When Ancestry ThruLines™ gets it Wrong

 ThruLines is a marvellous tool for sorting out your more distant DNA connections, but it depends on the majority of people having accurate trees on ancestry (see "Getting the best out of an autosomal DNA test"). When there are a substantial number of inaccurate trees for a family ThruLines can be led astray.

In January 2021 I found a AncestryDNA^© Match with a suggested ThruLines link¹:

You and [DNA Match]
< 1% shared DNA | 6 cM across 1 segments
Unweighted shared DNA: 6 cM
Longest segment: 6 cM

Shortly after this Matches with such low cM values were cut from the results unless you had marked or noted them in some way. It was also relatively early days for ThruLines.

Figure 1 shows the relationship suggested by ThruLines with John Wickham (1737-1825) and Mary Baldwyn (1736-1825) as our Most Recent Common Ancestors (MRCAs).

Figure 1: The genetic link as proposed by ThruLines.

The late marriage is not unusual, but for a premarital child of a couple to keep their mother’s surname is. It usually indicates that the child is not the offspring of the groom. Also the middle name ‘Field’ is unexpected if the father is John Wickham.

Looking at Poor Law records:

East Sussex Bastardy Orders: Mayfield:
“1829 Dec 4 Maintenance order on Joseph FIELD, labourer tp for a bastard son of Phoebe DANN born 2 Jan 1828 (Par.422/34/2/127)
[Phoebe DANN married 27 June 1835 at Mayfield, John WICKHAM, widower].
Alfred Field son of Phoebe DANN, spinster, baptised 8 February 1829.”²

So according to Phoebe, Alfred Field Dann is her son by Joseph Field, which at least explains the middle name. But where does the Wickham link come from? Is it via Joseph Field or Phoebe Dann? It turns out there is a link via Phoebe herself³.

Phoebe Dann is the daughter of Thomas Dann and Jane Hobbs. Jane Hobbs is the daughter of William Hobbs and Elizabeth WICKHAM. Elizabeth Wickham is the daughter of Richard Wickham and Ann Colchin. She is also the sister of John Wickham, father of my 3xgreat-grandmother, Ruth Wickham, and grandfather of Phoebe's husband John Wickham, who is thus a second cousin of Phoebe Dann as well as her husband. So the MRCAs for my DNA Match and myself are (in the absence of any other link) Richard Wickham and Ann Colchin, and the DNA match and I are seventh cousins. Figure 2 shows the actual relationship.

Figure 2: An actual genetic link

I now have this information in my Ancestry tree, but the DNA Match does not appear as a ThruLine any more as it is eight generations back. I don’t mind, I value accuracy above ease.

This sort of multiple relationship can make sorting out DNA links complicated. Because of Phoebe’s Wickham ancestry, it would be easy to assume that all her children were fathered by her eventual husband, John Wickham. However any descendant of Phoebe Dann would show a Wickham link, as shown by the DNA Match of mine descended from Alfred Dann. Statistically though descendants of Phoebe by John Wickham would have the chance of a double dose of Wickham/Colchin DNA and average twice the amount of shared DNA compared to the descendants of Phoebe alone. The suggested link still appears on ThruLines for other DNA matches of mine who are descendants of Alfred Field Dann, hence the use of this example in a blog post.

Multiple marriages can also cause confusion, particularly for husbands who favour a particular given name in their wives. Another DNA match of mine traces their ancestry back to Jane Knight (1824-1904, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Knight)¹. In their tree they identify Elizabeth Knight with Elizabeth Rolph (1810-1855, married Richard Knight in 1830) and our MRCAs to be William Rolph (1787-1860) and Sarah Borders (1789-1869). (This match is part of a large genetic network of Rolph/Borders descendants.) However this identification would make Elizabeth Rolph only 14 years old when Jane was born (and occurs six years before the Knight-Rolph marriage). Of course the answer is that Richard Knight had a previous marriage (to Elizabeth Stapleton (1799-1828) and Jane is the child of this marriage. Jane cannot then carry the Rolph/Borders genes, so where is the link?

Looking at the family tree we find that Jane Knight's son, Daniel Filler (1851-1928) married Phoebe Philpott (1853-1902). Phoebe Philpott is the daughter of Eliza Knight (1832-1914), the granddaughter of Elizabeth Rolph (1810-1855) and thus half-cousin of Daniel Filler. So it is Eliza Knight (half sister of Jane Knight) who carries the Rolph/Borders genes and is the actual link back to William Rolph (1787-1860) and Sarah Borders (1789-1869)³.

