Find Living Relatives

There seem to be very few privacy concerns in the UK compared to Australia, Canada and even the US!

People can now opt out of being included in the commercially published electoral roll but it seems not many do. You can't opt out of having your birth, marriage and death info available to the public at the click of a mouse.

> you know, if you search here xxx for ONEY in Wellingborough, there is a married couple. You could always just contact them directly

Will do, and thanks. (Mind you, the web site you mentioned raises some pretty serious privacy concerns.)

1850 census

Name: Richard Owney [Richard Oney] (variation added by Ancestry user)
Age: 68
Birth Year: abt 1782
Birthplace: Virginia
Home in 1850: Greenfield, Gallia, Ohio, USA

Richard Owney 68
Mary Owney 35
Hiram Owney 21
Joseph Owney 20
Hannah Owney 18
Richard Owney 16
John Owney 14
Clayton Owney 12
Elizabeth Owney 10
Mary Owney 8
William Owney 6
Margaret Owney 4
Nancy Owney 0


one of the sons is definitely your ancestor?

(or an older one who had left the household)

Obviously most of those children are not children of Richard Sr! or had he remarried and the much younger Mary was his wife??

1860

Name: Mary Owney
Age: 47
Birth Year: abt 1813
Gender: Female
Birth Place: Ohio
Home in 1860: Greenfield, Gallia, Ohio
Post Office: Gallia Furnace

Mary Owney 47
Margaret Owney 12


the same Richard in 1840 it would seem:

Name: Richd Oney [Richard Oney] (variation added by Ancestry user)
Home in 1830 (City, County, State): Tazewell, Virginia

Free White Persons - Males - 5 thru 9: 2
Free White Persons - Males - 30 thru 39: 1
Free White Persons - Females - 10 thru 14: 1
Free White Persons - Females - 15 thru 19: 1
Free White Persons - Females - 30 thru 39: 1

Free White Persons - Under 20: 4
Free White Persons - 20 thru 49: 2 (Richard and wife?)
Total Free White Persons: 6
Total - All Persons (Free White, Slaves, Free Colored): 6

so two sons under 10, two daughters 10-20


Seeing your last post -- well put a small marker of some sort, a flat stone, whatever, on that grave!

My gr-grfather on one side did claim to be the son (or grandson, or something) of a well-known Viscount, on the wrong side of the blanket. No evidence found of that -- but I did find that my other parent's grx3 grandmother's brother's grandson was a genuine Viscount. A life peer, sure (and a Labour peer, fortunately) but genuine nonetheless. :-) And the great-grandfather's sister's husband's sister's husband's sister had a daughter who married a Baron ... None of any of it having bled over into my family.


meanwhile, doing a search at familysearch.org for surname O*NEY in Wellingborough, for any event ... it does seem like the name may have shifted between ONEY and OLNEY there.

at http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl looking for OLNEY births in Northamptonshire, there are quite a few since 1837

I wonder whether you might try finding OLNEYs in that vicinity to see whether they know the history of their name, and in any event whether one might test for you?

> Much wishful thinking...

Yes, we'd all like to be descended from royalty. And the only people who kept good records were the nobles. So it's tolerably easy to decide you're related to one of William's senior advisers instead of one of his yeomen...

But the family tradition I'm referring to is our memory. My last remaining Aunt grew up in Gallia (along with my Dad) and remembers many of the names. She's the only one left who can find Richard's unmarked grave, alas.

"shire town" ! I think you're thinking of the lingo from a few centuries ago. :-)

I guess my question is whether you have a solid paper trail to your Richard 1782, rather than family tradition. If he died in 1852 there should be info available that confirms the tradition? like a birth or marriage record of his son your ancestor?

We are always wary here of chasing up info that comes from family stories rather than good records.

So anyway my confusion appears to be cleared up in that the Tazewell Benjamin *is* the one you are enquiring about as having originated in Wellingborough.

However the Wellingborough connection is just because of the baptism record that matches the Tazewell Benjamin's data?

Certainly it is a situation in which I recommend YDNA testing, and is the reason so many people at FTDNA are searching for people in England who would test for them.

I did read a page on line about the sloppy 'Olney' research :-) I've seen similar books about an English family or two of my own, by people in the US a century ago tracing speciously back to them. Much wishful thinking and fairytale telling!

Family tradition gets me back to a Richard Oney (1782-1852) (2d great). In 1859, a David Oney of Gallipolis OH wrote the war department seeking information about the revolutionary war pension of his grandfather Joseph Oney of Giles Co VA. Gallipolis is the county seat (read shire town for you) of Gallia County, where Richard and 3 generations of descendants lived. Giles Co is in the same area as Russell, Washington, Tazewell, Montgomery, and other counties. David received back a packet of information concerning a Joseph who was born on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River in 1754 near Philadelphia -- basically Burlington Co NJ. Meanwhile, a Benjamin Oney died in Tazewell VA and left a will that included mention of a son named Joseph. Joseph and Benjamin, along with another son William, appear in the land records for nextdoor Russell Co starting in 1781. Benjamin and Joseph are listed as among the original settlers of a portion of Tazewell Co And Benjamin co-signed the marriage bond I mentioned.

