Author: joel@jmhartley.com

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1926 Irish Census – Woohoo!

The big news recently for genealogists is the 1926 Irish Census is out. Right away I go to see what my 2nd great-grandfather and family are doing in Balindoon, County Sligo:

Here is George, my great grandfather’s father. My great grandfather had moved to Boston as had most of his brothers at this time. This is the left hand side of the Census.

Here is what I have at one of my Frazer web pages:

George Frazer

When I went to Ireland, I was told he was known as old George. He is 94 in the Census which would put his birth roughly at 1832. Above, I have him born in 1836.

1901 Census – he is listed as 64, so that would be a birth date of about 1837

1911 Census – he is listed as 75 so that is a birth date of about about 1836.

The reason it makes a difference is that in the 1834 Tithe Applotment, there is a James Frazer – assumed to be the father of George Frazer who lived in Derrycashel. As a result, I have assumed that George was born in Derrycashel. In the 1926 Census, George is said to have been born in Kilbrian, County Roscommon. If George were born in Kilbrian, the family may have lived there at the time and moved to Derrycashel. However, my guess is that George was baptized at the Kilbryan Church as this was likely closer to Derrycashel.

Here is the Tithe Applotment for Derrycashel:

As for my theory that Kilbryan was closer than Ardcarn, that does not appear to be right:

Another interesting fact is that it appears that George’s sister Sidney was also born in Kilbryan:

I apparently got this from the 1911 Oxfordshire Census:

Sidney was living there as a widower with her stepson. Again, this could refer to the Parish of Kilbryan or they even may have been in the Parish of Ardcarn and mistakenly thought they were in Kilbryan?

When I look at the Tithe Applotments, there are either two James Frazers or one who had land in two places:

Unfortunately, I cannot find a place in Roscommon or Ardcarn called Culticonnor. But I did find some information when I searched for Culticonnor in association with Ardcarn Parish:

Here are Cootehall and Oakport:

Here is Ardconra:

Here is Errironagh:

So truthfully, I do not know if this James was my ancestor or another James Frazer. I also could not find a Townland called Culfaghna.

William Frazer

Let’s move on to the head of household, William:

William was a farmer of 30 statute acres. He was quite a bit older than his wife. His wife’s occupation was listed as domestic duties, but I can recall seeing a picture of her working on the farm also. William was my great-grandfather’s younger brother by one year.

Here is William on the left with my great-grandfather in the middle and another brother on the right. At one time there were four Frazer brothers living in the Boston, Massachusetts area. I should be able to put a little sketch together about William.

William was born in Ballindoon on 14 March 1868. He came to Boston in 1898. From what I understand, my great-grandfather helped to pay to bring his brothers over to Boston from Ballindoon. My great-grandfather came to Boston in 1887. William came to Boston in 1898 or 11 years later.

William was a cook in 1896 when he sailed from Queenstown to Boston. Queenstown was in County Cork.

I see, William brings his younger brother with him:

There is a lot of information in here and it is somewhat difficult to line up the information. It appears that William had been to Boston before for what appears to be 5 years. So maybe between 1890 and 1895. He is staying with James his brother at 51 Westminster St. Richard’s ticket was perhaps paid for by his brother (James?). I assume that William had saved up money before as it is said he paid for his own ticket. Confusingly, the 1910 Census says that William came to the US in 1870 which cannot be right. I am thiinking that it should have said 1890.

I just found William in the 1900 Census with his brother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire:

He was one of three cooks at a hotel. The third cook was Mary Feeney. This confirms my suspicion that William first came to Boston in 1890, so about three years after my great-grandfather came to Boston.

This may be where they probably worked at 96 State Street in Portsmouth, NH:

Of course, it would have looked a bit different 126 years ago.

Now I may have to revise the timeline already. Let’s look for a passenger list from 1890.

I did find this record:

This time William is bringing David to Boston in 1908:

This ship lands in New York City and the brothers travel on to Boston from there. William is listed as a non-immigrant alien:

I suppose this is because he immigrated already in 1890. I guess William did not mind making trans-Atlantic voyages. This must have been his 5th crossing.

Another Trans-Atlantic Trip in 1901

So perhaps Richard is homesick for the family after being in the US for 5 years. On this trip, William brings his brother Richard to collect another brother Hubert. That means that we are up to 7 trans-Atlantic crossings for William. I believe that this trip was from Queenstown to Boston.

This appears to be the ship:

This ship would have been quite new at the time and took about 7 days to cross the Atlantic:

Finally, here is William in 1890, with some of his traveling companions, but not relatives:

Looks like the ship name was Pavonia:

Some Pavonia passengers:

An Updated Timeline for William

I have this on my Frazer Web Page:

I was interested in his time in Mansfield as that is where my wife lived when I met her. Here is another issue from the 1926 Census:

Amanda Frazer is listed as having had 6 children. William is listed as having 4 living children. That means that I must be missing two children who died young.

