RootsChat.Com

Ethnicity testing is about as reliable as a horoscope.

There has been so much internal migration around the British Isles over the past 2000 years, the idea of clear separate identities for the various groups (Scots, English, Welsh etc) is just silly. To which I would add that ethnicity has little scientific basis. It's a modern cultural invention. Most scientists avoid it like the plague.


Stick to specific DNA matches.

Whilst I agree that most ethnicity estimates should be taken with a large pinch of salt, my experience suggests there are some benefits. One of my grandfather's identities was unknown and having extensively researched all my other lines I only found forbears from southern (and mostly south-west) England. When I carried out my Ancestry DNA test the ethnicity result indicated I had 33% Scottish ancestry (later modified to 25%). Diligent research since and some very lucky connections have now identified my Perthshire ancestral family, confirmed by others' DNA results and matches. I now know my great grandparents although which of their sons was my grandfather is still a mystery!

The Rolls family (of which the founder of Rolls Royce was a member) owned properties in south London as well as Monmouthshire. I'm told John Gordon worked for them in both, and also for the Dupont family in Delaware, family friends of the Rolls. How true this is I'm not sure, but Elizabeth's father worked for them in the Hendre, their estate in Monmouthshire and that is where the couple returned to live in 1890/1.

Steve

Thanks Ashtone, that's the family in Rhode Island. Thanks too to all the responders but I already have all of the information - it's the US records I require.
Steve

John Gordon (possibly of Croydon, Surrey) and Elizabeth Kidley of Monmouthshire were both in the States c1880-1890. They had a son, Jack Wilmington Gordon born in Delaware about 1890, returning to Britain the following year.
Can anyone discover if they married in the USA or if there is any record of either of them there in that period? I believe John had travelled out to the States in 1873, aged 3 with his mother Catherine and siblings Thomas and Mary to join his father Henry.

Steve

It's nephew

Steve