Gene-alogy

by Andrew Hodges

There is a definite correlation of English surnames with Y-chromosomes, so following 'legal' ancestry does have a reasonable chance of following the paternal gene. But I am also a geneo-sceptic for a deeper reason. Sharing 1/2 of one's genes with someone doesn't necessarily mean having much in common, and sharing 1/64 of them doesn't mean anything at all. Environment, experience, words and thoughts are much more important. Being gay I don't connect sex with reproduction, and was never really interested in the latter. Every single one of my ancestors, by definition, did something that I have never done and never wanted to do. Being a mathematician, of which there is no presentiment in my ancestry, also makes memes seem far more important to me than genes. So I don't go along with the idea of finding my identity through genetic relations.

AND YET... there is an an inspiring side to the genetic narrative, in the objective and physical fact of the copying process, which has been going on for billions of years and makes us all, in a way, almost as old as the Earth. The DNA really did have to come that crazy way through my ancestors' eggs and sperm. Every cell in me is organised by information depending on some particular 32 sexual acts of real people around the time of the American and French revolutions, and I am curious to know who they were. Doing the detective work with the fragmentary records is a fascinating job, like solving crossword puzzles, and I can quite see why people get hooked on it.

A BBC television series, Who do you think you are has done a lot to illustrate the fascination of this detailed research, and the resources of the Internet, but has also brilliantly brought out the serious themes of social and economic history that underlie the individual stories.

music of time

People often have old-looking pictures of old ancestors, but I think of my ancestors as being young and hard at it. My female ancestors certainly had a very hard time of it, generally producing a constant stream of children over twenty years. Looking at the census forms it is hard to believe they could survive the strain, and of course quite a number died young. My ancestors also come almost entirely from a particular sector of the English working class with bourgeois aspirations. They hovered between the Church of England and nonconformity. They worked with their hands, but might employ one or two other hands; they bought houses rather than renting them, but they never accumulated any significant capital.

But for ancestors further back I have nothing but the faintest of recollections from my childhood of old people's chatter of country towns and remote relatives there. This past is a foreign country, and I feel free to examine its population more objectively. For notation I am going to write x for the (fairly certain) mitochondrial DNA line, and y for the dodgier Y-chromosome line. Thus x y x denotes my mother's father's mother. (You can easily convert this into more standard binary formulations). In this notation, which I have devised to put more emphasis than usual on the equal role of the maternal line, my eight great-grandparents, with their names as at birth, were:

• x x x Harriet Emily Bunker (1861-1908) (Islington, London)
• x x y Edwin Armytage Winks (1850-1938) Upholsterer (Islington, London)
• x y x Elizabeth Sansom (1853?-1889) (Devon/Somerset)
• x y y William Chard Howe (1853-1925) Painter (Crewkerne, Somerset)
• y x x Sarah Ann Semark (1860-1941) (Faversham, Kent)
• y x y John Miskin (1852-1914) Hardwareman (Faversham, Kent and Clapham, London)
• y y x Ellen Claudia Cropper (1864-1951) (Hackney, London)
• y y y John Hodges (1861-1952) Post Office clerk (South London)

home counties

Migration to London from what Marx called the idiocy of rural life is a dominating theme of these lives. The cities of Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Newcastle, play no part at all — for 250 years it's been London versus the country that has been the question for all my ancestors. The move to the metropolis came at different points in the nineteenth century for the different lines. John Hodges's father had moved from Dorset early on, and so had Edwin Winks's from Lincolnshire. But the Howes remained in deepest Somerset throughout the nineteenth century, and it was only my grandfather Thomas who left his father's painting business in the tiny town of Crewkerne, to become an agent for the Pearl insurance company.

They all moved into the metropolis, yet none of them became real Londoners. They became suburbanites with fantasies of returning to country life. x x x John Hodges improved his work-life balance by retiring before 1914 . He moved to Dorking, Surrey, where he lived on his civil service pension (and the work of his unmarried daughter Gladys) for 40 years. This has been a powerful meme at work for a century: it was one reason why my parents moved to Dorking and why I was at school there. I myself feel at home in London itself, not in the suburbs. But only my remote maternal x x x x (and possibly y y y y x) origins may go back to a long-standing metropolitan line.

The Surname Profiler site gives a geographical distribution for these surnames, showing a clustering which matches well to the parts of the country where my ancestors came from. For instance the Hodges name in 1881 had a high density in Dorset.