Figure 3: How incorrect trees can confuse ThruLines

Figure 3 shows the situation with the red dashed lines showing the genetic link as currently suggested by ThruLines and the green lines showing the actual genetic link, confirming the Rolph-Borders marriage as the MRCAs. Of course there is also a possibility of other, as yet undiscovered, links particularly in the sort of small, country villages inhabited by both the above examples.

The moral of this post is to always, ALWAYS double check anything in an online tree or suggested tree. Check for supporting documentation, check for reasonableness, check for alternative possibilities.

Sources

1. Ancestry ThruLines for Susan Law (https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/080AB020-82F7-4145-BC9C-3BF177830102?filterBy=all).
2. Burchall, Michael J. East Sussex Bastardy Papers 1594-1845 (CD ROM). Edited by The Parish Register Transcription Society. Lewes, UK: Sussex Family History Group, 2009.
3. Susan Law's Ancestry Tree (https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/tree/52067358/family?cfpid=13296141854). Private tree, access by request.

Migration from Rural East Sussex circa 1840

 This is an expanded version of a 1000-word essay written for a study Unit on migration, part of a Diploma of Family History at the University of Tasmania. The essay was to be about “the migration journey of an individual ancestor or family group”. The essay was a sort of follow-up to an essay on convict transportation for an earlier Diploma Unit which looked at transportation of convicts from East Sussex to Tasmania in the 1830s and 1840s.

---

 My spouse’s great-grandmother, Emily Apps, was the granddaughter of two couples (William Apps and Philadelpia Foots, Charles Butcher and Elizabeth Chapman) who migrated from East Sussex in 1839 (Figure 1).^1,2 Both couples had relatives on the ships they arrived in. Philadelphia Apps had a sister, an uncle and two cousins on the Florist and Elizabeth Butcher had a brother on the Susan.³ There was a high percentage of Sussex-born passengers on both these ships (95% of the migrants on the Florist originated in Sussex).⁴

Figure 1: The English-born antecedents of Emily Apps.^1,2

  Both couples settled in the Macarthur region of the colony.^2,5-7 Later the families intermarried: two of Charles’ daughters married sons of William Apps and a third married a Chapman cousin.^8,9 The fourth daughter married William Apps himself after both were widowed.¹⁰ Of the other offspring of William Apps, Harriet and Seymour respectively married Samuel and Caroline Friend, offspring of Thomas and Mary Friend who migrated from East Sussex in 1841, and Reuben married his cousin Mary Foots who migrated in 1859.^11-14 Thus all of Charles Butcher’s daughters and five of William Apps’ nine adult offspring eventually married people with East Sussex roots. All the adult offspring of both the Butchers and the Appses eventually left the Macarthur district and moved to the Southern Highlands, the Goulburn Plains and beyond.¹⁵ How typical was their experience of Sussex migrants at this time?

 By the late 1830s rural Sussex had been struggling economically for over 20 years.^16,17 The drop in demand for produce at the end of the Napoleonic Wars meant that the dependence of agricultural labourers on employment for subsistence (a result of enclosure) began to be felt.^18,17 Combined with the steady mechanisation of agricultural processes, this led to high levels of poverty, unemployment and unrest.^19,20 In the absence of industrial development to provide alternative employment, parish rates had to be dramatically increased to support the unemployed. The answer was to encourage emigration.¹⁷

 The importance of migration as a solution to unemployment was shown by the inclusion of a clause authorising the use of parish rates to assist migration in the 1834 Poor Law Act.^21,22 The numbers of people assisted by each parish had to be reported to the Poor Law Commissioners for publishing in the Commission’s annual reports.²³ While it is estimated that only 5.4% of migrants received parish assistance, these figures give a snapshot of the differences in rates of migration between areas in England and Wales.^24,25 In the years 1835-40 34% of such migrants were primarily from Kent and Sussex.^23,26 In Sussex assistance rates were greatest in the extreme east of the County, the native area of the Butchers and the Appses (Figure 2).²³

