The Mirror Crack'd

"Out flew the web and floated wide-

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

"The curse is come upon me," cried

The Lady of Shalott"

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott) 

This verse sums up my day. I finally 'crack'd' the entire concept of the 'mirror' tree last night, and worked accordingly on the 'web' to further my DNA goal. I almost relaxed then, thinking that maybe I would reach my self-imposed deadline in August. 

Now for the 'curse'... In this case, the curse is that not enough people in the UK have taken a DNA test yet. All it would take now is one common ancestor hint for me to finally 'know my place'. 

The leafy green hint hasn't yet materialised on my DNA home page. All I can do is to try and practice patience now, and hold out for blind good luck. I wonder how the odds of the right person taking a DNA test would stack up against winning the lottery? 

One thing I've come to love on my journey through newly charted chromosomes is the support and care that others on the same journey extend. We celebrate good news and fantastic outcomes for each other when it happens, and we are there when it all comes crashing down, ready to commiserate with a stranger in pain. Even if some days you feel like you'll always be the bridesmaid and never the bride, it doesn't even occur to you to resent someone else's dream coming true.  

Posthumous Bush

From what I can glean, Posthumous Bush b. c 1676 in Bristol was my 8th great grandfather. He lived to be more than 90, which was a Methuselahlain task in the days before antibiotics.
Posthumous may have been named so, if he was born after the death of his father, but for at least 3 generations, the name was passed down through the family.
He married Elizabeth Speak, from Bath, at St Mary's in Bristol in 1696. Elizabeth and Posthumous set up home in Bradford on Avon and they had 8 children. Of those 8, at least 5 survived to adulthood, including my 7th great grandfather Francis.
Posthumous was a lanarius (woolworker),

One of his sons was non-conformist, and according to papers from Leicester University his son (another Posthumous) registered his home as a place of worship.
(The following text is taken from http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol7/pp4-51)
"Bearfield Congregational church, formerly the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, appears to have originated as an Independent society in or before 1787. In that year 'Bethel Chapel' was built at Bearfield and opened for worship by the Revd. Mr. Norman. Services were conducted according to the forms of the Church of England. Norman left the town a few years later. The chapel was supplied for a time by ministers from Bath, including a Mr. Bargest, but declined and was closed. The building was bought by Mr. Posthumous Bush of Bradford. Not long after, it was bought from Bush by the Revd. Thomas Watkins of Bath. Watkins, who had married a wealthy woman from the West Indies, settled in Bradford and built himself a house. He reopened the chapel for worship, built a new gallery, and gathered 'a good and respectable congregation'. He died in 1802, and was buried under the pulpit."

Both Posthumous and Francis owned land in Bradford on Avon, this can be seen in the Bradford land tax record of 1743.

The family still owned land in the area in 1841, this is show to be so in the tithe map of the area. (217/218 were owned by the Bush family)

(image from http://www.freshford.com/1841_tithe_map_list.htm)

Posthumous died in 1761, his will gave provision for his living children and a number of other beneficiaries, most bequests were for the sum of £30 or less. It seems that he wrote off a fair few debts owed to him by my 7th great grandfather, his son, Francis. This is shown in a section of the will. Francis was the executor.