With 2ⁿ people in the n^th generation back it would be pretty well impossible to go very far back even if complete registers existed. In fact, records depend on the primitive and parochial English registration system as it existed before 1837. They still today involve a ridiculous rigmarole of searching. What you see on this page is mostly what I found out in the 1970s, when I briefly did some work at the Public Record Office (now the National Archives) and the Society of Genealogists. I have added a few more bits of information which are now on the Web — mainly thanks to the Mormons, who have signed up a lot of my ancestors. Alas, I shall not be there when they have their grand get-together! My comments about inheriting various genes are not, of course, intended to be taken seriously. The lives and occupations of my ancestors were dominated by the way they were born into pretty rigid frameworks of social and economic class. Their individual genetic variations had little freedom to express themselves in life-histories, and I doubt whether there is anything significant to say about my genetic inheritance from reading these stories. The cultural inheritance is far more important.

eggs, chickens and milk

• x x x x Harriet Emily Greenwood (1839-1880) was born in Bethnal Green in east end London. Her mother was x x x x x Harriet Fox, who was born to Thomas and Ann Fox in 1817 in Shoreditch. Thomas seems to have died young but x x x x x x Ann was still going strong in Shoreditch in 1861, and gave her occupation as 'Oil and Colour Dealer'; she was then 75 and gave her birthplace as Devon. So my pure mitochondrial line may well go back through centuries of Devon shops and farms.
  
  Harriet's father x x x x y John Greenwood was selling butter in Bethnal Green in 1839, but he seems to have come from Woolwich, Kent, where his father x x x x y y Thomas Greenwood (1785-) was a poulterer.
  
  My fourth cousin John Greenwood has found Thomas's father x x x x y y y Robert Greenwood (1751-1831) who migrated to London from Cumbria, and then right back to x x x x y y y y y y y y y Robert Greenwood (b. 1535). See his website at http://devsys.co.uk
  
  
• x x x y Frederick Joel Bunker (1837?-1892) was the cowboy in my ancestry. Fred ran a dairy in Shoreditch, then moved up-market to Islington. Before that his father x x x y y Joel Bunker (1808-1875) had left his cows in the village of Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, to milk the metropolis instead. In 1831, at Shoreditch, he married x x x y x Sarah Lovell (1810?-1885) who was from Bethnal Green.
  
  The parish records for Bedfordshire are good and the Bunkers stayed put so I was able to find some lines running back to 1700. Probably x x x y y y y y y was Thomas Bunker (d. 1724), married to x x x y y y y y x Sarah Sanders on 30 January 1697/8. With more work this might go back to Bunkers (sometimes Bonkers) of the 1500s.
  
  

nods and winks

• x x y x Frances Ann Woodward (1818-1899) was born in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. Her mother was x x y x x Frances Bowman, and her father was x x y x y Joseph Woodward, a baker in Ashby.
  
  
• x x y y Henry Winks (1810-1894) was born in in Gainsborough, Lincs., and became an upholsterer in Ashby de la Zouch, until making the move to London in about 1843 and setting up shop in Islington.
  
  His mother x x y y x Judith Foulks (1765-1818) came from a farm in remote Minster, Isle of Sheppey, but went into domestic service with the widow of an admiral, drowned in a famous naval disaster of 1782. It was thus, perhaps in an evening off from working in the grand London residence near Charing Cross, that she met a farmboy from Lincolnshire. The young yokel was x x y y y Joseph Winks (1767-1835). He had also left his father's farm — to be a hairdresser. Cool! At first an apprentice boy in Gainsborough, he became a London apprentice instead — in Carey Street, Covent Garden.
  
  They were married in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in summer 1791. These are my favourite ancestors: I imagine them meeting in the Georgian equivalent of London clubland, miles away from the suffocating world of farmhouse families, and at a revolutionary time when to be young was very heaven. (This era in London life was also famous for its gay scene, and I would guess the young West End hairdresser must have known a thing or two about it, but clearly he remained unswayed. Incidentally, I should make it clear that Carey Street was only known as Queer Street after the bankruptcy court was moved there in the 1840s. )
  
  Joseph went back to Lincolnshire, Judith with him, no doubt impressing the folk of Gainsborough with his London fashions, and successfully ran its hairdressing and wigmaking salon. They had nine children and then — one more time! — Judith bore Henry, their tenth and last.
  
  The farm Joseph had gloriously escaped from was that of his father x x y y y y John Winks (1730-1803). He was tenant farmer at Bole, a tiny hamlet on the Trent flatlands just west of Gainsborough. He married x x y y y x Mary Taylor (1734-1803) in 1754. His father x x y y y y y John Winks (1683-1760) married x x y y y y x Mary Cadman (1705-1756) in 1722. He attained noteworthiness by being drowned in the Trent on 23 December 1760 when a ferry-boat capsized.
  
