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. 

New Thatcher Information

For years I've been stuck on the parents of my great-grandfather Alexander M. Thatcher. It appears he was born in 1818 in Chester County, Pennsylvania. I've been researching for 24 years. Today I've finally found something useful on Ancestry. It's a census of Chester County in 1779 listing all the Thatcher men. It also has wills of Thatcher men in Pennsylvania. I'm sure not all the men had wills. I can use this information to research these men to see what sons they may have had in the county later on, who would be potential fathers or grandfathers of Alexander Thatcher. I wonder what I will find.

The Thatcher Brick Wall

It annoys me that I haven't been able to find any new information on my great-grandfather Alexander M. Thatcher (born 18 July 1818 and died 13 Jan 1880).  It doesn't help that he was working class, an employee in a paper company, who died from tuberculosis.  I decided to take advantage of resources listed at Cyndislist.com.  I couldn't access the ones from Ancestry, but I could get to the ones by Michael John Neill.  I found the Problem Solving one helpful and I decided to look at the information again. 

In my family you can't always arrive at the truth following a straight line.  Some document said that Alexander was from Chester.  Most documents said he was from Pennsylvania.  What if Chester was right but the state was wrong?  I decided to take a look at that.  It turns out that would give me several more places to look:

• Chester, Delaware, PA
• Chester, Hampden, MA 
• Chester, Middlesex,CT
• Chester, Morris, NJ
• Chester, Orange, NY
• Chester, Rockingham, NH
• Chester, Windsor, VT

I will try the New England ones first.  Alexander once lived in Hampshire County, next to Hampden Co. Middlesex County, CT, and Windsor County, VT, are along the Connecticut River, which could have brought him to Hampshire County.  Chester, NH, is a little farther away, but makes more sense than Chester in New York or New Jersey. 

My Family's Houses

My father's family came from a lovely village in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, called Housatonic. There are only a few photos from that time because my grandfather burned all he had in the 1960s.  It was easier to obtain photos of the houses they lived in than of the people. 

This is the house that Lawrence Vosburgh built on the western bank of the Housatonic outside of Vandeusenville.  Vosburgh was the stepfather of my gggreat-grandmother Sarah Livingston.  He was the third husband of her mother Rachel Boyes.  In 1850 as shown on the federal census Sarah and her husband George Winchell lived in this house with Vosburgh and his wife Rachel Boyes.

The next generation of Winchells moved to Housatonic.

This was the house that George's son and my ggreat-grandfather John L. Winchell bought with his wife Winifred O. Ashley on Hart Street in Housatonic.  I am still kicking myself for not arranging for a tour of the house when it was for sale.

This house next door belonged to John and Winifred's son Daniel H. Winchell.  Daniel was married to Alice Augusta Warfield.  They had a daughter Adelsa Roberta.  Daniel died of epilepsy when he was thirty.

Lower down on Kirk Street is the house that George and Sarah's daughter and John's sister Henrietta lived with her husband Uriah Surriner Sr.

Right around the corner from Hart Street on Main Street, Samantha Winchell, sister of John and Henrietta, lived in this house with her husband Isaac Strong.  I'll have to go see if they ever finished painting the house.

The Winchells were all carpenters at one time.  A friend showed me this photo one day and I recognized the last man on the right as my great-grandfather:

This is the only surviving document for the construction of Searles Castle in neighboring Great Barrington.  I suspect other family members were on the crew as well. 

Searles Castle today

If you go to Searles Castle, Estate of the Day, you will see more exterior and interior photos of the estate.  I have never seen photos of the interior of what my great-grandfather helped build until today.