Category: DNA General

In my last Blog, I looked at my Lutke ancestors through the eyes of the Revision Lists. The 1850 and 1858 Lists have been posted on Ancestry for easy access and earlier lists can be found at the Raduraksti web site.

Schwechheimer Genealogy

I avoided looking at Schwechheimer in my previous Blog as I have two different Schweccheimer Lines in my genealogy:

One goes back from 1823 and another is two generations earlier. Schwechheimer is a name that goes back to the early days of the Hirschenhof Colony in Latvia. Before that, the Schwechheimer family lived in Germany in a town named Altlußheim on the Rhine River:

By the way, I was wondering what Schwechheimer meant. I was having trouble finding an answer, but then found a blogger who supposed it meant ‘one from Schwechheim as that is apparently a Town in Germany. Unfortunately, I have not found a town with that name and spelling.

I found Rosine already when I looked at my Rathfelder ancestors in the Revision Lists:

In 1850, Rosine was living in Hirschenhof on Farm 3 with her husband and young children.

Johann Gottfried Schwechheimer in 1834

This looks like Gottfried:

I was a little surprised to find this record at Ancestry, as I did not know that they covered the 1834 Revision Lists. Here, Gottfried was living at farm XI:

This is my attempt at transcribing the 1834 Revision List for the Schweccheimer family:

Green is meant to indicate my direct ancestor. I count that Johann’s wife had 16 children. That is a lot:

I must have this information from a Gangnus book that I bought.

Schwechheimer in the 1818 Revision Lists

It looks like the farm number is where the family number used to be.

It looks like some extended family was living on the farm. Probably explained in German notes that I didn’t look up. I have that Johann’s mother lived until 1822, but I do not see her in this Revision:

She should have been about 66 years old in 1816.

1811 Male Revision List

We will not see Anna Maria in the 1811 List as it contained men only:

I am getting lazy, so I will not transcribe this Revision. I assume that Johann and Johann George were brothers. It looks like the sons of Johann George made their way to other Farms within Hirschenhof if I am reading it correctly.

1782 Audit of Souls

Here we see the family is on Farm 8. However, I wonder if the numbering was different in 1782 from what it was to be in 1811 as there always seems to be a change.

This is an interesting snapshot as it adds another generation to my Schwechheimer ancestry. Also I finally found Anna Maria Schmidt.

My Ancestry Tree reveals some discrepancies:

• I am missing Johan George born about 1770
• I am not sure if Silvester is the same as Georg Michal Schwechheimer
• I am missing Maria Magaretha born 1767

Some Genealogy for Johann Markus Schwechheimer

I found this Ancestry Tree interesting:

However, why is Anna Maria now Conrad instead of Schmidt? The reference for this tree has different surnames:

Here we have Schmidt which I have and Krieger. The Geneanet page makes more sense:

Here he marries Anna Maria Krieger who dies and then he marries Anna Maria Schmidt who was 25 years younger than his first wife and she has the other children.

It turns out that I found Anna Margaretha in the 1782 Audit on Farm 26 in Hirschenhof:

She is 27, so born in 1755. It all seems to check out. Here is more from the Geneanet Tree:

This follows the Hauk Line.

Schwechheimer DNA

In an 2018 Blog, I had this connection:

Wolf has other connections. However, Wolf never got added to this Schwechheimer DNA/Genealogy Chart:

George Michael was noted in the 1811 Revision List above as going to Farm #28. Here is Wolf’s Line added:

Wolf’s tree carries the Schweccheimer Line back to the 1500’s:

Wolf has the family in Atussheim, Germany the whole time. However, there is some confusion in his tree:

Wolf has Anna Maria Schmidt married to Johann Markus Schwechheimer. She dies and then has all her children which cannot be right. The mistake must be due to what Geneanet shows – that Markus married two women with the same name: Anna Maria. Based on the 1782 Audit above, it is clear that Anna Maria Schmidt was alive at the time and born about 1746.