Here are the four children: Albert, Elisie, Ruth and Walter. Ruth and Walter are born in Ballindoon. But actually, the eldest son, Edward George died in Ballindoon in 1925 at age 11. That means that I am only missing one child.

I will spend more time on the 1926 Census in a subsequent Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Looking at the 1926 Census lead me to review a lot of information I had
  • It looks like William made 8 transatlantic crossings, many more than I had realized
  • The family had an additional child that I did not know about. I did not find that additional child yet, but perhaps the child was born in Ireland after the family moved there.
  • I was a little surprised that my 2nd great-grandfather gave his birthplace as Kilbrian. My thinking is that he was baptized at the Kilbryan church but was likely born in Derrycashel, but there are other possibilities. His sister Sidney gave the same place for her birth in a Census after she moved to England.
  • I found out a bit more about Amanda Skoog (originally Skog) but have not written about that yet.
  • I found a photo of building which was likely the hotel that William and brother Richard were cooks at in 1900 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

 

 

 

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My Family’s Match with Francis at MyHeritage and Likely McMaster Connection

I have a long title for this Blog. I see in a recent email that some in my family have a match with Francis at MyHeritage Here is Francis’ match with my second cousin Paul:

Here is the maternal side of Francis’ Tree:

I can look at my McMaster DNA Tree to see what I have there. My guess is that the connection is through James and Frances (Fanny) McMaster. Here is my Ancestry Tree:

Francis’ tree matches with my McMaster Web Page:

My McMaster DNA Tree

This tree already has Francis’ ancestor Jane McMaster:

It looks like I already have Francis’ mother on my Ancestry tree, so I just need to add Francis. That should be easy. I think that I even met Francis’ parents in England one year. I believe that his father was a shepherd in Ireland and had a collection of shepherd staffs.

I’ll add Francis to my chart above:

Francis is Paul’s third cousin once removed as predicted by MyHeritage.

DNAPainter

I can ‘paint’ Francis onto Pauls DNA profile using DNAPainter. Here is the DNA match between Paul and Francis:

By default, DNAPainter does not use the matches under 7 cM. So that leaves matches on Chromosomes 6, 11, 12, and 16. All the small matches probably indicate matches on multiple family lines. We know there are two McMaster Lines connecting Francis and Paul (James and Fanny).

Here is the match on Chromosome 6:

Note that the match overlaps with the Abe McMaster Line. That tells me that the match is actually from James McMaster and not Fanny McMaster. That is because James was a son of Abraham McMaster. Fanny was a daughter of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer (more little DNA segments).

Francis adds new DNA to Chromosome 11. On Chromosome 12, the DNA must be from Fanny as she is the daughter of William McMaster and Margaret Frazer (shown in orange).

The match on Chromosome 16 is new also.

My Sister Lori, My Brother Jim, and Francis

Lori and Jim show up on Paul and Francis’ shared match list. My sister Lori has this one match with Francis that Paul and Francis do not have:

I suspect that Francis and Jim share the same segment.

Here is what Lori has currently on her Chromosome 13 – paternal side:

 

Here is the new segment painted onto Lori’s DNA profile:

As James is the son of Abraham McMaster and Margery, the match between Lori and Francis must represent James McMaster’s DNA. This is true because the matches overlap. Note also, that I didn’t have James and Fanny McMaster on Lori’s profile previously, so I added it here.

It looks like I haven’t mapped as much for my brother Jim:

Here is Francis’ match with Jim painted on Jim’s DNA profile:

This shows that Jim’s matches with Emily and Faye are on the Margaret McMaster side rather than the Frazer side. Further, the same should be true as with Lori, that the McMaster match with Francis should be on the James McMaster side rather than the Fanny side. My assumption is that this is true because Lori and Jim are siblings. The reason it doesn’t show that way is that I have not mapped as many matches for Jim.

For example, here is how Jim matches Ronald:

The overlapping segments are what is called triangulation.

Summary and Conclusions

  • A new match that showed up sounded like a familiar name.
  • It is likely that I should be able to identify a third cousin DNA match and I usually can.
  • Due to the intermarriage of the Church of Ireland minority families in Ireland, the DNA relatioinships can be complicated.
  • It is helpful having the results from my 2nd cousin Paul who is a generation older than me in the Frazer Line.
  • In areas of overlap in DNA Painter, it is possible to tell more exactly where the DNA comes from. For example, instead of knowing the match is from one of the couple, it is possible to identify which spouse the DNA match comes from.
  • It is important to test different siblings if possible. Jim and Lori had matches that I do not have with Francis. This is due to the way that DNA is inherited.

