Big Fat Secret

How DNA testing uncovered a big fat secret in our family tree!

Eighteen months ago, when I DNA tested ten of my family members I had high hopes the DNA results would help me break down some brick walls in my family tree.   I had been researching my family history for close to 20 years at that point, and DNA testing seemed to be the next logical step.  While I did expect to find a few adoptees, I was not expecting there would be a secret exposed that would change our known family tree and ethnicity. But that is exactly what happened.

DNA testing for genealogical purposes is relatively new but it is already an important tool for genealogists.   It is a very simple process for those being tested.  You take a sample of saliva or a cheek scraping and send it off to the testing lab, and in a month or two your results are available.   They will show you a breakdown of your ethnicity estimate based on reference populations.  You are also matched with the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people who share some of the same DNA as you.  If you are very lucky those people you match will have a family tree, you will quickly be able to see how you are connected and they will respond with friendly messages about your shared history.   If you are unlucky there will be no family tree to investigate. If you are really unlucky, even when you send carefully thought out messages of enquiry, your DNA matches will respond with silence.

Your Cousins!

To make the most of the DNA data, I shared it with my family interested in using it for their own research.   One of the people who took this opportunity was my maternal first cousin Gail Cooper-Douglas who, using her own DNA data in conjunction with her sister’s and a handful of our maternal cousins made great headway with her own family tree.  In mid-2018 she contacted me with a puzzle in our DNA, saying she’d identified many DNA matches who appeared to be from Scandinavia and wanted to know what if anything I knew about it.   As I’m Irish on my Dad’s side, I had assumed anything Nordic showing up in my DNA was probably my (yet undiscovered) Viking heritage.  If you’re Irish, you’re probably descended from some ancient Vikings, right?

Where did you come from?

Gail suggested our maternal 2x Great Grandfather may not be who we thought he was and although on paper his name was John Godfrey, in our DNA he appeared to be somebody else.  She showed me many DNA matches to New Zealand and American families with Scandinavian Ancestry and with family trees that didn’t match anything in our family tree.  Initially I was extremely sceptical.  I’ve been researching family history long enough to know you can’t accept anything at face value.   Although I couldn’t help but think what this might mean for my family.  Had we suddenly lost all our proudly held Oxfordshire heritage?  The Apothecary son of a Baker who married the granddaughter of Rev. James Williamson the Bamford Lecturer whose portrait hangs in the Queens College at Oxford, were they no longer ours?   What about the hours of research I put in to track down Mary Cowperthwaite from Westmorland? Was I researching somebody else’s family?  And we’re just right in the middle of restoring the Godfrey Family graves at Picton! What would my poor long departed Mother have thought of this desecration of her family?   This is history Maureen, sometimes you can easily misread its shape. You’ve researched a thousand family stories to find the nugget of reality in them, and you know that even at the risk of destroying somebody’s childhood memories, ‘family truth’ is occasionally at odds with the records! …please, just calm down.

Together Gail and I painstakingly went over her research looking at family trees and DNA matches however small which might lead us to an accurate conclusion. Despite that Gail’s fervent hope was I would have some other explanation, or be able to completely disprove her theory, eventually I conceded that on the balance of probability she was correct, and that she really had uncovered a big fat secret.  Our great great grandfather was probably not John Godfrey, despite what the last 170 years of paperwork and all our family stories were showing us.     After puzzling over what to do we contacted a small group of Godfrey family members who had also DNA tested and were avid family researchers.  We figured they would look at the research and maybe find reasons we were not reading this correctly.    We shared the secret with them and they went.  “Wait… does this mean? ...what about? ...But we have a Bamford Lecturer … and the grave restoration at Picton and all that…”  And nine of us shared our DNA data with each other and the resulting analysis made Gail’s theory crystal clear.

Francis Robert Godfrey
1861-1931

 The man we have always believed was the father of our great grandfather Francis Robert Godfrey b. 1861 is not John Godfrey.    I know!  I can hear you saying, “That’s rubbish Maureen!”   So… right now, you have the choice of not reading any further and sticking with our known family history, of believing the existing paper trail and our family stories as they have been told since forever, or you can read on and discover who is responsible for our Nordic genes.

