I’m trying to work out how my gt gt grandparents would have ever come into contact for my gt grandfather to have been conceived.
Backstory: my Ancestry DNA matches include a group of shared matches who don’t fit into my family tree, so obviously there has been a non paternal event in the past. It seemed strange because they are all American descended from Mormons and I’m English.
The most recent male that they are all descended from is a Joshua Albert MCCOURT, 1857 – 1937.
I have come to the conclusion that he was my gt gt grandfather who fathered my gt grandfather in 1893 (based on looking at the amount of DNA I share with my matches and what our probable relationships would be; eliminating all the other lines in my tree where my DNA matches confirm what I know on paper; the fact that I have no DNA matches going back on the supposed line)
So here’s what I know…Joshua McCourt was born in Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1857. In 1872 he emigrated to Canada and married his first wife in 1875. They had 7 children together, their last being born in 1888. At some point afterwards he moved to the USA and married his second wife in 1896 and they went on to have 11 children. Anecdotally, one of my DNA matches (Joshua’s grandson) told me that Joshua’s first wife gave birth to a baby who wasn’t white, so he left her and moved to the USA thereafter.
My gt grandfather was George William Teagle SMITH, born in London 1893. His mother was Jane SIMPSON, born 1858. The story around my gt grandfather’s parentage is already pretty confusing – Jane’s husband Edwin SMITH was named on the birth certificate as father, but the death records have him as dying in 1891. My gt grandfather was adopted by a George Thomas TEAGLE. I made a thread about this years ago which covers this more if that helps!
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=784608.0Soooo….my gt grandfather was born between Joshua’s two marriages, but what I really can’t figure out is how he and Jane would have ever met and why. What might be significant is that Jane’s father William Henry SIMPSON was born in Charlemont, Armagh and Joshua McCourt was born in Lurgan, Armargh which are just 18 miles apart. Could they both have been in Ireland at the time I wonder? I’ve tried looking at passenger lists but not sure if I’ve looked at the right thing. Could he have come to London as a Mormon missionary or something?
Any theories would be welcomed!
