Lately, I'll fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole. Early this year, I resolved to expand my family tree on Ancestry by adding to the branches, listing siblings as well as my direct ancestors. I intended to start with my Dorset family links because I was still looking for a possible link related to the email I received from a DNA match. I didn't get very far with that but then I signed up for Diahan Southard's DNA study group. In one session she told us about how she uses the Ancestry dots in a system to filter her matches. Once I clued in, I realized it only works if you have an extensive family tree on Ancestry. It looks like I really need to work on adding those collateral lines.
I made a start from the top of my Ancestry tree, the 2 x great grandparents on my paternal line, neither of whom have roots in Dorset. So figuring out that match I was emailed about will have to wait a while longer. My searches took me deep into the East End of London. One of the first things that came to light was a mention in the Old Bailey Proceedings Online for Sarah Cavanagh in 1861, something I was pointed towards by a search on Find My Past. Her offense was making counterfeit coins. I looks likely that Sarah was the daughter of my 2 x great grandparents as the Old Bailey record also used the name Weldon and my Sarah married a John Weldon in 1862.
As I was still working on filling out my family tree, I didn't stop to find out anything further about Sarah's criminal past. It's likely there will be records with more information. As I filled out the information about Sarah's children, however, I was tickled by the fact that her daughter, Eliza Weldon, married Edward Siequien, a police constable in Whitechapel, someone on the side of law and order. There's got to be a story there.
Sources:
Ancestry
family trees
Find My
Past searches
Old Bailey Online https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
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