DNA

2 - Rhoda Birchell (c1877).

It was not until February 2023 that Rhoda Birchell entered the story of Willam Alexander Ripper and it is possible that William was unaware that she ever had a part to play in his story. The surname Birchell has many variant spellings and those used here are the first known documented record for each individual.

In the February of 2023, having had my DNA analysed for genealogical purposes, we found ourselves in communication with Joseph Brierly, with whom Ken shares a DNA match. This was not a name known by the Ripper family but Joe was, according to the DNA matching process, something like a 4th cousin to Ken.

Joe's DNA analysis shows that he has Goodwin DNA, Ripper DNA but no Birchell DNA. The documented famiy history says, however, that he is the 3 times great grandson of Richard Birchell and Sarah Elizabeth née Goodwin, through their daughter, Rhoda, but there is no recorded connection to the Ripper family.

An important factor is that no official record - that's no birth registration, no baptism and no entry on the 1881 and 1891 censuses - has been found of Rhoda until her marriage to Arthur Ball in 1898, when she gave her father's name as Richard Birchell. Richard had married Sarah Elizabeth Goodwin in March 1875 and from later records we learn that Rhoda was born in 1877.

What, then, were the circumstances such that Ripper DNA appears in Joe's lineage, at the expense of the Birchell DNA?

• The marriage of Richard Birchell to Sarah Goodwin would have been the point at which the DNA mix between the two families would have happened but this is not so as far as Joe's ancestry is concerned; this is when the Ripper DNA mixed with Goodwin DNA.
• The level of common DNA between Joe and Ken meant that a male Ripper from about 5 generations back was their common ancestor. This gives a date around mid-Victorian times.
• Census returns and baptismal ecords of children show that the homes of the Goodwin, Birchell and Ripper families were all within a few hundred yards of each other; this is in the area around what is now The Borough Underground Railway Station.
• Rhoda's birth date is not known but her death certificate from early 1913 states that she was 37 years old. This points to her being born in about 1877 and, therefore, probably conceived in 1876 when her mother, Sarah, was about 21 years old and, probably married to Richard Birchell.
• There were three male and potentially fertile Ripper family members around 1876 with the appropriate levels of DNA living in the area: William Alexander Ripper aged 21; his father William Ripper aged 49 but ailing (he died in October 1876 from bronchitis); Robert Ripper, a younger brother of William Alexander Ripper, aged 17. The likelihood of Rhoda's father being either the ailing William or the youngrt Robert is small when considering William Alexander Ripper's age and life style, as evidenced on his biography page.

The conclusion is, therefore, that in the first year after their respective marriages, William Alexander Ripper made Sarah Birchell pregnant resulting in Rhoda being born around 1877. Richard may have been aware that Rhoda was not his daughter and didn't validate her existence with any formal record of her. He was not, of course, in control of the entry made when Rhoda married but she clearly recognized Richard as her father.

A further point of interest is that Richard Birchell had a brother, Henry, whose grandson William Frederick Burchell married Mary Ann Whitfield in 1931. Mary was the granddaughter of Robert Ripper. Robert was, as stated above, William Alexander Ripper's younger brother. Is this just the result of the families living in the same district or was there a closer tie between the families? We'll never know.

Return to the page featuring William Alexander Ripper (1855-c1903)

 

3 - William Whitfield (1918-1956)

DNA matching revealed a family represented on the Ancestry.com database by somebody being reported as Ken's third cousin and about whom we, once again, knew nothing. Contacting the family revealed that they were descended from William Whitfield, the son of Ken's great aunt Mary Ann Whitfield, née Ripper.

William Whitfield (pictured here and closely resembling many members of the Ripper family) was the great nephew of William Alexander Ripper mentioned in discovery #2 above. Whereas William Alexander Ripper had, as a newly married man, impregnated the newly married wife of another man, his great nephew took the additional step of two wives at the same time. The following sequence of events takes place in South London in the Waterloo / Southwark / Elephant & Castle / Bermondsey / Camberwell area.

