My Genealogical DNA Test Experience Part 7 – Mitochondrial DNA Results

I had been so focused on my Family Finder results that I’d nearly forgotten the MTDNA test, but with the same lack of fanfare as the FF, I received a couple of quiet emails. One told me the results were in, the other that I had matches. I logged in to see what I could learn about my way distant past.

First of all, my test was the MT DNA Full Sequence test. I gather that the test has become more accurate as the years pass, and those who tested five years ago received a basic designation whereas those who did the new advanced expensive version get a a category involving several letters and numbers.

I received my haplogroup which was a meaningless number to me. H2a2a1c. It sounds like a serial number of an electrical appliance. I must admit, somewhere in the back of my mind I felt as if I was being assigned my serial number.

This wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling. There was a sense of belonging. I didn’t know what it meant but it had cost a fair bit of money to find out and it was my mother’s mother’s mother’s type so it was important. That 12-13 year old girl who travelled alone to Australia in 1868 was the same type (see this former blog post) . She and I had that in common. Her mystery mother, the one who was unable to raise her for whatever reason (death or incapacity), was also this type. That mystery mother had a great grandmother, whose story can’t even be guessed at, who also shared this haplogroup with me. It’s a nice thought. Not useful in any immediate sense, but nice.

Having gotten this far, I went looking for usefulness. So I viewed my matches, looking for the English women surnamed Rice or Price who would be my Fanny/Annie Rice/Price’s sisters. Of course, there were none there. I know now how unreasonable that expectation was. But it would have been nice!

Back then, in June/July, I had six matches. Now I have twelve. That seems pretty good really. I don’t know what other people have. I have 8 at genetic distance of 2, and 4 at genetic distance of 3. I’m guessing the higher the genetic distance, the further from me it is. I gather that with mitochondrial DNA, different haplogroups have different mutation rates and no one has yet worked out my haplogroup. Which is interesting, because it is very close to a subclade with a story.

I gather that way back in the day, maybe the 1980s, genetic scientists first learned how to read chromosomes. Back when it was new, they decided to completely analyze the DNA of a typical English woman, such as you saw everywhere in England, and call her type the standard ordinary normal type. Rather than write out the whole genome sequence each time, it was easier to start with the whole thing written out and just record the difference. A bit like phone numbers. If you have already memorized 62788343 (random number hopefully not real), it’s easier to get a phone for your child which is the same number but the last three is a 4. No work involved in remembering it at all.

So they did something quite similar, they mapped out a genome sequence and called it the reference sequence because it was a sequence and it was their reference. Thus – the Cambridge Reference Sequence since they were Cambridge University. It was a nice plan with just a few little drawbacks – first, there was contamination from other DNA. Second, contrary to expectations, there proved to be more variations than expected in mtdna. Their woman wasn’t so ordinary and representative after all. There was no way they could have known, but she was a somewhat rare type of subclade (a subclade being a subcategory of a haplogroup).

This meant that just about every genome they compared against hers was going to be quite different – each difference, referred to as a mutation, had to be written out.

After a few years they realised what happened and fixed the early problems, resulting in the Revised Cambridge Reference Sequence, called rCRS.

Later still, they figured out what an early mtdna sequence might be and used that instead. Finally, a majority of sequences tested had less mutations than common features. This new sequence was called the Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence and seems to be working well. The others are now being phased out. This is my layman’s explanation.

On the Family Tree DNA website in the MtDNA section is a page for Results. The results can be viewed as rCRS or as RSRS. It defaults to RSRS and mine shows me where my own MtDNA varies in each part – HVR1, HVR2 and Coding Region differences. For RSRS I have tons of differences, plus a list of extra mutations.

rCRS now – that’s different altogether. I have one difference in HVR1, one in HVR2, and three in the Coding Region. I’m very nearly rCRS. In fact, I think rCRS is H2a2a1 but is just a different letter after that. I’m a ‘c’ at the end, rCRS might be ‘a’ or ‘b’. Someone out there would know.

It’s another irrelevancy really, but I do wonder if that first woman mapped might be a distant relative of mine.

