DNA Confirmation

As one goes deeper and deeper into one’s ancestral tree, and farther away from the plentiful “paper trail” that we have in more modern times, it is harder and harder to find documentation to confirm relationships. That is the case with some of my research as well.

I had written in an earlier blog (*1) that I was convinced that the father of my great*4 grandfather, Caleb Russell (1775-1830), was John Russell (1756-1833). But this was somewhat circumstantial, i.e. Caleb lived about the right time and in the right place and even was living next door or across the street in the 1800 census to John. And all the Russell men for several generations were illiterate farmers. But one of the key items in documenting John’s family was his will, but Caleb does not appear in it as he had died three years earlier (for which we have documentation in the form of a biographical sketch of one of his sons which was written in his son’s lifetime).

Recently I became aware of a new entry in my DNA profile on ancestry.com for a person by the name of John Wilson who was noted as being a potential 4^th-6^th cousin to me. One of my other cousins who does genealogical research pointed it out to me and wondered how we might be related to John. John had a partial family tree that listed his parents and grandparents. My cousin thought that the link might be through John’s paternal grandmother, Nelly [Hart] Wilson. I started chasing back her family tree to see if I could find a connection to myself. Following trees built by others, and doing preliminary consistency checks to see if there was supporting documentation, I traced John’s ancestral line as follows:

·       Nelly’s mother was Mary Foshay (1845-1876)

·       Mary’s mother was Susan Russell (1817-1899)

·       Susan’s father was Robert W. Russell (1780-1858)

·       Robert’s father was John Russell (1756-1833).

Thus, John Wilson’s great*4 grandfather is also my great*5 grandfather and John Wilson is my 5^th cousin, once removed. This is not only consistent with the projected DNA match results, but gives DNA evidence that John Russell is my great*5 grandfather, and the father of Caleb Russell as I had suspected.

Thus, I now have scientific evidence (DNA) that the connection that I had only circumstantial evidence for was correct. As the saying goes, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

Notes

*1 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-major-flaw-in-my-family-tree-part-2.html