Recently, Ancestry alerted me to a potential shared ancestor with a tree named jdenny648. This is based on DNA profiles. In previous examples of such hints the links shown through people in the respective trees have turned out to be solid, even when the degree of confidence was “moderate”. This apparent connection was moderate also, but only at about 20% (going on the indicator bar). Here is an image.
On my side (left) Thomas Onion is father of Maria Onion, but the shared ancestry, at the top, does not include Thomas Onion’s wife, Sarah Upton.
On the other side Richard Kennington is given as son of Thomas Onion, but how could that be? Surely, he would be Richard Onion? Could Thomas be a stepfather by another marriage to someone named Kennington? Well, no.
This link does not exist, at least not in this form. There is nothing wrong with these aspects of either tree. My distant cousin has applied the degree of rigour one would hope for, and there is no Onion in her tree. It may very well be that there is some genetic relationship, but it has to be much further back. The Onion kindred I know about lived in southern Staffordshire, around Bishop’s Wood, but the Kenningtons lived at Louth, Lincolnshire, more than a hundred and twenty miles away. The chance that they might have met is vanishingly small.
That some of my ancestors lived at some time in Lincolnshire, part of the ancient Danelaw, is entirely possible, but I suspect any record of this, if it existed at all, is long-lost.
Note: This Shared Ancestor Hint has disappeared. 23 March 2018.
Andrew's Kindred 