William Whitfield was born in 1916 and married when just 19 to Elizabeth Hurst, in the late summer of 1935. Their son, also named William, was born in the early spring of 1936 and it is possible that Elizabeth was already carrying the child when the marriage took place. Around this time they moved to Rephidim Street in Bermondsey which was where his Uncle William Ripper and his family lived. The 1939 register records:

1939 register - 31 Rephidim Street, Bermondsey, London
William Whitfield, 25 Jan 1916, married, hydraulic leather worker, warden with Bermondsey Boro. Council
Elizabeth Whitfield, 12 May 1915, married, unpaid domestic duties
.. 2 other household members are redacted; one is likely to be their son William, the other is also likely to be a young person but that person's identity has not been established

Whether the rigours of World War II had any impact upon their lives is not recorded but in 1946 William married Eleanor Cole in the Camberwell district. Elizabeth was still alive and according to the 1948 electoral roll she was living with William and his brother Frederick at 95 Mann Street, Walworth. William and Eleanor's only child, Gloria, was born approximately a year after the bigamous marriage but no father's name is shown on the birth registration index. William had another child in 1952, this time with Elizabeth.

It is from Gloria that Ken's matching DNA cousin is descended and who tells us that the family had known about the bigamous relationship. William died in 1956, Eleanor died in 1988 and Elizabeth died in 2004.

4 - Y-DNA Connection and Emigration to the USA

Royce Rippere is my 14th cousin once removed and he lives in California. We haven't met but have been in touch for over a quarter of a century. There's always been a doubt that proof of our connection is suspect because our common ancestor, William Beauripper was born so long ago, in the late 1400s in the west of Cornwall. William was a tin streamer and a farmer on the ancient Manor of Carminow which was part of the lands of the Arundell family. He lived at Chyvarloe and then in Breage. Documentary evidence for our connection becomes more and more sparse the further we venture back in time. A means to validate the records that have survived has not been available to the common researcher until recent times.

The advent of autosomal DNA analysis has enabled the construction of family trees over the last six generations or thereabouts, but that doesn't reach back in time to William Beauripper. The male gene (Y), however, is directly passed from father to son across all generations. Assuming the documentary records match people's actions, i.e. the parents of a child are as those stated in the documentation, then it is possible to create ancestral lines beyond the range of autosomal DNA. Y-DNA, as it is known, can bridge gaps in ancestral trees and that is what has happened in the following narrative.

Royce had had his Y-DNA analysed and the results matched him as having a kinsman with whom he shared a common male ancestor on the father to son line. He identified this family as also living in California and with the surname Ripper; this family didn't have the additional 'e' on the end of the surname that Royce's family have adopted. The person who had also had his Y-DNA analysed to match with Royce was a John Ripper.

From published family trees it could be seen that whilst Royce's line can be traced back over at least 16 generations, John's family tree could not be extended beyond four generations. Y-DNA was to prove to be the answer to this issue and it was useful that John had some ancestors with distinctive names. They used given names such as Franklin and Sterling in the late 1800s and this helped the identification of family members.

Royce and I contacted John; his sister, Rebecca, replied with a most helpful communication. The chart shown here (click to access the pdf file in a new tab) was originally constructed to demonstrate the various branches of the Ripper family tree that had emigrated to the USA. With information on the chart and Rebecca's e-mail it was possible to show how Rebecca and John are connected to Royce by applying the Y-DNA information. This connected the unattached branch to the family tree and showed that Royce's connection with John was the aforementioned William Beauripper. (Blank cells on the chart indicate recent generations thereby protecting the privacy of the living with connections to these people).

We now know that Rebecca & John and Royce are 9th cousins and 13th cousins once removed; the complication comes about because Royce's 8 x great grandparents were Daniel Ripper and English Ripper who were 4th cousins when they married in Breage in 1679; we wonder whether Daniel and English knew.