Unlocking History – The Matthew Dill Story… Revisited!

Its County Donegal, Not Monaghan...
As archivist for NYCHAPS, I was recently put in contact with an Englishman, Robert Elliott, who is a Dill descendant. Through the marvels of DNA tracing on Ancestry.com, he has informed us that the long-held assumption that Mathew Dill came from Monaghan, Ireland, is in fact an error. His research of the family proves that the Dill family had settled in County Donegal about 1620.

The father of Mathew, John Dill Sr., had at least four sons who immigrated to the American Colonies. John Jr. and William settled in Kent County, Delaware and Caleb settled in Ulster County, New York.

Our very own Mathew (b. 1698) settled in Pennsylvania around 1740. Mr. Elliott is a descendant of a daughter in the family and as such, has DNA matching these Dills in the USA as well as a branch of Dills who immigrated to Nova Scotia through Caleb. Up to this time we used published Dill genealogies as our source for information. Our job now is to set about correcting our documentation and narratives for anything we publish in the future to match the facts and make sure our docents are up to date on the story we tell the public.

As someone who is interested in genealogy, I have had my DNA tested. It’s a simple procedure that reveals your ethnicity i.e., 50% Germanic, 20% French, 30% Scandinavian or such. On a more personal level, if you subscribe to a platform like Ancestry.com, and develop a family tree, you can determine matches to other relatives including how you may be related on the strength of the match. It is a fantastic aid in family research as proved in the above story. Thanks to Mr. Elliott, we have a revised narrative to tell.

– Greg Wonders