Raney DNA Helps Locate 16th C. Somerset Ancestral Home

Flag of County Somerset, England

When Pat Raney and a host of other Raneys/Raineys took the paternal line DNA test in about 2007, the results informed Pat that our family's closest DNA match was to a descendant of Francis Rainey (c.1730-1804), a plantation owner, born and buried in Virginia. Francis was not our direct ancestor. I continue to try to link our 3rd great-grandfather James Rainey (b.1814 - died before 1870 in Indiana) to one of Francis's numerous brothers or uncles born in Southside Virginia (those Virginia counties above the North Carolina line). What we know with certainty is that we are descended from a Rainey who settled in Virginia in the 17th century.

Southside Virginia

For some time we believed our Rainey ancestor immigrated to Virginia about 1732 in the huge Scots--Irish diaspora out of Ulster (present-day Northern Ireland).  I even visited Derry (Londonderry) a couple of years ago, took photos of the broad River Foyle so many sailed away on and bid our distant-in-time ancestor a good life in America. Some of our ancestors did come to America in that migration - the Dougans - for instance. But not the Raineys.

Foyle River at Derry, Northern Ireland

William Rainey (c.1666-1722) and possibly a brother John Rainey came to Virginia earlier. There is record of William being granted land in Prince George County in 1713. Additionally, because of Pat's DNA test, I've discovered that the Rainey family resided in Bridgwater, Somerset, England, at least a hundred years earlier.

Somerset, England

The graph below exhibits Pat's closest DNA matches of present-day Raneys/Raineys. See the vertical line of numbers on the left. Francis Rainey is a 1. That means the late Claude Gladwin Rainey, able to trace his ancestry on paper up 6 generations to Francis Rainey, was one degree of genetic distance from Pat Raney. If Francis Rainey were our direct ancestor, the degree would be 0. There is a 95% chance that within 8 generations Claude and Pat shared a mutual ancestor, a 99% by the 12th generation. So Claude's and our mutual ancestor might well be Francis's father Roger Rainey (1700-1747) or Roger's father William (c.1666-1722) or his uncle John (d.1740). We know only that we're related to that group of Southside Virginia Raineys. Now pay attention because the next paragraph is important to my story. 

67 Markers - 15 - Matches

Genetic Distance  ↑	Name	Earliest Known Ancestor	Y-DNA Haplogroup	Terminal SNP	Match Date
1	Claude Gladwin Rainey (1923-2007) Y-DNA67	Francis RAINEY b ca 1725, d 1804 VA	R-M269		2/17/2010
2	J RAINEY Y-DNA67    FF	John Rainey b.1827-1832 GA d.abt 1884 FayetteCo.AL	R-FGC12307	FGC12307	12/5/2017
2	J. M. Rainey Y-DNA67		R-M269		7/25/2011
2	M. Rainey Y-DNA67    FF	William Rainey b ca 1774 VA d 1855 SC	R-M269		11/1/2007
2	B. W. Rainey Y-DNA67	John Y. Rainey b ca 1800 NC d MS	R-M269		11/1/2007
2	J. S. Raney Y-DNA67	J.Russell M. Raney b ca 1856 MS, d 1884 MS	R-M269		11/1/2007
2	H. F. Rainey Y-DNA67	Francis Rainey b ca 1725, d 1804 VA	R-M269		11/1/2007
2	J. D. Rainey Y-DNA67	William Raney 1805 - 1885	R-M269		11/1/2007
2	T. L. Raney Y-DNA67	William Raney b ca 1770 VA	R-P25	P25	11/1/2007
2	P. T. Rainey Y-DNA67	John Y. Rainey b ca 1800 NC, d MS	R-M269		11/1/2007
3	E. M. Rainey Y-DNA67    FF	William Rainey, b. 1774 and d. 1855	R-M269		10/12/2015
3	E. Rainey Y-DNA67	William Rainey b ca 1774 VA, d af 1855 SC	R-M269		2/8/2012
4	D. Rainey Y-DNA67	William Rainey b ca 1734 VA, d 1815 VA	R-M269		11/1/2007
5	L. W. Raney Y-DNA67	Daniel Epps Rainey b 1796 VA, d 1862 VA	R-M269		11/1/2007
7	Craig E--- Y-DNA67		R-M269		7/14/2016

See the bottom line on the graph where the degree of genetic connection to Pat Raney is 7. It indicates that the ascent for Pat and Craig E--- to reach a mutual ancestor is a real stretch. What's surprising is that Craig's surname is not Rainey. Craig E--- (identity withheld) lives in Tasmania. He was asked to take the Family Tree DNA test by a person with his same surname, who is trying to trace her family bloodline to Cornwall and beyond.  Craig could trace his E--- family to an ancestor who married in Withycombe, Somerset, England, in 1743. But lo and behold, when he took the paternal DNA test the results indicated his paternal line was actually the same as the Raineys/Raneys. He and Pat Raney (and the rest of us) have a mutual Rainey ancestor far up the direct male line. My curiosity was whetted.

