Martha Jane's Testimony

FamilySearch. Warren County, KY.

Thanks once again to FamilySearch Full Text Search, I've found a page of testimony signed by my 3rd-great-grandmother Martha Jane Free Matthews, in the case P. P. Rountree vs Nancy Free in Warren County, Kentucky Court, dated about 1903. While I've looked at the Matthews side, Martha Jane's side has some brick walls after her father William Free. I'll be diving into this case, and peeling back the layers on this mystery branch.

RootsTech 2027 session notices going out

At the end of May I submitted two session proposals for RootsTech 2027. This afternoon, the decline notices arrived from the RootsTech team. I'm really ok with it. I know they receive a ton of proposals each year and need to weigh the proposals with the themes, and talks from established names in the space. I'll still attend in person and I am looking forward to seeing which sessions made it through the competitive process.

The branch that went to New Zealand

Among the many DNA matches connected to my Dad's results on MyHeritage, one 14.3 cM match from New Zealand has a small tree showing her maternal grandfather's Hanley line. These Hanleys arrived from Ireland in 1863, settling in the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. John, his brother Patrick, and their sister Margaret Hanley settled in and around the Waimate and Morven Districts. Other trees on Ancestry show John Hanley as a son of Murtagh Hanley and Mary Fahey, and that John was born in Galway in 1843. 

Galway may have been the port the Hanleys sailed from, but it's very likely their roots trace back to Roscommon, 77 km away. Just like the cluster of Australian matches connected to the Gannon-Hanley group, this New Zealand branch shows a group of brave Irish immigrants made the long journey around the world in search of a better life.

Path in the Park

Vincent van Gogh. Path in the Park. 17-18 Sept 1888.

 

Ancestry's Regions by Parent and Grandparent Coming Soon

Ancestry. DNA regions by parent and grandparents.

Some AncestryDNA customers may have already begun to see updates on their accounts with a new feature - regions by parent and grandparents. This updated version of Ancestry's SideView is supposed to provide additional information about ancestral regions by grandparents. I don't have this yet, but am really interested to see what it says.