Could George be of Romany descent?

NOTE: This post is just a teaser!  I need to document more of the genetic evidence, but this is being written as part of the SAG DNA Blogging Group, so here goes the story so far....

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Continuing with my DNA analysis looking for the origins of my maternal 2nd great grandfather - Arthur/George/William Courtney/Courtenay.

Many years ago now I discovered my mother had a large X match at GEDmatch with a female from England, it was two segments, totalling approx 92cMs.  This was a very big match and generally a sign of a close relationship.  However, the X chromosome can behave differently to the other autosomes and the relationship could be more distant than it seems. I attempted to contact the match back in 2018 and had no reply.  

In 2019, I turned to Facebook sleuthing as she had an unusual surname.  I sent messages to people with that name in England asking if they had tested and could they be the person I matched?  I had a reply from one of them saying, yes it was her but she was adopted and knew nothing.  Even though I offered to help with solving her mystery, she was not responsive and soon stopped replying to my messages.  I was very disappointed and frustrated as I felt this could be a big clue for me.  Whilst she tested at AncestryDNA I could not find the match there, but AncestryDNA doesn't report on the X chromosome and our other matches on chromosomes 10 and 16 were small so probably below the threshold to show up as a match.

After some time I actually found a match on AncestryDNA, under an alias type name, with a tree the same name as the unusual surname of my X match.  I had come across the match after drilling down from a DNAGedcom report for other 'distant' shared matches on the possible Courtney line that AncestryDNA doesn't provide.  Could this be a close relative of my mystery X match?  This one was 'way down' in our distant shared matches list.  However the connection to my other possible Courtney match gave me renewed hope that the X match was indeed a match on the Courtney side.

We know the X match is definitely on Mum's paternal side as her sister has an identical segment match that their brother's don't have, this is consistent with X inheritance patterns.  Visual Phasing techniques also confirm it is a paternal match, so I’m looking for people who match in these same segment areas and match both Mum and her sister and my mystery match.

Using the tree information of the newly discovered match and after much digging around for shared clusters and triangulated segments I discovered that several members of these groups traced their ancestry back to an Ada WILLIAMS b1892 in Middlesex, the same area as where our George was said to have been born.   It was then, just earlier this year, that I attempted to contact the newly found match on AncestryDNA.  I quickly received a reply, it turned out she was the same person as the one on GEDmatch!  After some confused exchanges about what had happened, it seems the person I spoke to on Facebook was a completely different person, not the one who matched us at all!! 

When I asked if she knew about the connection via Ada, she told me it was her ROMANY line!  We now had five DNA matches all going back to Ada via three different children.   As my George was born c1841, if this segment was inherited from a common ancestor it must be back further on Ada's line.  I managed to trace Ada's maternal line, but her paternal line has been a bit problematic and the answer could well be there!  More work is needed.

Ada's Romany line on her maternal side goes back to the ancestors of Jeremiah Taylor and Sarah Fisher. Sarah and other family members died in the Hartlake Bridge Disaster of 1853 when the bridge collapsed and 40 hop pickers (mostly Irish travellers) sadly lost their lives. Family stories suggest George might have had some Irish ethnicity - could this be a clue?

We have many DNA matches to the Taylor name in Middlesex, but I have been unable to connect these families, could this be because they were travellers, moving from place to place?   If our connection via the X match is on this line, then based on the dates it could be via a child of Jeremiah and Sarah, or back further on Sarah's line as Jeremiah would not not pass any X DNA onto his sons.  Ada's inheritance path is via Nathanial Taylor b1812 so he would have inherited his X chromosome from Sarah.

Other Romany Groups

I became fascinated with researching potential Romany ancestors in my multiple mystery triangulated groups.  Many of the surnames featured in these groups may possibly be Romany.

In researching these names I came across Goddard/Hitchman, a known couple of gypsy origin.  We have a triangulated group on chromosome 5 with six DNA matches tracing their ancestry back to this same couple, William Goddard and Mary Hitchman.  The six DNA matches descend via two of their children, Jemima 1831 and Joseph 1836.   William and Mary hail from Berkshire, could they be connected somehow?  Being travellers, their places of baptisms may well be harder to find!

There is a lot more work to be done to try and piece this all together.  Several other triangulated groups worth exploring too.  

A final piece of interesting information

Recently a photo was given to me by my second cousin Jenny, thought to be of my great grandmother Abigail, the daughter of George Courtney.  It was found amongst the possessions of James Roberts after his death in 2020.  James was the grandson of Abigail, his father also named James.  We can't be certain but it would seem that Abigail Courtney is the lady in the checked dress.  It is certainly Edward Roberts sitting proudly beside her, with their first grandson Howard born in 1923 probably taken in their home in Blacktown.  Unfortunately, the clarity of the images aren't great.

If this is Abigail, it appears she may have some other ethnicity besides English.  Could her father or perhaps one of his parents be of Romany descent?  She certainly has olive skin, perhaps her skin becoming darker after many years in the Australian sun.  We know these first two photos are Abigail, is the last her as well after being in Australia for 13 years?

My mother has always had olive skin too and tanned very easily. Perhaps she and her sister Mary have a similar resemblance to their grandmother in this photo taken about 1950.  Or am I just imagining it?

I'd appreciate your thoughts!

POSTSCRIPT: My mother Joan and her sister Mary always had a soft spot for the gypsies and gypsy life, I always thought it was romantic fancy.  They loved the old movies, I remember we always had to watch Caravan with Stewart Grainger when it aired on TV.  Mum read the tea leaves back in the 60's and both she and Mary liked to do fortune telling with the cards.  I can't envisage their father teaching them, but were they inspired from family stories?  Mary's grandson also recently reminded me that when any of her grandchildren got a tan she would say 'a touch of the tinker', believing there was gypsy blood somewhere but not exactly sure where it came from.

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This blog is dedicated to finding my second great grandfather Arthur 'George' Courtney c1841.   To see a summary of my research click here.  

If you help with any of questions raised in this post, please contact me using the contact form on this blog or send me a private message via Wikitree, Ancestry or Facebook. 

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