Puzzles | washbourn

Puzzles and 'brick walls'

There are a few puzzles - unexplained situations, including what genealogists know as ‘brick walls’ (with good reason) - lurking in the family genealogy which are worth some attention. If anyone has solutions, I should be very glad to hear from them! The puzzles noted here are :

Emma Everley and her status in the family
We may not be who we think we are - recent evidence from DNA analyses (2014; updated 2021).

1. Emma Everley and her place in the family

Emma Everley appears in the family lines in the early 1800s, associated with Richard Washbourn (1775-1858) who was a yeoman/farmer landholder in Yatesbury, last heard of there in 1803. Richard then disappears from view for 22 years. During this time, he marries, has a son, loses his wife, and in some way acquires a ‘daughter’, Emma Everley. He re-emerges in 1825 in occupation of several large properties in Surrey, 100 miles away from Wiltshire.

There has been much conjecture about the unsolved mystery of Emma Everley and the adoption of the name ‘Everley’ for the eldest son of the family for each succeeding generation for five generations. Everley is not a common name except in certain parts of the south and west of Wiltshire. The explanation proffered for the missing years 18-5~1825 is that Richard learned of a good farm in the neighbourhood of Heytesbury (Wilts.) from his cousins the Chandlers, in the early years of the 19th Century (i.e. 1803-05). There were plenty of Everleys in that parish at that time - seven Everley marriages are registered in the first 30 years of the 19th Century. In some way, it is possible that Richard (the elder) met and married a widow Everley with a daughter Emma, born in 1811-13. This lady then presented him with a son, William Everley Washbourn, and died in childbirth. After his wife’s death, which would have been 1819-20, Richard moved into the same area as his cousin, Richard Walter, who was farming at Purley Farm, Sanderstead in Surrey.

Emma herself does give some support to the widow Everley theory in the little sampler which survives in the possession of the Chandlers in Aldbourne. The work has a sad little verse, and in one of the embroidered devices there are two tiny tombstones. It should not be missed that the sampler shows Emma's surname spelling to be 'Everly' (without the last 'e') - would a 9-year old mis-spell her name in a work of this nature?

Emma was born in Bath in 1811. Bath has many parishes, but none of them admit to Emma’s baptism. She can be found in the English censuses of 1851, 1871 and 1881. She died in 1883, aged 72 years, and is buried at Melksham. Her will was proved at the Principal Registry, leaving £10 to each of her two executors and the remainder of her estate to her brother ‘William Everley Washbourn now residing in Motueka near Nelson, in the colony of New Zealand’.

Attempts to find documentary evidence of Emma’s birth, her mother’s marriage and death, and other events have so far failed - not without considerable effort by several people. Richard Washbourn made strenuous efforts in the 1960s by searching parish and land tax records. Mike Everley in the UK has tried to find Everley marriages to document Emma’s mother’s marriage (see his website http://mikeeverley.simplesite.com), and Roger Washbourn has spent hours searching parish records on microfilm. All have been unsuccessful to date. Perhaps the internet age and the increasing availability of church records may provide the answers in time.

There is another possible explanation. In coming to his conclusion in 1961 as outlined in paragraph 2 above, Richard Washbourn may have been trying to 'keep the alignment of the blankets straight'. It must be asked : did Richard and Emma's mother ever marry? Emma may have been a natural child of an unmarried mother who may later have married Richard and produced William. Second Christian names were not common in those days; frequently a second name was the maiden name of the unmarried mother, who may then having proved her fertility and seen therefore as an asset to the family, have married the father. Emma's mother may have been a widow and that Everley was her maiden name and not her married name; thus carrying it on to William would be appropriate.

2. We may not be whom we think we are - evidence from recent

DNA analyses

Fast forward to the 21st Century. Modern advances in science and biogenetics have revealed the

secrets of DNA, and analyses of human cells can be used to compare family lines. Roger Washbourn

of the Nelson NZ branch of the family has had his DNA analysed by FamilyTreeDNA (a leading American company in the field of genealogical biogenetics). The results show that there are probably two distinct genetic family lines, and that the Nelson NZ Washbourns and the American Washburns may not be descended from the supposed main family line. He wrote some notes in 2014 and distributed them to family members.

Genealogical studies concentrate on the male Y-chromosome, which is exclusively passed on from father to son in each generation. The Y-chromosome of each individual can be extracted and analysed chemically according to standardized methods, and from the results it is possible to infer family lines. From these analyses, biogeneticists are able to group those tested into one of a number of haplogoups (genetic families; similar in concept to the more familiar blood groups). Statistical tests can then be used to establish degrees of relationships between individuals.

Results of the Washburn Family tests are posted on a public website (see https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Washburn/default.aspx?section=yresults), but the presentation needs explaining; this is not the place to do so, but contact me for a copy of the note.

Testing of a cheek swab enables the assignment to a specific haplogroup, from which various relationships (or lack of them) can be deduced. The test results show that Roger Washbourn in New Zealand shares a very close relationship with a number of the American Washburns; we all belong to the R1b haplogroup or R-U106 in the more modern terminology. (Roger’s grouping is actually subdivided to R1b1a2a1a1a). What is also of interest is that a number of other Washbournes belong to another haplogroup (the I group). Information from expert forensic genealogists tell us that the two haplogroups are not at all closely genetically related. Thus it appears that there are two distinct genetic lines within those who admit to a Washbourne/Washbourn/Washburn surname. Looking at the relationships, it is possible to deduce that the schism (i.e., the time of separation, if that’s what it was) must have occurred no later than the middle 1500s, as that is when the American Washburns and the Wiltshire Washbourns have a common ancestor.

The puzzle therefore is this : how and when did the two groups originate? As things stand, the Wiltshire Washbourns and American Washburns may not be part of the original Washbourne family of Little Washbourn and Wichenford - and if so, what is their ancestry?

There are two possibilities to explain this ~

1. The obvious explanation is that some time back in the 1500s, or earlier, there is what biogeneticists term a ‘non-paternity event’ - i.e., a child born out of wedlock who was taken in and raised as a family member. How and when this occurred is unlikely to be uncovered, given the timing of the event and the paucity of good documentation. It may remain an unsolvable puzzle.

2. There is one other possibility : that there have been two separate genetic lines of the family from very early times - this too is part of the unsolvable puzzle for the moment.