Another AncestryDNA Query - Interpreting Ethnicity Estimate

[rich23434565]

Hi everyone -

I recently had my mum take an Ancestry DNA test. I've traced most of her family tree back to the mid-18th century at least and almost everyone came from either rural Gloucestershire, Hampshire or Sussex.

There was one obvious exception and that was her greatx2 grandmother on her mother's side. The gtx2 grandmother was called Isabella Mealy. She was born on the island of St Helena in 1824 but wasn't baptised until Oct 1826. The parish register records her birth and baptism as 'the daughter of John Mealy, St Helena Rgt, and Mary his wife'.

John Mealy married Mary Bray in June 1826 on St Helena, two years after Isabella [and her sister, Eleanor] was born so I've no idea if John Mealy was her biological father. I've always assumed that he was, that he had two children with Mary Bray prior to their marriage, but that the children weren't baptised until after the marriage.

When Mary Bray got married she is referred to in the parish register as "free". Many other women are referred to as "spinster" or "widow", and I'd been told by St Helena researchers that "free" was often used to indicate women who were non-slaves but of non-European origin.

When John Mealy joined up with the East India Company's St Helena Regiment in 1813, he said that he came from Ireland, which made sense as apparently Mealy is an Irish surname, derived from O'Malley.

Apart from the fact that John Mealy and Mary Bray had a son on St Helena and that the family eventually moved back to Ireland, I know almost nothing else about them. So I hoped that the Ancestry DNA test would offer some new ideas.

I expected the results to show something like 95% 'English' with some Irish and possibly something from a non-European source [i.e. Mary Bray]. The reason I got my mum tested rather than me is because she's closer, genetically, to the people on St Helena and I'm of Indian descent via my father and didn't want that to cloud any non-European result.

The ethnicity estimate identified:

77% England [with genetic communities in Gloucestershire and Sussex, as expected]

12% [North East] Scotland [range between 0%-15%]
6% Germanic Europe [range between 0%-26%]
5% [Western] Wales [range between 0%-10%]

I've not found anyone on my mum's side of the tree from Germany, Scotland or Wales. Almost everyone has come from Gloucestershire, Sussex or Hampshire apart from this couple on St Helena.

I know the ethnicity estimates get a bad press, and seem to be regarded as worthless, but is there anything I can take away from these results? Would non-European DNA from a gtx3 grandmother even show up? Can the lack of Irish dna be taken as evidence that John Mealy wasn't the father at all?

Thanks for reading   

[Flemming]

Can the lack of Irish dna be taken as evidence that John Mealy wasn't the father at all?

Or maybe he was the father but not Irish himself. Does the EIC's record say John 'came' from Ireland (i.e. last residence, enlisted there) or was born there? Even if he was born there, it's possible that one of his parents was Irish but not both of them.

Do you know which part of Ireland they returned to and the date of this?

As for Ancestry's ethnicity results, the blog below may confuse and/or amuse.

https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/blog/why-your-latest-results-could-include-more-scotland-in-your-ethnicity-estimates

[rich23434565]

Thank you for the reply.

AFAIR, it said he was born in Ireland but I'll have to dig out my notes and check. I think they all probably returned to southern Ireland. The last thing I hear of them on St Helena is a son being baptised in Aug 1827. The family then disappears completely until one of the daughters, my gtx2 grandmother, gets married in Cork in 1853 with a John Mealy as a witness [either the father or the brother]. And that's it.

Given the poor state of the Irish records, I'm not hopeful that I'll ever discover anything else about the Mealy family, or who Mary Bray was or what she was doing on St Helena.

The blog post was more confusing than anything. I just have difficulty believing the results are accurate when there's no trace of anyone from NE Scotland, W Wales or 'Germanic Europe' in my mum's known ancestry. I was thinking of trying another DNA testing company but I think that way lies madness.

I'll just have to draw a line under it.

Rich 

[acorngen]

Rich if your mum is a direct descendent of the person you mention then you can rest assured there is no evidence to suggest she was anything but the above.  As you allude to the genetic location info is about as accurate as a family legend.  In fact I was reading recently where one person sent his DNA Sample to three separate companies and obtained 3 different replies.  This was expected as each company uses different datasets to attain their results.  However he repeated the test with Ancestry and the second result when it returned showed a completely different ethnicity claims. 

Celtic genes would not bevery disimilar anyway to Scots as there are suggestions that Scots are in fact Irish emmigrants. 

From what you have said (and because I am not a fan of DNA within genealogy) I would err on the side of saying that John was NOT the father but claimed so on the Baptism to offer some legitimacy to the children.  Was John on ships with the East India Company?  If so have you traced the ships and found when they were in St Helena Port?  If so was he on St Helena 9 months or so prior to the birth of each child?  Again this doesnt prove beyond doubt because all births can be shorter than 40 weeks. 

Do you have a male directly descended from John who could also take the test then compare the two samples?  I am assuming not. 

[Flemming]

Have you seen the marriage for Mary Ann Mealy to James Williamson on 2 Dec 1852 Cork? The entry has the same address as for Isabella’s marriage (Broad Lane) and same father and witness details. Age is given as 19 years old which would mean born 1832/3. If Mary Ann is Isabella’s sister, and there’s no record of her birth in St Helena, perhaps the family were back in Eire by the time she was born (or she was born somewhere else altogether).

