Category: Rathfelder/Lentz/Nicholson

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A New Rathfelder Theory at MyHeritage: Not Quite Right

I recently had an email that MyHeritage had discoverred a new Theory of Relativity for me, so I was interested to see if it was correct. Fortunately, I have been researching the Rathfelder Line for a while and have some good information on it.

MyHeritage Theory Between Robert and Me

The full Theory gives a low chance that the two Johanns are the same person:

This is where my Rathfelder DNA/Genealogy Chart comes in handy:

As shown by the red circle, I descend from Johann Georg Rathfelder born 1778. Robert likely descends from Johann Adam Rathfelder born 1775. The names these families had were often confusing.

Looking at Robert’s Genealogy

Next, it would be helpful to see if my records agree with Robert’s genealogy. Here is part of Robert’s paternal tree:

I need to figure out how to get to Rudolf who is actually Rudolf Georg Adam Spengel. I do have a Maria Barbara Rathfelder in my tree:

I do see a record for Dororthea Blandina:

She is the daughter of Georg Adam Spengel and Emilie Frederica Hauk (probably born Gempfer?). She was born in July of 1888. This appears to be Georg Adam’s birth record:

Here, I assume that the mother is Maria Barbara Rathfelder.

Here is my updated Rathfelder DNA/Genealogy Chart:

Robert is my 5th cousin once removed.

Looking at the DNA

Next, it is time to look at the DNA. Here is how Robert and I match:

We share a segment at the end of Chromosome 11.

DNA Painter

I keep track of what I can of my DNA matches at DNA Painter:

Right now I do not have anything showing on the right end of my Maternal Chromsome 11. I’ll add in Robert who represents DNA from either Hans Jerg Rathfelder or Juliane Bittenbinder.

For some reason, Robert’s match on Chromosome 11 appears to be the largest chunk of DNA from these mid 1700’s ancestors. I always find it interesting that we carry these ancient reminders of our ancestors in our bodies.

My Mom’s DNA

My mother’s match with Robert is basically the same as mine. Here is my mother’s paternal Chromosome 11:

Here, at the right end of my mother’s Chromosome 11, I have two mysterious matches to an unknown Latvian Ancestor. The ancestor must not be too far back from my mother as the length of the matches are quite long. Here is Robert added in:

A Clue to How Angelina and Assunta Match My Mom

Here is Assunta:

MyHeritage thinks that Assunta could be my mother’s 2nd cousin’s granddaughter. That means that Assunta could descend from Johann Rathfelder born 1819 and Rosine Schwechheimer:

Angelina shows as an even closer match. I have written to the person who manages their family tree to see if I can look at their family tree.

I checked my other 5 siblings and did not see Robert as a match, so it appears that DNA came down to just me out of the 6 children. This graph shows why:

The purple to the right of Chromosome 11 is Rathfelder. I was the only one out of 6 siblings to inherit my maternal grandfather’s Rathfelder DNA at that location.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I looked at MyHeritage’s Theory concerning Robert and our common ancestors
  • MyHeritage was off, but was not far off
  • I was able to add Robert to my Rathfelder DNA/Genealogoy Chart and to DNA Painter
  • Robert’s match on Chromosome 11 for my mother helped to get me closer to identify two fairly close matches on Chromosome 11. They must descend from a more recent Rathfelder Line.

 

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My Mother’s Maternal Shared Matches

In my previous Blog, I set out to look at my mother’s Nicholson Shared Matches, but ended up looking at both Lentz and Nicholson from her maternal match list. That Blog was successful, so I want to continue down her maternal match list.

Here are the next three on my mother’s maternal match list:

Hannah

Hannah has no tree and is more difficult to place.

Justin is Hannah’s first cousin or half uncle:

As Justin is on the bottom of the Chart, my first guess would be 1st cousin. Judy is her grandmother or Aunt:

I’m guessing grandmother.

Paige is her half sister or Aunt:

I’ll say Aunt. That narrows it down:

This should be the likely connection.

Michele

Michele shows a Nicholson in her tree, but I have never heard of this person:

I do show this tree in my records:

Perhaps I had started investigating this line before. This seems worth pursuing.

In 1871, Frances was a servant in Sheffield:

She was born in Darnall. according to the 1871 Census:

Here is the family in 1861:

I think I see the family now:

However, the dates don’t quite match up between the Henrys in my tree and Michelle’s Henry.

Ancestry thinks her parents are Benjamin and Rebecca.

The family was in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1900:

They probably married about the year 1880.

Henry Nicholson

Father Henry is also in Worcester in 1900. Good news:

Unfortunately, his death record does not shine a lot of light on the situation:

My assumption is that he lived alone as there was no informant listed. Henry was in Sheffield with his young wife in 1851:

The transcriber says that Ann was born in Walkley, Yorkshire:

I am guessing that Henry and Ann married in 1850 or 1851.

The death record for Ann is more helpful:

Here I would like to thank Henry for putting down his wife’s parents’ information. There were two Henry Nicholsons in the 1841 Sheffield Census, so the information on the above death certificate could be important.

Here is Ann in Nether Hallam, Sheffield in 1841:

The family was living at Walkley Bank. I wonder if the town of Walkley was wrong. Nether Hallam sounds familiar from my Nicholson research, so I may be on to something here. Here is the wedding:

This is from the Sheffield Indexers site, but I had to use Firefox to get it to work. Here is some more information:

Now I have another problem as I have not been tracking a Joseph Nicholson. However, I do have this Joseph on my Nicholson Web Page:

He would have been quite old in 1830 – about 63. Here is a baptism of a Henry:

Assuming the baptism was not at an independent church, this could be the Henry I am looking for. That means that this could be the right Census record:

But who is John Nicholson, head of household? This is likely Sarah and Joseph:

Next, who was this Joseph? The marriage record gives no father. My web page manetions a Joseph born in 1767. If this is the Joseph, he would have been 46 at marriage. This would be unusual for a bachelor. Here is a record from Sheffield:

This Joseph would 34 when he married. Also the baptism took place at Wortley. This is North of Sheffield and this Joseph is a labourer rather than a cutler. I’m ready to stop researching this line. I feel like the connection is quite old.

