DNA: Taking It Further

Things have been moving along with my adventures in genetic DNA. It's a good thing I write things down or else I would have a hard time remembering how I have brought things forward since the last update because my plans have changed a long the way. But isn't that what often happens in genealogical research? It is very much a learn as you go endeavour as new information keeps popping up.

I have been watching a lot of webinars and quite a few of them are about using DNA in your family history research. One of my favourite webinar sites is Legacy Family Tree Webinars https://familytreewebinars.com/ and, as I now have some Y-DNA to play with, I watched Diahan Southard's presentation "The Y-DNA Test Should Be Your Favorite" which was excellent. That reminds me, I should watch it again to see what else I can get out of it. Legacy also has a lot more webinars about DNA including some of Blaine Bettinger's presentations. It is a subscription site but when the webinars are first run you can watch them for free. 

While there is a lot of info on line about using genetic DNA, sometimes just talking to people can get you the furthest. At one of my genealogy society's chat groups, I found out about using GEDmatch and Facebook groups together. What a great idea, well, great if I get some useful response, I suppose. I have joined a couple of Scottish DNA Facebook groups as well as one for Ireland. There is no update yet on when the Irish project will be ready for viewing at Living DNA so maybe I will be able to pinpoint the origins of my Cavanagh family through the Irish DNA Facebook group - that is if I get any replies but with over 7000 members on the Irish FB group it is hard to keep a query front and centre. Wish me luck!

 

The Mystery of William Henry Arment

Hall Place in the London borough of Bexley

In Victorian England young ruffians, thieves and homeless children were a problem and the powers that be had the bright idea of confining them to industrial schools to turn them into productive members of society. Given William Arment's background, a father who had been in trouble with the law and an alcoholic mother, when I found him listed in the 1851 census living in a school I assumed that he had been placed in an industrial school to keep him out of trouble.

A rethink was in order when I realized that the school where William had been sent, Hall Place School in Bexley, Kent, was actually a different kind of boarding school, what the Brits called a public school. There were newspaper ads drumming up students for a "Nautical Education". From these ads, it appears that the school started in 1849. Perhaps William had been sent there to get him out of the way of his family's troubles. So much for my theory that the Arments were barely getting by.  

It was also in line with the fact that there was an administration on the National Probate Calendar for George Arment. He must have had money to leave upon his untimely death in 1850, rather unexpected for a carman in the East End. The mystery deepens the further I research George's son, William Henry Arment, who by the time of his second marriage gives his occupation as gentleman and whose effects on his own death in 1893 amount to £9972 13s. 6d. Where did that money come from? It makes me want to find out more about the story of these relatives of mine. 

Sources:

Ancestry.com London Metropolitan Archive records, marriage of William Henry Arment 1889, National Probate Calendar 1893

British newspapers search for Hall Place School, FindMyPast (subscription site)  http://www.findmypast.com

Copy of 1851 English Census for Hall Place School, Bexley, Dartford, Kent, Ancestry.com

Wikipedia on industrial schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_school 

Image:

 

By Ethan Doyle White - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70266439