Looking For Elizabeth ~ Nee Alexander and/or Saunders

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024: Week 44 (CHALLENGING)

My 5th great grandfather on my mother's maternal line is:

Samuel Bayes
Birth: ABT. 1778 • Thornage, Norfolk, England
Baptized: 2 Sep 1778 • Thornage, Norfolk, England
Death: ABT 1818 • Hunworth, Norfolk, , England
Buried: 21 Jul 1818 • Hunworth, Norfolk, England

His wife (my 5th great grandmother has been challenging to research.

I have her recorded in my tree as:

Elizabeth Alexander
Birth ABT 1784 • , Norfolk, England
Death JAN 1866 • Burgh, Norfolk, England, UK

On their marriage registry she is named Elizabeth Alexander.

She is also Elizabeth Alexander on 1st child Rosemond's birth registry.

I added a sister for Elizabeth, Rosemond (Rose) Alexander, guessing the witness on their marriage registry was her sister.

Searching further with this added sibling has not resulted in any more details or documents.

All later children she is listed as Elizabeth Saunders. 

One of my DNA matched cousins wonders if these were two different Elizabeths. 

Proposing that Elizabeth Saunders was a 2nd wife who was born in 1786, and the mother of the children born 1809 onward. 

If they were 2 Elizabeths we can confidently say both were married to Samuel because we have DNA matches between 5 of the children: John, Celia, Samuel, Solomon (my X4 GG), and James. 

My 4th great grandfather was the 9th, of 10 children.

In the proposed two Elizabeths theories he would have be born to Elizabeth Saunders.

Solomon Bayes
Birth 26 NOV 1815 • Hunworth, Norfolk, , England
Death 25 OCT 1882 • Northumberland, , Ontario, Canada
married to 4th great grandmother
Mary Ann Tuck
Birth 15 JAN 1823 • Sharrington, Norfolk, England
Death 28 JAN 1908 • Cramahe, Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada

This week I took a closer look at the shared DNA for all of the descendants through the 5 listed above. 

All of the matches were found to have the appropriate amount for full siblings. 

The mystery of who exactly Elizabeth Alexander/Saunders is remains a mystery.

When your reasonably exhaustive search is still happening !!! 

This is why I search - 

Cause ... 

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!

***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***

Photos:

Personal

Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/52-ancestors-in-52-weeks/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

______________________________________________________________

When 2 Lines Intersect ~ With No Obvious Connections

Branching out or focusing on your direct line?

This is a question every genealogy researcher will have, and each will make their decisions based on their own research goals.

My decision was to branch out right from the start because I honestly didn't know a lot about my side of this Bramble Bush. 

My husband's side is  pretty straight forward. 

Had my side been as easy to research as his I may have opted to just head up with no regard for going sideways. 

This week the benefits of going wide in addition to straight up became clear.

About once a week I check for any new matches to our Ancestry DNA kits.

This week I had a good sized one to grandma. 

Looking at the in common matches I found one that I had put a note in 3.5 years ago. 

In 2018 I reached out to a DNA match asking if I could look at his tree. I explained that my grandma & I matched one of the kits he managed, and grandma and my mom's sister matched the other kit he managed. His reply left us both confused. 

He let me know that Grandma & I matched his mother. 

Grandma and my aunt matched his father. 

His mother and father were not related. 

The match to his mother was super tiny for both of us.
6 cM across 1 segments, Unweighted shared DNA: 6 cM, Longest segment: 6 cM

Grandma passed the segment to my mother unchanged, who passed it to me unchanged. 

I made note that it might just be 'noise', and not a real match. 

It might be endogamy from the intermarriage patterns of the great migration. 

I promptly forgot about the strange connection to his mom.

The match to his father was a good sized match, and the shared connection was easy to place. 

His father is my 4th cousin.
The shared ancestors are:
Samuel Bayes
BIRTH 2 SEP 1778 • Thornage, Norfolk, England
DEATH 21 JUL 1818 • Hunworth, Norfolk, , England
and 
Elizabeth Alexander Saunders
BIRTH 28 OCT 1786 • Attleborough, Norfolk, England
DEATH JAN 1866 • Burgh, Norfolk, England 

After adding his line to our Bramble Bush I had branched out a little further which made adding this week's new match super easy. 

When I was done I stopped back to look at the shared DNA matches, and found another confusing match from 4.5 years ago.

In 2017 I contacted a small match for my grandmother: 22 cM across 2 segments, Unweighted shared DNA: 30 cM, Longest segment: 23 cM.

I was intrigued by her tree because she had my great grandmother's NPE name there, but the match was to my grandma & the NPE is grandpa's line. It was early in my DNA matching research so I hadn't yet found a focus on exactly who to reach out to. 

