The SMITH Connection

A snippet there, a snippet here. So are trees pieced together.
the importance of examining originals, not just indexes was reinforced this week when Rosemary provided the snippet from the marriage of George Henry FAIRBAIRN and Jane SMITH - they were 2nd cousins, Jane's mother being an Ellen FAIRBAIRN.
Ellen turns out to be the daughter of Andrew FAIRBAIRN and Margaret HENDERSON.
This is yet another piece of corroboration that George Henry's father John was indeed the son of William FAIRBAIRN, schoolmaster of Bowden then Galashiels.
The One Name Study pages have been updated to include the key participants in the FAIRBAIRN and SMITH relationships teazed out from the above.

George, nail manufacturer of Stirling, placed

One Name Study pages have been updated to merge the family of George FAIRBAIRN and Janet ROBERTSON/Mary HARDIE of Camelon Park, Stirling, with George the son of William & Margaret (SCOTT) FAIRBAIRN, William being the schoolmaster of Bowden then Galashiels (and uncle of Sir William).
Thank you Rosemary for your post on GenForum which led to the information sharing which has most definitely convinced me that we've found these are one and the same George

Two matches

The previously referred to DNA match between the tree of William FAIRBAIRN, schoolmaster of Galashiels, represented in the DNA project by Michael (F-23), and that of John FAIRBARNES of Winlaton/Swalwell, Durham, represented by CJ (F-54) has been confirmed as an excellent match, 66 markers out of 67, so any shared ancestor should be well within genealogical timeframes.
Now to find the paper trail.
Jury still well out as to whether or not that means CJ's origins are Scottish, or those of John & Helen (ANDERSON) FAIRBAIRN, William's parents, were actually English! 

The other match that is shaping up rather well is that of our representative for the Cockburnspath family of John & Helen (GRIEVE) FAIRBAIRN, who is an exact match, 47/47 so far, to the line of James & Helen (CAMPBELL) FAIRBAIRN, represented in the DNA project by David (F-9).

Confirming DNA signatures from another representative down a different line of descent to those already mentioned above would be fantastic. Please use the contact links at the bottom of most of the pages linked above to discuss this further if interested in doing your bit for the overall knowledge of how the FAIRBAIRNs connect.

Minnies galore

Looking up a few FAIRBAIRNs on the newly available British Columbia BDM images led to the update of several trees, what with one thing leading to another, and another....

The main ones of note include a few more twigs on the trees of:

• John & Bessie (fflint) FAIRBAIRN - particularly the branch of Robert FAIRBAIRN and Kate SCOTT, noting en route that at least one online tree has Minnie ANDERSON as marrying both William Merdic son of William & Katherine (MORGAN) FAIRBAIRN and John son of Elliot & Mary (HOBKIRK) FAIRBAIRN. The latter is a Minnie DROVER.

• As a result, a new lineage was added, that of Robert & Margaret (ELLIOT) FAIRBAIRN, grandparents of the above Elliot.

• John & Elizabeth (YULE) FAIRBAIRN - particularly the line Thomas & Catherine (ANGUS) FAIRBAIRN's son Thomas

In addition, John & Margaret (CROMBY) FAIRBAIRN of Swalwell, Durham have now been included in the lineages section, previously only on the Patriarchs page, which has also had several more branches of assorted trees updated

Descendant chart updates

A couple of descendant charts have been updated to include new twigs/research, primarily those of

• James & Agnes (LINDSAY) FAIRBAIRN of the Scottish Borders and
• Shoemaker William FAIRBAIRNS (and variant surnames) of Knottingley, West Riding of Yorkshire

The latter has been greatly helped by recent updates to FindAGrave by "Charlie", who kindly supplied this link of the FAIRBAIRN(S) headstones that had been uploaded.
Anyone know what happened to Ephraim (born abt 1835 to George FAIRBAIRNS & Hannah LIGHTFOOT, last sighting 1881 census).

FAIRBAIRNS, Knottingley

As the Recently Changed index shows, a page, and lineage, for shoemaker William FAIRBAIRNS of Knottingley, Yorkshire (but born elsewhere in England) has been added to the One Name Study pages.
Relationships inferred in the 1906 Manitoba census, as discussed here on the RootsWeb Fairbairn message board, are a bit confusing. So if anyone can shed any light on this we'd love to hear from you.
Over time the family appear under a wide range of variant FAIRBAIRN surnames.

