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General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: Lisa in California on Friday 09 December 22 00:45 GMT (UK)
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Mumford is a somewhat uncommon surname in North America. I am Canadian; my ancestors arrived in Canada between early 1800s and 1870. My husband is American; I have yet to find any of his ancestors in England or Wales.
Mumford relatives/ancestors are from my paternal side. I have 40 DNA matches with people who have Mumford in their trees. At least several of them are absolutely distantly related to me.
My husband has 100 DNA matches with people who have Mumford ancestors in their trees. At least three of them are absolutely distantly related to me. (I have yet to find any Mumford ancestors for him - for his tree.)
My mum has 30+ DNA matches with people who have Mumford ancestors in their trees. At least three matches tie in with my husband’s matches. (I have yet to find any Mumford ancestors for her - for her tree.)
Our son has 100 DNA matches with people who have Mumford ancestors in their trees.
I just looked at the new Anc*try feature that indicates from which parent the match originates:
Husband has Mumford from Parent 1 and Parent 2
Mum has Mumford from Parent 1 and Parent 2
Is this a glitch in the program? Surely both my husband and my mum couldn’t have Mumfords from both sides of their trees, especially since I have yet to find a Mumford ancestor for either of them? Thank you for any guidance, Lisa
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Not a glitch it's likely that they match people who have ancestors who have married Mumford s so have Mumford's on their trees who are not blood related to a Mumford
You would have to follow the tree of the highest matches or ones that you know are related to you and find how they connect to your / husband or mother look at their shared matches of their shared matches and triangulate using colour coding
For example if your greatuncle Mumford married a X ( common surnames are harder to investigat) and that X is your husband's great great grandparent ) their descendants would link to him by DNA to X side of family but the surname would be Mumford
You would match to the husband's family
"Cherchez la femme " as the French say
People often focus on surnames and forgot that the female lines are the most revealing to follow
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Thank you for your reply, brigidmac. I think I understand the concept? Rephrasing it, if my niece started a tree that included my husband and his father, she would have that surname in her tree but she wouldn’t be related. I didn’t think of that possibility, thank you!
But the part that I still find the most unbelievable is both of my mum’s parents and my husband’s parents have a Mumford connection.
Because my husband has a common American surname, I stopped researching his paternal side when I got back to the mid-1800s as I couldn’t find absolute proof for ancestors. Some of his close matches (through his great-grandfather, if I remember correctly) did trace their American ancestors back to the 1600s (but none of his close matches had any Mumfords in their trees). I believe the connection to Mumford could be through his great-grandfather’s branch as my mum, husband and I all have matches with Mumfords from Abington Parish, Virginia (USA), from the 1600s.
I think I will start looking at my mum’s tree and her matches as I’ve gone further back with her tree than with my husband’s.
Thank you for helping me. Lisa
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You're welcome do come back and let us know your findings .
Look at other people's stories of how they solved mysteries too.
I had a high Jones march in USA that took ages to solve we couldn't find connection between our ancestors until we worked out that his great grandfather JONES was married to a Jones who was my great grandfather s sister ...the only one I hadn't traced cos she'd emigrated to USA with reverend Jones and 2 sons ...1 died on the voyage
So we linked through the Jones wife not husband
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I will post updates if I am successful. :)
I will spend time reading how others have managed. Thank you for suggesting it.
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I have a Facebook page about history mysteries
Would you like to post your mystery on there I think it will resonate with other people with other surnames .
and as I'm fascinated by DNA having another mystery to unravel in this sphere would be wonderful
Pm me if you want the link .
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Thank you, brigidmac. I’ve sent you a pm. :)
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i think after a good nights sleep and checking the dates it would be good to include the name + dates of your Essex ancestor and of the first emigree to Canada
anyone who searches MUMFORD will find this post .
look forward to seeing how this pans out
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Another great suggestion. I will do so later today. Thank you, Lisa :)
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Lisa, if you haven’t already done so, it might be simpler if your firstly concentrate on just a few of your /your Mum’s highest cm Mumford matches. I can imagine that looking at so many with the same surname on several sides of the family must be a bit overwhelming.
Do any of the higher matches have trees online? Have you contacted any of them? Can you build up their trees (as you would do your own) to see if you can find your common ancestor/s?
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Background: I joined RootsChat in 2009; I have posted a number of topics regarding my Mumfords and have found out a lot about them. My ancestors lived in Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex, England (early 1800s) and before that in Great Dunmow, Essex (“starting” c1738). This topic was started only to question why my husband and mum and both sets of their parents have matches with Mumfords. I want to clarify this so no one duplicates any efforts. :)
Hi Ruskie. Thank you for your interest and great questions. I tend to be very chatty so I will try to be concise.
Unfortunately, I believe all of my mum’s and husband’s matches have very low cMs.
Looking at my husband’s matches, a good number of them have trees that go back to early English settlements in America (when and where their Mumford names are found).
The three of us have matches with people who have the following in their trees (if correct research has been done by others, of course):
Mumfords born late 1500s, Canfield Parva, Essex, England
Mumfords born early 1600s, Rhode Island, America
Mumfords born mid 1600s, Abingdon Parish, Washington County, Virginia, America
While looking for additional details to post, I found the following:
Husband has a match (through his mother’s side) with a direct descendant of my James’ grandfather. The match was through this person’s paternal (Mumford surname) branch until 1920. However, my husband only shares 15 cM, 1 segment. So if the tree is accurate, the match should be quite early, correct?
There are a lot of online trees for all of our matches. I believe I only contacted two people (who did not write back). I hesitated in writing to more as I couldn’t verify the accuracy in their trees so I started researching other branches.