If this match showed up today I wouldn't bother reaching out.
It's just too small a match to bother with. 

BUT this was at the beginning before I decided how little was too little so I had messaged her. 

We messaged back and forth over the weekend. Then promptly gave up when we both decided there was no possible way we would ever figure out our connection. 

With the new match this week I added more collateral lines, and this match from 2017 slid straight in. 

I messaged her that we are 5th cousins X1 removed.
Our shared ancestors are :
Roger Merrill
BIRTH 1755 • West Hartford, Connecticut, USA
DEATH 1851 • Ontario, Canada
and
Chloe Ann Merry
BIRTH 1773 • Vermont, USA
DEATH 1841 • PERCY TWP,  Ontario, Canada

Fresh off the success I decided maybe I could look at the tiny match from 3.5 years ago to the mother. 

Looking at his mother's line in the tree I discovered a shared surname in England. In looking at my tree I discovered that I had done quite a bit of work on that line over the past 3.5 years, and our connection was easy to see. 

That 6 cM across 1 segments passed unchanged down through two children of 
David Mitchell
BIRTH ABOUT 1770 • England
DEATH OCTOBER 1863 • Dorset, England
and
Arabella Scotney
BIRTH FEB 1769 • Spaulding, England
DEATH 20 FEB 1859 • Framingham, Massachusetts, USA

Me through their son:
James Mitchell
BIRTH ABT 1796 • Wotton, Surrey, England
DEATH Unknown

and my match through their son:
David Mitchell
BIRTH 1 AUG 1794 • Mintern, Dorset, England
DEATH AFTER 1861 • Dorset, England

Are you confused yet?

Let me point out the not so obvious.

A 3rd great granddaughter of David & Arabella (nee Scotney) Mitchell married the 2nd great grandson of Samuel & Elizabeth (nee  Saunders) Bayes on July 24th 1925 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Their daughter is my grandmother. 

AND

A 4th great granddaughter of David & Arabella (nee Scotney) Mitchell married the 3rd great grandson of Samuel & Elizabeth (nee  Saunders) Bayes. She is the small match discovered in 2018. Their son is the manager of the DNA kit that I was messaging with. 

James and Solomon appear to have arrived in the same area of Ontario about the same time, and then James' descendants moved to Michigan, USA while Solomon's stayed in Canada. This is our Bayes connections.

My great grandmother was the first child born in Manitoba, Canada to recent immigrant parents from England in 1906. My match's great grandfather immigrated to Michigan, but appears to have had a stop in Ontario where he got married in 1886. This is our Mitchell connections.

Both families were in England prior to the immigrations noted above. Not all of the family members left England. 

What are the odds of two families intersecting at two very different times & locations without any evidence that they were connected in any way. 

This small match is my 5th cousin X2 removed via my maternal grandmother's mother & her husband is my 4th cousin X2 removed via my maternal grandmother's father. It has taken my 4.5 years to figure this out.

Current me is very pleased with past me who opted to branch out rather than head directly to the top making this confusing find clear as mud.

Pulling together the strands to weave a tapestry that tells the tale!

This is why I search - 

Cause ... 

You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!

***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***

Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

________________________________________________________________

The Great Migration of Canada ~ This Bramble Bush

   52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2021: Week 14 (GREAT)

When I thought about GREAT I immediately thought about the great grandparents that make up this Bramble Bush. 

In searching for the biggest great I started clicking through the top of our lines. I discovered I am only up to about 5th or 6th greats on most of our lines.

 When I first started searching I hit several brick walls. By adding extended family I was able to break through those early brick walls. I decided then that I would not race to the top. I would make sure I added as many family connections as I could before going higher. 

It seems I need to refocus on going higher before going any wider. 

In pondering what else I wanted to write about I stumbled upon THE GREAT MIGRATION OF CANADA, 1815-1850. 

I was intrigued to learn that over 400,000 British citizens left their homes to move to Canada.

What an adventure that must have been. They bravely set off for a land they knew nothing about. After many days at sea they traveled across a new land in search of their new home. 

Their journey resulted in this family calling itself CANADIAN. Their courage and hopes resulted in this Bramble Bush being rooted solidly in Canada.

What a gift I was given by these early immigrants who braved all to come to Canada. 

Each had a story that I do not know, but wish I could have asked before it was too late. 

I was intrigued by a group of Bayes siblings who immigrated to Canada within THE GREAT MIGRATION timeline.

Samuel & Elizabeth had 10 children.  Their children were aged 8 months to 16 when Samuel died.