At Ancestry, Markus is in 18 trees. None of them look quite right, but the combination of these two trees looks good to me:

Anna Elisabeth Schwechheimer Born about 1784

Anna is from my Gangnus to Lutke to Furhmann side of my tree:

This appears to be one record of their marriage:

I will look more for Anna Elisabeth when I look at the Furhmann Family in the Revision Lists in a subsequent Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

• Looking at my Schwechheimer ancestors in the Revision Lists helps me to focus on that family
• These lists show relationships to other families and where famiily members moved to
• By following a MyHeritage Tree I could see where the Schwechheimers lived in Altusheim, Germany going back as far as the 1500’s.
• I was able to clear up a complicated issue where one early Schweccheimer (Johann Markus born 1727) appeared to have two wives both with the same first and second names. He was an important ancestor as he was the one who made the jump from Germany to Hirschenhof, Latvia.

In my previous Blog, I went over many of my Rathfelder ancestors who were listed in Hirchenhof, Latvia in documents called revision lists. It occurred to me that many of my other Latvian ancestors should be listed there. Here is the Latvian part of my family tree:

My choices are Schweccheimer, Gangnus, or Lutke as my grandfather’s grandparents other than Rathfelder. I have a book on Gangnus and there are two lines there, but I would like to try Lutke as I do not know much about that Line.

I see that I have very few DNA matches on the Lutke Line:

Lutke in the Revision Lists

Anna Jacobine was my 2nd great-grandmother born on Wirt 2 according to my records. It would be perhaps easier to track her down by her husband first.

Jacobine in 1858

Here is Jacobine with her husband in 1858:

As a bonus, I see my great grandmother Maria Elisabeth Gangnus:

Of course, she was just a baby in 1858.

Here I just wrote down the bare minimum as I was interested in Jacobine. My interpretation is that this family went from #10 to #8, but I am not sure.

Friederick in 1858

Here, I think I would do better in finding her father.

This is interesting as Friederick lived on Farm 2 and was family 3. From my last Blog, I had that my Rathfelder side was from Farm 3 and Family 4. I guess there was a next-door marriage.

This is the picture I see for 1858:

• Jacobine Lutke moves from Farm 30 to marry Philip Gangnus some time before 1858 and has Maria Elisabeth.
• Friedrick Lutke lives at Farm 2 in Hirschenhof which is presumably where Jacobine was born.
• Other children of Friedrick need to be added to my family tree.

This is what I have now for Friedrich. He has more children than Jacobine:

Next, I will look at the Raduraksti Revision Lists. Here is the Link:

I mention this because it is not obvioius when looking for Hirschenhof. I found what I was looking for on page 318 of 620:

Interestingly, the surname shows as Lutchen rather than Lutke. This is either a variation or the name has changed in 8 years.

Next, I can start to add family members to these two Lutke families. This is a little complicated for Carl Heinrich Lutchen as Anna Charlotte Maertz appears to be a second wife. Here is a marriage record for Johann Heinrich:

Going back another Revision may clear this up. I also found this tree at Ancestry which clears things up:

It appears that the 1850 Revision mixed up Jacobine and Friedricke and that this tree is correct above.

Lutkes in 1834

This is on page 88 at the Raduraksti Web Site:

Right side of Page:

This is what I need to check as I have that Carl Heinrich Lutke was married to Maria Eva Buchenroth. Here Jacobine is back as the elder sister to Friederike. Here is my transcription showing three generations of my Lutke ancestors:

The 1816 Revision

Here is where my Buchenroth ancestor  comes in.

I assume that Maria Eva Buchenroth passed away between 1818 and 1834 and Carl Heinrich Lutke married Anna Charlotte Merz.

Lutke in 1811

I like the title page:

This was the ‘not women allowed’ Revision:

This is easy to write down:

This yields an extra generation of Lutke: my ancestor Friedrich born around 1756.

The 1782 Audit of Souls

Here the Lutken family is at Farm 13, or they are family 13.

