Genealogy, detective work and DNA part 3

If you have been researching your family tree for as many years as I have then maybe you will also have branched off of the direct line and tried to find out about the siblings of your direct ancestors.
During the mid 19th century as many Tin and Copper mines closed down in Cornwall the Cornish people migrated to all corners of the globe in search of employment in mines, infact there is a common saying in Cornwall that "a mine is a hole anywhere in the world with at least one Cornishman at the bottom of it!"  It is estimated that 250,000 Cornish migrated abroad between 1861 and 1901.
My own great great grandfather Robert Stickland left Cornwall in the mid 1840's to work as a boilermaker and engineer in the industrial midlands of England, I was also interested to discover what happened to his siblings.
Through Ancestry.com I came in contact with a distant 'cousin' living in Australia who was also busy with her family tree and we discovered that she was descended from William Stickland the younger brother of Robert, who had emigrated to Australia in the mid 1850's, after arriving in Australia he married a Cornish girl and they had four daughters, his second daughter was given the name Grace Morsehead Stickland after my great,great,great grandmother, confirming the fact that we had the right William Stickland. My distant 'cousin' in Australia has also done a DNA test and I was pleased to discover her name among my DNA matches, confirming biologically our distant relationship.
One of Robert's sisters,Wilmot Stickland, married and travelled with her first husband to California during the time of the Gold Rush, their eldest child was born in California but after finding their fortune they returned to Cornwall, her story can be read in one of my previous blogs.
Robert's youngest brother Richard Arundel Stickland died at the age of 14 after a fall from the mast of a schooner in the port of Hayle. That left one brother unaccounted for, John Stickland who was born a year later than Robert in 1829. On the 1851 census aged 21 he is recorded as still living with his parents and his occupation is recorded as being a copper miner. In the summer of 1851 I found a record of a marriage between a John Stickland and Eliza Treglown but in 1862 Eliza was living in Norfolk and was married to someone else, her marriage certificate declared that she was a widow, so I assumed that John had died, though I couldn't find any record of his death.
Then my DNA test results came back, Ancestry 's results give you a list of possible relatives, people who share a small part of your DNA, recording how many segments, according to how close the relationship is.
Ancestry also shares a list of surnames which you have in common and places where your ancestors lived. One of my DNA matches shared the name Strickland and looking at his tree I saw that he had a John Strickland born around 1830 and living in Australia close to the area where William Stickland, Robert's brother lived. The only thing was that on this person's tree he had recorded that John was born in Australia and had a different father. After doing genealogical research for more than 40 years I know that family trees are not always correct, infact I have had mistakes in my own which I have discovered later after more research and after more information becomes available. I decided to check all the documents which were available about this John Stickland/Strickland and discovered the following facts that convinced me that this is my long lost John Stickland, brother of Robert.
First of all in August 1854 a John Stickland arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in October 1857 he was initiated as a Freemason in Beechworth, Victoria, his occupation was recorded as being a miner. In 1863 and in 1864 he fathered two daughters though he didn't actually marry their mother until 25 November 1864 (could this have been because he was still legally married to his first wife in England?)
On his marriage certificate he is also recorded as being a miner and as final proof I found a copy of his daughter Maria Strickland's birth certificate on which it records her father's birthplace as being Cornwall! Also an interesting fact is that the area around where some of John's children where born is often referred to as the Cornish settlement.
John had a total of 10 children and passed away in 1908 at the age of 78.
One of his sons, also named John, and also like his father and grandfather, a miner, fought during the First World War in Gallipoli. During one of the battles he was severally injured and was sent to England to recover. His vision was so impaired he was unable to return to active service, but during his stay in England he met and married his wife and resided for a short time in Dorset, very close to his ancestral home of Cornwall.
Without the help of the DNA test I probably never would have found out about John Stickland/Strickland (like my great great grandfather he added an 'R' to his name) and now I have found a lot more 'cousins' in Australia.

