Trying to discover ancestors preceding the “brick walls” of two paternal grandparents’ illegitimate births was always going to be a challenge. Added to that was the warning from Peter Carver of LostCousins about endogamous populations: the common situation in which you share a single DNA segment with lots of people who all match each other, suggesting that any connection is likely to be a long way back. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to discover the families with whom there may be a connection. (Numbers in purple in the charts below denote missing generations).
My great grandmother Eleanor Cheshire‘s precarious upbringing and subsequent life of poverty and dubious liaisons led to the work house and even prison for neglect of her numerous offspring, most of whom died in infancy. This means that I have not identified my paternal great-grandfather yet.
I have traced Eleanor’s Cheshire ancestors as far back as Thomas Cheshire (1759-1833). He married Jane Price in 1788 and both bride and groom were recorded as of St Mary’s parish in Shrewsbury, though they lived and died in Upton Magna. Ancestry family trees suggest John Cheshire (1739-1802) and Elizabeth Powell (b.1741) as parents of Thomas. Some claim their marriage took place in St Chad Shrewsbury whereas both bride and groom were of the parish of St Peter in Worcester with no known connection to Shrewsbury. Some continue to report that Thomas Cheshire, born in 1768 to John and Elizabeth Powell went on to marry Jane Price despite the fact that he died after 14 days. John and Elizabeth are thus discounted as my 5th great grandparents. Will DNA reveal their identity?
Cheshire & Tennison in Shropshire, Edlesborough and Maryland
One of the DNA matches here is my third cousin by marriage into my maternal Wilkins family of David Cheshire, likely to be of a branch of my paternal family. Another of these matches also connects via Lucretia (Creasy) Tennison on the Halsey & Wheeler chart below.
Halsey & Wheeler in Flamstead / Cranfield
In 1577, Robert Halsey also known as Chambers married Ellen Barrett Alley aka Cooke (why the aliases?) in Flamstead. There was a double wedding when their son and daughter Robert and Ann married Ann and Thomas Wheeler of Cranfield. Another Halsey son Thomas married Elizabeth Phoebe Wheeler who was killed in an arson attack on settlers by Pequot Indians in 1649 in Southampton, Suffolk, New York. Their descendants thrived and their DNA matches mine, but where is the connection with my family?
Raymond David Wheeler, the author of English Ancestry of Thomas Halsey of Southampton, Long Island is a descendant of Thomas Wheeler of Cranfield and Ann Halsey of Flamstead.
Travels Through Time 