Thursday, May 17, 2018

Hello Bradys of the World! Who and Where Are You?

Okay, blogs are supposed to reach out to the world, right?

This post is in pursuit of THE Brady who is going to crack some of our family's mysteries that we have been in search of an answer to for a couple of hundred years and hopefully solve a few other Brady mysteries at the same time.

I am a member of the Brady Family Association. (Facebook: Hugh Brady and Hannah McCormick Descendants) We know some of these descendants were at one-time slave owners.

I am, as you might guess, a descendant of Hugh and Hannah Brady.

About a year ago another cousin Elizabeth Brady and I initiated the Facebook Brady DNA Project. It is open to anyone in the world with the Brady surname in their direct line genealogical tree that has taken an autosomal DNA test and has uploaded their DNA to GEDmatch.

(Yes, GEDmatch. We knew how powerful the tools were at this wonderful open-source site before the alleged Golden State Killer was apprehended.)

Four years ago I bought a book from Amazon, Brady Family Reunion and Fragments of Brady History and Biography published in 1909. I wanted to see if I could find any connections to my Brady family. On page 7 I found my great-grandmother, Jemima R. Mott’s name listed as an attendee. Now, I like to pretend I can point to her in the blurry family group photograph that was taken in front of what they referred to in that book as the original Brady homestead. (I think she is the short gray-headed one toward the left front, in a white blouse and black hat with all the girls around her. Some of them may be my aunts.)



Jemima Ruth (Brady) Mott b. 1849 Pennsylvania


I began searching the internet to see if the family still held reunions. I wasn’t finding anything, when lo and behold a cousin contacted my sister via a DNA testing company’s internal messaging system (I manage my sister’s DNA) asking if I was coming to the Brady Reunion. I was thrilled. I was hooked.

In the Brady Reunion book of 1909, the “original” cabin was behind everyone and was clad with siding and adjoined to a house that was built later by one of the descendants. It has since been torn apart and painstakingly and lovingly reconstructed by a cousin, Bruce Lampe who is a building contractor in Florida. (That story can be found in the book The Cabin on the Creek: The History of the Hugh Brady Homestead. If you can find it.)



At our FB Brady DNA Project we have members from Brady branches across the U.S., some from the UK and we have several Brady branches from Australia

We are all in different stages of learning how to track our family trees using autosomal DNA. We are using GEDmatch Tier 1 tools, focusing on triangulation and studying segments. An all-volunteer site, we do our best to answer questions for each other about documentation from different trees and about how to follow our autosomal DNA.

We have contacted anyone we can find with the Brady surname and invited them to join our group. We have sent messages on our testing sites to any Brady we can find through surname searches. We have made announcements on WikiTree and Gedmatch. We have put out the call and we are still looking.

I have combed the Matching segments and One-to-many lists from GEDmatch of friends who I have helped to find their genetic family. Some of my friends have matches who are related to me!

I feel I am missing millions.

With all this Brady hunting we have several different Brady lines searching for relatives on our Facebook Brady DNA Project. We want more!

(It’s not just for Hugh and Hannah, though many members of the group are descendants.)

I want to know is Hannah really a McCormick? No marriage record, so all we have to go on is a statement from a grandson. All the “as told to’s” say so, but we want a paper trail. I will be happy when we have DNA confirmation.

I do have the McCormick surname showing up in my autosomal DNA and it looks like it is leading back to a line going back to James McCormick and Sara Welsh. I have combed every branch I can find for a Hannah b. abt 1710. None. Nada. Zilch. Did she have a different given name and we just haven’t put two and two together? I think perhaps Margaret. After all, there are daughters in various McCormick families born about that time named Margaret.

WikiTree has shown us a couple of branches of Brady lines that look hopeful and may connect to our branch. A sibling of Hugh’s? We haven’t been able to make the connection---yet.

We want Brady lines still in Ireland to get involved too!

Come on autosomal DNA! I’m counting on you!

We don’t know the ship they sailed in on but suspect it may have landed around Delaware. Well, we find a Hugh Brady who had land transactions there and we know some of their children were born there. I haven’t ruled out landfall in Canada. But for all we know it could have been around Louisiana. I just have a hard time getting my head around immigrants landing in the Gulf and trekking all the way to Pennsylvania to settle near Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, British Colonies in the 1740’s where the original log home has now been preserved.

Historical records report Hugh was born in 1709 in Ireland. He is a Son of the American Revolution. But who for sure is his father? Did Hugh arrive in the colonies a lone Brady? And did other family join him in the colonies after his arrival? I have some people who appear to be the missing link but they have not DNA tested---yet.

Autosomal DNA appears to be drawing us closer to answers and we continue to search for that one connection that is going to break down this brick wall. We have some small segment matches with Brady lines in the UK and in Australia, but we need one of those
wonderful 15 cM segments that will point us in the right direction and span the gap to fill in the blanks.

If you are a Brady or descended from any Brady, have done autosomal DNA and are on GEDmatch,  please consider joining the FB Brady DNA Project. We will do our best to find you connections to your Brady family---whoever they may be. And please, share this post with all of your friends who do DNA and genealogy!

If you are a known descendant of Hugh Brady and Hannah McCormick, we have a family reunion the first of June at the old homestead. (Details at the FB Hugh and Hannah Descendants page. Tell them Barbara sent you.

Happy Finding!

I am still having a blast!











1 comment:

  1. Great post, Barb! Here is direct link to our Brady DNA Project Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BradyDNAProject/

    ReplyDelete