Thingley Bridge Farm

Since my trip to Europe this past summer I renewed my interest in genealogy. I made a personal decision to try and write something in this blog each month. I did slip up since I did not post for almost three months. To get back on track I need to post another before the end of 2019 which, I should be able to handle. This blog post being the one.

Before our trip I purchased a Heritage Travel Plan from Legacy Tree Genealogists, since I did not want to get to England and then not know where to start. I received my plan but found it had some flaws. I expanded the research and found that Thingley was an area just outside of Corsham that covered a few different farms with Thingley in the name such as Thingley Court farm, and Thingley Bridge farm, so I was not certain of the exact one that James Wootton and John Daniels lived on. I discovered that the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham had tithe maps from 1840 with the names of the residents for each abode. This was such exciting news since the train stop for Corsham is in Chippenham and just a short walk to the History Centre.

We reserved the maps for the day we would be arriving and they were waiting for us when we arrived. We were able to verify that James Wootton lived on Thingley Bridge Farm and shared the house with another person. The next day we visited the Corsham Visitor Centre and were able to get the phone number for Thingley Bridge Farm. We made the call and got an invitation to the farm that evening. Our Airbnb host offered to drive us to the farm and we enjoyed a wonderful evening visiting with Paul and Pricilla Thatcher.

Thingley Bridge farm had been in her family for some time and encompasses about 90 acres with a stream running through the property.

This end of the house was where James Wootton lived with his family. Being inside the house and seeing what a small space it was where they lived makes us  thankful for the space we have in our own bungalow.

It was an honour and a  pleasure to be able to visit this house and walk in the footsteps of my ancestors.

This ends my blog for 2019 and I am looking forward to 2020 and more adventures. 

Happy New Year!

Thank you for joining my search!

Dennis

DNA Organization.

I have been going through my list of DNA matches on Ancestry. I stumbled across some YouTube videos that taught different techniques for putting matches into defined groups. I began by running shared matches on individual that I knew were in different branches of the family. First I separated the Daniels side from the Pettyjohn side, colour coding each including the third cousins.  Then finding a relative I knew was on the Bush side of the Daniels family I colour coded those relatives separating them from the Daniels. I did the same with the Pettyjohn and Donaldson families. Presently I have also defined some other families connected to my great grandparents; Sayer, Umbenhower, Wootton, Miller and Dalziel.

I am still fine tuning my plan as one person can be marked in several family groups and I am not sure how I want to handle this. The descendants of Frederic and Margaret would be Daniels and Dalziel, then the descendants of Frederick and Emily would be Daniels, Bush, Dalziel, and Sayer. If I go back further then it could be quite complicated so I think I am going to limit it to four tops but mostly two. I have yet to see how I develop this. Some cousins will only be in one family such as the James Dalziel's offspring as they are not Daniels.

I have been viewing these family groups and running the common ancestor filter looking to see how each one is related. It has been interesting and fun to do. One of the reasons for this DNA analysis was to verify the connection to William Russell that I had found so I also marked his descendants with another colour and verified each one. So far the DNA connection has held up.

Thank you for joining my search!

Dennis