BritainsDNA - Global Connections - All My Ancestry

I have been analyzing the results from my brother's testing at BritainsDNA and the global connections plots are most interesting. Given our 100% British ancestry back many generations known, with a couple not known past 3x great grandparents, I may find this the best tool yet to look at possible parents for Christopher Buller in London/Bermondsey. I think that Christopher's father is likely British and of the Buller family of Somerset/Cornwall/Warwickshire (and not sure if I can bring the Warwickshire and the southwest England Buller family together yet). But his mother is a mystery. I know he was born around 1764 from his burial registration at St Olave Church Bermondsey. The results of the Global Connections (European graph) place us right in the midst (to the bottom) of the German results. The British and German results are somewhat intermingled on the edges but we sit distinctively in the German area about midway through. This particular set of results is like a map of Europe when you examine it in detail. The French ancestry are to the south and the Spanish below that and to the side of the Spanish the Basque and then to the north of the British and German you find Norwegian and to the right of the German/Norwegian/British you find Hungarian and Croatian from the middle of this group to the south and from the middle to the north is found Ukranian and Polish. The Russians to the north west of the Ukranian and Polish. The Romanian and Bulgarian to the south west of the Hungarian and Croatian. This continues looking very like the map of Europe/Asia as you move eastward.

This is an unexpected result  in some ways but comparing it to the Family Finder Results at FT DNA not surprising given the number of German matches (individuals with only German ancestry and still living there). The matches are very distant (5th cousin to distant) and I find in general these are really distant; probably a very hearty piece of chromosome that has passed down from centuries past and just continues to get preferred at conception. Plus a sign that we likely have Saxon ancestors as well as our ancient British lines.

So I am looking seriously at the possibility of Christopher's mother being German or his grandmother. This would be the logical line since it is in London back into the 1700s and the wife of Christopher, Mary Beard, has a history in the Surrey area going back into the mid 1600s and earlier for some of her lines. The only other line that is somewhat mysterious is also in this Buller family but at Birmingham. That line is my mtDNA line and shows itself to likely be Scot either directly from Scotland or planters from Ireland coming back to England since the haplogroup is also common in Ireland.

I am considering testing myself now for All My Ancestry at BritainsDNA. There is just so much that can be learned from our genes to keep us on the right paths with our genealogy. Plus it is a wonderful gift to hand on to future generations. Now is the time to collect all this information as we enter the computer age. Our grandchildren may not be able to read these old documents if they do not learn cursive writing. It will be gibberish to them as some Old English documents already are unless you have acquired the skill of Palaeography.

Back to will transcription tomorrow; my weekend has been a busy one. Our extreme cold warning has finally lifted and we have a couple of days of minus 15 all the way up nearly to zero celsius. But then back to the deep freeze for a little bit with minus 30 or even colder. The wind child can be the worst part; at minus 39 you can feel the cold right into the bones after just a couple of minutes.

Results of Research at Salt Lake City - 19 Nov 2008

The plans for today were to work on the Manorial Documents for Upper Clatford and area. I did transcribe a document listing all the properties that paid taxes in Upper Clatford and actually found one of my ancestor's sisters living in a cottage. This information wasn't dated but her living in a cottage places it in the 1740s to 1760s range. Since I would like to learn more about my King and Blake family in this time frame I will continue transcribing all the images (about 50) of the Manorial Documents. The writing is very ornate so will be a challenge as I get used to the handwriting. My ancestor's sister was Susannah Bever and she never married. She appeared to be living alone at the cottage as her name was the only one mentioned. I rather wondered if Dinah (her older sister) eventually lived with her as her husband died in 1753 and Dinah didn't die until 1783.

I had transcribed part of a document for an individual who was unable to read this interesting two page letter and sent that off to him. The writing is from the mid 1800s and has a strong slant with poor framing of letters so quite difficult to read. I will consider doing more but it will be a "make work" task when I am not working on my own. Although I like to do paleography, my interest is actually in older documents.

We attended the Canadian documentary film - Passchendale. It was certainly all that it was said to be and more. If World War One defined us as a nation then this film defines our film industry. It was the best war film that I ever saw actually. I can remember my great uncle telling us about the trenches as he served with the CEF in France. He was only just there when he was shot in the head with shrapnel. They were never able to get it all out and every once in a while a piece would work its way to the surface of his skin. We used to be amazed that he could live with all that metal in him.

I will continue working on the Manorial Documents. I rather think the 2500 images that I brought back are going to keep me busy for a very long time.