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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: JillyNutton on Sunday 04 February 24 19:23 GMT (UK)
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Hi
We have a mystery we can’t solve - we think our paternal GT grandfather wasn’t our biological gt grandfather?
My sister and I have had our our trees and DNA test results on Ancestry.co.uk for many years but we have no matches with anyone from our paternal great grandad’s line. His name was John Michael Robinson Lewis b. 1865 in Gloucester, UK and he was married to Annie Lucretia Howells who also used the maiden name Eskins.
I have matches with their children’s descendants and matches with Annie’s ancestor’s descendants but nothing from the John’s ancestors descendants.
A few years ago, I was contacted by a descendant of John’s ancestors to ask why I have him in my tree when we weren’t connected by DNA - and it started me thinking.
I have colour coded all of my DNA into family lines - not one Lewis connection other than from my grandmother’s siblings descendants.
My grandmother was the 7th out 8 children to John and Annie. They appear to have separated shortly after their 8th child and she moved in with another chap called Harold Nind and had a further 8 children with him. I have DNA matches their descendants.
Could it be that John M R Lewis wasn’t our biological great grandad? Could it be that he is but my sister and I don’t have much of his ancestors DNA?
Any advice on how we can investigate further would be most welcome!
Thanks
Jill
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I think it may be a valid theory that the reason Mr. Lewis moved out was the discovery of an illicit affair that later resulted in a marriage.
Have you been able to find the whereabouts of the Lewis family in census takings? Maybe look at those again and see whether Mr. Nind was living in the area.. it could be that child #7 and #8 were not Lewis but Nind children. And yes, that would obviously include your grandmother :-\
If you and your sister don't share any DNA with the Lewis family, this seems to be a plausible explanation. If your grandmother's presumed younger full sibling has any descendants, have they taken a DNA test? If not, that would certainly shed more light on the matter.
TD
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I see Harold Nind & Annie living in Tewkesbury in 1911 with their 6 children, 1 child having died, married 12 years. John Lewis and daughter Clara Winifred are then boarders in NE Leicester. John says he's still (or again?) married. Do you know what happened to the other Lewis children?
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Is the contact who queried your inclusion of him in your tree a direct descendant of JMRL?
It is odd that as your Grandmother was the 7th out of 8 and then they both may well be HN’s.
ie if say these matches are Second Cousins then the cM should be about 230cM and if they are 1/2 Second Cousins then the DNA shared would be about 120cM
Descendants of the children 1 to 6 inclusive of JMRL and your Great Grandmother are probably 1/2 xCousins and their cM probably reflects this.
Then cM values of your matches and their generational distances may well help us.
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It appears Harold & Annie weren't married, as John Lewis remarried Rebecca Smart the very year Annie died (1918). So John was truthful when stating 'married' in 1911. Found Harold & Annie in 1901 with2 kids of their own and 6 Lewis children, but I'm assuming you have all that.
Too bad most of the goings-on fall right between two census takings, 1891 and 1901.
Btw, apologies for the blunt manner in which I proposed the 'illicit affair'. It's one of my less charming character traits :-\
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Thanks for getting back to me.
My grandmother, Olive May Lewis was born in Gloucester in 1895 but the family appeared to have moved to Tewksbury shortly after. Harold Nind lived in the Tewksbury area.
John MR Lewis had been a printer for many years in Gloucester but strangely when they moved to Tewkesbury, he became the landlord of the Oddfellows Arms. My grandmother’s younger brother, Archibald was born in 1927 and they all moved to Leicester shortly after.
In the 1901 census - Annie is living back in Tewkesbury with Harold Nind with a new baby, Reginald, my grandmother and some of her siblings. John MR Lewis is living in lodgings in Leicester and is working back as a printer.
I discovered a letter from Annie to the war office in Harold Nind’s WW1 service records, she said her marriage to John MR was proved void by her solicitor - not sure what this meant. Annie didn’t actually marry Harold until 1915 and her marital status is listed at spinster, although I have a marriage certificate for Annie and John MR in 1886.
Even more odd, my grandmother listed John MR as being deceased when she married my grandad in 1918 - even though he wasn’t dead and she’d been staying with him in Leicester. My grandmother met my grandfather in Leicester.
So it seems there were definitely secrets in the family.
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Annie died of Spanish flu at then end of WW1 and shortly after John MR married her landlady - Rebecca Smart.
All of the Lewis children stayed in contact with both parents - seemingly living/spending time with both John MR and Annie.