Here is a map of how my siblings and I inherited our DNA on Chromosome 13:

Note that Jim and Lori show Frazer DNA (blue) while the other siblings inherited Hartley DNA (orange) on the paternal side of their Chromosome 13 in the are of the DNA match with Francis.

 

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Part 2 of My Revolutionary War Soldier Ancestors

In my previous Blog, I looked at 4 of my ancestral lines with potential Revolutionary War Soldiers. One who was Nathaniel Hatch from Falmouth, Massachusetts. He probably served the least time at 3 days, but those were important days, including April 19, 1775.

The Ancestors

  • The younger Anthony Snell served. The elder Anthony died before the War
  • Like Anthony, he was from Dighton, Massachusetts. He served locally and in Rhode Island. He also served 3 months in support of the Continental Army. The appears to be a younger Benjamin Luther from the same area who also served.
  • William Parker had extensive service including fighting at Fort Ticonderoga. He got sick during the war and died not long after his service. I am not sure if his son Isaac served or not, there were a lot of Isaac Parkers from his area who apparently served. There appears to be an Isaac Parker of Barnstable and one of Falmouth, but I believe that my Isaac was living in Nantucket when the other two Isaac’s had legal papers filed for Pensions.
  • Nathaniel Hatch was serving April 19, 1775. Perhaps he never went to Lexington or Concord but was there for backup.

Bradford

My ancestor Samuel Bradford of Plymouth, Massachusetts was born in 1755, so of an age where he could have been involved. However, my Bradford web pages have him born 1761, so the same age as Anthony Snell who served in the Revolutionary War from Dighton.

I see that in the definitive book on Bradford from the Mayflower Society, there is no birth date for Samuel, but he is listed between Josiah born in 1754 and Charles born 1756. If the birth order is correct, it is likely that he was indeed born in 1755. Unfortunately, the main line in the Mayflower Book stops with Samuel’s father Josiah who died in 1777.

Here is a guess:.

However, there are many Soldiers listed in the Massachusetts book of Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War. In addition, if my ancestor Samuel Bradford was born in 1755, he would have been 25 in 1780. Perhaps he was born in 1761, or that there was another Samuel Bradford born in 1761. I also note that Samuel’s father Josiah was listed as a mariner from Plymouth in 1770. Much earlier in his life, he was listed as a cordwainer.

I have looked through the Mayflower Families Bradford Book and did not see any obvious Samuel Bradford born around 1761 from Plymouth, so that is a bit confusing. The closest that I could find was a Samuel Bradford born 9 August 1761 in Duxbury and baptized at New North Church, Boston. His father was a Captain of a schooner. However, the Revolutionary War Soldiers and Sailors mentions that Samuel Bradford was from Plymouth. One possibility is that Samuel, son of Job went off to live on his own and moved to Plymouth. I am thinking that I assumed that he was the seaman listed above and that is where I got the birth date of 1761. Bottom line is that now I am not sure that this is our man or not.

Stephen Churchill Born 1743

This is likely my ancestor Stephen Churchill:

That first statement is quite interesting: “Lieutenant, in command of a company of Minutemen, which marched April 20, 1775, in response to the alarm of April 19, 1775, to Marshfield.” Based on a recent talk I heard at my local historical society, this is what happened. There were some loyalists in Marshfield and some British troops were sent there to protect them. A ton of American troops marched up to Marshfield and the greatly outnumbered British troops fled.

Here is an AI overview which is concise but clumsily worded in sections:

On April 20, 1775, one day after the battles of Lexington and Concord, British troops stationed in Marshfield, MA, evacuated by boat, avoiding an “almost-battle” with gathering local militia. Over 600 patriot militiamen from nearby towns had gathered to confront the ~100 British soldiers of the 4th Regiment (King’s Own) stationed to protect Loyalists.

      • The Evacuation: British troops, under Captain Balfour, had been in town for weeks. Knowing the patriots were mobilizing, they successfully escaped by boats up the Green Harbor River on April 20 to return to Boston, preventing a direct confrontation, say and.
      • The Alarm: On April 20th, Patriot militia in Marshfield signaled a full-scale mobilization, with Capt. William Thomas firing a pre-arranged alarm gun three times.
      • The Context: Marshfield was a Loyalist stronghold and one of the only towns other than Boston occupied by British forces.
      • The Aftermath: By April 21, hundreds of Patriot militiamen from Plymouth County had taken control of the town, but the British were already gone, resulting in the “almost-battle” described by.

