Anne (Isham) Smith (1699 - 1771)

The DOB and location for Anne do not comport with the dates of marriage and immigration of the assigned parents. Neither is she listed as one of the children on the assigned parents profile page. Suggest that John Isham and Martha Elizabeth Hough be disconnected.

Isham-1101 and Isham-160 appear to represent the same person because: Same name, DOB, DOD, POB, POD, same husband, children... Obviously the same person. Please merge.

Due to a continuing lack of primary records for this profile and those of the parents shown, I have removed the parents.

In an earlier comment I gave a genetic analysis suggesting that George Isham is the father of Anne (Isham) Smith). In this comment I continue the same approach but with an emphasis on determining Anne's mother. For the sake of coherence please read my earlier comment first.

The historical record shows that prior to her marriage to Henry Isham, Katherine Banks was married to Joseph Royall (Royall-2). Katherine and Joseph had five or six children. Because of the confusion over George Isham's spouse I decided to compare my DNA with that of ten descendants of the children born to Joseph and Katherine (also identified in the GedMatch database). I was expecting to find no genetic relationship with these descendants, but to my surprise I found that (with one exception) all ten were matches with the following results: average largest segment=4.7cM, average total overlap=27.2. Indeed, judging by the average largest segment size the descendants of Katherine and Joseph are more closely related to me than those of Katherine and Henry Isham. This is evidence for Anne (Isham) Smith's mother being one of Katherine and Joseph's granddaughters (all of their daughters were either dead or too old to bear children by 1699). These are more likely candidates (age wise) for the out of wedlock birth suspected by John Ellis. On the basis of this data I have created the profile for unknown Royall (Royall-380) as the mother of Anne (Isham) Smith and Mary (Isham) Sims and the spouse of George Isham.

I do not claim that these genetic data constitute proof of the proposed relationships between Anne (Isham) Smith, George Isham, and unknown (Royall) Isham, but they are supporting evidence for these relationships. The potential for unknown MRCA of myself and some of these matches could invalidate the analysis. The fact that all of these matches have GEDCOMs published on GedMatch aides in the elimination of such unknown MRCA (as was done in one group) but this cannot eliminate the possibility that they hide in incomplete regions of our GEDCOMs. Also, statistical accuracy may be an issue since 10 is not a very large number. Nevertheless, this demonstrates an approach that may be useful in other studies of genetic genealogy somewhat beyond the limits of triangulation.

I have entered George Isham (Isham-346) as the father of Anne (Isham) Smith based primarily on genetic evidence (I am a descendant of Isham-160). George Isham is known to have another daughter, Mary (Isham) Sims, born approximately 10 years prior to Anne and is known to have lived long enough to be Anne's father. Her mother remains unknown but my genetic evidence suggests that she and Mary (Isham) Sims probably have the same mother. My evidence also suggests that their mother probably had the birth name Royall. Before getting into the genetic analysis a few words about the confusion in the historical paper records for the Isham family will help to set the parameters for the genetic analysis.

If you look on Ancestry you will see many trees that list Katherine Banks Royall Isham (Banks-68) and Henry Isham, Sr (Isham-12) as Anne's parents even though both were dead well before the time Anne was born (1699). John Ellis (in another comment on this profile) speculates that Anne's was an out of wedlock birth to Katherine and Henry's daughter Mary (Isham) Randolph (Isham-16) but Mary Randolph as well as her sister Anne (Isham) Epps (Isham-25) were both married at the time of Isham-160's birth so unless she was the child of an acknowledged affair and deliberately given the Isham surname instead of her mother's married name it is hard to reconcile how she came to be an Isham. Another possible origin for Anne's Isham birth name is that Henry Isham's brother George Isham (Isham-346) is Anne's father. George Isham would have been in his mid-70s at the time of Anne's birth, but he is known to have fathered Mary (Isham) Sims at an advanced age and is a possible father to Anne that should not be overlooked. The paper records for George are also problematic. On Ancestry many trees that list him as the father of Mary Sims list Katherine Banks as his spouse (but with a birth year in the 1660s rather than her actual birth year of around 1627) These listings are so numerous that one has to wonder whether his spouse/partner had a name similar to Katherine's?

