Dead ends and how to progress

[WeatherwaxOn]

I wonder if anyone has any ideas of how to break through a dead end on an ancestor.

This is all the info I have on my gt-gt-grandfather, and I can't seem to make any further progress.

Born around 1838/1839 in Hertfordshire
Had a son 1875 and his name on the birth certificate, combined with his occupation tally with an entry on the 1871 census.
Is on the 1881 census with wife and son.
In 1882 his wife died and he married a relative of hers. He gives his age on the marriage certificate as 44. The address and occupation tally with census entries for the previous year.
He's on the 1891 census with his second wife.
He died in 1898. The address on the death record + occupation link to the 1891 census.

There is no record of banns or marriage to the mother of his child.
There is no record of any other children.
On the marriage certificate he cites a name for his father that I cannot match to anyone living or dead in Hertfordshire that had a son of the same name.

I've not had any DNA matches to anyone else with this family name*, despite having registered my details/interest over 2 years ago.

*Other than 2 cousins and a sibling who are of my generation.

My thought process is that either
He was illegitimate and the father's name is a red herring
His name isn't what he says it was
He was a bigamist (hence no marriage to first 'wife')
He wasn't from where he said he was from.

I can't find him on the electoral register.
There are a number of people with the same name (it's not uncommon) but so far, I've eliminated all of them by tallying census returns/marriages/births to the information I have - for example, there are several people of the same name who are on the electoral register but when I check those addresses to the census returns that I have, and the spouse I know he had, they can be eliminated.

I thought if I put this out to the hive mind, someone might have some bright ideas, and suggest something I've overlooked.

Me too - the person I met recently, with whom I have a proven ancestor link comes in at 40cM

Looking at the info I have, I think the only way forward is going to be to go through all the matches, down to the smallest cM, and then go back through them eliminating them where I can find a common ancestor that isn't on Henry's part of the family tree.
For those that I have left, I'll have to cross-check THEIR dna matches, and see if they have any names in common in their trees.
I feel this may be a rather lengthy process!

I've been looking harder at my matches, prompted by this thread. I have no strong matches at all on my maternal grandfather's side; the highest I've got is only 54cM. There are plenty of matches but they're all much weaker than that.

My mum was an only child; her father was the only one of his generation to have a child who reproduced; her grandfather was one of only 2 siblings. So I think it's simply that I have far fewer cousins on this line, until you get back to 4th cousins when there's an explosion of matches (but rarely more than 20cM, and I don't really at figures lower than that). Someone in that line went to the USA and became a Mormon, so that line has masses of family who are involved with LDS so keen to find ancestors!

So matches to Henry Chapman may well be there for you, OP; keep searching!!

20cM is potentially sufficient (yes I've done it) IF both your parents are from distinct enough areas from each other.

I've built up connection from matches down to about 20cM and then added in ones with lower cM after that.

So it is possible BUT you have to have lines that are fairly distinct from each other and don't cross areas.

I have some "fuzzy" areas of overlap in as much as Henry says he was from Hertfordshire. He's on one parents side. On the other parent's side are ancestors from 2 specific locations in Hertfordshire. However, so far, its been obvious which matches fall where.
I'm working through all thr DNA matches on Ancestry that come up on the relevant parents' side, but frustratingly, quite a lot of people have private trees, or have only 2 generations in, which isn't helpful.
He must have someone out there, somewhere, that's connected.

Yes mistakes definitely do happen.

"His marriage certificate stated his father's name was Henry and we spent years looking for a record that has a Henry as a father."

I've come across a couple of cases where a child was raised by the maternal grandparents and when they got married gave the name of their grandfather as their father.

It's unclear though whether they were actually raised as the grandparents own child or just that they didn't want to not put a name down.

Could it be that Henry was the name of the grandfather rather than the father?

"but frustratingly, quite a lot of people have private trees, or have only 2 generations in, which isn't helpful."

I've come across this quite a bit as well. There's nothing you can do about private trees (apart from getting in touch with the person concerned).

However, if somebody does have a limited tree then you can get round this by effectively doing their tree for them.

You can have multiple trees on your Ancestry account through the "Create & Manage Trees" tab. So, you'll need to start a new tree starting with this DNA match.

It doesn't necessarily have to be massive as you're only after their direct ancestors; you aren't worried at this time about siblings etc at first, you're just trying to find a direct link between one of their ancestors and somebody on your existing tree.

I do this.

A tree with half a dozen people in is actually useable. Even if there are a couple of private matches for parents. You can still work out how those people are related. It takes a little effort but it's doable.

I've been able to work out how some people with completely private trees or no trees fit in too using pro-tools and down tracing. You'd be surprised how I private it actually is once your uploaded because it's all relational and you can find the info elsewhere.

Or only have themselves and their spouse and children on a tree, all marked 'Private', of course. Drives me mad. Location and age, as on My Heritage, would at least be a start.

^Where the people (so far) have limited trees they seem to be either:
A. Created by people in the U.S and have no names at all in common with mine, nor any overlapping locations [e.g. they have P Reginald Smith III born Brooklyn in 1892 and anyone after him is Private]
B. Listing everyone as 'Private'

I'm ploughing through my LEEDS matches

"I'm ploughing through my LEEDS matches"

As I understand it, this method advocates identifying 2nd and 3rd cousins by looking at DNA matches with down to 90 cM shared DNA.

