Category: Latvia

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Gangnus ThruLines

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.

 

 

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Gangnus in the Revision Lists of Latvia

I have done several Blogs on the Revision Lists of Latvia. Most of the ones I have looked at have been in the German Colony of Hirschenhof where many of my mother’s ancestors lived. My mother’s mother was a Gangnus and that was a prominent family in Hirschenhof – at least for the number of people with that name if for no other reason.

From a review of my previous Blogs, I should be looking at:

  • The 1782 Audit of Souls – also known as a revision list. From my recollection, this Revision List had different farm or lot numbers than the subsequent revision lists.
  • The 1811 Revision List – only males are listed. So this is helpful, but not as helpful as the others.
  • The 1816 Revision List
  • The 1834 Revision List

This represents about 52 years and could contain about 3 generations worth of genealogical information.

Strategy for Research

I have found tht the easiest way to research these lists is by Ancestry. These lists are available elsewhere, but are not indexed. In the past, I have gone from the earliest Revision Lists to the later ones, to see how the families progressed. I then tried to summarize the information in a spreadsheet. Here is the format I used for my Fuhrmann ancestors:

This should be easily adaptable to the Gangnus surname.

My Gangnus Genealogy

It gets complicated as there were two Philipp Gangnuses who married two different Anna Evas! There are other complications, but I am hoping that the revision lists will straighter things out. 1782 is a good years as both Anna Gangnus and Johann Jacob Gangnus were young children then.

Johann Jacob Gangnus Born 1777

I ended up looking at the Raduraksti Site for information. After searching a while, I found this:

Here is the family I was looking for:

I have included the farms on either side. Here we see a second son, Johann George and a few other people living in the house. I can’t really figure out their last names at this time.

Actually, it appears that the other Philipp is living next door at Far #28, so that is a bonus. I was expecting Anna to be 2 years old, but she shows as 1/2 here.

When I compare the Philipp Jacob Gangnus family with my Ancestry Tree, I get this:

Here I have put the two families into a spreadsheet:

 

I was thinking that I descended from Anna Eva Gangnus, but it was actually her older sister, Charlotta Maria that I descend from. So, in these two close farms are 6 of my ancestors. I have them outlined in green. In my previous Blog, I looked at a match my mother had with a descendant of 4 year old Johann Gangnus above.

However, I now suspect that the first column ending in Maiga could be wrong. Not seeing Jacobina Magaretha in the Revision List does not prove that she was not a child of the couple above, but it does bring this line into question. Further, the couple would have been quite young when she was born. Having said that, the Gangnus Genealogy book published in 2003 has this genealogy.

1811

This is the revision year without women. First, I see that Philip Jacob is still around:

His first wife, Anna Eva Niclas dies, and he remarries in 1789. He has 4 sons living with him. Two of those sons have their own sons apparently. I think that one son moved to Farm 92.

Next, I need to find Philipp Gustav Gangnus who was born in 1747. He must be on the next farm:

By this time, Anna Charlotta was married to a Schwechheimer and had 9 or 10 children.

Here we see that the Gangnus patriarchs are still around. My ancestor Johann Jacob who was 4 is now 32 and has a son Gottlieb.

1816

A mere 5 years later. I started by looking at Farm #30 where I see that the widower Philip Jacob Gangnus is still living at age 60:

Here the men are on the left and the women are on the right.

Philipp Jacob’s second wife died in 1811, so does not appear here.

I have from my tree that that Jacon Gangnus married a Boehler as his first wife. He has Gottlieb and George by 1816, but Gottlieb died young. This does not fit in well with my Ancestry Tree:

There are three Georges in this tree. I assume that the George in the Census most closely matches Georg Michael by birth date. Gottlieb must be Philipp Gottlieb. I may have some of the relationships messed up here:

The relationships are a bit complicated due to a three generation household. It’s nice to get a peek into where my Gangnus ancestors were living in 1816. Here is a photo taken by a distant Rathfelder relative of a Rathfelder house in Hirschenhof:

I’m sure that you would have to imagine things looking a bit newer in 1816. Here is another view of the house from 1930:

My assumption is that this was a working farm at the time. It looks like the orientation of the barn has changed.

Gustav Gangnus in 1818

The above was from my Gangnus side. My Rathfelder side also has the ancestor of Gustav Gangnus. I have that he died in 1818, but another tree has his death in 1820. This latter date is more likely due to the 1818 Revision List:

I can’t make sense of the 15 year old boy. Here are the women:

I am not sure what the note is after Anna Christina’s age of 14 or why the ages are out of order. Is the 14 meant to be 1/4? I will take that to be the case. The Gangnus genealogy book I has Anna Christine born 1 Jan 1816.

The picture I get is of an elderly farm couple living with three generations of family, ready to pass the farm on to a son. Here are Farms 30 and 31:

Farm 31 appears to have been further divided.

Is there a stream going through the two farms?