I think that this is a different Stephen Churchill, but I am not sure:

I found this record:

This is confusing as I have Stephen born in Plymouth. Here is a different record or abstract:

David Hathaway Born 1744

Ancestry has a record for the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) for this David:

However, I think this is mistaken as the Soldiers and Sailors Book of the American Revolution has that David Hathaway as being from Dartmouth:

It is possible that my David Hathawy ancestor from Wareham could have been a Quaker. I do not see a military record for him from the Revolutionary War. I’ll remove the SAR reference from my Hathaway Ancestor.

Seth Cowing Born 1834 Rochester

Again, I have an SAR application record:

Here is another record:

This cemetery looks to be off the beaten path.

The Soliders and Sailors book seems to agree with the SAR application:

Summary and Conclusions

  • Of the eight lines I looked at some Revolutionary War service was normal.
  • The only line which apparently did not serve in my ancestry was Hathaway. This may have been due to religious beliefs.
  • Some service was difficult to determine due to similar names living in similar areas.
  • I would assume that those who served in the military were indeed convinced that they were doing the right thing.

 

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Looking for My Revolutionary Soldier Ancestors

I recently joined the Historical Society for the Town I grew up in and there was a talk that night on Revolutionary War ancestors. Or in this case, one of the local ancestors of the President of the Historical Society. I know that I have at least one ancestor who served in the Revolutionary war and he lived in the Dighton, Massachusetts area. He was Anthony Snell and his story can be found here.

Some Potential Revolutionary War Soldiers

I did not highlight the elder Anthony Snell as I have that he died fairly young on my web site. A source at Ancestry has his death in 1767.  I am not sure why I did not highlight Stephen Churchill.

Anthony Snell and DNA

I am not highlighting Anthony Snell here but I would like to mention his DNA as this is a DNA and Genealogy Blog. At a family reunion, I got the DNA from one of my father’s many 1st cousins. Here is Joyce’s connection to Anthony Snell according to ThruLines at Ancestry:

Let’s look at my Snell DNA/Genealogy tree to see how that compares:

It looks like I am a little light on the Anthony son of Anthony line.

Next, I looked at my own ThruLines:

It looks like I could improve my Snell family tree if these are correct. Here is Horace’s tree at Ancestry:

It looks like I already have Stephen Snell in my Ancestry tree:

The best way to add Horace is to add him as a floating tree and then attach him to my tree if it works out. This must be Horace’s draft card:

Here is Horace’s birth record:

Horace’s obituary summary gives some more information:

This shows that Horace ended up in Missouri.

Viola’s wedding record shows that her father was a fisherman:

Horace father and son) were farmers.

Next I just need to connect Arthur E Snell to Stephen Snell:

Here is Arthur and family in 1910:

According to this, Arthur was quite a bit older than his wife Nellie. The couple married in 1894 in Tiverton:

Next, I connect Horace’s line with my Ancestry tree to make it match what is shown on the ThurLines. All this to say that it is very likely that Horace and I share common DNA from Anthony Snell (or his wife Betsy Luther). I have pretty old DNA!

Here is the family in New Bedford in 1865:

This tells a potentially sad story. I believe that Stephen’s father Anthony died earlier in 1865 so is not shown. Elizabeth would be Stepen’s mother. I see no wife for Stephen, so she likely had passed away at this point.

I can also add Horace to my Snell DNA/Genealogy Tree:

Benjamin Luther

I have this information at my Luther Web Page:

According to the Luther Genealogy, “Benjamin Luther resided in Dighton, was of a family of seamen, and had four master mariners in his family. He was said to have always been spoken of as ‘Captain Benjamin of Dighton.’ He was a Revolutionary soldier, enlisting in Capt. Ephraim Hathaway’s Co., Co. Popes’ Reg’t., on the Alarms of Dec. 8, 1776 and Aug. 1780.”

I see this reference in the Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War:

I don’t have much more on this Benjamin Luther. He died in 1834. Apparently there was another Revolutionary War Veteran named Benjamin Luther that lived longer.

This 1835 Pension Roll Call is apparently my ancestor based on his age at the time – even though he died in 1834, this probably went to publication before they had knowledge of his death.

This appears to be where the church is:

Here is my Luther DNA Tree:

There is some connection here as Betsy Luther married Anthony Snell. I have a match to Lynn at Ancestry.

