One of my genealogy goals for 2018 was to identify the biological father of my great-aunt, Bettye Harris. I tried a few times throughout the year to work on that, but the test results for her daughter didn't give me any good leads at 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, or MyHeritage. I realized that if I really wanted to make some headway on this mystery, I needed to have Bettye's daughter test at Ancestry. When I asked if she was up for doing one more test, she graciously said yes and even paid for it (always a bonus!). I had hoped to get the results around Christmas last year, but something went wrong at Ancestry and they couldn't process the test. So they shipped another kit out to her, and she spit again, and this time the test processed correctly. The results came in on Saturday evening, and I immediately set to work.
Most of her closest matches were paternal relatives, first cousins or their kids. But then, in her list of second cousin-ish matches, was one match (I'll call her Amy) with an extensive pedigree, with no familiar names - nothing from any known branch of Bettye's family tree. I got excited, thinking this could be from the mystery line! The family seemed to be mostly Welsh and English, with surnames like Owens and Bowen and Evans. As I looked at the list of matches Bettye's daughter shared with Amy, none of her paternal matches were listed, nor were any maternal matches from my side of her family. I found several matches that Bettye and Amy shared that all descended from the same couple - William Bowen and Anna Evans, born in Wales in the 1820s, so a little over a hundred years before Bettye was born. That was enough space for there to be at least three generations between them and Bettye, maybe four. William and Anna were Amy's paternal great-grandparents. Their daughter Anna Bowen and her husband Albert Owens were Amy's grandparents.
While going through Amy's shared matches, I found one match from Amy's Owens side, which connected to Albert Owens' grandfather, Owen Pritchard Owens, but through an uncle of Albert's, not through Albert himself. The only way it made sense for there to be a connection to both the Bowen and Owens sides is for Bettye to be related to both. The easiest way for that to happen was for Bettye to be descended from both families. Albert and Anna were the only connection between those two families I could find.
Albert and Anna married in Wisconsin somewhere around 1896. They had eight sons and one daughter, though she died as an infant. Their sons were born between 1898 and 1910, which doesn't really leave enough time for any of them to grow up, have a child to grow up enough to father Bettye. That meant that Bettye's father was likely one of their sons! So of course they had eight. :P
I knew right off that Bettye wasn't the daughter of two of them, Rexford and William James, as they were the ancestors of the close matches, and if Bettye was the daughter of either of them, the amount of shared DNA would have been much higher. I found census records showing Albert and Anna moved their family to Florida pretty early on after getting married, though two of the sons, Roy and Albert, apparently moved to Montana in the 1930s, right around the time that Bettye was born. Newspaper articles showed they lived in Philipsburg, where James Harris, the man who raised Bettye, was originally from. That Harris family connection to Philipsburg means James and Edna, Bettye's mother, likely visited Philipsburg often, as it was only 53 miles or so from Butte, where James and Edna lived at the time. So the right people were in the right place at the right time, and the DNA evidence and paper trail both make sense.
A little more digging in newspapers led me to articles describing how the whole Owens family would visit Philipsburg in the summers, but they don't say when that tradition started. So it is technically possible that one of the other sons aside from Roy or Albert could have been Bettye's father. In my mind, it makes the most sense for it to be Roy or Albert though, because they had the longest history in the area, and I know they were both in the area at the right time. The only way to know for sure would be to identify a living descendant and have them do a DNA test and see how much DNA is shared. Roy apparently didn't have any children (his obituary only names step-children) but Albert might. I don't know if I need to go that far, as I've already determined the family and therefore the ancestry of Bettye's paternal side, so if her descendants want to know, they can take that up themselves. Unless curiosity gets the better of me down the road. :)
I'm still in a bit of shock at having finally solved this mystery. It's been hanging silently over my head since we discovered this almost seven years ago. It really underscores the power of DNA and genetic genealogy, both to find out something like this occurred, and then determine who out of all the possible people that lived in that place and time was the father of a girl born to an obscure family in western Montana in the 1930s.
Interesting side note - both Roy and Albert died sudden, unexpected deaths. Roy died of an apparent heart attack early one morning, which was more shocking because he had been at work the night before and nothing appeared wrong. Albert died in a work accident, and was crushed to death by the bed of a dump truck after being trapped there while unloading it. For both of the candidates for Bettye's father to die like they did is just very odd.
Showing posts with label Harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harris. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Thursday, June 14, 2018
William Harris - The Heroic Dead
In pursuing the descendants of Henry and Ann (Stephenson) Gibson, I found that Henry and Ann's daughter, Sarah J. Gibson, married James Harris, who was several years older than she was. Together, they had at least 6 children. Their youngest son, William Harris, was born on 15 March 1891 in New Brunswick, Canada. Sometime between 1911 and 1917, the Harrises moved from New Brunswick to Massachusetts. When World War I broke out, William did something I found unusual - he enlisted in the Canadian military, rather than the US military. Maybe he wasn't officially a US citizen yet, or felt his allegiance still belonged to Canada. He was single, about 26 years old, 5'7" tall, medium complexion, dark brown hair, and blue eyes, and worked as a painter. He enlisted on 27 June 1917, almost exactly 101 years ago.
William left from Montreal, Ontario, on 30 October 1917, and arrived in England on 19 November. Once there, he was first transferred to the Canadian Machine Gun Brigade, then to the 1st Canadian Reserve Battalion. He was sent to France and began his service in the 72nd Battalion Canadian Infantry on 8 March 1918.
