Edward Holmes

From Descendant Debbie Gambrell 5/7/21:

I have Romani/Gypsy DNA and had been trying to identify any ancestors in my tree who I would have gotten that from. I belong to a Romany UK research group and last year discovered I match people with known Romany ancestry in the UK, Australia, and even South America. I share MRCA matches with two of the gedmatch kits used in the New Forest Romany/Gypsy DNA study and have farther back matches with the other two.

I've had these Holmes / Riggs ancestors in my tree for a while but hadn't looked at them since beginning my quest to find my Romany ancestors. Today I noticed them being born in Nazeing, Epping Forest District, Essex, England. This made me curious whether Epping Forest was, like New Forest, a Romany community. Yes!

http://romanygenes.com/epping-forest/4594488782

And this explains my distant DNA matches to known Romany Boswell descendants, among others!

I'm sharing this information so if any other descendants seeing this are showing Romany/Gypsy DNA, this is at least one family that probably accounts for that. I just put two-and-two together based on the 'Forest' communities, but many of you haven't been in Romany research groups and wouldn't know that is a clue to your Romany ancestry.