If I read this right, Anna Elisabeth had Adam Johann when she was 47?

Here is a baptism for Carl Heinrich:

It looks like he was born on 25 January 1770. This is a bit confusing as I have that he was born in 1772 and that his mother was a Stolts. This mother appears to be a Dannewald. Or perhaps Dannewald was a sponsor or Godparent.

Here is an entry for 1773:

I wonder if this child died young. This Ancestry tree confirms that:

This 1771 record seems to contradict the 1773 record – though there could have been two children with the same name.

One goal from this exercise is to fill in the Lutke families on my Ancestry Tree:

Here are the three Trees at Ancestry give to me as hints for Ernst Friedrick Lutke:

From the 1782 Audit, I have 4 of the possible 6 children. We know that Johann Friedrick Wilhelm died young, so that accounts for 5 of the possibel 6 children from Ancestry trees. That leaves Magdalena Dorothea (without dates) as being unaccounted for. I would be satisfied to add the children as per the last Tree.

I now have this vertical fuller view of the Lutke family in Hirschenhof:

The families got larger in each generation. So this is three generations of the Lutke family with the fourth generation being Jacobine Lutke who married a Gangnus.

Here is a photo from Hirschenhof of one of the farm dwellings:

Summary and Conclusions

• The Audit of Souls and Revision Lists give a peek into the family makeup of many of my Lutke ancestors
• They also give an idea of where these famlilies lived and who they lived near.
• These Census substitutes were quite advanced for their time giving a lot of information not normally found elsewhere.
• I was able to add a lot of sibling information, fiilling out my Lutke familiy trees.
• I was also able to confirm the following Lutke wives’ surnames of Furhmann, Buchenroth and Stoltz.

In my previous Blog, I had some success in documenting some descendants of Abraham McMaster born about 1764 in Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo, Ireland. Here is my descent from Abraham:

The relationships are a bit confusing as James McMaster married Fanny McMaster. Also, in one of my trees, I have another Abraham between Abraham and James McMaster. However, I have that they were both married to Margery, so they may be the same people.

My Sister Lori and Daniel

My sister Lori has some good McMaster matches:

Daniel matches Lori on the Robert McMaster Line. Unfortunately, it looks like Daniel’s tree is private and he is not taking messages. Here is how Ancestry shows the connection between Lori and Daniel:

I’ll assume that Ancestry got Daniel’s grandfather right and go from there. First, I’ll create a floating tree for Daniel. That is a tree that is not connected to my Hartley Tree, but one that I hope will connect.

This appears to be Joseph and family in 1940 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts:

It looks like Gertrude had previously been divorced:

Gertrude’s mother matches what Ancestry has so far:

Next, I would like to look for Annie Stafford’s mother:

Here is Annie or Mary Ann’s birth record:

Here is the family in 1880:

Catherine’s death record gives her father as Robert McMasters and her mother as unknown.

My McMaster Web Page has a Catherine born in 1851:

That is interesting, but no proof for the ThruLines.

The couple was married in Boyle Registration District:

That was followed by a trip to the US in 1872:

Catherine should have been about 20 at this time. Interestingly enough, I have their marriage record in my records:

The marriage was at the Kilmactranny Parish Church. I feel that this information puts Daniel’s McMaster ancestors back at Kilmactranny Parish in Sligo.

Updating the McMaster DNA/Genealogy Chart

Here is the connection:

This is an interesting part of the family. Ron in green is related to me also, but more closely on my Clarke side. The chart also brings up the question as to why I don’t have Edward on my web page under Robert. It is clear that Edward was not born in 1851. There was a period in the Kilmactranny records where there were no entries. This was roughly between 1830 and 1841. My guess is that Edward was born at the later end of that period.

I notice this record at Ancestry:

This 1924 record has Edward almost 78 years old which puts his birth back to about 1846. I am guessing that he was born 1841 or before. The 1851 birth date was from Edward’s Naturalization Papers.