Figure 2: Numbers assisted by Sussex Poor Law Unions 1835-1843.²³

  Meanwhile the Macarthur area of New South Wales had been settled between 1805 and 1816 by large grants to wealthy free settlers. These formed a “squattocracy” whose economy was supported by low-cost convict labour.^27,28,29 An important point about convict labour is the continual turnover in the workforce. As convicts were emancipated, fresh convicts were required to replace them. By the late 1820s New South Wales was “importing” ~3,000 male convicts per year.³⁰ The need for land for the emancipated convicts and new free settlers was also driving the expansion of settlement into the Southern Highlands and Goulburn Plains, the town of Goulburn being established in 1833.^27,31,32

 In New South Wales, opposition to convict transportation grew steadily with the growth of the free population in the 1830s.^33,34 Additionally, most free migrants to New South Wales primarily aimed to be wealthy gentry or entrepreneurs.^35,34,36 The cost of travel to the colony was prohibitive for the free migrant workers required by such landholders and businessmen.^34,17 If or when transportation ended another way would have to be found to supply servants and labourers to the wealthy. In 1835 Governor Bourke proposed the subsidisation of the cost of the voyage to New South Wales for selected migrants with desirable skills and a minimum outfit.³⁷ In 1838 the assignment of convicts to the private sector ceased.^37,38,34 The migrants to replace the convicts were selected by agents in England.²⁴ Sussex had initially used the parish assistance scheme to assist with travel costs to Canada.²³ With colonial subsidies for travel they started assisting by outfitting prospective migrants for New South Wales with ~250 migrants assisted in 1838 and nearly 500 in 1839 (Figure 3). Given the low percentage of migrants subsidised this is indicative of high levels of migration from Sussex in these years.²⁵ Parish support continued in later years but at a lower level. The Appses and the Butchers were part of this migration boom.

Figure 3: Number of migrants assisted per month by Sussex Parishes.²³

 The intermarriage between families originating in East Sussex was not limited to the Appses and Butchers. Another of the Friend offspring married Caroline Funnell who had also arrived in NSW from East Sussex on the Florist in 1839.^39,40,41 Altogether I have found 16 families or individuals related to my spouse by blood or marriage who arrived in Australia from East Sussex between 1838 and 1841.⁴² Of these sixteen arrivals, fourteen initially settled in the Macarthur or Southern Highlands region. Of the families which settled elsewhere there were no marriages to persons with Sussex-born origins. Like the Appses and Butchers, most of the offspring of the Macarthur families eventually settled further south and west, beyond the Great Dividing Range (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Early residence in NSW of the migrant families (green pins) and the final working residence of their offspring (yellow pins). Pin size reflects the number of offspring in a location (maximum is 11). Two offspring moved to the Far North Coast.⁴²

 In conclusion the Appses and Butchers were part of a migration boom from East Sussex driven by long term unemployment. This occurred at a time of major economic change in NSW caused by the phasing out of convict labour. The migration of poor labourers was enabled by assistance schemes covering the cost of the voyage, with numerous migrants selected for agricultural skills.  Many of these replaced convict labour in the “squattocracy” of the Macarthur region. Large numbers of families from East Sussex in a relatively small area meant that intermarriage between families from Sussex was common. However, as their offspring grew up they found themselves in the same situation their parents had been in in Sussex and took the same solution, migration. Most moved south and west to the Goulburn Plains and beyond to areas where there was less European settlement and more opportunity for property ownership.

