Weekly round-up 20 Feb 2015

Two new databases

At the end of last week, a message was posted regarding the research being carried out as a result of the Crossrail excavation in London.  This research has included the compilation of what is described as “the first extensive register of people buried at Bedlam”.  On checking the database, I found it contains 2 Parrys and 1 Parrey:

Thomas Parrey, 17th August 1593, St Mary Woolnoth

John Parry, 4th September 1608, St Dunstan in the East (by the Tower)

Ann Parry, 1st December 1690, St Peter le Poor

Although the burial ground was not associated with a parish church, it appears the burials were still recorded in the various parish church records, rather than the burial ground having its own records.  The above three records all originally came from the London Metropolitan Archives and I know many of their records are also on sites such as Ancestry, so it will be interesting to see if these three burials appear elsewhere - but that's a task for another day (as is trying to identify where these three fit!)

More information about the burial ground can be found at:

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/sustainability/archaeology/bedlam-burial-ground-register

The second database announced was that of the England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 project at http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/  I had already heard some information about this, as it had been featured at the Guild's Medieval and Early Modern Records Seminar last year.  I wasn't sure there were likely to be any Parrys in it, as it mainly relates to migration to England (and I don't think people from Wales generally counted as "Resident Aliens"!) But there was a possibility that some of the "ap Harry"s involved in the Hundred Years War may have had "letters of protection" included in the project (as some of them are listed on the Medieval Soldier site at http://www.medievalsoldier.org/search_musterdb.php during the relevant period.)

Although there are a few "ap"s and other Welsh entries in the database, none of them are for "ap Harry".

However, I did find a “Clement Parry”, whose place of origin was France and his nationality French

[England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 (www.englandsimmigrants.com, version 1.0, 19 February 2015), http://www.englandsimmigrants.com/person/36898 ]

 So maybe not all instances of Parry as a surname had Welsh origins, after all!

DNA News

Sometime I will write a blog post about the Parry DNA project (at https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Parry ) But, this week, I am just going to include two pieces of news derived from my own personal DNA search, since they involve Parrys as well.

Last year I uploaded my Ancestry test results to Gedmatch.  I haven’t been following up all the matches from there yet but I happened to notice that one of them did relate to a Parry.  It was a fairly small level of shared DNA (8.5 cM, over 672 SNPs) so the common ancestor could be quite distant (or the match possibly not even genuine), but it was worth contacting them, because of the surname. We realised that we had been in touch some years ago, discussing their "brick wall” of a Robert Parry born in Chester, with the only possible baptism showing as a Robert, son of a Philip and Mary "Perry".  Much searching had not found a marriage for the Philip and Mary.  But now, returning some years later, we have found the marriage, and marriage licence, both under the surname Parry.  So that's one family potentially moved back another generation.  And we’re also proceeding with obtaining a YDNA test, so that is a bit of progress for the Parry project, as well.

And, secondly, as I was sending out invitations to the new matches on 23andMe recently, I noticed one of them listed Parry amongst their surnames.  The tree indicated that the link to the surname was a Gladys Emily Parry, born in Kentchurch, Herefordshire, in 1895.  Unfortunately, Gladys is not with her family in either 1901 or 1911.  In 1901 she is boarding with a Heiron family in Kentchurch and there are no other Parrys in Kentchurch itself.  However, there were two Parry families there in 1891:

David (60) and Jane (47), with children, Phebe 10 and Edwin Parry  (8) and

David (30) and Matilda (29) with daughter, Edith Emily Parry (1)

I haven't taken my "collateral branches" pedigree down this far yet, as I want more evidence to confirm the links before doing so, but the two Davids are shown on my "personal dna tree" at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/im.griffiths/parryfamilyhistory/personaldnatree.htm

 , where David ‘senior’ is shown first married to Esther JONES and then Jane COOKE, and David ‘junior’ is a son of the first marriage to Esther.  David ‘senior’ was brother to my 3xgreat grandfather, Thomas Parry.  

David and Matilda appear on my 1901 census listing, at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/im.griffiths/parryfamilyhistory/parrycensus/1901hef.htm#26069 , by which time they are living in Ewyas Harold.  Whilst they might appear to be the most likely family to have a daughter born in Kentchurch in 1895, the gap between Gladys and the next child, Charlotte, would be very short.  There are also several other Parry families in nearby parishes, who could be the relevant family for Gladys.    So it will definitely be necessary to obtain the marriage and birth information for her, in order to confirm this is the (possible) genealogical connection to my DNA match.  (And still only "possible" because, even if this is how we connect genealogically, that is not actually sufficient evidence to prove this connection is where the particular segment of DNA came from - we might have other connections through other ancestors, which we haven't yet found.)

But I am thrilled to have found a possible connection so easily.  Hopefully this is a sign of what is to come, as more people take DNA tests for genealogy and I build out the collateral branches of my tree.  I hope that other members of the Parry project find a similar increase in identifiable connections - even if the connection is through autosomal testing, it will lead to more 'related groupings' of people, so potentially more of us searching for, and contributing to, finding male Parrys to YDNA test.

So quite a productive week, even if there are still several other “not yet achieved” goals.