Discovery of a cousin

In a blog post of 7 February 2012 [display], I referred rather rudely to certain individuals in our family tree as "ring-ins", which is an Aussie slang term for an offspring born "out of wedlock" (as the old-fashioned expression puts it). At the risk of offending descendants of such individuals, all I really wanted to do was to draw attention to the fact that, in the case of their male descendants, it's obvious that our Y-chromosome data could not possibly match.

In that blog post, I mentioned the case of a member of the family named Atwell Skivington [1850-1941]. Well, I've just been contacted by a 5th-cousin named Chris Lamble, who lives on the outskirts of London. In the following chart, the left-hand line leads down to my grandfather Ernest Skyvington, whereas the names on the right-hand side lead to the grandparents of Chris.

As you can see, Chris is the great-great-grandson of Atwell Skivington from Iwerne Courtney (Dorset). Chris confirms that Atwell was an illegitimate son of Elizabeth Skivington, and he indicates the identity of his father, named Isaac Atwell (who died at the age of 31).

Up until now, the oldest family photo that I had was a portrait of my great-grandfather William Skyvington (taken in about 1894).

Thanks to Chris, we now have this excellent portrait of Atwell Skivington (taken in about 1920), who belonged to the generation of my great-great-grandfather Frank Skivington [1845-1916].

Between my ancestor William and his father's cousin Atwell, I find that there's a certain physical resemblance. But maybe it's simply because of the mustaches.