Who Do You Think You MIGHT Be Related To?

Jellybaby_1

As I was scanning the news headlines on the TV channels this morning I came across this story. I confess I still haven't read all of it, but just enough to wonder who I might really be related to!! It's just a bit of fun! Any young Brian Boru's out there?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230503-coronation-of-king-charles-iii-do-you-carry-royal-dna

Trigger Happy

It's an interesting article all right.

My 92% Irish and 8% scottish DNA would indicate solid peasant stock!

Jellybaby_1

Well, I'm still having high hopes!! 😀

Hermy

What are you hoping for Jelly? 😃

Jellybaby_1

I rather fancy the pirate Grainne O'Malley as an ancestor!! But more likely it could be someone across the water as I have Scottish and English lines so I'm not really 'local'!! 😲

Hermy

Because of my interest in music, when I was younger I did wonder if my birth parents might have had some rock star credentials but that didn't materialise unfortunately. Other than that I don't have any particular hankering about who my ancestors might be.

Furze99

It's well known that everyone in Ireland (and maybe elsewhere) has an idea that they have some ancestor who was really rich, lived in a mansion but who lost it all in one game of cards or on a horse race etc. One of those stories that seems universal!

Jellybaby_1

My 'mansion' has many rooms, problem is each room was rented and each was in a separate building, i.e. tenements!!

pinkypinky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561161#Comment_120561161

Maurice Gleeson is running a project on this. Finding Grace.

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561700#Comment_120561700

Not everyone - some people really did have wealthy ancestors.

My maternal grandmothers ancestors were all well-to-do, socially and financially, but what I find interesting is not so much that all was lost on one game of cards or a racehorse that failed to come in but rather how certain branches manged to maintain their status while for others it dwindled over time.

Jellybaby_1

Hermy, you're making me think about one of my branches, which, going by my documents and what I was told, lived in tenements, but they weren't the mud floors you see in some old photos, they had some comforts, but not wealthy, a large family (the kids go on forever!!), but also a housemaid, so although I'm told it was a tenement, there was enough lucre to pay the maid! My woolly grey cells are unmatting!!! I might be somebody after all!! 😊

One of the issues that some of my cousins didn’t realise is that France for a long time banned the use of DNA for non-medical research purposes. There is very limited French dna data in those genealogical databases.

So even though we know we’ve a lot of French connections, the family member who did the DNA tests didn’t find any and then assumed it must all be mythology, but it’s just a massive blank spot in the data.

Mick Tator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561700#Comment_120561700

That is true, often it’s a result of primogeniture and the legal device of ‘entail’. If wealthy enough to have property, it passed to the eldest son regardless of his suitability; if the land was held on a ‘lease for lives’ it too usually went to the eldest son. Daughters ‘married out’ and younger sons had to leave and start afresh, taking on a new career or leasing another farm – hence the reason for high demand for land, pushing up rents and often causing subdivision. An Irish fuel keg ignited by the Famine.

I have such a story in a collateral branch, not my direct line (I’m descended from an earlier generation’s (broke) younger son). An Nth  cousin X removed was a younger son and on the death of his father his older brother inherited but he got a reasonable legacy. He decided that it was not sufficient for his needs and rather than eke it out he would try out his ‘winning strategy’ formula in Monte Carlo. The strategy failed, he lost the lot at the tables. He went on to ‘nearly’ make two fortunes; one went down on the Titanic, the other was a property play, bad cashflow caused a couple of missed repayments, was foreclosed by a bank and within a couple of years it was sold for millions. He died ever optimistic, in relative penury, and mired in several lawsuits. Pinky is aware of him.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120584080#Comment_120584080

Yeah, all sorts of variations on the theme to be found! We love the idea that we just might have been wealthy or famous once. An uncle of mine spent his retirement years digging up every reference he could find to family of same and related name - long before internet. From looking through the clippings he left, he was clearly taken with any accounts of property and wealth, stories of a castle that sank in a bog and another lost playing cards.

Trouble is, it can be hard to discount such stories and they often have basis in something that happened, even if the details were more mundane.

pinkypinky

When my Dad was a child he was in a church with his aunt. She pointed to a plaque on the wall and said we were related to those people but she presumed we'd drank our money. I've spent a long time trying to prove it.

She was not a woman who made things up or embellished.

The people on the plaque had the same surname, occupation and religion as her maternal grandparents.

I've traced both families very widely and haven't found any living descendants who might take a DNA test to look at the theory.