There are at least a few trees that clearly show my Great Dunmow ancestors so I can tell how I am related to them. However, the problem is that I cannot determine how any of those trees could tie in with my mum’s ancestors. It is possible that there are links somewhere with my husband’s ancestors as I’ve not fully researched his branches.
I’ve rambled. My apologies. I do need to sit down and closely look at my mum’s matches. Perhaps I’ve missed something. I could be very wrong but I believe the link (especially with my husband) is somewhere in the 1700s or late 1600s, if that is possible since it was so long ago.
Thank you for your interest, Ruskie.
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Thought I'd share link to one of Lisa's posts with lots of dates and facts on it
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=640956.msg4878504#msg4878504
Btw Lisa on 2 posts you said you are looking at the 6 photo matches
I hope that's not the only way you look for new matches or you will miss the ones without photos .
Every week I look at matches and use the option in top right to chose newest to oldest rather than the default. Top matches
Like you I use name search ..never spelling variations...if there are 3 spellings do each one separately and don't forget to try putting Mumford in tree owner name option instead of name in trees .that way you will also see any direct Mumford descendants who have no trees . Unlinked trees + private unsearchable trees .
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Hi brigidmac. Thank you for pointing out additional items!
Thank you for finding and putting up the link. Although it is wordy, at lease that link was concise.
The six photos displayed on Anc*try: that isn’t the only way I search, but thank you for asking. I mentioned it elsewhere as the photos were how I found the (possible) connection between my husband and me. When I saw one photo in my DNA “results” and then saw the same photo in my husband’s, I thought there was a mistake. Eventually, I found several more photos that were in both of our results. I don’t remember if I found “duplicate” photos for my mum’s results.
Newest to oldest: I’ve never tried that option. Thank you for mentioning it!
Variations: while I have used variation for other (uncommon surname) branches, I believe there were so many Munford results that I gave up looking at the results and haven’t tried Mumford variations since. I will try again tonight; it will be interesting to see the results.
I will look for the tree owner name option. I don’t believe I’ve ever used that option.
Thank you so much for the very helpful advice! It is wonderful to read suggestions offered by you and Ruskie. :)
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There’s nothing wrong with being ‘chatty’ Lisa. Sometimes it is necessary and useful. :)
I will have a look at your other Mumford thread/s later.
I don’t have Ancestry so any of my suggestions are just vague and general. I try to keep it simple (not always successfully I’m afraid) as DNA can be quite a complex topic and I don’t want to confuse you or myself further. ;D
Have you tried your 15 cm match in dna painter:
https://dnapainter.com/tools/sharedcmv4
Relationship estimates are a useful guide but also a little mind boggling, I find. :)
I’m sure this has been suggested or already done, but have you uploaded your raw data to other sites such as FTDNA , My Heritage etc? Sometimes useful matches can pop up.
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Hi Ruskie. I’ve looked at dna painter in the past but didn’t get too far. I just looked again and I think that site will have to wait for me to have a nice, hot cup of strong tea while I peruse the site. ;D Thank you for suggesting it.
I did upload to GEDmatch but I almost found the site more confusing than DNA explanations.
I just looked through GEDmatch again and at this time, it’s just too much to absorb. Perhaps once things settle down at home I will have the patience and time to understand how the site can be beneficial to me.
Thank you for continuing to offer suggestions!
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I’m the same as you with Gedmatch. I dip in and out not really knowing what I’m doing. ;D
Many people find it useful. There is quite a lot of information on the internet explaining various features and how to use it.
As for DNA painter - when they start lisitng possible relationships along the lines of half fifth cousins three times removed, my eyes start to glaze over. ;D I use known relationships as a rough guide eg if I know my 61cm match is a fourth cousin and it from there.
That probably explains why I don’t have much success with my matching efforts.
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I put my mum's ancestry results on gedmatch and my cousin did his then I had technophobe panic attacks so never did my own also I didn't realise you could actually look at shared results on there
Thought it was a way other people could find you via email if you matched .
You've both inspired me to try again in new year when computer , internet + my brain will hopefully be working better
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Look online for simple instructions on how to use it Brigid. On my last dabble, I discovered that when you look at the table of your matches there is a column which tells you which company the person tested with which might be useful. Oddly enough only a couple of my higher ones tested with Ancestry.
There are plenty of people here who can help you too of course.
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I’m the same as you with Gedmatch. I dip in and out not really knowing what I’m doing. ;D
Many people find it useful. There is quite a lot of information on the internet explaining various features and how to use it.
I will take the time to look it over. It has to be helpful or it wouldn’t be popular. :)
As for DNA painter - when they start lisitng possible relationships along the lines of half fifth cousins three times removed, my eyes start to glaze over. ;D I use known relationships as a rough guide eg if I know my 61cm match is a fourth cousin and it from there.
I do like the glazing over comment. ;)
That probably explains why I don’t have much success with my matching efforts.
Thank you Ruskie. Lisa
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I put my mum's ancestry results on gedmatch and my cousin did his then I had technophobe panic attacks so never did my own also I didn't realise you could actually look at shared results on there
Thought it was a way other people could find you via email if you matched .
You've both inspired me to try again in new year when computer , internet + my brain will hopefully be working better
When I used it a year or two ago, I actually did understand a couple of parts of the site (I think it was my comparisons to others). When I found a match that interested me, I typed my number and the other person’s number to see what matches we had in common. (I don’t have the site open to help me clarify what I did.) Anyway, I remember that it didn’t really help me so I gave up. I will give it another try as well.
Thank you Brigidmac. (I hope you, your computer and internet are more successful soon.)