When is a match, a match...? (Tracking down Andrew Forbes)

[RForbes]

Hi there!

First... some background

I've been trying to substantiate whether Andrew Forbes, who lived in Johnstone, Renfrewshire (m. 1792) is the father of my 4x Great Grandfather, William Forbes (b. 1806-11) who was a blacksmith in Girvan, Ayrshire.

I have some reasons to suspect this patrilineage (despite the substantial distance between Girvan & Johnstone):

• William Forbes' sister, Helen, was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire.
• William's first born son was named Andrew. (Consistent with Scottish Naming Patterns).
• Andrew Forbes had a son named William, born 1806, according to a birth record. Right timeline.
• Most of Andrew Forbes' children worked as blacksmiths. As did most of William Forbes' children.

Testing the theory with DNA

What I had hoped to accomplish was to provide another layer of substantiation to this theory before I moved on in my research.

The documentation all points positively, but would DNA substantiate or contradict the theory?

So I built a large family tree and tracked down three known distant descendants of Andrew Forbes who had all taken DNA tests: two six cousins, and a fourth cousin (2 times removed). Two of the descendants weren't interested. One of the sixth cousins had agreed to export her Ancestry.com file and I did a Autosomal One-to-one Comparison on GEDmatch.

These were the GEDmatch comparison results:

Largest segment = 4.4 cM
Total Half-Match segments (HIR) 18.3cM (0.511 Pct)
5 shared segments found for this comparison.
417967 SNPs used for this comparison.
52.479 Pct SNPs are full identical

My question for the forum is whether this provides credence to the theory that William is Andrew's son? It looks to me like the result is consistent with a sixth cousin and therefore doesn't contradict anything (?), but how different in terms of cM would a random person (a control) be from a sixth cousin? Is there a next step I should take?

[kiterunner]

I guess you could do some similar comparisons with random people and see what the results look like?

If the largest segment is only 4.4 cM it looks to me as though it could just occur by chance, but then if you are looking at known sixth cousins, most of them will not come up as DNA matches anyway. For instance, according to FamilyTreeDNA, the chance of having a DNA match with a sixth cousin is less than 2%.

[RForbes]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

I guess you could do some similar comparisons with random people and see what the results look like?

If the largest segment is only 4.4 cM it looks to me as though it could just occur by chance, but then if you are looking at known sixth cousins, most of them will not come up as DNA matches anyway. For instance, according to FamilyTreeDNA, the chance of having a DNA match with a sixth cousin is less than 2%.

Okay I've looked at 60 random GEDMatch results and compared, the results suggest a mean cM of 3.96885. (Standard Deviation: 2.23).



I have a feeling this suggests to me that while the DNA comparison can't disprove the theory, it cannot substantiate it either, since the result is virtually identical to a comparison with a random subject. What do you think?

And a non-DNA question - have you found a birth / baptism record for Helen showing that she was Andrew's daughter?

Excellent question: no I've never found a birth record for Helen. That's been the biggest gap in the documentation. The gap was never a dealbreaker for me (there are other children that have lacked birth records in the family), but it's partly why I've tried to search out as many means as possible of substantiating the theory.

Helen Forbes appears in the 1851 and 1861 Scotland census but her birth date jumps from 1801 to 1811 between the two censuses. I think the reason for the discrepency is the census lazily chose '40' and '60' for her age. However I can confirm that it's the same Helen in both censuses because she was living with two of her nieces; this closeness was documented in the nieces' death and marriage certificates.

I've never identified Helen in the 1841 census, nor have I identified a death record.

Andrew Forbes (m. 1792) had three documented children for which birth records can be found on ScottishPeoples.gov.uk:

Agnes Forbes (b. 1792, d. unknown)
John Forbes (b. 1804)
William Forbes (b. 1806, d. ~1845)

Andrew Forbes (b. 1810, d. 1839) is usually assumed in genealogical research to be another child of Andrew Forbes.

Since the sixth cousin that my DNA was compared against was related to Andrew Forbes via Andrew, there is the remote possibility that it is Andrew, not William, who was not related to Andrew Sr.

Also, I don't know much about Y-DNA testing, but as it seems you are working on the male line all the way back, you could look into whether there is a Forbes Y-DNA project and whether it would be worth you (or a male Forbes relative such as brother, father or uncle if you are female) doing a Y-DNA test.

