Ancestry Results using ThruLines

 I first received my ethnic results from Ancestry. On its site for the last five generations technically I show up all white. it does not offer deep ancestry reports. However DNA results confirmed my theory that my paternal revolutionary war veteran Isaac Beman married Lydia Wix whose father Zephaniah had Native American ancestry. He was from Southern Connecticut. I was very surprised and pleased by these results.

Also on this side we finally know the Bakers were German. Gggreat-grandfather Daniel Baker's father was Rudolph Baker from Shenandoah Co, Virginia. The ancestor immigrated to Philadelphia before the revolution. 

Gggreat-grandfather Albert Galatine Gatton was the biological son of Galentine Gatton. No one researching the family thought he was. He was the eldest son and no documents have been found. It took me many years to find another man in my families, who just missed being entered into the 1880 and 1900 federal census records.

There were no matches for ggreat-grandmother Sarah Livingston. I know there are a few thousand Livingston trees on Ancestry. I wonder how many tested their DNA. Maybe they felt they didn't need to because the family is very well known in the area.

I am still in the dark about my great-great-grandfather Alexander M. Thatcher born in 1818. In Pennsylvania or Massachusetts? I still don't know. 

My maternal Wilson ancestor was different. The male line led to Fairfield, Connecticut and then Massachusetts. The biological father for Nathaniel Wilson born 1742 was Richard Wilson born 1715, not the Nathaniel many people thought it was. The immigrant ancestor arrived in Salem, MA, in 1638. That was very unexpected, but considering the very common surname, even duplicate first names Nathaniel and William, that's not unexpected. It was a big surprise to my maternal family because everyone thought we were Scottish. The Wilson trail led to Normanby le Wold, Lincolnshire, Britain. Thanks to a confusion in duplicate first names in Lincolnshire, this time Thomas and William, I don't know if the family came from Yorkshire or Fife, Scotland. At least I know Hamon Wilson is my ancestor.

On the same side I found out a distant cousin was correct about the father for my ancestor Joseph Peavler. His father was Christian Bibler. The original family name was Büehler. The family immigrated to the Germanna Colony in Virginia in the early eighteenth century. 

My ancestry was given as 31 percent German. I had no idea I had that much ancestry when I took the language in college. From my ancestry I could be related to my German professor Waltraut Deinert! She was from Hessen.

Those were the major corrections. There were a few additional parents added to trees, but I didn't get far researching them. All the other five generations of information were correct. There were a few additional parents added to trees, but I didn't get far researching them. All in all that is a pretty good confirmation of my research started before the use of records on-line. 

Catching Up in Genealogy

 I am finally catching up with genealogy developments.  Recently I had my DNA tested.  I have enjoyed genealogy over the past couple of decades and it was a natural extension of skills and my curiosity.  When DNA testing was first marketed, I couldn't afford it and I knew if I waited the technology would develop further and I would get more results.

My mother participated before I did, many years ago. She joined the National Geographic's Genome Project.. It confirmed she had deep ancestry from western and northern Europe, around the Mediterranean, Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, northern Asia, and southern Indian.  At that time any Native American DNA would show up as Asian. Her MtDNA led to a Ukrainian Jewish woman.  I am still very puzzled about that.  I haven't documented any Jewish people on either side of the family.

I came to the point that I was mostly interested in my brick walls in research. A distant cousin gave me an Ancestry autosomal DNA test.  After being laid off, my personal interests helped me reinvigorate myself. It was time to tackle the brick walls. 

Time Team Member

 

I am thrilled to say I am a member of Time Team. It started thirty years ago in Britain as an reality archaeology, based on the premise that the usual archaelogical survery takes three days.  The reason i became interested was a little bizarre.

I have lived in upstate New York all my life. I had already started researching my family in 1994 and knew I had a diverse European background. In August 2014 my mother broke her hip. She had to go to a rehabilitation center.  One beautiful day in September she wanted to go outside.  I took her out in her wheelchair.  I wonder if all wheelchairs are so cumbersome to move and manuveur. I strained my right shoulder badly.  I just gotten a job that required using a computer all day.  The only thing I did at night after that little incident was eat a frozen dinner and ice my shoulder.  I needed some entertainment.  I got a subscription to the Britbox streaming service and that's where I found Time Team.  The service had a very limited number of episodes it turned out.  I wondered if there were more.  There were, 20 years and 62 specials!

It was an easy and entertaining way to learn about my British ancestors.  There were episodes in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland as well.  It seemed like a lot of the people knew each other and it wasn't unusual for people to give each other a good-natured hard time.  At that time I never knew where the team would be in the next episode or what they would find.  Sometimes they found what they were looking for.  Sometimes they found something else entirely.  One time they found "absolutely nothing." Each episode featured at least one specialist and as the years went on, usually multiple.  I've watched them countless times since then.  It's sort of like attending a really good party, at least for me.

The episodes ended in the early 2000s, but the interest and enthusiasm continued on.  I think the pandemic helped too.  So many interesting channels started on YouTube!  A few years ago it was announced that Time Team was reforming and would be fan-funded.  There has been at least two special digs in the last two years, and information in-between.  This past spring I thought I'd join.  This is the type of group would welcome me if I showed up one day to watch and someone would go out of their way to talk to me.  Too bad I can't. I've had a couple dreams of Time Team coming for a dig in the upper Hudson Valley.  Hint, hint.