Robert

Robert’s connection to my mother is much closer than Michele’s.

We already have one child of Joan on the chart:

Karen is Robert’s likely Aunt:

To confirm, Joshua is Robert’s 1st cousin:

Next 5 of My Mom’s Maternal Matches

I added Justin earlier in the Blog.

Jason is the son of Carolyn:

I’ll add him to my chart next to Heidi:

For some reason I had not entered Barbara. Here she is on lower left below:

The Nicholson family tree is rapidly expanding.

Sue

Doris is Sue’s mother:

In my previous Blog, I had Doris in the 1st cousin range to Barry from the English Branch of Nicholsons:

Elise

Elise shows as 1st cousin to Joshua and Robert and niece to Karen, so I put her as shown above.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Most matches that I looked at on my mother’s maternal side at this level were easy to place or figure out on my Nicholson DNA/Genealogy Chart
  • One match was difficult to place. I did a lot of genealogy, but was still unable to find Michelle’s Nicholson connection.
  • The Nicholson DNA/Genealogy Chart is expanding
  • It would be worth my while to further look at my mother’s maternal matches.

 

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Tying Up Some Loose Ends: Hirschenhof Revision Lists

I have written several Blogs lates concerning my HIrschenhof Ancestors and the Revision Lists. So far I have covered:

  • Rathfelder
  • Schwechheimer
  • Lutke
  • Fuhrmann and Biedermann

I want to do a future Blog on my Gangnus ancestors in the Revision Lists. However, I have left a few loose ends which I wanted to address in this Blog.

Biedermann Families

One of my goals in looking through these Revision Lists is to add siblings to my ancestors’ families.

Above are some of my ancestors in my Biedermann Line in 1816. The name Biedermann is abbreviated, but it was clear from the 1811 Revision Lists that this was Biedermann. I tried to add Luise to the family, but Ancestry noted that I had that Maria Margaret her mother died in 1802:

This leads me to believe that the death I have for Mother Fuhrmann was wrong. I see two trees on Ancestry. One has a later death date for Anna which seems more realistic:

This means that someone else saw something that I saw.

Maria Eva Buchenroth Born 1772

It should be possible to find this family in the 1782 Audit of Souls for Hirschenhof:

Here is Johan Peter on Farm 43 suspiciously close to some of my other ancestors’ farms. the next page is difficult to decipher:

Eva Maria must be my ancestor at age 10. That means that it appears that Johan Peter was Eva Maria’s father at age 72 and not her grandfather! It is also possible that Maria Anganesia? Schmidt could be a second wife.

This chart shows how close my ancestors’ families lived near each other.

It appeaars that Maria’s second name was more like Agnes. Here is Helmsheim, Germany:

 

This fills out the Buchenroth family. I found a record of Barbara, but with no date and no mother’s name. I assume that the mother was Maria Agnesia.

Filling in a Schwechheimer Blank

Unfortunately, Anna Schwechheimer was born in 1784. That means that she missed the 1782 Audit of Souls. And by the time that the 1816 Audit came around, she had been married for a while. However, I have a hint from the 1811 Revision Lists.

Only men were listed, but here is Simon Fuhrmann living on Farm 11 with Joahnn Schweigheimer. The note at Ancestry says:

I do not see the word ‘schwester’ in the record, but let’s assume that Ancestry is correct. Simon is obviously not Johann Schwegheimer’s sister. However, I think that Simon married Johann’s sister. The good news is that Johann was born before 1782. I skipped transcribing this family into my spreadsheet previoiusy (not a good idea), but will do that now:

What I gather from this is that Macus Schweigheimer had a large family. Likely he had three sons in law living on his farm in 1811 after he passed away. I further surmise that Anne E Schwechheimr was the daughter of Marcus Schweigheimer born in 1874 when her father was about 55 and her mother Anna Maria Schmidt was about 38.

Here I have added two people as Anna’s parents who were already in my Ancestry Tree. What this all means is that I must descend from this couple twice:

This shows my Rathfelder descent on the top left through Johann G Scwechheimer. The Gangnus descent is on the right through Anna Schwechheimer. Bottom line is that there were only so many Colonists in Hirschenhof to marry. This fills in Maria Gangnus’ Tree:

I am not able to see others who have made this connection at Ancestry. I see that a DNA connection at MyHeritage, Wolf has made this connection in his tree:

Thank you, Wolf, for your research.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Without the connections noted in the Revision Lists, it would be difficult to assemble some of my Hirschenhof ancestral families
  • In a closed society it should be assumed that one will descend from a person or couple more than once.
  • After researching US, English and Irish records, it appears that these Revision Lists are some of the best records for the time that they covered.
  • French Canadian records are also good, but they do not have the family relationships. These relationships have been developed from birith, marriage and death records for French Canadians.
  • There will always be loose ends, but this solves some of the looser ends
  • There are some loose ends on my Rathfelder side which I will look at later.

 

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More Hirschenhof Latvia Revision Lists: Furhmann and Biedermann

I have been working on a series of my Hirschenhof, Latvia ancestors using the Revision Lists. So far, I have looked at Rathfelder, Lutke and Schwechheimer. In this Blog, I will look at my Furhmann and Biedermann ancestors.

Note that Furhmann pops up in two branches. Also, as my last Blog was on the Schwechheimer family, I want to find Anna E Schwechheimer at the bottom of the tree above.

The 1782 Audit of Souls

The Revision LIst is also called the Audit of Souls. I will peruse through that list to see if I can find where the Furhmanns lived then. Here is the listing I want at the Raduraksti web site:

Confusingly, the listings for this Audit were under the Estate name. I see a Furhmann on Farm 40 (or possibly Family 40, but I think it is the Farm number):

Jacob is 45, so he was born about 1737. This could perhaps be the Heinrich Jacob in my Tree:

Ancestry has him as my 5th great-grandfather. If I have it right, I should have places for 128 5th great-grandparents. Here is the next page:

Whoever wrote this had a flair for handwriting. Here I also see that Anna Catharena Muller must be a second wife. That makes sense as I have Anna Magdalena Meng as my ancestor. The death of the first wife apparently happened betwee 12 and 5 years from 1782 based on the gap between children.

