McKinstry Family Genealogy

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Comment by Dora Smith on February 15, 2011 at 1:39pm

I

 have gotten a McKinstry Y DNA project going at Family Tree DNA. I so far have two descendants of William McKinstry and Mary Morse of Sturbridge, Massachusetts, via two different sons, and a descendant of the Bucks County Pennsylvania McKinstry family. 

 

Both of those families may trace to Carrickfergus, Ireland, and both like to claim connections to Roger McKinstry who allegedly left Edinburgh late in the 17th century to flee religious persecution.   Thus, these two families could be more closely related to each other than to McKinstry families in general. 

 

Particularly to test the many claims of relationships with Rev. John McKinstry, the son of Roger, this project really needs one or two participants who are male line descendants of Rev. John McKinstry of New England.  

 

Another Bucks County McKinstry, descendants of Captain John, and other McKinstry's would be very useful as well.   Some McKinster's are really McKinstry's, and they can join as well.   There is also a small Kingstree family who are really McKinstry's.  

 

Chattauqua County New York McKinstry's are descendants of Rev. John.  Columbia County, New York McKinstry's are descendants of Captain John.  

 

One can find the project by going to http://www.familytreedna.com,  (or google Family Tree DNA), search for and find the McKinstry surname project, and send a request to join it.   I am screening to make sure that project members are male line McKinstry's and do intend to do the Y DNA testing.   You get $20 off the cost of a Y DNA test for joining a project.  

 

One other thing; Family Tree DNA is doing a sort of promotion.  Not a trick.  For real.  When they get 5000 people on Facebook who "like" them, they will send out a coupon to each person who liked them, good for a certain amount off on a brand new DNA test kit at Family Tree DNA.   Two members of the project have so far qualified ourselves for coupons that we won't be using.    Family Tree DNA so far has 4,907 people on Facebook who clicked the "like them" button.

 

You go to Facebook, log in if it doesn't just take you to your own page, search for Family Tree DNA, select the one that has over 4900 likes and not the one that has 80 or so, then, next to the Family Tree DNA name at the top is a teeny tiny thumbs up symbol with tiny words something like "like this".   You click on it and the symbol disappears and the count on the left of people who like them goes up.

 

I know that many McKinstry's, and McKinstry inlaws like me, are constitutionally antagonistic to such a thing, but, hey, it's a discount.   (Family Tree DNA customer service had to walk me through how to do it.)

 

If you don't qualify to test, go "like" Family Tree DNA anyway, and you'll get a coupon that will help someone else test.   Or if you prefer you can also do your own non-McKinstry DNA testing.  

 

Thanks!

 

Yours,

Comment by Dora Smith on January 30, 2011 at 5:33pm

I got the results back on my brother in law's father's Y DNA, 37 markers.   It is I2b1a, and strongly appears to be the Scottish subclade.  I2b1a, based on SNP M284, is indigenous to Great Britain and dates atleast to 2000 BC.   This means that its I2b1 ancestors most likely walked into Britain following herds of large game, while it was still possible to walk into Britain, before 8000 BC.   

 

The Y DNA does not match the R1b1b2 haplotype of the descendant of John McKinstry and Charity Gard of Ohio.  That is not a surprise since it very strongly  looks like there is a nonpaternity event in that line.  If Meghan knows any male line descendants of her ancestor Hugh, she might want to get him tested.  

 

I set up a McKinstry DNA project at Family Tree DNA.   One can get small discounts through a project.  Also Family Tree DNA is publicizing the notion that when it gets to 5000 Facebook or Twitter (not sure which) friends, from under 4,000 at present, it will give out coupons for new test kits.   And something about liking next Tuesday.   By Tuesday I can certainly find out which social networking site they're talking about.   

Comment by Dora Smith on January 30, 2011 at 5:28pm

I just got told by Dr. Durie, who co-administers the Scottish genealogy project, that one of his graduate students, Kirsty Wilkerson, runs this web site.   It says it's run by Meghan, but if Kirsty is around, I''m looking for any information on any McKinstry's of Midlothian county, Scotland, who actually ever existed.  Dr. Durie told me that certainly a whole bunch of McKinstry variants are found in Midlothian in the 1600's, and when pressed for details, he told me that a former student of his, seemingly NOT Kirsty, unearthed a marraige record in Ireland for Roger McKinstry of Midlothian, in Armagh, Ireland, in 1669.  I think this is the same person who fathered Rev. JOhn McKinstry in "Brode", Antrim, in 1677, and certainly it would have been a close relative.   I want to see this marriage record and any other factual details this student has.