I looked online at the Wythicombe, Somerset, parish records to see if any Raineys had lived there. They had not. I was able to search all the extant Somerset parish records. I found a few Raineys in Tickingham and Long Ashton, but no family of E---. And then I found some Rainey women baptised, married and buried in Bridgwater. I searched the Bridgwater parish records for the family E---. And there was little Michael E---, baptized 23 January 1613/14 at St. Mary parish church. These records aren't complete, and there was no suspect Rainey male who could be the child's possible biological father.  I changed the search to Raynye, as our ancestors William and John Rainey occasionally spelled their name. And there he was - Rafe Raynye, baptized 24 December, 1574, at St. Mary parish church in Bridgwater. Is Rafe the mutual ancestor linking us with Craig E--- in Tasmania? It's something to consider. The Raineys were merchants, so they must have had a female servant or two. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

St. Mary parish church, Bridgwater, Somerset, where our Rainey ancestors worshiped in the 16th and 17th centuries.

 In my next blog, I'll tell you about the Rainey's merchant ship, The Friendship of Belfast, and the pirates.
 PS: The woman who asked Craig to take the DNA test read this blog and explains the DNA mutations: 

You say " If Francis Rainey were our direct ancestor, the degree would be 0".  That is not my understanding of Y-DNA. One degree of difference means there has been one variation/mutation in one or other descendant's Y-DNA since the common ancestor. With Y-DNA these occur every 200 years or so, on average (sometimes more frequently and sometimes less, it can depend on which gene it is). You can use the TiP report in FTDNA to see the probability of the number of generations to the common ancestor (generally 25 years per generation).

I would think it highly likely that if Rafe Raynye was born in 1574 and is the common ancestor, there would have to be at least 1 genetic difference and more likely 2. I think the common ancestor could be someone a bit closer to now. Experts are able to make more accurate predictions, but it is a very inexact science.

Peter Whittinghill (1752-1844) - Ancestor of Mysterious Origin

 

Shenandoah Valley

When I read family traditions regarding an ancestor, I'm reminded of an Antiques Roadshow episode years ago when a woman produced a large decorative teapot and proclaimed, "This came over with my ancestors on the Mayflower in 1620." The host intoned, "Madam, the teapot didn't arrive in Britain until the early 1700s." Then turning it over to read the mark, he added, "And yours was made in England in the 1880s." You should have seen her face fall. 

The descendants of Peter Whittinghill (c.1752-1844) (our 5th great-grandfather) had numerous family traditions about his origins.

From the 1987 revision of Michael L. Cook's The Whittinghill Family in America:  "(1) One family legend is that he was kidnapped and impressed as a seaman on a ship sailing to America in 1770, at the age of eighteen, and upon landing in Virginia (or Pennsylvania), he escaped. [H]e either assumed a fictitious name in order to escape his abductors, or . . . was illiterate . . . and with an accent, the name sounded like Whittinghill . . . (2) . . . Peter was a stowaway on a ship sailing to this country, and the captain discovered him en route, grew fond of him, and sponsored his entry into the state of Pennsylvania where he took the name Whittinghill for safety. . . But the family favorite was (3) . . . Peter Whittinighill was a Hessian soldier, transported to this country by the British . . . he changed his allegiance and joined the colonists in their bid for freedom in the American Revolution." The author, however, found no similar name in German records of Hessian mercenary troops.

The first white settlements in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, lying west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, were not a result of the Virginia Tidewater Europeans spreading plantation life west, but founded by Pennsylvania German and Scots-Irish Borderers, who had originally immigrated to Pennsylvania Colony. They moved south down the Great Wagon Road from western Pennsylvania into the Valley of Virginia, trickling in during the 1730s, then at an accelerating speed into the 1750s and until the American Revolution.  

