How identifying DNA matches has helped me improve my family tree Part 2 Looking at every record

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My gt grandfather was born in Warminster Workhouse, his mother was unmarried and was born in Fisherton Delamere and living there in 1841, so she would have been expected to have her settlement as this parish, which would be part of the area covered by the Wilton Workhouse.

However we do not find her in Wiltshire in the 1851 census. She has moved to Sherborne, Dorset and is employed as a Silk Winder.

It is possible that before her son was born she had moved to Warminster for work as this town also had Silk Mills.

So who was his father?

DNA matches have proven to be helpful in confirming the research discovered in the records available.

I attended a zoom talk on 29th October and one of the tips was to organise your matches into groups by looking at shared matches.

I have 2 unknown fathers at 2xgt grandparent level in the maternal side of my tree. Once I had assigned those I had confirmed as descendents of known relatives I was left with a number of unknowns which I grouped together.

On 30th October I started looking at how some of them might be connected. I had a number of them who had the surname Jeffery or a variant in their tree. 

Were they connected? Could this be my missing link?

One in particular stood out. 

The Samuel Jeffery in this tree was living at Middle Mills Sherborne, Dorset in 1851 he was a widower and a Carpenter.

I did some investigating and added more sources to the Family Search tree before moving to add anything to Ancestry.

During this research I came across marriage banns in July and August 1854.

Having made this final discovery I added Samuel as a likely father.

I now have more DNA matches that are linked to this family.

William was not the son of Harriett Hunt his mother had died before he appeared on the census records.

 William Burden Jeffery's birth was registered in the Oct-Nov-Dec quarter of 1848 in the Sherborne district Mother's maiden name: Burden.''GRO Reference:'' 1848 Oct-Nov-Dec in Sherborne Volume 08 Page 91.

William had a brother Frederic who is in a tree of someone who is a match and he has the correct mother, 

his descendants are showing up as matches.

I have been slowly adding to this family but being careful to ensure I have the correct family.

One of the key things here was deciding whether it was likely that Samuel and Martha had met. The fact that they were working in the same industry, in the same town, at the same time, was crucial in taking that final step.

Lives Cut Short - Remembering Uncle Sid and his brother Roy

This certificate can be downloaded from here

Who was Uncle Sid? Who Died 100 years ago today.

Why do we not talk about our ancestors when we are young? Too often we only get interested when we have already lost those who could tell us more. Only when I started to research my maternal line did I discover that my grandmother had more than one brother (see my earlier post Mother's Uncles). 

That being said Uncle Sid (Sidney Herbert Compton 31 Aug 1893 - 28 Aug 1917) brother of my maternal grandmother was only 23 when he died 100 years ago. His younger brother Roy (Ernest Roy Compton 8 Jun 1895 - 23 Feb1917) had died at the age of 19 only a few months earlier. The certificate for his brother, which can be found here, does not even have the names of his parents (something I have plans to rectify). When I wrote my earlier post I could not be sure that Roy Compton was the person I was looking for but further records have confirmed my assumption was correct.

This image was cropped from the original to show the entry of interest on the page.

"UK, Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929," database with images, Ancestry.co.uk (http://www.ancestry.co.uk: accessed 26 August 2017), image for Roy Compton, Record 725425 (1919); citing Soldiers' Effects Records, 1901-60,  1991-02-333, 434, 724001-725500, National Army Museum; Chelsea, London, England.

This shows who received any money that was due to him for his service and I have found a record for Sidney in the same collection.

This image was cropped from the original to show the entry of interest on the page.

"UK, Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929," database with images, Ancestry.co.uk (http://www.ancestry.co.uk: accessed 26 August 2017), image for Sidney Compton, Record 578886 (1919); citing Soldiers' Effects Records, 1901-60,  1991-02-333, 337, 578501-580000, National Army Museum; Chelsea, London, England.

I am fortunate to have been able to see a photocopy of a letter that Sid wrote to his sister Florence whilst out in France before his untimely death. You can see it in my earlier post mentioned above.
We will never know if my grandmother received her half-a-crown or whether she wrote that she had received it. Even if she did he may have died before he got her letter. 
I have also seen a letter sent to my grandmother from a Miss D Phillips, who we believe to be Sidney's girlfriend, whom he has asked to visit my grandmother, in the childrens home in Bristol, where she has been living.
I wonder what happened to his girlfriend who was living in Thornbury, Gloucestershire in 1917. Did she go on to marry and have children. There must have been many like her.

How much would my grandmother have remembered of her brothers. When I was born they had been dead over 40 years and she had lost her own husband less than 2 years before I was born.
She was only 6 years old when she was orphaned and how much would a six year old remember about her older brothers. Visits would be occasional as they involved travelling some distance.
It can be difficult for children to approach older relatives to speak about people who they knew. Sometimes it can be all too easy for earlier generations to be forgotten. When lives have been cut short too soon it can be painful to think of what they have missed. 

In his all too short life Sid experienced things that nobody should have to encounter. His father died of tuberculosis and the following year he discovered his mother when she took her own life. The horrors of seeing friends die whilst serving in WW1 can be hard to imagine. Let us hope that death was a gentle release for a hero.

Today is a day to Remember one who is gone but not forgotten.