*  *  *

Initially Gail located many DNA matches to our maternal first cousins who appeared to originate in Finland, specifically the city of Tornio in Lapland.  By a process of elimination, she determined the matches were occurring within the descendants of our great grandparents, Francis Robert Godfrey (FRG) and Elizabeth Ann Rabone (EAR).      Further investigation revealed none of the matches were with descendants of the siblings of either FRG or EAR.    That led Gail to conclude either FRG or EAR shared only one parent with their siblings, most likely a mother.   More investigation into the ancestry of these DNA matches in New Zealand revealed a man living in Renwick at the same time as John and Phillis Godfrey, who was born in Tornio, Lapland, and whose descendants we share DNA with.  That man was Gustaf Bary, born in 1833 the illegitimate son of Magdalena Menlos, of Tornio in Lapland, and at one point he worked for John Godfrey’s brother Henry!

Even though a strong potential candidate had been identified there was still a lot of work to do to confirm what we believe to be true was a reality. We began by identifying how many descendants of Gustaf’s children matched members of our Godfrey family.   At last count there were 24 known descendants of FRG with DNA matches to all or some of the seven known descendants Gustaf Bary.  There are 11 Great Grandchildren of FRG who all match one of Gustaf Bary’s great grandsons.  We have more, and closer DNA matches with the descendants of Gustaf Bary than we do with the Great Granddaughters of Charles and Alfred Godfrey, siblings of our FRG.

Our Family Tree?

Once we had been through this process it seemed very important to then have our analysis reviewed by somebody with far more expertise in this field than we had.  We employed a Genetic Genealogist to look at our family tree and DNA and tell us what she saw.   She said, “You’re almost there”, and we just need to get some Y-DNA tests to prove the male line.  What?!  More DNA tests?!   Yes, more DNA tests, and specifically DNA tests which will track the male Y gene back through each previous generation of sons and fathers.  As many of you know it is only the Y gene which is passed from Father to son.  Girls get two X’s, one each from Mum and Dad, and boys a Y from Dad and an X from Mum.   The Y passes down almost unchanged for generations from Father to Son and so on.   Theoretically if we test a Great Grandson of FRG we have a better than good chance of connecting with men descended from this same male line which will conclusively confirm the male line is Bary rather than Godfrey.  Right now we are looking for more candidates to Y-DNA test.  We have a Godfrey male descended from FRG who has indicated his willingness to test.  If we could just find a Bary male who wants to be a part of our research we'd be overjoyed!

The shared DNA is a clear indicator of our mutual genetic makeup.

Who is this man whose DNA we have?  Gustaf Bary was born in Finland and immigrated to New Zealand in 1855.   He settled in Renwicktown where for a short time he worked as a Miller for Henry Godfrey.  Two years after he conceived a child with Phillis Godfrey he married in 1863 to Sarah Blaymires and together they had 12 children.   Gustaf Bary had a store on Uxbridge Street in Renwicktown, which is the same street were John Godfrey’s Sheepskin Tavern originally stood.  By all accounts Gustaf was a hard working and dedicated family man.   

Gustaf Bary

 This photo of Gustaf Bary from the
Blaymires Family Website

There are very few clues left behind, there are no journals to tell us what happened, and no letters explaining the truth.   What we do know is John Godfrey raised three sons with his name and there is no historical evidence to suggest he treated any of them differently from the others.  Beyond that we are unable to speculate on what occurred, and how Phillis came to be pregnant to a man who was not her husband.  We will only ever know part of the secret.  Thanks to DNA testing and the tenacious efforts of Gail Cooper-Douglas, the what, where, when and who have been figured out, the ‘how’ is probably not our business.

We recognise for many of the family of Francis Robert Godfrey who have always believed we descend from John Godfrey, the information here may be upsetting.   In a sense we have just been told we are adopted, that our father is not who we have always believed him to be.  Despite the new knowledge about our genetics, our family and our history remains unchanged and we can be justifiably proud of the Godfrey legacy.   Honesty, justice and the truth were John Godfrey's drivers, it was these strongly held values that set him on a course of influence in the early political history of New Zealand. It is appropriate that we and future generations of our family know where we came from both biologically and historically.  

~\\*!*//~

 

My grateful thanks to Jocelyn Delaney, Pamela Oughton, Pamela Gordon, Donna Rider, Anne McMichael, Olive Reed and Diane Kinzett for their thoughts, encouragement, and insights in our pursuit of the answers to this mystery.  Very special thanks to Gail Cooper-Douglas, without her tenacity and courageous efforts we would not ever know about this big fat secret.