  Joseph's second son Joseph Foulkes Winks became a pharmacist in Leicester, a Baptist lay preacher, a publisher of religious literature for children, and an opponent of cock-fighting. His shop is described on this compilation from trade directories; you can see his gravestone. His dates 1794-1866 are erroneously given on that webpage as 1788-1860; this seems to arise from reading a 6 on the gravestone as a 0. The name is also given wrongly as 'Fowles'. This is typical of the errors of transcription that arise and have to be puzzled out, and a warning against believing everything you read.
  
  

how's your father?

• x y x x Elizabeth Hooper (1825-1927) lived to 102 in Devon and Dorset, outliving her own daughter by nearly 40 years and heading the long list of my nineteenth century ancestors who had a remarkably good innings. Her father x y x x y James Hooper (1795?-) was a mason in Stockland, a remote village in Devon.
  
  
• x y x y John Sansom (1821?-1901) was an agricultural labourer in neighbouring Cotleigh, Devon. His parents were x y x y y John Sansom and x y x y x Martha Tucker (b 1791), who married in 1812.
  
  
• x y y x Hannah Maria Gillingham (1818-1898). Her father x y y x y Robert (1776?-1849) was a house-painter in Crewkerne, Somerset. Obviously, it was through her that I got my gene for colour schemes on home pages. She married...
  
  
• x y y y Thomas Howe (1818-1883) was always in Crewkerne and in the family painting and gilding business. These two 20-year-olds mixed their paints in July 1838, and went on mixing for twenty years. My x y y y William Chard Howe was the seventh child of eight. See this page for Thomas's father the painter x y y y y George Howe (1767?-1861) in a directory of 1850. His mother x y y y x Mary Gerrard died sometime before 1831, and Thomas grew up with his stepmother Drusilla Sibley.
  
  

a green line

• y x x x Sarah Ann Patching (1825?-1896) daughter of y x x x y William Patching (1798?-1875), of Faversham, Kent, a fellmonger (i.e. did the delightful work of skinning animals for tanning). He became Inspector of Weights and Measures (not enough, I think, to indicate a maths gene). He had been married in 1820 to an older lady, y x x x x Ann Hammond (?1785-1857). His parents were probably y x x x y y John Patching and y x x x y x Mary Crippen, married in 1792 at Faversham.
  
  
• y x x y James Semark (1825-1898), millwright in Faversham, Kent, followed his father y x x y y William Semark (1800?-1873) in this splendid work of building Kent's famous windmills. While he was doing it, the coal-powered industrial revolution must have made it seem a very old-fashioned trade, but now we know better! These guys were cool.
  
  William had married y x x y x Mary White (1797?-1860) from Warwickshire, in riverside Barnes, Surrey, in 1824. Was it an apprenticeship in London that made this long-distance dating possible? It had not struck me until writing this how apprentice-boyhood, the main means outside the family for passing on the memes of industry and commerce, was also crucial in allowing the genes to escape the incestuous village pond. William was in turn born to y x x y y y William Semark (1764-1812) of Wrotham, Kent and y x x y y x Hetty Goodwin (1769-1807) from Ightham, Kent.
  
  

hard men of kent

• y x y x Amelia Perkins (1828?-1876) born at the oyster port of Whitstable, Kent, to y x y x x Emma and y x y x y John Perkins (1792?-?), a sailmaker and 'victualler' — probably the landlord of a pub for Whitstable fishermen. This is where I get my gene for hanging round in bars and fishing for men.
  
  
• y x y y John Miskin (1824?-1871) was a hardwareman in Faversham, Kent, and his father y x y y y Henry Miskin (1792-1856) had been the same in Canterbury, though born in Chislehurst, Kent. His mother was y x y y x Hannah Lucas; the marriage was on 12 June 1820 in Southwark. I know from the Mormons the Miskin paternal line: y x y y y y Samuel Miskin (1764-1817) of Eltham, Kent, y x y y y y y Samuel Miskin (1739-1810), and y x y y y y y y William Miskin (c1702-1769) of Lewisham, which was then in Kent.
  
  

coming a cropper

• y y x x Hannah Hollingsworth (1842-1928) from Normanton, Nottinghamshire. The Hollingsworths were (quite literally) the Lumpenproletariat. Her mother Ellen Bullimore (1814?-1892) from Ropesley, Lincs., had married y y x x y William Hollingsworth (1814?-1892?), a hawker and rag-and-bone collector. (Recycling, we call it now. This boosts my claim to a true-Green heritage.) Hannah's father had the same name of Hollingsworth as did her husband's mother, so this may have been a cousin marriage and I may have got a double helping of gene-rations from a Hollingsworth further back.
  