Augusta County, Virginia (originally covering more territory than now, much of it in present-day West Virginia)

And here I should tell you that Peter Whittinghill married
Catherine Gabbart (Gerbert Gabbad Gabhardt Gabhart) (1750-1830) (our 5th great-grandmother) about 1778 in the part of Augusta County, Virginia, that later became West Virginia, and that he was closely associated, perhaps even before the marriage, with our 6th great-grandparents, Mathias and Christina Gabbart, who operated a grinding mill. Peter may have apprenticed with the Gabbarts, for he, too, became a miller. 

Baden-Württemberg

Mathias Gabbart was born in 1720 in Schwaigern, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, to Johann Fredrich (1699-1750) and Susanna Gabbart (1692-1736), our 7th great-grandparents. He immigrated at age eleven with his parents and siblings in 1731, landing in Philadelphia, and later moving to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Even though Mathias moved down to Virginia in the 1750s, I suppose we can say we're descended from a Pennsylvania Dutch family since his parents must have died in Lancaster County. Mathias had four sons and nine daughters with Christina Bumgardner (Kremer). He died on July 3, 1798 in Augusta County at age 70. Christina also was born in Schwaigern, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (1725) and arrived in Philadelphia perhaps on the same ship in 1731. She had three children from a first marriage and 13 children with Mathias. She also died in 1798, which makes me think influenza, yellow fever or another pestilence took them. We know Mathias was in Augusta County by 1769 when he purchased 150 acres in Beverly Manor from the son of the first settler, Robert Young (an immigrant from County Antrim, (Northern) Ireland). As I mentioned earlier, at this time most of the settlers in Augusta County were Scots-Irish and German Protestants from the Palatinate along the Rhine River. You will recall that our other line of German ancestry, the Utterbacks (Otterbach), had earlier settled in Germanna,Virginia. Read about it HERE

Well, back to Peter Whittinghill, who was most likely German-speaking and most likely migrated south out of Pennsylvania with the Gabbarts, apprenticed to Mathias as a miller. He married Mathias' oldest daughter Catherine Gabbart about 1778. 

Mill built in early 19th century in Rockbridge County, Virginia

Peter Whittinghill's first known land purchase was in Rockbridge County (formerly part of Augusta). As a grantee, he was "Peter Whittingham." When he sold the property a few years later, he was "Peter Whittinghill." 

Rockbridge County, Virginia

This we know is true. Peter served in the American Revolutionary War on behalf of the colonies in the Virginia Riflemen, 2nd Division, Virginia Militia, but not necessarily well. In Augusta County, on October 22, 1778, he was charged (spelled on the paperwork as Peter Wittenhill) for being absent without leave from Captain John Young's Company, and not appearing at a private muster on September 4, 1778 (along with a number of other militiamen), and summoned to appear at the next meeting of the military court held under Colonel Sampson Mathews. Read about Mathews HERE. Peter had recently married - a reasonable excuse for not showing up, I'm sure. But he additionally failed to muster six more times through 1782. The militia was so desperate for men, he probably was only fined for his repetitive breaches of proper military conduct. Because he was present and accounted for during the entire year of 1781, he likely participated in the Battle of Richmond early in the year against Benedict Arnold and the Siege of Yorktown in October. He might have witnessed Cornwallis' surrender. He never applied for a pension, and the militia roster appears lost; so these AWOLs are our only proof that he fought for his new country.
 

Surrender of Cornwallis by John Trumbull

Peter Whittinghill first appeared on the Augusta County tax list in 1779. During the following two decades he and his father-in-law Mathias would purchase land, build a mill, operate it for a few years and then sell it - at a profit, I expect.  They stayed in business together until about 1796. By 1797 or 1798 when their last daughter Jane was born, Peter and Catherine were already "bound away for Kentuk." Mathias and Christina died in Augusta County in 1798.

Mercer County, Kentucky

The 1810 census shows Peter, Catherine and their children in Mercer County, apparently with some of Catherine's siblings and possibly neighbors. Peter built and operated a mill. It may have been on the Kentucky River, which flows from south to north through the county on its way to the Ohio River.

Kentucky River Watershed

By 1816 they were in Ohio County, Kentucky, where daughter Elizabeth (Whittenhill on the marriage certificate) (1794-1859) and William Erwin (1790-1855) married and became our 4th great-grandparents. Perhaps Peter built a mill on the Green River.

