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How Jane and Ian discovered their paternal brick wall

Ian very quickly hit a brick wall on his paternal line, when he got to his great grandfather. Working independently, Jane also hit the same brick wall. The image above is the record of a marriage for Joseph Leigh Hunter and Jane Johnston nee Kerr. Above was the start of Read more

Searching for the mysterious Leigh Hunter and Kate Walton

We tried searching for Leigh Hunter and Kate Walton. The searches returned results for Kate or Catherine Walton, though nothing linked her to a Leigh Hunter! Searches for Leigh Hunter turned up a Leigh Rigby Hunter from Shropshire though the dates etc. were all wrong, ruling him out. The following Read more

The Realisation – Records were not going to be the answer

5 years had passed since Ian first discovered the brick wall, though he tried to crack it a few times. Ian retired in late 2016 and seriously started to try to crack the “Leigh Hunter” brick wall. Ian came to the conclusion that he would never make any progress using Read more

Ian’s Ancestry DNA results had finally arrived – How to proceed

Ian received his Ancestry DNA results, all these new relatives he shared DNA with. How to proceed with any of this information? Ian started with people who shared the greatest amounts of DNA with him. He placed these matches into a family tree. Ian tried to discover his connection to Read more

Genealogical Useful Resources

Ancestry – Lots of people build trees at Ancestry, so there should be plenty of potential people who might share DNA with you. There are country specific sites. Ian considers one major failing at Ancestry is the inability to see detailed information about shared DNA, i.e. which chromosome and where Read more

Uploading the Ancestry test to MyHeritage – widening the pool of relatives

November 2018, Ian uploaded his Ancestry DNA test to the MyHeritage.com website. Hoping that someone connected to his paternal line might have a DNA test at MyHeritage. Ian was still searching for the Hunter family that we think Leigh and Joseph Leigh belonged to. We found plenty of people with Read more

No progress searching for Leigh Hunter – Trying WikiTree and GEDmatch

As more time passes, Ian decides that another approach might be necessary to try and crack the family mystery. Ian was getting sort of desperate by this time. Still, he had not made any progress in finding Leigh Hunter. Ian considered trying different approaches, anything to make any progress on Read more

The official records of Joseph Leigh Hunter

Joseph Leigh Hunter’s marriage certificate above shows his father to be Leigh Hunter, Coal Miner (deceased) and his mother to be Kate Walton. This is the first official record that Jane and Ian could find for their great grandfather. The wedding took place on 28 October 1898 at Tradeston, Lanarkshire, Read more

Still no progress made, time for another DNA test

By mid February 2019, Ian still hadn’t made any progress with either Leigh or Joseph Leigh Hunter. He decided that another DNA test might possibly help. 23andMe is similar to Ancestry in the fact that you can’t upload a DNA test from elsewhere. Ian made the decision to order a Read more