Elizabeth's Bed

Elizabeth Ann Godfrey nee Rabone 1916

Frank was sick and Elizabeth was sick of Frank.

Elizabeth rolled her sleeves and with a clenched fist punched the bread dough a little too fiercely, the soft warm ball collapsed under her hand. She dumped it out onto the floured bench, her plumpness covered by a floral apron and secured within the stout fabric of her dress jiggled with the exertion of kneading, and the lovely yeasty bread smell filled the kitchen.

Tucking stray strands of greying hair behind her ear she sighed and emptied a half shovel of coal into the fire. The coffee pot gurgled on the coal range. In an hour the smell of fresh bread would welcome the big kids home from school, the babies would be awake, this broken little house would rattle with the activities of her family, and Frank would snarl from his bedroom ‘Shuddup, Damn you!’.

Filling her cup with coffee Elizabeth took her apron off; with a groan she eased into the wooden chair beside the stove and gave the fire a nudge with the poker. She savoured this little slice of time each day, a small space to sit and catch her breath and to think about what next, what was the next thing she needed to do, the next most important thing in her giant list of important things. Would there be money for more coal next week, and is there room in the seams of Olive’s dress to let it out just enough to last another couple of months, I s’ppose I’ll have to get the Doctor to Frank, he seems to be no better, the boys all need haircuts, I wonder where I put the scissors. Her thoughts interrupted by Frank’s moaning and complaining from the next room and the voice of her mother was in her ears.

“You’ve made your bed my girl, and you must lie in it”. Elizabeth’s mouth curled into a sneer as she repeated the words “you’ve made your bed, you’ve made your bed”.

In the early years she’d taken her concerns to her mother and was advised to “Be more tolerant”, “Be a better wife”, “Give him a chance”, “Don’t be so harsh with him”, “Don’t be a Harpy”. “You need to give him the opportunity to learn to be a good husband Elizabeth, life was never meant to be easy dear.”

“Yes” she said in frustration rising from her chair “I have made my bed and so help me I am lying in it!”

The kitchen door was flung open by a gaggle of hungry, freckle faced siblings who’d raced each other home from school. All laughing and shouting about who’d touched the gate post first, except for the littlest one who cried because he was always last. “Shush you kids! You’ll upset your Dad” warned Elizabeth, slicing warm bread for them, smeared with the last of the jam made from blackberries they’d gathered last summer.

Frank had been ill in bed for a week, too ill to work, too ill to even get up. “Olive, run to the Doctor will you? Tell him your Dads sick and see if he will come tomorrow please”.

The kitchen door slammed and Olive was gone into the chill of the late afternoon.

In a short while she was back, her face flushed with exertion and the chilly air, she puffed “Doc says he’ll be here tomorrow just after lunch”

Later when the house was quiet and her children were fed and tucked into their beds, and Frank’s snores and moans grumbled from the front of the house, Elizabeth poked at the fire as she sat in her chair by the stove, the wind howled outside and rattled the rusted tin of the roof and the draught teased the ashes of the fire.

By the time she’d darned five socks her head felt heavy, and her eyelids drooped. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts go where they would. Frank’s smiling face a lifetime ago on the day they married in the Holy Trinity Church and the perspiration on her darling father’s nose as he, trussed up in his best suit walked her up the aisle. That first awful night Frank came home drunk and she’d watched in horror as he’d pissed on the curtains. The countless times he’d staggered home so much the worse for drink and collapsed in a stupor in the garden, from where she would rescue him, often covered in dew and brambles and sometimes rain, grazed and bruised and she’d nurse him back to health over the following days. The time early in their marriage when she’d objected to his drinking in the middle of the afternoon and he’d held her by her throat in the corner of the kitchen, her feet barely touching the floor, and he’d hissed his spittle across her face.

“It’s not your job to tell me what to do!”

The only time he had been physically violent with her in the whole of their marriage, she was shocked and afraid for herself, but terrified he may turn his anger toward the children. Elizabeth frowned at the memory Frank’s family colluding to teach him a lesson by bankrupting him.

 “Please don’t do this” she’d begged

“He needs a decent lesson Elizabeth!” her brother-in-law responded. “We’re happy to help with necessities for the children but giving him money has come to an end. We’ll no longer support his habits, he’s a drunkard and he’s bought nothing but shame to this family".

Even her own Mother wouldn’t persuade them to stop, and sent a sobbing Elizabeth home with her two small children and a curt retort about her responsibility as a wife ringing in her ears.