Here is my transcription:

Interestingly, Jacob’s new wife was 8 years older that Jacob’s daughter. Also there seems to be a discrepancy from the first daughter in my tree and Elisabeth Margare… in the Audit above. It is possible that the Maria Magdalena in my tree is wrong.

The 1811 Revision List (No Women Allowed)

This List is interesting, though only males are listed:

Now it is 29 years later. The elder Jacob has passed away in 1797. His son Jacob also passed in 1806. Anna Margaretha has married Johann Adam Biedermann and moved from Farm 42 to 43. However, Johann Adam has moved to Farm 33.

One confusing thing is that there is 16 years between the old and new ages. That means that this must refer to a Revision that was performed in 1795 rather than 1782.

Biedermann in 1782

That leads me to look for Biedermann in 1782. Here they are on Farm 41 next to the Furhmanns:

This leads me to believe that the Farm numbering changed a little between 1782 and 1811:

It is unclear why Sannewald took over Farm 41/43 by 1811, but there were still Biedermanns living there.

To fill out the picture, we need to look at Farm 30 in 1811:

Farm 30 is run by Philip Jacob Gangnus another one of my ancestors. Makes sense. Anna Biedermann who is Adam’s daughter will marry Johann Jacob Gangnus, but not until after 1811. I will likely do a Blog on the Gangnus family in the Revision Lists at some point.

Looks like Johann Jacob is about 35 years older than Anna. In 1811, he is listed as moving to Farm 33. The 1816 Listing for Farm 33 has him moving to Farm 43:

 

This was back where the Biedermann Family was before. The Farm is run by Siemon (Simon?)

1816

Let’s try to figure out what is going on for Adam Biedermann:

Adam is living on the Sannewald Farm again. We can now see his wife as women are listed in the 1816 Revision.

the good news is that this couple had a relatively long marriage for their time. The association between Biedermann and Farm 33 is still not totally clear.

The 1834 Revision Lists

My first inclination is to look at Farm #43:

My question is whether Adam was a subtenant meaning that he lived below the average income level of the Colony or whether there was some other reason for him living under Sannewald.

I need to write this out on my Excel spreadsheet to make sense of it all:

Now, another 18 years have gone by. Johann Adam Biedmann passes away in 1832. There is no mention of his wife who likely also passed away.

We think that Elisabeth Juliana has married old man Gangnus. Hopefully, I will find her when I do my Gangnus Blog.

Eva Fuhrmann

I had found Eva previously on my Blog on the Lutke family. Here she is in 1858 on the Female side of the Revision List:

She was on Farm #2 at the time.

I think that the best strategy would be to look for Eva’s father in the 1811 Revision List. It looks like Friedrich Simon Fuhrmann was born in 1782, so probably missed the 1782 Audit. Friedrich Simon should be 29 at the 1811 Audit. The 1811 Revision List referred to an earlier Revision which was 16 years earlier, so that age should be about 13 years old.

This could possibly be Friedrich Simon in 1811:

The birth seems to be two years off, but this seems to be the right name. He is said to be associated with Farm 11. I was able to find a Simon Fuhrmann on Farm 11 in 1811 with the help of Ancestry:

Simon is listed with son Gustav Woldemar who was 3 in 1811 so born in 1808. Now, I have two issues. One is that I did not have a father for Simon Furhmann and I do not have parents for his wife who is Anna Elisabeth Schwechheimer. My theory is that Anna Elisabeth was perhaps the sister of Johann Schwechheimer and that Simon Furhman who was Anna’s husband was the son of Jacob Fuhrmamm. Here is the hint that got me to the above image:

This is either a typo or poor transcription or perhaps be a hint that Simon was married to the sister of the head of the farm.

I then found more Furhmanns in the 1816 Revision Lists:

Simon Furhmann is at Farm 42. Here is my attempt at a transcription:

I added Jacob as Simon’s father:

However, my conclusion is that Jacob is the same as Heinrich Jacob, the father of Anna Maria M Fuhrmann above. However, when I add in Simon:

I see that Friedrich Simon was born after the death of Anna Magdalena Meng. The answer is in the 1782 Audit of Souls:

Jacob married Catharina Muller and had Anna Charlotta, Eva Christina and Friedrich Simon.

There, I think that is right now.

I added these children in for the family of Simon Furhmann and Anna Elisabeth Schwechheimer:

 

I think that Woldemar died young as I did not see him in the 1816 Revision List.

I think this shows that Johann Gangnus and Anna Jacobine Lutke were half second cousins to each other.

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was perhaps ambitious to look at the Biedermann and Fuhrmann Families together in the Revision Lists, but it was helpful to do it that way due to the interrelationships between the two families
  • The Revision Lists are a wealth of information when it comes to the structure of family units. It would be extremely difficult to put thes families together without these family lists.
  • I was able to add additional family members to my ancestors families.
  • I was able to see how my two Fuhrmann branches were related to each other and added Anna Catharina Muller as an ancestor.
  • I will likely try to wrap up some loose ends in an upcoming Blog before I delve into my Gangnus ancestors families in the Revision Lists.

 

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Rathfelders and Latvian Revision LIsts

I just saw on Facebook that Ancestry has the Latvian Census and Resident Registers, 1854-1897. Let’s take a look. I did a search for Johann Rathfelder and came up with this entry:

This should be under the category of audit or revision lists and gives names of residents. The headings are in Russian, but the entries are in German. I’m not sure I had this before. Unfortunately, I am not sure how to read it. This appears to be a snapshot of some of my ancestors in 1850. We see Johann Rathfelder who was 31 in 1850. That makes sense as I have that he was born in 1819. This is what I have in my Ancestry Tree:

The audit list also has Heinrich Rathfelder who was my great-grandfather. The question is: where are the rest of the children? The answer would be that they were not born yet. Ancestry further has this information in part:

Here is the information to the right of what I had above:

Here we see Rosine Schwechheimer who was 27 in 1850. She was the wife of Johann and my 2nd great-grandmother. My interpretation is that Johann and Rosine had two daughters at the time: Wilhemine and Charlotte. I see that I had mentioned Wilhemine in a 2016 Blog. I found her birth record in 1844:

I think she was born in July?