1834

1834 finishes our 52 year tour of the Gangnus Family in Hirschenhof, Latvia. This is now 18 years since the last Revision List. The Farm numbers are now in Roman Numerals:

Philip Jacob has passed in 1818. This revision also has family numbers. 10 seems to be the number for Gangnus. There are fewer women on Farm #30:

For some reason, they missed the maiden name of my ancestor Jacob which should be Biedermann:

Note: only one name I have for her in my Tree matches which is Julianna and if she was born in 1802, she should have been 32 years old in 1834.

This shows that 6 children of Jacob were living in the household. The oldest 4 were from Jacob’s first wife Jacobina Boehler.

The 1834 Revision List Vs. My Ancestry Tree

Here are children from Jacob’s first wife:

From Jacob’s second wife:

Here the younger children had not been born yet. I descend from the eldest of the second wife.

Gustav’s Farm in 1834

Gustav passes in 1819, but here is the picture of Farm #31:

 

Here, the family numbers play a part as we have Family 10 (Gangnus) as well as Family 15 (Fischer) and 14 (Schwechheimer). I see what happened. Johann the son dies in 1821, leaving no male Gangnus of that generation. Johann was perhaps a widower at the time as no wife is shown. So there is a lot going on here.

Anna Charlotte Maria Gangnus Schwechheimer

I think I may have covered her in my Blog about the Schwechheimers, but here she is in 1834 on Farm 11:

Charlotte is 52 years old. There is also a Fischer on this property (Family 15). On the next page, there is someone from Family 16, but he had since passed away:

Here is Farm 11:

Charlotte moved from Meschlaider to Stinken!

 

The 1850 Revision Lists

I neglegted to mention above that there are also 1850 Revision lists, this brings us up 16 more years or 68 years from the original Audit of Souls. This is easily three generations of the Gangnus Family. This is making the Blog quite long, but hey, it does cover 68 years of genealogy – and from two different lines of Gangnus.

The 1850 List notes Charlotte’s death in 1847 at Stinken Farm 11:

Farm 30 in 1850

Jacob is still holing on to Farm 30 in 1850 at age 71:

Here are the women of Farm 30:

I’ll try to get this on to my Excel Spreadsheet to see if I can make sense of it.

This is a little confusing as I have that Juliane Biedermann dies in 1845. In fact, I have that Charlotte who was born in 1845 was Juliane’s youngest child. Further note is that my ancestor Johann Philipp had not married yet. He marries in 1855 and has my great-grandmother in 1856. My great-grandmother Maria Elisabeth Laura Gangnus marries in 1873:

This appears to be Maria or Marie as the older woman perhaps in Riga around Christmas:

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • The Revisions Lists are like the Census and give a good snapshot into the Gangnus Family in Hirschenhof between 1782 and 1850.
  • Between my lack of knowledge of German and my ability to read the writing, I am sure that I am missing some information from these Revision Lists.
  • The connections of the farm listings and age at previous Revision Lists helps to link the information together.
  • It would be interesting to compare these revision lists with DNA matches
  • This is my 700th published Blog!

 

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A New Gangnus Descendant DNA Match at MyHeritage

I was checking MyHeritage DNA matches recently and found a match for my mother who had Gangnus ancestry. As this is an uncommon surname, I was quite sure that there must be a connection.

Gladys and Maiga

Here is the match between my late mom and Maiga from Germany:

Maiga also has matches between other surnames that are in my ancestry. Here is part of Maiga’s Tree at MyHeritage:

According to her tree, our common ancestors should be Philipp Julius Gustavus Gangnus and Anna Eva Muller. Here is part of my current Gangnus DNA/Genealogy Tree:

However, I am missing Maiga’s ancestor Johann Gangnus:

Next, I’ll check my Ancestry Tree to see if I already have Johann:

Here is where things get complicated. My Johann Jacob Gangnus was born 1777 from Philip Jacob Gangnus and Anna Eva NICLAS. Did Philipp JG Gangnus and Anna Eva MULLER also have a Johann born in 1777?  My tree says they did:

I’m glad I didn’t jump to conclusions here. This Johann was born about 10 months earlier:

Now for some more complexity:

Maiga descends from Philipp Gangnus and Anna Eva Muller twice. Once by Johann and once by Jacobina M Gangnus. This was pretty normal for the German Colony of Hirschenhof in Latvia.

I also have Jacobina in my Ancestry Tree:

My next decision is whether I should accept Maiga’s tree as is or try to evaluate it.

A Quick Check on Maiga’s Genealogy

This will get Maiga into my tree at least. Here is some information on Maiga’s Line:

I am not sure how the Kaufmann name fits in. This is what the internet shows:

The German word Kaufmann is a masculine noun that translates to “merchant” or “businessman” in English. It can also refer to a trader, small shopkeeper, grocer, or someone with business or commerce qualifications. 

This shows information from St. Peter on Maiga’s father and grandfather. Here is some more information on Gustav:

This links him to his father and mother. Here is where it gets complicated as both of Gustav’s parents had Gangnus ancestors:

Georg Philipp marries for a second time:

At this point, I would be happy to follow Maiga’s tree.