Parker

This family was from Falmouth. Theoretically William and Isaac could have served in the Revolutionary War. However, he died in 1778 at age 49. This must be William:

I have that William fought at Fort Ticonderoga:

It looks like William was a Patriot and gave the last years of his life for his country – even when ill. I am curious as to how and where he died. This adds a lot of information as I knew very little about William Parker. I see that in 1772, his father Thomas left him one dollar in his will:

William’s father Thomas was quite wealthy. I wonder what a dollar would have meant at this time as the currency was in British Pounds. According to the internet:

    • The Spanish Piece-of-Eight: The most common “dollar” was the Spanish dollar, which served as the unofficial, widely accepted currency. It held consistent value due to its silver content, unlike local, often depreciated, paper money.
    • Value in Shillings: While England used pounds, Massachusetts used a local pound system. Often, one Spanish dollar was valued at 6 shillings in Massachusetts.

This seems strange to leave your eldest son such a small amount as his estate was worth over 1300 pounds.

I see here the family connection with Rochester as Thomas owned a cedar swamp lot there.

Did William’s Son Isaac Serve in the Revolutionary War?

This is a difficult one. There are many Isaac Parkers listed in the American Soldiers and Sailors book. These seem to be two different Isaac Parkers:

 

There are many other Isaac Parkers listed in the Revolutionary Soldier Book, but the above seem to be the most likely. It is possible that Isaac stayed behind while his father fought in the war.

My father’s cousin Joyce has four matches with these likely descendants of Thomas Parker:

 

The two from Thomas Landers are closer matches on other lines:

Nathaniel Hatch Jr.

 

Nathaniel was Isaac Parker’s father-in-law.

As Nathaniel was from Falmouth, this seems promising. I see that Nathaniel was busy having children during this time:

I am not sure if this is the same person:

Here are some Hatch DNA connections:

I will look at more potential Revolutionary War soldier ancestors in an upcoming Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I am surprised that I have never highlighted my Revolutionary War ancestors before. The 250th anniversary of our nation has helped me focus on the topic
  • Each of the four lines that I looked at had at least some Revolutionary War experience. My Hatch ancestor appears to have had as little as 3 days service.
  • We know so little about our ancestors at this time, the service in the War gives us at least a glimpse into what they were doing in support of our Country.
  • There appears to be DNA connection to each of my four lines that served in the Revolutionary War. Those lines being Snell, Luther, Parker and Hatch.
  • Looking at these lines has helped me to add to, update and correct my family tree at Ancestry
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Who Is My Wife’s Cousin Adria?

I recently had a notification that my wife had a close relative match named Adria:

Adria has two Boggy trees and one Butler tree, so I assume the match is on the Butler side:

Fortunately, I had tested my wife’s Aunts before they passed away. When I check the Aunt with the biggest match I see that Adria is likely a grand niece. When I check Lorraine’s shared matches with the closest match to Adria, I find Jasmine:

This could be a short Blog, because the two people icon near Jasmine means that Ancestry likely knows how Lorraine and Jasmine are related:

 

That meansn that the private box above Jasmine must be Adrai. The John Butler above was my wife’s Uncle Jake. Adria apparently lives in Illinois which is perhaps why my wife had lost touch.

Updating Jake

This would be a good time to update Jake in my Anestry tree:

I don’t even have his wife.

I added some information to my Tree. I see now that Jasmine, her mother and grandfather John have all tested at Ancestry. Here is a photo of Uncle Jake from Findagrave:

Summary and Conclusions

  • My wife’s match with Adria was a bit of a mystery at first
  • Shared matches solved that problem as Adria’s daugther Jasmine had a good tree
  • I was able to update my Ancestry tree for John “Jake” Butler and his children, most of whom are still living.

 

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More of My Sister Heidi’s Common Ancestors at Ancestry

In my previous post, I had good luck at looking at one of my sister Heidi’s DNA matches with a proposed common ancestor at Ancestry. Heidi and Sonja went back to Nicholson ancestry. Sonja’s Nicholson ancestor moved to Hartford while my her ancestor’s brother, my ancestor moved to Philadelphia.

Heidi and Thelma

Going down the list of Heidi’s unviewed distant relatives with proposed common ancestors at Ancestry, I see:

Here is the proposal:

Based on a new theory, I have suggested that my ancestor Robert Hartley could have been an Ann. This has turned up some Halstead genealogy. Here is Thelma’s tree:

Thelma has Alice Halstead from Didsbury:

I think that this is the place:

Another tree has this:

Heidi and Mike

This connection also leads to a possible Halstead connection:

This connection leads to two Halstead families on Mike’s tree:

There seems to be something going on with this Halstead connection. However, I would prefer to look at this in a separate Blog.