Having got this far and looked around, I had a closer look at my matches and their stated earliest known ancestresses. Most of them had gotten back earlier than me – mostly between 1620 and 1750. Who knows, perhaps if I could get my Fanny/Annie Rice/Price a little further back, they might be my relation. But there was a common thread there – most of them, in fact nine of them – were in North Carolina or Virginia. Further to this, after emailing a few of the matches we managed to get at least three of them back to a place with the strange name of Pasquotank in North Carolina (surnames Sealey, Goode and Owens). The three women had no known connection but they had a closer genetic distance to each other than I had to them. Two other women got back to Virginia (Barnett and Husbands) but it was at least fifty years later than the Pasquotank women.

I started a file on them and am tracing their family trees in the hopes of a breakthrough. You have to do something. But there is a good chance our connection really is back at the time of the Roman conquest of Britain so I won’t hold my breath. I’ll just wait till all those archaeological remains are DNA tested and one comes up as a perfect match.

In the meantime – back to the Family Finder results.

My Genealogical DNA Test Experience Part 6 – 3rd to 5th Cousin Matches

Having exhausted all avenues for my four closest matches, I turned to the next closest – the 3rd – 5th cousin matches. There were 17 of these.

At first I found this a bit daunting, then I discovered the ‘In Common With’ option.

As I understand it, if I have a match with two people, and they have a match with each other, this will show as an ‘In Common With’ match.

Their match may not be my match. This happens in smaller communities such as the Australian colonies where there were only so many families around. It actually took me a week or so to figure this out. But having done so, I could use the chromosome browser to see if we matched on the same segment. For every segment, I can only have two distinct matches, one on my father’s side and one on my mother’s side. If I match two people on the same segment but they don’t match each other, then they must be matches on my different sides. It seems so simple!

Actually, it really is that simple. What makes it hard is when you have no guide marks to work with. 21 pages of matches at 10 matches a page = 210 matches. How on earth could I have 210 matches and not find a single common ancestor? I was beginning to wonder if I was adopted. Either that or I’m just really really bad at genealogy.

First of all, I finally found a match who shared a surname with me. In fact, he shared two surnames, Waller and Warren.

In my tree, Martha Waller was the wife of John Dunstall. She was born in 1822, the daughter of soldier Michael Waller, and she married John Dunstall in 1839. They then emigrated to South Australia on the Lalla Rookh arriving in 1840, accompanied by Martha’s fifteen year old brother William Michael Waller.

This lady is another brick wall for me. There is a book about the Dunstalls called ‘The Dunstall Road to South Australia’ researched and published by a group of Dunstall descendants who did a truly excellent job. I refer to the book often. In this book is a print of John and Martha’s marriage certificate which has saved me from purchasing it. The book also gives Martha a birthdate, October 9th 1822 but no location is given for her birth. I have been unable to find any record for a Martha Waller born on this date. I have, however, found a Martha Waller born in India on 9th Dec 1822, child of Michael and Ann Waller at the British military barracks in Meerut, India. This one seems eminently likely but does not explain the date in the book. I have not heard back from the publishers of that book and suspect it is too long after the print date to get in touch.

After a possible contact for Annie McLeod I had some hopes for a Martha Waller hint too.

My Warren connection is a family in Cork, Ireland back in the 17th century. Wallis Warren arrived in Ireland with Cromwell’s army or shortly after and settled on land with his family. He married Elizabeth Knolles and they had, amongst other children, a daughter Anne born around 1680. Anne married Richard Gumbleton and they settled in Ballygarron in Cork. This line eventually descends to my maternal grandmother, while Martha Waller descends to my maternal grandfather.

I sent off my email and looked further.

Next I spotted three matches who all showed a common surname McNeal and a common location of Prince Edward Island. These guys had a match in common with each other and also with Cecilia Williams, my adoptee 2nd-4th cousin. I sent an email to the lady who managed all three profiles, although I could not match a single one of the names.

Only three others had gedcoms attached and I perused carefully. There was no common name at all, not between myself and their famiilies, not between any of them and each other. All three however had a location of Virginia somewhere in their tree. I didn’t email them at all. If my 2nd cousin match looked like being a 5th cousin match, then chances were these were actually 8th cousin matches and I just didn’t have my tree out far enough.

So I went back to extending my branches to see if I could improve the odds and actually make a connection.

My Genealogical DNA Test Experience Part 5 – Annie McLeod

After three years of contacting fellow researchers while seeking Annie McLeod, I have become quite friendly with some of them. We still share our frustrations and little successes, we still throw thoughts and mad ideas at each other for feedback. We have very nearly formed an unofficial South Australia McLeod Researchers Support Group.