  
• y y x y John Cropper (1839-1905) made the move from poverty in Southwell, Nottinghamshire to Hackney, the poorest part of London. He was a shoemaker but also became respectable as a non-conformist minister, the only one of my ancestors to have made a godly living (though others may, of course, attain the Mormon heaven). His own forebears were low-life: his father y y x y y William Cropper (1815?-?) died young as an agricultural labourer and his widow y y x y x Louisa Hollingsworth (1818-1892) was a laundress in 1861 and 1871. Her own mother y y x y x y Rebecca (1786?-1873), a washerwoman in 1851, sempstress in 1861, was in the poorhouse in 1871, but still clocked up a good 87 years.
  
  

wessex and shopping

• y y y x Jane Ames (1825?-1901) from Blandford Forum, Dorset, takes us into the hard world of early death and disruption in Thomas Hardy's Wessex. Her father y y y x y Thomas Ames, a tailor in Blandford, seems to have died very young, because her mother y y y x x Ann Gomer soon remarried. In 1841 and 1851 Jane was living with her mother and her stepfather William Cox, who was the gamekeeper on a local aristocratic estate. Her mother ran a 'sundries' shop in Blandford according to this 1831 directory.
  
  Iit seems likely that tailors Thomas Ames (1778?-1842) and Thomas Ames (1754?-1841) were y y y x y y and y y y x y y y. With this background, Jane could have expected to stay at home sewing like her grandmother y y y x y x Elizabeth (1778-?1860), or running a Blandford shop like her mother, for the rest of her life. No way! She got up and went: in 1854 she married y y y y John Hodges at St George, Hanover Square, London, and they set up a draper's shop in York Street, Westminster.
  
  
• y y y y John Hodges (1826-1890), was recorded (see this page) as christened in Blandford Forum, 17 May 1826. His mother y y y y x was Harriet Wood (1784?-1867), who had married y y y y y William Hodges (1790?-1839) at Blandford in 1814. But Harriet was not a Wessex girl. She gave her place of birth to the census-taker as 'London', and in 1851 and 1861 she was recorded as living with her daughter Louisa Wood, born in about 1812 at Fritham, Hampshire. She was classed as 'spinster', not 'widow' at marriage, so presumably she was an unmarried mother before she married toy-boy William. (She was quite an old mum for John, over 40 when he was born, and over 44 when yet another son was born.) There must be some hidden story here.
  
  From incomplete records, it is possible that William's father was John Angel Hodges, born about 1767, and his father another John Hodges, going back into the Blandford of the eighteenth century. A lot of old cobblers, I think... and beyond that I have no guesses about my y-chromosome line.
  
  William died at 48 in 1839, ending a possibly less than brilliant career as shoemaker, farmer and town beadle. But Harriet became a schoolmistress in Blandford. Being a more travelled and wised-up lady, perhaps it was she who spurred her young John to escape Wessex with Jane and make the great adventure in the London she herself had come from.
  
  They lived with their growing brood over the shop in Westminster until retiring in Brixton, a move to South London that set the tone for all the Hodges descendants. Doubtlessly, I inherit my gene for putting my goods in the shop window from Jane. From John, I get the gene for cashing up at the end of the day, paying my bills on time, and owing no debts. And, as you can see from the box below, I am a shopkeeper too: I would sell my own grandfather's grandmother in this nation of shopkeepers that is called the World Wide Web.
  
  There seem to have been lots of rural Hodgeses who emigrated to colonial America, as you can see from this list. A Hodges/Hodge DNA project has begun charting the relationship of American Hodgeses. But I am descended from one of the stick-in-the-muds who got no further than shopkeeping in London and retiring to Brixton. And that's just how I am. My mate Pete says that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and perhaps he has a point.
  

With a few possible exceptions — those London-life lines — my eighteenth-century roots are not far from toil with the soil. Probably almost all my genes come from yeopersons and serfs of medieval England, in fact they probably represent a random mix of many of the (?) less than a million English people who had any descendants surviving the Black Death.

But in either case my genes go back up the river of life through the weird melanin-lacking mutation that accompanied the drift north from Africa, back to the hominids and mammals and first animals, to the mystery of the first DNA. Richard Dawkins's book The Ancestor's Tale gives a wonderful account of this backward march. See also my billionth cousins, the plants.

It would be more interesting to be a part-Jewish or a 'mixed-race' person, for whom ancestral questions involve the most profound and heart-wrenching stories, and the fascinating use of new DNA analysis. But never mind!

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