How to Read Revision Lists

I have found many online sources on how to read these lists. Here is some information from Luse Genealogical Research:

It appears that I have the 9th Revision from Ancestry. Here is an 1858 example from the same site:

It is interesting that there were so many of these Revision Lists. Also I take note that it is important to follow the family and household numbers. As I zoom in, I see some fascinatiing information which can be applied to my ancestors:

As I suspected, the large roman numerals refer to the number of the farm. Here is the previous page to the Johann/Heinrich Rathfelder page:

My Rathfelder family was living on Farm #3 in 1850. I don’t know if the Farm numbers translate to this map or not:

I only see one family number for this family which is #4. Would it be safe to say that all these Rathfelders were siblings?

Here is my interpretation of the 1850 Revision List for Farm #3:

Some parts were difficult to understand. I did notice numbers 2-5 for Peter, Ludwig, Johann and Gustav. I don’t know if that means that these were four brothers with the possible addition of Georg Rathfelder. Here is what I have at Ancestry:

It does not seem likely that Johann Georg Rathfelder and Anna Charlotte Mertz would only have had one child.

Hirschenhof in 1858

While searching around in Ancestry, I came upon the 1858 Revision Lists for Farm #3:

 

Ludwig and Johann are still part of Family 4. This still suggests to me that Johann could be siblings with Ludwig and the others. Here is the previous page:

Raduraksti Website

I would like to back in time from 1850 as suggested by many ‘how to’ web sites:

It appears that 1834 woule be the next logical step. However, I could not find anything that looked like Rathfelder in those records. Either that, or I was in the wrong section of the site.

Find the Estate

One tip I read said these records are listed by estate name.

That appears to be Helsreischof. Who knew?

Eureka!

Here we are in 1834. This is page 89 of 620 at the Raduraksti Site. The writing is quite scrolly. This Revision refers back to one that was 18 years earlier (1816).

Rathfelders in 1816

I can go back further. This is page 44 of 620:

It seems that the Rathfelders are now family #3. Notice there are fewer Rathfelders in 1816. However, the picture seems to clear up:

I have what I believe to be my ancestors highlighted in green. If I am reading the 1816 Revision List correctly, it appears to say that George Rathfelder had Johann who then had three sons. Comparing that to the 1834 Revision List implies taht after Ludwig, Johann had Johann (my 2nd great-grandfather) and then Gustav.

Here is what I have on my Ancestry Tree:

Where the Revision list has George, I have Hans Jerg. Where the Revision List has Johann born about 1779, I have Johann Georg born 1778. This appears to be the birth record for Gustav:

My guess is that Gustav was born on 23 December 1821 and baptized on the 26th of December.

Thanks to the Revision Lists, I have added six siblings to my 2nd great-grandfather’s family:

Rathfelders in Hirschenhof 1811

This Revision did not include women. The transcription is in the next section.

 

The 1782 Audit of Souls

This Audit is more difficult to read. However, I suspect that I should find many of my ancestors in this audit. Here are some:

They are either family 65 or at Farm 65.

Here is my transcription:

 

 

Green is meant to indicate one of my ancestors. I am impressed with how good these revision lists are. The Census for the US up to 1850 was not as good as these. A few notes:

  • I added birth year to make it easier to track people between Lists
  • For 1782, I added a Gagnus family as they were ancestors of mine also.

400 Years of Rathfelders

Years ago, a German Rathfelder researcher sent me an article about Rathfelders. Here is Blasius:

Something seems off. If Blasius was 46 in 1782, then he would have been born in 1736. That means he would have been 11 when his first son was born. I’m guessing that he was born closer to 1726. The above article gives his third wife as Maria Ursula Sannwald. I was having trouble reading her surname in the 1782 Audit of Souls.

Confusingly, Hans Herg is also Johann Georg (my ancestor):

Hans Jerg (or Johann Georg) Rathfelder had two Johann Georgs and one Gerog Adam. I guess he liked the name Georg. My ancestor Johann Georg was the first, born in 1778 and listed as Johann (as underlined above) in the Revision Lists.

Adding DNA to the Mix

Here are two matches to my mother:

These are large DNA matches for 4th cousins. There may be other points of connection. However, the thing that is interesting to note is that these two lines are from two brothers bother named Johann Georg Rathfelder. However, my ancestor went by Johann and the ancestor of the two sisters above went by Georg.

Finishing the Picture – Adding 1858

I did not include three Bittenbinders who moved to Farm #3:

This shows the connection between Revisions:

 

Summary and Conclusions

  • It was helpful for Ancestry to get me started on the 1850 and 1858 Revision Lists for Hirschenhof
  • From there, a web page unlocked the Russian headings for the 1858 Revision Lists.
  • Next, I used the Radaraksti Web Site to get the earlier revision lists. I needed to know the Estate name which was different than the Colony name. I found this a bit confusing.
  • These revision lists give a good picture of who was living near each other – or on the same farm in each period.
  • These revisions also gave me names for the six siblings of my second great-grandfather Johann Rathfelder born in 1819
  • It may be interesting to trace some of my other Hirschenhof surnames in these Revision Lists.

 

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Updating Philadelphia Baker and Surrick ThruLines

In the past, I have looked at some of my Baker ThruLines on my mother’s side. This is my summary on a Baker DNA/Genealogy Chart that I made:

This Chart goes back to some of my 4th cousins on average. However, ThruLines go back to 6th cousins. That means that this chart is undersized.