Sources

1. Baptism certificate of Emily Apps, born 11 February 1867, Thomas Apps, born 9 November 1844, Ellen Butcher, born 18 December 1846, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 5826 Vol: 121C, 1634 Vol: 30a, 2889 Vol: 32a.
2. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5314 Entitlement certificates of persons on bounty ships, unpaginated, Entitlement Certificates for William & Philadelphia Apps, 1839 and for Charles & Elizabeth Butcher, 1839, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 18 Apr 2021.
3. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5314 Entitlement certificates of persons on bounty ships, unpaginated, Entitlement Certificate for Thomas & Elizabeth Selmes, 1839, for Edward Britt & daughter Jane, 1839, for John & Ann Venness, 1839 and for William & Harriet Chapman, 1839, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 18 Apr 2021.
4. New South Wales State Archives, 'Passenger List for Florist, 26 Oct 1839', https://indexes.records.nsw.gov.au/ebook/list.aspx?series=NRS5313&item=4_4780&ship=Florist, accessed 25 Apr 2021.
5. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-12937 Registers of baptisms, burials and marriages 1878-1856, Transcript of Registers of St Peter's Church Campbelltown, page 97, baptism entry of Agnes Butcher, baptised 19 April 1840, page 98, baptism entry of Elizabeth Apps, baptised 3 May 1840, page 108, baptism entry of Julia Butcher, baptised 4 July 1841, page 105, baptism entry of Harriet Apps, baptised September 1842, page 123, baptism entry of Seymour Apps, baptised 28 March 1847, page 210, baptism entry of Mary Anne Apps, baptised 23 September 1849, page 227, baptism entry of John Apps, baptised 25 January 1852, page 293, baptism entry of Julia Apps, baptised 15 September 1853, page 386, baptism entry of Charles Apps, baptised 23 September 1855, page 229 and burial entry of Julia Apps, buried 21 February 1855, ARK Reel 5006-5015.
6. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-12937 Registers of baptisms, burials and marriages 1878-1856, Transcript of Registers of St Thomas' Chapel Narellan, page 89, burial entry of Agnes Butcher, buried 6 May 1840, ARK Reel 5006.
7. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-12937 Registers of baptisms, burials and marriages 1878-1856, Transcript of Registers of St John's Church Camden, page 133, baptism entry of Emma Butcher, baptised 2 June 1844, page 100 and baptism entry of Alfred Butcher, baptised 15 July 1849, ARK Reel 5008-5010.
8. Marriage certificates of William Apps and Julia Butcher, married 19 January 1860 and of Thomas Apps and Ellen Butcher, married 17 October 1870, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 1860/001467.
9. Marriage entry for George Chapman and Emma Butcher, married 30 December 1861, Marriage Register of St Paul's Church Emu Plains, page 185, Sydney Diocesan Archives, Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Ancestry, Sydney, Australia, Anglican Parish Registers, 1814-2011, accessed 30 April 2021.
10. Marriage certificate of William Apps and Sarah Ferguson, married 3 Apr 1889, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 1881/002810.
11. Marriage certificates of Seymour Apps and Caroline Friend, married 23 September 1874 and of Samuel John Friend and Harriet Apps, married 8 May 1862, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 2452/1874, 1734/1862.
12. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5314 Entitlement certificates of persons on bounty ships, unpaginated, Entitlement Certificate for Thomas & Mary Friend, 1841, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 18 Apr 2021.
13. Marriage certificate of Reuben Apps and Mary Foots, married 7 April 1859, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 1859/001680.
14. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5316 Persons on bounty ships (Agent's Immigrant Lists), unpaginated, Passenger List for "Daphne" arrived NSW 16 January 1859, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 18 Apr 2021.
15. Death certificates of William Apps, died 14 June 1911, of Reuben Apps, died 28 June 1898, of Elizabeth Worner, died 17 May 1915, of Harriet Friend, died 5 July 1930, of Thomas Apps, died 5 August 1911, of Seymour Apps, died 8 March 1917, of Mary Ann Headland, died 15 Jan 1925, of John Apps, died 23 April 1872, of Charles Apps, died 18 August 1946, of Sarah Apps, died 29 January 1889, of Julia Apps, died 9 May 1913, of Emma Chapman, died 27 Aug 1917, of Ellen Apps, died 26 November 1896, and of Alfred Butcher, died 27 Jul 1915, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 1911/008334, 1898/005461, 7806/1915, 14339/1930, 1911/010077, 3626/1917, 2736/1925, 4071/1872, 17434/1946, 1889/006574, 9561/1913, 13345/1917, 1896/013565, 12943/1915.