Heidi and Mr

MR has a private tree with 4 people in it. Shared matches between MR and Heidi are inconclusive. However, MR’s mother is in the shared match list. MR’s mother has a shared match with Carolyn who is a known relative on the Nicholson side:

Further, it appears that the proposed John Nicholson in Ancestry’s common ancestor tree was living right next to his sister in 1860 Hartford. I talked about her in my previous Blog:

John and his brother-in-law Thomas were both hardware dealers at the time. Sarah A is likely Sarah Ann Nicholson Hield. Interesting. That means that the Mary shown above could be the Mary in the Ancestry Common Ancestor Tree. However, if this is right, then my tree may be inaccurate:

I have John marrying Margaret Reaney.

Ancestry suggests this for the 1851 Census in Sheffield:

Mary was born outside Yorkshire. It appears that this is the correct marriage record:

Here is my corrected tree:

It appears that the elder John Nicholson died young in 1863:

I won’t go through all the genealogy, but I expect that this connection should work out. Here is a Social Security extract:

Heidi and Robert

Here is another potential Halstead connection:

My Nicholson DNA Tree

I’ll just update this tree:

This is a large tree and above is only part of it. Actually, I need to go up a generation:

This Matthew Nicholson had a lot of children and died at the age of 41:

My DNA Tree above only represents three of these children.

Here are my sister Heidi’s ThruLines:

That means I need to add the John and Sarah Lines. Here is the John Line:

MR’s great-grandmother was Ruah which is an interesting name. Apparently her son moved to Little Rock, Arkansas:

The Sarah Ann Line

Sonja was the subject of my previous Blog. Here the two Connecticut Nicholson Lines are added:

I was previously unaware of these two Lines coming forward. I probably would have otherwise assumed that these families remained in England.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I found a few of my sister Heidi’s DNA matches with proposed common ancestors
  • Those ancestors were Nicholson and Halstead
  • Halstead is more problematic as this is based on a new theory. I decided to wait on those matches.
  • The Nicholson match was interesting as two siblings of my Nicholson 2nd great-grandfather were living next door to each other in Hartford, CT in the 1860 Census
  • I added the two lines descending from the two siblings of my Nicholson 2nd great-grandfather to my Nicholson DNA Tree

 

 

 

 

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A Nicholson Line Connected by Ancestry’s Common Ancestors

Right now I am looking at my sister Heidi’s DNA matches with Common Ancestors.

These 7 matches could keep me busy for a while. Three maternal. Three paternal and one unassigned. These are all listed under distant relatives.

Heidi and Sonja:

Sonja has her Hield ancestor as being from Connecticut, so no obvious connection there. I need to know if Sarah married a HIeld and moved to Connecticut. I do know that Sarah was living in Sheffiled in 1851:

Sarah’s father had died young and her mother was a beerhouse keeper to make ends meet. Here is Sarah Hield in Hartford, Connecticut in 1860:

We can see that Sarah’s daughter Sarah was born in Connecticut, so that puts the move from England between 1855 and 1858. Sonja has that Esther was born in 1861 so that explains why she does not appear on the 1860 Census.

Here is the possible marriage:

Unfortunately, the father’s name were “dead” which is not very helpful. However, I do know that ‘my’ Sarah’s father was dead. Here is PIttlsmoor:

Sonja’s DNA Connection: Shared Matches

Here are some of Sonja and Heidi’s shared matches:

Melinda is my maternal 1st cousin’s daughter. Carolyn is my mother’s second cousin on the Nicholson side. The other matches seem to be related on the Nicholson side or Clayton side. The DNA indicates that the Common Ancestor clue from Ancestry is probably right. This gives encouragement to continue along the lines of the Common Ancestor match.

Nicholson ThruLines

Here are Heidi’s ThruLines:

Back to the Genealogy

The Hield family seem to move around a bit. The first son, John William, was born in the Wicker, Sheffleld:

The name John Willam also gives circumstantial evidence to relation to the Nicholson family:

William was Sarah’s younger brother. John was her grandfather. We are not sure of Thomas Hield’s ancestry, but Sarah’s second son was named Thomas. As a guess, Esther could have been Thomas’ mother:

Let’s look at the proposed timing.

  • Sarah Ann marries Thomas Hield in 1852
  • They have children and move to Hartford, CT around 1856 or 1857
  • Sarah’s younger brother William arrives in the US about 1868 with his family and settles in Philadelphia.

I’ll add Sonja to my tree as floating tree and likely connect her later.

Sonja’s great-grandfather was an interior decorator in 1920 in West Hartford, CT.

Here is the family in 1900. There were a lot of Russels:

This Russel was a stock broker. However, at this point, it is Esther that I am interested in. From the Census, it appears that Esther married about 1880.

Here is ab obituary from August 11, 1928:

Recall above that Esther had a brother named Thomas. Circumstantial evidence again. This leads us back to Brooklyn:

Sarah A HIeld is 39 in 1870 which means she was born about 1861.