Here are my ThruLines going back one more generation to an earlier Conrad Baker:

I already have a tree for Ruth’s maternal side:

Ancestry suggests Conrad Baker and Mary Surrick as the parents of Sophia Baker.  I would have to assume that they are correct. All indications are that the tree is correct, though there are few original sources.

Here is a source from the Daughters of the American Revolution:

Here is the extra generation added to my Baker Tree:

Based on this Ancestry Tree, Conrad had many children:

My ancestor was the first wife Mary Surrick who apparently died before 1796. That means that most of the children must have been through Susanne Fraley. Also, according to these trees, this Conrad was bron in New York.

This tree shows that Sophie Baker Andress had quite a few childre also:

This increases the chance of having a DNA match.

Going Back Before Baker to Surrick

I notice that my mother has some Surrick ThruLines:

Why not take a look at some of these matches?

ldclouser has a good tree. Here is her Druck Line going back to Surrick:

Surrick seems to be an unusual surname:

According to Ancestry, there were 6 Surrick families living in Pennsylvania in 1840 and they were found nowhere else in the US. However, the good news it it appears that could narrow down the genealogy.

My own tree does not go back to Philip Surrick, so this may be a good time to amend my tree:

Checking LD’s Tree

One good thing about a rare surname is that the connection is more likely to be real to that surname between two families. Here is Mahlon’s family in 1930.

Here is Bart, to the West of Philadelphia in Lancaster County:

At this point, I should be following Kathryn’s Line. The death certificate and marriage record for Mason Druck has his wife as Katherine or Catherine Smeltzer. Here is a child’s birth certificate:

Here is Catharine in Chanceford, PA in 1900:

Catharine’s father was a cigar manager and her mother was a cigar maker. In the Census, her mother appears to be Lucy, but this obituary has her mother as:

In 1860 Philadelphia, 19th Ward, I find this record:

Here is Catherine who was supposed to be born in 1864 according to findagrave was born probably in 1859.

This Tree at Ancestry for John Smeltzer shows that he had two wives:

The first died in 1893.

This is my tree so far:

According to ThruLines, I am alsmost there. I see a George Surrick in 1850:

He is living in the Richmond Districk of Philadelphia. His father appears to be Philip Surrick. The ThruLines wanted to show Georges father as George and his grandfather as Philip. However, I see what happened. There was more than one George Surrick in Philadelphia. The above was a different, George W Surrick:

He was a ropemaker like his father and he married Anna.

Here is the George that I am interested in:

He is living in Chanceford with the husband of his late daughter Catharine. I don’t agree with the birth date here. I think it should be around 1835.

Here is some more information on George:

This tells us that George was in the Civil War.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was able to expand my Baker DNA/Genealogy Tree by looking at ThruLines
  • The earliest ancestors on that tree are Conrad Baker born 1764 and his wife Mary Surrick
  • I had thought that I would be able to create a Surrick DNA/Genealogy Tree based on ThruLines, but I was unable to figure out a good connection between Surrick descendants and basically, my mom.
  • I may try again at some point. This would involve extending my known tree out to the parents of Mary Surrick.

 

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More Latvian Theories of Relativity at MyHeritage: Two Levas

MyHeritage is a good place to check for some of my Latvian relatives. Here is what MyHeritage has for Leva:

Leva is a DNA match to me. She shows as a 5th cousin to me also. I think the connection shown is wrong, but that we are connected on the Rathfelder line somewhere. Here is the DNA/Genealogy chart I already have:

It already has a Georg Ludwig Rathfelder in it. Leva must be related to me on that line along with Katja.

Leva’s Theory 2

Theory 2 at MyHeritage appears to be the right one:

Due to the fact that I have already a tree to Gerog Ludwig Rathfelder, this connection looks very likely. Here is the tree I built previously for Katja:

It looks like I had trouble finding a wife for Johannes Rathfelder in the tree.

Here is the birth record for Karoline Adodphine Rathfelder:

Here is the family list with Caroline’s family:

In my tree, Leva shows as 5th cousin once removed:

My tree is different than the MyHeritage Tree:

I have Johann Adam Rathfelder. He isn’t in the MyHeritage Theory of Relativity. I like my tree better.

Leva’s DNA Match

Leva and I share two segments of DNA with each other:

Unfortunately, the segment shared on Chromosome 16 is less than 7 cM. The default cutoff for DNAPainter is 7 cM. I think that the segment on Chromosome 16 is valid, but I will leave it out to be consistant with other matches.

Here is Leva added onto DNAPainter:

Even though the match is small, it changed my Maternal mapped DNA from 47% to 48%. Here is how the match fits in overall with my pateranal and maternal DNA matches:

My match with Leva is there, but gets lost among the many other matches. Overall, 53% of my DNA is mapped by identified matches.

One odd aspect of this match is that my mother does not match Leva. That means that my mother should have had a match and didn’t or I had a match and shouldn’t have.

A Second Leva and My Sister Heidi

My sister has a Theory of Relativity with Leva from Latvia. I mentioned her in a Blog in 2021. Myheritage shows that Heidi has a new Theory with Leva. Perhaps the new one is one of the three Theories. This is the first of three Theories:

Leva’s tree is private, so I will try to build out her tree based on her Theories. I also believe that Leva’s grandfather may be Raimonds who I have written about here. However, he tested at 23andMe, so his results only apply to me. Leva matches my sister and my mother. For some reason, the Theories only appear under my sister Heidi.

I’ll compare Leva’s Theories with what I had on Raimonds

Leva

  • Theory 1: Johann Jacob Gangnus 1777/Anna Elisabeth Juliana Biedermann
  • Theory 2: this is the same, but apparently the pathway is different
  • Theory 3: Friedrick Jacob Wilhelm Lutke 1804/Eva Christina Margaretha Fuhrmann

Raimonds

  • Friedrich Lutke 1804/Eva Fuhrmann
  • Johann Jacob Gangnus 1777/Biedermann
  • Johann Georg Gangnus 1704/Anna Margaretha Clausing

The last connection under Raimonds is due to the fact that I have Gangnus on two family branches:

Here I also did not add Raimonds which I should have.

