In the first part of this project we looked for anyone on Ancestry who had a Sainsbury or Saintsbury in their tree and a DNA match to any of our Somerset Sainsbury cousins.

That approach led to many findings and many family trees (the subject of earlier posts on this blog) but it didn’t answer our question — Where did Richard Sainsbury come from prior to his 1745 marriage in Portbury, Somerset?

In the next phase of this project we’re looking for “triangulated segments” of DNA shared by two Somerset Sainsbury cousins and any other “unknown” match.

We’re doing this because the tree of that unknown match may lead back to an earlier Sainsbury (or related) family. In that case, the earlier family would very likely be that of our earliest Somerset Sainsbury ancestor:

For this part of the research, we’ll likely concentrate on Sainsbury descendants and triangulated matches in countries other than the US — unless any Sainsburys in a US tree can be traced back to England.

The reason for this is we’ve found a lot of connections to US users on Ancestry and MyHeritage, but those connections go back to Virginia (and other colonies) in the 18th century. From there, it’s very difficult to trace people back to England due to a lack of recorded information. For a sample of some of these matches, see US shared matches lead to Vest and Alexander.

We’ve already found a few triangulated matches on GEDmatch and MyHeritage, although nothing conclusive has appeared. One in particular is profiled here.

Triangulated match leads to the Vale of Pewsey

Two Somerset Sainsbury cousins share a segment of DNA with a father and daughter in England whose West Country ancestors have lived in Wiltshire’s Vale of Pewsey for generations.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found a Sainsbury (or related) ancestor in their tree. But several of the names and locations are suggestive of Urchfont-area origins, which aligns with what the first phase of this research project found for our own ancestors.

One of the intriguing lines in this tree is that of Thomas Springford (top-right section of this tree) who was born in the village of Woodborough in 1826, the son of William Springford and Elizabeth Moore.

Woodborough is also the village where, a hundred years earlier, Samuel and Elizabeth Moore lived with their children. That Elizabeth Moore was born Elizabeth Sainsbury in Urchfont in 1690 and moved to Woodborough with her husband.

(For more information on Elizabeth’s Sainsbury’s family, see DNA Match Profile: The Sainsbury family of Eastcott in the parish of Urchfont.)

So although it is a common name, the Moore line in this tree may lead to a shared common ancestor among these triangulated matches. The investigation continues . . . as does our search for triangulated matches.

The DNA Details

For genetic genealogists interested in the details of this match, here’s what we found:

RS-FE-DW. Half third cousins RS (Somerset Sainsbury cousin in Canada) and FE (Somerset Sainsbury cousin in England) and a father and daughter in England (W):

Ch	Start location	End location	Start RSID	End RSID	cM	SNPs
8	13677952	21424405	rs2128127	rs11777093	14.4	7,168

We need your help!

Are you a Somerset Sainsbury cousin or a Sainsbury descendant with a DNA test? Please upload your results to GEDmatch and MyHeritage — for free!

The Ireland Davis family blog provides an excellent, easy-to-follow set of instructions on how to download your results from sites like Ancestry and upload them to GEDmatch.

To upload to MyHeritage, you need to download your test from Ancestry:
https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Downloading-AncestryDNA-Raw-Data
and then upload it to MyHeritage (for free):
https://faq.myheritage.com/en/article/how-can-i-upload-a-dna-file-to-myheritage

If you need help with any of the steps, please use the Comments section or the Contact button at the top of this page to get in touch.

The more Somerset Sainsbury cousins we have on GEDmatch and MyHeritage, the more opportunities we’ll have to find the triangulated matches we’re looking for — the ones that can break through our brick wall.

Disclaimer: As with any research project, when new evidence comes to light, former theories may change. This blog post includes theories and conclusions developed from the best available evidence at the time this post was written. It may be corroborated or refuted by later research. This post must therefore be considered in the context of all information presented in earlier and later posts.

• England, Wiltshire, Urchfont
• England, Wiltshire, Vale of Pewsey
• England, Wiltshire, Woodborough