Comment by Dora Smith on January 11, 2011 at 7:35am

I just started researching the McKinstry lines myself.  I had some work on the New England lines but not those of Pennsylvania or the midwest.   I'm collecting materials and beginning a database, so I could end up with a better idea.  Meanwhile there are also McKinstry forums and a list at Rootsweb and at Genforum.  

 

When were Benjamin Rolston McKinstry and Alexander McKinstry born?   I take it you don't find any of them in the census before 1870?   McKinstry is not a common name, though Alexander was popular with them, so I'd look for Alexander the right age.   If he was in Pennsylvania, the odds are good he began there, though there is also New Jersey, New York and New England.   I think the New England McKinstry 's had outgrownthe name Alexander by the mid 19th century, but not sure about that one.   

 

I'm looking for male line McKinstry's for Y DNA testing.  That is ultimately the best way to connect a family group that has lost its roots.  Paper trail suggests they came from two adjacent parishes of Galloway, Scotland, but Willis insists they came from Edinburgh or the Scottish midlands, and if so there'd be two McKinstry family groups.  People who did not own property left no trail until recently.   Also, even if every McKinstry shares one haplotype, since the family split between 1600 and 1750 it is going to have variations, so it would be possible to tell people which branch of the tree they belong to.   

 

Meghan's working on a line that contains mystery about someone's father.   The mother seems to have been a McKinstry, unless it was her husband's info that is on her death record.   Papa was too, but the documents are confused on his identity.  Now, Mama was of a midwestern McKinstry family if she was a McKinstry, and if her husband was a McKinstry it was more than likely a cousin,  but the name, Theadore, spelled that way, was used by the Bucks County PA family, and they were only in Ohio, to where all Pennsylvanians went eventually.

 

Y DNA testing woulld straighten that out in a hurry, especially since a descendant of this confused family has been Y DNA tested.   If you know a Bucks County male line McKinstry, this would help.   We'd also need another of the JOhn McKinstry and Charity Gard group, and Meghan is descended from JOhn's brother.   Maybe she knows a candidate?

 

 

Comment by Cindy L. Carroll on January 10, 2011 at 9:43pm

Hello, Just found your site right at the time I hit the search"brick wall"...course that's how research works I guess...just when you think you can't go any further, a new lead pops up. Anyway, I think I might be descendent of the Bucks Co. PA Mckinstry line but I'm not sure. My Gr-Grandfather was Benjamin Rolston Mckinstry, son of Alexander and Harriet Stivason? Mckinstry that were in Apollo, Armstrong County, PA in 1880 Census and in Cecil Township, Washington County, PA in 1900 Census and then my Connection moved to Hardin County, Texas between 1906 and 1910. I can't seem to find the lineage before Alexander and Harriet Stivason Mckinstry. Do you have any ideas? Thanks, Cindy

Comment by Dora Smith on January 10, 2011 at 10:10am

The Bucks Co Pennsylvania McKinstry family used the name Theodore, often as a middle name, which could make it hard to spot.   In Pennsylvania Scotch Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch families mixed heavily, and Pennsylvania Dutch families rather inconsistently used the middle name as a call name, which created massive confusion in mixed families.  To this day I've no idea if Mary Magdalena Pluck's name was Mary or Magdalen, and neither has anyone else.   She was my 3x great grandmother.   

 

I don't know if this family went to Kentucky or Ohio, but they'd be a strange Pennsylvania family if they didn't.   

 

There was a Theodore Nathan McKinstry, better known as Nathan, b 1818, who had a completely different family, and also a Theadore McKinstry of Wayne, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, b 1818, who also had a completely different family, as nearly as I can tell.  Tehre was a Catherine McKinstry, older than he, living in his household, and a much olde rAlex McKinstry, meaning this was probably the Bucks Co family (but not necessarily).   There were three children, none of them Masheral.   

Comment by Dora Smith on January 10, 2011 at 9:26am

Meghan, your line is actually unusually traceable for a Scotch-Irish family; most can't be traced at all.   If you know of any male line members of your family you might want to get him Y DNA tested, because the SMGF haplotype is incomplete and missing a half dozen very fundamental markers.   Also, that haplotype is for a descendant of Mareschal, and there is serious uncertainty that Mareschal was even a male line McKinstry.   If you're descended from another son of the founder, it makes real good sense for some relative who is a male line McKinstry to be Y DNA tested. 

 

Keep in mind, too, that if this SMGF haplotype should happen to agree with mine, since we don't know who Theodore McKinstry was, he could as easily be a New England McKinstry who went west as someone of your family group, and one wants to find evidence that the4 McKinstry families are linked.   The paper trail suggests they all come from two adjacent parishes in Galloway.   

