Texan with UK roots
Hello British Isles Research Group,
I just joined the group and wanted to introduce myself. I’m Larry from Texas. My DNA tests say I’m about 90-95% Great Britain and Ireland.
I was born and raised in Texas. We live just a little northwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. I retired from American Airlines three years ago. I’ve been happily spending my retirement doing genealogy. I would have gone completely crackers during the covid lockdown without it. I got interested in genealogy several years ago while traveling. I wanted to know where we came from, besides just Texas!
I’m still a bit frustrated with my efforts in that regard. My research shows that both my paternal and maternal lines have been in the US for a very long time. Most of them appear to have come in, apparently from Great Britain and/or Ireland, via the Virginia colony. Then like most southerners followed a migration path across North and South Carolina. Then across either Tennessee or the states of the deep south. Then eventually to Texas.
I’ve had some great success documenting my peeps back to the mid and early-1800’s on this side of the pond. When I get back to the revolution and colonial times, I lose the plot as they say. So, in spite of my DNA percentage I haven’t found my specific connections to the UK yet. I do see some direct connections to the UK on the familysearch shared tree but most have either no sources or just look dodgy.
I look forward to learning from you all.
Newbie Larry in Texas
My Paternal Family Names
Johnson – TX, TN, NC, VA - my Y-DNA line – could this be any harder? Johnson project on FamilyTree very helpful.
Cannaday – TX, TN, NC - various spellings
Newberry – TX, AL, GA
Strickland – TX, AL, GA - I’ve been to Sizergh, near Kendal, Cumbria, but can’t find the immigrant
My Maternal Family Names
Neal – TX, AR, GA - also spelled Nail
Holbert – TX, MS - various spellings
Wright – TX, GA
Hinton – TX, TN, NC
McFall – TX, TN, NC
Alvis – TX, AL, VA - northern Scotland I think, but can’t connect the dots
Comments
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Hello Larry, hope you're having a good day.
I find the best resources for tracing UK ancestors are
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl for listings of Births Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales back to 1837
The https://ogindex.org/ which holds a list of all records available in England Wales and the Isle of Man. By entering a place name, you will open a list of all possible records available for that location.
The http://www.tinstaafl.co.uk/eandwhmi/index.htm website lists Marriages in England and Wales by place
You probably already use https://billiongraves.com/ and https://www.findagrave.com/
This is a website with Irish records https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/
This is a website for Scottish records but you need to subscribe https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/
I hope something here may help you. If all fails, you could subscribe to the Family History Library free 20 minute online consultation for a nudge in the right direction?
Good luck!
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