McCubbin DNA Project and Genealogy News

Report on the DNA Project, by Ryan McCubbin of Gilmer, Texas

McCubbin History (Facts, Fictions and Fun Reading)

Family #68 DNA Group 3, along with photo of headstone of John McCubbin d1754.

Note on research from Gail Blagdon, written by Kathy McCubbing

Family #02, DNA Group 3, McCubbin Family from Ballantrae, Ayrshire who emigrated to Australia

McCubbin Family History Association News

Updating and renovating the website… James H McCubbin

McCubbin DNA Project and Genealogy News

Report on the DNA Project

by Ryan McCubbin of Gilmer, Texas

(Ryan McCubbin is the FTDNA administrator for the McCubbin DNA project.)

Howdy Cubbies!

I would like to update you all on the status of the McCubbin Family Y-DNA Project at FTDNA.

In an attempt to coarsely group all of our participants, we have expanded the number of our DNA groups to six, which includes two additional R1b groups. As far as progress goes, we are excited to now have three fully completed Big-Ys for DNA group 2. Two of these tests are from a US born father-son pair and the third test is from a Canadian McCubbin with recent roots in Scotland. The results of the extensive BigY-700 snp testing have identified the specific end-branches on the Y-DNA molecule that are unique to the McCubbin surname and through the BigY-700 test results we continue to refine the confirmed DNA connection between the US colonists and Scotland-based DNA group 2 participants. Additional testing will be completed early next year which should yield a TMRCA (time to most recent common ancestor) between the US colonist and Scottish/Canadian BigY-700 participants. We are also pursuing advanced testing with a DNA group 2 surname variant, MacAbee.

We are continuing our efforts to recruit volunteer testers from the Makoben, Mackeben, and Mackaben surname variants.

Regrettably, we are still dealing with the unfortunate consequences of GDPR which greatly hinders our ability to group current participants and further refine and scrutinize our matches for DNA groups 1,3,4,5, and 6. For those of you who have a test on file that haven’t adjusted your Group Administrator Access settings over the past 18 months, please login to the Manage My Projects page, click on the pencil icon and set the Group Administrator Access default off of “minimum” and set it to either “limited” or “advanced.” Doing so will be of great assistance to us. The more participants we have that allow us access to their Y-DNA match results, the better we can administer the project and the more information we can glean from the results of our tests.

Cordially,
Ryan McCubbin
Volunteer Administrator, McCubbin Family Y-DNA Project

McCubbin History (Facts, Fictions and Fun Reading)

Family #68 DNA Group 3, along with photo of headstone of John McCubbin d1754.

Note on research from Gail Blagdon, written by Kathy McCubbing

2019-1 Earlier this year Gail Blagdon got in touch to share some amazing research she had done on family #68, DNA Group 3 from Kirkoswald in Ayrshire. Through Gail’s painstaking research of Old Parish Registers she managed to find information going back a further 2 generations of this family to John McCubbin and his wife, Isabell Adam, who were buried together in Kirkoswald in 1754.

Gail provided an image of the headstone which shows Tailor’s shears and cloth bale with the inscription underneath:

“Here lyes the Corps of JOHN MCCUBBIN in Billverd d.17 Nov 1754 aged 77y and ISOBELL ADAM his spouse” and a further inscription on the reverse:

“No more shall sickness this clay house possess/No more shall exercise cause weariness/No more shall sin pull heart from things divine/ No more shall sin lodge near to heavenly grace/ No more shall sin eclipse Christ’s lovely face/Once past this [march may with boldness by…] eternel rest to which all the graves do resort.”

“Billverd” linked John to son, William (b.1704), although as with so many transcribed names the spelling was different on his birth record (Balvaird). Further sleuthing by Gail revealed William to have married Jannet McAslen in 1728 and the birth of their children, John (1732), Alexander Charles McCubbin (1734-1819, about whom we have extensive information), and Marion (b.1738).

Her research also uncovered the 9th child of Alexander Charles McCubbin and his wife Jean Smith, Alexander McCubbin b.1782 who married Sarah Spear(s)/Spiers in 1801.

We are extremely grateful to Gail, and other McCubbin researchers who undertake this difficult early research which often involves reading very old archives which are very difficult to transcribe, but when undertaken pushes back our knowledge of McCubbin families that bit further.

Family #02, DNA Group 3, McCubbin Family from Ballantrae, Ayrshire who emigrated to Australia

Lesley McCubbin in Australia.

Following the publication of the Cub Report last year (2018), Lesley McCubbin in Australia very kindly wrote to us about her husband’s family history, family #02 DNA Group 3, noting that we had little information about her husband’s ancestor John McCubbin b.1827 Farm of Yarding, Dailly, Ayr, Scotland and who died in 1874 in Palmerston, Northern Territory, Australia:

“My husband is a direct descendant from Alexander of Ballantrae [1794-1861] via the twin John [1827-1874]. On reading the latest CUB Report, I notice there is little known of John. These are some of the facts as we know them.