In the absence of the kind of rigorous records kept in New England starting in colonial times, the connection from Benjamin to my Richard seems solid enough to work with.

I don't have DNA matches with anyone further up the tree than my father's parents, but I have solid matches with several of my living 1st cousins. None of my relatives has, however, been able to get past the roadblock at Benjamin -- owing in part to sloppy work by a gentleman who wrote a book about the Olney family in the 1880's and made the wild leap of connecting Benjamin to the famous Providence family of Thomas Olney. There's no evidence at all for that connection.

Family tradition gets me back to a Richard Oney (1782-1852) (2d great). In 1859, a David Oney of Gallipolis OH wrote the war department seeking information about the revolutionary war pension of his grandfather Joseph Oney of Giles Co VA. Gallipolis is the county seat (read shire town for you) of Gallia County, where Richard and 3 generations of descendants lived. Giles Co is in the same area as Russell, Washington, Tazewell, Montgomery, and other counties. David received back a packet of information concerning a Joseph who was born on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River in 1754 near Philadelphia -- basically Burlington Co NJ. Meanwhile, a Benjamin Oney died in Tazewell VA and left a will that included mention of a son named Joseph. Joseph and Benjamin, along with another son William, appear in the land records for nextdoor Russell Co starting in 1781. Benjamin and Joseph are listed as among the original settlers of a portion of Tazewell Co And Benjamin co-signed the marriage bond I mentioned.

In the absence of the kind of rigorous records kept in New England starting in colonial times, the connection from Benjamin to my Richard seems solid enough to work with.

I don't have DNA matches with anyone further up the tree than my father's parents, but I have solid matches with several of my living 1st cousins. None of my relatives has, however, been able to get past the roadblock at Benjamin -- owing in part to sloppy work by a gentleman who wrote a book about the Olney family in the 1880's and made the wild leap of connecting Benjamin to the famous Providence family of Thomas Olney. There's no evidence at all for that connection.

That's kind of backwards from what I meant though -- how do you trace your own line back, that is, how far back do you have confirmation of your own ancestors in your Oney line? e.g. your grx4 grandfather born in X place in Y year.

And then what is the possible connection to the BO in NJ? Your ancestor who would be his son was in the same location, e.g.? ... or are you missing more links than that ...

what I'm getting at is that the 1750 marriage bond is evidence of the existence of that BO, but where does your possible connection with him happen?


and I'm confused again ... the BO in NJ in 1750 was the Tazewell Benjamin, who isn't the Wellingborough Benjamin?

I go back to 1750, a marriage bond for William Clevenger and Mercy Asson in Burlington, NJ, which Benjamin signed in his own hand. The state of NJ was kind enough to provide an imaged copy.

Walter, without revealing recent history, how far back do you get with paper records in the direction of Benjamin Oney?

you know, if you search here

http://www.searchelectoralroll.co.uk

for ONEY in Wellingborough, there is a married couple. You could always just contact them directly. :-)

BT on line

http://www.thephonebook.bt.com/publisha.content/en/search/residential/search.publisha?

doesn't show a single Oney in Northamptonshire.

and http://www.192.com/ shows only the same couple.

There's a right-wing Ron Paulite gun loon on facebook by the same name, but he's in the US ...

The Oneys appear to have left home - not (from a surname search at FreeBMD) that they were ever very thick on the ground there in recent centuries.

Certainly do follow up on anyone at Ancestry who has relevant people in their tree.

(Trees there are unreliable because of Ancestry's stupid 'hints' and all the foolish people who adopt them, and foolish people who copy their trees, so you just want to check that their connection with the ancestor seems valid. There are dozens of trees on Ancestry that have my multiple-great grandparents who were hatched, matched and dispatched in Cornwall in the 1700s, as were all their children, having a son born in Tennessee that same century. Almost all of us here have similar tales!)

Googling Benjamin Oney, I find that the Tazewell one is very popular, and his line seems to have got muddled up considerably.
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/VATAZEWE/1998-06/0896844706

I wouldn't rule that clan out, though -- DNA testing might find there is a connection that could be investigated. I might just beg spit from any Oney descendant in the US who seems interested in family history! You might find eventually that you can triangulate results to see who is related to whom.

Maddening how names seem to run with surnames -- I have a surname clan who are all Richard, Thomas and Benjamin, fathers, sons, cousins, uncles, and those names are bizarrely the same in wholly unrelated clans with the same surname, which is not hugely common, even though those are not the most common given names in the barrel generally.

