Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2011 08:36:15 -0230 (NDT)
From: David Pike 
To: pike-dna-l@rootsweb.com
Subject: PIKEs of New Harbour, Newfoundland (possibly from Christchurch, Hampshire)



Hi everybody.

To begin this message with a bit of review, the foundation that we have 
built our DNA project upon is the male Y-chromosome.  This is because men 
whose paternal lineages descend from a common forefather will have 
substantially similar Y-chromosomes.  While this has the good fortune of 
preserving Y-DNA in unbroken male lineages, it has also meant that we 
normally can only consider DNA samples from men.

However, with the advent of genome-wide DNA tests such as FTDNA's Family 
Finder Test it is possible to detect blocks of DNA that any two people 
(either male or female) might share with each other on any of chromosomes 
#1 to #22.  Such blocks of shared DNA could potentially descend from any 
ancestor in a person's pedigree, which makes it somewhat challenging to 
determine just what the genealogical connection between two people might 
be when they are found to share DNA with each other.

I've mentioned the Family Finder test once or twice before, but in today's 
message I get to highlight a case in which determining the source of a 
Family Finder match was successfully overcome, and it turned out to 
involve PIKE ancestry of the two people whose DNA was tested.  The two 
people in this case are women named Catherine and Elva.  They each did the 
Family Finder test offered by FTDNA, and were thereafter informed that 
they share enough DNA with each other that they may be third cousins to 
each other, possibly even second cousins.  On closer inspection, they were 
found to share several sizeable blocks of DNA on chromosomes #3, #6 and 
#9.  They also both knew of PIKE / PYKE ancestry from Newfoundland, but 
neither of them had enough information to establish a connection with the 
other's family.

After some diligent searching through various records in both Newfoundland 
and Nova Scotia, we were able to confirm that Catherine's great 
grandfather Ernest Edward PYKE and Elva's grandfather Archibald John PYKE 
were brothers who were both born in St. John's, Newfoundland in the 1880s.

Ernest's and Archibald's baptisms took place at the Anglican Cathedral in 
St. John's, and from the baptismal records we know that their father John 
was a miner by trade.  John married three times and ultimately resided at 
Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he died in 1913.  Details of John's first 
marriage, in 1877, can be found in the records of the Congregational 
Church in St. John's, Newfoundland, which state that he was aged 25, a 
seaman, born at New Harbour in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and that his 
parents were named George & Hannah PIKE.  His bride was Mary Ann CLOW, and 
the witnesses were William PIKE, Matilda GOOD and Nora PIKE.

John's second marriage took place at the Anglican Cathedral in St. John's 
in 1886.  His bride was Sarah DICKS, who was reported in a newspaper 
account as being the youngest daughter of the late John DICKS of Harbour 
Buffet in Placentia Bay.  The marriage was witnessed by Archibald PIKE and 
Mary Ann DICKS.

John's third and final marriage took place in 1897, again at the Anglican 
Cathedral.  His bride on this occasion was a widow then named Mary Ann 
MAYO.

John and Mary Ann are buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Mary Ann's obituary 
from the Halifax Herald of Saturday 8 Sept 1934, page 2, is as follows, 
and conveniently names the cemetery in Halifax in which she was buried:

    MRS. MARY ANN PYKE, widow of John Pyke, died at her home, 40 West
    Street, on Thursday.  The deceased was in her 74th year.  She was a
    native of St. John's, Newfoundland, and had resided in Halifax for
    many years.  Surviving are one son, William J. Mayo, and two daughters,
    Mrs. Osborne and Mrs. Joyce, all of Halifax; also two step-daughters,
    Mrs. Holland, of Halifax, and Mrs. Tufts, Bedford.  The funeral will be
    held Monday at 2.30 p.m., with interment in St. John's Cemetery.

