My DNA test

Last year, I decided to take a DNA test to help with my family history research. There are several companies that offer DNA testing, but Ancestry has by far the biggest database of DNA results (from more than 15 million people), so I chose them. I bought the test on Black Friday (23 November 2018), when the normal price of £79 was reduced to £49. There was also a £10 charge for shipping. More information about the test is at https://www.ancestrydna.co.uk/kits?&&pgrid=49763045925&ptaid=kwd-297622641345&s_kwcid=ancestry%20dna&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3s7Jgb-b4gIV65ztCh03cA_yEAAYASABEgLY__D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I received the test kit in the post soon after ordering it, but didn’t send off my sample (saliva) until January 2019. I was sent my results online about 6 weeks later. Ancestry provide a list of the names of DNA matches and the amount of DNA you share, under headings indicating how close the relationship is. I had 1 second cousin, 4 third cousins and 190 fourth cousins. Second cousins share a set of great grandparents, third cousins share a set of great, great grandparents, fourth cousins share a set of great, great, great grandparents. The list of matches is added to as more people are tested – I now have 2 second cousins, 7 third cousins and 231 fourth cousins.

In order to get the most benefit from a DNA test, you should enter the names and dates of your ancestors and link this information to your name on the Ancestry DNA site. If a DNA match has attached their family tree, the site will highlight surnames that are in your tree and their’s. It is then often apparent who the shared ancestor is. The system also lists the names of shared matches. If you know how a name on this list is related to you, then others on it are probably related via the same line. The system allows you to send a message to your DNA matches.

The results from my DNA test were not as useful as I hoped. I had previously made contact with 8 of my DNA matches before I got the results. Only 36% of other DNA matches that I contacted replied to my message to them. Only 15 to my closest 50 matches had attached a family tree that I could view. Consequently, I wasn’t able to establish how a lot of my DNA matches are related to me. However, I made some good contacts who have supplied me with information and pictures that I have added to my family history blogs.

There is a helpful article on what to do with your DNA results at  https://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/wedding18.htm#Masterclass

There were 12 DNA matches where I was able to establish a definite Ivall link. 8 of them were descended from my ancestor David Ivall (1816-67) and 3 were descended from his brother Robert Thomas Ivall (1812-65).

The test also provides an ethnicity estimate, by comparing DNA results with those of people in various regions throughout the world. These estimates are of dubious value and accuracy. My ethnicity was estimated as 83% from England, Wales and Northwestern Europe, with most from the East of England, 9% from Sweden and 8% from Ireland and Scotland. All of the ancestors that I have found from my research were born in England, with quite a few born in Essex. I am not aware of any ancestors born in Sweden, Ireland or Scotland.

Painting by Hilda Ivall (1910-99)

This blog contains an item about the life of Hilda Annie Ivall (1910-99), who was an artist. Peter Prest owns a watercolour painting by Hilda and kindly sent me a photo of it.

“Bouquet” by Hilda Ivall

Dorothy Lucy Ivall (1895-1970)

Dorothy Lucy Ivall was a great grand-daughter of Robert Thomas Ivall (1812-65), who was a brother of my ancestor David Ivall (1816-67). This item about Dorothy’s life contains information kindly supplied by Richard, one of her sons.

Dorothy was born on 24 October 1895 in Chalvey, a village which is now a suburb of Slough in Berkshire. She was the eldest child of Walter George Ivall (1868-1953) and his wife Lily Mary Crabe Bartlett (1872-1915) who married on 1 January 1895 in St Mary’s, Slough. He was 26 and a school master. She was 23, the daughter of William Bartlett, a butler. They later had three other daughters Lily Victoria (1900-73), Margaret Olive (1902-59) and Katherine Mildred (1907-86). They also had two other children Mary (b1896) and Thomas (b1899) who died soon after birth. Electoral registers show that Walter lived at 6 Rose Cottages, Chalvey from 1897 to 1899.

The 1901 census shows Walter (aged 32, an assistant schoolmaster) living at 7 Castle View off Grove Road, Upton St Mary, Slough. Also listed at the address are his wife Lily Mary (22) and their daughters Dorothy (5) and Lily Victoria (5 months).

In 1911, Dorothy, aged 15, was living at 18 Robert Street, Grosvenor Square, London with three other single people. The census return shows them all as “Shop assistant, dairy”. Dorothy’s mother died of cancer in 1915, aged 43. Her father married Alice Cumber in 1921 and they had three children.

Dorothy married Frank de Betham Hart on 16 September 1918 in Hampstead. She was aged 22, he was 32. When Dorothy and Frank first met she was a cook in a wartime canteen and he was a chartered Electrical Engineer. She was an extremely good cook and a very lively personality.  She had a very good (and pure) soprano voice, Frank was an accomplished baritone.  Both were more or less dedicated to musicals popular in that period and particularly to the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. They had six children, four sons and two daughters.

Dorothy with one of her children

Lily, Dorothy’s sister, lived with the family. Lily was crippled – not badly and it transpired very late in life that her handicap was the result of a dislocated ankle during childhood. Medical advice was expensive in the Edwardian era and a schoolmaster’s salary did not run to a consultation. Lily became Dorothy’s helpmate and the children’s nursemaid. Dorothy did the housekeeping – i.e. shopping and cooking. Lily did everything else, for most of this employment at half a crown a week wages (plus ‘keep') !

Lily Victoria Ivall

Frank joined Tom Callenders Electrical and Cables Company, which later became B.I.C.C.  (British Insulated Callenders Cable Company).  Mostly he worked as a Field Engineer, particularly in Spain, France, Germany and Hungary, before becoming largely responsible for the construction of the National Grid System in the U.K.  He was promoted to the Board of B.I.C.C. and made Managing Director of BICC’s construction company, until his retirement in the mid-1950s.

The 1939 register lists Frank de Betham Hart, a chartered electrical engineer, living at 116 South Hill Park, Hampstead with Dorothy and their eldest son. 116 South Hill Park received a direct hit plus 2 incendiary bombs during the war, severely damaging part of the property. Dorothy endured a period of alcoholism, partly as a result of the London Blitz, but had by the late 1950s cured herself by strength of will.

Frank became ill with a bowel complaint in early 1963. After a period of treatment in the Middlesex Hospital he was taken to convalesce in Upholland, near Wigan, where his daughter lived with her husband, the vicar. Unfortunately Frank had a relapse and died shortly afterwards in Wigan hospital of pneumonia on 13 August 1963 aged 76.   

Dorothy suffered from diabetes. An unfortunate gift of a box of chocolates coincided with a temporary loss of will power. She scoffed the lot and suffered a stroke, from which she never recovered. She died a few weeks later in Hampstead Hospital on 10 March 1970 aged 74. Probate records give her home address as 116 South Hill Park, London NW3. Administration of  her estate (£332) was granted. 

Randall G Ivall : Lieutenant Colonel in USAF

An article in the Piatt County Journal-Republican https://www.journal-republican.com/news/monticello-military-man-promoted/article_254c2850-5558-11e9-8c0d-e7faac558181.html  describes the career of Randall G Ivall and records his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force. 

Randall comes from the town of Monticello in Illinois, USA. He is a grandson of George Marcos Ivolitis (1902-61), who emigrated from Greece to America in 1921 and changed his surname to Ivall. An item about George's life is on this blog.

Fred Gregory Bampton in the Royal Navy

Carol has kindly sent me information about Fred Gregory Bampton's service in the Royal Navy between 1907 and 1910. I have added this to the item about his life on this blog.