My last two Blogs have been on the Gangnus Family, so I will continue the trend. I descend on my mother’s side from two Gangnus Lines:
The left side of the chart goes to my mother’s Rathfelder Grandfather and the right side goes to my mother’s Gangnus Grandmother. This chart is meant to include DNA matches that also match by genealogy. As the two brothers near the top of the chart had the same first name, I expect that there is a lot of confusion in the genealogy.
My Late Mom Glady’s Gangnus ThruLines
My mom has this ThruLine:
I already have Robert on my Gangnus DNA/Genealogy tree. However, I have him descending from Maria Magdalena Gangnus instead of Johann Georg Gangnus:
And when I look at my mom’s ThruLines for Philipp JG Gangnus, I get more matches:
Here, Tristan is the son of Robert. Tristan’s tree also goes back to Johann Georg Gangnus the first instead of who I have. I see that I created a tree for Robert in 2019:
This explains the issue:
I didn’t realize that I already had Robert in my tree twice. This shows that Robert and my mom (and hence I) both descend from two sons of Johann Georg Gangnus. I don’t think that this is a double cousin situation as double cousin is shown this way:
I suppose that makes Robert and my mom 4th cousins removed twice.
Another problem is that my mom’s ThruLines is missing Philip Jacob Gangnus who married Anna Eva Niclas:
Here are my mom’s ThruLines for Anna Eva Niclas:
So something is amiss here. I know that Anna Eva Niclas and Anna Eva Muller could not have had the same children:
Perhaps if I add some correct genealogy to my tree, these issues will straighten out. The genealogy has definitely given the Ancestry computers a headache.
Checking the Gangnus Descendants’ Matches’ Genealogy
I see that I first mentioned Robert’s genealogy in a 2019 Blog here. That Blog had to do with AutoCluster. However, I assume that the genealogy is still valid, so I will add Robert to my Tree. Currently I have a separate Ancestry Tree for him. Here, I have connected the Retch Line to my Tree:
However, I still have to connect Johann G’s wife Maria M Gangnus to the tree. I did this by adding parents for Maria M. Gangnus and typing in the name of her parents who were already in my Ancestry Tree:
I hope that this will go a long way in fixing the weird AncestryThruLines that currently exist for the Gangnus Family.
Gladys and Kirk
Gladys and Robert have a shared match with Kirk, so I’ll look at him next:
The first icon after Kirk’s name means that Ancestry thinks Kirk and Gladys have a shared ancestor:
I will add Kirk to my Ancestry tree as a floating tree and if the floating tree matches my ancestors, his floating tree will get attached to mine. Kirk has a modest tree:
Unfortunately, he has his paternal grandparents listed as private. This likely was something that Ancestry added by default. Siegfried was born in Hirschenhof according to Kirk’s records. This is where many of my ancestors were born. I see one reference to Siegried’s mother in a tree by Karin:
It turns out that Karin is connected to my mother also via HIrschenhof on the Schwechheimer Line. I will accept the Ancestry Hint based on Karin’s tree:
As I do not have a husband for Melita, that makes the tree difficult to evaluate. I will put Kirk on hold for now.
Gladys and Michael
This is the connection that Ancestry would like me to pursue. However, there are two private generations. Here is Michael’s tree:
Fortunately, Michael and his ancestry are published in a book by Gustav Gangnus published in Darstadt 2003. That means that, assuming the book is correct, I can trace his Gangnus Lineage. Bruno was born in Riga and dies in Wollongong, Australia:
Here are the missing generations:
This is also where it gets tricky as I also have Schwechheimer ancestry. Unfortunately, the Gangnus Genealogy book does not give parents for Emma Eva Schwechheimer. I do see a birth record for Emma Eva here:
However, this is for 1853 instead of 1859. Here is the same information:
This is probably the right person – unless there were two people of the same name within 6 years.
At any rate, I will continue on the Gangnus side. According to Geneanet:
From Johann Georg Michael Gangnus we go to Johann Georg Gangnus 1807 and then Philip Gustav Gangnus. Further,
Now I do have this Philip Gustav in my tree:
That brings us to the common ancestors of Philipp Jacob Gangnus and Anne Ave Niclas.
I think that this is the right connection:
However, the ThruLines have the connection through Philipp Julius Gustavus Gangnus. To check, again, I have the Gangnus Genealogy book which I consider to be the gold standard. I checked and it does have Philipp Gustav as the son of Philipp Jacob. For further proof, here is the HIrschenhof Revision List of 1811:
This shows that at the previous revision, 16 years prior to 1811, Philip Gustav who was the third son of Philip Jacob Gangnus was 11 but that he had since moved to Farm number 92 in 1811. So, I have all sorts of checks on the genealogy.
Updating My Gangnus DNA/Genealogy Chart
This is myy Chart currently:
Recall that Robert was on both sides of the Chart. I will add Michael to the right side:
This shows that my mom and Michael are 4th cousins twice removed – though in a different way that the ThruLines show. They are also 5th cousins twice removed. And that isn’t counting any other connections such as through Schwechheimer or other routes.
Summary and Conclusions
- I started to look at Ancestry Thrulines on my Gangnus side
- Due to complexities and two sons named Philipp, it is often difficult to get the genealogy right.
- I gave up on one line due to scarcity of sources given
- One other match was much easier to verify due to an excellent book I have in German on the Gangnus genealogy.
- It takes a lot of work to correctly verify Latvian ThruLines. Due to upheaval in the area, there has been a lot of movement of Germans who lived in that Country.
- I am glad also to have Revision Lists to verify the genealogy.
- I hope that the quality of these Gangnus ThruLines will improve based on the work I have done and improvements I have made to my Ancestry Genealogy Tree.