Green River, Ohio County, Kentucky

Sometime before the 1820 census, Peter got an itchy foot and they  loaded barges with their household goods, livestock and grinding stones (or maybe sold the mill and left them) and poled down the Green River to the Ohio, then up it a short way to Spencer County, Indiana, because Indiana, admitted to the Union in 1816, was the place to be.

Green River Watershed

Some of their children went with them but, now adults, they established their own homes there. Peter and Catherine were living alone in the 1820 census. In the1830 census they were in Grass Township, Spencer County.

Spencer County, Indiana

Catherine died in 1830 and on 1 June 1831, Peter moved a few miles north, purchased nearly 80 acres of land and built a corn-cracking mill at Gentryville, Spencer County, a year after Abraham Lincoln, who grew up just outside Gentryville, left for Illinois. Did he ever see the gawky young man rambling along the road? Lincoln returned to give a speech in 1844, the year Peter died in neighboring Warrick County.

Peter does appear in the History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, published in the 1885; he was noted for having operated a grist mill in Spencer County. "The corn-cracker was turned by a sweep, each man hitching on his horse or oxen to grind his own grain and afterward turning the bolt by hand." Peter's son,William Whittinghill (1795-1850) is mentioned for having "caught a large black wolf across the line in Warrick County, and brought it over to Gentryville, where it was disabled and made to fight the dogs. It could lick any of them singly. Whittinghill tanned deer, wolf, bear and other skins at his tannery." 

Peter was buried at the Samuel Gentry Burial ground, NW of Folsomville, in Owen Township. This cemetery is on land now largely strip-mined by the coal industry; a remnant of the cemetery  lies on a knoll, part of it fallen into a pit. Only a few eroded sandstone markers remain. 

Pleasant Whittinghill (1826-1907), a grandson, served in the Mexican War.  

Benjamin F. Whittinghill, another grandson (1838-1910 ) served in the Union army, Company I of the 53rd Regiment, Indiana Volunteers, and saw much action with Grant. He was ordered with 31 others to charge across a field during the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain outside of Atlanta in 1864. Fourteen were killed or wounded and Benjamin, with two others, was captured.  His two companions died in the Confederate prison and when he was released, he was so emaciated from ill-treatment and starvation, he could hardly walk.

A granddaughter of Peter, remembering him in her 80s, recalled that he was very old and still had an accent from "the old country." What country that was, we'll never really know.

Our Earliest Indiana Ancestors - The Erwins and Whittinghills: Part 1

 

America in 1820

Our earliest ancestors to settle in Indiana were the Erwins and the Whitinghills in 1818. 


But first, we'll revisit our 2nd great-grandmother, Nancy Jane (Dougan) Rainey (1847- c.1876), our 2nd great-grandfather Everett Rainey's wife, who died in a kitchen fire with their daughter Sarah (b. 1867). Because Everett remarried in March 1877 to Polly Ann Early, I thought Nancy and Sarah died only a few months earlier and Everett had to find a wife to care for our great-grandfather James Samuel (1868-1954) and his sister Cordelia (1872-1918) while Everett farmed. I looked in vain for a report of their deaths in The Jerome Observer, a weekly newspaper published in a nearby county, which had a gruesome column titled "Haps and Mishaps" that detailed tragic deaths. I searched only the cooler months of 1875 and 1876 because Pat Raney recalls hearing that little Sarah was making hot chocolate for her father and brother when her dress caught fire. But he farmed next to where his mother lived, so she most likely cared for the children until he remarried. You can refresh your memory on the awful event HERE.

Nancy Jane Dougan's and her brother Peter's mother was Mary Ann "Polly" Erwin (1817-1850), first wife of their father Samuel B. Dougan (1820-1870). You'll recall that the Dougans immigrated from County Donegal in the early 1700s to Pennsylvania, then down to North Carolina Colony in time to fight in the American Revolution. After the war some Dougans migrated into Tennessee and northern Alabama before heading up to Dyer County in western Tennessee (to settle on a Dougan Revolutionary War veteran's land grant), and finally up into southern Indiana by about 1830. 

Dyer County, Tennessee

Samuel B. Dougan (1820-1870), our 3rd great-grandfather, and Charles Carl Dougan (1816-1896) were apparently brothers (as a descendant of Charles Carl recently informed me through Ancestry.com). She also says it's her family's tradition that they were orphans, taken along on the Dougan migration to Tennessee and Indiana. I was uncertain on the identities of their fathers or, as it turned out, father. Whatever their Dougan lineage, after moving up to Indiana with the Dougan clan, they each married an Erwin. 