The drinking continued in spite of the bankruptcy, and Frank was in and mostly out of work for the next decade. During these years Elizabeth was embarrassed but accepted the support of his family, who with large families of their own still seemed to have enough to share with Elizabeth and her children.

Elizabeth learned there would be no sympathy or moral support from her mother, or from her sister who had married a solid little man, not handsome but a God fearing teetotaller who provided well and relished his position as head of his large family. Elizabeth had tried to hide her envy at her sister’s good fortune, and that was made harder by her sister’s smugness which had often left Elizabeth feeling more than a little sour.

After the fifth baby Elizabeth had applied to the court for a prohibition order against Frank. It worked for a close to a year. He was sober, and stayed home, and the children sat on his knee and they laughed like they used to. He’d found regular work as a Carter and there was food on the table and the family were happy. She’d really felt they’d turned a corner in those lovely months, her kind, handsome, even tempered Frank was back, and sometimes when the children were asleep he took her in his arms and they’d danced a slow dance in front of the fire, and she was remind of how once she had truly loved him.

Elizabeth dressed for bed and taking her long hair out of its tidy bun began to brush. Her hair was turning grey and she was no longer young, though the tough years and the extra pounds had thus far not been too unkind.

The eyes of Elizabeth in the cracked mirror met hers. “Where’s the comfort in this life Elizabeth?” Averting her eyes she began to braid her hair and Elizabeth from the mirror continued. “You are a good woman Elizabeth Godfrey and you deserve to have a good life, and a sober husband.” Tears welled up in her eyes and Elizabeth overwhelmed by frustration momentarily gave in to the hopelessness of it all. “Pull yourself together” she said “He’s not a bad man, he may not be a good provider but at least he doesn’t beat me”.

The sleeping baby stirred in his crib and she gently lifted him and taking him into her bed she suckled him back to sleep. I just have to learn to be better at compromise she told herself as she snuggled deeper under the blankets and sleep blew its warm breath through her mind.

During the night the youngest of her children had found their way into the warmth of the big saggy bed. Though Elizabeth would have preferred to sleep alone, waking amid the tangle of her sleeping children was easier than waking next to an unpredictable, often grumpy, usually drunk, Frank. The morning began as had so many other winter mornings; condensation had turned to ice on the inside of the windows, and there was life to breath into the sleeping fire and porridge to make.

“C’mon you kids, time to get up” she prodded the children out of their beds and into clothes warmed in front of the fire. In an hour they were fed and dressed and off into the frosty morning to school. Elizabeth was left with the little ones and another day with cranky Frank complaining from his sick bed, groaning and demanding what little time she had and was reluctant to devote to him.

She took him hot soup for his lunch on a small tray. “Doctor will be here soon.”

She adjusted the curtains along the bank of windows in the small sun-room where Frank had taken to sleeping of late. Tiny beads of condensation glittered at the edges of the windows in the bright sunlight as it stretched into the corners of the long narrow room. Nudging his work boots and trousers under the bed with her foot she picked up the coverlet which had slipped to the floor. “Would you like more tea?”

“N’thanks” he grunted. Tucked into a day bed under a floral quilt, and blinking into the sunlight like a little hairy mole he appeared childlike and quite unwell, and reminded of last night’s resolve to compromise she felt a pang of compassion for him.

“Would you like anything?”

“No, I’m alright.”

She opened the door to the Doctor’s firm knock. “Elizabeth, lovely to see you.”

“It’s chilly out there Doctor Harrison, thank you for coming”

“How is our patient doing today?”

“About the same, he’s through here” Elizabeth motioned to the small sliding door off the living room.

When he’d done with Frank, Doctor Harrison washed his hands at the kitchen sink and dried them on the towel Elizabeth handed to him. “Elizabeth my dear, how are you?” he asked quietly. She hardly needed to respond to his question. Harry Harrison had birthed her and all of her children and he knew the inside of her life almost as well as she did.

Taking her work worn hands in his he looked at her earnestly “Elizabeth” he said, “I urge you to no longer cohabit with your husband.” And a long pause before he said quietly “Frank’s illness is a venereal disease”. Elizabeth’s breath caught in her chest. They stood in silence before the Doctor gently patted her shoulder and quietly let himself out of the kitchen door.

“No longer cohabit. No longer cohabit? I can choose that?”

