Finding William’s Father: New Leads

I have been working on a personal DNA project, “Finding William’s Father,” a little at a time over the last few weeks. In my last post, I wrote about using the AutoClustering tool at Genetic Affairs.  Over the last couple of weeks, I was able to determine the common ancestors for every person in the Stubbs cluster.  The common ancestors for each of them are either William Munford Stubbs and his wife, or William’s maternal grandparents, Robert Munford and Lydia Morphew.  I am looking for William’s paternal line, so the AutoClusters haven’t been immediately helpful, but I have been able to discover some new leads this week.

DNA Research

After I didn’t find an unknown common ancestor for any of the matches in the Stubbs AutoCluster, my next step was to look at the shared matches for people in this cluster. I am looking for a match in the 4th-6th cousin range that has a tree that goes back to ancestors that I don’t recognize. I have found a few matches to explore further and I’ve been contacting them as I find them if they don’t have very full trees. I’m waiting to hear back from each of them, and I will begin charting the ancestry of each of these matches as I hear back.  I’m also still waiting to hear back from a couple of potential Y-DNA test takers.

Another thing I want to try with the DNA side of this project is an autosomal DNA network graph.  Some of my colleagues have had great success in breaking down brick walls using a network graph.  I would like to use MyHeritage matches for this because there seem to be a lot more matches from Great Britain (birth country of William Munford Stubbs) at MyHeritage.  The first step in the process is to “gather” matches using the DNAGedcom Client.  This is a long process that could take days.  I’ve started the process and I hope it will eventually finish running.  I’m excited to see what I can discover using a network graph.

Traditional Record Discoveries

While waiting on DNA research processes, I decided to quickly look for a couple of records that were obviously missing for William and his mother, Ann Munford. The first was the 1861 England and Wales census. William was born in 1858, but there was no 1861 census attached to him or his mother Ann at FamilySearch. Since they didn’t emigrate to the United States until 1863, they should be pretty easy to find in 1861 in England.

I hypothesized that Ann, with her 2-3-year-old son William, might be living with her parents in 1861. A compiled family history states that by 1860 the whole family had moved from Costessy, Norfolk to the London area. I searched first for Ann’s father Robert but was unable to find him. I then searched for her youngest brother Thomas, and found him living with his parents Robert and Lydia Munford in Surrey County, just southwest of London.  It’s interesting that my search didn’t bring up Robert, but it did bring up Thomas.  This is a good illustration of the fact that it sometimes takes a little creativity to find ancestors in census records. Also present in Robert’s household was Robert’s two-year old grandson William Munford.

I found Ann Munford working as a servant in a parsonage not too far from her parents.

Another record I searched for was a birth record for William Munford Stubbs. Civil birth registrations began in 1837 in England, so I determined there would likely be a birth record for William (b. 1858). Based on the hypothesis that he chose the surname Stubbs later in life, corroborated by William’s surname of Munford on the 1861 census, I searched for William Munford rather than William Munford Stubbs.  I was able to find a record for a William Munford who was born in the 3rd quarter of 1858 in Henstead, Norfolk, England. 

My William’s birth date is either the 23 of June or the 23 of July 1858 (conflicting dates from various sources).  If William was born in July, this would fit.  Even if it was in June, the search tips included for the record set at FindMyPast state, “The registration month will not always be the same as the individual’s birth month. For various reasons, a gap sometimes occurred between the time of birth and the time of registration of the birth.”  Based on his birthdate, this record could be for my William Munford. 

My William’s birthplace was Hethel, Norfolk, England.  The William on the record was born in Henstead.  A quick Google search for Hethel revealed that Hethel is a parish in Henstead district.  This COULD be the birth record for my William Munford.  The record was taken from a birth index, which doesn’t provide any information about parents. 

The record does give the volume and page number of the original record, and FindMyPast provides a link to the General Register Office, where you can order the original record for a small fee, which I did. Turnaround time is typically less than a week, but due to COVID-19 and the resulting reduction in staff, it could be much longer.  I am excited to get the original record to see what it might tell me.

Next Steps

While waiting for the DNAGedcom client to finish gathering matches and to hear back from DNA matches and the General Register Office, I am going to create a locality guide for Norfolk, England, Ann’s residence when William was born.  This will help me make a research plan for the traditional genealogy research part of this project. It will be interesting to see what records are available. I am tentatively planning on including FAN club methodology in my research plan, studying the people from both households and the surrounding areas where Ann was working in 1851 and 1861.

What are you working on?  I’d love to hear about your current project in the comments below!