William Reed/Farncombe (AKA Holcombe)

[Photo is of Pyecombe, Sussex, England---where William Reed/Farncombe---father of Annie Reed Maupin--- was from]

As I mentioned in a previous post, Carol Keller whose husband is the great-grandson of William Reed/Farncombe had a document that she'd received from one of his cousins. Some of it has no basis in truth (as far as we know), but some of it may in fact be correct. We haven't really checked it all out, yet.

"Genealogy Report Taken From Original Dated 1861 in London, England Reed-Holcombe [Carol and I think someone mis-understood the name Farncombe]

Sir Edward William James Reed-Holcombe born Sept. 20, 1830 at Sheerness, England. At age 23 was designer of various vessels for the British until he denounced Royalty in Dec. 1856.[William Reed/Farncombe was not SIR anything and his birth was not accurate either. He was, however, a blacksmith/engineer and did emigrate from England in late 1856 or early 1857]

One brother remained in England.[seven out of nine siblings remained in England] Sir Thomas German Reed-Holcombe born at Brighton June 27, 1817---died March 1888.[none of this is accurate excepting the family was from around Brighton, England]

Farncombe and Reed photos

Kathy Weaver, in Wisconsin, sent photos which her family had of 3 of William Reed/Farncombe's siblings. Seeing those photos was all I needed to be persuaded that her story was true. The first photo I saw (above) was Kathy's ancestor Mary Farncombe DiVall. I was shocked at how much she looked like my aunt---Mary Long Wassmund. I sent the photo to various people and said, "Who does this look like?" They all said, "Mary" The Mary above would be Mary below's great-great aunt.

The one thing that Mom always talked about were Annie Reed Maupin's light blue eyes.
Here is her aunt Elizabeth---her father's sister:
The last recognition I had was William's brother Edward Farncombe:
Not as similar in looks as the women, here are his great-nephews Walter and Harry Maupin (sons of Annie Reed Maupin):
And, great-nephew Ralph Reed son of James Reed (son of William Reed/Farncombe)
And Charles Maupin (Harry's son)

The photos were pretty convincing that William Farncombe did indeed come to the United States and change his name. Carol Keller, married to Williams's great-grandson did find the document she'd received from a cousin (now deceased) which confirmed the story. Come back in a few days for that installment.

Eloise's Rag Rugs

This is Dave and Harry sitting at their desks in Louisiana (1945). Grover, their father, made the drawings in the background. Behind Dave and Harry are rag rugs which Eloise made.
We have one of the rugs. Eloise told us it was made of strips from her brothers' and sisters' suits. I was always curious as to how the rugs were made.

When we were in Nauvoo, a Mormon historical community, we saw how the rugs were made.
These looms look larger than the one that Eloise used to make the rugs.

I love the textures in the rugs and the whole idea of recycling, but I especially like our rug knowing it has clothes from the Frys.

William Reed AKA William Farncombe

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my family has a "plague" of common names making genealogy study very difficult. DNA helped with the Williams and Long names, but I still had William Reed (William James Reed was Annie Reed Maupin's father, Vivian Maupin Long's grandfather, my dad's great-grandfather) who was born in the early 1800's in England----hundreds, if not thousands of candidates. I thought about trying to locate a distant cousin for DNA, but got an interesting e-mail through a genealogy web-site before I had to do that:

"I would be interested in contacting you as I have information on William James Reed's parents that I think you would be interested in. His real name was Farncomb and his parents were William Farcomb and Mary Reed. I am a very distant relative of yours and have been working on the famly for a number of years. William's sister Mary Farncomb married Frederick DiVall and moved to Lancaster, Wisconsin. Kathy Weaver"

I don't think I need to tell you how much easier William Farncomb(e) is to research than William Reed, but first I had to be SURE that this wasn't a hoax. So, I asked for more information:

This story has been handed down in our family. The story goes that William got into some kind of trouble. I never heard what the trouble was. He changed his name from Farncomb to Reed which was his mother's maiden name. He moved to the St Louis area. He was born in Pycomb, Sussex, England in 1835. He was christened 17 Dec 1835. We did have in our early records that he had two children, William and Anna. Other than that I did not know anything about him until I found the 1880 Census record for him. William's parents are William Farcomb and Mary Reed. And Wlliam's grandparents were Henry Farncomb and Elizabeth.
His father, William Farncomb was born in 1791. He was christened at Pycombe, England on 26 Jun 1791 He died 21 Feb 1880 in Pycombe. England. . .