The cemetery in question has a website on which all of its burial records 
can be found:
http://stjohnscemetery.ca/burial_rec.html

From these online records we can see that Mary Ann is buried in Section P, 
Row 3, Lot 12, along with the following other PYKE family members:

    Arthur ...... 1898 06 20, age 13
    Elizabeth ... 1928 11 21, age 81
    Eugene ...... 1904 02 14, age 28
    Eugene ...... 1905 08 12, age 1
    Mary Ann .... 1934 09 06, age 74
    William F ... 1907 12 01, age 63
    William N ... 1904 11 02, age 33

From census and newspaper records we know that William F and Elizabeth 
were a couple and that William N was their son (who in turn was the father 
of Eugene who died in 1905).  I have not yet been able to confirm who 
Arthur and the other Eugene were, although I suspect that they too are 
sons of William F and Elizabeth.  Civil registration death records from 
Nova Scotia state that William F was born in Newfoundland, that he was a 
carpenter, and that his religion was Methodist.  His wife Elizabeth's 
death registration states that she was also born in Newfoundland, and that 
her father's surname was ARMSTRONG.

Armed with these details, we are able to find William and Elizabeth's 
marriage in the records of the Congregational Church in St. John's, 
Newfoundland. The marriage took place in 1872, and it is recorded that 
William was aged 25, a cooper, and that his parents were George & Hanna 
PIKE of New Harbour, Trinity Bay.

So with what I've written so far, we have established that Elva and 
Catherine's great grandfather John was a brother of this William.  And 
also that John and William's parents were George & Hannah PIKE of New 
Harbour, Trinity Bay.  This would make Catherine and Elva second cousins 
once removed.

To try to say a bit more about their PIKE ancestry, I'll start by 
mentioning a special collection of birth records that is housed at the 
Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, largely consisting of 
requests to belatedly register births that were not properly recorded as 
they should have been.  Among these is an affidavit made in 1936 by a 
resident of St. John's named Archibald PIKE who stated that he was born in 
1868 at Arnold's Cove in Placentia Bay to parents named George & Anna 
PIKE.  Recall that there was an Archibald PIKE who was witness to the 
marriage of John PIKE and Sarah DICKS in 1886.

My belief is that Archibald is another brother of John and William F, and 
that their parents George & Hannah initially resided at New Harbour but 
then moved to Arnold's Cove.  In favour of this theory is that a newspaper 
obituary appeared in The Evening Telegram of St. John's on 11 May 1895 as 
follows:

    This morning, 11th inst., after a short and painful illness,
    Mrs. Hannah Pike, wife of the late George Pike aged 75 years.
    Funeral on Monday next, from her son's residence, No. 41 McDougall St.;
    friends and acquaintances are respectfully invited to attend
    without further notice.

A city directory from 1894 lists both an Archibald PIKE as well as a 
Hannah PIKE (described as a widow of George PIKE) at 39 McDougald Street.

With knowledge of three sons of George & Hannah PIKE, one would hope that 
earlier details about the family would not be too hard to find.  However, 
several church records that covered Arnold's Cove and New Harbour have 
been destroyed by fire, creating large gaps in the records that we would 
like to consult.

The best that we can do for now is to look at the existing records from 
New Harbour, commencing in 1862.  They show a George PIKE and his wife 
Hannah (nee THORN) having a daughter in 1863.  Subsequent baptisms for 
children of George & Hannah (but with no maiden name stated for Hannah) 
took place in 1865, 1867, 1870, 1873, 1877, 1880 and 1882 and indicate 
that this family moved from New Harbour to the nearby community of Dildo 
in the mid 1870s.

This is where some potential for confusion exists, since I don't think 
that this couple named George & Hannah from New Harbour were the parents 
of the brothers John, William and Archibald, partly because William was 
born about 1845, John about 1852, and Archibald in 1868 (at Arnold's Cove, 
not at New Harbour).  The baptisms listed in the records from New Harbour 
(and which include sons named John Thorn PIKE and William PIKE in 1865 and 
1867) are evidently from a different couple that is also named George & 
Hannah PIKE.