Warrick County, Indiana

In 1842 in Warrick County, Mary Ann "Polly" Erwin (1817-1850), our 3rd great-grandmother, married Samuel, and her niece, Sarah Elizabeth Erwin (1843-1917), later became Charles Carl's 2nd wife. But that's not all.  In those days Polly was a nickname for Mary and earlier another Mary "Polly" Erwin (1812-1886), our Polly's aunt, married a Dougan uncle or cousin named Samuel A. (allegedly for "Alabama") Dougan (1810-1862). These pairings caused me no end of frustration as I tried again and again to marry the correct Erwin women to the correct Dougan men in my tree. And wouldn't you know that in the 1850 censuses, both Samuel B. and brother Charles Carl had daughters named Nancy. Eventually I noticed that Charles Carl's daughter was Nancy E. Dougan and Samuel B. Dougan's daughter was Nancy J. Dougan. And that's when I realized Samuel B. Dougan was our 3rd great-grandfather. After Polly's death in 1850, Samuel remarried and had numerous children. 

Our 3rd great-uncle Peter Dougan

 By 1860 when he was 15, Polly's son Peter Dougan (1845-1922) was farmed out to John Erwin, his uncle. He married Sarah Jane Bass in 1863, and then enlisted with Company I Indiana 42nd Infantry Regiment on March 8, 1864, was promoted to Full Corporal and Mustered out on May 17, 1865.

Sherman T. Dougan, son of Samuel B. Dougan from his 2nd marriage. I wonder if he looked like his dad. He resembles his half-brother Peter.

Turning now to the Erwins. Polly Erwin's parents were William Erwin (1790-1855) and Elizabeth Whitinghill (1794-1859), our 4th great-grandparents. 

William Erwin was born in 1790 in Virginia. Based on the 1810 census, he may have been living in Henry County, Kentucky, with his parents, Joseph Erwin (5th great-grandfather) and an unknown mother. 

Henry County, Kentucky

He married Elizabeth Whittinghill in Ohio County, Kentucky, on 10 Dec 1816. 

Ohio County, Kentucky

They had Polly, their oldest, in Kentucky before moving to Warrick County, Indiana, in 1818, our earliest ancestors to settle in Indiana, where they had four more children. William Erwin died in 1855 at age 65. It's through his son John Erwin that we learn a bit about the family. 

 A History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, Indiana was published in 1885 by Goodspeed Bros. Co. It published the histories of many American counties, sending out salesmen to approach prominent county officials, businessmen and farmers, obtain family biographies and solicit subcriptions for each county history. It was in a way a vanity scam, just as present-day Who's Who in America books are, but those old books became a boon to researchers. William Erwin's son and Polly's younger brother John (1820-1892) was approached. Perhaps he was shown his family's name in the Lane Township history already printed.
 
Among the first substantial settlers in this township the Gentry family occupies an important place. Among the first was William Gentry, who came in 1821, and Matthew Gentry in 1822, both from North Carolina. They located on land not far from the village of Folsomville, and were for years prominent in county affairs. The first purchase of land in the township was in 1820, when William Erwin became the owner of eighty acres in Section 33. . . .

John must have been shown not only his father's name, but that of his maternal uncle David Whitinghill, son of his grandfather Peter Whitinghill.
 
Lane Township is the one last organized of any in the county [out] of Owen Township. It was named in honor of Gen. Joseph Lane, one of America's illustrious men, who was at one time a resident . . . . Prominent among its early settlers was William Scales ... Stephen Hanby, David Whitinghill . . . 

Then the salesman would have asked for John Erwin's family history to be added to the book . . . and how many subscriptions would he like for himself and as gifts for family members. This is what appeared about our 4th great-uncle:

John Erwin, farmer and stock-raiser, was born in Owen Township, in this county and State, May 24, 1820, and is the second of six children born to the marriage of William Erwin and Elizabeth Whitinghill, who were natives respectively of Virginia and Pennsylvania. William Erwin came to Warrick County, Ind., at the early year of 1818, and the county never knew a more loyal citizen. He died in 1855. John Erwin received his education from the old-fashioned log-schoolhouse of that day, and until twenty years old assisted his parents on the home farm. September 17, 1839, Mary J. Carnahan became his wife, and by him the mother of five children named Minerva, Sarah E., Nancy E., John F., and Mary. He was married to his second wife, who was formerly Alice Bethell, April 15, 1859. Mr. Erwin began life's battle a poor boy, and by industry and good management has secured a comfortable home and valuable property. Although a Democrat of the stanchest kind, he is by no means an office seeker. Notwithstanding he has served over eight years as Trustee of Lane Township, and over two years as County Commissioner, in each office serving his constituents with fidelity and credit.
 