Here is the Sarah Ann in my tree:

I’ll say that is close enough for a match. I just need to merge the two trees. Here is part of my new tree:

My ancestor William Nicholson was about 5 years younger than Sarah Ann. I wonder if William and Sarah Ann ever connected in the US.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I started at looking at my sister Heidi’s unviewed Common Ancestors at Ancestry
  • Heidi’s first match with possible common ancestors was Sonja
  • Sonja’s tree went back to Connecticut with her ancestor Esther Hield
  • Ancestry suggested that Esther Hield’s mother was Sarah Ann Nicholson, the sister of one of my Nicholson ancestors
  • Based on Shared DNA matches between Heidi and Sonja, as well as genealogical clues, the match appeared to be right
  • It would still be nice to find the smoking gun genealogical clear evidence, but the inferred evidence from the DNA and genealogy was enough for me to agree that Ancestry’s proposed common ancestors were correct.
  • That leaves 6 other proposed comon ancestors that Heidi has at Ancestry to investigate

 

 

 

 

 

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Playing with My Unused ProTools at Ancestry

I say unused ProTools because I have used the clusters and Shared Matches a lot. I have not used some of the other ProTools.

Familyhistorydaily.com has a good article on ProTools. On my Tree menu at Ancestry, I see this Pro options:

There is a Tree checker and Charts and reports.

Looks like I have 9483 people in my tree. This includes my wife’s Butler family.

Here are some filters and stats:

Despite all these errors my tree gets an 8.9 rating.

If I choose direct family line, all possible errors, I get 178 entries. If I choose duplicates under all possible errors, I get 32 people. That seems like a manageable number:

Let’s look at Thomas Clarke on my list:

If I hover over the ‘i’ in a circle to the right, the note says, “possible duplicates”. There are also some hints, but I am not concerned with that right now. I press the ‘i’ in the circle and it goes to profile view for Thomas Clarke in a new window with this note to the right:

I want to review this to see if I agree:

Scrolling down, I see that this Thomas Clarke has the right wife:

This is his second wife, the one I do not descend from. At this point, I will take it on faith that if I merge these two people it will solve more problems than it will solve. Now I am down to 31 direct ancestor duplicates.

Finding Direct Ancestors of Other People

I would like to find direct ancestors on my wife’s side. How do I do this? I do not see an easy way to do this. I suppose that is one of the problems of having my wife’s tree connected to my tree. I can try a workaround, but it is not very good.

My wife’s father’s mother was French Canadian. I can filter for Quebec:

Unfortuantely, this does not give me all the people who lived in Quebec, just the ones that I specifically designated as being from Quebec in my tree:

Also, these are not necessarily my wife’s direct ancestors. I do know that Joseph Pouliot is my wife’s ancestor. Isn’t an ancestor a direct ancestor?

When I choose Joseph Pouliot to evalutate, I get this message:

Joseph married a Josephine. Could that be the issue?

Also this 1700’s Joseph Pouliot has no birth date:

Here is birth date:

Here, fils or son is underlined. After making that change, I still see a duplicate for Joseph, so the confusion must be for his wife. I guess I’ll have to live with some Ancestry possible errors that are not really errors.

Using the same logic, I sorted by lived in Prince Edward Island:

I recognize James Henry Ellis as a ‘direct’ ancestor of my wife:

The sketchy right hand of the comparison has Henry Ellis and one child, but they match, so I will merge the two. When I do that and refresh my list, there are only two who lived in PEI that have possiible errors.

Map View

The article I mentioned above shows how to use Map View.

Here are my direct line ancestors:

A lot from the US.

Direct line paternal:

England, Ireland and the US.

Direct line maternal:

Latvia, Germany, England and the US.

Back to Duplicates

In my Summary and Conclusions, I mention that finding duplicates may help in inaccurate ThruLines. I often have trouble on my Hartley Line:

This could be the source of my problems. Further, I am not so sure that Robert was born at Bough Gap. That was a possible guess. When I choose the ‘i’ in a circle, I see this:

This is exactly my problem that I am trying to fix. Robert Hartley was certainly not Robert Wilkinson. Robert Hartley’s wife was Mary Pilling. Robert died and Mary remarried Robert Wilkinson. I will be glad to choose ‘not a duplicate’ and hope that will correct many ThruLine errors. I get balloons for pushing those two links:

View all errors for this tree just brings me back to my unfiltered tree error list.

I am honestly baffled as to why Ancestry computers thought that Mary Pilling’s second husband was the same as the first – especally after the first husband died.

Frazers on My Duplicates List

I am familiar with my Frazer ancestry:

My Second Great-grandfather George William

The George on the right looked good until I got to wife and children.