You may be missing out on a number of people by limiting it to that lower amount.

For example, my mum has very few 2nd or 3rd cousins on Ancestry. Although she does have a 2nd cousin once removed who she shares 67 cM with.

She also has any number of half 3rd cousins who live in the USA. So, they share the same great great grandmother but have different great great grandfathers. These people typically have between 56 and 24 cM.
.

With my dad, he has a lot more 2nd and 3rd cousins on Ancestry and using the LEEDS method has definitely helped me identify three people with an unexpected paternity event. Doing this definitely helped in narrowing down who the possible fathers may have been.

He does also have 3rd cousins who have 40 or 50 cM as well. Although, 40 or 50 cM can also be quite distant. He has a number of 7th and 8th cousins (who are likely Mormons) currently living in Utah that he shares between 44 and 57 cM of DNA with.

So 50 cM, could equally be a 3rd cousin or a 7th cousin from my own experience.
.

"Created by people in the U.S and have no names at all in common with mine"

Something I've found useful in that situation is to search "Public Member Trees"

If you search there for eg "P Reginald Smith III born Brooklyn in 1892" and extend it to the State and +/- 2 or 5 years then you will find other people who have that same Reginald Smith in their tree.

For some people this person will be a great uncle that there is no record of but they have that person's parents and grandparents etc going back generations.

For somebody else, that might be their great great grandfather and they will have their children but perhaps not know who his parents were.

Looking through different trees you can often piece things together.

Incidentally, this is basically how the 'Common Ancestor' feature works.

I have absolutely no idea how I'm related to about 90% of the Americans I match to. Two people who are meant to be my dad's third cousins have very detailed trees, but there is no name shared in the lists of great-great grandparents. So someone's either been unfaithful, been a step-father, or a child has been fostered somewhere along the line.

I would take what Ancestry says with a very big pinch of salt.

For example, I mentioned above about the 7th and 8th cousins that my dad has in Utah.

With a 7th cousin once removed who he shares 44 cM with, Ancestry claims that they are 3rd cousins once removed.

If that were true then the common ancestor would be her 3x great grandfather born in 1802 who emigrated to the USA sometime in the 1860s with his entire family.

Since none of them returned to the UK and none are direct ancestors of my dad then he isn't the common ancestor.

The actual common ancestor is four generations earlier than that.

My dad has several DNA matches through different children of that family that emigrated to Utah.

I've listed everyone down to 10% cM matches.
I'm cross checking to my known relatives and other matches.
Everyone is assigned a number and cross-checked to any shared matches I have with anyone else. That's helped me allocate family lines to a number of them.
Each main family line is colour-coded.
Any shared ancestors with anyone are logged in my information. I've checked those to make sure that they are correct.

Usually they aren't that closely related at all in my experience.

It owes a lot to do with small gene pools in the USA retaining the DNA you share from when they emigrated. So you have a distant relative much further back who goes to the US in a small community and that DNA section is retained.

Take the predicted relationship with a pinch of salt once you get past about 3rd cousin.

I'm only putting relationship down now where I can confirm them/work them out for myself.
I'm getting a lot of "third half-cousin" type matches coming up, but nothing to evidence this, looking at the available tree information.

I don't trust Ancestry at all even with closer cousins. People that I know are my second cousins are variously matching as third or first cousin once removed, either very high or very low cM. Even a pair of siblings matching to another known second cousin with 100+ cM difference between them, so different relationships predicted though it should be the same. I know it's just the vagaries of DNA inheritance, people inheriting different sized chunks. (Either that, or there are a lot of unfaithful women in my family.)

Check BillionGraves. So much key info on gravestones

Thankyou - I've looked and can't find anything for Henry there.
He died in an accident which warranted a coroner's inquest. I can find his death certificate but not yet found details of his burial.

In the 1890s, there weren't many church burials in cities any more because of the issue of overcrowding of the graveyards; hence many cities have big Victorian cemeteries. Have you looked to see which municipal cemetery would cover the area where Henry lived? Sadly, burials in municipal cemeteries aren't often online!

I've contacted the local archive centre to ask about burials. I wonder if he was buried close to home, or close to the accident location. There's a few miles between them.

Definitely email local cemeteries of the area he died. I have had great help from several. One even sent a photo without me asking!

Newspaper archives are also useful. Many online. Or you could check at the local archive. Sometimes they will look up for you too

I'd look for Henry's wives' graves too, he might be in with one of them.

There's not a lot in the newspaper about it - just a few instances where he's afforded a short column.

That info definitely relates to Henry, who I'm trying to trace, but it unfortunately doesn't get me any further back.

In the absence of any formal record being found of his 'marriage' to Elizabeth Barton, I can't see who he says his father is/was, or occupation there to check to his second marriage. The fact that a Mary Ann Chapman is listed at the known family address in 1901 (electoral register) implies a family connection, but there's no clue as to her age. She doesn't appear on the census at that address in the same year.

Fingers crossed the Camden archives may have some ideas.

Think creatively. Once you're back into the 19th century etc lots of people were illiterate so many mistakes on any record. So, e.g. names spelt creatively, census taker misunderstood so grandchildren down as children, blatant lies ( not wanting to be traced), returned to childhood country (Ireland 50 years after famine). You name it I've found it.