Since I recognise the difficulties fellow McLeod researchers are facing, I decided to devote this blog entry to my search for Annie – a challenge revived by the DNA match results. I am of course aware that my connection to this cousin might be in another line, but this one is so close, so promising, that I have felt driven to pursue it further.

Annie said she was aged 22 when she married in 1866, giving her a birth year of 1844. She resided in North Adelaide. I have attempted to find McLeods in the directories of the time at this address, but the results are inconclusive. The directories refer to ‘Mr McLeod’ without giving first name, occupation or street address. I have found various Mr, Mrs and Miss McLeods amongst the unclaimed letters lists, of Adelaide, Port Adelaide and North Adelaide. Once again, without further details this does not help.

The first certainty was the marriage so I shall start there.

After James and Annie married, they lived at Normanville near James’ parents for about 18 months. Their eldest child John James Dunstall was born here in 1867. Sometime after his birth they headed north and inland.

By the late 1860s the population of South Australia had increased drastically. The state has very good land near the coasts but is arid and inhospitable the further inland you go. Along the Flinders Ranges there is good farming land but even here the rivers are mostly seasonal. Colonists who followed the Murray River to the north east found they could make a go of it. Those who headed for the Clare Valley, north of Adelaide, found pockets of good pasture, good rainfall, good conditions for viticulture. Those who kept to the coast, heading west to the Yorke Peninsula or even further west to the Eyre Peninsula were able to sustain themselves by combining farming and fishing. Slightly inland were good metals and mines popped up all over the place, mostly owned by wealthy Englishmen who provided employment but the working conditions were tough.

James and Annie Dunstall headed for the Clare Valley, for reasons I had never fathomed. In the light of the DNA test, I considered the possibility of Annie having family there already. I searched the birth, death and marriage indexes for McLeods in Clare and found many.

The little village of Stanley Flat is situated about 6km northwest of the township of Clare. I began to notice how many times the surname McLeod popped up in connection with this little village and felt maybe I was onto something.

Firstly, the birth of James and Annie McLeod’s second child, Charles Guy Dunstall, was at Stanley Flat in 1869. This one had definite relevance to me. Secondly, my newly discovered cousin’s ancestor John McLeod was married at Stanley Flat in 1871 to May Witcomb. By this time James and Annie had moved to the little town of Templers, some 80km (50 miles) south towards Adelaide. Still relatively close.

Thirdly, there were a plethora of others there – Mary McLeod the wife of Donald McKinnon, Alexander McLeod and wife Marian Morrison raised a family nearby, Donald McLeod and Mary MacKenzie, Malcolm McLeod and Isabella McNeil … it was a large group and I spent some time sorting them out. Some sorted nicely, a few remained strays. Amongst the strays were my James and Annie and my connection’s John and May.

I wasn’t onto something at all. It was just a whole lot of McLeod families with no obvious link.

James and Annie remained at Templers for about five years.

Templers is a little town in the Midnorth district of South Australia.

Templers as it is today: a cluster of houses at a main highway intersection.

The third child in the family, Kenneth Norman Dunstall, was born in Templers in February 1871. The name suggests to me that Annie’s father was actually Kenneth and maybe … just perhaps …. her grandfather’s name was Norman?? I have had no luck researching Kennis McLeod. Was it just her Scottish accent?

Tragically, Kenneth died at eight months of age and was buried in Willaston Cemetery. The cemetery only holds graves for fifty years and the plot has been reused so there are no clues to be found there. The burial record simply gave his name, age, father’s name and residence of Templers.

William Herbert was born in 1873, also at Templers, and he is my great grandfather. He was known all his life as Herbert and I pondered this too. Was there another William around to distinguish him from?

Between 1873 and 1875 the family then made the big move west to the Yorke Peninsula, settling on a property called Orrie Cowie. The nearest town was Warooka but they were rather isolated at Orrie Cowie, along the western coast of the peninsula. After a bushfire which damaged property in 1880 an inquest was held including the following:

James Dunstall, farmer, said the fire occurred on December 16. He first noticed it at about 10 minutes to 2 p.m. No men had been working near the place that day, and he had not the slightest idea how it occurred. By a Juror— Had not seen glass-bottles about there. There was not much traffic on the coast-track there.

Two years ago I went to see the place where they lived and it is the same today. The statement ‘There was not much traffic on the coast-track there’ is very much an understatement. They would have gone days without seeing anyone other than those who lived there, except perhaps aboriginal tribes (who were eventually blamed for allowing the fire to occur).