After working a bit on the list, this is what it now looks like:

Summary and Conclusions

  • This Blog covered some of the Pro Tools that I have not used yet
  • Duplicates are always a problem. I suspect that I should go through my 31 remaining direct line possible duplicates to try to fix those. This may even help in some of the ThruLines. After I wrote this I did find something above in my Hartley Line that was apparently causing a lot of problems.
  • I can find some of my wife’s ancestors but not a comprehensive list of her direct line ancestors due to the way that I set up my Ancestry Tree. It would be an improvement if Ancestry gave you a focus person choice and then you could look at their direct line ancestors.
  • Now I just have to review a little over 600 other potential errors.

 

 

 

Posted on

Theories on My Mother’s (Rathfelder) Side

I started looking at my mother’s MyHeritage Theories in my previous post and will continue here.

Hannah

I would say the Theory between my mother and Hannah cannot be correct:

For one thing, there are 112 years difference between first cousins Johnn and Ottilie. I was able to find Hannah’s Ancestry tree:

One way to check this is by my Gangnus genealogy book by Gustav Gangnus published in 2003. As far as I can see, Hannah’s tree checks out. That would add a line her on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

Here I have added in Hannah:

Hannah shows as my mother’s 4th cousin three times removed. This makes more sense than the MyHeritage Theory.

Hannah at DNA Painter

Hannah’s match tells us something about a different match:

Notice that Hannah’s DNA match overlaps with Otis. Otis matches my mom in several ways. However, for this segment, the match must be on the Gangnus side. So while the blue segment says Schwechheimer/Gangnus this match is really through Gangnus or specifically through Anna Charlotte Maria Gangnus born 1780:

Hanni

This Theory does not look familiar:

MyHeritage proposes that Hanni from Germany is a third cousin twice removed.

Hanni’s tree has two Gangnus Lines:

Hanni is in another Theory which does not make sense:

Under this Theory, Johann Lutz has a daugther when he is one year old. I’ll skip this one. Theory one is wrong also as the father of Lutke in my mom’s line was Lutke. That means I’m on my own.

Genealogy for Hanni

I will add Hanani to my tree and see if I can connect her. Hanni has her mother born in Hirschenhof which is interesting:

I see in Hanni’s tree that Lydia’s mother should actually be Alide Gangnus.I see several entries for Alide in the 2003 Gangnus Genealogy Book. One of the most interesting is on page 57. This page shows three Gangnus lines. It appears to trace the farms that they lived on in HIrschenhof. Alide shows ther born in 1905 married to Stahl.

Page 129 of the Gangnus Genealogy book shows Alide as the last child of of Johann Conrad Gangnus and Marie Whilhelmie Gangnus. From here is should be easy to trace Hanni’s Gangnus heritage. The first Gagnus to connect with one of my mother’s Gangnus ancestors wins the prize.

So far, my tree is following Hanni’s:

I also have three out of four in the last column with hints at Ancestry. Unfortunately, Johann Georg Gangnus was a very popular name in Hirschenhof:

Actually, I now see where Hanni fits in on my Gangnus DNA Tree:

I see that Philipp Gustave Gangnus is already in my tree, so I can link Hanni’s tree to him. It took a while to fix my Ancestry Gangnus Tree, but I think I have it right now.

Hanni Added to the Gangnus DNA Tree

She and Michael are 4th cousins twice removed to my late mother.

What About Gustav?

I still need to fill in parents for Gustav born in 1809. I do not have to go far to find his father:

Gustav’s father is Johann Georg Gangnus born in 1781. However, Gustav is the son of Johann Georg’s second wife Maria Magdalena Gagnus.

The good news is that the common ancestors are the same:

That means that Hanni and Gladys are 2 times fourth cousins twice removed.

Hanni on My Mom’s DNA Painter Profile

Hanni’s match overlaps with Ruta’s on Chromosome 11. I had trouble figuring out exactly where Ruta fit in as she descends from Gangnus/Muller and Gangnus/Niclas. This tells us that this match with Ruta must be from Gangnus/Niclas. Not that it probably matters, but it is interesting that we can know that from the DNA match.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at Hannah and Hanni. They both descend from Gangnus LInes
  • I was able to fit both of them into my mother’s (hence my) Ancestry Tree as well as into my Gangnus DNA Tree
  • The Gangnus family was prolific. In addition there was a lot of intermarriage of these Gangnus Lines in Hirschenhof. That adds up to a lot of potential for DNA matches and criss-crossing genealogcial trees
  • It is possible to sort out which DNA matches are associated with which Gangnus Lines if we get matches that overlap on a particular segmant on the chromosome.