I am always glad to hear from distant cousins. Here are my 16 great-great-grandparents, their dates and places of birth.
- Paternal grandfather’s line:
- John Cook, Jr. (abt 1850–?, Lanarkshire, Scotland?)
- Elizabeth Lightbody (1841–1926, Lanarkshire, Scotland)
- John Miller Cameron (1849–aft. 1901, Lanarkshire, Scotland)
- Agnes McKinlay (abt 1850–1932, Dunbartonshire, Scotland)
- Paternal grandmother’s line:
- Galen Porter Cushing (1844–1910, Abington, Plymouth, Massachusetts)
- Ellen Eugenia Orcutt (1843–1908, Williamstown, Berkshire, Massachusetts)
- James Austin Damon (1855–1920, Hanover, Plymouth, Massachusetts)
- Mary Kingman Chessman (1856–1937, Weymouth, Norfolk, Massachusetts)
- Maternal grandfather’s line:
- William Frederick Hahn (1860–1936, Hazel Green, Grant, Wisconsin)
- Agnes Mary Zifka (1861–1955, Prussia)
- John J. Cero (1865–1945, Poland)
- Anastasia Novinska (1868–1937, Poland)
- Maternal grandmother’s line:
- John Hudek (1857–1924, Bohemia)
- Alice Kolar (1858–1955, Wisconsin)
- James E. Muldowney (1855–1938, Liverpool, Queens, Nova Scotia)
- Anna Maria Casper (1873–1931, Highland, Iowa, Wisconsin)
The observant reader will note that the “Weir” surname does not appear here. My great-grandfather, James Lightbody, was born in 1872, in Carluke, Lanarkshire, Scotland, to a single mother, Elizabeth Lightbody. A Sheriff Court declaration gave “James Cook, junior” as the father. Y-chromosome DNA tests confirm my paternal line is Cook, although I have not yet been able to identify the exact James Cook who is my great-great grandfather. Elizabeth later married James Weir, who adopted James.
If you want to check for a DNA match, I’m M001273 on GEDmatch.