An overlap in journeys

AncestryDNA. 

Earlier in the month I had a post on my Dad's Ancestral Journeys showing Central Ireland. Above is an image from a portion of my Mom's Ancestral Journeys showing an overlap in Kentucky. In particular I'm looking at Barren to Adair and Upper Cumberland County, Kentucky Settlers; Eastern Pennyroyal Settlers; Upper Cumberland Plateau Settlers; and Southern Midwestern Settlers.

There's a big group of family lines who settled in these areas, but for the current research I'm looking at the Free family. The paper trail shows the family moving to Adair County, Kentucky in 1819, and in tax and land records in Adair, Barren, Metcalfe and Russell Counties. Some related lines were also in Cumberland County, Kentucky.

Mid-month Progress

I don't usually have a mid-month research progress post, but this month the updates are hitting quickly. I've had another expert consultation through YourDNAGuide as part of the DNA Skills Workshop, and I'm pleased to see I'm very much on target with my hypothesis around the parents of Bridget Gannon. I have some good next steps for strengthening this case further, including a dive toward the present on the siblings of Bridget. Until recently I had no idea Bridget had siblings, but it looks like she did. This may give some new DNA matches to explore.

Looking into the parents of my 4th-great-grandfather William Free, using my Mom's DNA results, I may have found his parents through a combination of analyzing DNA matches and doing the genealogy. This needs some careful review, but the suggestion looks very promising so far. Signs point to Milly Free as a sister or half-sister of William.

It may be time again to pick up the search on the Guerrero-Leyva branch to the Portillos, now that I have some new skills in the genetic toolkit.

I'm continuing to add to the chromosome mapping on DNAPainter, so a longer recap is coming on where things stand across my kit, my Mom's and Dad's.

Finally, any day now through the rest of September into mid October, Ancestry will be rolling out the 2026 update to their DNA results, promising more refined ancestral journeys, new regions, and potentially regions by grandparent. As always, it will be fascinating to compare the changes over time with prior AncestryDNA updates.

Hispanic Heritage Month 2026

LACMA. Photo from 9 Aug 2026.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from 15 September to 15 October each year. Most years I have a post associated with my connection to the culture (see 15 Sept 2025). This year I'm highlighting two art pieces that are near each other at the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, one a painting of an indigenous woman with marigolds from 1876, and a photo by George Rodriguez titled Boyle Heights from 1970.

George Rodriguez. Boyle Heights, 1970.

There's a strong juxtaposition between the two even though these are not placed in the same room in the museum, these are near enough, and my mind instantly linked the two. The painting depicts a pregnant indigenous woman, perhaps not unlike an early ancestor from the colonial period, and in the photo, the woman is wearing bullets next to a Viva La Raza poster. I see the photo, and my mind goes to Liga Protectora Latina, the organization my 2nd-great-grandfather Vicente Campuzano was part of in 1915. I'd like to think the girl in the photo is a two or three times great-granddaughter of the woman in the painting. They are not, but seeing the two closely sets up Hispanic Heritage Month.

Lucy

Ancestry. Kentucky Marriages. Barren County, KY. 1847.

In June 1847, a younger sister of Nancy Hayden Clark Free, Lucy Ann Clark, married James Shaw in Barren County, Kentucky. Lucy and James moved to neighboring Metcalfe County by 1860, appearing in East Fork, the same district where William Free and older sister Nancy were living. James' mother was Milly Free.

I have not yet determined the connection between William and Milly, but it seems like this could be more than a coincidence.

In my Mom's DNA matches, there's an 18 cM match whose 3xgreat-grandfather was a brother of James Shaw, descending from Milly. There are two siblings, one a 25 cM match, the other 14 cM, who also descend from Milly. There's a bit of work to do in order to determine if Milly and William Free are siblings or cousins.

Next Steps on the Free Family

I am attempting to identify the parents of William Free, my 4th-great-grandfather, using my Mom's DNA matches on the various platforms. I had previously built a network of Matthews-Free matches descending from my 3rd-great-grandparents William Matthews and Martha Jane Free. A complication in looking for descendants of William Free and Nancy Hayden Clark, among their four children, only Martha Jane had children of her own. In order to separate out the matches who may descend from William's parents, I need to peel off all the Matthews matches from the Clark-Hensley matches. This should leave "leftovers" who descend from the families of William's parents.

This approach worked well to identify the parents of Bridget on my Dad's Irish side, so I'm attempting a similar method on my Mom's side of the tree, one generation back. Another challenge is the presence of multiple relationships and endogamy among these Kentucky-Virginia settlers. I can clearly see overlaps among my Mom's Whitley/Wheatley, Read/Cain/Gibson and Matthews branches.

Among the groups I'm building on Ancestry, there already over 1100 matches in the Matthews-Free group. I'm in the process of building out the Clark-Hensley group, and then need to separate off the Matthews side from the Free side. I am hoping to have another update later in the week on separating these groups and working with the mystery matches who might point to the Free network.