Pretty heady stuff.

 In my next blog I'll tell you about Elizabeth Whitinghill Erwin's  father Peter Whitinghill (1752-1844) (our 5th great-grandfather), and the mystery regarding his origins.

What Did Our Ancestors Die Of?

 

Frank and Mary Raney, June 1960: their 50th wedding anniversary

 Death certificates were instituted early in the 20th century, filled out by the attending physician. I'm sharing my curiosity on the cause-of-deaths of our direct ancestors and their siblings. Are any causes hereditary? You be the judge.

Cousin Kathleen Raney Sullivan provided me with a copy of grandfather Frank Whitman Raney's death certificate. I was living back east when he died in October 1969, and recalled Mom saying it was liver failure. At age 82 he began itching all over, put himself in the hospital and never came out. But it wasn't liver failure. It was pyelonephritis with uremia - a serious kidney infection. To make matters worse, after his death an autopsy was performed, which revealed he had only one working kidney. What initially put him in the hospital was dermatitis herpetiformis which, according to Wikipedia is caused by excess consumption of gluten. He also had general arterioclerosia.

Frank Whitman Raney's death certificate

Mary Raney on her brother Gusta Smith's and sister Laura Smith's farm in Addie, Washington

We know that Grandma Mary Smith Raney was 97 when she died in May 1979 . Her lungs filled with fluid as I recall. The death certificate says she died of heart failure. She was a tough woman and we should all hope to live so long.

Mary Smith Raney's death certificate

 Grandma's brother Gusta Smith died in 1965 at 89. He'd had dementia for a number of years.

Grandma's sister Laura Smith died in 1955 at age 67 of a stroke. It was an instant death.

James Samuel Raney, Laura Esther Raney and Nancy Ann Dyson Raney.

Our great-grandfather, James Samuel Raney, died in 1954 at Deaconess Hospital in Spokane a few days after surgery (not certain for what) of "hemorrhage and irreversible shock" with an underlying "diabetic coma." He was 86. 

His wife, our great-grandmother, Nancy Ann Dyson Raney, died in 1938 in Indiana at age 71 of "hemipligia in left side" after a duration of 8 days. Hemipligia is a total or partial paralysis of one side of the body resulting from disease of or injury to the motor centers of the brain. I assume she had a stroke.

Their daughter and Grandpa's sister, Laura Esther Raney Straw, died in 1954 at age 51 of a "ruptured aneurysm in the circle of Willis" [a complete ring of arteries at the base of the brain that is formed by the cerebral and communicating arteries and is a site of aneurysms]. She lived 10 minutes after onset.
 

[Scroll over] Other than Whitman Hill Dyson far left and James and Nancy Ann Dyson Raney holding Laura Esther, I have no idea which are Dyson siblings and which spouses. 1902

Here are a few of our great-grandmother, Nancy Ann Dyson's Indiana siblings. Magaret Ellen Dyson Butler (1861-1944): 10 years of "pulmonary tuberculosis," but it was the "influenza followed by 10 days of bronchial pneumonia" that did her in  Lou Ann Dyson Leach (1866-1943): 17 years of arthritis; 10 days of "bowel impaction" that caused [indecipherable word], so her death remains a mystery. Sarah Dyson Bass (1865-1940): "Sarcoma of liver" [cancer]. Duration: long. Our great-grandmother's half-brothers are next. Willard Dyson (1879-1936): "Coronary thrombosis"; Leonard Dyson (1900-1977): "Heart disease" for 5 years followed by "acute pulmonary edema" for 12 hours; John Whitman Dyson (1897-1971); "Acute pancreatitis; renal cyst right kidney;" Joseph Alva Dyson (1891-1970): 10 years of "generalized arteriosclerosis," followed by 2 days of "cerebral thrombosis" [stroke]. Their father, our great-great grandfather, Whitman Hill Dyson, having married three times, died in 1914 at age about 80, but we don't know the cause of death, most likely because he died at home.