 

Dora

Comment by Dora Smith on January 10, 2011 at 8:18am

Meghan, one other thing.  Mahershal was head of a major corporation or something - quite prominent, right?  I am wondering how the name of his father could be such a mystery?   Aren't there any obituaries?    If you've not looked for them, I could do that.   

 

I did see something that mentions only that he and his mother were very close and she lived with him or something of the sort.  Which raises the possibility neither of them much cared for his father.   But how easy could it have been to write him out of history, unless of course, his father WAS his uncle.   

Comment by Dora Smith on January 10, 2011 at 8:15am

Thanks, Meghan!   

 

First I have two questions; do you have any idea where in Scotland William was from or where in Ireland he went?   He wouldn't by any chance have gone to that point of land 23 miles from Galloway where Carrickfergus and possible Brodie are, would he?   

 

I am plowing through the John McKinstry/ Charity Gard tree more systematically than I did previously, and some records seem to have come available online at familysearch.org that weren't there even last week.   It sounds like you may have found them and be as puzzled as I am, but maybe not.

 

I have a transcription of the actual death record of Catherine, the mother of Mahershal McKinstry.   It states that she was the widow of Joseph McKinstry, and the daughter of JOhn McKinstry and Charity Gard.

 

Tehre is also a transcription of the death record of Mahershal McKinstry.   It gives parents as unavailable.

 

But there is also two transcriptions of his marriage to Frances P Stephens in West Virginia, from West Virginia Marriages, 1853 - 1970.   Says the marriage took pladce in Ohio, West Virginia, US, and since Ohio is where Mahershal lived that is strange in itself.   Maybe the bride was from there.  It is same Mahershal H; he was born 1840 in Kentucky.  The second transcription of this, which is from a different direct source not available online (none of it is available to me online), states that Mahershal's parents were Theadore Mc Kinstry, and Catharine.   This has to have come from Mahershal himself, and clearly it has his mother right.   

 

I've found unsourced statements that Joseph was the son of John McKinstry and Charity Gard; none of these give any parents for Catherine.

 

It is always possible that the death record for Catherine has confused information and some or all of it applies to her husband.   She was the widow of Joseph McKinstry, it says, and following is a pair of parents, but is there any chance they got it wrong whose parents.  I've seen far stranger things doing surveys with people on a routine basis.   Also grief does funny things to peoples' minds.  YOu should have seen my brother and sister and me sitting in that funeral home when they made out her death certificate, strictly from information we provided, to be supplemented with the coroner's diagnosis,  trying to recall where our mother was born.  I'm the family genealogist, and my mother was born and grew up 18 miles from where we lived, and we were very close to our grandparents.   My grandmother died when I was in college.   

 

Could there be a Joseph or a Theadore in the family tree that we don't yet know of; I get the idea tehre are more children of both William and JOhn than are known.  I didn't know Hugh existed or anything was known of his progeny until now.   Cousin marriages were common.  On the other hand, Catherine could easily have been McKinstry only by marriage.   

 

HOw much have you and Margo McKinstry been in touch?  She's identified as an LDS researcher, with an LDS e-mail address.  She cites you frequently as a source on her Rootsweb family tree.   Conceivably she's responsible for the James McKinstry Y DNA at SMGF.org.     I've written to her several times and never heard back.   Not even the fact that I've submitted a McKinstry Y DNA sample seems to have sparked her interest.  I seem to have found what city she's in and am about to resort to the telephone.  But does she actually know more than you do?   

 

By the way, you mention William fighting in "the Scottish Revolution".   Unsubstantiated stories of what Scottish McKinstry's did seem to be everywhere.  Have you ever encountered a notion of them being outlawed as border reivers - "well before teh Jacobite Rebellion"?   The Jacobite Rebellion was not until I think the 18th century.   Past the time of the border reivers, as far as I know.   ;)    

 

Thanks!

 

Yours,

Dora

Comment by Meghan Dewhurst-Conroy on January 9, 2011 at 9:08pm

There is question about Mahershal's parentage, specifically his father.  All documenation indicates Charity was his mother and her parents were John and Charity Gard McKinstry.  His father is unknown - references to John, Joseph and Theodore.  I have not found all 12 children of William - wondering if there could have been a son who had a son Joseph who married Charity - just a whim thought.

The interesting thing would be to DNA test one of James McKinstry descendants (Margo's family) line and one of Hugh's descendants to see if there is any connection.  Unfortunately, my McKinstry lineage was through women....

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