Cousin Bait Works - More for the Whittle/Morley/Haslam Research File

One of the reasons I write about my ancestral families (and those of my wife also) is as "cousin bait" - I hope to encourage other researchers or family members to contact me when they find one of their ancestors in an online family tree or in one of my blog posts.  Perhaps someone who contacts me will have more family information, or vice versa.

Back in 2010, I wrote a number of blog posts about finding the ancestors of my wife's great-grandmother, Jane Whittle (1847-1921).  With some help from my readers, I managed to piece together Jane's ancestry from England through Australia to California (in Gold Rush days).  In the process, I determined that Jane's mother was Rachel (Morley) Whittle (1819-1861) whose mother, Jane Haslam (1780-1834)  had children by three men - two by Robert Bury (1774-1806); three by Thomas Morley (1781-1814); and an unknown man who was apparently the father of Rachel Morley and her twin sister, Leah Morley.

I documented my ongoing research in September 2010 in The Whittle Research Compendium.  Since then, I have found several more records.  In addition, I developed and have presented a 60 minute presentation titled "Discovering Jane's Roots in California, Australia and England" several times.

Over the weekend, I received an email from a lady in England who found my blog post series (probably by using a search engine) who verified most of my research, but had more information about Rachel's sister, Leah Morley.  She noted that Leah:

*  In the 1841 England census, she resided with her half-sister-in-law Alice Morley (wife of half-brother Robert Morley) in Bolton, Lancashire.  She was single, age 21 and an organist.

*  In the 1851 England census, she resided with her half-brother Thomas Bury in Bolton, Lancashire, and was single, age 31, an organist, and blind.

*  In the 1861 England census, she was a boarder in Blackburn, Lancashire, and was single, age 41, a and blind.

*  In the 1871 England census, she was a boarder in Blackburn, Lancashire, and was single, age 51, a musician, and blind.

*  Leah Morley died in the 3rd quarter in Blackburn, Lancashire, at age 52.  

While Rachel and Leah Morley were baptized on 25 December 1821 in St. Peter's in Bolton-le-Moors, it seems that they were born in about 1819, since Leah's age in the census and death records supports 1819 or 1820.

In addition, my correspondent provided more information about her line from Jane (Haslam) (Bury) Morley, through her son Thomas Bury.  She also provided information about Robert Morley (Jane's son) going to Australia in 1842 and residing there.  

Finally, she provided a lead to the parents of Jane Haslam's mother, Betty (Harrison) Haslam (1760-1798).  I need to follow up on this.

She also noted that she has DNA matches with several Whittle and Morley cousins in California and the UK.  I noted that she and Linda are half 4th cousins with a common ancestor of Jane Haslam (Bury) Morley, and they might show up as a DNA match if they had tested on the same DNA provider, but they didn't. 

UPDATED 24 September:  Linda and my correspondent both have their DNA test results on MyHeritage, but they are not identified as a match.  Perhaps they have less than 8 cM in common as half 4th cousins (the expected "average" is 7 cM for half 4th cousins).

I spent an hour on Sunday entering my new information into my RootsMagic tree courtesy of my correspondent, and TreeShared it into my Ancestry Member Tree on Sunday night and into the FamilySearch Family Tree.

See, cousin bait works, time and again.  Even nine years later.  Sometimes you have to wait.

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