Stamfordham, Northumberland (NBL)

A stub from the Summary Patriarchs page for the family of Robert & Mary (ATKINSON) FAIRBAIRN of Stamfordham that has existed for quite some time without further information has been updated and linked to their tree now included in the One Name Study pages.
This tree includes two branches linked on circumstantial evidence:

• Son Robert (married to Ann DODD), linked by birth date and place and a missing first son, elder brother of Stephen to be found
• Grandson John of Erie, Pennsylvania, (married to Elizabeth HUBBARD) assumed son of Stephen & Jane (JACKSON) FAIRBAIRN

Should anyone have a trail of evidence, please use the webmistress contact link in the footers of these linked pages so the information can be updated.

Investigations for other Stamfordham FAIRBAIRNs led to a couple more inventive indexing candidates: William and John sons of a John, near contemporary to the above Robert, were indexed as FARIBEWER and FAIRBWIER respectively, even though their clearly enumerated relationship to John (born abt 1778 at Stamfordham and indexed as FAIRBAIRN, living at Horsley Barns) was son in both instances.

Notables updated

A review of the Summary Patriarchs Page for broken links brought up the family of William & Mary MOTT) FAIRBAIRN of Philadelphia and New York, and their son Revd Dr Robert  Brinckerhoff FAIRBAIRN.
The latter has now been included in the Notables list.
If anyone can shed any light on the rather "interesting" family history claims in Robert's son Henry's biography, it would be good to update William's page - or gain a direct male line candidate of the line for the DNA project. Suspect however that this family is one that has "daughtered out".

FAIRBAIRN/CLINKSCALE ++

The rest of the DNA results are in for the second representative for the family of William & Alison (CLINKSCALE) FAIRBAIRN of Bedshiel, Greenlaw - a 36/37 match between Godfrey(F-48) and Neil(F-4).
The rationalisation and linking between the DNA project and the One Name Study continues apace, so keep an eye on their respective recent changes indexes.

Given the DNA testing discounts available right now, if you belong to any of the families listed on the Wanted! page, and are a direct male line FAIRBAIRN, do please consider joining the project and helping towards the jigsaw. Would be an excellent time to get representatives for the Cockburnspath FAIRBAIRNs, and what about the family of George and Jane (LAW) FAIRBAIRN (recently added to the pages given the two contemporary soldier Andrews have now been "sorted").

11th: Disambiguation

Anyone interested in William Armstrong FAIRBURN, "noted American author, naval architect, marine engineer, and industrial executive" (from Wikipedia)?
Stumbled across a reference on the Encyclopedia of human thermodynamics that was making a case for his being a son of a William, and grandson of Sir William FAIRBAIRN, which didn't seem altogether too accurate.
End result: Wikipedia now has an update to William Armstrong FAIRBURN's entry adding in some of his family information gleaned from UK and USA records available on ancestry.com.

Am I getting too much exercise jumping to conclusions?

The next set of results (37 markers) are in for (Eckford:F-27), a descendent of the Robert who married Elizabeth YOUNG, which places this line closest to that for James and Helen (GOODFELLOW) Fairbairn (sharing marker 570 = 18 with a small group of Lineage 1 "clump 2").
Assuming that the James married to Helen GOODFELLOW, is indeed the James, son of George and Janet (MURRAY) born Kelso 1788, he has a brother Robert. However that Robert is fully accounted for in census and death records, so cannot be this Robert.
Some trees believe the George who married Janet MURRAY is the son of the John who married Helen ANDERSON, which would make him brother to the schoolmaster William (married Margaret SCOTT).
Which is where I'm getting my exercise jumping to several possible conclusions.
William had a second string to his bow, as a surveyor.
This Robert of Eckford (married Elizabeth YOUNG) appears in records as an engineer/surveyor for the Duke of Hamilton.
William is not known to have had a son Robert however, and to the best of my current knowledge, nor do any of his brothers, but maybe this has just changed?
Both the supplementary pages, and the result summary pages have been updated, although for the former, the DNA Signature Chart for Lineage 1 "clump 2" has not been updated - waiting for the last panel of results for that.

The Family Tree DNA Time Predictor shows that (Eckford:F-27) and Doug (GOODFELLOW) F-6 have an 82.6% probability of a common ancestor by 8 generations, and by 12 generations it is 95% (using the setting of no known match within 3 generations).

Result update

Preliminary (12 marker) results are in for Michael (ROWLAND) F-23, and although it is a little too early to tell definitively, look more like a match to those in Haplogroup R1b rather than all the more usual Lineage 1 in Haplogroup I1 he was expected to match.
Most definitely need more lineages represented to help tease the answer to this one out, given it was/is thought that this is the line of William, schoolmaster of Bowden and Galashiels.