There’s also a death record for John Mealy 10.9.1875 Curtis Street, Cork - a married pensioner, age 60 years old, born 1814/5. This would make him too young to be John senior and too old to be John junior, but ‘John Mealy - pensioner - Cork’ does make you wonder if he’s some relation to the father/witness recorded on the marriage entries.

The informant for this death was the coroner which suggests an inquest was held. The National Archives website says:

…some 19th century coroners’ records dating mainly from the 1880s are held in the NAI as are the Official Papers which include summary coroners’ returns, giving name of deceased, date of inquest and cause of death etc. Such data survives for most Irish counties between 1835 and 1837 and for the years 1857, 1873, 1875, 1876 and 1878 with less extensive returns from 1858 to 1863.

It may be worth emailing to see if they have a report for John and if it gives any further information about him. Also worth posting on the Cork board of RootsChat to see if anyone can access a write-up in the local newspapers for the time - they often have more information than formal records.

[Flemming]

Isabella Mealy married Bartholomew Corcoran 14.4.1815 Cork - could this be who your ancestor was named after?

[rich23434565]

I'm not sure now that he was the father either. I'd assumed he was just because there wasn't really any evidence to the contrary.

Eleanor was born in July 1822 on the island followed by Isabella in August 1824. The marriage took place in Jamestown on 19 June 1826 and the children were then baptised together on 19 October the same year. Other baptisms took place on the island between 1822 and 1826 so it's not as though they couldn't have been baptised because of a lack of anyone to officiate [which apparently happened at other times on St Helena].

I'd imagined a scenario in which John Mealy had these two children with Mary Bray but, for whatever reason, they never actually married until 1826. But again, there are records of other marriages taking place between 1822 and 1826. If he was the father then there's a reason why they didn't marry earlier. Maybe she was already married, but then she's not referred to as a 'widow' when she married John Mealy, and there's no record of anyone being buried who could've been a first husband.

John Mealy enlisted with the East India Company's St Helena Regiment in London in February 1813 and arrived at the island in May the same year. So he was there from 1813 until he was discharged on 25 April 1829, and he received his first pension payment a few months later. The family then got on board a ship and presumably sailed back to southern Ireland. He was on St Helena for 16 years, more than enough time to be the father of Isabella and Eleanor. But maybe the real father was Scottish, which would account for the DNA results.

My mum's got a cousin, the son of her aunt, who is also directly descended from Mealy/Bray. His DNA test showed 2% Irish and nothing from outside Europe either.

I guess I'm just a bit disappointed that the DNA test didn't resolve anything but it was always going to be a long-shot.

From what you have said (and because I am not a fan of DNA within genealogy) I would err on the side of saying that John was NOT the father but claimed so on the Baptism to offer some legitimacy to the children.  Was John on ships with the East India Company?  If so have you traced the ships and found when they were in St Helena Port?  If so was he on St Helena 9 months or so prior to the birth of each child?  Again this doesnt prove beyond doubt because all births can be shorter than 40 weeks. 

Do you have a male directly descended from John who could also take the test then compare the two samples?  I am assuming not.

[rich23434565]

Thank you for looking at the records Funnily enough, after starting this thread and looked at the Irish Genealogy website and found this evidence of a previously-unknown daughter! Yes, definitely the same family and Mary Ann was likely to have been born back in Ireland. I wonder how many other children they had of whom there's now no evidence at all. I've tried looking for some descendants of this marriage but haven't had any luck yet as civil registration in Ireland for births just starts a bit too late.

The death record is really interesting. As you said, it's too young to be John Mealy snr and too old to be the son, but ages aren't the most reliable sources of information anyway. I'll definitely follow it up!

Have you seen the marriage for Mary Ann Mealy to James Williamson on 2 Dec 1852 Cork? The entry has the same address as for Isabella’s marriage (Broad Lane) and same father and witness details. Age is given as 19 years old which would mean born 1832/3. If Mary Ann is Isabella’s sister, and there’s no record of her birth in St Helena, perhaps the family were back in Eire by the time she was born (or she was born somewhere else altogether).

There’s also a death record for John Mealy 10.9.1875 Curtis Street, Cork - a married pensioner, age 60 years old, born 1814/5. This would make him too young to be John senior and too old to be John junior, but ‘John Mealy - pensioner - Cork’ does make you wonder if he’s some relation to the father/witness recorded on the marriage entries.

The informant for this death was the coroner which suggests an inquest was held. The National Archives website says:

…some 19th century coroners’ records dating mainly from the 1880s are held in the NAI as are the Official Papers which include summary coroners’ returns, giving name of deceased, date of inquest and cause of death etc. Such data survives for most Irish counties between 1835 and 1837 and for the years 1857, 1873, 1875, 1876 and 1878 with less extensive returns from 1858 to 1863.

It may be worth emailing to see if they have a report for John and if it gives any further information about him. Also worth posting on the Cork board of RootsChat to see if anyone can access a write-up in the local newspapers for the time - they often have more information than formal records.

[rich23434565]

This I hadn't found before. It's odd, as Isabella Mealy is such an unusual name. Google only returns 173 results for the entirety of the internet. It's not far-fetched to imagine her as John Mealy's sister, for example, or a remarriage of his mother.

Isabella Mealy married Bartholomew Corcoran 14.4.1815 Cork - could this be who your ancestor was named after?