Gusta, Laura, Louisa Petitjohn Smith and Eugene Smith

Our grandmother Mary Smith's father, Eugene Smith, died at age 79 in 1928 in Spokane, but I don't know what he died of and can't retrieve online the actual death certificate. He was always sickly and suffered from migraines. Her mother, Louisa Pettijohn Smith (1849-1931) died at her home in what is now the Spokane Valley from cancer. She suffered a lingering death with only the occasional spoonful of laudanum to fleetingly suppress the pain. The unlicensed French immigrant doctor said it was cancer of the spleen (Mom snorted in derision when she told me this bit), but my guess is that it was some other internal cancer. If it had been breast cancer, I think there would have been some sign of it. Another death certificate I'm unable to retrieve online. 

 

Regarding our great-grandmother Louisa Pettijohn Smith's siblings: Charles Francis Pettijohn (1844-1921): The newspaper obituary states he died of nephritis [kidney disease] at age 77 in Kansas.  As for her other brothers, Jean Claude Petitjean (1847-1928) (who kept the original spelling of their surname) died at age 81 in Ohio; Jules Pettijohn (1856-1951) died at age 95 at his home in Kansas in 1951.

Indiana makes death certificates available online, so here are some collateral relatives who died in the 20th century. Elizabeth Rainey Heath (1850-1924), sister to our great-great grandfather Everett Rainey, died of "cardiovascular nephritic" syndrome [kidney disease].  Another sister, Serena Rainey Mason (1847-1923) died of "influenza" with am underlying cause of "infirmity of old age." She was 76. 

Their sister, Cordelia Ann Rainey Barrett (1842-after 1920), died at the poor farm at age 78 or older, so no telling the cause. Everett's brother, Absolom Rainey (1833-1907) died of "cerebro meningitis" with an underlying cause of "chronic nephritis." As for our great-great grandfather Everett Rainey (1844-1899), the measles and other viruses and infections he contracted during the Civil War affected him for the rest of his life; he grew so weak he was unable to farm and died an invalid at age 56, exact cause unknown. Everett's first wife, our great-great grandmother Nancy Jane Dougan Rainey, died in a house fire in the 1870s.  Her brother Peter Dougan (1845-1922) died of "mitral [valve] regurgitation"[blood leaking back into the heart] with an underlying cause of "chronic parenchymatous nephritis."

Peter Dougan

It appears there was a lot of kidney disease in the family at end of life.  A number of ancestors and their siblings died in youth and middle age before death certificates were issued . Was there cancer down the family lines that claimed some of them? We'll never know.  You may have found this blog dismal, but I feel that knowledge makes us wiser . . . for what it's worth.

 

DNA and Our Granmother Mary Raney's Jewish Roots

 

Jewish Quarter, Girona, Spain

 DNA - it can give you a jolt. I think I've discovered our Grandmother Mary Raney's ethnic origins - a couple of bloodlines, anyway.  And may I say that her ancestors were living cultured lives while our grandfather's British ancestors were leading a rather barbaric existence. 

Jewish Quarter, Ribadavia, Spain

 I have the Ancestry.com DNA results of Pat Raney, male child of Paul Whitman Raney, and of Jack Raney, male child of Dennis Patrick Raney. Paul and Dennis were sons of Frank Whitman Raney and Mary Emma (Smith) Raney, who was descended from French families from the Franche Comté in eastern France.

Franche-Comté

If you are Pat Raney's siblings, your descent is 45% Western Europe; 35% Great Britain; 8% Scandinavia; 3% Iberian Peninsula (Spain/Portugal); 2% European Jewish; 2% Ireland, Scotland, Wales (which I interpret as early Celtic); 1% Europe South; less than 1% Middle East.  Paul's wife Grace Bernhardt was of Austrian descent.

If you are Jack Raney's siblings, your descent is 50% Great Britain; 35% Scandinavian (specifically Eastern Norway); 3% Western Europe; 2% Finland/Northwest Russia; 2% European Jewish; 1% Ireland, Scotland, Wales (Early Celtic); 4% Europe South; 2% Caucasus, less than 1% Iberian Peninsula. Dennis's wife Junice Moe was of Norwegian/Finnish-Russian and British descent.

A couple of years ago I took the National Geographic DNA test, which is more general and, because I'm female, gave only my maternal results - for Geneva Raney, sister of Paul and Dennis. It indicated 69% Great Britain and Ireland, 20% southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, or Greece), 5% Scandinavia, and 4% Asia Minor (modern Turkey, Israel, etc).

I've read that ethnic strains of DNA can be different in siblings, stronger in one, weaker in the other.  No doubt it's even more evident in cousins trying to parse out the ethnicity of their ancestors.