Summary and Conclusions

• I was able to make a connection between my sister Lori and Daniel. They are 5th cousins once removed
• I would be interested in finding other McMaster relatives who have had their DNA tested where the results are shown in a chromosome browser
• Daniel’s match has enhanced the information of the Robert McMaster family of Kilmactranny Parish, County Sligo.

I have one of my many colds this winter, so I’ll take some time and sign up for Tier 1 of Gedmatch.

MRCA Search Tool

I don’t remember using this tool before. Before I used it, I had to make sure my Kit# was associated with my family tree. My famiy tree was uploaded in 2014, so it is quite old. I suppose that I should update my tree at Ancestry. I’ll look at what I got, and then update my gedcom at Gedmatch.

This is the first part of my list:

What I first noted was that the path to the primary kit (mine) was very long. I am seeing 6-13 genertaions. After watching a video on this utility, I see that the last column is important. It gives a score of how accurate it thinks the matching is out of 10. So the first on my list, Hannah Bartlett has a match of 2 out of 10 which is not good. John Spooner, further down, gets a 7 out of 10.

Our Path to John Spooner

Here is the path column:

I have not checked this Wilhelm Line, but it does not look unreasonable. I would like to see what the DNA match looks like, but I do not see a link to find this on this utility. I ran a one-to-one match between myself and my match with Spooner ancestry:

The match shows on Chromosome 11. To make sure this was a paternal match, I ran my paternal phased kit against this match and got the same results. Here is my Chromosome 5 mapped by DNA Painter:

I have an arrow where the possible Spooner DNA would be. I say possible because at 9 generations away, a lot could have happened. I think that SImone tested at 23andMe.  I am tempted to add this match just for fun. All the green matches are my second cousins. A few are first cousins once removed. Here is what I have for John Spooner on my tree:

Here I added in Spence on DNA Painter under SImone:

James Hartley was born in 1862, so the gap between him and John Spooner is over 200 years.

Updating My Tree at Gedmatch

First, I need to download my tree from Ancestry:

Before I got here, I had to choose Export Tree. When I chose download your Gedcom file, I ended up with two files as the Export already created one. First, I deleted my old Gedcom at Gedmatch. I’m not sure if this was the right way to do it.

When I uploaded the Gedcom, I got some errors based on not putting down the sex of the person:

There were other errors, but I just let the software do what it did.

Running a New MRCA Report from Gedmatch

This time I will use a minimum match score of 3 as recommended in a video I saw. This report is taking a while to run – perhaps because the gedcom I have now is larger. The report gave me 84 potential MRCA’s:

Here is a name on my list that catches my eye:

William Bradford gets a score of 8 which is very good.

However, I see an issue as there are two William Bradfords born 11 Mar 1654. I show to be 9th cousin once removed to this match. However, it appears that these two William Bradfords are the same which would move our connection closer by one generation. However, there is a disconnect. The death date of my William Bradford is very clear as he died in a carting accident in 1687. That means that he could not have had a daughter named Bethia born in 1692. Perhaps the Gedmatch scoring system is not the best.

Hiller MRCA?

Fifth on my list of 83 ancestors is a Hiller:

I recognize the match name (not shown here) from Ancestry. Here is the path:

I am a mere 7th cousin to this Hadaway on paper – and a DNA match. Here is where I match Hadaway:

My family seems to be related to other Hillers at Ancestry, so I think that this is a good match for me. I’ll add this person to DNA Painter:

My belief is that Hadaway (shown in purple) shares Hiller DNA on my Chromosome 2 with myself and my father’s first cousin Maury. This is likely shared with some of my other siblings.

Elizabeth Warren

The second match on my list is Elizabeth Warren:

This match is different as only the wife is mentioned in the match.

I assume that it came out this way as she descended from one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. To keep this consistent, I’ll enter this in DNA Painter under the husband who was Josiah Finney:

This is a fairly large match at Gedmatch:

Here as in other of my Hartley areas, this has connected my 1860’s common ancestor 2nd cousins, shown in green above, with my 1660’s cousin (seen in a bronze color).