This exchange of e-mails is one of the reasons I began this blog---thank goodness the DiVall family handed down the stories of "the black sheep" in the family. I feel so fortunate that Kathy Weaver contacted me. I wish their family had passed down the story of WHAT William did that prompted him to leave England and change his name. Which brings me to my next problem---just what should I include on this blog? There's a fine line between gossip and family stories and yet I really wish I knew more about William's story.

What she said in her second e-mail checked out with what I knew---his birthdate, he was from England, his first two children were William and Anna (Annie). Also, I contacted another Reed cousin about this and she re-called hearing that he'd changed his name, too. But, it was seeing the photos that made me a believer. Come back in a few days for the photos.

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is different than the Y DNA used to trace the paternal line and different from the Nuclear DNA which makes up who we are. It traces the maternal line and technically is a parasite embedded in our DNA. But, it is more stable and is often used to identify victims of crime and to learn more about ancient bones. Men and women have mitochondrial DNA, whereas only men have the Y DNA. Again, we used my brother Jim's DNA to help us solve another family mystery.

My great-grandmother Martha Silas Watson is almost a complete unknown. She had a very difficult life plagued with mental illness and no relatives that we know of. Although I got a court order to have her records released from the mental institution, I still didn't learn very much about her family.

My sister Jane thought she might have been a Gypsy; my brother thought she might have been an American Indian. Although we knew the mitochondrial DNA would not help us with her immediate relatives, we would know if she was a Gypsy or an Indian.

I had first became interested in mitochondrial DNA when I heard about the book The Seven Daughters of Eve. Having the mitochondrial DNA would also tell us which of the Seven Daughters she came from.The map above shows the Seven Daughters and where they came from. By having our X DNA tested, we discovered we belonged to the halplogroup U5a which Bryan Sykes identifies as Ursula.

There are about 10 pages of a fictionalized account about Ursula in the book---below is a summary:

Ursula (Latin for she-bear)

Ursula lived about 45,000 years ago in what is now northern Greece. She was among the first arrivals of a new, modern human to set foot in Europe. She was slender and graceful, in marked contrast to the thickset Neanderthals with whom she and her clan shared the land for another 20,000 years. Her kind brought with them a new and more sophisticated type of stone tool with which to hunt and butcher the abundant game, animals that soon appeared on the walls of limestone caves as the first expression of human art. They spread right across Europe, west across France and north as far as the British Isles.

As the climate deteriorated 25,000 years ago, the clan began its long migration south; eventually reaching Spain and founding what became a refuge for all humans during the coldest millennia of the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed, the scattered clan led the march back to the North to reclaim the once frozen lands. They reached the British Isles and left an indelible record in the limestone caves of Cheddar Gorge. In 1998, DNA was recovered from the famous skeleton known as Cheddar Man and our analysis showed that it belonged to the clan of Ursula. In a dramatic demonstration of genetic continuity, we found that a teacher at the local school, only a few hundred yards from the cave entrance, was clearly a member of the same clan.

[Cheddar Man is below]

As you can tell above U was neither Gypsy nor American Indian. Corresponding with others whose DNA is similar to ours, we know that Martha's mother's mother's mother's. . .was probably Scotch-Irish with Viking roots.


Both The Seven Daughters of Eve and Trace Your Roots with DNA are pretty readable books. If you want a more general discussion about genetic roots, try Spencer Wells' book and video The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odessey.