So Far Away – Week 22

In my inbox this morning up popped a notification for a new DNA Circle along with links to two additional trees to further support the search

With one of the members i share 13.8 centimorgans across 2 segments. With the other the match is higher 33 centimorgans across 3 segments. The common ancestors we have are John HIBBERD and Hannah Holley. John and Hannah are my 3rd great grandparents. This is a long distance from today.

John HIBBERD was born in 1803 Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire. The 1851 census tells us that his wife Hannah was born around 1812 in Ramsbury, Wilthsire. By the time of the 1841 census the family was living and working in Trowbridge as Cloth Workers. All the children were born in Trowbridge from 1835.

John and Hannah had seven children that we have found the baptisms for. Not all of them stayed in Wiltshire to continue as cloth workers or weavers. At the time John and Hannah were working as cloth workers and weavers the industry was changing and machines were taking the place of people. The work would have been difficult, laborious and intensive.

Four children migrated to South Australia on the Adamant in 1863, Martha, Isabella and her husband James DREWETT, Hannah and her husband John FARMER and Edwin. Martha married Benjamin SCOTT in 1871 in South Australia and they were the parents of Matilda Hibberd SCOTT. The children moved so far away to create a better life for themselves. Both the DNA Circle connections also show that the next generation from Hannah and John’s children who had stayed in Wiltshire too moved on to the United States.

Families that once lived in close proximity of each other and only moved short distances moved so far from each other during and after the industrial revolution as they looked for streets paved with gold. In the days of pen and paper being the only way to communicate the extended branches of the family lost contact with each other. DNA and DNA Circles are ways families can reconnect over distances and time.

Wiltshire Map

Cloth workers 

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