We have had the worst time with a few of my maternal grandmother's relatives. Most of her maternal side we could get back past third great grandparents, but her father's side, we were stuck with her great grandparents on his maternal side, and then the earliest ancestor we stop is her 2nd great grandfather, William Crawford on her father's paternal side.
So I have my great Aunt's DNA, and amazingly enough we have a lot of Paxton relatives who have tested, so much so that (she doesn't have many closer than 3rd cousin matches, and those are all from her grandparents), almost all of her third cousin matches and many of her highest fourth cousin matches are Paxton's.
Paxton Discoveries
I look into the matches, pretty regularly, and noticed someone new. A fourth cousin, whose a Paxton. This Paxton's ancestor was born in Canada, but he matched many of the Paxton's and descendants of a Martha Endersbee. So I did the genealogy. Turns out, we know Benjamin Paxton's parents, William Paxton and Mary Brown from his enlistment in the Civil War. We also know from 1850, that in St. Lawrence county, Benjamin Paxton has a sister Martha, both of these matches, the other Paxton who goes back to a William Paxton who emigrated to first Quebec then Ontario, Canada, and Martha who married William Endersbee and lives in St. Lawrence County, NY are our Paxton relatives.
William Paxton married a Catherine Bryans, a catholic, in Montreal, Quebec in 1835, and in 1833 the death of Mary Paxton is recorded in records in Quebec. William went on to have four more children with his second wife, two daughters Mary and Eliza Ann, and two sons, George and John P. Paxton. When I changed the tree, thrulines for these folks show up, unfortunately, because the Endersbee folks haven't changed their tree, and don't have a parent for Martha if they have her surname, they aren't showing up yet. Research shows that Martha Paxton Endersbee (maiden name on death certificate of her daughter) is the same age as Martha Paxton from 1850 census and she is also born in England.
I still haven't found baptisms for any of these folks. I am not altogether convinced that they were from Oxfordshire, though we do have one higher match, with roots to Bicester area that is matching in common many of the Paxton's.
Although the state census gives Mary Douglass Paxton's birth place as Clinton County, NY, I have yet been able to figure out how she relates to the Douglasses there.
Crawford Discoveries
William Crawford was born about 1766 in Ireland, and by his naturalization papers, came to the US in 1793 where he moved to Chenango County, NY. It is possible, he is a cousin of some degree to the Crawfords there, but they had been in the US for quite some time, so it is doubtful to me. However, we have again, some strong DNA matches to a descendant of a Crawford who came during the potato famine. A letter in the probate records for a relative of this Crawford give her origins as Cloughy, County Down in Northern Ireland.
I have been able to track her father, and his brother with records I found online. It is my opinion, based on the size of the match and relationship, these men are nephews of William Crawford, and he is from County Down. Now, the name Crawford is very common at this time, and records aren't that great, but it is the first clue we have had, and given that he's the last arrival on my grandmother's paternal side (all of the rest being residents long before the American revolution), it's nice to be able to pinpoint his origins.
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