Case Study One
In this case study I will be exploring the story of my great-grandmother, Ethel Mary Whitefoot, who was born in 1889 to a single mother. Her birth certificate gives no detail as to who her father was and by the time that Ethel married a fictions father had been created to cover the fact that she had been born illegitimately.
Ethel Mary Whitefoot
Ethel was born on the 20th October 1889 at 2 Gem Cottages, Dolobran Road in the Sparkbrook area of the city of Birmingham. She was the daughter of Mary Whitefoot, a housekeeper. Ethel was not the first of Mary’s illegitimate children, she had been preceded by three illegitimate brothers called Alfred, George Henry and Frederick William, with only George being alive at the time of Ethel’s birth.
By August 1914 when Ethel marries she gives her father as George Whitefoot, a Gun Maker. When Ethel’s mother died later in 1914, she was recorded as being the wife of George Henry Whitefoot and when Ethel’s brother George married in 1915 he recorded his father as Henry Whitefoot, on both occasions the occupation was given as a Commercial Traveller. George Snr is a fictions character invented sometime after Ethel’s birth and probably the 1901 census (the first census where Mary is listed as a widow). It is also worth noticing that George’s occupation changes depending on who is supplying the information, Ethel believes he was a Gun Maker while George Jnr believes he was a Commercial Traveller (George Jnr having registered the death of his mother).
The possible fathers
The first possibility for Ethel’s father was called Charles Jesson. He was living at 2 Gem Cottages, Dolobran Road on the 1891 census, and was still employing Mary as a housekeeper. Although he was shown as married, there was no wife living with Charles in 1891. After further research I learned that Charles’ wife was Esther Jesson who was a patient at Birmingham Asylum in 1891. Charles and Esther had four daughters, the youngest was born in 1887, so Esther entered the Asylum between 1887-1891. If this had took place before 1889, the factors are possibly there for Charles to have taken in a housekeeper and then due to his wife being unavailable proceeding to father a child with Mary Whitefoot.
The second possibility for Ethel’s father was a man called William Jones. William was a lodger living with Mary and her two children on the 1901 census and was also lodging with the family in 1911 even though they had changed address. Something tells me that there was a connection between Mary and William, perhaps through love or possibly blood (although no blood connection has been found). Could William have been Ethel’s father – yes, but I found this option less likely than Charles Jesson as I had no concrete connection between Mary and William prior to 1901.
To answer the question of who Ethel’s father was I had to turn away from conventional records. All written records ever did not give Ethel’s father at all or made up a fictitious George. No baptism record has yet to be found, this might help confirm who Ethel’s father was in the long turn but the fact that I have been searching for the record for over a decade without success leads me to believe that she was not baptised at all. With the failure of conventional records, I turned to a new option open to genealogists, the DNA test.
DNA test
I decided to take a DNA test through Ancestry.co.uk and to increase my chances of being successfully I also had my father take a test as he is closer to Ethel Mary genetically. The tests took around a month to come back. Initially we had no hits to either Charles Jesson or William Jones but as more people are being tested more results started to come through and eventually I discovered a connection between my father and the descendent of Charles Jesson’s 2nd cousin.
Of course, the hit could have been a coincidence as both my father’s and the distant cousin’s family were mainly from the Birmingham area. The first place I had to start was to compare the two trees to rule out any common names, the only name that we shared was Humphries. Ancestry gives a rough idea of how distant the connection is, for my father and the distant cousin the connection was roughly fourth cousins. With the Humphries I managed trace my own family back to the mid 1700’s in Shropshire, while the cousin’s Humphries tree could be traced back further in Wales with no obvious connection. There could be a connection after this date, but that would mean that my father and the distant cousin are more likely to be 7+ cousins, not the 4th cousins that Ancestry suggests.
The breakthrough came with more another ancestry user taking their DNA test. Ancestry allows you to see the members that two matches share, in the case of my father and the distant cousin another member took their test and matched us both. In searching their tree, it became evident that this member was also a descendent of Charles Jesson’s second cousin, I now had almost certain proof that both me and my father share a connection to the Jesson family.
The obvious connection is through Charles himself, he was in the right place at the right time to be Ethel Mary’s father. However, I cannot take this for granted yet, although Charles had no brothers there could still be a chance that it was a more distant relative of Charles who was the father. What I really need is to have a DNA connection to a member of Charles’ mother, Mary Salter. Unfortunately, I have so far been unable to find a match, mainly because I have been unable to locate any information about Mary and of course I am relying on relatives of Mary taking a DNA test and uploading their tree to Ancestry. Once day I am sure I will know the truth, but for now I am quite happy to pencil in Charles Jesson as the father of Ethel Mary Whitefoot.
Want to know more?
If you want to know more about taking a DNA test through Ancestry then you can find out more information using the following link; AncestryDNA.
Of course, Ancestry is not the only DNA test available, it is always worth searching on the internet and asking other researchers through message boards such as RootsChat before taking a test to ensure that the results will match your requirements.
Record Gallery
The below record gallery features images of the records outlined within this case study. Each image below can be clicked to view a much larger, more readable, image. Images marked with an asterisk (*) have been sourced from findmypast.co.uk.
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| Ethel Whitefoot's birth certificate |
Ethel Mary Whitefoot's marriage certificate |
George Henry Whitefoot's marriage certificate |
Mary Whitefoot's death certificate |
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| *1891 census | *1901 census | *1911 census |