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The Henry Ballinger / Mary Ellen Harding DNA descendants

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Making sense of DNA matches requires determining what the source is for a specific stretch of your DNA. Identifying the stretches is part of the fun; this requires looking at matches on that chromosome and trying to "bucket" them together, identifying borders based on specific matches that have specific start and end marks.

For me, Karl David Wright, I have identified many regions in my DNA and even written a simple Java program to group them in a useful way. I've then pursued the specific matches I have, finding trees available publicly for them, or requesting access if not. This kind of research is apparently unusual enough people can't believe anyone is really doing this. But it works.

One group I have identified aligns to a common overlap I have with many people about 70% along Chromosome 5. I have been fortunate not only to have many near-identical matches, but also a number of trees publicly available to use.

The group covers the region, in cM, from 117726378 to 132678770, for me. Unless you are a match specifically with me, it may cover different regions for any two related individuals.

I first built a tree in Geni that didn't connect with any ancestor I recognized, that for Margaret Lorraine Peel, from Victoria, Australia. Her ancestors were exclusively English. This was, as usual, frustrating. But in the end it was the most interesting discovery of all, as you will see.

Next, I built a tree from a match named "P Thompson". He connected right away with the Ballinger family, with the following path. This allowed me to tentatively identify the group. A second tree, for "Gary Richard Delneo", once again briefly frustrated me until I realized that his published tree was wildly in error. But I still didn't find an explicit link even after correction - but I did find a Philadelphia "mystery person" in it. This allowed me to hypothesize a link between that person and the Ballinger family. Final path here.

You may think at this point that a conjecture of this kind might be premature, and you'd be right: there's no guarantee that the particular chunk of DNA comes from the specific relationship identified in the genealogy. For that, we need another definitive match, and I got that with the next tree that I looked at, one for "Troy Stephen Cain".

Mr. Cain's tree was not very complete, and it was in Georgia, so it did take a little while. But I did manage to trace his ancestry back to a William Jenkins that had married a Mary Ballinger, b. 1704, near Fairfax County, Virginia. Parents existing for her had been obviously bogused from some tree made in the late 1800's or after, just based on the naming alone, so I cut that loose and looked around. One of Henry's sons, Joseph, was known to have left New Jersey and died in Goochland Virginia. In fact, his known wife, born in 1694, was born in Goochland and married him there. It was impossible for his known wife to be Mary's mother. That left an unknown wife, probably born in New Jersey and died before 1720 in Goochland, and Mary.

The fact that there was a Jenkins/Ballinger marriage in Virginia at that time was enough, in my opinion, to confirm that this DNA stretch is indeed due to Henry Ballinger and Mary Ellen. Final relationship here.

Here are the current members of the Henry Ballinger / Mary Ellen Harding group:

  • P Thompson (118090496 - 132678770) [14588274] Private
  • Troy Stephen Cain (119605473 - 132678770) [13073297] Private
  • Gary Richard Delneo (119605473 - 132678770) [13073297] Private
  • Margaret Lorraine Peel (115986877 - 132678770) Private
  • A982465: Paul T. Doran
  • Bill Butler (117726378 - 132678770) [14952392]
  • Rebecca Courville (118647188 - 132678770) [14031582]
  • Robie Roberts (119605473 - 132678770) [13073297]
  • Jason Campbell (119605473 - 132678770) [13073297] Private
  • Amy Lynn James (120015832 - 132678770) [12662938]
  • Frederic Lloyd Breeden (120015832 - 132678770) [12662938]
  • Marie Wilson (120015832 - 128491431) Marie Wilson

Now, back to "Margaret Lorraine Peel". She lives in Australia, and her tree is entirely English. Henry Ballinger married Mary Ellen Harding in New Jersey in about 1683. How can this exact stretch of DNA find its way to Ms. Peel?

The answer must include reverse migration. Assuming that Ms. Peel's tree is accurate in Australia, it's a requirement that one descendant of the Ballinger family returned to England, stayed there, and left English descendants. And, if we assume her tree is correct, the "missing link" must have been born either around 1730 or 1760. I have no yet begun to fully research which Ballinger family member was involved, but I have noted that one ancestor of Margaret has a surname "Clayton", which was common at that time in New Jersey. I've hypothesized a link based on that. No idea if it is correct yet - other English matches would help to clarify this. Tentative path here.

The last member of the group to be added, Marie Wilson, has a tree which is entirely Irish. It appears that she, too, is descended from Henry Ballinger via reverse migration - possibly the same reverse migration that was ancestral for Margaret Peel. In her case, I hooked her up through an ancestor with an English-sounding surname - but since her maternal grandfather is completely unknown, there is an excellent chance that is where the link comes from. Tentative path here.