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| Liverpool Landing Stage, 1864. George Griffith's home town. Print by W G Herdman. |
I don’t suppose this is a record, but a power-boost from my recent
dna test results enabled me to nail my ancestor George Griffith within four days
of them being posted online. I was able to pick
him up in the paper record, but it could not be proven without the aid of the
dna test.
I received my results last Sunday evening. My first inkling that the results had been
posted was an email in my inbox from Carol Wilkes, a second cousin on my father’s side of the
family. She very kindly pinpointed each
of her (and my) relations which appeared at the top of my results list. Using the buttons provided at FTDNA to
separate the results into two camps – those in common with that Carol on my dad's side, and
those not in common, I could identify which side of the family
my other results came from.
My Griffith match, Dennis Beeney, appeared quite high up in the list of
matches, with 94 cMs and the longest block at 44 segments. Using the “Not in common with” button on Carol Wilkes, I came up with a list of matches on my mother’s side of the
family. It was my great good fortune
that at the top of that list was Graham Johnston, someone whom I knew to be a second
cousin from my mother’s maternal family.
My Griffith match was not far behind him, but using the “in common with”
button, he disappeared. So he was not
from my mother’s mother’s side of the family.
He had to be from my mother’s father’s side of the family where the
Griffith line does occur. And he had Griffith in his list of family names.
Perfect!
Before attempting the dna solution, I had created an excel
database of known George Griffiths from Liverpool – I had 21 Georges on that
list, and not one of them pretending to be a musician. I couldn’t tell if he had stayed in Liverpool
after he was born there as he was nowhere to be found in the 1841 and 1851
censuses. That just increased the degree
of difficulty. I still cannot make the
link with a paper trail but my brand new cousin Dennis Beeney’s grandmother
Alice Griffith’s mother was born in Liverpool. Going flat out on Alice’s available records I was able to create a
rough family tree, but the clincher came from her father’s name on her marriage certificate – Corporal Michael
Griffith. Her mother was Mary
Taylor. The only marriage in England for
a Michael Griffith and Mary Taylor occurred in Liverpool in 1856. That marriage showed his father was also a
Michael Griffith, and a cordwainer (or shoemaker). The only shoemaker I could find who was named
Griffith was Michael Griffith. And that Michael Griffith senior had a son called
George Griffith.
The whole family did not appear in the 1841 Census. Where
the heck were they? Don’t know. Given that his whole family did not appear in
the census, it seems I was wasting my time trying to figure out which
whitesmith, grocer’s apprentice, engineer’s apprentice, labourer or warehouseman
was my George Griffith. In all likelihood,
none of them.
In 1851 Michael Griffith senior’s wife Catherine was back in Liverpool, the head of
the house, and still described as Married.
Her husband was not in the household, nor was her son George, but her
youngest son Michael who went on to marry Mary Taylor was in the house. His occupation at the time was errand boy.
When he married his occupation was bookkeeper, but when he died, he was a
Chelsea Pensioner, formerly a Corporal in the Royal Artillery Coast Brigade. He died in Eastbourne in 1875, where Alice
was born in 1873. It was a long time
after their marriage in 1856, but whether there were other siblings beside her sister Emily born in Woolwich in 1869, we don't yet know.
Dennis’s connection to the family from Liverpool now has
a paper chain. My paper chain is made of very fine tissue paper, virtually not there at all. George’s daughter, my
great grandmother Mary Jane, didn't know either of her grandparents' names, but remembered her grandfather’s occupation of
bootmaker. I didn’t take it as being reliable proof of relationship to the shoemaker, but the dna
chain shows that Dennis and I are related, and so I have to rely on the very
basic facts –George's name, his birthplace, his birth year, and the uncertainly remembered fact that
his father was a bootmaker - plus the dna evidence - to show that I have found his
right family.
George, you may consider yourself well and truly collared. I told you I was coming to get you!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks are due to my second cousin Carole Wilkes who kindly
contacted me with a list of her (and my) relations whom she had encouraged to
be dna tested. This enabled me to
quickly separate my father’s and my mother’s families.
Thanks also to my second cousin Graham Johnston who had
himself dna tested. This enabled me to
differentiate between my maternal grandmother’s and maternal grandfather’s
lines and identify Dennis Beeney as being likely related to me through the
Griffith family which he had named in his FTDNA profile.
Thanks to my friend Jenny Coates who patiently coached me
through my abject ignorance of dna tests and helped me figure out what I was
doing.
Very great thanks to my third cousin once removed Dennis
Beeney who had put a detailed family tree online showing his grandmother
Alice Griffith (a first cousin to Mary Jane) and came up with the first name of
Alice’s father, Michael, which enabled me to put together a family tree which
would include George Griffith; and who very kindly had his DNA tested and put the results where I could readily
find them.
Thank you everybody - you’ve all been Very Good!
There will be some future posts coming up looking at the family in Liverpool. Can't wait to do the work!
PS And thank you to a
Benevolent Universe which provided me with a set of dna results which did not
include my husband as a match. Given
that some of our brick wall families come from the same part of Tasmania, and
that our colouring is very similar, I was suddenly struck with some trepidation
that when I looked at my matches he might possibly turn up there. But thankfully not. How would I explain THAT to the children?
PPS I should add, by
the way, that I had my husband do a dna test back in 2012 to try and break down
the brick wall of his Tasmanian family, the paper record being totally
inadequate, but there has not been any movement at all in terms of solving that
problem – so not all dna results are equal, I am afraid. In his case we just have to keep
waiting.
