The persons that share DNA sequences with one or more of the close family mapped on MyHeritage or GEDmatch can be seen on DNA Painter. This is Michael Jefferies' Profile and will open in a new window on your browser. You can expand, contract and look at individual matches as you like; the key at the side shows which of the matches are thought to be from the individual ancestral lines.  You can also switch from all matches to Paternal or Maternal using the line at the bottom right under the coloured key.  Persons with names between #....# are persons with known family links as well as DNA matches. These people will appear with a DNA symbol next to their name in the Person Index on this site.

The known surnames of persons in this group to 5th cousin level are; Smith, Sapcote, Palmer, Swift, Woodward & Scotney. The links to the descendant charts related to these matches are The Deeping Smiths, The Palmers, The Scotneys & Woodwards, The Todds of Rutland, The Bettles of Northamptonshire and, finally, The Whitemans & Skinners.

There are a number of links to Philip Smith & Ann Todd of Market Deeping, from their youngest son Stephen who emigrated to Manitoba, Canada around 1905; including Sarah Allan, and Kelsey Kolench. There are other matches that point to this branch of the family in Canada from the cluster analysis but are not resolved so far and this cluster also includes Palmer lines below.

Another link to the Smiths is via Martha Smith, my grandmother's sister. The tree linked to this result is only at 4/5 cousin level but is from Ronald Philip Gillett, at 4th cousin level from a match to his grand-daughter Rosalyn Payne.

Another strong link is via my grandmother's brother Philip Cornelius Smith down to Ann Florence Smith, now Yates. It was through a DNA test on her granddaughter, Gemma Louise Jarman

My grandmother's eldest brother, Herbert Smith has at least 3 matches both on Ancestry and MyHeritage; from his grandson Frederick Herbert Smith which are detailed on his page.  The ones on MyHeritage such as Tina F Smith, Tina Lynch are large, 113.5cM on 5 segments.  The main matches not resolved are on chromosome 11. Another match on MyHeritage, is Keiran Milson  also with 68cM on 5 segments, another grandchild of Frederick.

Also at the 4th cousin level is a link to Charlotte Cave, a descendant of Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Joseph Smith & Elizabeth Palmer.  Charlotte is descended from William Patchett & Martha Palmer.

The Palmers & Woodwards are found in several DNA links that are partially sorted. They show links to two sisters, Mary & Sarah Woodward who married two half brothers, Philip and William Palmer. These include Rachel Tinworth (who is also a Smith descendant), Iain McLeod, who is also a match to my nieces maternal family; Robert Atkin, Terry Richard Ward and Judy Candy.

The strong matches to the Ward family from Ohio has been confirmed on both Ancestry and MyHeritage to Terry Richard Ward, 1936-2016. Cluster analysis on MyHeritage also suggests other surnames in this group include Tannock & White. Several members of the Ward family have tests on MyHeritage. In this case the matching DNA from both Ancestry and MyHeritage on GEDmatch, show the chromosomes shared with MGJ are; 2, 9.8 & 18.1cM, 17, 8.8cM.  However the actual relationship between the individuals are not clear, there are 3 tests and several names.

Another Palmer/Woodward link is to Sophia Palmer, daughter of above, via her daughter Mary Ann Pratt, to Robert Frank Atkin. Sophia's sister Harriet is my 2nd g-grandmother and so matches my children & niece. Another match to Sophia is to Heather J Bonney, a match to my niece Elinor only.

A strong Palmer link to another family from Market Deeping and villages to the north has found NO persons in common so far and Richard Derek Ware, the person tested suggests there may be illegitimate or extra-marital reasons! However a tree generated after a cluster analysis suggests this person may be a descendant of Ann Merrill, b. Palmer along with another match labelled jeje66 wh is now known to be John Emrys Jones.  It is now clear there is a lot of work to do on the connections between Palmer. Woodward and Merrill. So more work is needed.

The DNA matches associated with thes families on my DNA Painter page shows that there is a very large set of matches involved with this group of families, especially on chromosome 15.  I suspect some finer resolution of these families may be possible in the future.

Reviewed April 2025