It will be interesting to see how the 10/12 match to Stan (F-15) develops at more markers.
(Next set of markers not due until mid Feb).

1st: Pedigree updates

The Overview Pedigree Page on the World Families Network pages has had a couple of tweaks.

• a link has been added between a posting on the Pedigrees Forum for a researcher of the line of Robert and Isabella (WEAVER) FAIRBAIRN, and their pedigree on the Patrarchs page (represented in Haplogroup R1b1)
• A newly found line of descent from James and Joan (FORSYTH) FAIRBAIRN has been added in the hope of finding a representative (and their Wanted! descendancy chart has been updated on the Supplementary project pages)
  Anyone know what happened to descendants of Lester (Sarah), William (Ermina), Edmund, along with the more usual James and Robert, children of William George and Margaret FAIRBAIRN living Buffalo, Erie Co, New York from about 1888?

Variety is the spice of life

Variety being the spice of life, and given that all our dna results should be supplemented by paper trails, I've updated the Summary WFN Patriarchs page with another version of the family of John and Helen (Anderson); John and Jessie (Johnston) ; Patrick and Margaret (Purves) etc that you may find interesting (and would love to re-find the original I spotted on the web some time ago to be able to check the sources).

The researcher list has grown by two:

• John has agreed to be shown as the researcher/line-leader for the family of William and Margaret (Scott) FAIRBAIRN, the schoolmaster of Bowden and Galashiels (but only because I promised him he wouldn't be flooded with enquiries, only useful information on where to find descendants willing to join the project to represent his line )
• Bea is researching the St Andrews Fairbairns from Fife

Also included is a stub for a new pedigree being worked on for inclusion:

• Cockburnspath Fairbairns

"cousins" update

The final panel of results are (finally) in for Joe (F-10), one side of the triangular "cousins" mystery centering on John A of Hoquiam, and still show he is more connected to the second group of lineage one who share marker 391 = 10 and marker 520 = 20 rather than the 9 and 21 respectively of the descendant of William & Jean (WANLESS) FAIRBAIRN that he was expected to match more closely, given that William's brother is meant to be David, forbear of one side of the cousin triangle.
The results for the 3rd side of the triangle, William (F-12) aren't scheduled until towards the end of March. Patience.
Would still be good to get a confirmed descendant of David & Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN into the project to help pinpoint these linkages more, given the uncertainties in the paper trail for David and Jane's son John.

Another set of results are still missing in action somewhere between Australia and Houston, and the status updates are yet to be received on the remaining kits known to be out there, only recently sent, so again, patience.

Results page has been updated, and any necessary changes to the supplementary pages on DNASurnames will follow later when time permits.

8th: SNP results in for 2 more kits

SNP results have been received for two more kits, so the Results page has been updated to show their tested haplotypes (both I1, unsurprisingly given the dna match with others in Lineage 1).

Also updated the Patriarchs page to correct a missing indent on the pedigree of John FAIRBAIRN and Helen ANDERSON that mistakenly showed the 2nd Baronet as Sir William's brother instead of his son.

Rideau Canal connection holding up

Preliminary (12 marker) results are now in for F-8, the representative of the line of Thomas & Elspeth (REDPATH) FAIRBAIRN, and they show an exact match with the two last results, F-6 the James (GOODFELLOW) line, and F-7, the Trotter line, and are reported as being a Genetic Distance of 1 from Martin (F-1), Earl (F-2) and Roy (F-3), this latter being a descendant of William (marr. Jean WANLESS) reported to have also worked on the Rideau Canal.
So, on the face of it, there is indeed some connection between the two Rideau Canal workers, William and Thomas FAIRBAIRN (see the Patriarchs page for outline lineages).

14th: New lineage

Results page updated to show first 25 markers for the William FAIRBAIRN/May CARTER line representative. Our first additional lineage, ie no match with the existing participants.

22nd: 5th kit - FAIRBAIRN/SINTON

Fifth kit ordered - descendant of Robert FAIRBAIRN and Janet HOGARTH via son William FAIRBAIRN who married Isabella SINTON of Eckford around 1831, settled Egremont, Ontario about 1858

23rd: 4th kit ordered - Greenlaw FAIRBAIRNs

Fourth kit ordered - descendant of William FAIRBAIRN and May CARTER, who married Greenlaw, Berwickshire, 1792.