Introductory Post

As far back as I can remember I've had an interest in genealogy.  My paternal line has held my attention going on 40 years.  I've been trying for most of my adult life to determine the identity of my father's paternal great grandfather. My surname "Mitchell" came from my father's paternal great grandmother, Elizabeth Margaret Mitchell (EMM). She gave her illegitimate son her surname "Mitchell" and came up with the full name Edward Leopold Mitchell (ELM).  ELM was born in 1893 (hence my display name MitchellSince1893).

Pertinent facts:

1. Edward Leopold Mitchell (died in Chicago in 1969) was born at the Fulham Workhouse Hospital (51.487140°, -0.219982°), in Fulham, London, England on 18 Jun 1893. The English birth certificate shows the mother, Elizabeth Margaret Mitchell of 20 Green Lane, Hammersmith, London, England, but the father's name was left blank. I haven't found a 20 Green Lane in Hammersmith but there was a Broad Green Lane, (51.493275°,  -0.224140°) and a Brook Green Lane (51.494003° -0.224001°). Both were about a half mile from the Fulham Workhouse Hospital.

2. In the 1891 census Elizabeth Margaret Mitchell (b. May 1870 in Ardwick, Manchester, England, d. 1944, Knoxville, TN) lived with her parents and siblings in Fulham, London, England (51.471767°, -0.190876°).  Her father John Rintoul Mitchell was born in Montrose, Scotland. Her mother Minnie Margaret Hester Wilson was born in Calcutta, India.

3. In 1897 they lived in Wandsworth, London, England (known because of EMM's father's death certificate)

4. EMM and family lived in Glamorgan, Wales from 1871 to 1875; Manchester, England 1875 to 1881; London, England from 1881 to 1909. She immigrated to Mobile, AL, USA in 1909 and died in 1944 in Knoxville, TN. Her paternal grandparents lived in Manchester, England until their deaths in 1874 (grandfather John Mitchell) and 1888 (grandmother Eliza Rintoul), and she had a paternal uncle and aunt living in Manchester in the 1880s as well (They had moved to Devon, England in the 1891 census). Her sister Edith Mitchell was living with another aunt and uncle (Martha Ellen Hughes Mitchell and James Drummond Mitchell) in 1891.  This aunt and uncle were still living in Heaton Norris, Lancashire (southern Manchester) in July 1892.  I mention this as she may not have met the mystery man in London, but possibly in Manchester when she lived there or visited relatives.

5. There is no known Edwards or Leopolds on the Mitchell side. He could have been named this because his mother liked these names, he was named after two recently deceased English princes Prince Leopold (d. 1888), and Prince Eddy aka Albert Victor, son of Edward VII, (d. 1892), or for the unknown father...I have looked at all the Edward Leopolds (Leopold as a middle and last name) in England during this period.  

6. EMM had no other children. Her son, ELM and wife has one son, my father's father, Edward Rintoul Mitchell ERM (1918-1970). ERM has one son via his 1st marriage (my father), and 3 daughters via his 2nd (one is still living)

7. My father has done the 111-marker y-dna test and the BigY test at FTDNA and the Y Elite 2.1 test at Full Genome Corporation. He has also done autosomal testing at 23andme, FTDNA, and ancestry.com (gedmatch kit #s M462421, T722766, A876471 respectively). His paternal half-sister has tested at 23andme and FTDNA *gedmatch M681767) and his maternal half-brother has done the autosomal test at FTDNA (gedmatch T388136).  My father also has 4 cousins on his paternal grandmother's line (surname Morgan), and a 3rd cousin on his paternal grandfather's mother line (surname Mitchell) that have done dna testing and have results loaded on gedmatch.com. 

8.  Currently my father has no 37, 67, nor 111 STR marker matches in the US centric FTDNA database.  I hypothesized the reason why is my paternal ancestry was from a long line of only sons, or where other male lines died out or "daughtered out" over the years, resulting in few living paternal line descendants.  I also postulated this line was a somewhat well off British family, that was on the winning side of conflicts during the period when the British immigrated to the American Colonies i.e. the 1600s and 1700s.   In other words, this family had little economic, political, or religious incentives to leave for the New World, and therefore are unlikely to show up in the FTDNA database.   

9. Via BigY and Y Elite 2.1 SNP dna testing we've learned that my father and his closest paternal STR match, surname Guess (genetic distance of 8 at 67 markers), share a most recent common ancestor (MRCA) that lived around 1000 AD.  As Mr. Guess has a confirmed match who had a paternal line ancestor living in Westmoreland, England in the mid 1700's; I've assumed our shared paternal line is of English origin.  

