1879 land indenture

 

FamilySearch. Metcalfe, KY. 7 Oct 1879.

The record above shows John A. Hubbard and his wife Maggie entered into a land indenture with Alex Bond for $64.50 on shares in the land owned by John's mother Nancy Dowell Hubbard in October 1879. She was living on the land at the time. It looks like this was part of another transaction, where John had bought out the other shareholders in the land.

After completing the sale, John and Maggie moved from Kentucky to Saint Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri, where they appear in the 1880 US Census.

1880 US Census. Saint Joseph, MO.

Google Maps. Edmonton, KY to Saint Joseph, MO.

It seems a little odd that John would move the family to the Missouri-Kansas border in 1879, but looking at the census, John's father James W. Hubbard had relocated to Saint Joseph prior to 1870, where he had started a new family (more on that later).

I'll have more on the Hubbards and their move to Missouri, while I also continue to test the DNA theory that John A. Hubbard was the father of Mary Alice Cain.

A marriage record

 

FamilySearch. Metcalfe, KY. 1 Feb 1870.

Thanks to FamilySearch Labs text search, above is a screenshot of the marriage bond for Pleasant Flatt and William Hubbard as surety for $100, dated 1 February 1870. William was the brother of Nancy Dowell Hubbard's first husband, James W. Hubbard.

Istanbul View

Photo by Patrick Jones. Istanbul. 16 May 2015.

 

Research questions one month later

A month ago I posted the research questions I was using to drive my participation in the DNS study group. I thought it would be good to revisit my progress against those questions after the first month of the course.

For the first question, identifying the parents of Bridget, my 3rd-great-grandmother, using my Dad's DNA matches on the O'Brien line, I've isolated a group of 76 matches. At least 43 of these people actually match to the James O'Brien group of Pennsylvania O'Briens that I've been looking into. This is a small group. I suspect there may be a few more Bridget matches in the 456 matches that are part of the O'Brien/Lamon group. At the moment I'm parking this one as I've been making more progress on a few of my other research questions. I'm hopeful as we learn new skills in the study group there will be some helpful concepts that will be useful here. I also think my approach of using both MyHeritage and Ancestry matches and the autoclustering concepts will pay off as I try on the Bridget line with MyHeritage matches.

On research question two, determining the generation of connection with the Pennsylvania O'Briens, I'm re-doing the WATO tool after speaking with an Irish DNA expert through YourDNAGuide. It does look like either John O'Brien or a brother (or a mystery son by John born between 1807-1829) is the father of James O'Brien who serves as the head of the Pennsylvania branch of the tree.

For research question three, this is where I think I've made the most progress. By redirecting my search to John Hubbard, a son of the third wife of Pleasant Flatt, Nancy Dowell Hubbard, revealed a strong connection to families in Adair, Barren and Metcalfe Counties in Kentucky associated with the Hubbard, Dowell and related family lines. There's more work to do prove this definitively, but signs are much more likely there's a link here than for a Cain family link that just doesn't seem to exist in either the paper trail or via DNA.

On research question four, verifying the father of Cora Belle Medcalf on Allison's side of the tree, this one is waiting for Christmas break when I can look at her grandmother's DNA matches to the Brown line. As I'm waiting on that one, I've added a fifth research question to the list: looking at the Vasquez matches on my Mom's results and trying to identify other siblings of my 3rd-great-grandfather Gabriel Vasquez who might help us dig further into Chilean records. I feel like I'm making progress here, and there might be more to uncover as I continue grouping the Campuzano-Amado and Vasquez-Suastegui matches into different networks.

I might be able to later add a 6th research question looking into the Portillo-Bernal side of the tree, or if I try to isolate Amado matches in hopes of verifying elusive proof of the family's departure from Portugal or Spain as part of the Inquisition.

I think a separate effort all together is to try to experiment with the autoclustering of matches on MyHeritage and test AI to create Leeds Method charts that might assist with the research. That's going to need to wait until I return from travel later in November.

Orange and Yellow

 

MyHeritage clusters.

Building from Wednesday's look at the autocluster report on MyHeritage, the orange and yellow groups shown above should be considered together. Most of these people seem to be Whitley-Matthews matches, although there's a couple who overlap to the red-green cluster of Flatt and 3GGF matches I investigated earlier in the week. This isn't too surprising as all of these people connect back to the area of Barren and Metcalfe Counties in Kentucky.

Something else interesting is for most of these matches in the orange-yellow group, they only tested or uploaded their results to MyHeritage. There are a few exceptions who might have also tested at Ancestry, which allowed me to identify these people as clearly Whitley-Matthews matches. However, predominantly these matches are only on MyHeritage. This shows the value of using both platforms to identify clusters of matches.

Here's an example. One of the matches in the yellow cluster on MyHeritage is "LZ", who has 215.5 cMs in common with my Mom. That's a solid match. Putting that name into her matches on Ancestry, I see someone with the same name, but on Ancestry's results she has 246 cM in common. Ancestry shows we have a common ancestor at my great-grandparents Thomas Whitley and Elizabeth Hayden Matthews. It takes a little digging, but by looking at her tree, I can see she's a descendant of William C. Whitley, my Grandma Lois' brother.

MyHeritage has a shared DNA matches view, and if I scroll down on LZ's list, I see another Whitley match, also descending from William. He has 177 cM in common with my Mom, and thanks to his tree I can see easily where the connection is between our trees. He's not on Ancestry, so I'd only find this match by using MyHeritage's DNA tools.  

I'm continuing to see this as I look further into the light blue, dark blue and purple groups of matches in the report. Those groups appear to be on my Mom's maternal side (Campuzano, Vasquez, Amado and related matches) of Mexican ancestry. So far, a lot of these people also only seem to be on MyHeritage. There's a few that stand out who I've been able to connect to my tree as Vasquez or Campuzano descendants, so I know I'm on the right track.

It will also be interesting if this autoclustering technique results in four large Leeds Method groups, as that's a subject being covered in our DNA study group too.