Evaluating Leva’s Lutke Connection

Here is where I have Raimonds:

Leva is two levels below Raimonds.

This agrees with the Third Theory at MyHeritage.

Leva’s Gangnus Connection

I found this record for Emma Eugenie Charlotte Lutke:

She was confirmed in 1928. Her parents are listed as Johann and Antonie Shiller. Here is more information from the Personal Register:

Raimonds are added in at the next to the last column. I have painted this match to my sister Heidi. I will paint the match to my mother.

Painting My Mother’s Match with Leva

Fortunately, I already had a yellowish category for a match where I was unsure whether it was on the Lutke or Gangnus Line. This got my mother’s painted paternal DNA from 44% to 45%.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Leva appears to be a popular name in Latvia as my family has Theories of Relativity with two Levas
  • Both Levas add to the genealogical story from Hirschenhof, Latvia
  • Both Levas fill in missing DNA information for my family.
  • The second Leva is equally related to my family on two lines

 

 

 

 

 

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Reviewing a Lentz ThruLine

My DNA evidence for my Lentz ancestry has seemed scant. Here is one ThruLine worth looking at:

This depiction shows that I match the descendants of two children of Anna Eliza Glenn. Anna is shown as the daughter of Eliza Lentz, the daughter of our proposed Common Ancestor John A Lentz.

My Mother’s Lentz ThruLines

Before I check the Ancestry, I’ll look at some other ThruLines. It would make sense to look at my mother’s first:

She has better ThruLines from Eliza plus she shows a William Andrew Lentz Line.

Glenn Genealogy

Three Glenn matches support the genealogy of this Thruline through Eliza Lentz. I doubt that the DNA test taken was really for the daughter of Lydia King about as that person died in 2011. This was before Ancestry was doing DNA tests:

Usually, I start from the present and work back. In this case, I’ll start with my tree and work down to the present. This is because the DNA matches look good and the genealogy looks likely. Right now, I don’t have a spouse for Eliza Lentz:

This hint at Ancestry appears to be correct:

The marriage took place 16 February 1840 in Kensington, PA. Here is Eliza in Kensington in 1850 with her boat builder husband:

Here is Eliza’s burial information:

She died three years after my ancestor Jacob Lentz. Here is his marker – also at the Palmer Burying Ground:

This record shows where Eliza was living at the time of her death:

I believe that her brother lived on Frankford Ave.

Anna Eliza Glenn

ThruLines indicates that Anna Eliza Glenn was in the ancestry of my mother’s three DNA matches. Anna Eliza shows as plain Eliza in the 1850 Census above. Here is Ann E Glenn in 1870:

It appears that the census taker missed a lot of information. Also Frances hasn’t married at age 30 at this time.

Here is Elizabeth Glenn Williams’ Death Certificate:

This gets us one step further down the tree.

Starting Back with the King Family Tree

Really, the right way is to start in the present and work back. Here is the tree I am looking at:

I just have to verify that Dolores goes beack to Eliza Lentz. First I am looking at Lydia M (Lottie) King. Here she is in the 1900 Census in Philadelphia:

She is a waitress and her father is a carpenter. That gets my tree looking like this:

The name Liza King is from the Census – though that was not her maiden name of course. Here is a death record from Clara Gavin that names her parents as Sidney King and Anna E Glenn:

Here is some information from the findagrave website:

The next step is connecting Ann Eliza Glenn to her mother who we expect is Eliza Lentz. I believe that I already made the connection with the marriage record I mentioned at the top of the Blog. This record gives no parents for the bride or groom, but I assume that they have the right Eliza Lentz. The location of where she lived compared to her Lentz family as well as to her age at time at marriage seem to say we have the right Eliza Lentz.

Ella, Clara and Lydia

The ThruLines mention Ella, Clara and Lydia:

Lydia was the line I looked at above.

I mentioned Clara in a death certificate above (Clara Virginia Gavin).

Ella is seen on the 1880 Census for Philadelphia:

Ella’s father is on the previous page of the Census.

The William Lentz Connection

Here are my mother’s small DNA matches to descendants of William Lentz:

I will look at Debbie’s connection as she is a fourth cousin. The other matches are fourth cousins once removed. Here is Debbie’s tree:

The tree is small, but goes back to Lentz. I don’t have much information on Harriet Lentz on my Ancestry Tree:

It turns out that I made a tree for Debbie years ago:

This was made before Ancestry had ThruLines. At the time, they were using a concept called ‘Circles’. All I need to do is to add to my Ancestry Tree. Here are Emma and Harriet from my Ancestry Tree information:

Mary and William Davenport

The two William ThruLine Lines above are for William and Mary Davenport. Here they are in the 1900 Census for Philadelphia:

Harriet’s husband Claudius was a saw maker. These children were born in New York according to the Census.

Comparing Lentz ThruLines to Nicholson ThruLines

My mom is part Lentz and part Nicholson on her maternal side. Here is a comparible Nicholson Thruline with a match in the 4th cousin range:

I never doubted my mom’s NIcholson heritage, yet there is only one match going to her comparible 3rd great-grandfather on that Line. It shows that my feeling of not enough Lentz DNA matches was irrational.

Summary and Conclusions

  • All my mother’s ThruLines under John A Lentz born 1792 appear to check out
  • This is satisfying as I thought that there were very few Lentz DNA matches
  • Altogether my mother has 7 DNA matches descending from the John A Lentz Line
  • It appears that the ThruLines are effective at the 3rd great-grandfather level which compares to a match of a 4th cousin.
  • It would be interesting to see how many 3rd great-grandparents even have ThruLines
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A New Rathfelder Side DNA Match at MyHeritage

I check my DNA matches at MyHeritage almost every week, but rarely find a match that I recognize. This week I found  a DNA match there who has Rathfelder ancestry. The match’s name is Alans. Here is how we match genealogically:

This is a view of Alan’s genealogy on MyHeritage. The person listed as Private is Alan’s paternal grandmother. The couple in the box are our common ancestors.