Alexander of Ballantrae and his wife Ann are buried at the Old Daily Cemetery along with their son William who died when he was only 21. He had been a man servant for the Factor in Girvan.

Twin son John:

Before leaving for Australia, their older brother, David [1819-1883] arranged employment for the twins, John and Alexander on one of the Cunard ships sailing for America. This was a return trip with John working in the bar and Alexander in the kitchens. With the money earnt they were able to migrate to Melbourne Australia.

Whilst Alexander worked in a bakery, John went to the goldfields where he apparently did rather well as he was able to “loan” Alexander 500 pounds to buy the Bakery in West Melbourne. This loan to “A McCubbin of Melbourne “ was listed on the Bankruptcy Papers for John years later when he was in New Zealand.

John left for the goldfields of Dunedin, NZ where his sisters Jane Findlay [1832-1879], and Wilhelmina McCubbin [1838-1881] lived. Here he married Annie Taylor [b.1838, Cranbrook, Kent, England]. They had two children:

Hubert John “Jack” [c.1865-1924]and David George [1868-1938]. Unfortunately Annie died giving birth to David George 28 Dec 1868 at the Oriental Hotel which John had only recently purchased. Unlike his first hotel, this was a timber structure and considered the largest and most luxurious in town. He completely refurbished and re- stocked this establishment. However his timing was not good and he was declared bankrupt when the gold rush wound down.

In the heyday of the Rush there were 92 Hotels in Dunedin and most of them suffered. John had remarried Mary Gillies [in 1870, she was born in Paisley, Scotland] and he left for Hokitika on the West Coast where his sister’s Sarah Potts [1833-1910] and Mary Milroy Taminelli [1829-1895], lived. Both their husbands were involved in the timber industry there. It is unclear if he took his second wife and children with him. He worked in the Robert Burns Hotel on Revell Street. The gold rush here was petering out. John moved on to what was to become the last Gold Rush in Australia in Palmerston (later Darwin) in the Northern Territory. Not a place to take women and children. He worked as a barman and died of a liver complaint and is buried in Darwin. After he died, his second wife took the children to Alexander’s Bakery in West Melbourne and they were raised there.

John “Jack” became a mining engineer and he and Dave went to Broken Hill. Dave opened a Bakery and refreshments shop. (a café in today’s speak) After marrying Annie Best Harris in South Australia [in 1905], John moved to Tullah in the mountainous Wilderness of Tasmania. They didn’t put a road through until 1967. Prior to that the only way in and out was via a ratchet railway. At Tullah they mined lead sulphide or silver lead. Annie Best had her first child Hubert “Hughie ” [1906-1995] at Queenstown at the bottom of the mountain. For her second child William Allan (my father in law [1911-1991]) she travelled to her parents’ home on the main land at Talbot. A small town in central Victoria. Her father was the bank manager. William was born in his residence above the bank. For her third child [John McCubbin, 1918-1918] Annie Best again travelled to the mainland but to her spinster sisters at Carisbrooke . They ran the Post office there and lived in the residence at the back. Unfortunately both Annie Best and the child John died following the birth. Hughie and William were raised by their spinster aunts, sleeping on the side veranda of the post office.

John “Jack” went to live with his brother David George who by now was running a bakery in Ararat. Jack carted bread for his brother and his children came to stay on their school holidays. Jack became unwell (possibly from lead poisoning from the mines). He travelled to Melbourne for treatment, staying in the Salvation Army Hostel. However he died the next day [1924 at the People’s Palace] and is buried in the Fawkner General Cemetery.

Hughie became the Post Master at Taree, NSW and William Allan a High School Principal being an Art and Science teacher.

Interesting how the same occupations keep recurring.

Hubert “Hughie ” McCubbin, 1906-1995

William Allan McCubbin, 1911-1991

Many thanks to Lesley for sharing this fascinating narrative with us which gives such a sense of how folk in those times in Australia lived and what little external support they could have, being out away from things, as this family seem to have been, and how precarious life was.

McCubbin Family History Association News

Updating and renovating the website…

James H McCubbin

We are updating and renovating the website..

If there are specific issues that you notice with the website, please send a note to jamie.mccubbin@gmail.com and I’ll try to get it fixed.

All the best for 2020!!

The MCFHA Committee

Chairperson of McCubbin Family History Association – Kathy McCubbing

Keeper of the “Master Genealogist” McCubbin database – Kathy McCubbing

Member – Guild of One Name Studies – Kathy forwards world queries to co-ordinators.

DNA Project Administrator – Ryan McCubbin

Coordinators: Ryan – USA; Kathy – rest of the world

MCFHA Sponsors – Lorna McCubbin & son, James H McCubbin

Facebook Moderators – James H. McCubbin and Kathy McCubbing

Click to whom you wish to email;

Kathy (kathy.mccubbing@hotmail.com)

James(jamie.mccubbin@gmail.com)

Ryan (rmccubbin@protonmail.com).

To the many people who have contributed to the content of the CUB report, we say Thank You!

We are especially grateful to those of you who provided samples for the DNA project. It is providing a great insight into our past.