Paper records don't give anything to go on.

There's also no evidence of alcohol issues in that family!

Frustrating.

Waitsian

Barack Obama is a cousin of mine, and not on the Irish side! His mother's English lineage. We share 8x great grandparents.

The 44th President of the United States and I share 8x great grandparents through his mother's paternal lineage and my father's maternal lineage. So we're cousins! Ha!

Barack's lineage follows this path: Barack Obama - (mother) Ann Dunham - (g'father) Stanley Armour Dunham - (1x great) Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham - (2x great) Jacob William Dunham - (3x great) Jacob Mackey Dunham - (4x great) Jacob Dunham - (5x great) Samuel Dunham - (6x great) Jonathan Dunham - (7x great) Benjamin Dunham - (8x great-grandparents) Jonathan Dunham alias Singletary & Mary Bloomfield

My lineage: Myself - (father) Michael - (g'mother) Hammill - (1x great) Samuel Hammill - (2x great) Sarah Pettit Gage - (3x great) Catherine Pettit - (4x great) Mary Smith - (5x great) John Smith - (6x great) Benjamin Smith - (7x great) Esther Dunham - (8x great-grandparents) Jonathan Dunham alias Singletary & Mary Bloomfield

So Barack's 7x great-grandfather Benjamin and my 7x great-grandmother Esther were siblings.

http://jonathandunhamhouse.org

Waitsian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120585692#Comment_120585692

I grew up in a Canadian city and my paternal grandmother was always proudly boasting that we played in a park named after our ancestors. At the time we weren't overly impressed, but it turns out she was correct. Gage Park in Hamilton, Ontario. Kinda cool.

kildarejohn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561700#Comment_120561700

The story in my family was that a priest friend of the family, fearing that we might be corrupted by wealth, put a curse/blessing on our branch of the family that we would be poor for 3 generations. So I guess we will get to heaven quicker than the wealthier relations!

Hermy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120568885#Comment_120568885

That's a really stupid comment - I don't know all of my granny's ancestors!

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120589667#Comment_120589667

That's a great Irish twist on the theme alright and of course along the lines of don't worry about being poor in this life as you'll inherit the kingdom of heaven when you move on.. oh and your parish contributions are overdue :)

The Mayo GAA curse much the same I guess - a good excuse when you keep losing. Though the ref has helped a few times to ensure this the case.

Waitsian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120561700#Comment_120561700

I love this comment! Growing up I heard all kinds of stories and anecdotes of family history, as I'm sure we all do. One ancestor (Armagh) was training to be a priest but eloped on horseback (unproven); another (also Armagh) left for the USA and sold horses to the Union Army during the civil war (true!). Then there's the story of the woman who left during the Great Hunger (Kerry) with her only surviving child, a young boy (the timeline is factual but she had five children with her, her only boy with her being a young adult); and then my favourite which brings me back to your post. The story goes that my grandmother's father lost his fortune gambling. As it turns out absolutely not true. He was a hotel owner and horse trainer, who later in life became president of a jockey club and superintendent of a racetrack (in Ontario) but he didn't lose the hotel or property gambling. Tall stories eh? A quick story on those lines...

When I started on this journey about 20 years ago I was obsessed with my paternal name, a mistake a lot of people make. Has anyone else seen the live performance by Stephen Fry in Sydney Opera House? In it he talks about how every name in your family tree is just as important as the name you carry, without every link in the chain we wouldn't be here. That struck a chord with me. But anyway back to my first forays into genealogy. I wanted to find all I could about this clan that I knew originated in Sligo. I found out that one man had carried out extensive research and published a pamphlet on the family history. I was living in Dundalk at the time and lo and behold there was a copy in the reference section of the town's library. So I hurried upstairs to be met by a man who I knew by sight and reputation as a very well regarded heritage officer but with whom I'd never spoken. He was sitting at his desk and I approached and asked him for help finding the pamphlet. "Sure" he said, jumping up "follow me." Halfway down the shelf unit wherein the book was located he asked, over his shoulder "Is that your surname? Are you researching your family history?" "I am actually" I replied. He stopped suddenly, turned fully 180 degrees and pointing his finger at me said, quite sharply albeit with a smile followed by a laugh "it's all lies you know!?" To say I was taken aback is an understatement. So anyway we found said pamphlet, I sat to read it and take notes and he left me. About half hour later he passed me and asked "how you getting on?" "Grand" says I "it's very interesting." "Listen" says he "I think I took you unawares earlier. I don't want to put you off your family research but word of warning. You'll no doubt talk to parents, and aunts and uncles and even grandparents and that's great. But you'll hear a lot of myths, lies, conjecture and tall stories. Take them all with a pinch of salt. Believe nothing until you can prove or disprove it. People embellish and flat out lie for all kinds of reasons; other times tales get twisted in the telling over generations and you'll maybe find a kernel of truth in those stories." Those words have stayed with me ever since and boy was he right!