My Rathfelder DNA Testing Chart

I have a genealogical chart for those Rathfelder descendants who have had their DNA tested. This is part of it:

Alans descends from Nina Rathfelder who is a sister to Vera. Here is a photo of Nina:

It seems like Alans’ genealogy matches up with mine, so I won’t check what he has. Here I have added Alans to my chart:

Alans is my second cousin twice removed.

Alans’ DNA

Here is where I match Alans by DNA:

The matches are on Chromosomes 3, 5, 7 and 11. I can ‘paint’ those using DNAPainter. These are my maternal matches so far:

My mother was a Rathfelder, so that is why I am looking on the maternal side. My maternal side is 47% painted and I am 53% painted overall. Alans will add more orange Rathfelder DNA to my profile.

Here is Chromosome 3 where Alans has the biggest match:

The orange matches are on my mother’s father’s Rathfelder side. The gree and purple are on my mother’s mother’s side. Otis matches on the Gangnus side. As Alans match align’s with Otis’ match, it appears that the DNA is coming from Schweccheimer and Gangnus. Here is how I match Otis by genealogy:

Assuming I have the genealogy right, this DNA goes back to the late 1700’s. Because the match I have with Alans on Chromosome 7 is just below 7.0 cM, DNAPainter did not use the match. The default cutoff at DNAPainter is 7.0 cM and I match Alans at 6.5 cM on Chromosome 7

Painting Alans’ Match to My Mom

Alans has a slightly larger match to my mom than to me. Alans matches my mom at 68.8 cM. Here is my mother’s paternal side Chromosome 3:

 

My intention was to use a lighter color for the more recent matches. That is why I used pale yellow for my mom’s first cousins. My mom is painted at 37% overall and 44% on her paternal side, so a little less than me. Here is my mom’s current paternal side:

I changed the colors of my mom’s profile as the yellow did not show up well:

I highlighted Chromosome 3 above where Alans has the largest match.

Summary and Conclusions

  • Alans adds another piece to the genetic genealogical puzzle
  • Alans is the first DNA match relative who descends from Nina Rathfelder, daugther of Leo Rathfelder.
  • Alans does not add a lot of new DNA to my mother’s or my profile, but fills in areas on the chromosome map.

 

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Three New Latvian Matches at MyHeritage

I was pleasantly surprised recently to get three rather close DNA matches to myself and my family on my mother’s side. The three Latvian matches are Normunds, Elina and Zanda. Normunds is the father and Elina and Zanda are the daughters. These three matches are on my Rathfelder side.

Adding the New Matches to My Rathfelder Tree

I keep a combination genealogy/DNA match tree. This is what I have so far for the Rathfelder tree:

I need to add the three matches under Vera:

this shows that my mother and Vera are first cousins. that means that my siblings and I are 2nd cousins with Normunds and 2nd cousins once removed with Elina and Zanda. I have this photo of Vera from my cousin Anita:

How We Match by DNA

For some reason, I can’t see the detailed DNA results for Normunds or Zanda. I do see results for Elina:

DNA Painter

This information can be added on to my DNA Painter profile. This is how it looks now:

This shows that I am ‘painted’ overal 52%. This means that I have identified 52% of my DNA by known matches. On the representation above, the paterrnal side is the top part of each chromosome and the maternal part is the bottom of each chromosome. Here is just my maternal side:

This shows that I am painted 45% on my maternal side or a little less than half.

When I add Elina, this gets my maternal side up to 47%:

That also raised my overall ‘painted’ level to 53%.

Normunds DNA

At first I couldn’t see the specific matches for Normunds’ DNA but Zanda made the corrections, so I can now see his results. Here they are:

I’m interested to see how this will have an effect on my DNA Painter Profile. A second cousin is usually the best person to have for a match because they represent the DNA of one grandparent  – in this case, my grandfather Alexander Rathfelder. It turns out that there is no overall effect for Normunds. This is perhaps because he overlaps with other Rathfelder matches. There was a difference, but not enough to bring the painted percentage up overall or on the maternal side.

Here is Chromosome 15:

This would indicate that Carolyn’s match is spurious. She matches at 8 cM and a certain percent of small matches are inaccurate or false matches. The other orange matches all have Henry [Heinrich] Rathfelder and Maria Gangnus as common ancestors.

Here is what MyHeritage shows between myself and Normands:

This turns out to be more than average DNA for 2nd cousins to share:

This study shows that 229 cM would be average.

Normunds and Gladys Rathfelder

As Normands has as much or more Rathfelder DNA than his daughters and as my mother has more than her children, I’ll look at the match between Gladys and Normunds:

 

Normally, I don’t paint my own first cousins’ matches. This is because a first cousin normally just distinguishes between paternal and maternal side. However, for my mother, it looks like I painted hers:

Here the blue color is Rathfelder/Gangnus (1st cousins). This is just my mom’s paternal Rathfelder side. Also I usually have a lighter color for closer relatives, so the more distant, darker color relatives can shine through. My mom is currently at 40% painted on her paternal side and 35% painted overall. Let’s see if Normunds makes a difference.

Here I changed Rathfelder/Gangnus DNA to a more subtle yellow. This got my mom painted up to 44% on her paternal side and 37% painted overall.

Normunds adds some new DNA to my mother’s profile on Chromosome 1:

On Chomosome 2, Normunds overlaps with Angelina. I am not sure of her ancestry, but from her DNA, it is clear that she had ancestors from Latvia::

On Chromosome 7, Normunds has an overlap with Rudi:

Rudi has ancestry going back to 1723.

However, when I check MyHeritage, there are other possible relationships to Rudi. This one is called Theory 1:

This relationship would be on my mother’s paternal grandfather’s side, whereas the previous relationship would be on my mother’s  paternal gramdmother’s side.  Plus, I don’t know if I have checked out these different relationships. Altogether, MyHeritage has 4 Theories. It would be beyond the scope of this Blog to check them all out. The bottom line is that I thought that the match with Rudi on Chromosome 7 would give me more definition as to where the match that my mom had with Nornunds came from. However, in this case, due to intermarriage in the Colony of Hirschenhof, it is not clear.

