Let me recap a bit of history regarding my husbands line. In 2009 he had his Y-DNA tested using Family Tree DNA. We were expecting to solve some unknown loopholes in his Paternal Tinker ancestry. We were much surprised to find out that he did not match any males whatsoever in the Tinker DNA Project. Now, let me state that that particular DNA project is for the descendants of Robert TINKER & Mary MERWIN. That is significant for us to know because a little later I will explain just how it bears great significance.
Instead of a TINKER match he matched the surname: FANCHER & JOHNSON, if you look at the FANCHER family DNA project you will see that this family also matches the JOHNSON surname quite closely. This was the first time we had ever seen the surname FANCHER before in relation to his family.
In trying to find his paternal male FANCHER ancestor it has been somewhat of a tedious process. In May 2013 we decided to branch out and get autsomal testing done. Since our Y-Test was such a close match to one FANCHER male in particular I halfway expected close matches to come back from his direct line once our results at 23andME were in. They didnt. Now the plot thickened!
Once the results are in we thought it would be great to add them to Family Tree DNA as well so we could cover more bases. So we transferred his raw DNA file there and also added it to GedMatch website to broaden the horizion. Now it came down to a process of elimination on our parts. We began taking what we knew of his family tree and working backwards one generation at a time and proving each generation using what the DNA was telling us.
Fast forward to today. We currently are back to his 3rd Great Grandparents: James Abraham TINKER & Nancy PARKS. James parents are said to be Abraham TINKER and his wife, the elusive Polly whose maiden name is Unknown.
Knowing that I was at a crossroads and sort of a dead end here, I decided to step back and take a look at what we knew verses what we didnt know. One thing we did know was that there had to be a connection between the TINKER and the FANCHER families somewhere back in time. The only connections that we have ever been able to locate were between a woman named Parthenia TINKER who married one Neuman FANCHER. Neuman was the son of Lemuel FANCHER and Sarah LOOMIS, the subject of this post.
Now, the way that I have been successful in proving my husbands ancestry in each generation is to look at the males mother, and ask myself, can I find anyone in his DNA matches that ties into someone who connects to that specific line? I have been able to do just that up to and including James Abraham TINKER and Nancy Parks.
So, I decided that since I had come to a deadlock on the TINKER lineage I would now focus on seeing if there was anything there between this marriage of Neuman FANCHER and Parthenia TINKER. I decided to look at Sarah LOOMIS more closely. First, I traced her line back as far as I possibly could go. Then, I decided to see if my husband had any cousin matches at 23andMe and FT-DNA that list the LOOMIS surname. I found three! So, I got into their family tree and followed their LOOMIS ancestors back as far as I could go. Each ancestor who listed the surname LOOMIS leads back to this couple: Joseph LOOMIS & Mary WHITE. They all three connect to them, in that this couple is their grandparents however many generations back. You guessed it, Sarah LOOMIS herself goes back to this same Joseph LOOMIS & Mary WHITE. So, now I think we may be getting close to discovering the source of this Non Paternal event. That would indicate to me that Sarah LOOMIS must be my husbands Great Grandmother however many generations back, which is yet to be determined.
Since Sarah LOOMIS married Lemuel FANCHER it would appear that in all likelihood Lemuel FANCHER must also be my husbands grandfather.
Now, getting back to the Robert TINKER & Mary MERWIN. This line of the TINKER family come over from England and ended up in Connecticut, exactly where Parthenia TINKER was. Parthenias parents were Phineas TINKER & Charity MARSHALL. I believe Phineas ties back to Robert TINKER & Mary MERWIN. On Family Tree DNA my husband has two autsomal cousin matches that trace back to Robert TINKER & Mary MERWIN. We know that this must be coming from a Female TINKER ancestor because as I previously stated his Y-DNA did not match ANY males with the TINKER surname from the TINKER DNA Project which is specifically males who descend from said Robert TINKER & Mary MERWIN.
It is therefore my belief that in all likelihood my husbands male ancestor was a FANCHER and his paternal grandmother was a TINKER and she likely gave her child her surname and thus he was raised a TINKER and that is how the TINKER surname was carried down through the generations in his family. Please note this is only my opinion and has not been proven at this point, the basis for this is using everything that I have told you here and my own interpretation of what I believe his DNA testing is telling me.
Lineage of Sarah LOOMIS-FANCHER
Sarah Loomis was born about 1749 somewhere in Connecticut, probably near Hartford. She was the daughter of one Eliakim LOOMIS and his wife Mary, whose maiden name is currently unknown to me. On 1 June, 1779 in Plymouth, Litchfield, Connecticut she married one Lemuel FANCHER, son of William FANCHER and his wife Thankful THOMPSON. William FANCHER was born in England.
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