Year in Review

This year I discovered DNA Painter, and have been busy building a chromosome map for myself. The hope is to identify the chromosomes and segments that pertain to my Gillespie clan, and knowing that, associate other testers on the same chromosome/segments whose relationship is currently unknown but whose stories might provide new clues and new links that lead to our Scotland connection. In the course of this venture, I was able to connect with a number of Gillespie elders both in U.S. and Canada who were willing to participate. The chromosome map is beginning to fill in! Finding more testers to participate is a challenge, but every year brings more unexpected advances. 

Here are few other research highlights for the year: 

• Because of a match on FTDNA, I made contact with Glenyss G. who descends from Thomas Gillespie of Cavanacaw, and is a current resident of Northern Ireland. It's very exciting to make contact with a living Gillespie relation still in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, her family history reveals no more prior to Thomas Gillespie. And because Thomas Gillespie was the son of John Gillespie's first marriage, the fact that we can identify any DNA match with this branch is somewhat of a miracle. 
•  I spent a fair amount of time researching COLL/COYLE family groups who emigrated from County Donegal before the US Civil War and settled in the Pittsburgh area. Multiple members from this family group are DNA matches to known Gillespie testers. The rub is that these families were heavily Catholic, and Donegal is nowhere near Armagh. Still in all, a study of the Griffith's Valuation shows that a surprising number of Gillespie households were found in Donegal. So somehow we share DNA with Catholic Gillespies from Donegal! 
• I explored the life of John Gillespie, born around 1830 in Donegal, according to his Civil War enlistment records. He arrived in the U.S. in the early 1850s where he married Sarah McElhose. He was a blacksmith, and settled in Port Byron, IL. More DNA connections with no answer. 
• I explored the life of Capt. James Gillespie, 1774-1868, a sailor and ship's master who lived in Portpatrick, Wigtownshire, Scotland, just a skip across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland. His descendants emigrated to Montreal around 1835 and then settled in Ontario, and later the northwest territories where many of their DNA testers live today. How connected to us? 
• I explored the life of Margaret Gillespie, ~1849-1945, who married Francis Waterson and then moved to Dunedin, New Zealand where descendants still live today. Margaret was the daughter of John Gillespie and Margaret Cameron who married in Glasgow in 1838. John is thought to have been the son of George Gillespie and Agnes Campbell who lived in Paisely. 
• Finally, I explored the lives Maggie and Minnie Gillespie, both born in the late 1860s in Armagh with a father named Thomas. I suspect these were daughters of Thomas Gillespie and Sarah Woods, and granddaughters of Thomas Gillespie of Cavanacaw and his wife Margaret Johnston. These daughters made their way to Lancashire, England, also just across the Irish Sea, where they worked as servants. Maggie eventually married, and her descendants still live in the same area of the UK. 
• And for those who know that in 2019-2020 I took a deep dive into Gillespie research in early Ulster and Orange counties, New York, a handful of DNA matches have since surfaced to some of those early American (pre-Revolution) families. The connection still eludes us but it is there. 

And so the beat goes on. For 2022, I'm considering giving up the notion of being frustrated that we're still poking around in the darkness with little reason to think the cave of the past holds answers. But just look at all these stories about Gillespies with whom I share some DNA!  It's like looking into the night sky that twinkles just on the edge of our comprehension — there's always more to learn.  In a continuing world of pandemic restrictions, I find comfort in imagining the fullness of our Gillespie ancestors' lives — how we got here and how we shall carry on.  And so we shall.