He wasn't in France long before he saw action. 10 days after being assigned to the 72nd, his battalion was sent to relieve the 38th battalion on the front line, suffering heavy attacks and even a gas attack, which required some of the soldiers to wear gas masks for three hours straight. They stayed on the front line for five days, until they were in turn relieved and sent to support other unites in Cite St. Pierre and Cite Calonne. On the 27th of March, they were moved to Sains-en-Gohelle.
The next day, the unit was marched through mud, rain and sleet to Verdrel, then took a train to Cubit Camp Neuville St. Vaast, where they stayed the night. The following day, the 72nd again took the front line, this time in the Gavrelle sector. During the fighting, William took a shrapnel wound to the face, and was evacuated, eventually landing at the 7th General Hospital (one of almost 20 such hospitals) in Étaples, France. Étaples was a major hub for the Canadian, British, Scottish, and Australian military during the war, and housed multiple hospitals, a training base, a detention center, and a supply depot, in addition to the hospitals. Because of the constant presence of soldiers coming and going, and the thousands of wounded being transferred and cared for, it was seen by many as a dark place. One visitor described it this way:
A vast, dreadful encampment. It seemed neither France nor England, but a kind of paddock where the beasts are kept a few days before the shambles … Chiefly I thought of the very strange look on all the faces in that camp; an incomprehensible look, which a man will never see in England; nor can it be seen in any battle, but only in Étaples. It was not despair, or terror, it was more terrible than terror, for it was a blindfold look, and without expression, like a dead rabbit’s.
William remained there recovering from his wounds for four months, before rejoining the 72nd Battalion on 12 August 1918. He saw several other engagements over the next several weeks, until the bitterest fight they participated in began on 27 September. His battalion was assigned the job of attacking a 1250-yard front, penetrating 3000 yards into enemy territory, and capture Sancourt and Blecourt. They fought against heavy machine gun fire and bombardment, and took Sancourt, and eventually Blecourt. The offensive lasted until 2 October, and cost the 72nd 11 officers and 376 other men, one of which was William Harris.
For his service, William's widowed mother Sarah received a memorial plaque and scroll. The plaque had William's name written on it, as did the scroll, which also had a message commemorating his sacrifice in the name of freedom. You can see them below.
But to me, the greatest tribute to William was in the pages of the history of the 72nd Battalion, where I got many of the details of his service and experience. Each soldier in the battalion was listed with info on when they entered the battalion, and important dates of their service. For William, that included the date he was wounded, returned to service, and the date he was killed in action.
For those who died in action, an asterisk appeared next to their name. The significance of the asterisk was in the index of abbreviations:
I can't think of a better tribute to William Harris, a young man who gave his life defending freedom overseas, than to name him among the Heroic Dead. Thank you, William, for your service, and for your sacrifice.
William left from Montreal, Ontario, on 30 October 1917, and arrived in England on 19 November. Once there, he was first transferred to the Canadian Machine Gun Brigade, then to the 1st Canadian Reserve Battalion. He was sent to France and began his service in the 72nd Battalion Canadian Infantry on 8 March 1918.
He wasn't in France long before he saw action. 10 days after being assigned to the 72nd, his battalion was sent to relieve the 38th battalion on the front line, suffering heavy attacks and even a gas attack, which required some of the soldiers to wear gas masks for three hours straight. They stayed on the front line for five days, until they were in turn relieved and sent to support other unites in Cite St. Pierre and Cite Calonne. On the 27th of March, they were moved to Sains-en-Gohelle.
The next day, the unit was marched through mud, rain and sleet to Verdrel, then took a train to Cubit Camp Neuville St. Vaast, where they stayed the night. The following day, the 72nd again took the front line, this time in the Gavrelle sector. During the fighting, William took a shrapnel wound to the face, and was evacuated, eventually landing at the 7th General Hospital (one of almost 20 such hospitals) in Étaples, France. Étaples was a major hub for the Canadian, British, Scottish, and Australian military during the war, and housed multiple hospitals, a training base, a detention center, and a supply depot, in addition to the hospitals. Because of the constant presence of soldiers coming and going, and the thousands of wounded being transferred and cared for, it was seen by many as a dark place. One visitor described it this way:
A vast, dreadful encampment. It seemed neither France nor England, but a kind of paddock where the beasts are kept a few days before the shambles … Chiefly I thought of the very strange look on all the faces in that camp; an incomprehensible look, which a man will never see in England; nor can it be seen in any battle, but only in Étaples. It was not despair, or terror, it was more terrible than terror, for it was a blindfold look, and without expression, like a dead rabbit’s.
William remained there recovering from his wounds for four months, before rejoining the 72nd Battalion on 12 August 1918. He saw several other engagements over the next several weeks, until the bitterest fight they participated in began on 27 September. His battalion was assigned the job of attacking a 1250-yard front, penetrating 3000 yards into enemy territory, and capture Sancourt and Blecourt. They fought against heavy machine gun fire and bombardment, and took Sancourt, and eventually Blecourt. The offensive lasted until 2 October, and cost the 72nd 11 officers and 376 other men, one of which was William Harris.
For his service, William's widowed mother Sarah received a memorial plaque and scroll. The plaque had William's name written on it, as did the scroll, which also had a message commemorating his sacrifice in the name of freedom. You can see them below.
But to me, the greatest tribute to William was in the pages of the history of the 72nd Battalion, where I got many of the details of his service and experience. Each soldier in the battalion was listed with info on when they entered the battalion, and important dates of their service. For William, that included the date he was wounded, returned to service, and the date he was killed in action.
For those who died in action, an asterisk appeared next to their name. The significance of the asterisk was in the index of abbreviations:
I can't think of a better tribute to William Harris, a young man who gave his life defending freedom overseas, than to name him among the Heroic Dead. Thank you, William, for your service, and for your sacrifice.
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