One of Ancestry.com’s newest genetic tools is called ThruLines. Essentially, ThruLines looks at your DNA matches and information in your collective family trees and attempts to create a biologically-based family tree explaining how you are/might be related through a potentially common ancestor. I have a love/hate relationship with this tool. Unfortunately, in a few cases, it has picked up bad, undocumented ancestors from other people’s trees and shown them to me as potential ancestors – even though I know with certainty that this person or that person is not my ancestor and I have the documents to prove it. (Example, Alexander Sims’ father was John Sims of Cumberland County, VA, not Thomas Sims of Culpeper County, VA as suggested by ThruLines.)
I suppose I should accept that when it’s wrong, it’s really wrong; and when ThruLines is right, it’s actually very helpful. Thus, the aforementioned “love/hate” relationship. ThruLines revealed that my Hawkins ancestry runs DEEP. This is a family line I have not explored on my mother’s side. In fact, my mother was unaware of our Hawkins roots when she compiled our family histories. ThruLines revealed dozens of Hawkins DNA matches who (likely) descend from William Henley Hawkins. His daughter, Susannah, was the mother of my 3rd great grandmother, Martha Rainey (Maxwell) Holland. We know that Susannah’s maiden name was “Hawkins” as it appears on the death certificate of a son who died at the ripe old age of 98. So there’s written proof to back up what ThruLines has picked up on: I am genetically related to people who descend from Susannah’s siblings and William Henley is likely our common ancestor.
Had I paid more attention when I first started my genealogical research, I would have realized that the 87-year-old William “Hankins” who was living with Martha Holland in the 1850 census was her grandfather. Duh.
Other Hawkins researchers have documented William Henley’s ancestral line back four generations to John Hawkins “the immigrant”, who arrived in Jamestown, VA and settled in Anne Arundel County, MD in the 1600s. (Another MD ancestor hiding in my tree!) I am looking forward to exploring this line further and the Henley, Foster, Griffin, and Richards great grandmothers who married my Hawkins great grandfathers.
Kenfolk: Utlauts
Relationship: 5th great grandfather
Common ancestors: William’s parents were Augustine and Elizabeth (Henley) Hawkins, my 6th great grandparents.