My 4th great grandfather William James [James-23370, M2W4-TW8] was born in about 1777 and died in 1847 in Martley in Worcestershire. Unfortunately, as he died before 1851, he only appears on the 1841 Census, and so his place of birth is only given as “not Worcestershire”, which makes it very difficult to work out where he was born and who his parents were.
My previous research on his son Edward James showed that his wife was Elizabeth (maiden name and marriage date/location unknown) and that he had at least five children: William, Thomas, Henry, the aforementioned Edward and Jane. Of these, at least the first three were born on Orleton in Herefordshire, so it seems logical that we might find him there, or at least nearby. However, there is no matching baptism for him in Orleton, so we will have to look slightly further afield. Orleton is also very close to the border with Shropshire, so it is also possible that he was born in that county.
I have a number of DNA matches who are all descendents of a Thomas James and Mary Wood of Aymestrey (about 4 miles from Orleton as the crow flies or about 7.5 miles by road). I also have common matches with these DNA matches and other matches who I have already identified as being on the James line, so we can be reasonably sure that we are at least looking at the correct section of the family. It also seems reasonable to assume that the common ancestors are very unlikely to be more than one or two generations further back, as if Thomas and Mary are my ancestors, they would be my 5th great grandparents.
Thomas and Mary had a son William born in 1776 (baptised 23 June 1776, Aymestrey). This is a good match for my 4th great grandfather William - it is almost exactly the year we expect, and it is only a few miles away from a location where we find him later in his life.
The plausible possibilities that would explain the DNA evidence are:
- This William is my ancestor.
- This William is a close cousin of my ancestor. It cannot be too many more generations further back, as it is already pretty close to the limit of how far back the common ancestors of DNA matches can be.
In the case of option 2, this would imply that William had a cousin (probably a first cousin) also called William and born in more or less the same year in more or less the same location. This is by no means impossible, but without evidence we have to conclude that it is less likely than the idea that we have indeed found the correct William.
I haven’t been able to trace Thomas and Mary’s parents, which would be useful for determining whether this William did have such a cousin. However, I also can’t find any other plausible baptisms for “my” William, if he is not the son of Thomas and Mary.
Therefore, on the strength of the DNA evidence and the lack of any plausible other interpretation, my conclusion is that they are very likely to be the same William, and I have added him and his family to my tree on that basis. It is still possible that further evidence might emerge to confirm or contradict this theory, and I will update my tree and these notes if and when that happens.
On the basis that William was born in Aymestrey and baptised his first child in Orleton in 1801, we can look for a marriage. There is a close but not perfect match - William James of the parish of Yarpole and Elizabeth Tomblings of this parish married in Caynham (Shropshire) on 24th February 1799. Both of these residence parishes are very close but not exactly where we would expect to find them - however if this is not the correct marriage, then it is a very big coincidence that another couple with the same name lived so close to the two parishes we expect (much more so than if they were both “of this parish”), and there isn’t another marriage record that could plausibly be the one we are looking for. Therefore I also conclude that this marriage is very likely to be correct.