I am working the male line as far back as I can, yes. I am interested in doing a Y-DNA test in the future, but I'm a bit skeptical of the relevance of the Forbes Y-DNA project to me that I've seen, because my Forbeses don't appear to have come from Aberdeen. My suspicion is the Forbeses in my line probably settled in Johnstone in the 1790s from Perthshire (Blair Atholl?) or Argyll.

One of the most interesting little finds I've found was "Andrew Forbes of Johnstone" cited as a subscriber in 1794 and 1795 to a series of volumes of puritan sermons. Which suggests Andrew may have been literate and religious (and certainly not a jacobite!).

https://books.google.ca/books?id=QRxhAAAAcAAJ&
https://books.google.ca/books?id=B-pNAQAAMAAJ&dq

[kiterunner]

Also, I don't know much about Y-DNA testing, but as it seems you are working on the male line all the way back, you could look into whether there is a Forbes Y-DNA project and whether it would be worth you (or a male Forbes relative such as brother, father or uncle if you are female) doing a Y-DNA test.

[kiterunner]

And a non-DNA question - have you found a birth / baptism record for Helen showing that she was Andrew's daughter?

[Olde Crone]

I know you say this family has no connection to the Aberdeen Forbes, but just to humour me, did your Andrew marry a Nesbitt? I have a parallel family with a Helen Forbes missing in 51 and 61, but found at death in Nigg.

OC

[RForbes]

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

I know you say this family has no connection to the Aberdeen Forbes, but just to humour me, did your Andrew marry a Nesbitt? I have a parallel family with a Helen Forbes missing in 51 and 61, but found at death in Nigg.

OC

I am afraid I do not believe this Andrew is the same as your Andrew. I know of the Nigg-based Helen because I've come across her in my own research, but 'my' Helen reported in the 1861 Census she was born in Johnstone and it appears she never left Renfrewshire (there's a possibilty she followed her niece to Northern Ireland when her niece and new husband moved to Enniskillen during the 1870s - they later returned to Renfrewshire.)

[kiterunner]

I agree with you about the results of your GEDmatch comparisons. I will see if I can find anything non-DNA-related to help with the Forbeses.

[kiterunner]

There is a Helen Forbes death with MMN Miller, 1864, age 55, but the district is Latheron, so seems unlikely to be the right person unless she had family in that area.

[RForbes]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

There is a Helen Forbes death with MMN Miller, 1864, age 55, but the district is Latheron, so seems unlikely to be the right person unless she had family in that area.

So you inspired me to take another (god knows how many times I've done this) search for a death record. Latheron is too far... but Port Glasglow is not.

Thank you!!

In a surprising twist of fate, there is a match for Helen from the Scottish death records.

I would really appreciate the assistance of genealogists here in trying to transcribe parts of the death record - especially the maiden name of Helen's mother (which baffles me), and confirmation of Andrew's occupation.

I probably never looked at this entry before because:

• The age is off again, her actual birth year is now somewhere between 1788-1810.
• The mother's maiden name is strangely formatted as "Homes (?) Miller."
• I never expected Helen would live long enough to follow her niece and the Russell family from Paisley to Northern Ireland and then back to Port Glasgow. It seemed like an unlikely journey.

But it is a match:

• Father is Andrew Forbes, mother is Agnes (Miller sp?) Forbes - consistent with my original theory, in spite of a birth record.
• Helen lived with her niece and I know her niece moved to Northern Ireland in the 1870s and moved to Port Glasgow specifically sometime between 1878 and 1881. So this would explain why Helen does not appear in the 1871 Scottish Census as she likely lived in Northern Ireland, but died in Port Glasgow after returning back.
• The location of Helen's death is the Port Glasgow Saw Mills on Brown St, where her nephew-in-law worked as a commercial clerk. In the 1881 Census, Helen's niece and the rest of the family (Russells) continue to reside at Brown St.

YIPPIE!!!

Helen Forbes
(Single)

1879
October
Twentieth
7h 30m 10m (?)

Saw mills
Brown street
Port Glasgow


F, 91 year

Andrew Forbes
Clothier
(Deceased)

Agnes Forbes
MN. Holme (???) Miller

Exhaustion
--??
--??
???

? McK--?
Proprietor

1879
October 21
at Port Glasgow
??, Registrar