More adventures in DNA discoveries

Recently, the results of my sister's AncestryDNA test arrived. I'm continually fascinated by what can be learned from genealogical DNA tests, but am by no means a genetic genealogist.

I was curious to see what would emerge from a full sibling's DNA test, and I wasn't disappointed. Sure enough, matches to my sister's DNA are being identified that are absent from my own DNA results.

I'm the administrator of my sister's and brother-in-law's DNA tests, which, like mine, were also autosomal tests. While my sister and I have generally the same origins, the percentages of our origins aren't identical. Unlike me, her DNA shows 66% Ireland, 13% Europe West, 11% Scandinavia and 5% Great Britain, with traces of other regions. I'm more Viking, but less Irish, but we share the identical amount of Europe West DNA. Europe West, by the way, encompasses France, Germany, Belgium and Holland.

The day after we got her DNA results, one of her matches contacted me. This is a match that I don't have on my own DNA results. But my sister and I share the same 4th great grandparents, James Knox (abt 1729-1760) and Elizabeth Clark (abt 1729-) in Northumberland, England with this new contact. Exciting stuff! We've share our respective information with each other, and are adding to our own trees.

After all that excitement, this week, I uploaded sister's and brother in law's raw DNA data to GEDMatch, and while I was doing that, looked again at my own GEDMatch matches. The top match there had contacted me last year -- we are 4th cousins once removed and share the same Nova Scotia 3rd great grandparents, Elias Nelson (1783-1871) and Elizabeth Forbes (abt 1783-aft 1871).

But the second top match, with whom I share more 41.1% centimorgans of DNA was a mystery. So I emailed that contact, who turns out to be the match's son, and a pretty knowledgeable (and modest) guy when it comes to genetic genealogy.

By doing some mysterious calculations (I confess that anything to do with numbers gives me a twitch) and comparing our respective trees, my newest cousin quickly narrowed down that our common ancestor is likely an as yet unknown ancestor of my Scots maternal great grandparents Frank Matheson (1833-1909) or Annie Ross (1849-1922). He also triangulated (more twitches here) our DNA numbers with a third person's, who -- good grief-- has a PhD in biology and teaches genetic genealogy. She took the calculations one step further, leaving my head spinning even now. I'm still pondering the several reports these two new contacts sent me and now have two new surnames to research in Scotland: Grant and Cumming, based on the triangulation exercise.

The never ending story continues....

Robert Alexander Young (1854-1915) of the Greenses in Berwick

My maternal great grandfather, Robert Alexander Young, father of my grandmother Dorothy, was a railway man in Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland on the border between England and Scotland. He was the second eldest of eight children born to Peter Cowe Young (1828-1903) and Elizabeth Diana Pattison or Patterson or Paterson (1830-1903).

The Young and Pattison names go back centuries in Berwick, as do all the names in my ancestry there. I've traced them back to the mid to late 1600s. They all had large families in each generation, and most stayed in the area. Apart from the name Robert, the families used the same names, generation to generation: Peter, George, Clement, Margaret, Henry.....

Researching these lines, I can say, is a challenge. I continue to explore these I actually have two Pattison lines in Berwick, and they must be related since the same names (Clement, Elizabeth) appear in both lines, about 100 years apart.

Berwick Advertiser, 26 Feb 1915

My great grandfather's generation was the first to stray from the main occupation in Berwick before the industrial age -- fishing. Robert worked for the North British Railway, first as a fireman when he was a young man, and eventually as an engine driver. I know from censuses completed from 1841 going forward that my Young ancestors were all fishers.

Above, you can see the notice that appeared in the local newspaper when Robert died in 1915.

Berwick Advertiser 5 Mar 1915

This is the note of thanks that my great grandmother Isabella Knox Young (1862-1937) placed following his death.

Many branches of the Young family (and there were many branches!) lived on the same streets in central Berwick: Low Greens and High Greens. Sometimes these streets were for simplicity sake, even in census and other official documents, just called the Greenses or the Greens.

The Youngs seem to have moved about from house to house, back and forth, street to street, judging from censuses, as family sizes grew and shrank. You'll see that reflected in these death notices for Robert's mother Elizabeth...

Berwickshire News 7 Apr 1903

Berwickshire News & General Advertiser 15 Dec 1903

  

...and for his father, Peter Cowe Young. Elizabeth died at one address, while Peter died nine months, one number over, across the street. No doubt Peter was living with other family after Elizabeth died earlier in the year. But isn't it nice how this happened -- family was always cared for and housed, is the impression that I get. There was always family close by.

Berwick Advertiser 21 Jan 1937

Berwick Advertiser 21 Jan 1937

My Youngs were still living in the Greens as late as the 1937 and beyond. After my great grandmother Isabella died in 1937, her son Peter (1904-?) placed this note of thanks and also this death notice in the same edition.

It's definitely a bygone era when family members lived close by each other. It must have been nice though, to be able to run a few doors down to chat with an aunt or see your gran.

The never ending story continues ....