7 of their children immigrated to Canada: Rosemond, John Christmas, Mary, Ann, Samuel,  Solomon, James (Joseph). One stayed in England: Elizabeth. Two I have not been able to confirm yet: Rebecca & Celia.  

Rebecca and her husband (James Hewitt) appear to have stayed in England, but their daughter was married in Canada when she was 22.

In looking at the movement from England to Canada it's clear the family members moved at different times. I haven't yet found the arrival dates for most of them.  They all ended up in the same general area. Some were married in England before coming to Canada, and some married in Canada. It appears as though not all of the members of this family immigrated to Canada, but a reasonably exhaustive search hasn't yet happened to make this conclusion. 

There are more branches of this Bramble Bush who arrived from Britain during THE GREAT MIGRATION OF CANADA.

This one family is on my maternal grandmother's paternal side.

THE BAYES FAMILY 

The Parents

Samuel Bayes
BIRTH ABT. AUG 1778 • Thornage, Norfolk, England
DEATH 21 JUL 1818 • Hunworth, Norfolk, , England
and
Elizabeth Alexander Saunders
BIRTH ABT 1784 • , Norfolk, England
DEATH JANUARY 1866 • Burgh, Norfolk, England, UK

The Children

Rosemond Bayes
BIRTH 11 SEP 1801 • Edgefield, Norfolk, England
DEATH 4 JAN 1896 • Haldimand, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada

Rebecca Bayes
BIRTH 10 FEB 1803 • Thornage, Norfolk, , England
DEATH Unknown

John Christmas Bayes
BIRTH DEC 1804 • King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England
DEATH 3 NOV 1877 • Peel, Ontario, Canada

Mary Bayes
BIRTH 6 SEP 1806 • Hunworth, Norfolk, England
DEATH 4 JAN 1896 • Haldimand, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada

Ann Bayes
BIRTH 22 JAN 1809 • Hunworth, Norfolk, England
DEATH 1852 • Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Celia Bayes
BIRTH 23 SEP 1810 • Hunworth, Norfolk, England
DEATH Unknown

Samuel Bayes
BIRTH 3 APR 1812 • Hunworth, Norfolk, , England
DEATH 20 NOV 1884 • Bidwell, Algoma, Ontario, Canada

Elizabeth Bayes
BIRTH 2 JAN 1814 • Hunworth, Norfolk, England
DEATH DEC 1878 • Holt, Aylsham, Norfolk, England

Solomon Bayes
BIRTH 26 NOV 1815 • Hunworth, Norfolk, , England
DEATH 25 OCT 1882 • Northumberland, , Ontario, Canada

James (Joseph) Bayes
BIRTH NOV 1817 • Norfolk, , England
DEATH 4 MAY 1897 • Forest, Lambton, Ont.

Solomon Bayes is my 4th great grandfather. He was 26 years old when he married 18 year old Mary in Canada. Mary was also born in England. I have not found the date of her arrival in Canada, but she immigrated with her parents and the majority of her siblings. 

Mary Ann Tuck
BIRTH 15 JAN 1823 • Sharrington, Norfolk, England
DEATH 28 JAN 1908 • Cramahe, Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada

Her parents:

James Tuck
BIRTH 19 JAN 1791 • Sharrington, Norfolk, England
DEATH 13 JAN 1881 • Cramahe Township, Northumberland, Ontario, Canada
&
Martha Bolter
BIRTH ABT 1788 • Norwich, Norfolk, England
DEATH 24 NOV 1883 • Northumberland, Ontario, Canada

I will never know the story firsthand of how my people decided to journey to Canada or how difficult their decision & journey was. 

I will always be grateful that I was born into a world where I was safe & free. Their efforts were not squandered by those who came after them.

Grateful to be Canadian!

This is why I search - 



Cause ... 





You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family you know!
















***Any errors are my own. Please send me any updates or corrections via the comments at the bottom of this blog post***




Sources:

Exodus: Movement of the People Conference, The Great Migration of Canada. Retrieved April 9th 2021 from https://www.exodus2013.co.uk/the-great-migration-of-canada/

Intriguing History, The Great Migration of Canada saw one of the biggest movements of people around the globe1. Retrieved April 9th 2021 from
https://intriguing-history.com/great-migration-of-canada/

xtimeline, 1815-1850 The Great Migration, Retrieved April 9th 2021 from
http://www.xtimeline.com/timeline/Events-leading-up-to-Canadian-Confederacy/1815-1850-The-Great-Migration-1

Links:

Amy Johnson Crow, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge
https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/

If you reference or use my blog posts in any way please

include a link to the specific blog and

credit http://somehowrelated.blogspot.com/

My blogs are ©Deborah Buchner, 2014 forward.

All rights reserved.

Please & Thank you!

________________________________________________________________