Near Warooka on a summer’s day

Ernest Guy Dunstall was born at Orrie Cowie in 1875 and Lewis Liston was born in 1876. How Annie coped on an isolated station with all those young boys is anyone’s guess. From what we can tell the boys were responsible and helpful. However, the family were beginning to do it tough.

Annie Isabella Dunstall, their first daughter, was born at Orrie Cowie in 1879 and Martha Florence Dunstall was born in 1882.

In 1883, James Dunstall died of tuberculosis and was buried at Warooka Uniting Cemetery. His father posted a notice in the paper. Annie, with the help of fifteen year old John and thirteen year old Charles, kept the family together.

It really looks to me as if they were struggling, but it seems they did not ask for help from any family members. Perhaps they thought they would pull through. Perhaps Annie had pride. She held on for three more years before she became ill enough to make out her will, anticipating that her children would become orphaned and asking that her sons John and Charles act as guardians to the younger ones.

Annie died on 9th June 1887. Her death certificate states cause of death phthisis. She was the widow of James Dunstall and her residence was Orrie Cowie, Warooka. The informant was her son John James Dunstall. At the age of 19, he had suddenly become responsible for a family of seven. There was no notice in the paper when Annie died.

Headstone for Annie Dunstall, placed on her very unmarked grave only a few years ago. No clues to be found here.

My Genealogical DNA Test Experience Part 4 – Building Out My Tree

After bombing out with my four closest matches, I reassessed. I now had two cousins in the United States and they had come from somewhere. I also had one closer cousin who actually lived in the same country and state as myself, but we believed our match to have come from outside of Australia – probably Scotland.

I joined ISOGG and began to follow the DNA-Newbie email group, following the provided links and improving my understanding of genetic inheritance.

I liked this explanation of cousins by Paul Stoneburger. I also found a chart showing the expected relationships at various total shared cM, but I seem to have lost this just now. However, it suggested that my match with John Samuelson really was just shy of the average second cousin level. Since I knew he wasn’t a second cousin and it looked as if he wasn’t even a third cousin, I thought, what if he is a fourth cousin on both sides? What if we have two brothers marrying two sisters? Their children would look more closely related than they were.

So I returned to the old style paper genealogy.

I had already put a lot of time into this couple. James Dunstall was born in South Australia in 1842. The colony was brand new, with the first colonists arriving at the end of 1836 and my John Dunstall with his new bride arriving in 1840. At that time, beautiful and fertile coastal land was up for grabs. John Dunstall was young but the product of centuries of farmers from Sussex in England. He found himself some good land with good ocean views and more importantly, a decent bit of ocean for cargo ships to load cargo. The Dunstalls had to work as hard as any colonist, but their hard work reaped its reward and they became comfortable.

Outside Yankalilla SA

John, Martha and Martha’s younger brother arrived in South Australia on the ‘Lalla Rookh’ in 1840. A son was born to them in 1840 but he lived only a few weeks. Their second son, born in 1842, was my James Dunstall.

The community at the two close settlements of Normanville and Yankalilla was strong and productive. The settlements quickly turned into towns, a wharf was built and the local farmers formed close partnerships with a few ships who began a regular run along the coast. Over the next two decades, colonists from all over the world poured into South Australia. It wasn’t long before Port Adelaide was a lively, bustling place with the expected mix of merchants, seamen, employers and scavengers. Adelaide, planned to be the capital from the very beginning, had grown to large town size and was beginning to seem urban.

Allan McLeod from Isle of Harris emigrated in 1855 with his family and took property at Cape Jervis not too far from the Dunstalls. His son John McLeod was a Master Mariner with his own schooler, ‘The Resolute’. This John McLeod, Master Mariner, was a witness at the marriage of James and Annie. However, Annie wasn’t his sister. He had his own sister called Annie, a girl of the same age as mine, but her life is nicely visible in the public records and can be confidently eliminated.

A few years later, this John McLeod married Martha Ann Dunstall, sister to my James and daughter of John and Martha.

