My genealogy research diary. What changed, where, sometimes even why.
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Friday, 19 December 2008

19th: Time solves everything

Another of the English certs on order proved rather interesting. All it takes is time and happenstance for puzzles to be solved (I wish).
You can read about the series of recent coincidental happenings on the newly added page for James TURNBULL of Dykehead, but the start of that story is actually back in 2005 with this posting on GenForum re Robert, Christopher and Hannah, children of James TURNBULL of Nichol Forest, who now turns out to be the above James' son.
Beryl never did get back to me, so I hope someone can point her to the resolution of this as I would like to make contact, but that's rather hard without an address of any sort.

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Saturday, 6 December 2008

6th: Yet another coincidence

I always knew that coincidences abound in this genealogy lark.
The latest is with le place du jour, Dykehead.
One of my WIGHT cousins dropped by and read the entry for the 5th re Dykehead, and was moved to send me an email to say that he used to own Dkyehead, selling it in the early 1990s. He wasn't sure of the exact dates, but it seems likely that it was just before we met up with the then owners of the story on the 30th Nov!
A TURNBULL page has now been included, replacing the previous chart with a page of TURNBULL data, well at the moment, just the previous descendant chart, and a sparsely populated map showing where some of the TURNBULL BDM events occurred.

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5th: TURNBULLs (and excitement ) squared

What, December already? Doesn't time fly when you're having fun. Which I am.
Still working thru all the new Americans being added to the Devon TOZER branch (probably wont show up on the bottom end of the KING chart as mostly too recent).

And as if that isn't enough excitement for one week, but along comes a wonderful coincidence.
On the TMG Conference Cruise, I met up with Chaye from Sth Australia who was researching her mysterious OLIVER and TURNBULL couple who had the misfortune to die where death certs are not very informative.
I was very interested to note that one of the sets of parents she was investigating for her Elizabeth TURNBULL was a couple by the name of James and Agnes (ELLIOT) TURNBULL. They appear on the IGI as having children in the geographically challenging area of Dykehead, Kirkandrews, Canonbie, Dumfries.
Well, I suppose the submitter wanted to hedge their bets, and certainly the couple did too as they lived in Dykehead (which just happens to be the place of the comment "some more of those Americans dear" from the Nov 28th entry), in Kirkandrews Parish, Cumberland, but their children were baptised in Canonbie Parish, Dumfries, across the Border in Scotland.
Must be something about the air over there in this Turnbull family.
Anyway. I'd parked this as intriguing info to be investigated at some stage to see if there was any connection with my Robert TURNBULL, joiner of Dykehead, of about the same timeframes.
Today, that got raised up the priority list somewhat following receipt of an email from Robin in Canada asking about my Robert in Dykehead.
Yes, he was a descendant of said James and Agnes (ELLIOT) TURNBULL (but cannot solve Chaye's Elizabeth mystery, more's the pity).
We quickly decided that James and Robert could not be brothers. A 1764 baptism of a legitimate son to Walter and wife in Dykehead, just didn't fit with Walter, Robert's father, marrying as a bachelor in 1774.
However, James' likely mother was Betty also TURNBULL. Not that his baptism said so, but there were a string of Canonbie baptisms to Walter and Betty, several of which stated "in Dykehead", so it was an easy stretch to continue the string of children with the 3 "and wife in Dykehead".
That was James handily placed, but the connection to Robert still unsolved.
And then I examined a list of Canonbie baptisms Robin had downloaded from Scotland's People and noticed that I hadn't all the children of Walter and Betty (TURNBULL) TURNBULL after all. There were two sons I'd missed, a Robert and a Walter, which latter, got me quite interested in a hurry.
Sure enough, his baptism clearly showed he was the son of Walter TURNBULL and Betty TURNBULL in Dykehead, Parish of Kirkandrews. And what's more, a 1745 date dovetailed very nicely as a really good age to be marrying in 1774 and having children in Dykehead, to continue the family tradition.
No wonder I'd not been able to find a suitable baptism for him in England.
TURNBULL chart updated

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Saturday, 13 September 2008

9th: Dykehead TURNBULLs ++

Updated TURNBULL descendant chart in place to include a few more of the newfound branch of Dykehead TURNBULLs.
Haven't found out that much about the history of Dykehead, but Giles advised that, as I suspected, it was one of the many farms sold into private ownership from the Netherby Estate.
I found a mention in The Times of the sale of 21 of the 25 lots in July 1912, but none were mentioned by name.

The DNA Projects Portal has also had a complete update, so now should include all dna participants, and researchers, with lineages as appropriate, apart from the ROWE project, which is still very much at the early stages of being included. I now want to know about any missing links, incorrect info etc!
Should you want your DNA project mentioned on the Portal pages, just send me an email with the appropriate links.
Check out the respective lineage Wanted! pages, particularly if you are a male descendant of a line of SINTON, RUNCIMAN, FAIRBAIRN, DAWE families.

The above Wanted! lists are by no means complete, and will be added to over time.

Discounts available if you join and order a test via a surname project before 31 Dec.

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