10.  Thanks to dna analysis done at Yfull, Full Genome, and by Alex Williamson's ytree.net we've also can identify the y-dna branches my father and Mr. Guess share.   The shared SNPs that lend their names to this newest branch is called FGC12384 on Yfull's tree, and FGC12385 on Alex Williamson's Bigtree, and FTDNA's y dna tree.

https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-FGC12384/

http://ytree.net/DisplayTree.php?blockID=1082&star=false 

11. Besides the information above, I know absolutely nothing about the mystery father of Edward Leopold Mitchell; however, here are some facts that may prove of value in the future.

a. In a family Bible, my father's mother listed Elizabeth Margaret Mitchell's last name as Atkins, but I haven't found anything on this, except that the next-door neighbor in the English 1891 census was a married man named Charles Joseph Atkins-CJA (b ~1853 in Bishop Monkton, Yorkshire, but his paternal line appears to be from London area going back 3 generations).  I've wondered if CJA might be the mystery man, but my father has no close y dna matches to any Atkins and I've found no autosomal matches to this line of Atkins.   My father's mother knew EMM for about 5 years (1938-1943), so she may have gotten this "Atkins" name directly from EMM.

b. EMM did marry a William Whitcomb (1875? - 1933) in the US around 1915. When EMM came to the US in 1909, she traveled with, and lived in the US with, a William Keeling Syson (WKS), his wife and their daughter. WKS was born in 1870 in Manchester, England (same year and location as EMM), and immigrated to the US in 1894 (1 year after ELM's birth). In 1909 WKS' daughter got sick on a trip to England and EMM traveled to the US with them as the family nurse. She was living with the Syson family in the 1910 census. I've wondered if WKS also might be the father, but again no DNA matches to the surname at this time. This Syson line was originally from Nottinghamshire where the name was also spelled Sison, Siseton, Syerson.

c.  Since October 2016 I've explored the possibility that the mystery man might be a Leopold Peregrine Edward Cust-LPEC (1866-1928).  LPEC's father was named Leopold Cust and his grandfather was Edward Cust.  So the idea would be that ELM was named after LPEC, or after LPEC's father Leopold, and grandfather Edward (1st and 2nd Baronets of Leasowe.  The 3rd Baronet of Leasowe was LPEC's older brother Charles Leopold Cust (CLC).  LPEC was the heir apparent to the Baronet, but CLC out lived his brother.  Neither CLC nor LPEC were married and had no legal children, so the Baronet of Leasowe died out in 1933 upon CLC's death.

I have found a few DNA matches my father has, that have shared ancestors with LPEC.  LPEC was the son of the above-mentioned Leopold Cust b 1831, son of Edward Cust b. 1794, son of Brownlow Cust b. 1744, son of John Cust b. 1718, son of Anne Brownlow b. 1685, daughter of William Brownlow b. 1665, son of Richard Brownlow b. 1628 and Elizabeth Freke b. 1633.

i. One FTDNA match also descends from William Brownlow b 1665 via John Brownlow b 1690 (brother of Anne Brownlow).  If the mystery man was LPEC, this match would be my father's 8th cousin once removed. 15.7 cM shared on chr 4.

ii. The other FTDNA match descends from Richard Brownlow and Elizabeth Freke via John Brownlow b 1659 (brother of William Brownlow).  This would also be a 8th cousin once removed. This match is confirmed to be on my father's paternal grandfather line with a 10.6 cM segment shared on chr 12.

iii.  I've also found a couple of potential 11th cousin matches.  One also via the above mentioned Freke line and the other via LPEC's maternal grandfather's mother's line (surname Cecil).

iv.  The closest match I've found so far via ancestry.com would be a 7th cousin to my father if the mystery man is LPEC.  LPEC and my father's match both descend from Samuel Ogden (1689-1752) and Phoebe Pendleton (1693-).  LPEC via their son Edmund Ogden (1720-1775, his great great grandfather), and the match descends from their daughter Phoebe Ogden (1726-1810)

For what it's worth LPEC lived less than 2 miles from EMM's residence in the 1891 England census in the years 1886 and 1896 (During 1886 and 1896 LPEC is shown at the same address so it's likely he was also there between those years i.e. during ELM's conception). 

LPEC was a member of the conservative Carlton Club in London.  EMM's father, John Rintoul Mitchell (JRM), a conservative newspaper journalist in London had a friend, Loper Lethbridge who was also a member of the Carlton Club.  At a going away banquet for JRM in 1883, there were several past, current, and future members of Parliament in attendance.   So, it's not inconceivable that EMM could have met LPEC through the shared social circles of JRM and LPEC.

On the paternal side, the Cust line goes back to at least Robert Cust (1440-1491) of Pinchbeck, Lincolnshire, England.  This Cust line were free men who steadily built up their land holdings over the generations.  Men of this Cust line became Earls, Barons, Baronets, members of parliament,  a Speaker of the House of Commons, and a general in the British Army.  Their family history is quite like my hypothesis mentioned in paragraph 8 above.  Up to the 1600s there was only one known surviving paternal line with no known Cust men immigration to the New World.

All that to say the connection to the Cust line is very tentative, and there may be nothing to it.

Almost two years ago, I started this thread on anthrogenica.com. 

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3987-Help-me-to-solve-a-family-Mystery-My-paternal-line-before-my-great-grandfather

Much of the information in this first blog post is a summary of info from the anthrogenica thread.  More detailed discussions on the above information can be found in that thread.