It's difficult to isolate 25% of DNA origin in Pat and Jack for our grandmother, Mary Raney. We know her parents were descended from farmers in the Franche Comté. Here is my speculation:

Someone in Mary Raney's ancestry was a Spanish converso - a Jew who was forcibly converted to Catholicsm, perhaps in the late 14th century (or voluntarily converted for the convenience of not being expelled from Spain in 1492). Recall that our grandmother had black hair, as did her daughter Mary Agnes, and her mother Louisa had flashing black eyes (as my mother recalled). That wasn't from French blood - that was from Spanish blood.  I base this conjecture on Pat Raney's 3% Iberian, 2% European Jewish, 1% southern Europe; less than 1% Middle East. That equals less than 7%. Where is Mary Raney's other 17%? Probably some of the 45% western Europe belongs to Mary. When I first saw Pat's DNA I emailed him and suggested the Jewish blood came from his mother's side. I changed my mind when I saw Jack's DNA.

Jack Raney's DNA for Mary is less than 1% Iberian Peninsula, 2% European Jewish, 4% southern Europe, 3% western Europe. That is less than 10%. Where is Mary's other 15%? Recall that I wrote that even brothers will show different percentages of ethnic strains in their DNA, so I think we're seeing this in the cousins' DNA.

My DNA, ascending through Dennis and Paul's sister Geneva Raney, for Mary is 20% southern Europe and 4% Asia Minor. That's 24%, but because it's Mary's daughter Geneva, who inherited half of her mother's DNA  - where's the rest of Mary's DNA - 26%? It's rather confusing. 

Our grandmother's Jewish ancestors left Israel during the Diaspora. Divided into two groups, the Ashkenazi entered northern and eastern Europe and the Sephardic emigrated into the Middle East, north Africa and up into Iberia. I believe her ancestors entered southern Spain and may have already been there when the Moors conquered Spain in the 8th century. A wave of Muslim fanaticism in the 11th century pushed most of the Jews up into northern Spain. Forced conversions of Jews to Catholicism began in 1391 with mob violence. We don't know when our grandmother's ancestors converted to Catholicism, but most likely it was between 1391 and 1492, when Jews were forced either to convert, leave Spain, or be executed. A history of the Jews in Spain is HERE  - it's long, so skim until something catches your attention.

I am inclined to think that Grandma's ancestors did not leave Spain in 1492, but remained as conversos, intermarrying with the Spanish.  So how did their descendants come into the Franche Comté of eastern France?  Here is my theory. The Franche Comté was ruled by Spain as part of the Holy Roman Empire until shortly after the devastating Thirty Years War (1618-1648). France took advantage of Spain's weakness and conquered the Franche Comté during the Franco-Spanish War in 1674 HERE.  It was ceded to France in the Treaty of Nejmegen in 1678. 
 

Holy Roman Empire in 1600. Note eastern France

A short history of the Franche Comté is HERE.  I believe a group of Spanish soldiers, and perhaps their families, settled there. Why go all the way back to Spain, which was not in good economic shape. If they remained in the army, they might be sent to the New World's Spanish colonies. Better to settle down and become farmers. The Thirty Years War had killed off so many through famine and strife - an estimated 8,000,000 across Europe - it's possible farmland was readily available. 

I also think Eugene (Schmitt) Smith's forebears on his mother's side (Meuniers and the Voisenets) all born in the Franche Comté, and the Petitjeans were related. Although Jean Baptiste Petitjean was born in Disertine and married Justine Piquet, who was born in Dijon, they moved to the Franche Comté. I think Jean Baptiste was actually returning to where his people had come from. The Schmitts left for America in 1830, the Petitjeans in 1853, joining the Schmitts in Shelby County, Ohio. On Ancestry.com a family descended from the Smiths, but not from the Petitjeans has that trace of Spanish and Jewish DNA, as does a family descended from the Petitjeans, but not from the Smiths. If you aren't following my logic, it doesn't matter.  We're still the sum of our DNA parts.

 I hope you'll find as haunting as I did this Sephardic Spanish lullaby from the Middle Ages.  HERE

Update: Some 6 months after I wrote this blog, Ancestry.com re-calibrated its DNA results. Lo and behold, our family's Jewish DNA was removed.  I was stunned. I liked my theory of Grandma's lineage back to southern Spain. Maybe Ancestry will re-calibrate in the future and put it back in.