Who would have thought there were so many Benjamin Oneys in the US?? And connected with Thomas Oneys too. Were there no John and James Oneys? :-)

I am actually looking for someone in the UK who has or is willing to do a DNA sample. If ancestry isn't the best resource for me, what would be?

[And thanks for your suggestions, which I've looked into a bit.]

Ah, I see.

You're welcome!

If you do want to reply to any of the rest, fire away.

Sorry for being too elliptical. The pedigree for Benjamin Owney that was posted here has children William and Ann. That was why I mentioned that Tazewell Benjamin didn't have a daughter named Ann.

The things that people post here in replies to requests for help don't generally come from this site, Walter.

The records you can subscribe for at this site come from FindMyPast, and other members here use their subscriptions there and at Ancestry, and use the free sites familysearch and freereg ... often to find things you already know. :-)

That's why it's a good idea to put all the info you have in your posts, so that people don't 'find' things that weren't lost, and so that anybody searching to try to help you knows everything you know, which is sensible.

It certainly helps if people who reply state the source of the info they post - e.g. a tree at Ancestry - particularly since a tree there may have no sources at all and could contain completely incorrect info ... or could be a poster's own tree :-) )

and if possible, copy the link (e.g. to a free site like familysearch)

but most people don't seem to think that advisable ...


I'm quite confused by the Benjamins.

Do you know who the one who died in 1728 was? possibly a cousin of the Benjamin 1699 who emigrated? so not of interest in tracing your Benjamin presumably - ?

Obviously your Benjamin 1699's father Thomas (if such he was) didn't marry in 1730, so perhaps a brother of Benjamin?

This confused me too:

'There's not a lot of info about the "Benjamin Owney" (this being how the name was spelled in the church record) who married Ann Wilson in Philadelphia in 1731, but Tazewell Benjamin didn't have a daughter named Ann as best I can tell.'

Ann was a Wilson not an Oney, so her father would not have been a Benjamin Oney?


Since you mention DNA matches, is the situation that you have done a YDNA test (Family Tree DNA?) and are looking for other people who have a good paper trail back to this Benjamin, who would agree to test?

So ... you are in the US and hope to find a match in England? Very common situation! My own YDNA match (to a male rellie) that I was impossibly likely to get was in the US and had tested to try to confirm the English line of descent determined by paper research.

Or actually I guess you are looking for someone in the US descended from Benjamin 1699 who emigrated, to see whether you share him as your ancestor. But an English Oney might be able to confirm for you too, for instance if they descended from Benjamin's father or brother.

If that's the idea -- have you searched trees here for people with Benjamin 1699 in their trees?

The search trees function is in the upper right under 'Search'.

Well there don't seem to be any ... so that means you haven't put a tree here either.

That's one thing to do if you want to find matches here, so that people searching for the same ancestor match can find you. You can just put your male surname line ancestors in the tree if that's your purpose, you don't need to fill out anyone else unless it might help with this particular search.

Then remember always to keep a current email address in your account here. If someone tries to contact you in future, you will get an email notification and you will be able to reply through the system here even if you have not kept a paid subscription.

If you tested at FTDNA, have you joined any relevant surname projects and the project for your Y haplogroup?


Given the obvious proliferation of Oneys in Wellingborough I'm almost surprised they don't show up in my own tree, since one of my grandparents' families was long rooted in and around there, but no such luck!

Thanks, all.

We could call the Benjamin who died in 1728 "Stay-behind Benjamin" to distinguish him from "Annapolis Benjamin" (1699-?) who went to America. That leaves us with no good conjecture about the "Tazewell Benjamin" who was in Burlington NJ in 1750 and ended up in Tazewell VA by about 1780.

There's not a lot of info about the "Benjamin Owney" (this being how the name was spelled in the church record) who married Ann Wilson in Philadelphia in 1731, but Tazewell Benjamin didn't have a daughter named Ann as best I can tell. His eldest daughter, born 1750, was Mary Elizabeth.

I don't seem to have the hang of using Genes Reunited -- I can't find any of these suggestions on this site. I can find them on ancestry.com, though. Now if I could connect Thomas to Benjamin and find a living relative who's willing to submit a DNA sample...

Thomas Oney

mentioned in the record of Thomas Oney and Mary Martin


Name Thomas Oney
Spouse's Name Mary Martin
Event Date 14 Jun 1730
Event Place Wellingborough, Northampton, England

Name Benjamin Oney
Gender Male
Christening Date 02 Nov 1718
Christening Place Wellingborough, Northampton, England
Father's Name Benjamin Oney

this is all I can find for Benjamin

Benjamin Oney I
Pedigree Resource File


birth:
16 January 1700 Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England

death:
about 1770 New Jersey, Pennsylvania

other:
4 April 1733 First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

father:
Thomas Oney

spouse:
Ann Wilson

child:
Benjamin Oney II