Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Boring Genealogy Stuff.....Not Real Long Tho


I've been spending quite a bit of time with my genealogist's hat on lately.

*  I am sad that this season of TLC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" will be over in only 2 more episodes.

Last Wednesday evening's episode was neat because the first ancestor of guest Valerie Bertinelli had lived near were I am living now. 
Her great grandfather Gregorio Mancia tried to kill her great grandmother, Mary Possio Crosa Mancia, and then turned the gun on himself in a little town outside of Scranton, PA back in 1931.  Before removing to Lackawanna County, PA, Gregorio and Mary had lived in western VA, near Wytheville as his draft card noted.  He was a coal miner so both areas make sense for them to be living in during those times.

Anyway, after her paternal ancestor search, they moved on to her maternal ancestors and soon were revealing how one of her lines stretches back to Edward I of England and beyond to William the Conqueror.
Edward Longshanks happens to be my 23 x Great Grandfather too.
Thus Ms. Bertinelli and I are some sort of cousins.
Imagine that!

*  Then later in the week I was doing some deep ancestor hunting on my PARHAM line.  On my maternal grandfather's line I have Thomas Parham Sr. and Susannah Hunt as my 9 x GGrands.  I discovered that it appears that Susannah married twice, with Roger TILGHMAN being her second husband.
I know a fellow blogger who has talked about her TILGHMAN(later changed to TILLMAN) connection over the years so I wrote to her to let her know that we may be related through allied families(related by marriage of one line to another, but not directly by blood).  My blood relation ancestor, Susannah's son Thomas PARHAM, is not a TILGHMAN.
So we hashed it out and my 9 x Great Grandmother married the brother of my friend's 8 x Great Grandfather.
Are you confused yet? lol

I had seen that TILGHMAN name on my tree yet had never thought that it would be connected to fellow bloggers TILGHMANS, because mine came to/were based in Virginia and she kept mentioning Maryland in connection to her TILGHMANS.

But on further investigation her TILGHMANS were part of the Virginia branch of that family that ended up heading into Maryland early on after their immigrating to the New World in VA.
There are 2 different TILGHMAN lines in Maryland it seems--The piece of the Christopher TILGHMAN line that removed to Maryland and a line sprouting from a Dr. Richard TILGHMAN, for which TILGHMANS ISLAND and other areas in Maryland on the Eastern Shore are named.
And this is more than anyone reading this ever wanted to know about the Tilghman family I am sure. lolz

Having found that connection by marriage she led me to some more family Tighlman ancestry information going further back on the TILGHMAN line showing that Christopher/Gideon/Roger/et all descend from the Plantagenet line of the kings of England.
And this line is the same line that I and Valerie Bertinelli's have on our trees.

So fellow blogger and I DO share bloodlines after all, just further back in our respective ancestry.
Our most recent shared common ancestors are Ralph de NEVILLE and Joan de BEAUFORT as we are each descended from a child of this couple.  My 19th x Great Grands are also fellow bloggers 17th x Great Grands.  I guess my family is a bit sooner to jump into bed than hers.  ;-)

*  Then I got bored last week....after all, all the college prep was finished......so I started doing a family tree on the next TLC "Who Do You Think You Are?" guest, Kelsey Grammer.
I have never really been a fan of his but what the hey!  I am always up for a genealogy challenge.

I wanted to see if I could do this(without cheating and googling his line, other than his parents names and dates to get me started), tracing his ancestors back before the show aired on tv.
And I think I did fairly well.
I got back into the late 1600's on 2 of his paternal lines and 2 of his maternal lines, as well as back to late 1500's on 1 of his mother's lines.  I am not saying that there might not be errors in the information because, after all, I haven't documented all this information, but it's fairly accurate.
I found lots of English, some French, some German, even some Nova Scotian Canadian ancestors.

And the tv promos sound like the show will be investigated a "patriot" on one side and a "pioneer" on the other side of his family during his episode.

And I know EXACTLY which ancestors they will talk about now, since I found them too.  8-)
So stop reading this and don't scroll down to the end of my post if you don't want to spoil the surprise when you watch the show, ok?
Because I am gonna end this with the names but I won't give any other clues or information about them.  I just want a record of me having found this myself.  8-)))

*  Then late last week, I got an email from someone asking about a certain line of my ancestors.  This person manages DNA accounts at FamilyTreeDNA for, I am assuming, are other family members who have had their DNA tested.  She let me know that one of her subjects/members matched me in the autosomal testing they had done(about 50cms)and we also have one surname in common on our respective family surnames lists, DUDLEY.

It didn't take long to track down our common ancestor--Edward DUDLEY, my 10th x Great Grandfather.  Their ancestor William, and my ancestor Richard were the sons of Edward DUDLEY and Elizabeth PRITCHARD.
While it's not common to match DNA with someone when your shared ancestor is so many generations far removed, it IS possible and highly likely if the ancestors are affected by "Founder's Effect", and if you have ancestors who were very early (usually English)settlers to America and intermarried within their social circles.  You may be able to match DNA on those lines of your ancestry going further back than the standard 6 or 7 generations.

Keep scrolling for the Spoiler--

































SPOILER ALERT--
The patriot ancestor for Kelsey Grammer is probably Jacob Grammer, a First Lieutenant in the Maryland Militia/Revolutionary War, and the pioneer ancestors are probably Joseph Dimmick and his wife Mary Frances Kriechbaum, in 1852.  You figure out what state they removed to...it's out west and has a shoreline.  ;-)

Sluggy



 

15 comments:

  1. I love love love love Kelsey Grammer! I cannot get that show, so tell me all that happens..lol.

    I enjoy your genealogy stuff.