James Dunstall and Annie McLeod were married on 31 May 1866 and a notice was placed in the local paper, ‘Mr James Dunstall of Normanville to Miss Anne McLeod of Port Adelaide’. No parents mentioned at all. The marriage certificate shows James Dunstall, Farmer aged 23, present residence Normanville, father’s name John Dunstall, and Anne McLeod, age 22 occupation column left blank, present residence North Adelaide, father’s name Kennis McLeod. Witnesses were John McLeod master mariner of Port Adelaide and Martha Ann Dunstall of Normanville.

Anne’s name in the certificate box is Anne McLeod, in the signature it is Annie McLeod. All parties signed their names.

I have gone over this certificate for clues more times than I can count. I have always felt that Annie’s father was not present, and that she was alone in the colony. In light of my DNA match, I decided to examine her life from a different perspective and seek possible family.

My Genealogical DNA Test Experience Part 3 – Perhaps I Am An Alien?

I received very quick responses from three of my four 2nd-4th cousins. Jennifer Harrison never did respond. Months later, I still have not heard from her although I sent a tentative second email after three months.

Cecilia Williams and Jacqueline Rhodes sent me lovely emails. They informed me that I was showing as one of their closest matches too. Each of them were adoptees seeking their genetic roots. One was in South Carolina, one was in New York. I was their first Australian match. Neither of them matched each other and they matched me on very different chromosomes. One of them shared matches with several of my 3rd-5th matches. The other is an isolate and I have no common matches with her segment even now. They eagerly awaited anything I might learn but I wasn’t going to learn it from them.

Which left me with John Samuelson,and with him I shared one name – the name McLeod.

The name McLeod appears on my mother’s side. My maternal grandfather was a Dunstall. His grandfather was James Dunstall born in South Australia in 1842. In 1866 James Dunstall married Annie McLeod who at her marriage gave her father’s name as ‘Kennis’.

In the 1850s there was a mass exodus of McLeods from Harris, Inverness-shire, Scotland to South Australia. Many hundreds of McLeods arrived each year. It looks to me as if it was mandatory for a McLeod family to have a daughter called Annie, because just about every family did. At one time I began researching every Annie McLeod I found arriving in South Australia to see if they were mine. After about 12 of them I gave up. Annie was a brick wall.

Marriage index records to some of the Ann McLeods in South Australia

James and Annie died of tuberculosis along with their older children. Annie’s death record told us nothing because only children survived to inform the officials. Her will was full of her concern for those future orphans, but gave no clue about other family. I couldn’t even be sure of her birth country because there were McLeods turning up from everywhere.

My Annie McLeod was born in 1844. John Samuelson’s ancestor John McLeod was born 1846. John McLeod was married in 1871 in the same little village that my James and Annie Dunstall had their son in 1869. We had a name, we had a location. It looked really good. But, John told me, he had researched his ancestor quite thoroughly and he had no sister called Anne. The connection, we surmised, was one generation further back. But I was very much stumped with my Annie and saw no way to get her a generation back.

So on that rather dissatisfying note, I was forced to leave my four closest matches.

My Genealogical DNA Test Experience Part 2 – My First Look at the Matches

My test arrived after about 10 days and it took me a few days to open and complete it, because I was a bit nervous. I watched a Youtube video on how to do it which helped. As it happened, all went smoothly. I sent the test in but must have put something dicey on the customs declaration because they did not receive it for five weeks. However, the day came when the order history showed that it had been received, then batched. It was going to take 5-7 weeks to process.

At about this time I began to read the forum posts. Initially I intended to post in them, but I found several message threads where someone had been rather cutting in response to what seemed like an innocent question. I decided I didn’t want that to happen to me so I simply read through, hoping to gain hints.

The process time dropped to 4-6 weeks, then 3-5, then suddenly it was there three weeks early! I received a very brief email saying I had matches. I logged in and found that my Family Finder results were there, and the MTDNA had some time to process yet.

At first, it all looked quite straightforward. I clicked on ‘Matches’ and it took me to them. I had 21 pages of them! I scrolled through from page to page, becoming familiar with the format, with the way to view my matches’ profiles, ancestor names and gedcoms. Then I discovered the chromosome browser and spent some time acquainting myself with 22 chromosomes plus an X chromosome. It was all very pretty and very satisfying. However, I then settled down to view the connection. This was when the confusion began.

Across 21 pages of matches, only about half of them had surnames listed and about a quarter had gedcoms. Of course, I first concentrated on them. I began viewing gedcoms in search of my ancestor names. Nobody had them.