Additional evidence in support of this can be found in the records from 
the Anglican Church at Trinity, on the opposite side of Trinity Bay from 
New Harbour, which show that a marriage took place on 30 October 1845 
between a George PIKE of New Harbour and Hannah FIFIELD of Trinity. 
There is also a baptismal record at Trinity for a Hannah FIFIELD, daughter 
of William & Mary FIFIELD, baptised on 22 November 1822.  This is 
consistent with the 1895 obituary for the widow Hannah PIKE who was stated 
to be 75 years old.  Another corroborating piece of evidence is that the 
civil registration record for Hannah's death in 1895 states that she was 
born at Trinity.

Regarding her husband George, what at first looks promising is that there 
is a burial in the records from New Harbour for a George PIKE of South 
Dildo who died in 1910 at age 88.  He would therefore have been born about 
1822, making him about the right age to be the husband of Hannah FIFIELD. 
But Hannah was a widow when she died in 1895, so this George who died in 
1910 cannot have been her husband.

The loss of the early records from New Harbour becomes very frustrating 
for us, as there would seem to have been two George PIKEs there, both 
likely born about the early 1820s.  The baptism of one of them can be 
found in the parish records from Trinity, which show that in 1823 a 
4-year-old son George was baptised to parents John & Dorothy PIKE.  John 
and Dorothy were resident at British Harbour at the time, but another 
baptism in 1824 shows them to have moved to New Harbour.

The records from Trinity do not have a marriage that would be for John and 
Dorothy, so just who they were remains unclear.  My suspicion, however, is 
that John is the son John who was baptised in 1798 to parents George & 
Mary PICK / PECK whose marriage at Trinity in 1794 states that George was 
originally from Christchurch in Hampshire, England.  That the PICK / PECK 
surname subsequently turned into PIKE is supported by the facts that when 
she married George in 1794, Mary was the widow of Samuel ANDERSON, and in 
1811 there is a burial record at Trinity for a 19-year-old Samuel ANDERSON 
whose parents are identified as being the late Samuel & Mary ANDERSON (now 
PIKE).

At this point in this email bulletin I want to pause to reiterate that the 
genealogical connection between Catherine and Elva followed from them 
iniitally being identified as cousins through the Family Finder DNA test. 
Although their pedigrees could potentially have overlapped with any of 
their ancestors, in this case it happened that it was their shared PIKE / 
PYKE ancestry that the test detected.

As it happens, the Family Finder test also reports that Elva and my father 
share a sizeable block of DNA on Chromosome #16, but we have not yet been 
able to find any ancestors in common who could account for it.  Given that 
we both have PIKE ancestry in Newfoundland, one would naturally wonder if 
our two PIKE lineages might descend from a common PIKE ancestor. 
However, I tend to suspect that this is not the case, as I'll now explain.

To get back to more traditional DNA testing of the male Y-chromosome, by 
total coincidence, a male PIKE from New Harbour joined our project a few 
months ago.  Scott (kit 207535) tested 37 markers and when his results 
recently came back from the lab it was clear that his PIKE lineage was not 
related to either of our project's Groups 2 and 17 (both of which include 
lineages from Newfoundland).

Scott does nevertheless have a close genetic match, having 36 out 37 
markers in common with kit number 40227 (who is currently an anonymous 
participant in our project).  Their DNA results now comprise a 
newly-formed "Group 20" for our project.

Regarding what is known of Scott's ancestry, his grandfather Norman PIKE 
was born in 1900 at South Dildo, Trinity Bay to parents Joseph PIKE and 
Susannah SULLY / SULLEY who married in 1883.  Joseph and Susannah's 
marriage record does not state who their parents were.  However, we do 
know from the 1921 census of Newfoundland that Joseph was born at New 
Harbour about 1856.  And a directory from 1894 tells us that Joseph's 
father was named George.

This does not yet absolutely prove that Scott's PIKE lineage from New 
Harbour converges with that of Catherine and Elva.  For that we would need 
to either find additional historical records to help fill in the void left 
by the church fires, or do a Y-chromosome test on a male PIKE in Elva and 
Catherine's branch of the family.  Nevertheless, all of the information so 
far available suggests that Catherine, Elva and Scott are of one family, 
that it is a distinct PIKE family from the others that we have so far 
encountered in Newfoundland, and that it may have earlier origins at 
Christchurch in Hampshire.

- David.