Jemima Dustan Family
Jemima Dustan
Born 27 Nov 1876
The author's Great Grandmother
DUSTAN Family Journeys Through Time
Welcome to my DUSTAN journey. My name is Michael Lock and I have taken on the responsibility to research and map out the Dustan lines (and variants later). The name, as it relates to me is that it is the surname of my mother's grandmother on her fathers side.
The Dustan journey started back around 2005, which grew from a fascination and desire to resolve a mystery, to trace my own mother's ancestry. After a few months attempting to discover her grandparents, who they were and where they came from, Starting with her grandmother, it was known that she was born in Scotland but nobody in the immediate family knew how she ended up in Bath, England in 1902, the date on the birth certificate of her first born, Myra. Her journey from Scotland to England was, and still is some 20 years later, a mystery. I began to collect Dustan records from the Scotland's People website but was struggling to make sense of it all, so in 2008 I joined the Guild of One Name Studies to see if they had any helpful information that could help me in my research. This was when I was introduced to the concept of a One Name Study, but found it overwhelming, so a few years past without much progress. I finally decided to bite the bullet and started in earnest to digest and understand all about it and registered the DUSTAN surname officially with the Guild in Jan 2015.
For the most part the effort has been to gather the data from across the globe and to create trees of the different lines. To date I have managed to gather the majority of data from the Scotland's People site (a very expensive exercise as they charge for every record!) but I believe I now have most, if not all of the available Dustan BMD and Census data for Scotland. I have also amassed a great deal of the England & Wales, USA and Canada data as well. But despite all of this research the mystery remains a mystery, at least up until 2018.
I have a multitude of circumstantial evidence that makes a link between Scotland and Bath, England compelling, but nothing conclusive, so the search continues.....
2018-2019 - Finally a Eureka! moment. My hypothesis around the previously stated circumstantial evidence has proven to be correct based on newly discovered DNA matches in late 2018, early 2019. I am now able to more clearly define my DUSTAN line and have renewed the impetuous to continue the journey.
2020-2025 - This period of time has been very busy and also very challenging in gathering as many references to the DUSTAN surname as can be found in available documentation. This is a very daunting thing to undertake but it is very rewarding. I have now managed to put together related trees, some 20+ to date, but I suspect this will reduce as I find relationships between them. Once I have them in a presentable form I will make them available publicly.
2026 - So the work progresses and I now am in a position to start making my research available to the public, but how best to do that? Looking at the various options, from custom built from scratch or maybe a WordPress site, both require a lot of work to achieve a functional site, but then I learnt about The 'Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding' by Darrin Lythgoe. One look and I was hooked and you can see the fruits of my labour here on this website!
Herman John Franklin is the father of Robert Franklin. Bobby was adopted when he was approximately six years old.
Enjoy!
Fred is the grandfather of Robert Franklin. His parents were Reuben E. Valley and Sarah Ann Trucker.
We make every effort to document our research. If you have something you would like to add, please contact us.