    The problem is that when I call or email someone that is a suspect in my genealogy line, they say, "Oh no! My ancestors are not from NC or MS, they all went north." Well, doggone it, let's think 1850 and before, not 1950 and since. Then, it turns out I am talking to the spouse in the line and the husband is dead, but she is absolutely sure that I am wrong. No, she will not give me the name of her husband's sister. So, I search! This was 20 years ago and it was more difficult to get information.

    Once I called my mother's best friend and asked her if she remembered "TW", using my mother's whole name. She repeated it to me, saying she knew no one of that name. I could hear a man in the background objecting as his voice got closer. He took the phone and assured me they both knew my mother, but his wife suffered from dementia caused by diabetes. If she had not repeated my mother's name and he had not been in the room, I would have been left wondering about the fruitless search.

    Let us know about Kelsey Grammer's search on tv.

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    1. Linda,
      Last week's show ancestry and V. Bertinelli were tweeting live while it was going on.....if they tweet the show this week, you should be able to get most of the high points of the show. I can fill in what they miss later.
      Here is the link to Ancstry's twitter .... https://twitter.com/ancestry

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  2. Do you have an ancestry account Sluggy? Or did you send in that DNA swap kit? All the research that you've done and are able to keep straight is very impressive! :)

    If you weren't a fan of Fraiser, you might like him in the HBO series, BOSS. The character he plays is dark and having seen this, I think that he's better in dramas than comedies. Just watch the episode! It was a pretty good show.

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    1. Hi Tami,
      Yes, I have an account on ancestry and have had for years. I have also had DNA testing done, both the mitrochondrial and the autosomal tests. My brother did the Y-DNA test for our family and my son had the Y-DNA and autosomal testing done so all we are missing is the mtDNA for Hubs' family.

      My not being a fan of Mr. Grammer stems from not caring for his acting. I saw him on Broadway back in the 80's in a revival of Othello and was not impressed....perhaps he has improved since then. ;-) My dislike of him also comes from having been "in" the theater world long time ago and knowing what most of actor types are like on a personal level. Let's just say many are very narcissistic! If you go look at Grammer's personal life bio he displays those traits.....out of wedlock children, affairs with women young enough to be his children or grandchildren, and 4 marriages..... plus substance abuse, domestic abuse allegations, etc.

      I do feel sorry for him as a person though as he has been surrounded by lots of personal tragedies too with family members. The man's life is a soap opera it seems.

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    2. That's right, I just recently heard about how his sister was murdered. That was very sad.

      Wow, I had no idea about how many kids he had. I do recall his ex-wife being on that reality show.

      One last plug for the show, it has an interesting plot. He is the antagonist and the main character. I'm not a political drama person, I just happened upon this show.

      Can I ask what shows you do enjoy? I love to chat shows.

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  3. mom loves this show. But she is very into tracy our family history also and has been doing it for years.

    Judy

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    1. Hey Judy, nice to see you "pop up". 8-)
      I sent you an email a week or so ago, did you see it yet?

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  4. I'm going to renew my membership to ancestry right now! It's been about 5 years since I've done any research but I think I can manage the time now :) :)
    PS - who aren't you related to???

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    Replies
    1. Please do so I can find how WE are related! lol

      If someone had an early American English settler(think pre 1700 or thereabouts)and some French early comers to VA, I am probably related to them, if not by blood by marriage. The founder's effect runs willy nilly through my maternal lines. lol Paternal lines are late comers to the New World(1850-1900), mostly from Ireland.

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  5. Silly question perhaps, but is ancestry easy to use? This is fascinating and I want to see how far back my family goes too!

    -JT

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    Replies
    1. It depends. If you want to just follow all the clues and directs they give you from other trees where they have your ancestors also it's quite easy(if your ancestor have already been traced by someone or many someones). If you do the research yourself and document it's a bit harder. Ancestry is by far now the largest collection in one place of documents(besides the LDS family center collection) and they offer free membership(though you get no access to any of the records or other members)if you just want an online place to put a tree. They also offer(I think still)a free trial membership but eventually you have to pay. I would say go for it if you are curious.

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    2. Thanks! I know I have one family member that I bet has a lot of info in there, all from VA. Maybe we're linked up somewhere!

      -JT

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  6. I ALWAYS have my genealogy /ancestry hat on! Are there any others? LOL.
    Very interesting to read about your trees. We are episode 3 into the new WDYTYA series here in the UK and it will air this evening. Tamsin Outhwaite a British actress that you have probably never hear about.
    I was very lucky earlier this year to work as a volunteer at the WDYTYA exhibition at Olympia in London. I am the PR officer for the Anglo-German Family History Socety as so that was why I was there.
    I used to work as an archivist until I retired and so my involvement and interest comes from there. Part of my late mother's family went over to the USA and I have been to 3 reunions with them. I also hosted and arranged a reunion for about 25 "cousins" here in the UK a few years back.

    I have my trees on ancestry and try to do a little bit on them most days. However, having been an archivist, I am always aware of checking my sources and so it can be a bit slow going.

    Happy hunting!

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    Replies
    1. Welcome to my blog Blodwyninexile!
      I love the UK version of WDYTYA and catch them when someone puts them on Youtube, though a few guests on those I am unfamiliar with.
      When I began the genealogy hunt about 7 yrs. ago I readily used the clues on other trees to build mine. I have since begun going back and documenting the branches or discarding them if they turned out erroneous. It is a long slog if you are careful and have to have the facts.

      I have a big mystery in my tree, a fairly recent one, that I'll be discussing soon on the blog. This mystery stretches out to the UK and since I don't pay for a global membership, I have made no headway as I can't get ahold of the English documents from here. Stay tuned for that.

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  7. Let me know if you would like me to contact you directly regarding your UK mystery. You never know ourtrees might be connected in some way. Stranger things have happened!

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