So far, I have added to my colonial side on Chromosomes 2, 5 and 10:

The genealogy is fairly easy for these colonial matches. These matches are also helpful as it tell where my Hartley DNA from Lancashire, England is not.

Edward Richmond – Out 11 or 12 Generations

All this DNA has to come from somewhere. This is my first MRCA match:

I do show an Abigail Richmond in my tree. I also show that Edward Richmond married Abilgail Davis. I’m am liking Gedmatch’s MRCA utility as it is so easy to use. Next, I’ll map this match with Audrey:

However, this match with Audrey is showing a problem as there is an overlap with one of my Frazer relatives, Brenda. Further, when I have mapped my Chromosome 22, it has come out as being all Frazer, so this Hartley match cannot be right here. Let’s try to figure out what went wrong here.

When I look at Audrey’s tree, she has matches from County Sligo. My guess is that her match is on my Clarke side that I have not found many ancestors for. Or it could be on the Frazer side where I have some missing wives. Some of these names and places in Audrey’s tree have come up before, but I have not been able to place them within the genealogy:

In addition, some of my McMaster ancestors were from Dromore, County Sligo. That could be the best explanation for the connection. I have deleted Audrey from my Chromosome 22 as a Colonial American match, but she likely matches my McMaster ancestry. Interestingly, my fourth potential MRCA is with Dave. He matches on Chromosome 22 also. He must be related to Audrey.

An Almy Connection?

Matches 6 and 7 on my list have this connection:

I don’t have the inclination to check out the genealogy here. The DNA match is here:

I already have Debra in that spot. I had our conection on the Hatch side. From a Blog I wrote, I see that there was also a Palmer connection in Rhode Island. This connection is certainly on the Rhode Island side. Actually Debra is match #7, so is the same person. Match #6 must be her son.

I’ll just change the ancestors to Almy at DNA Painter. At 1601, that would likely be my oldest painted DNA and perhaps the most suspect for that reason!

Resolved White 1615

This match goes back to the Pilgrims.

First, I’ll check the DNA:

This is Chromosome 19 which is Frazer territory for me:

My Frazer ancestry is Irish, so clearly not Pilgrim material. It is possible that I have this Pilgrim connection, but not based on the shared DNA.

Benjamin Bartlett with a Score of 6

I’ll be sure to check the DNA match:

The match is out on the right side of the paternal copy of my Chromosome 7:

I have a lot of Frazer DNA on that Chromosome, but room for some Hartley on the right side.

I don’t show Ichabod Bartlett in my tree, but my tree may be incomplete. A book I have shows that Benjamin Bartlett had three wives and 6 children. The first three children were born from Sarah Brewster (including Rebecca Bartlett). The first wife apparently had no children. The last three children including Ichabod may have been from a third wife named Sisilla.

I’ll add Blair and Bartlett in pink to my DNA Painter profile:

It is not a large match and I could not put two ancestors down as I am only sure of the Bartlett ancestry.

One More? Joseph Sylvester

Joseph gets a rating of 5, but that is just on the genealogy match. I have checked the DNA to confirm that the match is on my Hartley side.

Joseph is on the Pilgrim side, born in Plymouth Colony. I do see an Amos on my genealogy tree, so that is good. I’ll add this match into DNA Painter.

Here i have added a small clump of DNA to my profile which I have said is either from Joseph Sylvester or Mary Barstow.

Summary and Conclusions

• This is an easy tool to use
• I needed to check my DNA matches to make sure that they were in the right area and right side – in this case paternal side.
• I have a lot of colonial genealogy. Many others likely do too, so the bias is to match on those genealogies.
• I did not go through the whole list, but I would guess that at least half of the matches would not pan out due to genealogy, DNA matches in the wrong area or other problems.
• It is easier to disprove that a DNA match could not go with the shared genealogy than to prove that it does.