Nobody! Not a common name, not a common location – nothing even close. A lot of them were in the United States and the one common factor was the states of North Carolina and Virginia. This was a location which they shared with each other, not with me. I had NO connection that I knew of with the United States, certainly not within the last 5-6 generations. However, nobody shared a surname. I found this perplexing but guessed that a sister of some long-distant ancestor of mine had married someone I hadn’t discovered and emigrated to the United States. It made sense. It still makes some sense. That must have happened for some of my ancestors.

Then I read the helpful book which FTDNA provides and settled in for a more informed look through. I had four matches at 2nd-4th cousin level, one of which was a nice 93 cM total with a few longish segments. This was my closest match. Longest block was 34 cM. I’ll call him John Samuelson which is a very long way from his real name. He provided a gedcom in which I found a single name which matched my ancestors. Of course, one name is all you need and this one was a brickwall so I was rather excited.

Just to be clear, I will not be using a single real name in this blog for my matches or other living people – but the long-deceased ancestor names will be accurate.

My second match was Jennifer Harrison with a distance of 47.6 cM and longest block 21 cM. No details provided in either profile or ancestor surnames, and no gedcom.

Next was Cecilia Williams, matching with 54 cM and longest block 18 cM. No details provided but a photograph attached and she looked friendly.

Last was Jacqueline Rhodes, we shared 49 cM with longest block 16.5 cM. Once again, no details provided.

So I did as was recommended and emailed them all.

My Genealogical DNA Testing Experience

In April 2014, after much thought, I purchased a DNA test through FamilyTreeDNA. I did this with no expectation of a result, just out of curiosity. Having recently resigned from my job to spend time with my children, I had a moderately sized lump sum of money and decided to spend $299 US on a Family Finder test and an MTDNA test.

The Family Finder, as I understood it, would match my autosomal DNA with cousins of within six generations who had inherited the same DNA from an ancestor. The MTDNA test would test my mitochondrial DNA which is a type of DNA that only changes after many hundreds of years, and then in the most minute way. This comes down the direct maternal line so can help if I have an ancestor lady who had a few daughters, each of whom had daughters each of whom had daughters down to myself and another lady who has never connected with me. This appealed since the women in my family have consistently taken their husband’s surnames so female descendants can be harder to trace.

I duly purchased the tests and waited for the kit. A login was emailed instantly and I played with my FTDNA profile for a while, adding my picture, uploading my gedcom, adding my ancestor surnames, my most distant paternal and maternal names. I had fun.

I noticed for the first time that although I have some extensive and thoroughly researched branches in my tree, my maternal and paternal lines are woefully lacking. My deepest paternal ancestor was Edmund Dillane born about 1814 in Athea, County of Limerick, Ireland and the best efforts of many individual descendants have failed to make that step further back, although many have reinvented the wheel and gone over the same ground to reach the same point. They were Catholic and had a large and extended family with cousins everywhere, all with the same names. Edmund and two brothers were transported as convicts after setting fire to his father-in-law’s haystack. There seems to have been quite a mob of them. The Dillane brothers were approaching middle age at the time and left wives and children behind. In the paperwork attached to their transportation, their surname became Dillon and they kept it from then on.

On my maternal side it is even harder. I go back with full confidence to one Frances (Fanny) Fox born circa 1855, an orphan who was raised in Hanwell Orphanage in inner London. She was sent out to Australia – seemingly alone – at the age of 13 to be a domestic servant. The only reference to her parents comes from her marriage certificate. Her original marriage record does not appear to exist, the civil record is written all in one scrawly hand and states father Unknown Fox and mother Fanny Rice (or Price, the handwriting is unclear). Her death record has her age at death and no more.

The UK 1861 census shows three children in Hanwell with surname Fox. One of them was old enough to appear in the UK 1851 census where he can be found with parents Barney and Ann Fox, both born Ireland. It is possible that these are my Fanny’s parents if that Fox boy was her brother. In the 1861 census Frances Fox’s birth year is given as 1857, which would make her closer to 11 or 12 when making her basically solo journey to Australia.

I did wonder if the MTDNA test might help me solve the mystery of Fanny Fox. As to the Family Finder – I didn’t know anyone else who had tested so I didn’t think there’d be a match. My family arrived in Australia, on every side, around that 5th or 6th generation back and I was pretty sure I knew who was who. Australia wasn’t that big a place 150 years ago.

On this rather relaxed note, I waited for the kit to come through international mail to me.