Jellybaby_1

Oh yes, lies, lies, and more lies. I've an elderly relative who I have found out in several lies, but among those lies I did find a truth of a great-aunt who I had never known existed, but she continued to lie about her full knowledge, which a few years later she unfolded by accident, forgetting that she had lied in the first place. Some old folk can be sly and sneaky!!

donnachadelong

I might be related to Thomas J. Kelly, who led the IRB during the Fenian Uprising of 1867. It's the most frustrating research brick wall I have. Family stories say that my great-great-great-grandmother was a cousin of Kelly's - she was Eliza Kelly from Galway. I am related to the revolution Boland family who were her children and grandchildren, including Harry Boland (my great-granduncle).

A lot of books have mentioned the family story of the link to Thomas Kelly, but I still have not been able to verify or falsify it.

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120887744#Comment_120887744

That would be a very interesting connection if you can crack it. 1867 is not that far back really so I hope you get to find out. Silly question, did you check church records yet?

donnachadelong

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120887901#Comment_120887901

1867 isn't, but they were both adults at that stage and born before Irish birth certs were issued (1864). To confirm the relationship, I'd need to find my Eliza's baptism cert - difficult as Galway is full of Kellys (and her father's name on her marriage cert is the very common James Kelly - 128 listed in the reconstructed 1821 census). Plus I'd need to find the common grandparent - meaning her father's baptism cert at the end of the 18th century as well as Thomas J's father's cert. I don't know who Eliza's mother was, because marriage certs don't include the mother, and she could easily have been a Kelly (Galway again), so I'd need her father's baptism cert (and her mother's mother, just in case there was another Kelly involved there). So, it's really complicated.

And, sadly, most of the early church documents that haven't already been scanned are long gone. Damp church basements.

donnachadelong

Thomas J. Kelly's father, very helpfully, was called Patrick!

pinkypinky

I had a client who was descended from a sibling of that Thomas Kelly. Could you go at it the other way and work on his tree - expand out the siblings, etc and trace forward?

srmf5

Y-DNA testing has linked my dad to Irish nobility. However, I don't know if the last noble ancestor with any sort of status lived in the 1700s or 1200s. It would be nice to be able to know when we became poor peasants by paper trail but good luck with that.

Mick Tator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120936214#Comment_120936214

Regardless of the era the ‘falloff’ from nobility usually starts with a younger son, who inherits no ‘fixed assets’ and if lucky would be paid an allowance during his lifetime or be bought a commission in the army. Then his son(s) would inherit even less, and so on down the generations, each usually becoming poorer. That happened to most of my ancestry, Protestants when they arrived in Ireland, but within a few generations younger sons – who generally had nothing - often married a Catholic and converted. By the 1800s there were several branches of them, RC, and either small tenant farmers, cottiers or labourers. 

 Irish nobility (particularly RC) is slightly different, as various wars and rebellions threw them onto the heap. For example, all the senior branches of the O’Sullivans lost their lands to Sir William Petty in the Cromwellian Settlement, (and the grant was reconfirmed to his grandson). Some of them survived in Ireland in much reduced circumstances, often holding land from Petty heirs and operating as middlemen or agents or both. Someone (maybe Smith in his History of Kerry? Or Windele?)  describes the last senior member living in a squalid peasant cottage, holding onto a mouldering pile of family manuscripts, deeds, pedigrees, etc. many of them written on vellum.

srmf5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120938771#Comment_120938771

In the 1700s, Denis O'Conor and his family lived as landless peasants in a “bahaun” (peasants’ cottage) in Kilmactranny Co. Sligo where he sold his services as a ploughman for a shilling a day. He managed to improve his situation but situations could change very quickly.

Any bit of wealth going back in the family came from relatives. My great grandfather's sister was a millionaire in the US and a great grandmother's brother owned lots of hotels in Britain. Neither had any children. No sign of that money now unfortunately!