Also in Annie’s letter to the war office she says she was fostered with Harold’s family when a child and used the surname Nind. Interestingly she also used the surname Eskins as well as Howells - her mum wasn’t married when she was born, but her father was Eskins.
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Ah, just noticed something which may prove my theory about the two youngest Lewis children actually being fathered by Harold..
Archibald is listed as Nind in the 1901 census but was baptized Archibald Barnett Lewis as John & Annie's son on 6 Aug 1897 in Tewksbury. In contrast, the older children are listed as 'Lewis'. It's possible Annie wasn't sure about your grandmother's parentage, but I think your DNA results indicate she was fathered by Harold.
I think the Lewis household was not a happy place in the latter years of the 19th Century.
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My grandmother, Olive May Lewis was born in Gloucester in 1895 but the family appeared to have moved to Tewksbury shortly after. Harold Nind lived in the Tewksbury area.
Your grandmother may have been born in Gloucester but she may possibly have been conceived in Tewksbury. In the 1901 census her older sister Clara is listed as being born in Tewksbury, so the family did live there before.
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I agree - obviously the marriage was going a bit pear shaped. Interestingly - I wonder where the Barnet came as in Barnet Lewis came from? Perhaps there is a Barnet connection?
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I think Clara’s birth place on the 1901 census is incorrect as her birth was registered in Gloucester. But if Annie was fostered by the Nind family, she may have been visiting them all through her marriage.
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When exactly was she fostered? Because if I've found the correct person - Annie Eskins b.1868 Redmarley - then in 1871 and 1881 she's with her parents William & Ann in Worcestershire, a good 15mi from Tewkesbury. Unless the Nind family didn't live there at the time. And did Annie experience a 'Freudian slip of the tongue' when stating Clara was born in Tewkesbury? ;)
Interestingly, there's an Annie Lucretia Howells born 1903. Relative? She died in Wales in 1978.
Anyway, I think DNA will definitely provide the answer here. As Biggles50 said, the clue lies within the amount of centimorgans (cM) you and your sister share with matches. If your grandmother was fathered by Harold Nind, your shared DNA with Nind-Eskins descendants should be about 2x the amount you share with Lewis-Eskins descendants. Theoretically speaking.
In the end, DNA will uncover any family secret.
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I take it you know Olive Lewis' exact DOB. You can work out round about when she was conceived then, this may help with the timeline.
While typing I found a Ancestry tree listing her DOB as 20 May 1895, so she was conceived around August 1894.
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I’ve 1 descendent match with my grandmothers’s Lewis sibling’s descendants - it’s her eldest brother’s great granddaughter with 51cm.
The closest I have from her Nind siblings is her sister’s grandson at 106cm and her brother’s great grandson at 46cm.
So I suspect that neither John MR Lewis or Harold Nind were my grandmother’s biological father?
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Interestingly enough I have a similar situation, but reversed. My 2nd gr. grandfather had children by two women, and I have numerous matches with descendants of both full and half siblings of my gr.grandfather. And the DNA distribution doesn't quite follow theoretical predictions, which is why I said "in theory" when stating matched DNA with descendants of your grandmother's full siblings should be twice that of her half siblings. It's literally the luck of the draw, i.e. how much and which bit of DNA got passed to one of the children, which bit they passed on, etc. So, also in theory (and reality) half sibs could've passed on more to descendants than full sibs. And the only way to see whether great-grandfather passed on a segment or whether it's from great-grandmother is to assign each segment to the correct individual, a.k.a. DNA painting.
So basically you'd need to analyze each match with a tool to see which great-grandfather passed on DNA to you. Unfortunately Ancestry doesn't provide chromosome information. It does, however, tell you which parents supplied possible bits of i.e. Welsh, Irish, etc. That would be the only current way to narrow down the 'suspect'.
Enclosed is a chart with the DNA distribution within my own family, it should give you some insight. If you right-click on the image and select 'open in new tab' you can see the whole picture.
TD
(EDIT re-uploaded chart with years of birth added)
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As you can see in the chart, 2x.gr.grandfather seems to have passed on more of his DNA to the children in the blue relationship, my gr. grandfather's half siblings, than the children in the green relationship, the full siblings.
Naturally I share more DNA with descendants of my grandfather's siblings.
(EDIT - Maybe I should add the birth years to the siblings and re-upload. Done!)
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Looks fascinating, I have DNA Painter now and have downloaded my DNA to Gedmatch and MyHeritage - so can do the beakdown. Thank you so much of your help!