Since my genetic analysis makes use of small segments (often under 5cM) I will address concerns about using small segments for genealogical analysis before proceeding. There is valid research that suggests that many small segments have a high probability (possibly as high as 80%) of being identical by chance (IBC) rather than identical by descent (IBD). GedMatch has set a lower cutoff of 3cM (and a default of 7cM) for most of its genetic comparison tools (and a 7cM lower cutoff for its triangulation tool) as a reaction to this research. Yet the random nature of genetic recombination means that these cutoffs sometimes fail to show relationships for fairly close relatives. For example, I have a third cousin with whom GedMatch shows no relationship when I use the default (7cM) for a one-to-one autosomal comparison. When I switch to the lower limit (3cM) the comparison yields five segments totaling 20cM with the largest segment being 4.8 cM. It would be crazy not to trust a result like this when the paper records say we are 3rd cousins (and other genetic analysis rules out a non paternal event (NPE)). I like to say that when it comes to small segments there is safety in numbers. By this I mean that even if the probability of a single segment being IBC is 80%, the probability of two such segments both being IBC falls to 64% (and for five such segments to under 33%), so the more small segments there are the more likely it is that the genetic relationship is real, especially if there are paper records to back it up. My analysis will involve statistical studies of multiple matches (around 10 for each of 5 groups) with three or (usually) more segments that we share. I will make use of the fact that the largest segment shared with a match is usually inherited from the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) and the size of this segment is inversely related to the number of generations separating you and the MRCA. The random nature of genetic recombination induces fluctuations in the largest shared segment (my 3rd cousin is a good example) , but these fluctuations average out when comparing segment sizes for a large group of matches all sharing the same MRCA. I will use ten individual potential matches for each group (that was the total number I could find in GedMatch for one group). These matches are identified mostly by entering the name and birth and death years into GedMatch and searching the resulting list of GEDCOMS for GedMatch members who have entered their DNA. When there were multiple members in the same GEDCOM I used only the oldest member to reduce generational diversity.

I have found about 40 descendants of Anne (Isham) Smith, Mary (Isham) Sims, Mary (Isham) Randolph, and Anne (Isham) Epps in the GedMatch database and performed one-to-one autosomal comparisons with my own DNA using the 3cM lower cutoff. Of these 40 individuals (more or less) only two failed to share the "safety in numbers" criterion of likely being related to me. I think this provides strong evidence that Isham-160 is at least a member of this extended family (a descendant of William Isham and Mary (Brett) Isham, the parents of Henry and George Isham). I have compiled statistics on the largest segment size and total overlap for each of these four groups . For the Mary Randolph descendants the results are: average largest segment=4.3 cM, average total overlap= 23.5 cM. For the Anne Epps descendants the results are: average largest segment size =4.3 cM, average total overlap=27.3 cM. These results are quite similar. If either of these (Mary Randolph or Anne Epps) were the mother of Anne Smith one would expect an increased average largest segment and average total overlap for the one who is the mother. The results suggest that neither is Anne's mother. Now I show the results for the descendants of Mary (Isham) Sims, the daughter of George Isham: average largest segment=5.4cM, average total overlap=26.8 cM. Two of these matches have largest shared segments that are significantly larger than the others (7.2 and 8.4 cM respectively) . After study of their GEDCOMS it seems likely that they are also related to me via a different family surname (Barnes). When these two are removed the average largest segment becomes 4.8 cM, still significantly larger than for the descendants of Mary Randolph and Anne Epps. It could be argued that this increase is to be expected because George Isham waited until he was quite elderly to procreate. This gives about two less generations (on average) separating the descendants of Mary Sims from William and Mary (Brett) Isham than is the case for the descendants of Mary Randolph and Anne Epps. This generational enhancement is only expected from my analysis, however, if my own segments inherited from William and Mary (Brett) Isham are also subject to this generational enhancement (since all the data I've shown is compared with my own DNA). For this reason I conclude that George Isham is probably the father of Anne (Isham) Smith. For completeness I also give the results for other descendants of Anne (Isham) Smith: average largest segment=4.9cM, average total overlap=33.2. The average total overlap (33.2cM) is the largest of the four groups (as is to be expected) and the average largest segment is somewhat larger that the lower figure for the descendants of Mary Sims (also to be expected).

Have noted similarities between Isham-160, Isham-717, and Isham-774.

Have noted similarities between Isham-160, Isham-717, and Isham-774.

Isham-160 and Ann-139 appear to represent the same person because: duplicate as ann-139 is unsourced

Isham-191 and Isham-160 appear to represent the same person because: Appear to be married to the same William Smith; birth and death dates and places match; some children appear to be the same.

This profile needs further clarification. The person Ann Smith truly did exist. However: her birth date cannot be reconciled with proposed Parents Henry Isham and Katherine Banks. It is suspected that Ann is a child who was born from an out of wedlock. Possibly a child of Mary (Isham) Randolph. Who married William Randolph who subsequently inherited the Isham properties. These Parents were very wealthy Landowners in Colonial Virginia and the political connections could ill afford the controversy of illegitimate children. There are proven incidents in this family of terminating undesirable relationships, including parents and children.

Isham-236 and Isham-191 appear to represent the same person because: they have the same death information. Please compare and merge Isham-236 into Isham-191 if you agree they are two profiles for the same person. Thank you. Kitty Cooper-1 Smith

Isham-217 and Isham-191 appear to represent the same person because: they have the same birth information. Please compare and merge Isham-217 into Isham-191 if you agree they are two profiles for the same person. Thank you. Kitty Cooper-1 Smith

Isham-250 and Isham-191 appear to represent the same person because: they have the same birth information. Please compare and merge Isham-250 into Isham-191 if you agree they are two profiles for the same person. Thank you. Kitty Cooper-1 Smith