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Genealogy and Detective work part 2 - using DNA tests

 As I mentioned in a previous blog which I shared last year, my half sister Jacqui was able to find her biological father Wayne Frederick Webber, who thankfully aged 96 is still alive. A DNA test which both Jacqui and Wayne's son submitted gave us the definite proof that our research was correct.
Via a DNA test you can get in touch with other people who share some of your DNA, and you can search out how you are related. Through my test I was able to get in touch with my second cousin Brenda Masse who lives in Canada, our mothers were first cousins and so we share the same great grandparents. Brenda and I were able to share photos and I was able to see a photo of my great grandmother Theresa Orwin nee Bromby for the first time, on a wedding photo of Brenda's grandparents.
Sometimes it involves some detective work in order to figure out how some of your DNA matches are related to you and which branch of your family tree they share with you. One case involves someone whom I contacted who shared quite a large segment of DNA, he also had an extensive family tree on Ancestry, but I couldn't find any links to my tree. After contacting him he informed me that some of his ancestors were from Hull, which is were my ancestors all ended up living and where I was born. He also told me that he had a couple of missing fathers in his tree, so ancestors who were born out of wedlock and no father named on the birth certificate. This is a big dead end in tracing our family tree, but possibly one of my ancestors or their sibling was the missing father. After checking Jacqui's DNA matches and asking Brenda to check hers and discovering that this person was also in their matches I was able to narrow our connection to our Orwin or Bromby family. Even though I was unable to enlighten him about who the missing father could be I was able to narrow it down as to via which families we are probably related.
My great great grandmother on my Orwin side, Emma Young was also born illegitimate, she was born on the 1st May 1839 in Thorne Union Workhouse to 22 year old Elizabeth Young. Emma grew up living with her grandparents William and Elizabeth Young in Crowle, Lincolnshire, her grandfather was a tailor and her grandmother was a school mistress, her mother never married but became a dressmaker in Crowle.  I never expected to find out who Emma's father was, and I am still not sure that it is correct, but shortly after receiving the results of my DNA test I was looking through the list of potential 'thru lines' which Ancestry.com provides. Most of the names were people already on my tree, but I suddenly saw the name of Samuel Lister in the place where Emma's father should have been. I decided to do some research about Samuel Lister, he was born in 1797 in Sturton, Nottinghamshire and was married in 1818 and he had four daughters. The interesting fact was that in the Autumn of 1838 he and his wife applied for a position as school teachers at Retford Union Workhouse. Even though Crowle is in Lincolnshire and Retford in Nottinghamshire they are reasonably close with Doncaster which is in South Yorkshire being the largest town between them both. Via a newspaper report I discovered that even though Samuel's application for the job was approved by the Guardians of the Workhouse his and his wife's appointment was rejected by the Commisions Office, in London. The reasons that were given were that Samuel's farm had become bankrupt, that one of his daughters had given birth to a child out of wedlock and he had refused to support her and that Samuel had been convicted of an assault on someone, making him morally inadequate to be a teacher to young children. Apparently the Commissions Office had received this information about Samuel Lister from a "secret enemy ", Samuel renounced the accusations, his farm was indeed bankrupt but that was the fault of his father, he claimed that he hadn't refused to support his daughter and that the assault charge was against another person with the same name. Even though the Nottinghamshire authorities were on his side he and his wife didn't receive the appointment but less than a year later, in February 1839 they were given the appointment of Master and Matron of Thorne Union Workhouse. In May of the same year Elizabeth Young gave birth to my great great grandmother Emma Young at Thorne Union Workhouse !
I still can't explain why Samuel Lister's name appeared on my DNA thru lines but the fact that he was living in the area and later became the Master of the Workhouse were Emma was born is very coincidental, but until I can find a definite descendent of him who shares DNA with me I will just have to keep him as a presumed ancestor.
In my next blog I will share how I have found a missing brother of my great great grandfather on my Strickland side who I have been able to prove via my DNA relationships ended up in Australia.