The DNA and DNA Painter

Here is the DNA match between Maiga and Gladys:

So far, I do not see any Gangnus DNA matcing on that part of Chromosome 3 for my mom:

Here is the new match:

This match gets my mom’s painted side up to 47% from 46%. Also, it shows a crossover apparently from the Rathfelder to the Gangnus side. Actually the crossover is between Rathfelder and Scwechheimer (I think):

I say that because this match is on my Rathfelder side, but on the Schwechheimer side of my Rathfelder side. Johann H Rathfelder born in 1846 also married a Gangnus. At any rate, that is quite a large hunk of DNA to be shared between Maiga and Gladys coming down all the way from the mid 1700’s.

By crossover, I mean that the red DNA match with Katja goes down the Rathfelder Line while the blue match with Maiga goes down the Schwechheimer side to Gangnus. Usually where there are two DNA matches on one’s profile and one stops and the other starts, that is an indication of a crossover in the DNA – that is, a crossover from paternal to maternal DNA or maternal to paternal DNA.

Updating the Gangnus DNA/Genealogy Tree

Here is my first shot:

Notice that I need two lines for Maiga. The problem is that some information is missing from Maiga’s tree.

I just realized that I have a book on the Gangnus family, so I can use that. Jacobina apparently led an interesting life. She married at age 17 and had 17 children. Unfortunately, not all the spouses of the children of Jacobina are listed in the Gustav book by Gustav Gangnus dated 2003. I do have the name of her husband who was Johann Gurg Gottlieb Spengel. Interestingly, a Google search for the word Hofspowsky returned nothing.

Here I finished the Gagnus DNA/Genealogy Tree but I put some color in the box that I had a question on:

This shows that there is one good connection to the Gangnus/Muller common ancestors. Then there is another likely connection to the same common ancestors.

From Ancestry

Here are my mother’s ThruLines (through Philipp Julius Gustavus Gangnus):

Donna is actually a much closer relative. Reinhold is on my three. It is likely that Tristan and Michael could also belong there. This may be something to look into in a future Blog.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Maiga is an important match adding a significant piece of DNA to my mother’s DNA profile
  • The DNA match between Maiga and my mother appears to describe the crossover in DNA between my mother’s great-grandparents of Johann Rathfelder and Rosine Schwechheimer.
  • Maiga also has a very good tree. I could write to her to see if she has more information on the couple listed as private.
  • The Gangnus family was a large and important German family living in the German Colony of Hirschenhof. Many of these Hirschenhof families moved later to Riga.

 

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My MyHeritage Match with Gangnus Ancestry

I was interested in a match that I saw recently at MyHeritage. I match Matthew who shows this ancestry:

I actually purchased a book in German by Gustav Gangnus on the Gangnus family. So it is possible that Friedrich S. Gangnus is in the book. I do see the name. He married a Hassenfuss. I am so sure this will link up with my tree that I will create a floating tree in Ancestry and then try to attach it at the right place.

According to the 2003 book I have, Friedrich’s father was Georg Michael Gangnus. It turns out that he is already in my tree:

Here is part of my Gangnus DNA/Genealogy Tree:

This discrepancy is that I descend from Johann Jacob born 1777 and Biedermann. Matthew appears to descend from Johann Jacob and Boehler. This could be due to a second marriage. As I look up my Gangnus book, I see that is the case.

Herre is Matthew:

Matthew shows as my half fourth cousin once removed. That is pretty obscure. Chances are that some other DNA snuck in ther on the Hassenfuss or Schmidt side.

Gangnus? DNA

Here is how Matthew and I match:

This would be on my paternal side. Here is the information in tabular form:

I will put this information into DNA Painter. However, by default, anything under 7 cM is not entered.

One interesting thing, is that it is likely that this DNA could have come from Johann Jacob Gangnus born 1777. Here is Maternal Chromosome 4 mapped:

I have this mapped to Johann Jacob Gangnus 1777, but there could be other ancestors lurking around. The right side of my match with Matthew defines the crossover from my Rathfelder side to my Lentz side. My match with Jereme starts my Lentz side matches. Chromosome 5 was under the pre-set limit.

Here is Chromosome 15:

Here my match with Matthew does not fill in blank area. However, as he is beneath the orange matches, it shows that those matches are actually carrying down Gangnus rather than Rathfelder DNA. The match with Carolyn is on the Lentz side and is probably an incorrect match as it is in an area that is supposed to be the Rathfelder side.

Matthew and Gladys Painted

Gladys is my (late) mother.

See the small match I had on Chromosome 5 does not show on my mother’s match. My mom’s match on Chromosome 1 is below the limit.

Here I am showing my mother’s paternal and maternal side to make it look more like my maternal side. Angelina was someone with a fairly large match but I couldn’t figure out the genealogy of the match. Interestingly, Chromosome 15 did not get painted as it was slightly below the threshold. It’s probably a valid match as both my mother and I had it.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Matthew or one of his relatives did a good job getting his Latvian genealogy back to the 1800’s
  • It was clear to me that Gangnus plus Latvia plus a good DNA match was important
  • The book by Gustav Gangnus on the Gangnus family made it easy to connect my Gangnus family to Matthew’s
  • Painting the matches helps to visualize where the DNA matches are.