16. Ernle, Lord, English Farming Past and Present, 2nd ed. London; New York; Bombay; Calcutta; Madras, Longmans, Green and Co., 1919, Gale eBooks. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/U0112885030/MOME?u=nla&sid=MOME&xid=95a384e4.
17. Richards, Eric, 'West Sussex and the Rural South', in Richards, Eric, The Genesis of International Mass Migration The British Case, 1750-1900, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2018.
18. Neeson, J. M., Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820, Chapter 10, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
19. Hammond, J. I., and Hammond, Barbara, The Village Labourer 1760-1832, Chapter 11, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1913.
20. Clark, Gregory, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Page 286, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007.
21. The Parliament of Great Britain, 'Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain', 1834 Public General Act, 4&5 William IV, c. 76, Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_HL_PO_PU_1_1834_4and5W4n220, Accessed 3 July 2020.
22. The Workhouse, 'Pauper Emigration under the New Poor Law', http://www.workhouses.org.uk/emigration/, Accessed 12 June 2020.
23. Poor Law Commissioners, Annual Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales, London. Poor Law Commission Office, 1835-1847, HathiTrust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000059849.
24. Richards, Eric, 'How Did Poor People Emigrate from the British Isles to Australia in the Nineteenth Century?', Journal of British Studies, Vol. 32, no. 3, 1993, pp. 250–79.
25. Haines, Robin, “‘The Idle and the Drunken Won’t Do There’: Poverty, the New Poor Law and Nineteenth-Century Government-Assisted Emigration to Australia”, Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 28, no. 108, 1997, p. 1ff.
26. Shultz, Robert Joe, ‘The Assisted Immigrants, 1837-1850 : A Study of Some Aspects of the Characteristics and Origins of the Immigrants Assisted to New South Wales and the Port Phillip District, 1837-1850’, PhD Thesis, Canberra, Australian National University, 1971.
27. Wotherspoon, Garry, Dictionary of Sydney, 'The road south-west', 2011, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_road_south_west, viewed 11 Jun 2021.
28. Robinson, Steve, Dictionary of Sydney, 'Camden West', 2008, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/camden_west, viewed 11 Jun 2021.
29. Willis, Ian, Pictorial History: Camden & District, Kingsclear Books, Sydney, 2015.
30. Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships 1787-1868 (CD), North Sydney, Library of Australian History, 2004.
31. The Southern Highlands of NSW, 'Bong Bong', http://www.highlandsnsw.com.au/towns/bong.html, accessed 13 Jun 2021.
32. Wyatt, Ransome T., The history of Goulburn, N.S.W, Goulburn, Municipality of Goulburn NSW, 1941, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-29899609.
33. Fitzsimmons, Jean E., 'The transportation of convicts to New South Wales, Australia, 1787--1840: Could free men and bondsmen exist together?', Chapter III, MA Thesis, University of Windsor, 1970, https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/6851, accessed 12 Jun 2021.
34. McLean, Ian W., Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth, Chapter 4, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2012.
35. Hughes Turnbull, Lucy, Dictionary of Sydney, 'The end of transportation', 2008, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_end_of_transportation, viewed 12 Jun 2021.
36. Jackson, R. V., Australian economic development in the nineteenth century, Chapter 1, Canberra, ANU Press, 1977.
37. Barnes, A., 'Australia’s Early Immigration Schemes', Tulle, Vol. 17, no.2, 1999, pp. 28–31.
38. Huntsman, Leone, 'Bounty Emigrants to Australia', Clogher Record, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2002, pp. 802-804.
39. Marriage Index entry for Thomas Friend and Caroline Funnell, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 'Marriages Search', accessed 28 May 2021.
40. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-12937 Registers of baptisms, burials and marriages 1878-1856, Transcript of Registers of St John's Church Camden, page not readable, baptism entry of Caroline Funnell, baptised 28 Aug 1857, ARK Reel 5009.
41. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5314 Entitlement certificates of persons on bounty ships, unpaginated, Entitlement Certificate for James and Esther Funnell, 1839, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 18 Apr 2021.
42. Law, Alan & Susan, Ancestry Australia, 'Law-Ings Exploratory tree 20100221', https://www.ancestry.com.au/family-tree/tree/15522224/recent, (permission required for access), accessed June 13, 2021.