Perhaps Normunds match with my mom on Chromosome 17 will tell us something:

Normunds has a partial overlap with Astrid and a complete overlap with Otis. This is giving a mixed message perhaps also:

Otis’ ancesetry goes back to Schwechheimer (1772) and Gangnus (1780). Astrid goes back to Rathfelder and Biedenbender. Otis has uploaded his DNA results to Gedmatch. If Normunds uploads his results there, perhaps this will reveal something.

Meanwhile, Astrid shows triangulation with my mom and Normunds at MyHeritage on Chromosomes 17 and 19:

Triangulation means that these people all match each other. That means that I would tend to think that the DNA matches between the three of us represent DNA from Johann Jerg Rathfelder born 1752 and his wife Juliana Biedenbender born 1755. Here is Gladys’ DNA profile on Chromosome 19:

Astrid’s Genealogy

In order to sort this all out, I will need to take a closer look at Astrid’s genealogy. Here is what MyHeritage shows:

Ancestry shows this relationship, which I have assumed was right:

The W Rathfelder is Wilhemina Rathfelder. As I recall in other research, there was more than one Wilhemena Rathfelder. I think that the custom was to name the godchild after the godparent, so that may be the source of the duplicate names. Another confusing thing is that Hans Jerg had two children named Johann Georg:

These two Johann Georg’s were born about 15 years apart. That in formation was from this publication:

Based on the underlining, the first Johann went by Johann and the second went by Georg. The father Hans Jerg was also a Johann Georg.

Checking Astrid’s Tree

The best way to check Astrid’s tree is to build my own tree for her. Astrid has that her mother was baptized here:

At the Raduraksti website, I see this Church:

At this site, I found some information on the Spengle family, but I didn’t see Astrid’s mother or grandmother:

This would take a long time to check, so I’ll just assume the connection is right. My suspicion is that there are other connections than just the obvious ones.

Normunds, Gladys and Eva

I wrote a Blog about Eva here. She is my third cousin. Here is where Normunds, Gladys and Eva triangulate on Chromosome 1:

The theory is that shared amount of DNA comes from either Johann Rathfelder or Rosine Schwechheimer:

In that Blog about Eva, I mentioned this family chart:

Did My Great-Grandmother Have a Second Husband Who Ran Away?

The Gustav Rathfelder family lived in Riga and attended St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. I wonder if the +1918 means that my great-grandfather Heinrich died in 1918. I have that he died before 1921. I put this image out to the Latvian Genealogy Facebook page and got these two responses:

“Abgang” is essentially departure — e.g. the +1918 means that Heinrich died in 1918 (and therefore “departed from” the church congregation). I’ll try to take another look at the rest later.

The note next to Marie’s name (above the +1918) says, “married to a Kroeger, missing”. Her husband (first husband? second husband?) is presumably the one who’s missing.
The fact that one of Gustav’s sons is also named Heinrich doesn’t necessarily mean that he was named after Heinrich, though it’s possible. It was a pretty common name, and names often appeared multiple times in the same family without being namesakes in the sense that we’d think of it.

It sounds like Maria Gangnus Rathfelder had a second husband which would make sense if the first one died. He apparently deserted her if I understand the record correctly.

Concerning the comment on naming, I have seen that a child often had the same name as the Godparent. Here is the birth record for Robert Nicolai:

I take #1 above to be the godfather, Nicolai Rathfelder. Further, I believe him to be Johann Philip Nicolai Rathfelder born 1874 to my great-grandfather Heinrich Rathfelder.

Here is a photo of Marie. I assume that it is during Christmas and that she is with some of her relatives:

Marie is second from the left. She was born in 1856, so she would be quite old here.

Gladys, Normunds and Peter

These three people also triangulate at MyHeritage. That means that they all have common ancestors:

This triangulation happens on Chromosomes 7 and 18. Here is my mom’s DNA profile for those two areas:

These two areas represent ambiguous genealogies. Remember Rudi had about 4 ways that he could match. Also Silvia and Patrick could match on two different lines.

Peter’s Genealogy

MyHeritage shows this:

I can try to build a tree to see if I can get any further. I’ll start out on the paternal side. This marriage record is helpful:

However, this has Oleg’s mother as Emilie Grassman rather than Berta. Social Security has this information:

It seems like Oleg has a sister Vera. Find a Grave has more on Emilia:

My tree so far:

Here we see that Emelia was born in Riga:

This could be the connection that I was looking for.  This is likely Emilie traveling from Lithuania to New York in 1955:

That’s as far as I can get now. The connection appears to be with Emilie Grossman or Grassman. One tree at Ancestry has her parents:

Normunds, Gladys and Deborah

Perhaps I don’t know when to give up, but I’ll look at Deborah. These three triangualte on Chromosomes 1 and 9:

Deborah has a meager tree at MyHeritage:

It turns out that I already started a tree for Deborah. However, I couldn’t easily find anything new. Aparently Brigitta was born in Riga.

Summary and Conclusions

  • I was happy to find out about another branch of Rathfelder relatives in Latvia through DNA matching.
  • Normunds is my mother’s first cousin once removed.
  • I was able to ‘paint’ Normunds on to my DNA profile as well as my mother’s. It would be possible to add him also to my siblings’ profiles
  • In some cases, due to matches with more distant relatives, it is possible to tell where certain portions of DNA matches between my mother and Normunds come from
  • In other cases, it is difficult to tell for certain to intermarriage in the Colony of Hirschenhof where the Rathfelders and their ancestors lived long ago.
  • I looked at some common matches that Normunds and my mother Gladys have at MyHeritage
  • I relooked at the match of Eva. I found the family record kept by the Lutheran Church for Eva’s great-grandparents. He great-grandfather was the younger brother of my great-grandfather. This record gave the death date for my great-grandfather Heinrich Rathfelder. It also suggests that my great-grandmother remarried a Kroeger who went missing.
  • It appears that there could be more research of the DNA and genealogy to pull these families together.