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Ah, the chromosome browser at MH should definitely help if you also get more matches there! And GedMatch can be helpful as well.
Do please let us know if and when you've discovered who your actual gr.grandfather is ;)
Good luck!
TD
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Will do, thank you so much for your help :-)
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The previous child to Olive, who was Henry Lewis, was born October 1893, and Olive in May 1895, so it seems their parents split up inbetween say early 1893 and 1895, if Olive may not have been John's blood daughter.
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hi, just checking in to see how you have done ;D
wonder where our connection comes from ?
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I wonder where the Barnet came as in Barnet Lewis came from? Perhaps there is a Barnet connection?
Overlooked this, but yes! Except not on the Lewis but the Eskins-Howells side.
Annie's mother Anne Eskins, then 40 years old, a widow, father Richard Watkins, bailiff married James Barnett, 60 years old, widower, on 15 April 1894. Witnesses John Lewis and Anne Lewis.
Apparently Archibald was named for his step-grandfather. Also, it seems John & Annie were still together then.
As for Anne's father, the 'bailiff'.. he wasn't mentioned on the marriage certificate with William Eskins, nor on her sister Sarah's baptism certificate in 1848. As a matter of fact, both girls and their mother Mary Ann Howells (bapt. 11 Jan 1829 Redmarley, dau. of George & Catherine Howells) were living with Mary Ann's sister Sarah and her husband Benjamin Hughes in Redmarley during the 1851 census. Both girls were still there in 1861, but Mary Ann has disappeared..
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@fallingonabruise
I think she's currently getting stuck in DNA Painter and MH's chromosome browser ;)
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hi, just checking in to see how you have done ;D
wonder where our connection comes from ?
Hi Fallingonabruise - I think it’s on the Howells side but haven’t got to the bottom of it yet :-)
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The previous child to Olive, who was Henry Lewis, was born October 1893, and Olive in May 1895, so it seems their parents split up inbetween say early 1893 and 1895, if Olive may not have been John's blood daughter.
I don’t think John MR Lewis and Annie didn’t split up until after 1897 and their move to Leicester. I understand from a Nind descendant that Annie came back from Leicester and Harold Nind met her from the station in a cart.
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I wonder where the Barnet came as in Barnet Lewis came from? Perhaps there is a Barnet connection?
Overlooked this, but yes! Except not on the Lewis but the Eskins-Howells side.
Annie's mother Anne Eskins, then 40 years old, a widow, father Richard Watkins, bailiff married James Barnett, 60 years old, widower, on 15 April 1894. Witnesses John Lewis and Anne Lewis.
Apparently Archibald was named for his step-grandfather. Also, it seems John & Annie were still together then.
As for Anne's father, the 'bailiff'.. he wasn't mentioned on the marriage certificate with William Eskins, nor on her sister Sarah's baptism certificate in 1848. As a matter of fact, both girls and their mother Mary Ann Howells (bapt. 11 Jan 1829 Redmarley, dau. of George & Catherine Howells) were living with Mary Ann's sister Sarah and her husband Benjamin Hughes in Redmarley during the 1851 census. Both girls were still there in 1861, but Mary Ann has disappeared..
Yes - I remember seeing that. I wonder what happened to her?
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Cm shares can be a bit misleading, I have a half sister that I target tested recently, we have several shared matches that are high to one of us and low to the other but there is no way to guess prior to checking both sets of results. Oddly it's rare to find that we have matches around the same amounts.
I'm trying to work one out right now that is just 26cM to me suggested 4-6 cousin but 115cM to my half sister and suggested as a 2-3c. In reality I suspect the relationship will be a half cousin of some sort to both of us anywhere between h1c2r through to h3c1r.
The match has no tree and could be using her married name as a username, there is no birth record in her username in England/Wales and no clues on her profile. Typically the message I sent has been read but no reply which seems to be a talent I have developed (and perfected), since my DNA results appeared.
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I have a lot to learn about DNA - it’s going to be my retirement task :-)
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A little bit of light reading for you. ;D
Start with Blaine Bettinger’s to get the basics, Holton’s is more technical as it is probably the defacto standard.
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Great - thank you!
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Jilly
See this thread.
You will still be able to sign up for the free course, just ignore its attempts to get you to pay.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=879823.0
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Jilly
See this thread.
You will still be able to sign up for the free course, just ignore its attempts to get you to pay.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=879823.0
Thanks Biggles will have a look. I was looking at the Genalogy courses - it’s very expensive to become an accredited genealogist isn’t it!