She picked the weevils out of the last of the flour, added yeast and warm water and turned the mixture in the bowl until the dough formed and covered it with a cloth before placing it on the rack above the stove to rise. She wiped her floury hands on her apron and sat staring into the fire.She buried her face in her hands as her life turned over in her mind like a giant blue iceberg rolling slowly in the ocean, a massive unfathomable force, churning deep green water from the bottom of the sea and causing wave after wave of dirty debris to rise in great gurgling mounds. Gradually the turmoil eased and there was calmness, clarity, relief.

She heard the sun room door slide open and Frank stood in the kitchen doorway. She could smell him unwashed for a week, the dirty stench of his wrecked life hung around him like smoke over a sod fire. Without looking at him she poked at the hot coals, and her heart beat faster she challenged him. “Doctor told me what you’ve got”

“And what of it woman!” he barked.

“So it’s true then, there’s been another woman and you’ve gotten a disease?”

There was a long silence before he grudgingly conceded, and nodded a silent yes in response.

Her thoughts were as clear as winter sunshine and she knew exactly the measure of her responsibility. Her fear of upsetting him had slipped away and been replaced by a bright warm courage, and buoyed by the doctor’s advice, the certain knowledge that she could indeed remake her bed. She looked at him, pathetic and unshaven in his torn night shirt, his hair sticking up where his head had spent too many hours on a pillow. His authority and her commitment gushed out of the hole he’d torn in their marriage. The hole she’d been carefully stitching together for years with love and compromise, healthy children, fresh bread and handmade clothes and a fire in the hearth. She stood and looked him full in the face and from a place of clear and perfect peace she said quietly. “You’re nothing but a rotten prick.”

He blinked at her in shock. Stabbing the air in his direction with her stout finger she continued.“I am done with you Frank Godfrey, and make no mistake this is your damn bed to lie in!”

She turned her back on him, her skirts and apron in a rustling twirl stirred the ashes on the hearth into an airy flight that danced away under the dresser. Now there were things to do, bread to make, babies to nurse, and a life to live by her own rules.

Frankie and Bill 1937

A Love Story

She felt his hand hot on her waist through the fabric of her skirt.

She stood amid the joyous gaggle of her laughing sisters and her friends, with their arms all around each other at the end of the Saturday night dance. The photographer said “Smiiiile” and the flash bulb popped, then all the girls laughed and squealed and blinked until bright white light was gone from their eyes.

Then his hand was gone, and she could swear it burned a mark on her skin for hours and hours.

Bill was the new chap at the Post Office and two weeks ago she wouldn’t have given you tuppence for even the thought of him. Back then she’d thought him surly, but tonight, they’d danced twice, first a Foxtrot and then a Quickstep and she liked his rhythm, and he was handsome and warm.

“Frankie, can I walk you home?” He asked, and she watched the blush spread from the collar of his crisp white shirt, up past his brilliant blue eyes to the strawberry blond of his hair. She couldn’t stop the smile from her face as she took his arm and they walked out into the still summer evening, while the crickets chirruped in the long summer grass, under an indigo sky with the brightest stars. Her every step was a song, and the Jasmine twined its heady perfume through their senses as they blushed and smiled into the darkness.

Goodbye Darling Edmund

          The wind took the rose petals from her fingers and whipped them away out of her sight.  In her mind, she saw them land on the foam crested waves, “Goodbye darling Edmund” she whispered, and the wind took her words as swiftly as it had taken the roses and tossed them on to the sea.

          This was the place they had laid her little brother to rest in March as they had rounded North Cape, his tiny lifeless body cold and still, had been slipped into the glittering ocean in the late afternoon, her parents clutching each other at the ship’s rail, joined in grief.

          Eliza had been planning this goodbye since her mother’s letter had arrived in April, telling her the new baby had come and they’d named her Mary.  She said Edmund had died of the croup on the voyage home, and they had let him go at the place where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.

          Eliza was 14 and no stranger to grief, having spent most of her early life in the Goldfields of Victoria as her father hunted an elusive golden fortune, and where more than one of her siblings were born and buried, but the death of her beloved Edmund caught her in the heart much harder than the others.

The sea, the deep blue sea hath one,
he lays where peals lay deep,
he was the love of all,
yet none over his grave may weep.

Edmund Charles Tye
1856-1865

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE. New Zealander, Volume XXII, Issue 2387, 25 March 1865