldn't know about it if she hadn't told me) & to the people who have restored the graves. :)

Restored graves on new plinth. Photo from Family History Group of Bathurst's Facebook page.

I'm looking forward to visiting these graves during the Christmas holidays.  I want to get a closer look at gravestone inscriptions & the design on the cross.

Ancestry DNA Ethnicity Results Vs Expected Ethnicity Results

I received my Ancestry DNA results a few days ago.  Some of the ethnicity results were surprising, especially in light of the information I have on my constructed family tree & the countries of origin of my ancestors.  I decided to compare my ancestors’ countries of origin to my Ancestry DNA ethnicity results.  I chose to look at my 3^rd great grandparents for this analysis because this generation was the most recent & ‘purest’ in terms of ethnicity; of my 32 3^rd great grandparents, 31 were of a single ethnicity, e.g. Irish, English, Prussian. Only one ancestor was mixed, the son of a Welsh father & and English mother.

3^rd Great Grandparents – Ethnicity / Country of Origin (based on constructed family tree)

Paternal Grandfather’s Side
Ahnentafel No.	Ancestor Surname	Country of Origin
32	CURRAN	IRE
33	McCANN	IRE
34	WHITELOCK	ENG
35	CARROLL	IRE
36	JONES	WLS / ENG
37	TELFORD	SCT
38	SWEENEY	IRE
39	McQUEEN/McQUAIN	IRE
Paternal Grandmother’s Side
40	RAE	IRE
41	ROBERTSON	SCT
42	GUYATT	ENG
43	BARTHOLOMEW	ENG
44	FERNANCE	ENG
45	JURD	ENG
46	BAILEY	ENG
47	FERNANCE	ENG
Maternal Grandfather’s Side
48	BARNES	ENG
49	HODGKINSON	ENG
50	WASS	ENG
51	BEECROFT	ENG
52	PHILP	ENG
53	HARVEY	ENG
54	BLANCH	ENG
55	BALCOMB	ENG
Maternal Grandmother’s Side
56	TREVILLIAN	ENG
57	WOOLCOCK	ENG
58	LUHRS	PRU
59	JOPPICH	PRU
60	LUHRS	PRU
61	JOPPICH	PRU
62	KALMS	PRU
63	VONTHEIN	PRU

Ethnicity Results - Ancestry DNA Vs Documented Country of Origins

Expected Ethnicity Results based on Constructed Family Tree:

Irish – 19%

European West – 19%

Great Britain (England) – 55%

Great Britain (including Scotland & Wales) – 62%

Ancestry DNA Ethnicity Results:

European – 98%

Ireland – 38%

Scandanavian – 26%

Europe West – 24%

Trace Regions

Europe East – 4%

Great Britain – 2%

The Irish portion of my DNA is easily explained.  However, I was surprised at the percentage, given that about 18% of my 3^rd great grandparents were Irish.  Although I guess approximately 62% of my 3^rd great grandparents on my paternal grandfather’s side were Irish.

European West would cover my Prussian / German heritage.  Almost half of my mother’s ancestry is Prussian, & ¾ of my 3^rd great grandparents on my maternal grandmother’s side are Prussian.

The Scandanavian section of my DNA was surprising, but early Scandanavians migrated to modern-day eastern Germany & Poland (which overlaps with European West).  Vikings also inhabited parts of Ireland in later centuries.

What surprised me even more was that only 2% of my DNA is from Great Britain.  More than 50% of my 3^rd great grandparents were English.  All of my 3^rd GG on my maternal grandfather’s side were English & ¾ of my 3^rd GG on my paternal grandmother’s side were English.

So, what conclusions can I draw from these results?  Overall the majority of the DNA passed on to me by my father was Irish, while at least half of the DNA passed on to me by my mother was western European (Prussian / German).  The next largest chunk of ethnicity is Scandanavian, which really could have originated from either side through Irish / Prussian descendancy.  Very little of their English DNA was passed down to me.

After reading Sharon Muffett’s post about her Ancestry DNA results on her blog gathering dust, & how she has converted these results to Family Tree DNA, my next step is to transfer my results to FTDNA & compare the ethnicity results from Ancestry DNA & Family Tree DNA.

Then, maybe, just maybe, I might be able to convince some relatives to have their DNA tested.

Mary McQuain - Founders & Survivors: Storylines / Mugshots Website

While researching Michael Sweeney on the TAHO website I came across the Founders & Survivors: Storylines website.  I didn't find much information on Michael Sweeney, but I did find a lot about his wife, Mary McQuain, who is my 3rd great grandmother.  One of the best parts of this website is the option to 'Make a Face', which allows you to create a face for your convict.  It works much like a police Indenti-kit,  It begins with a randomly-generated image, but has a series of options that lets you alter the features of the face to match the description listed on their convict indent (Tasmanian convict indents have detailed descriptions).  I had trouble saving my created face but I used a screen-capture program to save the image.

Thanks to the Mugshots section of this website I have been able to create the image below as well as access 'locations' for Mary - a timeline of where she was at certain points & who she was assigned to :)

Could this be what Mary McQuain looked like?