Which William Langridge?

 Documented background

 My 3xgreat-grandfather, William Langridge, married Ann Sansom on 13th October 1834 in St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton.¹ In the 1841 Census, He and Ann are living in Paradise Street in the Kemp Town area of Brighton.² William is stated to be of age 35 and born in Sussex. When filling in the 1841 census, residents were supposed to round their age down to the nearest multiple of 5. This implies that William was born between 1801 and 1806.

 Unfortunately he died before the 1851 census on 26th July 1850, his age being given as 46 years.³ This implies he was born between 1803 and 1804. This is supported by his burial record, his age also being given as 46 years.⁴ Thus we should be looking between 1801 and 1806 for a William Langridge who is not otherwise accounted for, hopefully one in the 1803-1804 range. (Note that the surname ‘Langridge’ and its variants are locally common in Sussex.)

St Nicholas Brighton, photographed by the author, 11 Jul 2016.

Elimination of Candidates

 Seven William Langridges were found with baptisms between 1801 and 1806 in the SFHG Baptism Index.⁵ These are listed in the table below with (where found) later records which account for them.^6-8

Baptism/Parents	Marriage/Spouse	Censuses	Burials
25 Jan 1801, Uckfield Joseph & Alinah		Bexley, Kent 1841: b 1801 Not KEN 1851: b 1800 SSX 1861: b 1799, Fletching
15 Feb 1801, Horsted Keynes David & Sarah	19 Jun 1825, Fletching Caroline Wood	Horsted Keynes 1841: b 1801 SSX, (spouse = Caroline) West Hoathly 1851: b 1802 Horsted Keynes (widowed)
8 Aug 1801, Fletching William & Elizabeth	N/A	N/A	7 Apr 1802, Fletching, ‘infant’
27 Sep 1801, East Grinstead Thomas & Philadelphia	2 Nov 1823, West Hoathly Ann Lampton William bach of East Grinstead
10 Apr 1803, Burwash John & Ruth			None
22 Jul 1804, Fletching Henry & Elizabeth	?N/A	?N/A	24 Oct 1809, Fletching, ‘infant’ (unusual, but not unknown)
28 Jul 1805, Uckfield John & Hannah	6 Jul 1835, Frant Sarah Harris	Westerham Kent 1841: b 1806 not KEN 1851: b 1806, Uckfield

By matching the baptisms to marriages and censuses, we can eliminate all but the ‘1803 Burwash’ and ‘1804 Fletching’ William Langridges. There is, however, a burial for a William Langridge in Fletching in 1809 which is labelled as ‘infant’. There are no other baptisms following the 1804 Fletching baptism to account for this burial, and it is certainly possible that it is of the 1804 William Langridge. It was therefore concluded that the William Langridge baptised in Burwash in 1803 is the most probable candidate.

St Bartholomew Burwash, photographed by the author, 13 Jul 2016.

DNA Matches

Using the 1803 William Langridge in my family tree, William, via his mother Ruth Wickham, becomes a descendent of the Langridges of Burwash and the Wickhams of Wadhurst. In 2019 my father (2xgreat-grandson of William Langridge) took an Ancestry DNA test. In his results there are six DNA matches with a Most Recent Common Ancestor couple (MRCA) of John Wickham and Mary Baldwyn (the parents of Ruth Wickham).⁹ There is also a match where the MRCA is Stephen Langridge and Elizabeth Fuller, great-grandparents of William Langridge (1803, Burwash).¹⁰ This is strong support for the William Langridge who married Ann Sansom in Brighton in 1834 being the son of John and Ruth Langridge baptised in Burwash in 1803.

Sources

1. Marriage of William Langridge & Ann Sansom, married 13 Oct 1834, St Nicholas Church Parish Register, Brighton, Sussex, England, page 204, no. 614, FHL microfilm 1067118, item 3, accessed 17 Mar 2006.
2. Census record for William Langridge, aged 35, Paradise Street, Brighton, Sussex, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO1071123/5/13/18-19, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 19 Aug 2006.
3. Death certificate of William Langridge, died 26 Jul 1850 registered September quarter 1850, Brighthelmston registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 204, no. 407.
4. Burial of William Langridge, buried 31 Jul 1850, St Nicholas Church Parish Register, Brighton, Sussex, England, page 297, no. 2375, FHL digitised microfilm 1067133, item 3, accessed 3 Mar 2016.
5. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 18 Feb 2020.
6. Sussex Family History Group, ‘SFHG Marriage Index to 1837 (CD)’, Sussex Family History Group, 2005.
7. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Burial Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 18 Feb 2020.
8. UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 18 Feb 2020.
9. Ancestry Australia, ‘Alfred Commons DNA Test: Thru-Lines for John Wickham’, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/tree/1808521227:9009:66/for/5C9DF31B-1477-4562-84BC-ED25F3066CCC, accessed 22 Feb 2022 (not accessible without login).
10. Ancestry Australia, ‘Alfred Commons DNA Test: Thru-Lines for Stephen Langridge’, https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-geneticfamily/thrulines/tree/20074458:9009:66/for/5C9DF31B-1477-4562-84BC-ED25F3066CCC, accessed 22 Feb 2022 (not accessible without login).